eBook India - Young Leaders at Every Level

Young leaders at every level!!

Young leaders at every

level!!

Maneesh Konkar

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then

they fight you.

Then you win.

Mahatma Gandhi

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Comments by Young Leaders from Industry ……….a very practical guide to leadership, purely based on experience. I personally found this book very effective and I am sure that this will aid the development of young leaders.

Milind Apte. Head HR, Godrej Hersheys “……provides useful tips on how to manage your career, yourself and your relationship at work in an easy to read and engaging manner”

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO Info Edge (naukri.com)

“……. combines perspectives to help you discover who you are, what matters most, and where you are headed - before you plan your next move.”

S Raghunath, Professor of Corporate Strategy, IIM Bangalore

“A must read for people wanting to take the next step in the corporate ladder”

Luna Mohanty, Head HR, Mahindra Two

Wheelers “A must read for every level of managers; Maneesh has very effectively utilized his interaction with various managers while training them and beautifully compiled them together in this book. You will find a solution to each and every day to day challenge faced by you and practicing these will surely take you to the top.”

Suvajit Karmakar, Country Head - Sales & Marketing, ALD Automotive, Société Générale

Group


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© Maneesh Konkar

Young Leaders at Every Level

Published by

Maneesh Konkar [email protected] Direction One Consulting Pvt Ltd

Mumbai, India www.directiononeonline.com

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Preface

In the course of my career as a Business

consultant, I have been influenced by many people. This includes not only my training and consulting clients but also famous authors who have shaped my thoughts. I use this space to thank the following. They have written outstanding books on their respective topics and I acknowledge their contribution: Rich dad poor dad – Robert Kiyosaki Balanced scorecard – Robert Kaplan Good to great – Jim Collins. Built to last – Jim Collins Buffetology – Mary Buffett Zig ziglar on selling – Zig Ziglar Maverick – Ricardo Semler. Leadership pipeline – Ram Charan Control your destiny or someone else will – Robert Slater Secrets of Power Negotiating – Roger Dawson At home, many thanks to wife Rupali who gave the original idea to write this as a story of an individual and not as a gyan book. Am also inspired by my kids Mallika and Sidharth who remind me every day how to enjoy life. Kids are constant reminders of the fact that when we die we are unlikely to say we wish we had spent more time in the office. My sister Medha and her husband Deepak who pushed me in the IIMB interview many years back. And my parents, Dad still going strong at 70 and Mom looking forward to my phone calls.


I think the best part of being a self employed consultant is the superb combination of freedom and quality of lifestyle due to the home working and the tremendous learning of working with so many different companies in a short period of time. This story is based on my observations of many brilliant junior, middle and senior level leaders at various companies that I have been fortunate to have been associated with over the years. The story goes like this:

1. Discover your passion - If you didn’t need the money…..

Story starts with Abhijit and his three friends from IIM Bangalore meeting in a lounge discussing their challenges in corporate life. It has now been three years since they passed out of IIMB. They talk about their job dissatisfactions and two of them have figured out this concept and they share it with others. Most people live life in two compartments. Monday to Saturday – that gives us the money and a second compartment that gives us joy, satisfaction. Why should there be two compartments. Why can‟t money be made by doing the same activity that gives us joy? The key is to “Discover our passion” – figure out what we are passionate about and bring in those activities into our daily work lives. That‟s how we find a bunch of people in the world who will pay us to do exactly that. Eg Harsha Bhogle who enjoys cricket and also gets paid for it.

2. What does getting wealthy mean to you?

It is now six years since passing out of IIMB. All four friends are doing well, are married, earning good money and have bought cars and houses. Abhijit starts having second thoughts about the lifestyle of conspicuous


consumption. He starts realizing the impact on stress and how the expenses are keeping him dependent on the job. He starts moderating his lifestyle.

3. Are you servicing demand or creating it?

It is now eleven years since they passed out of IIMB. All four are in middle level positions in different companies and are having high pressure situations. Some have boss problems, others subordinate issues. They now have challenges of people management, delegation, managing work, quality of life issues, etc. Through a conversation set in Mahableshwar, they talk out their issues.

4. Discover a new possibility – creating demand

It is now fourteen years since Abhijit passed out of IIMB. He is now a senior leader in his company and the blue eyed boy of the CEO. His company is facing challenges of leadership and has been losing good people through attrition. Abhijit takes charge of leadership development in his company.

5. There is no job more important for a leader than to invest time in developing future leaders.

Seventeen years out of IIMB. Abhijit, as the CEO of his company, now has smart subordinates who come in and completely question the way the company is being run. Abhijit must now develop the maturity to take feedback and adapt to the challenges his company is facing.

6. Nobody ever joins an organization to

deliberately do a lousy job


It is now twenty years since IIMB. Abhijit, in his role as a CEO is now active in industry forums and regularly gets invited on panel discussions on leadership topics. In one such discussion on talent management, Abhijit gets an opportunity to influence a wider cross section of industry leaders on his ideas for talent management. Finally, Abhijit is now on the shortlist for the “CEO of the year” award. Thank you Ashwini from SIMS, Dr Pramod Kumar and Neha Kotak from SIBM, Dr Sharad Joshi and Praveen Chauhan (when you were a student) from the MBA department at Pune University for the opportunities in the initial years to become a trainer. Manish Gupta, Apex institute of Professional Training - thanks for introducing the model of sales training and role plays to me Major General B G Shivale – thank you for giving me the opportunity to be a trainer. You gave me my first assignment at TCS. Of course, it helped me more than it helped you. Grateful for that. Then onwards, the basic grounding happened at Pune. Thanks to Vijay Kumar of Tata Infotech, Jayanti and Dr Shashikant Albal from Mahindra Institute of Software Engineering and Management, Sangeeta Jethmalani from TMTC and Sunita Sinha at iflex. I shifted to Mumbai in Jan 2002 and immediately great opportunity presented by Mayur Bhat and Sabyasachi Mitter from Asian Paints Home Solutions. Tremendous learning over there. Thanks to Ramchandra Chandrasekhar (Chandra) for the learnings at HLL, Rahul Sharma at Citibank, and Shalaka Gadekar at IBDI Bank.


Also great support from my friends Abhijit Dabhade, Arun Paul , Suryameet Kaur, Gopal Kulkarni and Abhijit Baxi. The next big jump in my life came at ICICI bank from Neelmani Singh who along with Vinod Gupta from Rubicon laid the foundation for many of the consulting that I do today. Thanks to Nitin Nayak for the constant feedback and inspiration. Also Neelmani Bhardwaj and V Krishnan from Tata AIG,A R Rajesh and Deep from Teamlease, Mrydul Vats, Anush Raghavan and Neha Karande from CMS, Vikram Bector and Vibha Anoop from Gyanodaya, Nilesh Kumar, Ejaz and Rahul Prasad from Asian PPG, Dr Jinesh Panchali from IICM, Chaitanya Nayak from UTI Securities and Vijay Menon from Videojet. Last three years, I have received tremendous learning from Mahindra and Mahindra and naukri. Thanks Rajesh Jejurikar, Luna Mohanty, Bhartendu Kapoor and Shalini. At naukri.com, great learning from Arif Parker, V Suresh, Vineet Singh, Ambarish, Ruchi, Sharmeen and Pallavi. Sanjeev and Hitesh, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks to also my only employers ITC – Nripen Thakur who at Jammu laid the foundation for a process orientation and then Varun Goel & Anjan Mallick for the opportunity at Mumbai. A huge jump in capability happened thanks to Milind Apte from Godrej Hersheys who exposed me to the concept of Assessment centres and their use. Also thanks to Amit Taede, Rajput and Rabikant for their insights into the business. Great learning also from Sumit Mitra, Sanjivani Sadani, Dotiwala, Bhavini and Swati from Godrej Consumer, Ajay Aurora, Sameer Bhariok and Nikhil Mathur from Godrej Industries and Pooja Venkatram from Godrej Sara Lee.


Big thanks also to Professor M S Rao and Jeyashree at S P Jain Lastly a great big hug to my trainer friends – Murali Shankar, Dexter Valles, Mala Kapadia, Vilas Rajawade, Pervez Pestonji and Bhushan Lawande. May the world continue giving you opportunities to show how smart you are. Maneesh Konkar Direction One Consulting Mumbai [email protected]

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Disclaimer

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental.


Contents

Discover your passion - If you didn’t need the money……………………………………………….13

What does getting wealthy mean to you? ........... 61

Are you servicing demand or creating it?.....85

Discover a new possibility – creating demand . 119

There is no job more important for a leader than to invest time in developing future leaders…...........................................................139 Nobody ever joins an organization to deliberately do a lousy job……………………..205


Discover your passion.

If you didn’t need the money, what would you be doing?

“Certainly not this job”

Listening to music.

Driving my bike.

Playing the guitar.

Being physically fit.

Playing football.

Watching cricket.

Running a restaurant.

Making ad films. ***************************************************************

Good to wake up early in the morning, thought Abhijit as he sat in his second floor balcony in Safdarjung enclave in south Delhi. He had woken up early in the morning and made a cup of tea for himself. He had shifted to this apartment about three months back. Rentals were quite cheap and ever since he had been promoted to Branch Sales Manager, he felt like staying on his own. Occasionally his parents came down to Delhi and he wanted the privacy too. As he was watching a couple of kids play cricket in the garden below, Abhijit thought about his life since coming to Delhi three years back.

He had got a job in a foreign bank through campus recruitment. The bank had picked up six of them from his campus, IIM Bangalore after a group discussion and two rounds of interviews. They had asked him to report on the first Monday of June at the


Delhi office. Delhi was hot, that day it touched 41degrees Celsius. Abhijit was thankful that during the two month induction, they were required to stay at the bank‟s guest house in South Delhi. Abhijit had enquired about the address and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was five minutes walking distance from his old residence. He had stayed in Delhi for ten years during his schooling. He still carried fond memories of his school Delhi Public School at R K Puram. His parents had subsequently shifted to Pune. The two month long induction was a crash course in banking. Quite a lot of fun and good learning too. They had said that depending in your performance in the induction programs; they would select the department to which you would want to be assigned. Abhijit was clear he wanted to be with retail banking. He found corporate banking difficult to understand and somehow the relationship based method of selling was alien to him. Senior people from different parts of the bank took sessions ranging from two hours to two days. Each module was followed by a test which was conducted by HR. The morning sessions were fun and enjoyable, the afternoon session were boring and half the class used to be asleep. They were a big bunch, about sixty of them, from various B-schools in the country. So the atmosphere was like college, only ten hours a day. The classes used to happen in the basement of a three story bungalow, with the rest of the three floors being their quarters. During one of the afternoon sessions, the participants found it so heavy that there were virtually no questions at the end of the session. He still remembered what the speaker had said at the end of the session. “There are two things that an MBA course teaches us all. One is to sleep with your eyes open and second is to yawn with your mouth closed. You are all experts at both”. With that he collected his files and moved out of the room.


Evenings used to be a nonstop series of intellectual m… discussions. Every MBA, they say can talk on any subject under the sun for 30 minutes. Every day the discussions used to drag on late in the night on topics ranging from cricket to religion to government to business. Sometimes arguments used to happen. Later, some would move out for a drive while others would while away their time watching TV. After two months, Abhijit was ready to move into a Branch banking role. They made him in charge of branch operations at a small branch in North Delhi. It was a small branch and he had a staff of three officers and two tellers. The branch used to operate from 9 am to 2 pm and the day used to end by 6.30 pm. The branch manager was one of the oldest employees of the bank and was four years from retirement. Abhijit did not get too much guidance from his boss in his initial few months, till a new Branch Manager came in about four months later. A lot of Abhijit‟s concepts on banking got clarified during the rest of the year with the new boss. A year later Abhijit was shifted to the Retail operations team at back office. This exposed him to a part of the bank he did not know existed. This was the “factory” which ran on processes and turnaround times and also had people “disappearing” from the job. Three days into the job, Abhijit was suddenly short of 5 of his 20 people. They just did not show up. Repeated calls to their mobiles produced no results. That role, which Abhijit did, was fourteen months of constant firefighting. Every day he was working on an average fourteen hours, with some days going even longer. It was in this part of the bank that Abhijit realized the true depth of leadership in his organization. It was here that he realized that you don‟t have to be good to get


promoted; sometimes it is OK to just hang around in the organization. Attrition was running at 40% in this department. Everybody said the work was monotonous. Hundreds of account opening forms used to come in every day, there were a set of activities to be done in the system to activate these accounts. It just went on and on every day, the pressure was enormous. His immediate boss was a monkey, so was his super boss. The only person Abhijit admired was his Vice President four levels up, he was a role model, had risen up through the ranks. Attrition was high because of various reasons – lack of standardized work processes, changing bosses, changing priorities and repetitive work with no human interaction. After two years in the organization and fourteen months in the back office, Abhijit was clear where he needed to be – at the front end. He asked and got a transfer to another branch and since then had been having a grand time. He was nor Branch Sales Head managing a team of nine salespeople. All from b-schools with fire in their belly. He had stiff targets for selling insurance, mutual funds, fixed deposits and also home and personal loans. The first quarter his team was No 1 in home loans and fixed deposits. He was looking forward to his role in the branch. He was clear he did not want to be a Branch manager, but more like a regional sales head. The organization was bifurcating the sales and the operations role and Abhijit was tracking the developments closely. As he sat in his balcony, he also realized that he was missing his friends. He had only kept in touch with a few of them in the first six months at Delhi. They were a group of four on campus. Ravi had got a job on campus with a large fmcg company, Rajesh had joined a


telecom company and Ashutosh had joined an asset management set up. That was what he had last heard. Last two years, he had actually met no one from campus, life had been so busy. A banking job also meant no travel and Abhijit had been thinking of a weeklong break to go to Mumbai as his closest friends were all there. And then his boss had called him to his office. He indicated that there was a new Branch sales structure being rolled out across the country so he had to go to Mumbai for three days. “Ask and you shall receive” it‟s true, thought Abhijit. He immediately contacted Ravi. “Well hello hello hello, how are you sir? Where have you been?” “Running around sir” “Enjoying the running around or not?” “Yes and no” “Then it is time to meet” “Excellent idea” “Where are you. Do you come to Mumbai?” “Next Thursday” “Where are you staying?” “My bank has a guest house in Vile Parle, very close to the airport” “Send me the address. Saturday evening, I will pick you up” “Done” Instantly an evening was fixed and Ravi promised to contact others.

“It never even occurred to any of us to think of this point when we went in for placements” said Ravi.


“How could we even afford to think of this?” said Rajesh “the priority was to get a job first?” “Of course I remember that period of placements. Nobody used to attend classes. In fact I have a tough time remembering the subjects that I studied in the last term. All of us locked up in our rooms or in the library. Reading up on companies, going through business magazines, watching all the business videos on the intranet”, said Ashutosh. “Those times were fun. Those late nights in the library, rushing to have Maggi at the NC – night canteen courtesy Amrao. Doing the shifts in the computer lab” remarked Ravi. “And obviously it was fun for you, you got through to a Day One company, we three had to go through four more days of agony before we all got jobs” “Hey that‟s fine ok, what can I do if they selected me on day one itself, no recruitment process is perfect.” “That I agree completely. Otherwise a donkey like you should never have got a job in the largest fmcg company in the country”. “Now he will go and sulk in the corner. Then we will waste the next half hour trying to pacify him”. “Good to meet you all after so long. Three years since we passed out of campus. IIM Bangalore was fun. You know even though the three of us are based in Mumbai, we never managed to meet ever. This get together happened because Abhijit called me up and said I am coming in from Delhi for three days. It‟s high time we met.”


“And then you suggested this place. Nice pub, what‟s it called – Lion‟s pub. Atleast they play our kind of music. Some of these new pubs, the kind of music they play, I could not sit there for more than half an hour” said Abhijit “And since it‟s a new place, it is not too popular right now too. Nice food too. I loved the paneer tikka” “CAT was tough. I think I barely scraped through.” said Ashutosh. “You know we were all so clueless when we all joined in. The common admission test was of course tough, but the greatest challenge was surviving the first year, then it was easy”. “I would say we three had that problem in the first year, Ravi did not. He was already used to the pressure at IIT, Delhi. In fact he used to be so cool even during exams. I remember this guy used to play badminton even during exam time” said Rajesh. “In fact you three got in on the first attempt. I got in on the second attempt. During my first attempt, my seventh semester Pune engineering exams were on the Monday following the CAT test on Sunday. And while coming down the stairs after giving the exam, my friend and I were talking. He said I am done, I think I will go to a local management institute itself. But our professor asked us a very powerful question. He said have you given your best. If the answer to that question is yes, end of discussion. If you gave your best and did not get interview calls, then obviously your best is not good enough, then it is time to look at other management institutes. But if this attempt was not your best attempt, then keep trying till you feel you have given your best” “We had one guy during the CAT test who was in his sixth attempt”


“Some perseverance. Or stupidity”. “Anyway Ashutosh, you were saying about your first attempt”. Asked Abhijit Ashutosh continued “oh I got totally inspired to try with another attempt. This was 1990. I finished my engineering, joined my family business. Dad had just started an auto component business supplying to some large auto companies in Pune. I could not study next year, but filled up the forms for another attempt in 1992.” “That‟s the story, so that‟s how you got in” “No no, this is just the beginning of the story. I think I studied for about six months. Exam was scheduled on December 13, 1992. December 6th, 1992 the Babri masjid incident happened. December 7th remember they announced the postponement of all exams. All motivation to study went phut. January 15th 1993 they announced that exams would happen on Jan 31. Started studying again. Gave the exam” “And then what happened?” “Then the waiting started. Got two interview calls for Bangalore and Lucknow. First interview was Lucknow happened at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Most humiliating experience of my whole life. I had done a great deal of preparation for the question “why do you want to do MBA” I had prepared this what I thought was a powerful answer that we are expanding our business and will higher MBAs therefore I need to understand and manage them well, so I should also be an MBA” “So what happened?”


“The panel threw my entire argument out of the window. They said you MBA would not be a useful program for you at all. They suggested that I should go to the Institute of Entrepreneurship Development at Ahmedabad. That course, they felt would be more suitable for me.” “That‟s where the fun started?” “Well, it wasn‟t fun when it happened then. I spent the next twenty minutes explaining why I don‟t want to go there and they tried their level best to convince me to go there.” “What happened in the Bangalore interview? Obviously that went well, otherwise we wouldn‟t have met” “Yes that went well. I was staying with my sister Medha at Dadar. And my brother in law Deepak saw my glum face and enquired what happened. I told him the story and he said you need to be more aggressive” “So I was more aggressive in the Bangalore interview. That went off well” “I got my admission letter in the last week of April. Or was it May, I forget” said Ravi. “Lucky you. When all you guys started getting your admission letters, the tension increased. Me and another guy Arun Sharma were the two people from our coaching class in Pune. We could have easily called up and found out our admission status. But we didn‟t. Hope is a four letter word. We waited a few days. Our friends were getting calls all around us. Finally we could not take the pressure any more. We called up” “Then what happened?”


“The guy at the registration desk said sorry sir, it‟s a regret. You have not got admission” “How come?” “Two weeks later, when I was home in the afternoon, the bell rings. It is the postman with a courier. The letter is from IIMB. It was the admission letter. Hip Hip Hurray!!!. Yo Yo Yo” “So how come the office earlier said No?” “I got in on the second waiting list” “Wow. Just scraped through. I didn‟t have to go through so much tension” said Ravi. “That‟s because you are used to all this. And because you are intelligent” “That‟s not really true you know. Even though we all from IITs and IIMs allow others to believe we are intelligent, you now know the truth” said Abhijit. “I agree with this intelligence thing being overrated. See the image on campus is like this. If you study a lot and others think you are studying, there is an image problem on campus” “What do you mean – an image problem?” “If you study and do well in academics, everybody says he studies so much, he better do well. So even though you do well, nobody appreciates you. And if you study a lot and do not score well in the exams, they pile on you. Then the comments go like this…. So much he studies and yet he does not do well in academics” said Abhijit


“Yes, whereas if you don‟t study and don‟t do well you can always say that you never studied in the first place. And if you do not study and do well in the exams, they say you are a genius!!” “So the trick is to not study at all?” “Idiot, everybody studies. People claim they are sleeping, but are actually studying. The trick is to study of course, but claim or project the impression that you are not, so everybody thinks you are a genius. You really think it is possible to get in to an IIM without studying. All of us study like crazy, you know it, I know it” remarked Abhijit “Games we play on campus. Ha Ha Ha” “Guess we continue playing these games in jobs also” “I know, like walking around with a sheet of paper in the corridor, so everybody thinks you are busy or doing something important. In reality, that paper would be the shopping list to purchase on your way back home.” Said Abhijit “Another game is this call to the boss at 8 pm from the office on some flimsy pretext. In reality the purpose of the call is to inform the boss – see I‟m still working till 8 pm” “And even if you work till 10 pm the previous evening, they still expect you at work the next day at 9.30 am. Otherwise, they put a late mark. Three late marks and you lose half a day‟s pay” said Rajesh Venkat “Are you serious? Is this what they do in your company?”


“Yes they do. I work for a telecom company. I handle their sales for this part of the city of Mumbai. Handling the dealer channel.” “So what does your job involve?” “I have to appoint dealers for telecom products across the city. Usually in the office by 9.30, a quick meeting with the boss and out into the field by 11 am. Then depending on priorities, am out in the field the whole day with some of my sales executives. Back in office by 5 to 5.30 pm and then discussing operations till 9 pm. I usually reach home around 10 pm” said Rajesh. “I do a similar role, but I don‟t put in such long hours.” said Abhijit Joshi. But my role does not involve appointing DSAs, they are mostly in place. My job is to push them, motivate them, and inspire them to basically achieve their targets. They have targets for insurance, mutual funds, fixed deposits, car loans, home loans, you name it, and we have a target for them.” Ravi, who was silently enjoying his favourite tomato soup till now and had quietly finished the paneer tikka remarked, “Atleast you guys have some activity to do. I am getting thoroughly bored in my job. This company is so well run; I fail to understand what exactly my role is. The brands are strong. The stocks reach the distributor perfectly. They get distributed through sales people who take orders from retailers and wholesalers. And the delivery happens through a van route the next day. If it is a village route, the order taking and delivery happen together. And reports are sent to the office and analyzed by the software. I was sent to a group induction program at a five star hotel in Agra. Fifteen days of sessions by different speakers from across the group. Then they asked me to go to Delhi because a brand launch was happening. Then a month later, they


asked me to assist in the launch of the same brand at Mumbai. I was out of my market for 45 days” “So what‟s the problem, you stayed in a five star hotel, had fun”. “No complaints about that at all. My company gives excellent perks. In Mumbai I actually walk 109 steps to my office.” All the other three felt like emptying their glasses on Ravi. “You walk to office. I spent two hours each way travelling. So what exactly are you cribbing about?” said Abhijit “I‟ll tell you what exactly I am cribbing about. After spending 45 days out of the area, I discovered that sales had gone up by 28%. I put down in my appraisal this point. My boss remarked that how can you take credit for this achievement, you weren‟t even physically present. I remarked that we have such strong processes that these ensure the work gets done. Boss bought the argument, but later on I thought to myself. If sales could go up even when I am not there, the processes must be really strong. Which means the basic job of a leader to not only to do the job, but also to build strong processes that ensure the job get done” said Ravi Ashutosh who was silently listening to Ravi all this while said “so what you are complaining about is that there is no meaningful work here” “Exactly. Actually there is plenty of work that the company keeps giving, but it is mostly operations related. It‟s basically “production” related work. What I really want to do is “building production capability”.


“Actually I was also quite frustrated with my job till three months back” said Ashutosh. “I was working in this asset management company handling sales. Meaning I used to handle a bunch of agents who used to sell mutual funds to the public. Priorities used to change every two months. One month they used to tell us to sell the equity fund, and then they used to launch a new fund, that became the priority then, and so on. The agents, the financial advisors were a totally confused lot. The customer‟s needs were not considered at all. And it was a silly kind of pressure, the one where I had to pick up the phone and ask every day “sale kitna hua”, how much did you sell today.” “The agents must also be totally irritated with all this”. “Oh after some time, they used to stop picking up my phones altogether. After I quit, one of them told me that he had attached a caller tune of a dog barking to my call, so he could identify me” “Congratulations. You quit your job, I didn‟t know that. What do you do now?” “I quit my job in the mutual fund about three months back I am now a freelance financial advisor myself. This was one of the finest decisions I took, not succumbing to the pressure, doing something that I enjoy doing” “Doing something that you enjoy is being in heaven, liking what you do is happiness” said Ravi wishfully. “I happened to be surfing one evening on YouTube and chanced upon this video of Steve Jobs giving a speech at the convocation ceremony at Stanford. He says life is too short to waste living other people‟s priorities. Your work takes up the bulk of you waking day, you have got to love what you do and do what you love. As in all


matters of the heart, you know it when you find it.” said Ashutosh. “I was surfing one day and came upon this article on “Discover your passion”. The website belonged to a business consulting company which works on productivity improvement. Some interesting points were mentioned in the article. It said - most of us live life in two compartments. One compartment is the Monday to Saturday one which we do because we need the money, we need to pay our car and home loan emi‟s; we need to pay for what we buy at lounges and malls and ice creams. The other compartment is the weekend, the holiday routine. This second compartment is what gives us joy, satisfaction, happiness. Spending time in this compartment energizes us, revitalizes us.” said Abhijit. “I am certainly living my life in two compartments right now” said Ravi. “Why do we need to unwind over the weekend – because we are so wound up the whole week?” said Ashutosh. “Hey that‟s not true. I enjoy my banking job” said Abhijit. “And I love to enjoy a drink with friends over the weekends”. “Good for you” said Ashutosh. “Most of us in the world live life in two such compartments, but not all. There are some notable exceptions. Cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle for e.g. let me ask you this question “what is similar between Harsha and all of us?” Pat comes the answer – “we all love cricket, we all talk about cricket, etc”. “The next question “what is the one major difference?” He gets paid for it, we don‟t. And that my friends is the


key to happiness. Harsha Bhogle is an MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. Most of his batch mates complain about being stuck in the corporate ladder.” “I don‟t know how to say this, but frankly I get bored of watching cricket. I consider it an incredibly monotonous game which has too little action” said Rajesh. Ravi said “your company is one of the biggest sponsors of the event” “I know”. “So what is the secret to happiness then?” asked Abhijit. Ashutosh replied “The secret to happiness is therefore to “Discover our Passion” and then find a bunch of people in the world who will pay us to do exactly what we are passionate about!!!!!” “Let‟s answer the question first on how life could be different? Ask yourself “if I didn‟t need the money, would I still be doing this activity that I do the whole day”. If the answer is “Yes”, you must be having the time of your life and actually getting paid for it too.” “If the answer to that question is “No”, that means you are working because you need the money. Now take a hypothetical situation that your Other Income i.e. income from dividends, interest from Fixed deposits, average capital appreciation of shares, rental income from owned property were to be more than your current monthly expenses, how would life be different for you? “Well, you could answer – less stress, less tension, more choice, more freedom, more relaxed, etc. Isn‟t that what we all want? Now the question is this? If you are therefore working out of compulsion and not by choice,


then this decision is affecting your mental state and causing you great stress. Let‟s see how? Because you are working out of compulsion, you are probably working less than your capabilities could deliver i.e. you are working with your head, not with your heart. You could be working the bare minimum that you are required to work. Others will notice, people‟s opinion of you is unlikely to be good. Your credibility suffers, this stresses you out even more and you put in even less effort than what you are doing today.” Ravi said “that is certainly happening with me nowadays. My super boss the other day told me, you need to take a call whether you are enjoying this job or not. And I was thinking, how did he come to know. Or is it so obvious?” “Oh yes, it is” replied Abhijit. “I could identify three out of my nine direct reportees who are working like this” Ashutosh continued “And there starts a vicious circle. Your heart is not in your job, you put in less effort, the output is low, bosses notice, colleagues notice, complain, you get depressed even more and switch off further.” “You know what; I was actually in such a situation one year back. But today if you ask me, I am having the time of my life in the same sales job and the same telecom company”. Ravi asked “is it really possible to apply these concepts in a job. I thought this was only possible for people like Harsha who are entrepreneurs”. “Of course, it is possible; I am a living example of this. I will tell you when I had a transformation. When they transferred me from Nagpur to Mumbai, the company threw a send off party for me. Some distributors were


also invited. A few people made speeches that day. I remember what two of the distributors said that day. They said they used to run businesses which were standard retail shops and I had converted them to telecom distributors. Their incomes have grown six times in the last two years. That was so satisfying. Suddenly I found meaning in my life. I always thought that a channel sales job was such a meaningless role. I felt I was actually not contributing anything. Those guys were the ones who were selling. But that evening one year back, I realized true joy is when our work makes a difference to the lives of other people” said Rajesh. “That‟s an interesting point of view, developing other people. I never looked at it that way. My company hires a lot of people from Tier II business schools. These are people with vernacular medium education, many times cannot even talk confidently to a Vice president, my super bosses. I take them into my fold, develop them, nurture them, set challenging goals for them. When I work with them in the field, I guide them, give them specific feedback and you should see how they respond. Six of my people have got promoted under me in the last two years”. Said Abhijit. Ashutosh continued “That would have given you a high unlike anything else. That‟s the point, how life is so different when were working in a profession or job of your choice. You would instantly put in a lot of effort because you would be enjoying what you are doing. Productivity would be sky high and your output would be of superb quality. Bosses would notice and appreciation and rewards would follow. Your influencing power would improve, others would listen to your suggestions and satisfaction would result. That would energize you further to put in more effort leading to even better output. And all this would put us on a virtuous circle.


So whether we are in a vicious circle or a virtuous circle starts from whether we are working in a job or profession out of choice or out of compulsion.” Ravi said “I am certainly working a life of compulsion, not of choice” said Ravi. Ashutosh responded “Let me share with you all an exercise that would enable you to be passionate about your job. Selecting a job out of choice means knowledge of what are we passionate about, our core values and beliefs.”

Discover your passion

Find purpose, the means will follow. If you do this, you will never work for a single day in your life

1. What kind of activity in the past has given you maximum

satisfaction?

2. If you didn‟t need the money, would you still continue

doing whatever job or profession or education you are

doing right now?

3. If you didn‟t need the money, what activity would you do

the whole time?


4. What irritates you most about yourself?

5. What irritates you most about other people?

“I‟ll tell you what irritates me most about other people.

There is no decent service in restaurants nowadays”

“Come on its not so bad”

“It is, look at that idiot” pointing to the waiter at the side

table. “See how he is serving”

“Seems fine to me, what‟s wrong with it”

“Look at the way he is serving, look at the way he is holding

the plate, pathetic”

“Actually, if you have such a strong opinion about it, why

don‟t you do something about it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You might want to ask yourself, why God is providing you

these lousy experiences all the time. It is because he wants

you to do something about it”

“You mean, I should go and work in a restaurant?”

“Not such a dramatic shift. You could pay attention to this

sort of thing in your own company to start with. Quitting jobs

is hardly the solution to anything. Do you have a Canteen

committee or something in your company?”


“Good idea. You have a canteen in your office. And you

seem to believe strongly in this. Pay attention to the service

experience at the office canteen itself”

“By that logic, you should pay attention to the drivers in the

company”

All the other three had started smiling by now. “You know

how he behaves on the road? According to him, the person

in front of him, who is driving slower than him, is an idiot, he

needs to get out of the way.”

“And the person behind him?”

“The person behind him, who is faster than him and trying

to overtake him, is a maniac, a madman”

“And every time he is on the road, he thinks he is

surrounded by idiots and maniacs”

“And he is the only sane person around”

Ravi who had silently listened to this entire conversation

where they were tripping on him felt a response was

expected from him. “He who fights and runs from the

battlefield may live to fight another day”. Saying this, Ravi

got up to go to the washroom.

6. What are your hobbies?

7. Who are your role models? Who do you admire?


8. Which specific qualities in these role models do you

admire and why?

9. If you strongly felt like changing the behaviours of

others, what would you want them to:

Stop doing something that they are doing right now

Continue doing something more frequently that they

are already doing now

Start doing something that they are not doing right

now.

10. What is it about your immediate environment that

makes you happy? What is it that makes you sad?

11. What is it about your immediate work or home

environment that makes you angry?

12. If you were the Head of your department, what are the

three specific actions that you would take to energize the

office environment?

13. As a CEO of your company when you are speaking to

your senior leadership team about do‟s & don‟ts in the way


they behave with employees, customers & the government,

what would you ask them to do?

14. As the CEO of your company when you are speaking to

a bunch of fresh graduates who were joining your company,

what behaviours and practices would you want them to do

when dealing with people?

15. What are the three stupidest things your company is

doing right now?

16. Below is a list of values. Put a tick mark on all those

values, which are important to you.

Values Pl

Tick Values P

Tick

Being creative Constantly learning

Designing strong processes Planning well

Being a good parent Being organized

Eating healthy Having a good environment

Being financially secure Being open

Being independent Being a good parent

Having fun Having a great body

Taking care of elders Being patient

Being honest Being calm

Living with integrity Being safe


Having peace of mind Reducing waste

Being innovative Utilizing resources well

Being a good investor Doing quality work

Negotiating well Adding value

Taking control Making children happy

Being assertive Being good at designing

Convincing well Communicating well

Having a good house Managing time well

Being clean Saving money

Being neat and tidy Improving productivity

Being a good speaker Working within tight

deadlines

Being healthy Being humble

Dressing well Being famous

Being transparent Being kind & considerate

Being a good influencer Respect for others

Looking good Being quick

Enjoying music Being fair

Enjoying sports Thinking big

Being healthy Being polite

Having a scientific mind Giving encouragement

Having strong relationships Being firm

Being a good organizer Being flexible

Being open Being accommodating

Executing smoothly Succeeding on merit

Solving problems Curing illnesses

Winning against competition Removing fears

Enjoying travel Building something

Achieving the impossible Meeting new people

Generating ideas Networking


Finishing tasks Raising resources

Religious activity Solving problems

Making others laugh Having a happy

marriage

Being knowledgeable Serving the nation

***************************************************************

“Hey come on, I ticked 32 of them. You mean I have 32

values that are important to me”

“No, these are things that you somewhat care about.

But are these values that you really care about?”

“What do you mean really care about?”

“If you say this value is important to me, are you

investing time or money in doing some activity linked to

this value? If not, does this bother you, keep you awake

at night?”

“I don‟t know what that means”

“Take an example. You have ticked physical fitness. Do

you go to the gym regularly?”

Everybody stared at his beer belly.

“What do you want me to answer? No, of course not”

“Do you play any game?”

“No”

“Do you do anything regularly that would remotely

classify as being linked to physical fitness?”

“No”


“Are you disturbed about the fact that you do not do any

physical exercise?”

“Not for the past so many years”

“Then while you would like to be physically fit, it is not a

core value for you”

17. Next, which of the above values would you continue to

hold important, even if the world did not support you?

18. Which of the above values would you continue to

hold important, even if the world specifically

punished you for holding them?

19. Articulate, using three or four sentences, what specific

behaviours would mean you are in alignment with these

values that you have narrowed down to?

“Behaviours? Meaning?”

“You have got financial security in your list. What do you

mean by that?”

“By that I mean, I want to be financially secure”

“Of course, but it helps if you could explain it in specifics so

you know what you are aspiring for? Say it is Rs 25


Lakhs in the bank. Or the full owner of a three bedroom

apartment.”

“I could do that for “being famous”. For me that would be,

every time an article on that topic appears in a financial

daily, they would call me up for a comment”

“Page 3”

“Certainly not, page one is what I am talking about”

20. If you could organize a group of people to do something

effectively which you yourself would find it difficult to do

alone, what would you want the group to do?

21. Imagine yourself 10 years into the future. Imagine a

felicitation event has been organized in your honour. If

you were to look back in pride over your activities over

the last 10 years and reflect on your most satisfying

achievement, your most important contribution, what

would that be?

22. Looking back at the general idea behind the responses

that you have given so far, what is your mission in life?

Why do you exist?


Discovering your passion

Now that you have finished the exercise and shared

your thoughts with close family members or friends, let‟s

analyze the responses. Why did we do this in a

leadership course? Mahatma Gandhi had once said

“Find purpose, the means will follow”. Too many of

us are lost, unclear about what we want to do in life,

unclear about our basic purpose in life. Many of us are

stuck in a job or profession or role, which we do not

fundamentally enjoy.

To get around this, many of us have developed a set

of activities to do on weekends; it is these activities that

give us maximum enjoyment. The bulk of our day spent

at work, which for many of us gives little satisfaction, it

is a drudgery that we do because we need the money,

because we need to pay bills, because we need to send

our children to school, pay the car / home monthly

installments to the bank and generally because we

need to support our lifestyles.

So let‟s ask ourselves a fundamental question?

Why should life be compartmentalized like

this?


Why should there be two sets of activities –

one to earn money and another one to be

happy?

Why shouldn’t money come from the same

set of activities that give happiness?

So let‟s examine the concept of money and the way we

go around earning it and the perception we have of it. In

our society today, profit is a still a dirty word and to

some extent that perception stems from the fact that we

look at people who earn a large amount of money as

“selfish”, that they are earning money for themselves

and not for others in society.

Suppose money was to be earned by serving others

and in that same process, we would also obtain joy and

happiness. Suppose money were to be earned not by

hoarding it, but by “sharing it” e.g. Narayana Murthy

who created 800 crorepatis amongst Infoscions and

also earned a large amount of wealth for himself.

Suppose money were to be earned by taking excellent

care of employees, by serving customers well with good

products and services, by paying taxes and by generally

being good citizens. Would that not lead to everlasting

happiness and satisfaction?


So let‟s discuss a way of work that results in

happiness to the individual as well as benefit to society.

A method of “karma” where the individual

discovers his passion, his hobby, his calling and

then converts it into a satisfying profession.

But is this style of leadership, i.e. the approach

where a professional also serves society, widely

practiced? Do the world best companies practice this?

The answer to both questions is Yes. The concept

works for organizations as well the people who work

there. Let‟s take some business examples that have

been explained wonderfully well in two books “Growing

a Business” by Paul Hawken and “Built to Last” by

James Collins & Jerry Porras.

Walt Disney

“To bring happiness to millions”

HDFC

One of India‟s largest housing finance companies.

An excerpt from the website www.hdfc.com

“HDFC was incorporated in 1977 with the primary

objective of meeting a social need – that of promoting

http://www.hdfc.com/


home ownership by providing long-term finance to

households for their housing needs.”

H T Parekh’s mission – A home for every Indian.

So what do we see from all these examples.

That though we find plenty of leaders that make money

without having any of these mission or value principles,

long term success, personal satisfaction and

respect only come from following these basic

guidelines.

You might ask – all this is fine but how

does this help me in my day-to-day job.

***************************************************************

“You ticked “reducing waste” What do you mean by

this?”

“All kinds of wastage drive me nuts. We regularly take

printouts which go waste, we probably waste tons of

paper like this. In the company, we hire people then let

them out into the field without teaching them. That‟s

another waste. Then we have four offices in the city,

that‟s a waste in rentals”

“And what must be the financial impact of all this?”

“Lakhs of rupees annually”

“So why don‟t you do something about it?”

“It‟s not my department”

“It is your company, isn‟t it?”


“yeah yeah, I know. But sometimes you don‟t want to

fight battles all the time”

“You only fight the battles you care about”

“so what do you care about?”

“My values include “having fun” and “being “kind and

considerate”. So how do I link them to my work”

“Do you know, many BPO companies have a role called

a CFO?”

“All companies have a CFO”

“Chief Fun Officer”

“What?”

“This is a rotating role every two weeks a group of three

people in the company form a team whose main job is

to ensure that employees are having fun.”

“So what do they do?”

“Arrange table tennis tournaments, mad ads, small

game shows every month”

“My company does this on an annual basis today”

“So if you feel strongly about it, do it more frequently.

Start with once in six months, then take it quarterly”

“What about being kind and considerate?”

“Since this is important to you, start with being kind and

considerate in all your dealings with others”

“That I do”

“And is that true for your company too?”


“Not really. We are anything but considerate when we

let off our non performers”

“how are they let off?”

“Immediately. No warnings, no grace period nothing.

We just call them for a meeting at end of the month one

by one and fire them”

“What would be a more considerate way to do that?”

“Maybe a two weeks‟ notice period”

“How quickly do they get other jobs?”

“Oh, within three to four days.”

“Then one week at junior levels is good enough”

“Yes possibly. I guess I need to put this down in my

agenda for next week. I have been disturbed by it for

some time now”

“That‟s how we derive satisfaction from our work. See

we all have certain values that we believe in. Nothing

right or wrong or wrong about them, just that we are

particular about them. Since we spend the bulk of our

life at work or in our profession, the values have to be in

alignment with those of the organization”

“That would address all the negativity we perceive in

our jobs the whole day”

“That‟s the point actually. A lot of us complain about

what is not right in our companies. But what do we do

about it? The problem is always in “they”. They are

doing this, they are not doing this, etc etc”


“And it just adds to the problem”

“Exactly, instead of that if we focused on what we

wanted to achieve rather than complaining about what

is not there, that would be a positive approach”

“Align our thoughts to what we want to achieve, not our

current reality”

“Practically how does one do that?”

“What do you want to achieve?”

“Say I want to reduce weight”

“That‟s a negative, align your thoughts and words to

what you want to do”

“I want to reduce weight”

“That‟s still a negative. Try – I want to be slim”

“Same thing”

“Not at all, there is a world of difference between

reducing weight and getting slim”

“How?”

“OK, let me show you a demo. Don‟t think of a zebra”

“What?”

“You heard me. Do Not think of a zebra”

“OK”

“What are you thinking about?”

“A zebra”

“Now – think of a zebra”

Silence.

“What are you thinking about?”


“Again I am thinking of a zebra”

“You get the point”

“That it is very easy to think of zebras”

“Are you finished? Then pull the chain”

“Sorry, what is the concept here”

“That the mind does not process “don‟t”. It just

processes the main message which was “zebra” in this

case”

“So when I say I want to reduce weight, the mind does

not process the reduce bit, it just takes the weight bit”

“Exactly. So coming back. Align your thoughts to what

you want to do”

“I want to reduce wastage in my company. No. No.

That‟s a negative again.”

“Try again. Rephrase”

“I want to ensure that resources are utilized well”

“Something more specific”

“I want to improve productivity to 90%”

“Cheers”

Is music your passion? You could have soft music

running in the office the whole day. Or organize a music

night where employees can showcase their talent.


During company events, take charge of organizing live

band performances from new bands. If this satisfies

you, maybe you could eventually do it fulltime either in a

music company or making music videos or managing

music celebrities.

Suppose your passion turns out to be empowering

others, or more specifically giving encouragement

to less educated people. Take charge of people

development for the sales associates who work for you

in the dealerships or channel members. You could

arrange better employee benefits like insurance or

loans.

You like sports? Are you one of those high flying

corporate managers who stopped all interaction with

sports the day you passed out of college. Then take

charge of reigniting a sports culture within the company.

Arrange one sports tournament every month. Start with

table tennis or carom, a light game them move on to

cricket, football etc. Ensure your company participates

in intercorporate sports tournaments.

Did you want to be a pilot when you were young?

Still fascinated by aircraft? What could you do? Kale

Consultants is one of the world‟s largest software


companies in airlines ticketing. PTC does modeling for

Airbus and Boeing‟s designs coming out 5 years later.

Air Deccan (now taken over by Kingfisher) was started

by a passionate entrepreneur Captain Gopinath who

revolutionized air travel by making it affordable to the

common man. So you could even start your own airline.

Do you love cars? How do you live out your passion

today? Watching movies on cars? Taking test drives?

What are your chances of owning a Mercedes? Let‟s

see what options you have. DC Designs (who made

that car in movie Tarzan) is a large company that has

VC funding too. Or you could be a journalist for these

auto magazines. What would be your job? Driving every

new car that is coming into the market. And getting paid

for it too. Auto component companies like Bharat Forge

is working on next generation vehicle designs for cars

that are likely to be launched five years hence. Car

companies have design teams whose job is to study

what‟s happening in the world of design in other cars,

knock down competition cars and study them for ideas.

Exciting?

“What about taking care of children?”


“I know lots of ladies and even fathers in the office miss

their children”

“Lots of IT and finance companies have a crèche facility

in the office itself. That way their star performers

especially the ladies with small kids can rejoin work and

still take care of their children”

Making others independent / providing employment

to others: Supposing your life passion is to help others,

make them independent. Why not find a job or start a

business that would enable you to do that? Supposing

you were to join an insurance company. At Tata AIG

General Insurance Company, we trained a bunch of

Agency Managers on how they could perform their role

better. A part of their role is to hire and inspire

independent financial advisors to sell insurance

products. These people range from MBAs to

housewives and all profiles in between. They need to be

inspired to move into this role, learn some amount of

finance and are shown a dream of financial

independence for themselves. This involves a service

promise by the Agency Manager to the potential advisor

– join me and I will empower you to earn Rs 50,000 per

month. Similarly in Birla Sun Life AMC, the managers

have to constantly inspire their advisors to sell mutual


funds over other financial products. Ensuring that the

day to day target pressure is sustained is easy if we

remember the mission that we are trying to achieve in

the long run – making people independent.

Looking beautiful / making others beautiful: Beauty

and cosmetics is amongst the biggest industries in the

world addressing half the world‟s population. L‟Oreal

sells cosmetics, so do Marico and Godrej Consumer

Products. A sales person in these companies would be

under constant pressure to sell products through the

channel of distributors, wholesalers and retailers.

L‟oreal is one company that stands out in terms of the

attention they pay to educating the salesperson about

product features and benefits. The belief in the product

is so high and the salesperson can actually give

intelligent, knowledgeable answers to doubts of the

retailers and address their queries. The passion goes

across from the seller to the buyer.

On a deeply spiritual plane, God is giving you lessons.

You will keep getting the lesson until you learn the

lesson!! God is giving you these experiences because

he wants you to do something about it. So move your

backside and live out your passion about food and

service and hospitality by doing something about it.


“What about taking care of elders? Very satisfying to do

this of course. But how do I do this on a regular basis

for more elders not just those in my own family. I feel

parents and elders in general are uncared for and I

would really like to do something about it”

“Then consider this example. There is a housing

complex in Pune which has a lot of studio apartments –

small one BHK apartments with a kitchen, doctor on

call, high security etc. It is targeted towards NRI

children of elders who would not like to shift to the US

but still need to be taken care of.”

“That is a good concept. So staying in these studio

apartments gives the elders their independence at the

same time their children have peace of mind knowing

that in case of emergency, help is quickly available.”

“And this builder is planning a series of apartment

complexes along these lines at different cities.”

“Which means the business is a combination of a

builder and a hotel cum hospital kind of a business”

“Yes it is”

“What about making children happy. I enjoy spending

time with children, playing with them? My favourite

show on TV is – guess Tom and Jerry. I would love to


work in a business where I make children happy all the

time.”

“Walt Disney – mission in life – to make children happy.

And he has constructed a business model of

amusement parks, movies etc to live out this passion. If

making children happy is your passions try working in a

kid‟s playgroup, an animation company, an amusement

park etc”

Being healthy: Are your office friends healthy? Some

Japanese factories have a fifteen minute aerobics

session before starting work. Does your company have

a gym? Then start the process to get one made. The

budgets are always there. You are passionate about

health. You jog regularly, spend a few hours at the gym

every day, and believe that good health is the most

important thing in the world.

Networking. Say you enjoy networking, connecting with

people. Two of the fastest growing businesses in the

world – Linkedin and Facebook enable the same thing

i.e. enable people to stay in touch with each other.

Philosophical? Maybe. Impractical? You might say –

Let‟s be realistic. Will this lead to happiness? Don‟t take


our word for it, speak to leaders who follow this

philosophy, and the answer will be clear.

Lastly, will this give me wealth? Will I be able to

buy that bungalow on the beach, or that fancy car?

Success is not just about money, it is about happiness.

But money is important to live a good comfortable life.

So let‟s look at money in the next section to balance our

life better

“Did you do the Discover your passion exercise?” asked

Ashutosh asked.

“Yes I did”.

They were sitting at the airport coffee shop at Mumbai

international airport. It was three months since their

meeting where all four had a ball of a time that night.

Ashutosh had come to see off his aunt to Singapore

and Abhijit was meeting a customer who was travelling

to London by the late night flight.

“I did. I showed it to my colleagues at work. In fact I

showed it to my boss also. You know what came out as

my passion?” said Abhijit.


“What?” asked Ashutosh.

“That I like to develop systems and processes. In the

three years with this company there have been only two

instances where I have been happy. In both cases, I

was introduced into the role when there was a problem.

I stabilized it, trained the team, developed role clarity

and fine tuned the whole system”

“Tell me in detail what you did”

“There was this branch office which was reporting high

attrition. There were major complaints from the

distributors against the Branch Manager. Staff was

unhappy and vendors were complaining about late

payments. The Branch Manager, it was discovered, was

involved in fraud. I studied the operations and within two

weeks made my recommendations. My first

recommendation was to fire the Branch Manager. They

did that. Then they stationed me there as the BM to

restore morale and design processes for the sales and

finance people to work. I also met each and every one

of the forty distributors in the branch area to get an idea

of what was to be done to improve the situation. Within

two months, improvements were visible. Within six


months, the branch sales had grown by 28% compared

to the national average of 10%.” Explained Abhijit.

“Then what happened”

“I got bored.”

“What?”

“I got bored” repeated Abhijit.

“Of what?”

“Everything”.

“What exactly did you get bored of?”

“After the systems were set, there was no work for me.

The team had developed so well that they started taking

decisions on their own. I was only marked on a copy. All

the processes used to work fine and my advice was

only sought to fine tune matters that too in the rarest of

rare cases. I had made myself redundant. That‟s exactly

what I wanted to do”

“So you fit in best in situations where a business is

struggling. That‟s where you would come in, quickly do

a diagnostics, make recommendations, train people to

implement them and move on.” Asked Ashutosh.

“Does your current role give you that opportunity on an

ongoing basis?”

“Not really”. Replied Abhijit.

“So what was the second instance?”

“They put me on a task force to study the vendor

payment processes, which were out of control. We were


taking 110 days to pay our vendors. The situation was

so bad that the vendors had stopped giving priority to

us.”

“Situation was that bad?”

“My vendor billing per region is almost Rs 5 crores per

month. That‟s almost Rs 60 crores a year. My

agreement with them was for me to pay them in 30

days. That we used to achieve earlier, but then as the

business grew and attrition increased

We lost good people. That threw the systems haywire

and then it was chaos”

“So what did you do.”

“My first job was to study and list out the activities that

needed to be done to clear each bill. There were checks

that each branch office has to do, and then the finance

manager of the branch would send all the invoices to

the regional office where they would get checked all

over again. Some of these checks were redundant, but

there were many that were unique. The whole thing was

part of the audit process also and there were also

issues of tracking and improvement”

“And these checks were what was causing such a large

delay?” asked Ashutosh.

“No not at all. These checks were taking ten minutes

each, that‟s it. At each of the locations – branch office


and regional office. The real delay was because these

guys were doing batch processing.”

“What do you mean batch processing?”

“Meaning, each finance person who was doing the bill

processing never did the job regularly, they waited till

the bill file became big and then they took up the tasks.

There was no concept of a turnaround time or TAT.

What I did was just two things. First is standardize the

checklist on what was to be done. Second was fix

accountability for TAT. Each workstation had to process

the bill and send it to the next workstation in 3 working

days. The new process that got designed could actually

pay in 8 days flat”

“That‟s impressive. All that improvement with just these

two changes”

“No, there was one more thing. The Regional Finance

manager played an important role here. Earlier in case

the Regional office discovered a problem in the bill, they

used to send back the entire lot. Now what they decided

to do was to send back only those bills which had

discrepancies and wait for a revert from the vendor. If

the vendor reverted within ten days, fine, else the

balance lot was processed and the vendor received the

payment within twenty days. Simple”

“Brilliant, boss. But tell me how did this exactly help the

company. I mean I know the vendor is getting paid


faster, but surely it would have had an impact on the

company‟s working capital, that would have got

strained?”

“Not really, we are a cash rich company. But here is the

beauty. The Regional finance head had this brainwave.

He said, in phase one I will bring down payments to 30

days. Phase two, I will go to the vendors with a

proposal. I will pay you in 5 days, give me a 5%

discount.”

“5% of 60 crores is 3 crores. That‟s impressive.”

“This is only for the west region. There are four regions.

So Rs 12 crores savings is what could be achieved.”

“But there may be execution issues. So it may not

happen everywhere. But we see a savings of

approximately Rs 7 crores from this nationally this year”

said Abhijit.

“I think you are getting late for your flight. Run along

now. And congratulations”

Summary:

Figure out what you enjoy doing, then go find a bunch

of people who will pay you to do exactly what you enjoy

doing. Life is sheer bliss after that.



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2. What does “Getting Wealthy” mean to you?

“When does it end?” “Oh my my my. Abhijit is getting philosophical now” remarked Ravi. They were sitting at the poolside of Kadkani Resorts in Coorg, near Bangalore. Their batch mate and good friend Gopal Kulkarni was one of the owners of Kadkani Resorts. Nice cottages and a lovely golf course too. Gopal was worried whether they would pay for the rooms at all, they had asked for a 100% discount. The wives had gone to the main market to buy local coffee powder, Coorg‟s speciality. It was late afternoon, there was a cool breeze blowing. The resort was tucked away about two km from the main highway and was in the lap of nature and luxury. “At IIM Bangalore, none of us had any vehicles. To do projects, either we travelled by auto or had to borrow bikes from others. Then we joined companies. Within two years each of us had bought our first cars. One or two years back, you three have already sold off your first cars and bought C segment cars. I have wanted to buy a new car for a year now. One month I like a car, next month another car gets launched, then a new SUV comes into the market, it never ends” said Abhijit “Why should it? I plan to change my car every two years. I can afford it” said Rajesh. “Did you pay cash for it?”


“No of course not. Are there people in the world who pay cash for a car? I picked it up on a loan from a private sector bank” “So what you mean is that you can afford to take a loan for it” clarified Abhijit. “If you mean, can you afford to pay the EMIs, of course I can. I mean everything that we buy is on loan. My house is on loan. My TV is on loan. We took a loan and went on holiday to Europe last year. We can afford to pay the EMIs, we have not defaulted so far” “Your wife Nalini also works, right. So this lifestyle and expenses you can afford because you are dinks?” “Dinks?” “Double income no kids” “That‟s a good one.” “What happens when you guys decide to expand your family, have kids? Nalini will have to take a break. That means you will have to fund all this alone. Wouldn‟t that put a little strain on the finances?” asked Abhijit Rajesh kept looking at Abhijit for a long long time. “What is the point you are making?” “I am not so sure myself. All I am saying is that we spend with the assumption that the money will keep coming every year. Each of these expenses we make however only give temporary satisfaction. I think I was far happier when I was in college. Today I have a big house, a car, and every conceivable gadget in the house, we take holidays across the world and I am not


exactly happy. And to top it all, I am increasingly getting dependent on my salary.” Said Abhijit “Why will the money not keeping coming?” “Our economy has grown by leaps every year. So have our companies. And therefore we all have also been helped along in our career growth. But just imagine if this growth were to stop. Or even slow down. Ashutosh, you work in the stock market. What is your view?” “I agree 200%. Everything is a bubble now. The flat I bought for Rs 50 Lakhs is now worth Rs 1.50 crore. That‟s ridiculous. Who in his right mind would pay so much for a 2BHK?” “No I was not talking about real estate” said Abhijit, “I was talking about the stock market” “Agreed it is difficult to find a stock which is a good buy. Everything right now is what the experts say fairly valued”. “And are the valuations of many of these companies justified by their fundamentals?” “Not at all. Most companies in the retail sector are making losses, so are the airlines?” “But what about the future. Valuations are based on the future right?” “Yes, but many of these companies are not even looking at profitability in the near term. They are purely in it for the asset play. Create it, grow it to a certain size and sell out to a bigger player” “But that is a pretty high risk game”


“Right now it is. But what is your point?” asked Ashutosh. “My point is, an important reason for our high incomes has been the growing economy which today looks distinctly overheated. So the crash has to come sooner or later” said Abhijit. “And that‟s when salaries will fall. Or no bonuses.” “My company has already started preparing for the crash. While all our competitors are hiring anybody with two hands and two feet, we froze the recruitment tap over four months back” said Abhijit. “Which means this high expense lifestyle is going to strain us once our salaries peak or even fall because of no bonuses” “Difficult to accept the fact that all of us are overpaid today. You said something about temporary satisfaction” “I agree with the temporary satisfaction part. Come on, even what we do at night is temporary satisfaction” “Ravi burst out laughing on that. Abhijit tried to keep a serious face, but he couldn‟t keep it on too long. Before long, all four of them were laughing and that‟s how their wives saw them after some time.

“That felt good” “You love swimming, don‟t you.” Said Rupali. They were enjoying a swim in the pool. They had taken long walks in the resort and had lazed in the hammocks next to the river. The other three couples had gone back to Mumbai


but Abhijit and Rupali had decided to stay on for another two days. “I do, it is the most relaxing exercise. And it also lightens the load from the spinal cord which otherwise takes the entire load of the body all the time” “What was your joke of temporary satisfaction that you guys were laughing about that day, you never told us” “Every thing gives temporary satisfaction. I buy a plasma TV, enjoy it for four days, then it is just another TV. We do the interiors in our house, neighbors go wah wah for two weeks, and then the feeling passes. I was so thrilled on buying the new car for about two weeks. Today it is just a medium of transport.” Said Abhijit “I guess I must admit, eating out does not excite me anymore. I would much rather eat home cooked food” “Why can‟t we buy a small bungalow here itself? In Lonavala or Mahableshwar. And go to Mumbai once every month for three four days.” “And which school would the kids go to? We decided on a school in Mumbai for them remember, that‟s why we bought a house in Juhu” “Yes, I know. But I would rather stay and enjoy the weather here” “We need to relook at our lifestyle now. I am getting tired of the daily grind. And we need to plan for a family now” “Of course, even I am getting tired of the daily grind. I was thinking, when I die I am not going to say I wish I had sent more time in the office. But I wish we could live a simpler life, stop comparing ourselves to other people”.


“I know what you mean; spending money has lost its charm if it is not linked to a purpose” “I am also realizing that we are completely dependent to our salaries” “Meaning what” “Our expenses and incomes match. We have practically no savings and we are therefore two months away from bankruptcy” “That‟s more or less everybody‟s story” “Not really. I know one fellow in office who spends so little money. He is also a Senior Manager like me. No eating out. Drives a small car. Still lives with his parents in Borivali. Still takes the train to work” said Abhijit “I guess there is a fine line between simple living and kanjoosi” “We need to strike the right balance then. I was talking about this guy in the office. He is so confident at work” “What‟s the connection?” “Don‟t you see it. The cold hard fact is that neither of us can afford to quit our jobs now, even if we wanted too. I am enjoying my job of course, but if we wanted to take a break for some time, neither of us can afford to do so today.” “Guess that‟s what our parents have been telling us for so many years, live simple”. “I read this book by Robert Kiyosaki – Rich Dad Poor Dad where he defines the term asset and liability. He


says asset is something that puts money in our pockets, liabilities is something that removes money from our pockets”. Said Abhijit “You‟re telling me, I am a banker too. Other people‟s homes and home loans are the biggest assets for us. So true, a self occupied home is a liability if you look at the cash flow definition” “That means the reason we cannot quit our jobs today is because we have been buying liabilities thinking they are assets. The car is definitely a liability. And every liability purchase increases our cash outflow every month so it increases our dependence on our jobs” “So houses are liabilities then? That‟s not something we could agree with” “No, only from a cash flow point of view, only when the cash outflow is more then it becomes a liability. For e.g. if we own a second home and the rent pays for the emi, then it becomes an asset from a cash flow point of view.” “So let‟s get back control of our lives then. Let‟s live a simpler life but not a “kanjoos” life” “I am certainly done with my cars, no more fancier cars for me. In fact after this car gets old, I am thinking of a second hand car also, they are of quite good quality” “I am also quite happy with this 2BHK house. I really don‟t want a bungalow, too painful to maintain” “Exactly more the number of maids, more the pain required to manage the army of maids and drivers” “You know Warren Buffett, the second richest person in the world drives a simple sedan, no limousine and


drives himself. Also Narayana Murthy, still moves around in a simple car.” “And both are worth millions of dollars. Guess there is merit in that thought process.” “And knowing the power of compounding, small savings invested intelligently should quickly reduce our dependence on salaries” “What do you mean?” “Compounding follows the Rule of 72. Meaning if we invested at 8%, our money would approximately double in 72 divided by 8 = 9 years. If we invested at 12%, then money would double at 72 / 12 = 6 years” “Where does one get 12%?. No instrument gives that” “Hold on for a moment. There is one instrument that gives 24% also. But have you applied the rule of 72 to 24%. See what happens” “What happens?” “At 24%, our money doubles in three years. Let‟s do this calculation with some specific figures. If we save a nominal amount of Rs 1.00 Lakh and put it in a financial instrument at 24%, do you know how much it grows to over a 36 year time frame?” “How much?” “Over Rs 40 crores.” “You‟re joking” “I do not joke about money. Do the calculation yourself” said Abhijit


“How? Please explain the calculation to me” “Rs 1 Lakh becomes 2 Lakh in 3 years, 4 lakhs in 6 years, 8 lakhs in 9 years, 16 Lakh in 12 years, keep on doing it till 36 years, and you will get Rs 40.96 crores.” “Hold on, what about taxes, time value of money, etc” “Yes, those are not considered, but the idea was to illustrate the power of compounding to you” “But where can we get 24%?” “Two people have managed a growth rate on investments of more than 24% over a long term period. They are Warren Buffett and Peter Lynch”. “Peter Lynch of Fidelity fame” “Exactly, it is possible” “And why have you taken 36 years?” “That‟s approximately the amount of time most of us will work. If we start working at 21 or 23 and retire at 60, which are about 37 years” “But we have already lost 5 years of that” “Only 5 years, we got 30 years of our income ahead of us.” “And why Rs 1.00 Lakh?” “Nice round figure. Assuming we can save about Rs 8000 per month”


“Hey hold on, we took Rs 1 Lakh in our calculation only once. That‟s not the real picture. We will save money every year. So it will be Rs 1 lakh and more every year” “So you might want to recalculate the figure of Rs 40 crores” “So compounding depends on rate of return and time” “Also the amount of money saved. Yes, the concept therefore is, the earlier we start, the better. And let us manage risk to maximize returns.” “But isn‟t the stock market risky?” “Of course it is. So is life. Everything is risky. There is risk in driving on the road. But we drive safely, we wear seat belts, we in effect manage the risk. Twenty years it back it was risky for us to cross the road. As we get knowledgeable, we learn to manage that risk” “You are saying that risk is a function of knowledge” “Of course it is. The road is not risky. The driver is risky and the way he drives the car is risky. The stock market is of course risky. But an investor investing with ignorance is a far more riskier proposition.” Said Abhijit

What does getting wealthy mean to you? The purpose of the exercise that follows is to help clarify what money means to you. Yes of course we agree that money is important and we spend most of our time every day doing activities that would increase our income. As somebody had once said, “Money is necessary to live a comfortable life, but beyond a point, it makes no difference to our lifestyle” For e.g. if say you today like to eat out at a restaurant twice a week and if


your income doubles, would you really eat out four times a week? The inspiration for the ideas mentioned in this chapter comes from three sources – Warren Buffett, Narayana Murthy and Robert Kiyosaki. Warren Buffett, the second richest person in the world and Narayana Murthy who despite their wealth, still live simple lives keep gently reminding us of the virtues of keeping our lives simple and uncluttered. Robert Kiyosaki, whose book “Rich Dad Poor Dad’ would undoubtedly be the finest piece on money and investing ever written has completely bowled us over with the definition of “asset” and “liability”. His concept of defining wealth in terms of passive income and not active income follows from the natural savings that would accrue to us when we start spending less and living simpler lives.

This exercise would help you figure out what is your desired standard of living and what would money mean to you beyond that standard. Also the attempt is to define “wealth” in terms of not only size of car or house or possessions, but also in terms of activities done and lifestyle.

1. If you had Rs. 5 Lakhs more, how would your life

be different?

2. If you had Rs. 50 Lakhs more, how differently

would you live your life?


3. If you had Rs. 5 crores more, how differently would you live your life?

____________________________________________

“5 Lakhs more, I am clear. 50 Lakhs more also I am clear. 5 crores more I have no idea.” “That‟s the point. Most of us live hand to mouth, one paycheck to another. If we had a situation where there are no EMIs and all bills get paid effortlessly without tension, most of us would be lost” “Wow, no EMIs, plenty of money in the bank, that would be bliss” “Really? By that definition, the richest people in the world would be the happiest” “I know, that is simply not true”

4. With more money available to you, how would the following aspects of your life be different from what it is today?

What type of house would you be living in?

What kind of TV / Music System, electronics items would you have in the house? ______________________________________

How would be the interiors of the house?


• What model car would you own? ___________________________________

What brands of clothes would you wear? ______________________________________

What jewellery would your wife be wearing? ______________________________________

What quality of life would you enjoy with spouse? ___________________________________

What quality of life would you enjoy with kids? ___________________________________ ___________________________________

What kind of work would you be doing? ___________________________________ ___________________________________

What hobbies would you enjoy doing? ___________________________________

What sports would you play?

What would you do in your spare time? __________________________________

What books would you read?

What people would you meet?

What places would you visit?


What kind of holidays would you take?

______________________________________

Any other aspects of a “wealthy lifestyle” you would like to elaborate ______________________________________ ______________________________________

5. Do a quick review of your current financial

situation. For a detailed philosophy of this concept of “Wealth Ratio”, please read the entire series of books “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki, available at all leading book stores.

Below write down your monthly income today on a post tax basis. If your pay package has some annual components, then take the post tax amount; divide by twelve to arrive at a monthly figure. If you are married, then do this exercise for your spouse‟s income also and get a total figure.

Post tax Monthly Income for Self = Rs ______________

Post tax Monthly Income for Spouse = Rs ___________

Total Monthly Post tax Income for Family = Rs _______

6. Next, list down your regular monthly expenses in as much detail as possible item wise. These would be the expenses that you would incur to reflect a decent comfortable standard of living:

Home Provisions: __________________ Fruits & vegetables: ________________ Telephone – Landline. ______________ Telephone – Mobile: ________________


Electricity Bill: _____________________ Car Loan EMI: ____________________ Fuel Expenses: ____________________ Avg repairs: ______________________ Computer expenses: ______________ Home Loan EMI: __________________ Society Maintenance Charges: _______ School Fees. _____________________ Other expenses on tuition. __________ Restaurant & Entertainment expenses.__ Shopping – Clothes. _______________ Shopping Home furnishings __________

Holiday: ________________________ Others: _________________________

________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ ______________________________________ Total Monthly Family Expenses = _____ 7. Next write down your net Monthly Other Income

i.e. this is that income, which comes from sources other than salary or profession. This is that income that would continue to accrue to you even though you quit your job, etc.

Fixed Deposits: ________________

Interest from FDs: ______________

Dividends from Shares:___________

______________________________

Capital Appreciation (Avg): __________

Other Income from Financial Assets:___


________________________________

Rent from Property : _______________

________________________________

8. Next calculate your Wealth ratio = Monthly Other Income / Monthly Expenses. Express this figure as a percentage. (Refer to Robert Kiyosaki – Rich Dad Poor Dad for detailed ideas on this)

Am I Wealthy Today?

Let‟s review the situation today. We have expenses, we like to live well, provide a good lifestyle for our children, have fun, go on a holiday and all this requires money. This money comes from either the Earned Income (income from salary or profession) or it has to come from Other Income. Since the Other Income component for most of us is quite less (zero also), most of us therefore need to fund our lifestyles from salaried income. Therefore most of us are completely dependent on the job. Now let‟s take a hypothetical situation. Supposing, just supposing your Other Income were more that your Expenses on a month on month basis. Let‟s take an example. Say your monthly expense is Rs. 20,000. Suppose you had so much money in a fixed deposit that the interest was more than Rs. 20,000. Suppose you had say Rs. 75 Lakhs in a FD. The interest would be more than Rs. 20,000 per month even after factoring in taxes. With this financial situation, how would your life be different? How would your day-to-day behaviour


with your bosses, colleagues be different? You would be more confident, more secure, less fearful, right? Maybe you might even be in a different role, not in your current job!!

“Are you going to talk about retirement?” “Not the way the insurance companies talk about it. They are all talking about something that would happen at 60 years of age. I am talking about financial retirement” “What‟s financial retirement?” “It is defined as the financial situation where the need to work is zero” “Need to work is zero?” “Other income greater than expenses on a monthly basis” “Cash is King, everything else is nonsense” “So by this definition, financial retirement may happen at 30, this may happen at 45, or we may not even retire at 60.” “Yes, life would be so much different” “There is no need to work, since expenses are being met out of other income. Since there is no need to work, we would be more secure, freer and chances are that we would take more risks. Also one is likely to move to a role that would give greater satisfaction.” “There are also lifestyle benefits” “Yes, usually lifestyle dips after retirement, partly because needs reduce, partly because expenses adjust to reflect the lower other income. If other income exceeds expenses, lifestyle would never dip, we are therefore committing to an ever-increasing standard of living.” “And the best benefit I see is that we would be free to pursue our passion immediately.”


Next, let‟s look at the behaviours of the people and the impact that each of these expenses has on these three components of Salary income, expenses and Other Income. What does the average working professional do with his money?

Invest it in property, gold, shares, fixed deposits, insurance etc.

Spend it on consumer durables, entertainment, buy cars, go shopping, purchase a house etc.

The three biggest expenses that we would incur are buying a car, buying a house, marriage, not necessarily in that order. Let us now look at the financial impact of buying a car. Suppose we buy a car on loan, some down payment would have to be given This down payment was earlier generating an other income, so the first impact is – other income dips. What about expenses? Loan installments, fuel, maintenance, parking charges, all add up to increased expenses. So by buying a car, we reduce other income and add to expenses. And what impact does this have on our need to earn money? That right, it makes us more dependent on the job. We need the money, so we end up becoming more dependent. So less freedom. At this point, look at the definition of asset and liability provided by Robert Kiyosaki in “Rich Dad Poor Dad”: Asset: something that puts money in my pocket. Liability: Something that removes money from my pocket. By this definition from a cash flow perspective, indicate whether the following are assets or liabilities:


Car. __________

Gold. __________

TV: __________

Music System: __________

Plasma TV: __________

Place of residence: __________

Property bought for investment: _______

Property rented out, expenses more than rent

____

Property rented out, positive cash flow _______

A lot of us start with some money and never generate wealth because we buy liabilities thinking they are assets. The wealthy buy assets. Assets, which put money in their pockets, assets that increase the negotiating power, assets which bring freedom Buying assets is the secret to wealth creation. Smart people buy assets. Everybody else buys liabilities!!!!!

So let‟s look at some systematic steps that would lead to steady wealth creation in the long run: Step 1: Decide your age of financial retirement NOW. That‟s right, put down a timeline when you would not need to


work for money, your other income is taking care of all your expenses & you have a few savings left over. I will retire at the age of _______ in the year ___________________. Step 2: Buy liabilities to the extent of need, not desire. Before you plan for the future, do a quick analysis of your financial situation today.

a. You have already listed down your family‟s monthly expenses in detail – home provisions, purchases, loan EMIs, electricity, petrol, entertainment, etc.

b. Also you have already listed down your family‟s

monthly Other Income arising from your savings. c. Take a cold hard look at all those expense

figures. Ruthlessly slash all those expenses, which you feel are wasteful & unnecessary. Cut down on all spending that you can, without feeling miserable about it.

d. Now plan for your liability acquisitions in the next

few years. Clearly specify the liability that you would want to acquire e.g. if you are planning to buy a car, then visualize which car, variant, colour, accessories, etc. If you are planning to buy a house, then elaborate what location, area in square foot, floor, etc.

i. The car I want to buy will be _____________________________________

ii. The house I want to buy will be


______________________________________

iii. The diamonds I want to buy _____________________________________

Step 3: Link liability targets to asset targets. For each of the liabilities that you have chosen to acquire, link to a corresponding asset that has to be acquired first. Do this for each liability.

Liability

Corresponding Asset

B segment

Car

Rs. 1.00 L in Mutual Funds

2BHK Flat

Rs. 3.00 L in Post Office

Savings

Step 4: Plan liability acquisitions at least a year in advance. This step involves putting deadlines to every asset and liability acquisition. For every liability purchase, ask yourself – when will the seller be desperate to sell? When does this product go on sale in the next one year? Analyze sales patterns over the last two / three years to do this.

Liability

Corresponding Asset Deadline

B segment

Rs. 1.00 L in Mutual

6 months


Car Funds

2BHK Flat

Rs. 3.00 L in Post

Office Savings

12

months

Step 5: Increase cash by increasing K.A.S.H. This concept was explained to us wonderfully well by Mr. Krishnan Venkatachalam of Tata AIG General Insurance who was giving practical guidance during one of our training programs. Plan goals for next three years. Where, what role, what job responsibilities do you visualize for yourself over the next three years? How do you foresee your professional business growing over the next few years? What knowledge, skills, attitudes and habits will you need to achieve these goals? Outline a process that will get you there - job rotation, training, regular book reading, taking feedback, etc.

My One-year K.A.S.H. Goal:

____________________________________________

My 3-year K.A.S.H. Goal:

____________________________________________

Step 6:


Work smarter; make your money work harder. Increase your financial knowledge. What rate of return are you getting on your investments? What additional knowledge could you gain & thereby increase your rate of return? Investing Books to be read:

Finance Training to be attended:

Step 7: Have targets for Income & Freedom Ratio. Consolidate all the numbers into the following sheet:

I want to BREAK FREE in the year ________

Current

year Next year

Year 2

Year 5

Yr 10

A. Earnings

B. Expenses

C. Savings = A - B

D. Avg rate of return of savings

E. Other Income = D*C

F. Freedom Ratio % = E / B


So let‟s look at the benefits of being financially free: 1. Freedom to pursue our passion & dreams. 2. Much greater ability to negotiate – therefore more

bargaining power with others. 3. Less stress, more happiness. 4. Easier to pull the plug, in case things do not work

out. So becoming financially free is one of the fastest

ways of skyrocketing our productivity and moving

into a “discover your passion” role.

************************************************************

“I liked the point of linking liability targets to asset targets” said Rupali “What do you mean?” asked Abhijit, sounding suspicious. “I will buy my diamond necklace after you put Rs 5 Lakhs in mutual funds.” “Cool. Add that designer saree that you liked in that mall. By the way, what exactly are we going to do the whole day after we financially retire?” Abhijit looked at Rupali and winked. FOLLOW US ON YOUTUBE




3. Are you servicing demand or creating it?

“My boss is like a Hari Sadu nowadays. He wasn‟t like this earlier” remarked Ravi. They were sitting on top of a hill at Mahableshwar, relaxing after a two hour trek. The weather was magnificent, just the right amount of chill in the air. The whole of Mahableshwar is a forest all green and quiet. They were staying in a private bungalow at Panchgani, about ten km from the town. Abhijit‟s bank had just finished its annual regional conference of the car loan team and he had decided to extend his stay. The rest had joined in from Mumbai. Abhijit had shifted to Mumbai about six months back. He had also shifted to another private sector bank from a foreign bank. Ravi was still in his fmcg job. Rajesh had also shifted to a retail company after spending seven glorious years in telecom. Ashutosh was doing well in his financial advisory business and had grown his team to 25 people. All four had new additions to their families now with Ashutosh having a son Sidharth and a daughter Mallika. Ravi‟s son Arjun was just one year old and Abhijit and Rajesh‟s daughters were called Jayati and Tanisstha. All the kids were prancing around in the heated swimming pool of the hotel. “Hari Sadu of naukri.com fame?” “Yes. Definitely H for Hitler and A for arrogant”. “So what did he do, give you a bad appraisal?”


“Appraisal is a long long way off. It is the daily pressure that is getting to me. You know what he does; he does not give clear instructions and then keeps yelling when we don‟t deliver as per his expectations” ”Atleast you boss talks” said Rajesh. “I had one boss in my previous company who was an expert at written communication. The only communication from him was on sms or email. All feedback used to come from his Blackberry” “Wouldn‟t it be a lot easier to just pick up the phone and talk? Why write?” “My boss spends the whole day in meetings. Gives vague instructions. We are all waiting for him in the evening for clarity. Then the yelling happens from 6 to 6.30 pm every day. Then we all work till 10 pm. I am becoming this Sunday wale Daddy” “I know what you mean. You must be seeing your kids grow horizontally more than seeing them grow vertically” “I agree. These are the best years of my children‟s life and I barely get to even see them. My daughter‟s annual day coincided with my annual offsite, so I missed that. This has happened three years in a row” “But that is not anything to do with your boss” remarked Abhijit. “I agree, I could have planned this better. But what about the vague instructions part? I can‟t do anything about that” “Maybe it is easier to complain than do anything about it.”


“That‟s not true. I have tried, believe me to convince him to change, but it is useless” “Tell me how long have you been working with this so called “Hari Sadu” boss of yours” “More than three years” “And he has been like this all of three years” “No, not at all. This aspect has started only about a year back” “What changed about a year back” “Come to think of it – yes, we got a new Senior Vice President who is from outside of the industry. He has taken a lot of time to settle down in his new role. That is the fellow who keeps changing his priorities all the time” “Then in that case, it is a matter of boss management then” said Rajesh. “Why do you say that?” “I‟ll tell you what I mean. We attended a good training program on time management the other day. His classic advice was “time management is boss management”. “Tell me, how did you implement this advice?” “The trainer gave lots of good tips on how to anticipate the priorities of the organization. One thing I started implementing was to differentiate between “urgent” activities and “important activities” “Stephen Covey talks about these things in his book First things first” said Ashutosh.


“Exactly. He says we are so busy because we tend to focus on the urgent activities and tend to forget the important ones. And suddenly the important activities are remembered by the bosses and then we feel it is a question of changing priorities” “Explain please” “Think about it. Of about say ten things that your boss has told you to do this week, how many were activities which you knew that you had to do in any case” “About seven of them” “Then why does your boss need to remind you to do them” “It was the other three things that we ended up wasting time on” “Why” “Because the sky is so high. It is easy for you as a business man to ask these questions. You try working in my role. When your boss tells you to do something, you have to do that” “I have a different take on that” Rajesh interrupted. “We used to have that approach in our company till recently. You cannot disagree with the boss. Rule No 1 - Boss is always right. Rule No 2 – When in doubt, refer to Rule No 1. But in that training program, we got an idea from the trainer. He said, there is a way to say No without using the word No. He said the word No is the most blunt word in the English language, it puts off people. When your boss gives you some work and you are in the midst of a lot of work already, point that out to him. Say “I was working on the MIS report, if we do this it would delay that. When do you actually need this? It


forces the boss to make choices and be comfortable about them. Contrary to what we believe, bosses do not know what their subordinates do the whole day. On a broad level yes, but not at micro level. I mean, Ravi you handle a team of 40 people, do you know what your direct reportees are doing this very moment?” “Not really, I see your point there. Maybe I can try that out” said Ravi ”Now he has begun to realize that even he might be a Hari Sadu to some of his subordinates” joked Abhijit “We join organizations, but we quit our bosses” “I will tell you three more tips to handle time better. One is set a time to get out of office everyday half hour before the current set time. Second – understand the difference between prioritizing your schedule and scheduling your priorities. Third keep my mobile off for two hours every day.” “Keep my mobile off, you must be crazy. My team has to be able to contact me anytime of the day” “Why” “Because I need to give decisions on that” “Why do you need to give the decisions always?” “Because I am the boss, that‟s why?” “But can‟t they take decisions on their own?” “They cannot. Or don‟t” “Or you won‟t let them”


“What do you mean, I won‟t let them” “You do have a tendency to poke your nose everywhere. You poke your nose in the kitchen also. You know it drives your wife nuts” “I like things to be perfect” “Good morning, rise and shine, it‟s a beautiful day. Things never are perfect. And that‟s exactly why you are so stressed out. Switch off your mobile. Two hours every day. See what happens. Before that, train your subordinates well. They are quite smart, many times a lot smarter than we are” “I know, a great leader had once said that the only difference between us and people who are learning less than us is that we happened to be lucky enough to be born to richer parents” “We all carry notions of indispensability with us. We think we are the center of the universe; the company will collapse if we are not there. My company organizes a series of three day training programs at our Mysore training facility. First day the boys show major attitude problems – why am I being sent to this program? Send my boss, he needs the training far more than I do. Etc etc” “My entire middle management should be sent to this program” “Very good program. We cover goal setting planning, team building etc. On day one during the breaks, these guys are on their mobiles. They are all area and regional managers from our sales teams from the branches, home loans, car loans, credit cards etc. In breaks, they have 40 missed calls or so”


“Thinking they are cowboys right” “Absolutely. An interesting thing starts happening by the afternoon on Day One. The system which used to run with this guy, starts figuring out that since he is in training, he can‟t be disturbed, the system starts bypassing him. The number of calls starts to reduce. By Day two morning, calls are down to ten fifteen or so” “Day three?” “No missed calls. You should see their faces. Nobody has missed them. That‟s a wakeup call. They call up the office. All work is happening fine. Bosses are managing with subordinates. Many times productivity actually improves during that period” “Wake up Sid” “Wake up call – with a kick below the belt. That‟s where the transformation starts. If the system can run without me, then what was I doing in the system” Ashutosh, who was silent till then said “Managers work in the system, leaders work on the system” “Correct. I once heard a beautiful analogy on this. A worker sharpens his saw preparing to cut the five trees in front of him. A manager decides who will cut which group of trees” “And the leader?” “He climbs the nearest mountain and yells “wrong forest” “The problem with winning the rat race is that even after winning it, you are still a rat”


“Come on its not so bad” “I agree, I am just being cynical. I don‟t have to be positive all the time” “So true” “What was that other point you mentioned – don‟t prioritize your schedule, just schedule your priorities?” “Sounds the same to me” “It's not. Let me explain the difference. You understand this and you will understand the difference between being reactive and being proactive. Most of us react. React to colleagues, subordinates, family members, etc. These people push us for our time. We then schedule these people on our calendar. I will send you the MIS first thing tomorrow, then meet the finance team, etc.” “So what else is to be done” “Imagine nobody called you. No email. No sms. No mobile call at all” “Wow” “Now what would you do?” “I would focus on those three things that I need to do to improve my work processes. So” “That‟s it. You know your priorities, all you have to do is schedule them in your day to day calendar” “Oh now I get it. What I was doing earlier that I was only prioritizing my schedule, a schedule that had been set by someone else”


“A schedule that you allowed others to set for you” “Yes yes that I allowed others to do….” “It is only when we start scheduling our priorities that we can service demand well” “Service demand? What‟s that?” “You are thirsty. You see an advertisement for a cola. Walk to a kirana store. Ask for a cola. Shopkeeper opens the drink and hands it over to you. Has he made a sale?” “Yes, he has”. “You see advertising for a credit card. You want to buy another credit card. You call the bank‟s call center, they send a salesperson across. The person fills up the form, completes formalities and the bank sends you a card three weeks later. The salesperson collects a commission for this sale. Has he “created demand” or “serviced demand?” “Serviced demand. The demand was already there” “You walk into a restaurant. You are clear you are going to have a burger for Rs 80. Counter person asks “do you want extra cheese? Rs 10”. You say yes. He asks do you want large fries and large coke on a happy meal. You say yes to that too. He bills you for Rs 130. Has the salesperson serviced demand or created demand?” “Now he has serviced demand” “He has serviced demand for Rs 80 and created demand of Rs 50. What is the real role of every professional? Any fool can service demand; it takes a different capability to create demand for our services.”


“Very true. Some days I feel like I am running on a treadmill. Years have gone by and I am still in the same place” “Most of us working in jobs or in our own small businesses are so busy servicing demand and running from pillar to post every minute of the day, no wonder we feel so stressed out. The opportunity for growth only comes when we free some time from our daily schedules and focus on the future, how we could add more value to ourselves and our companies, only then are we creating demand, otherwise we are just busy, like on a treadmill, running hard just to stay in the same place.” “The classic burnout case. Earning lakhs of rupees, no inclination to spend it or no satisfaction from spending it” “And no spare time too. If somebody asks what you do in your spare time, response is “what spare time?” ”I was talking to one of our friends from the stock broking business. He says the guys there are simply cracking up under pressure. Market is down. Nobody trades when market is down. People only trade when the market is up. What can they do? And many of them have worked in only one industry all their lives” “What‟s common across all of us? We are all are hardworking executives who keep firefighting the whole day at work. We face lots of pressure because of our jobs, our pay packets. We want to succeed and live a life of satisfaction. But we are so busy the whole day that we have no time to think or plan or take control.” “Part and parcel of modern day living”


“Not really. See we all enjoy our jobs. Think of the stresses when we are stuck in a role we do not enjoy. Even then it is such a herculean task to manage demands on us, no wonder our friends are cracking” “We need to find the right balance then” “There are two ways to approach this issue of stress. One - stress is inevitable, it is a part of corporate life, and everybody has it. Whenever it happens, I will take a break, go on holiday, do yoga, do detoxification, etc. Two, why should stress be there at all. Stress happens because we are not in control, we feel helpless. Because we are not able to manage. Let‟s learn therefore how to manage our lives, our jobs, our bosses, our subordinates etc. Let‟s service demand well first, that‟s how we create a foundation for growth.” Let me share with you a worksheet that would get you introspecting on how you are managing your life today.

AM I AN ACE TODAY?

1. My regular time for finishing work & leaving for home is ________________________________

2. On an average, I work _________ hours every

day.

3. I would ideally like to work _________ hours every day.

4. If I could work _______ hours every day, I would

do the following activities in my spare time______________________

5. I do firefighting most of the

time_________________________


6. I use a To-Do List. ____________________

7. I follow it regularly _______________________

8. I plan a week / month / quarter / six months /

year / 5 years / more into the future. (Pl circle)

9. I have goals for my life ___________________

10. These are written down___________________

11. These goals relate to aspects of finance / career / family / health / community.

12. I evaluate my performance against these goals

regularly._______________________________

13. My daily / weekly / list of activities is generated from these goals.________________________

14. I tend to wait till the last possible moment before starting a task___________________________

15. My activities are slotted in time bands &

scheduled as per priority___________________

16. I know broadly my boss‟s weekly schedule____________

17. My boss broadly knows my weekly

schedule__________

18. My team members share their schedules with each other regularly_____________________

19. I can usually predict fires before they

happen__________


20. I effectively use waiting / travelling time to catch up on reading / follow-up or building production capability_______________________________

21. If I am absent from my workplace for a few

hours, my team‟s work get affected to a large extent? _______________________________

22. My team is dependent on me ______________

23. My mobile rings all the time _______________

24. I allow callers to interrupt me all the time_____ 25. When I am at office, I keep getting constantly

interrupted by others seeking clarifications?____

26. If I trained, delegated or standardized repetitive work, the time wasted by these interruptions would reduce____________________________

27. I do a lot of follow up on others ____________

28. Others do a lot of follow up with me _________

29. And this follow up is mostly planned /

unplanned________

30. At work, I allow others to keep interrupting me for general chitchat_______________________

31. I keep interrupting others whenever I feel

like__________

32. During this time of the day I am most productive________

33. I do my planning / creative work during the time

of the day when I am most creative_______________________________


34. When I delegate, I agree with my team members

on accountability and deadlines.____________

35. I find it difficult to say No to others__________________

36. I can disagree without being

disagreeable_____________

37. I find myself spending an inordinate amount of time doing tasks which could easily be done by others________________

38. When I delegate, I specify deliverables & give

freedom to my team members to do the task in whichever manner they seem appropriate_____

39. I can usually see 80% of my desk

__________________

40. I never have to search for any paper or mail for more than 30 seconds____________________

41. I can work on multiple tasks

simultaneously___________ “Quite thought provoking” “What did you respond to - Do you have a life other than work?” asked Ashutosh.” “OK OK, fine yaar. You play tennis twice a week, we all know that” “For this question, most of us would answer in the negative.” Said Abhijit. “We have got so involved with our work that we have forgotten that we have an identity


other than work. We say “I am a sales head, I am a stock broker, I am a trainer, I am an operations manager, I am an Area Manager, etc”. We have a time for getting into office, no fixed time however for getting out of office.” “And why is that?” “One reason could be that we have no activity to look forward to at the end of day. In the west, managers at all levels have an active sports or community life, they play tennis, football, squash, etc and they also work with charities, community development projects etc.” “My American boss plays two hours of squash every alternate day. And is also a marathon runner” “I think I could start by advancing the time I leave office by half an hour every day.” “Why only 30 minutes?” “Nowadays I leave at 9 pm. If I suddenly start leaving at 6, everybody will pounce on me- calling me a ditcher” “So advance time gradually, that‟s what you mean” “Yes, so nobody will notice. There is also a scientific reason why that action will be effective” “What scientific reason?” “Murphy‟s Law states that work expands to fill the time available for its completion. It could work like this - if you normally move out of office at 9 pm, decide to leave office at 8.30 pm from tomorrow. Do not decide to leave at 6 pm immediately as all your so called office friends will gang up on you and accuse you of not being a “team player”. Remember the idea is to change slowly but surely, steadily without disturbing the comfort zones


of others or threatening them. After two to three weeks when you have managed your schedule well, advance the time by another 30 minutes to 8 pm. Practice this schedule for two to three weeks more and within a few months you should manage your work better and others would have accepted your timings with respect.” “I think I also want to get back to my badminton game” said Rajesh “And I want to get back to reading books” “Good activities to do. There needs to be an incentive to get out of office. An enjoyable activity at home like playing with kids, is another one such activity.” “Badminton is a great game. Relaxing and also physically challenging if you find the right partners” “All this should be done with a time frame of one year. We should plan 20% of your next year, 50% of your next month and 80% of your next week at any point in time. 20% of your next year – time with family, breaks, etc. 50% of next month and 80% of next week. Why not 100%? Because priorities may change, new developments would come through. If we schedule 100% of next week, then even one change or development will upset our schedules. Scheduling 50% of next week means:

Anticipating the organization‟s priorities.

Understand boss‟s style of working and planning for the next one month.

Use a paper scheduling system or computer / mobile or Blackberry.

Schedule important activities into the month, activities which need to be done.

Put a start time and an end time for each activity.


Standardize repeated tasks – set up processes on excel or whichever software the company is using for MIS.

Identify team members to do activities that are routine in nature where no value add other than collating data is involved.”

“Where did you get all these ideas from yaar?” “I told you, it was this training program that I attended” “You people in jobs are lucky, atleast you get to attend such training programs” “Not to worry, I will send you the material; you study it at your own sweet pace” “Shall we move now, we will take atleast an hour to trek back to our cars” Handling procrastination: Most of us tend to wait till the last possible moment before we start an activity, a habit that we developed in college, studying only before the exams in the last 15 days. Procrastination – tends to build pressure and stress and causes mistakes to happen. The solution – put a start time for an activity in the To-do List. A good driver is someone who tracks traffic ahead of the vehicle in front. Most drivers are reactive; they react to the vehicle in front. Therefore they drive in jerks, starting & stopping abruptly. Good drivers however keep track of the traffic ahead. They already know what the vehicle ahead of them is going to do based on conditions ahead. So they drive more steadily without any sudden starts or stops. Corporate planning is something like that. A lot of us


complain “my boss is disorganized, he does not plan”. So what we ask. Bosses do not operate on their own, they also respond to priorities of their bosses further up. If you have been working with your existing bosses for more than three months, you should be able to analyze and spot trends and requirements in the senior leadership even before they happen. Thus one can get greater control over schedules. Thus the steps to do would be:

Keep track of the boss‟s weekly schedule.

Communicate your own fortnightly schedule – You‟ll be surprised – with all due respect, your boss does not know your weekly schedule, you are simply not that important to him.

Do the same with team members.

Study deadlines, anticipate bottlenecks, plan plan plan. Then execute in discussions with key people.

If you want to get promoted, make yourself redundant The first question HR is going to ask while thinking of promoting you is “If we promote this person to the next level, what would happen to status of work in this level”. If the answer turns out as – work will collapse, there is no one else who can handle that work, then the individual is stuck, he will never get promoted. So good time management involves identifying resources who can handle the work in your absence so you can be free to aspire higher. Some foreign banks even go to the extent of compulsorily forcing people to take leave of absence as per entitlement. This way, the organization comes to know how dependent the processes are on that particular individual. It also comes to know what tricks the manager is upto to achieve his numbers.


“Diamonds are valuable, only because they are scarce” “You can call me anytime, my mobile is always on”. These and similar statements convey the impression that:

I am always available.

I have nothing important lined up ever.

I do not value my own time. If you do not value your own time, how do you expect others to value it? Scarcity creates demand. Scarcity creates respect. Manage your own time in such a manner that when you are doing something important, no disturbances are allowed. The world will eventually respect your time. Of course the same holds true when you contact others also. Calling people, even if they are your subordinates, at 9 pm indicates a lack of respect for their family and personal time. Allowing others to interrupt you to do their jobs will result in your priorities not being met Schedule time for follow up with others, responding to other‟s requirements, time with friends, etc. Follow body clock for planning time for yourself. Most of us have a time of the day when we are most productive. Some of us are early morning types, the “early birds” who wake up at 5 am. Still others are the freshest when we start work around 0900 hours. Others are the late types, most productive at 9 to 12 pm. Whatever your peak body time, schedule the most important planning and thinking activities at this time. Be a parallel worker


The higher up the ladder we move, the more will be the demands on our time, simultaneously. As an individual contributor, one has to be focused on one activity. Whereas as a manager, there would be ten things vying for your attention all the time. Good managers learn to work on multiple things simultaneously so they are able to get many things done with subordinates. Inefficient managers work on just one or two things, end up doing them well but other work suffers because they do not pay attention to it. Thus the incomplete work gets all the negative publicity, the good work gets no credit. Different ways to do this include using waiting time during meetings, receptions, travel, airports to catch up on follow up. Explain why, then how When delegating or explaining work to others, most of us have a tendency to just explain the work without giving the other person an idea of why the work is important in the larger scheme of things. For e.g. one way could be “prepare the MIS report by 4 pm”. Same thing said differently “we need to present data to the VP at 6 pm, let‟s get the MIS report done by 4 pm” has a different impact altogether. Communicating vision and purpose reduces the need for follow up with a greater sense of involvement being built up Learn to Say NO Taking control of your life starts by saying No to others. No to others demands on your time. No to time wasters. Sounds very obvious but a lot of us find it difficult to say No to others because:


We feel we are hurting others.

Trying to be Mr. Popular, linked to the above.

Not able to be assertive.

Not able to disagree without being disagreeable. Ending up being rude with others

Geniuses DO NOT thrive on clutter Clutter wastes time. Long inboxes, long to do lists, too much filing increases search load, occupies unnecessary space and everything takes longer. Good leaders keep life simple, reduce clutter, and focus only on a few key things. Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. George S Patton When a boss gives us work, he does not yes does not expect the work to be done by you alone. If you have subordinates, this work could be shared with others. However delegation is a process that has to be learnt and practiced. The following could be used as a quick checklist every time you delegate to anybody. The more detailed the responses, the better the delegation process.

The Task

In the task that I am delegating, I am clear about:

The results I expect_________________

The resources available to do the job._______

The norms to be followed_________________

The deadline___________________________

http://allthebestquotes.com/author/patton.htm


The other people that would also be involved.

The Person: I have considered the following about the person I am delegating it to:

Ability to do the job. Willingness. Current workload. Future capability required. Current role type.

The Process of Delegating: When I explained the activity to the person, I took care to:

Explain why the task was being delegated. _________________________________________

Describe the end result expected & how it fits into the big picture.

_________________________________________

Discuss plan of action, resources available, scope of decision-making authority

_________________________________________

Agree on regular & control measures. _________________________________________

Taken feedback regularly _________________________________________

Appreciated the effort of subordinate, reviewed learnings.

_________________________________________


IS THE TIME RIGHT? Consider the following situations at work. Mark whether you feel that the situation is such that delegation would be appropriate or not.

1. My top subordinate wants my job and is eager to push me out of it.

2. I am not very good at planning & coordination.

3. I am the first one into the office and usually the

last one to leave.

4. We do so much of fire fighting around here that there is no time to plan.

5. Some job openings are coming up next year, at

the next level up from where I am now.

6. Nobody around here has any commitment to work.

7. I am overloaded with work, and the task is such

that if it goes wrong, it will mean serious consequences for the entire project.

8. The job market is good, lots of my subordinates

have moved on for greener pastures & I have also received calls from headhunters.

9. If I delegate my work & the department functions

well without me, I will end up making myself redundant.

10. My work is sensitive, if I delegate it, can I trust

my subordinates to keep it confidential.


11. I am the only one who can do this job so well.

12. My boss is the type of person who expects me

to personally do the work he has given.

13. I am a highly detail oriented person; I personally check each & every work done by my subordinates.

14. I believe people are good for nothing and need

to be kicked else they will simply goof off. 15. I am a management whiz kid; I have identified

the 20% of my job that will give me visibility and growth.

16. At all times, I must know every detail about

every task, just in case my bosses ask. 17. I am the most important person in the group; my

absence leads to the workflow simply collapsing. 18. The culture in our department is such that

subordinates usually take their problems to the bosses, who come up with solutions, which the subordinates implement.

19. I am a perfectionist. I subscribe to the belief – if

you want something done right – do it yourself! For solutions to the above exercise, read on: My top subordinate wants my job and is eager to push me out of it There cannot be a better reason to delegate. An insecure person would say – here is a fellow who is out to take my job, I need to control him. A secure fellow


would celebrate – “I have found my replacement”. As already discussed earlier, the first question HR is going to ask when they think of promoting you is “who will replace this guy?” I am not very good at planning & coordination. Good delegation requires planning and coordination for different tasks. Meaning after a task is broken down into different sub tasks, these could be allocated to different team members. The accountability for output still however rests with the manager. Therefore the manager has to necessarily know planning well, he has to coordinate and allocate resources. If the manager is not good in these skills, he needs to learn these skills first, till then no delegation should be done, he should manage the task himself. I am the first one into the office and usually the last one to leave. Typical language of arrogance. Or a clear case of overwork and an exaggerated sense of one accomplishment in the organization. The first thing we were taught when we did some training work for Levers was “soaps used to sell before you came along, soaps are selling now that you are here, soaps will continue to sell well after you are gone”. Workaholics have a disease and they need to understand it. This tendency to work till late in the night could be traced to many things – fear, insecurity or even a genuine belief that we are indispensable to the company. If you really think that the work will collapse if you are not around, take this challenge – Take a break from work for 7 days. They would probably miss you for two or three days, and then split up your job amongst two or three others


and life goes on. 5 days later, you would not even be missed. We do so much of fire fighting around here that there is no time to plan. Classic chicken and egg situation. You need to do firefighting because you do not plan. Start the planning process for activities due about two to four weeks hence. Initially the workload would increase, but as people get more trained and learn to anticipate bottlenecks, the fire fighting would reduce. Some job openings are coming up next year, at the next level up from where I am now. Perfect time to plan career moves with subordinates. Sit with your team explain the way the role is changing and lay out clearly the expectations. Chart out clearly what skills need to be developed and over what time frame. Nobody around here has any commitment to work. I am the only one who can do this job so well. I believe people are good for nothing and need to be kicked else they will simply goof off. I am a perfectionist. I subscribe to the belief – if you want something done right – do it yourself! Mr. Arrogance all over again. All the above statements are indicators of attitude problems. People behave the way we expect them to behave. The world behaves like a photocopying machine; it behaves exactly when we want it to. This is what is called “a self fulfilling prophecy” It works like this – if we expect subordinates to goof off, we will tend to track them closely, we will tend to micromanage them. Employees will resent the micromanagement and switch off. Whereas if we trust employees to do a good job, we will


coach them better and give them freedom to operate. Employees will learn, put their best effort and ask for help in case of problems. Overall they will work with their hearts and do their best to reciprocate the faith we place on them. Thus these statements are the starting point for influencing and generating responses from the world. Since all these statement assume the worst, they actually bring about below par responses. Hence the issue is not with the world, the area for improvement clearly exists in the person carrying such assumptions about other people. I am overloaded with work, and the task is such that if it goes wrong, it will mean serious consequences for the entire project. Bad time to delegate. Delegation requires effort and application. And most important - time. Subordinates take time to learn and develop. Initially things will go wrong and it is important to protect subordinates from the consequences of bad work. If the work is critical therefore delegation is not recommended initially. The job market is good, lots of my subordinates have moved on for greener pastures & I have also received calls from headhunters. Train your back up now. If you leave and the work collapses, you would unnecessarily get blamed in your absence. Who knows, you might need a reference from here later, always better to not burn bridges. If I delegate my work & the department functions well without me, I will end up making myself redundant.


Immediately go to HR and ask them to promote you. Because you have done your job as a leader exceedingly. To train and develop others so that the work functions equally well without you. My work is sensitive, if I delegate it, can I trust my subordinates to keep it confidential. If you do not trust your subordinates, they should not be in the company at all. People do keep secrets at every level. The key question is – do you trust them or not? My boss is the type of person who expects me to personally do the work he has given. Then better do it yourself. Build a climate of delegation first, and then do the activity I am a highly detail oriented person; I personally check each & every work done by my subordinates. With this approach, you are unlikely to succeed at delegation. Because delegation means the work would be done by people less qualified than you are. That means some mistakes would happen. Your tendency to pay attention to detail would put more stress on your team members who would eventually hesitate to take more responsibility. At all times, I must know every detail about every task, just in case my bosses ask. Doesn‟t your boss have better things to do? With this behaviour he cannot really be your role-model.


All this is fine, but this is all theoretical, very difficult to do this practically!!! I am sure some of you by now must be thinking, this all I know, but I am not able to apply all this. Why? Conceptually, none of the ideas mentioned in this book so far are new, they have been handed down the ages. The point is not in knowing what is to be done, but in applying these principles into our day to day lives. Ravi has paid the annual membership for the gym and health club about three months back. How many times has he gone? A total of three times in the last six months!!. Rajesh smokes about 10 cigarettes a day. He has given up smoking. 14 times in the last four years. Every New Year’s resolution is “I will stop smoking”. By Jan 7th, he has restarted smoking. Nowadays his philosophy in life is “I don’t smoke any more, I don’t smoke any less”. It is very difficult to give up smoking. Jinesh used to love reading books. Still does. There was a time he used to read one book every week. Now he remembers the last book he read was three years back. He regrets not being able to have the time to enjoy books. Preetam Salvi is a very dedicated Area Sales Manager working in a consumer goods company. During every monthly review meeting his main focus used to be to get his Sales Officers to focus on one new product and try and place it in as many outlets in his territory as possible. They used to do it for two to three months, after that the initiative used to fizzle out. His challenge – how to get his people to do these simple tasks on a regular basis.


Bhushan Lawande, the CEO of E4, the training company of Eureka Forbes has this rule called “Power of One” We used to cover this in detail in our training programs at fmcg companies. Every day sell to one more outlet than what you sold during the last beat and at each outlet sell one more SKU (stock keeping unit) than what you sold last time. The overall impact on sales can be a growth of over 20% over a period of time. Bhartendu Kapoor is one of the senior leaders at Mahindra and Mahindra’s Auto Sector. His simple rule – reply to every mail received by end of day. Simple rule to understand, should be easy to follow right? Beneficial – reduces clutter, good for taking quick decisions. To the best of my knowledge, Bhartendu is the only one who is following this rule. Why can’t the others do this too? What‟s the pattern here? Everybody knows exercise is good for health. Why do so few of us exercise regularly? Not because we don‟t know the benefits of exercise, but because we are not disciplined enough. Everybody knows it is good to read books for mental stimulation. How many of us read books regularly? In the home of every rich man you will find a library. Question to introspect on – what came first, the library or the wealth? Undoubtedly the library. Great leaders are “voracious readers”. They devour books regularly. We know all this. How much do we apply all this? They say only one out of hundred people buys books. Of those, only one in ten goes beyond the first chapter. So if you start reading books, you are already one in a thousand. There is no competition. We know all this. So why don‟t we apply? What is the reason?

Because I am too busy.

Because my work timings are too long.


Because I sleep late.

Because I wake up late.

I have no time.

My wife will not allow me to do this.

My boss will not allow this

My kids will not allow this.

My parents would not be OK with this……….. Psychologists tell us that human beings are more motivated out of fear of loss than out of desire for gain. They say out of 10 people who give up smoking, 9 restart within a week. However out of 10 people who give up smoking after a heart attack, only 3 restart. When do human beings change? When we get a “dhakka” or “danda”? The root question to ask is “Are we serious about changing ourselves? Then let‟s discuss a technique called reward and punishment where we apply psychology on ourselves. All we have to do is – decide on a specific action plan – personal or professional – that we want to bring in ourselves and link the doing and not doing of that action plan to a personal reward and punishment. Say for e.g. you love watching movies on weekends. Then an action plan could be: I will watch a movie at a mall over the weekend only after I exercise 5 times this week. In one of our training programs, we came across a fellow who wanted to quit smoking. His action plan was: Every time I light up a cigarette, I will give hundred rupees to a beggar.


Try this. Our friend did this. Rs 2500 poorer after a week, we suggested he increase the payout to Rs 500 per cigarette. He stopped smoking the next day. The technique of reward and punishment works because there is a psychological basis to it, the concept of personal reward and punishment. The ability to postpone gratification is power Some more examples of this technique applied to personal and professional lives:

I will buy the fancy mobile phone after I achieve a 50% increase in sales.

I will buy a suit for myself after I reduce collections outstandings from 90 days to 45 days.

I will spend time with friends over the weekend only after I go to the gym four times a week.

If I am not able to achieve my no of cold calls a day, I will not drink tea that day.

I will buy the bike after I achieve a 200% increase in sales nos this quarter.

So what is servicing demand? It is managing the work that we are expected to do in our roles in the organization. If and only if do we do this well, do we stand a possibility of being considered for higher roles in the company. After we start servicing demand well and have time left over that we can start looking at creating demand for our services.


Creating demand is looking towards the future, visualizing the role that we would like to do in the future and getting the world to put us in that role.






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4. Discover a new possibility - creating demand.

Life had turned topsy turvy for Abhijit Joshi ever since his Head of Human Resources had resigned about three months back. Abhijit was heading the Branch Banking operations for his bank and his CEO had called him up at 9 pm to ask him just one question. “When could you take additional charge of human resources?” And Abhijit would do anything for his CEO Thomas Watson. Little did Abhijit know what he was getting into. The next three months Abhijit clocked more air miles than in the previous ten years of his corporate life. Ten days into the job, his CEO gave him a brief “Abhijit, the Board is getting worried about twp things this year. One - the tremendous attrition at middle levels in the organization has severely depleted our Leadership Pipeline. We have lost six Regional Managers over the last three months, three in your business alone. Do something about it. Second the board is very worried about customer satisfaction. Customers are complaining like anything and many of them write to the board with complaints. We have got to stop making so many mistakes. We have got to get things right the first time. Abhijit remembered the meeting he had with his Head of Distribution Sales Sachin Joglekar on why productivity is so poor. “You want to know why our Unit Managers struggle. We first hire star performers who are basically individual


contributors. Then we put them into the role of a Unit Manager give them thirty agents and give them sales targets. Individually they can by themselves sell 12 policies a month. But we want them to get their agents to sell four policies each month. That‟s how their targets become 100 to 120 policies a month. The good ones sell over 150 to 200 a month. The bad ones sell barely 40 to 50 a month. That‟s how the pressure starts”. “Something like a great batman not necessarily being a great captain” “Exactly” “So what would you suggest?” “Ideally I would like less pressure. But that‟s like me asking a lion not to eat me just because I am a vegetarian” “That‟s funny” “It‟s not funny to the boys when every idiot in the system keeps asking for target achievement” “But they are good salespeople, right. So why is it so difficult?” “That‟s like saying every bowler should be a great batsman because since he bowls he understands how the ball is going to go. They need additional coaching on how to plan, analyze strengths and areas for improvements. Also coaching skills” “So you are talking about Leadership Development then?” “Yes, but the way we look at Leadership Development is different. We consider only the top 30 people as


leaders and send them to Executive programs at the IIMs or foreign universities” “We don‟t have budgets to send nine hundred people to these courses” “I am not asking for an IIM course. Why don‟t you and your team design them? You have the capability in-house, your team is strong. You are a Business Head also, you understand the challenges, and you know the issues.” “Thanks for the compliment, but I think we could use some external help here. Branch Banking is different, there is a particular profile to be managed. Sales is another cup of tea altogether” “Whatever, you decide, I just want some in-depth customized Leadership training at this role before we throw them into the deep end.” Abhijit was intrigued by this idea of Leadership development and called up Professor Raghunath from IIM Bangalore. The professor heard him out and asked “first of all congratulations on your new role. Let me make sure I understand your problem better. You are saying that when we promote a star salesman to the role of a sales manager, we often not only lose a star salesman, but we also get a lousy sales manager” “Yes” “Tell me, how do you handle promotions within the company?” “The usual process I guess. We have a pretty elaborate appraisal system with targets and each manager is measured for achievement of these targets”


“These are sales targets for the past period” “Sometimes they measure processes also” “And how do you decide who gets promoted?” “The best performers are interviewed by the Senior HR team and the CEO and selected for the next higher role” “No wonder you are having problems” “Why” “The assumption you are making that if a person is successful at one level he will automatically be successful at the next level. Have you heard the term – reward for performance, promote on potential” “I have. What are you implying?” “That rewards are only for current performance. Just because a person is good in a particular level, does not mean he will be a star at the next level” “Give me an example” “For your star performers, send them to Goa or South east Asia or Europe. But run the promotion process as a separate exercise in the form of an assessment center” “An assessment center?” “An assessment center is an exercise done to measure competencies in an individual. Competencies are defined as the knowledge, skills and attitudes required to be possessed by an individual to perform roles within a company. They can be developed of course through training, job rotation, coaching etc”


“Wait a minute. Competencies are for roles. Which means a junior manager will need to have a set of competencies, a middle level manager will need to have a different set of competencies and so on” “Absolutely. Read up on leadership books. Especially on GE. There are excellent books on GE that elaborate the concept of leadership pipelines. Authors like Ram Charan are considered experts in their field. Read The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan” “I will. Ok I guess I have taken enough of your time. Let me do a little research, and then I will call you back” “All the best. Take care” One month later, Abhijit had read eleven books on leadership. His wife, Rupali had started getting suspicious with his night time readings. Abhijit was getting more and more worried about his company‟s methods of leadership development. He knew very clearly that the current promotion approach would have to be dramatically altered to create better leaders. He now realized that there were a huge number of over promoted people in the system. And he realized with regret that he was partially responsible for the problem, he himself had forced HR to promote some of his stars, who had been unable to duplicate the success they had given in their earlier roles. He decided to talk to his friends in other companies across the country to get their ideas. His first call was to Suresh, Head of Sales for a services company. “Hi Suresh, how‟s you?” “Good da. How are you doing?”


“Great. I am actually calling for a specific reason. We are exploring some alternatives to make our leadership development process more robust and scientific. You got a few minutes to talk about this?” “Sure. We ourselves are looking at different ways to do this better. What are you guys up to?” “Tell me, how exactly did you study the job roles of people at the junior and middle levels?” “Simple. Observation. Study of star performers and exit interviews” “And what did you discover?” “A star salesman is in the role of an individual contributor. His success comes from his own efforts of selling, planning etc. When he does well, we used to promote him and give him people to manage” “OK” “The biggest shock in the life of an employee comes when he moves from an individual contributor role to the role of a manager.” Suresh said. His role now changes from doing to managing i.e. ensuring that the job is done, knowing himself to ensuring that his team has the knowledge and the role changes from doing to leading and identifying gaps and bottlenecks.” “So coaching subordinates for growth becomes critical” “It does. So does ensuring that norms and discipline is maintained.” “And what specific behaviours get displayed?” “Individual contributors who have got promoted into a new role tend to do the same things that made them


successful. They continue to be action oriented “doers”. However, the role change now means that they have to learn new skills and ways of working to manage their teams. Teams which may be of people who are different from them, maybe lesser or more academic qualifications or even older. Some of them are able to manage the transformation, many are not.” “And what happens when they are unable to manage the transformation?” “They end up competing with their subordinates.” “Competing with their subordinates?” “Exactly, they only spend time with their best people. Their average and below par team members are ignored and feel neglected.” “How does this competitive behavior show up?” “When they go on joint calls, the boss takes control. You can‟t sell; I will show you how to sell” “This must surely affect the manager‟s productivity” “Immediately. The Manager is unable to achieve his targets. In effect, the Sales Manager is effectively behaving like an individual contributor. Now somebody still has to do the Manager‟s job. That job now gets done by his boss the Regional Manager.” Said Suresh “And then the chain reaction starts” “The Regional Manager‟s role which is supposed to be operational and strategic now becomes only operational. The strategic part of the role remains undone.”


“Therefore a weak First Time Manager effectively pulls down the entire organization by ensuring that everybody is working one level below what they are being paid to do. Which means if the first managerial level does not do its job well, even someone in your role gets affected” said Abhijit “So how do you manage this whole leadership pipeline?” “Reward for performance, promote on potential. What this means is that if a salesperson does a great job, he is simply to be paid more.” “When does he get promoted?” “He gets promoted only when he shows some of the qualities of the next level. Further grooming and handholding in the form of training needs to be done before we introduce them into the new role. Sometimes we give him a trial role before giving him a permanent position” On his way back home that night Abhijit thought about what he had heard today. Reward for performance, promote on potential. That was radical. How could he get his managers to agree to that? And what exactly do we mean by potential? How does one measure it? If I ask ten people in my company, I would probably get ten different answers. “Daddy, play with us” his kids Mallika and Sidharth squealed in delight as soon as Abhijit stepped into the house. “Where is your momma?” Abhijit enquired about his wife. “Mummy is reaching home in ten minutes” said Mallika. Sidharth had already laid out the coins for his favourite game Connect 4. They had already played


three games when his wife Rupali entered the house. “Hi, How was your day?” “Tiring” both replied together. Abhijit thought about his action plan for the next day. “I have to put my team on the job immediately. The Steering committee meeting was just twenty days away. “In my previous company we had designed a program “First Time Manager” which we was designed to prepare individual contributors to successfully manage the transition to a managerial role. “said Neelmani Singh, one of his best VPs. “This program was mandated across the system and ran for four days.” Abhijit was sitting with his HR team on their Monday morning meetings. His team consisted of two VPs Neelmani Singh and Vikram Bector and six AVPs and senior managers Pradyot Singh, Shailesh Rawal, Sanjivani Sadani, Abhishek Taliwal, Ajay Aurora and Nikhil Mathur “How was the objective of the program defined?” asked Sanjivani. “Motivation, goal setting, planning, team work and coaching” “Isn‟t that too much to cover in one program” remarked Vikram. “There was a module on each of these topics. We did not go into depth, just an overview. This was more like a flagship program, to create a training culture within the company” “I think before we get into training programs, let‟s get the foundation set?” said Abhishek Taliwal who had been sitting quiet till now. “What do you mean foundation?”


“well first let‟s be clear what we want in out First Time Managers. For that we will have to take the buy in of the six business heads. Then we sit down and brainstorm a competency profile and present it to all of them. Then we design a six month to one year transition role after they which they would be inducted into the managerial role.” “OK Vikram why don‟t you along with Abhishek and Nikhil quickly work out a plan for meeting the six business heads. Neelmani, you start work on the competency profiling, you seem to be familiar with this. “ “What about nomination lists? We should have atleast two thousand five hundred people that should go through this program?” “Yes” said Abhijit “Pradyot and Shailesh, you two start working on the nominations and the infrastructure. We will need decent hotels across the metros. You guys work it out” “Neelmani and Vikram, let‟s talk for some more time, I want to share with you what the boss expects from us” “Yes sure, let me just postpone one of my meetings. Be back in five minutes” “What was the philosophy of these training programs that you ran in your previous company?” “Creating demand” “Meaning?” “Servicing demand is doing your existing job well. After that a junior leader creates demand for his services. How? By observing the way his company is being run.


Are we fighting the same fires every day? Is manpower allocation appropriate? Do we knowingly ship out lousy quality products & work every day?” “Trying to get people to think like owners and not just workers in the company?” “Absolutely. He looks upwards and starts to understand the role of his boss and super boss. What do they do the whole day? What do they get paid for? And he sets a goal to develop skills and knowledge to move into that new higher role in a few months.” “But won‟t we have a problem if we raise expectation very high and cannot meet them. I mean, we can‟t make everybody a vice president” “My company used to operate on a concept like employability. We knew we could not make CEOs out of everybody, so we said lets develop them to such an extent that even if we are not able to offer them challenging roles, they could get jobs outside and meet those challenges” “That‟s why today 90% of marketing people are from my earlier company” “That they are. Let‟s have a vision to create that kind of employer branding for our company in the financial services industry” “There is one more agenda to work on. Boss has asked for an action plan for the customer service mess also” Both Neelmani and Vikram groaned. “Can‟t we do this first and take that up as the next phase, say six months later”


“Why don‟t you tell that to the boss?” joked Abhijit. “No choice, the problem as we know is serious. It cannot wait six months for a solution.” “We had a similar issue with one of our service businesses. I can manage this” said Vikram “How do we start the process? “The problem is not in our front end. It is in the back end” “We all know that. How do you intend to address it?” asked Abhijit “We have traditionally practiced the art of customer service for the entire organization. We need to extend this concept to us as professionals working in an organization even as employees.” “Let me email you an exercise that we used. It brings out the concept of internal customer through a series of brainstorming discussions”

PRODUCTIVITY FROM THE CUSTOMER’S PERSPECTIVE

1. My Role in the organization: ____________________________

2. My Customers are:

a. ___________________________ b. ___________________________ c. ___________________________ d. ___________________________

Abhijit read a part of it, looked up and asked “If I understand this correctly, if you are a sales officer or


channel manager, your immediate customers would be your distributors, dealers, channel members, etc.” “Precisely. That everybody knows. But are these the only customers you have? If we expand the definition of customers to include “all people who I need to serve well, so that I can be productive in my job”.

“Then so many other people come into the picture”. “They would also be your colleagues working in accounts, supply chain or logistics functions. Your boss is also your customer. That‟s right. Very difficult to think like this especially when you are having conflict with your bosses. Your employees are also your customers. One of the finest examples of this is Narayana Murthy when he said “my employees are my greatest assets. Every evening my assets go home. I don‟t know whether they are going to come back the next day. They will do that only when I take good care of them”. Others have said “take care of your employees, and your employees will take care of your customers”.” “He is a true inspiration”

“If you are in the finance or accounts team, then your vendors would also be your customers. If you are in supply chain or logistics, then your transporters are your customers. If you are in human resources, then your front line employees are your customers.” “OK so this part clarifies who all are my customers. Then what happens?” “Next step is to understand clearly when will my customers say that I am doing a good job? Critical features refer to what is important to the customer. Current performance is an indicator of how well we are doing on this parameter today. Goal refers to the target


level for this measure to be achieved in the next quarter. For e.g. for a vendor, critical feature would be payments, measure would be no of days, current performance could be sixty days and goal would be ten days.”

Critical Features / Current performance / Goal / Customer Priority

_____________ ________________ _____

“And this performance measure has to be met consistently, else it is useless” “And the only way that can happen is when the processes are strong. Which means this program has to be followed by an initiative on how to design and implement better processes” “Designing is simple, it is the implementation that is the key part” “What all points did these discussions throw up? Give me some examples” “Sure. Take an example of accounts. An accounts manager would ask - when will my front line employees say that I am doing a great job? It boiled down to just one thing – how quickly my travelling expenses get reimbursed (salaries were on time here). In reality travelling expenses were being reimbursed 60 days late. No wonder customer satisfaction scores were poor.” “How about the channel partner?” “If your customer is a channel partner, he would say you are doing a good job when you send him stocks as per order, process his claims on time and add value to him


when the ASM visits him. Now if you dump stocks on him which he is unable to sell, or generally put pressure on him for sales without any value add, very poor customer service is being provided.” “And how exactly can we link all this to the leadership process?” “If you are the boss and you look at your subordinates as your customers, when would your employees say that you are doing a great job? When you inspire, guide, motivate. When you provide learning and growth. They say we join organizations, but we quit bosses. When your employees joined, they did so on the basis of the company‟s reputation, its brand name, the perception they carried of the office etc. after they join, their opinion of the company is formed on the basis on little daily interactions with you the boss. And if that experience is not energizing to your subordinate (your customer, yes), then this customer is going to walk away. It is therefore the job of leaders also to keep their employees and subordinates happy.” “And all this has to happen consistently” “That is the final point of the exercise. We drill down to a handful of tasks that each person needs to do on a consistent basis to achieve these superb results”

4. For me as a service provider, to be able to consistently deliver superior performance on these features on a monthly, fortnightly, weekly & daily basis, the critical activities that I need to focus on are:

a. __________________________________________ b. __________________________________________


c. __________________________________________ “Processes are day to day activities done regularly repeatedly over a period of time. For e.g. if I wanted to regularly inspire my people, what do I need to do:

Share company vision on a regular basis. Do a once a month meeting for this.

Have brainstorming sessions to get ideas.

Eliminate repetitive, no value added work.

Have an offsite or picnic every six months.” “That was his indirect method of telling me, we all have been working quite hard and need to go on an offsite now. Nothing doing. No offsite until we make some progress on these two issues.” “So how do we move on this then?” “We need to bring in a day to day operations angle to all this. One of the things my colleagues and I complain about is the data that we get. Anything that can be done here” “Of course. If my boss is my customer and my customer wants data in a structured fashion every week collected from across the nation, then a process I need to follow is to create formats where the data is punched in regularly. Another excel sheet or other software can then perform the analysis quickly. If I do not do this as a process, then it means late nights and fire fighting for all.” 5. What is my plan for performing these critical activities?

A. Estimate the amount of time required to perform

these critical activities.


B. Schedule these activities into the monthly, weekly & daily planner.

C. Establish targets to measure whether these

activities have been productive or not.

“The Steering Committee meets in two weeks now. We need to get this entire thing designed and ready to roll out in two weeks”

“Consider it done” said Vikram

6. Finally, I would like to visualize the benefits of doing these five steps:

By understanding my role in the organization, the expectations of my customer & what critical activities I need to do consistently to deliver superior service, I can visualize the following benefits coming my way:

Therefore Creating demand involves:

Thinking beyond the present.

Visualizing a future state of being for the organization – setting goals.

Aligning others to that vision.

Ensuring the vision is achieved through strong processes.


Reaping the rewards of doing all this by career success.

J J Irani had said - Vision without action is dreaming, action without vision means you are just working hard, vision & action together take you all the way to the top.

“Our main challenge here is alignment” “Agreed. Getting the yes from the Steering Committee should not be a problem if we design this well. But this will really pick up speed in the organization when we are able to link the organizational goal to personal goals. “The biggest personal benefit would be that we will all be able to go home earlier” “We need to link all this to process and personal goals. Like reducing customer complaints by 50%. Or reducing time taken to open new accounts to two days from the current 16 days.”

“Managers who achieve these gains for their processes should be rewarded well. They should therefore see a big jump in their incomes”

The real benefit of goals comes when we have them written down; else they are just a wish. Written goals keep us charged up, ensure commitment and accountability to self and serve as reminders.

Some areas of life where goal setting works?

Finance - I will earn Rs. 1.50 lakhs per month by March 2014 Career - I will handle Mumbai area and lead a team of 20 people by March 2008


Health - I will lose 2 kgs every month for the next six months Family - I will take my family out for one picnic every month. Community - I will spend four hours every fortnight doing society work. THE S.M.A.R.T. GOAL SETTER Focus on what you want, not what you don‟t want My SMART (Specific / Measurable / Achievable / Realistic / Time-Bound) goal in the area of Finance / Career / Family / Health / Community ______________ I will enjoy the following benefits by successfully achieving this goal. ____________________________________________ The critical activities I need to perform within set deadlines to achieve my goal: ____________________________________________ The barriers to productivity (my own habits / other people / unexpected events, etc) that I need to guard against:

Abhijit looked around the room at the sixteen suits seated against a U shaped table. They had reached this beach side resort yesterday evening. This was the Steering committee meeting that happened once every six months. They had given him exactly 45 minutes, more than enough he felt, to present a leadership pipeline plan for the company and a method to improve customer service. Neelmani and Vikram along with their teams had worked tirelessly for the last twenty days designing, arguing, brainstorming, presenting,


convincing. Thrashing out the plan till it was acceptable to all. He noticed his boss, the CEO Thomas Watson give him the thumbs up. “Good morning ladies and gentlemen ……………………….”


There is no job more important for a leader than to invest time and money in

developing future leaders

“I have a feeling, if we cut this guy loose within the company, he will transform the sales organization within a year” remarked Abhijit. Thomas Watson replied „he is already doing that”. A lot had happened in the last three years…….. The Steering Committee had given the go ahead to the Leadership Pipeline project with some small modifications. The private equity representative on the board was useful in connecting them to a Business consultant who clarified the thought process well. They had rolled out the first pilot two months later. Job roles had been clarified and the business was rolled in to execute some of the sessions. The company had invested in a state of the art Leadership Institute at Mahableshwar with 150 rooms, 12 conference halls and state of the art video conferencing and training aids. Thomas Watson, the CEO himself made it a point to take atleast two sessions every month here. And Abhijit himself used to spend an average of four days at the Institute. Within a year, complaints had dropped by 90% and employee surveys reported a huge jump in satisfaction. Thomas Watson had moved to Singapore as Chairman of a telecom conglomerate a year back. Abhijit had got promoted to Business Head of Branch Banking. But he had also got somewhat bored of doing the same job. Banking was getting monotonous; he needed a new


industry to challenge him. He knew everybody else in the industry. Most of his counterparts in other banks had been his colleagues before. They were sitting in his 27th floor office at Eagle towers in Nariman Point. The subject of discussion was Sandeep Tadkare, the National Sales head for the telecom company. “Sandy” as he was known had joined from a European consumer durable major where his region had reported not only the highest sales buy also the highest EBITDA for three years in a row. He had barely been around for two months when he made clear his complete disgust at the discounting culture that existed in the industry. “Any fool can sell on a discount and most fools do exactly that.” Was his famous remark made at the annual conference where the star sales performers were being rewarded.” “He went on to describe how the process of discounting is practiced in the business. First the senior executive would go to the customer. He had a limit of 10% which he would offer upfront. In effect he would completely strip. When he had nothing more to offer, he would then take his boss. Ensure that that boss also stripped. The boss also gives the additional 10% which he had the power to. Now that both of them were completely naked in front of the customer, they had to do something about it. So they take the VP to the customer and strip the VP also. VP gives additional 10% discount. Customer gets 30% discount and gets to watch a “cabaret” free. No wonder he enjoys every minute of it.” “Incidentally all the star performers who came up to receive awards had been doing exactly that”.


Sandy continued at the conference “We have a trend now of MBAs from institutes learning about marketing, brand, Philip Kotler etc for two years and then in the first ten years of their corporate lives discounting their way to glory. And this is when all MBAs know how discounting destroys the brand. Any fool can sell at a discount. It takes knowledge; it takes a different capability to sell on value” “I must say I agree with him” said Thomas. “Our margins are under pressure, the analysts are screaming and the stock is down 40% from where it was a year back” “Six new competitors have come in the last four months” “Still, let‟s not dismiss Sandy. He knows what he is doing; let us give him a free hand. Find out what he wants to do, then cut him loose. We have accumulated a lot of baggage over the years”. Abhijit called Sandy over for a long discussion on Saturday. “What do you want to do?” “I have worked in six companies in the last 14 years and believe me we have in this company the worst sales force around”. Abhijit could not help smiling. “The brand is quite strong” “That is no excuse for the sales team to be so pathetic” “What do you have in mind?”


“They are so used to selling on discounts, that they don‟t even think there is anything wrong in giving 30% discounts. They lie to customers, they make false promises and their presentation skills are appalling” “So what do you propose we modify?” “Not modify. Change. Remove. Throw away. We need a completely new sales approach. An approach that is based on communicating value to the customer” “Value based selling. What would be different?” “Value for money = Value divided by money. Is a hazy fraction in the customer‟s mind? When the customer asks for a discount, what is the customer really asking for? A reduction in the denominator, so the fraction fits.” “Go on” “What does a superior salesperson do? Build value – increase the numerator so the fraction fits in.” “How do we operationalise that?” “Before we get into details, let‟s talk about what exactly is the role of a salesperson? What selling is not? It is not making a fool of the customer. It is not confusing the customer. It is not about getting a cheque out of the customer only once. It is not discounting your way to the national awards.” Abhijit did not know whether to laugh or to cry. This was a damning indictment about the way the sales team sold. Sandy was not finished “It is not standing at the bottom of the building and begging “sir, I am in the area, pl


meet me please please……… It is not following up to the point where they stop picking up your calls – fine line between being persistent and becoming a pest. It is not getting 70% of the sales in the last six days of the month. It is not running around all over the place without any focus.” “To make them understand better what selling is, let‟s talk about why do people buy products and services?” “Proceed” “A man felt hungry after working in the market for six hours. He goes to a restaurant, grabs a burger. Why? An organization is hiring people, it needs new office furniture. It contacts salespeople, gets quotations and decides on a vendor. Why? Because there is a need.” “Yes. So” “People buy when they have a need, a problem. They look for solutions to problems. They wish to solve these problems by using the services and products that we sell. We go to movies because we are bored, we want some excitement. We eat because we are hungry. We use mobiles because without them we have communication problems. We use laptops because we have a need to present our ideas better. We use cars to address our need to be comfortable. Every purchase of a product or service happens because we have a need.” “Yes. And?” “What we need to get into their DNA is that selling is the process of identifying expressed and unrealized needs and providing an appropriate solution. Customers see value when our solution addresses their needs.”


“So what do we mean by value based selling?” “That sale is a process. A systematic, consistent process – not about month ends” A basic point to remember is that sales is a process, a set of simple predictable measurable activities that need to be done on a regular basis. Every day, every week and every month. “The sales process. We don‟t use that word too often around here. Our guys are cowboys” “Exactly. Another term for cowboys are what we call month-end salespeople. That is – first week of every month, they would usually be relaxed, not much work happening, second week of the month the first “danda” goes across the system. That‟s when salespeople start moving into the field. By the third week threats go out into the system, “guys start justifying your existence”. By now the sales team is all charged up, fourth week the sales team is all on fire and 70% of the monthly sales come in the last six days of the month. This month end sales pattern happens in so many companies.” “You forgot the month end wild party to celebrate this whole series of steps” “Is it justified? Is there a consumer buying pattern that justifies this spike at the end of month? It happens in soaps & cosmetics.. Do we have a bath more often at the end of month than at the beginning of the month? It happens in telecom. Do we buy mobiles more often at the end of the month than at beginning of month? It happens in cars. Ah here there is a year end, a depreciation benefit available that could distort the consumer behaviour. It happens in insurance. Do we buy insurance more at the end of month? It happens in mutual funds. Do we invest more at the end of month than at the beginning of the month? Are we nuts?”


“I see your point. These are therefore artificial distortions in sales patterns brought about by inefficient salespeople” “Our cricket team is also like this. They tend to play only during the last few overs. T20 is probably the best thing that could have happened because it forces them to play well throughout the 20 overs. This habit of working harder closer to a deadline starts off from our college days. We knew there was an exam happening six months later. First four months what do we do – nothing. Fifth month is spent in understanding the syllabus, who attended classes, photocopying notes. Last 15 days is spent in some crazy studying, trying to mug some outdated concepts. And still we all get a first class!!.” “You are like a breath of fresh air. Have you discussed this with your regional managers. What is their take on this?” “Not yet, I think I will announce the plan next week and roll it out after involving the Regional heads and Area managers. We have our quarterly offsite ten days later. I want to start with the concept of the Sales funnel” “The Concept of the Sales Funnel. What would that be?” Three outstanding contributors to the world of selling who have influenced my thinking on sales. Zig Ziglar, one of the greatest motivational speakers in the world, Miller Heimen who wrote an outstanding book “Strategic Selling” and Neil Rackham who wrote SPIN selling among others. Lots of sales authors basically talk about the same things” “That sales is a process. Can it be predicted?”


“Of course it can be. The Sales process is described as a process which looks like a funnel as follows:

“A salesperson starts with D – a database of prospects. This could be a mailing list, a list from the market or a list of past customers (subject of course to the Do Not Call registry). As the calls are made to these prospects, some will agree for a meeting, many would not. “ “Those that are met become C – Prospects met once. Certain discussions happen in the first meeting, basic

D- Database of prospects

C – Prospects met.

B – Prospects met more than once, also meeting competition.

A – Prospects in final stage

Customers

Length of selling cycle


information about the companies are exchanged, needs are understood. Meeting gets over. Salesperson then sends a proposal.” “Then the follow up starts. Many say – No, not now, not a priority now, etc. After a few follow-ups, some of the prospects met ask for a second meeting. This is a prospect in B stage. This time the discussion is longer, more people are involved, discussion revolves around more detail, etc.” “And then the final negotiation begins. The senior leadership gets involved, anxiety rises, delivery schedules and payment terms get agreed upon. Then the deal closes. Prospect is now a customer.” “Yeah, but I know some sales which closed in one meeting itself” “10% will close like that. Another 10% would never close at all after so many meetings. The majority 70 – 80% would follow this pattern”. “And how do we measure the effectiveness of this sales process?” asked Abhijit. “Most companies give standard sales targets to their employees. But that can lead to some unusual behaviours which benefit the employee without necessarily benefiting the organization or sometimes even damaging the organization. Take an example of a car loan manager. Rakesh Sharma was a sales manager with a car loan team at a private sector bank. For the month of Jan, he got a target of Rs 1 crore. On the 3rd of the month, he closed a deal with a customer who wanted to buy three Mercedes cars. Target achieved in 3 days at Rs 1.15 crores. “ “We had stories like that. We were shocked, took us some time to figure out how to get around it.”


“Ah, but we could. In the next period, Rakesh was given a new target. Rs 1.15 crores in target and 15 vehicles. Yo. Suddenly Rakesh was forced to look at no of cars sold. He had to spend time at the dealerships, develop his tem to do cold calling. Spend time with customers of B and C segment cars also. That month the target did not get achieved. Nor did it happen the month after that. Then after a lot of development work, both the targets started getting achieved regularly.” “That addressed the issue?” “Then a new problem emerged. Even though the targets are getting met, the company is still losing money. How did that happen? The bank‟s credit team, overloaded with work used to approve cases and the sales team under tremendous pressure to close deals, had started discounting.” “Different company, same problem. How do we get the sales team to stop discounting? Or at least reduce it somewhat. Why not factor in the rate of interest also in the incentive calculation?” “That‟s what we did. We changed the incentive system. One third of the target would be Rs crore, another one third would be on number of vehicles sold and a simple formula to track higher interest rates would be the last one third. For the last point, the higher the average rate of interest closed on, the higher would be the rating for the salesperson.” “In any organization, people will behave the way we pay them to behave.” “Absolutely. The sales team started focusing on interest rates and moved away from discounting because they


started personally losing points, hence they switched to a new behaviour.” “We need to encourage the use of standard sales processes. Is there a way to track the sales funnel for productivity?” “Yes, I know a few examples. A paint company my friend used to work with used to track conversion ratios for customer calls. 60% of the target was for results, 20% was for conversion ratios. Plus other parameters.” “And how would the conversion ratio be calculated?” “Very simple. Conversion Ratio = Customers / D measured over a period of time. This conversion ratio could be broken down into four specific conversion ratios namely CR1 / CR2 / CR3 / CR4. Customer / D => (C / D) * (B / C) * (A / B) * (Cust / A)

(CR1) * (CR2) * (CR3) * (CR4).” “Isn‟t that way too much of detail. I know how the sales team will react. Do we do sales or keep tracking this?” “Let me explain how the details, then we will take a call on whether to measure or not?”


“Let‟s say we have two star salespeople. Abhijit Dabhade and Arun Paul. Both are smart, confident and sure of themselves. Both start off the month with a database of 100 people. At the end of the month, both generate sales from 10 customers. At first glance both have reported a conversion ratio of 10% (10 / 100). Both therefore appear to have the same productivity measured by conversion ratio.” “However a closer look reveals a different picture.” remarked Abhijit “While Abhijit called 100 prospects, he managed to get meetings with 90 of them. However after the first meeting, the sale progressed with only 50 of them. Once the second meeting happened with the 50, most of them, about 40 went to the final stage but in the closing stage again only 10 converted. “ “What about Arun?” “The other star salesman Arun however showed a completely different picture. Of the 100 he called, only 50 agreed to meet him. He had excellent first meetings

D- Database of prospects

C – Prospects met.

B – Prospects met more than once, also meeting competition.

A – Prospects in final stage

Customers

Abhijit Dabhade

Arun Paul

100 50

45

14

10

100 90

50

40

10


and managed to advance the sale in 45 of them. However, after the second meeting, the sale progressed in only 14 prospects and finally of that 10 converted.” “Our sales people could be like Arun or Abhijit or any combination in between?” “Exactly. This could be the story for any salesperson in any industry ranging from banking to insurance to auto to mutual funds. How do their conversion ratios look like? How do they look like for our teams? This would help our area managers analyze and plan areas for improvement and training for our team members.” “Explain how? Why could CR1 be low?” “Poor telecalling skills – no permission taken, calling at wrong time, etc. It could also be poor quality of database.” “It could even be overselling. Selling too early - trying to sell on the phone itself. They need to remember that the call is only to generate interest, to get an appointment, not to pitch.” “Look at what the other ratios tell us. Why would CR2 be low? Because of poor research done about customer. Or poor probing skills. Or poor company knowledge.” “Or even poor knowledge” “Poor own product knowledge would affect CR2. Poor competition knowledge affects CR3” “Any other reasons for CR3 being low?” “Yes. In the first meeting basic information gets discussed. In the subsequent meetings, detailed


information gets discussed. So not having detailed knowledge of own product would affect CR3. Also poor ability to understand real needs of customer.” “What about low CR4?” “Poor closing skills. Poor negotiation skills. Poor ability to influence senior people.” “Poor ability to influence senior people? That‟s an interesting point.” “Many salespeople are great with junior and middle level managers, but they completely fizzle out in front of senior people. They are just too intimidated by designations” “Poor self image issues?” “Yes. So how does knowledge of these ratios help? Sales is a process. The Law of averages holds true. Awareness of conversion ratios helps do activity planning in a systematic manner.” “Activity planning. That is a huge area for improvement in our company. Every time I ask for a tour plan from my people, the response is – sales is so dynamic, what plan is possible? Are you aware of people in other companies which use this framework to manage their field time better?” “Yes. My friend Muffi joined as an Area Manager with an auto company where training used to be done for the dealership sales consultants. One his best people, Rajeev Waghmare, sales consultant with an auto dealership uses the Sales Funnel and the knowledge of conversion ratios to plan his weekly activities. He has a sales target of 12 cars per month. That‟s 3 cars per week. To close 3 deals, Rajeev knows he needs 6 in “A”


stage of the funnel. To get to 6 in A stage, 12 have to be in B and atleast 36 have to be in C stage of the sales funnel. Therefore his weekly activity target is 36 meetings in 6 working days. That is 6 meetings a day.” “He could then estimate his activities to plan for those” “Yes. Another example. Another friend of mine Jatin Doshi – investment advisor is probably the only one of his tribe to actually sell term insurance policies uses the same technique when he sells mutual funds. Assuming an average ticket size of a investment of Rs 100,000 and knowing the commissions and targets, Jatin has calculated that he needs to close 8 deals every week. Working upwards the sales funnel, he has calculated that he needs to meet 4 investors every day to achieve his targets.” “I think it would be easier to implement this if we give standard planning worksheets to our sales teams”

Worksheet – Activity Planning

Long-term financial targets

____________________________________________ Drill down to short term:

My current year financial target is __________

My current quarter financial target is _________

My current month financial target is _________ Assumptions on Sales Funnel / Conversion Ratio:

To achieve the above target, Rs ______ business to be made per month.

Assuming average business amount Rs _______, I need to convert ______ number of customers every month.


To convert ______ customers, I need to meet _______ prospects every month.

To meet _______ prospects, I must make ______ calls every month.

My activity target for the month / week:

I will make ________ phone calls per week / month.

I will meet _________ new prospects every week / month.

If I succeed, I will reward myself by _____________ ____________________________________________ If I don’t, I will punish myself by ____________________________________________

The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don't like to do. They don't like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.

E.M. Gray

“What is this Reward and Punishment concept?”

“Give me a minute. Let me take you through the worksheet. Being successful in a sales role requires us to do a set of activities on a day to day basis. However it is also important to reward ourselves after achieving a week of success, take a bit of rest and plan for the next period. Therefore a disciplined weekly activity plan could be like this:

I will pick up investments of Rs 5.00 Lakhs next week. In case that happens, I will reward myself by spending a night out with friends. Else I will avoid all fun activity and do 6 extra calls next week.”


“I understood the concept. I am all game for this. Let‟s start this quickly. Now I am thinking of something else. Why is the Sales Funnel a funnel? Why should it not be a pipe? “Typical boss question. Idealistic but impractical expectation. Every sale cannot close. Some will not have budgets; some will be won by competition. Some will decide to postpone the purchase. However I got the idea of asking that question is to focus on the difference between efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process.” “Now we are discussing how to manage the sales funnel? “Two ways:

Efficiency: Assume efficiency is constant. Study the existing sales process, set targets, work backwards to calculate call ratio and derive number of sales people required.

Effectiveness: Why should conversion ratios be as low as 10%. Can we work towards improving them to 40%? 100% is impractical; it could mean your sales team is not making enough calls.”

“Tell you what Sandy, I understand your philosophy, let‟s roll on this. Why don‟t you work with Pradyot and Ajay from my team on this module. Both have done some work on this in their previous companies.” “ARROW to the Heart!! Chalao teer dil pe. Wow that‟s a nice name for a sales program” remarked Pradyot. Sandy, Pradyot and Ajay were meeting to finalize the training calendar for the team. A lot of debate had


happened on this philosophy within the company. One Regional manager had totally disagreed with the process and the new philosophy. Things had come to a head between him and Sandy. Eventually the company had to let him go. He took three area Managers with him. The company had moved fast to fill up the gaps in the leadership pipelines. Suvajit Karmarkar had joined in from a financial services company and Neelmani Bhardwaj had moved into a new role created for Organizational Development. Both Suvajit and Neelmani had a process orientation and could identify instantly with the thought process. “ARROW is a acronym right? What steps does it cover?” “Yes it is. The ARROW sales philosophy is based on the fact that only when we win the hearts of our customers will they allow us to do business with them. So the following five step process would achieve the same:

• Approaching in a professional manner.

• Researching Customer Needs and Wants

• Represent ideal product.

• Handling Customer Objections.

• Win with effective closing.” “The first step is to create a great first impression”

“That’s right. Therefore - Approaching in a professional manner”

“What would this cover?” “A professional approach involves showing respect and courtesy to the prospect.”


“How is this to be done?” “Everything else being equal, we will buy from a friend. Everything else not being equal, we will still buy from a friend. “ “The world runs on relationships. Knowing this to be true, an approach based on cold calling would be an unnecessarily slow and tedious process with a low probability of success.” “We will have no problem with that. None of our guys believe in cold calling in any case” “Neither do I. I consider cold calling an idiotic activity & a frustrating, neurotic waste of time.” There was stunned silence in the room. A statement like that coming from the National Sales Head was radical “What do you mean - waste of time?” Suvajit finally asked in his most polite tone. “Let me explain. Cold calling is barging in not having any prior information about the prospect and not having done homework. That is what I am against”

“So what are you advocating?”

“I am suggesting a way to approach prospects in a friendly consultative selling manner by using existing relationships.”

“Existing relationships?” “Right. How many numbers are stored in your mobile? Approximately 100 to 200. Let‟s take a conservative figure 50 nos.”


“Yes” “How many do each of these 50 know?” “An additional 50 people each.” “Absolutely. So one degree of separation, we know 2500 people. 2 degrees of separation, each of us knows 2500 * 50 = 125,000 people.” “I get it. So 3 degrees of separation each of us knows 1.25 Lakhs * 50 = 6.25 million. That‟s more than the working population in each of our cities.” “Continue it further. 4 Degrees of separation, each of us knows 6 * 50 million = 300 million (That‟s more than the Indian middle class).” “And 5 degrees of separation, we know everybody else on the planet.” “Linkedin Sir” “Exactly sir. Using networks to reach decision makers>” “This was the calculation for each of us knowing 50 people. If we take 100 nos, the networks are even closer.” “So how do we use this concept in approaching prospects?” “We take references on each call. At least 3.” “Nothing new there. We take references with every customer”.


“I am not just referring to customers. I am saying that our salespeople should take references even from those prospects that do not buy from them” “Why would somebody who has not bought from you give you a reference?” “I will make a radical statement here. You are thrice as likely to get references from prospects who have NOT bought from you as compared to customers who have bought from you.”

“Why?”

“When we ask for references from a customer, he may feel I am giving you business so fine. But many times sales do not happen for no fault of the seller. Budgets may not be there, priorities are different, etc. Now here the salesperson has done a lot of effort, which is acknowledged by the buyer and when the sale does not happen the buyer is feeling somewhat guilty. He wants to make it up to the seller.”

“So we need to teach them how to tap into this guilt” “If at the right time therefore the seller asks for references, then the buyer, because he wants to make up to the seller, would give lots of leads.”

“But how can the buyer “refer” the seller to another buyer if he has not tried the service himself.”

“We make it simple for him to do that by avoiding using the term “reference” but using the word “friends” or “colleagues”. Eg “Could you refer us to friends or colleagues of yours who may have a need for telecom services? “Could you refer us to your colleagues who may be facing productivity issues in their IT teams?”


“Then the module needs to teach them how to approach using these references?” “Good morning, Mr. Murali Shankar, my name is Neelmani Singh. I look after Business Development for First Telecom. I was referred to you by your colleague Dexter Valles who felt our IT services could be beneficial to you. Is this a good time to talk?” “This approach should help in improving conversion ratios substantially”

“There is one more point. Closing the loop. When people give references, they feel good when the references work out, it gives personal satisfaction. So closing the loop means keeping the original referrer informed irrespective of progress”

“Which means getting back to the original prospect and keeping him informed.”

“So after the sales person finishes the call to Murali, call back Dexter or sends sms, keep Dexter informed of what happened. One simple sms would do “met Mr. Murali Shankar, good meeting. Nothing immediate working out. Will keep you informed. Thanks for connecting”.

“We could give them a standard template of such an sms” “Yes we could. And now what will Dexter do? Dexter and Murali meet every Sunday for a round of golf. The next time they meet Murali says “that fellow from the telecom company you send to me, how are his services?”. Dexter replies “OK, you could use him for……..”


“Brilliant. You now have Dexter doing the sales pitch to Murali on your behalf. “ “And the best part is you do not have to pay Dexter a single rupee in commissions for this.” “I am getting quite excited about this. What about taking appointments? That should be the next module.” “Introduce yourself professionally by giving the true real reason for calling. Good Afternoon Mr. Snehal Shah. My name is Ajay Marar, I am calling in connection with e-learning services, and I am calling on a reference from Abhijit Baxi. Is this is a good time to talk?” Snehal replies “I am busy, pl call me later” “Giving these scripts in the workbook would be a great idea. Then they have a readymade reference manual which they can refer to” “Yes. Continuing…….Do not put down the phone immediately. Ask “what would be a convenient time to talk to you?”. Do not propose a time, let the client do that. Snehal might say “after two hours” Reply “OK will call you at 5 pm”.” “The salesperson might be in another meeting at that time. Or he might just plain forget.” “So, Set an alarm in the mobile for 5 pm. At 5 pm on the dot, call up Snehal Shah again. “Sir, I think I disturbed you in the middle of a meeting some time back, is this a better time to talk”. Snehal replies “you are still disturbing me in a meeting”. “So sorry, again, when would be a better time”. “Not now, please” says Snehal and cuts the line. You call again at 7 pm. “Are you free to talk now Mr. Shah” “That is being persistent”


“By now, through sheer politeness and of course persistence, you have got through to Mr. Shah. “OK tell me Mr. Marar, what can I do for you?” “Our IT services help improve productivity and reduce costs for companies like yours, we would like to come over and present credentials”. “Sure when do you want to come?” “How does your calendar look for Monday afternoon or Tuesday morning?” “Why not suggest one time?” “Better to suggest a convenient window than to ask the customer to tell you a time. If the customer says come at 6 pm, then you have to accept that. Suggesting a time window enables us to manage our time better as we could club meetings in the same geographical area together. Confirming on sms ensures better time management.” “All this should definitely improve the first conversion ratio” “Yes it does. Moreover we communicate respect for customer‟s time. We also communicate equality & confidence.” “All this lays a strong foundation for the meeting that will follow” “And that is where the R of ARROW starts. Researching Customer needs and wants.” “Creating a great first impression is the main task here.”


“Very simple steps to be followed. Follow basic norms of etiquette – reach 15 minutes before the appointed time. If not possible for rarest of rare reasons, inform atleast one hour earlier. Gentlemen - Carry visiting cards in top pocket. DO NOT pull out card from a smelly wallet in front of the customer. Ladies - carry a card folder for this.” “I have seen some east Asian cultures do this. Bending down and bowing. Are we recommending that?” “No No. a simple presentation with one hand with the card held in the center is good enough. Next is to introduce self, introduce your company, and refer to the person who helped you set up this meeting.” “Most immature salespeople immediately start going into the hard sell at this point of time. That puts off the customer. We have to drill it into the sales team to avoid doing this now. They have to understand needs first” “True. Selling is the process of identifying expressed and unrealized needs and providing an appropriate solution. Our guys, under pressure from us or because they have poor pipelines go into a detailed pitch about various features and benefits of the product.” “They sell too early. And end up showing their desperation” “And desperation repels” “You know, the message we need to send out strongly is that customers are not buying products and services. They are trying to solve the problems and issues they are facing. And our products solve those issues.” “Does the team know that?”


“We will have to check that through a product test or something like that” “They cannot start talking about products features and benefits until they know what issues and challenges our customers are facing?” “And we are sure that our services can address these challenges.” “I have a question here. What happens if we do a needs analysis and discover that we cannot address the customer‟s issues?” “If that is true, then they say so and walk away.” “They need strong pipelines to be able to do that” “Regarding these opening dialogues, let‟s give them standard dialogues” “We have a range of banking services for you but before I provide you information, could I know something about current financial orientation.” “We have the Scorpio in petrol and diesel variants with seating options from 7 / 8 / 9 seats, but that would depend on your family requirements. Tell me sir how many members in your family?” “To recommend the right amount of accident insurance for you, I need some information about your work and lifestyle. Tell me sir, where all would you travel?”. “We have 60 varieties of TV sets here, tell me sir, and how big approximately would be your drawing room?”


“We have a range of talk plans depending on the kind and time of conversations you have. Tell me sir, how do you usually operate at work?” “We have digital cameras for different requirements and budgets, could you tell me how long you have been into photography?” “Our cars start at Rs 3.5 Lakhs to Rs 9 Lakhs for different needs and driving patterns. Tell me sir, how much of driving do you usually do a month?” “How does a salesperson probe without sounding like a police interrogator? I mean he can‟t just keep asking questions, that would put off the customer” “Yes it would . Two ways to handle this. First he given a reason as to why he is asking the question and second, he alternates between probing and giving information.” “Are we still in Stage two of ARROW?” “No, now we are in the next R – Represent ideal product” “Oh yes, after a series of probing questions, the salesperson would have enough idea of what the customer‟s challenges are.” “At this stage R of ARROW, the product knowledge and depth possessed by the salesperson is important. This stage consists of discussing how product features and benefits are relevant and match the criteria mentioned by the customer.


“Given the size of your living room, the sound quality in this plasma TV would enhance your experience of watching James Bond and other action movies”. “The nine seater option would enable you to carry your entire family with both kids and grandparents travelling together to Matheran and Mahableshwar.” “Our Research section on the website would enable you to study price earnings multiples and last five years profit and loss statements enabling you to do fundamental investing yourself.” “Our Mutual Funds section of the website has an option to compare mutual funds performance over the last three quarters; you could then pick the mutual fund yourself.” “You have home loans of Rs 40 Lakhs; this figure would also need to be covered in your target amount for your life insurance.” “The ppf account is illiquid for 15 years after which withdrawals are allowed. Your son will start earning 15 years hence, thus if you open a ppf account today, he would be in a position to withdraw the savings at that time” “Since your risk profile is low, we suggest a broad based index fund which invests in the same proportion as the index” “I suggest the Call999 value plan which gives you 999 minutes of talk time with nine people over the next three months. This would be useful sine you need to communicate with your 7 area managers across Maharashtra……..”


“Since you travel to a series of meetings in the hot sun everyday, we suggest this shirt at Rs 1450. The material is a fine type of cotton that breathes well, good in hot environments” “This camera is easy to operate and is also shockproof. Good to teach your small children photography on this camera. Even if by mistake it falls or slips out of hand, that would still be fine; the camera would not be damaged”. “Since your old parents are staying with you, they would enjoy the garden view which is excellent from the third bedroom of this flat on the first floor. We therefore would recommend the first floor flat and not the tenth floor flat which has a sea view but may be inconvenient for your parents to travel by lift” “Since your wife also drives the car, let me show you how convenient the power steering and turning radius is to turn the car effortlessly” “Let me guess “O” must be objection handling?” “Even after the best of sales conversations, understanding needs, representing the right product and managing the process well, there may still be some objections coming from the customer.” “But the likelihood will be low. Even then, we still need to structure this into the training input” “Why do customers object? Just four reasons:

Just fishing for discounts.

They have a misunderstanding.

There is a drawback in the product.


They have a doubt about some of the claims made.”

“How to find out the real reason?” “Simple. No guess work. Just ask” “He means – probe to find real reason” “And then how to handle each objection?” “If there is a misunderstanding – clarify the misunderstanding. Explain better. If there is a doubt – offer proof. We have 18000 customers who are enjoying these services till date. So many customers cannot be wrong.

As per the latest sales figures from the Society of Indian Automobile manufactures, this car is the second largest selling car in this segment for the last twelve months. I will send you the names of three of our happy customers; you could call them up and take a feedback. “They need to be provided this information during the training” “If it is a drawback – admit it, do not hide. Refocus attention on the pluses.” I agree our price is 20% higher than competition, let me tell you about the five features in our product that are not present in their product. “This is quite an in-depth module.”


“Thanks. The message we are sending across is this - you are highly unlikely to ever meet a customer who says – wow, where were you, I was waiting for you, what amount do I write on the cheque?…….” “Objections are statements thrown by customers to get discounts. All good customers do that.” “And a good salesperson is prepared with responses to each of these objections.“ “The most common objection is the price objection. And our guys start dancing to that one” “The price objection can be managed with various dialogues”

The 9 responses to a price objection

Customer says “Give discounts / your price is high”

1. Good things are not cheap, cheap things are not

good. Then explain the quality of your product. “Maybe I did not explain the value of my product well!” This assumes that a price objection is a “value” complaint, implying that the customer does not see value in the price being charged.

2. “Nobody gives discounts because their products are

selling too well.” Explain in detail by giving examples from within the industry of products which are heavily discounted because they are not selling. This response creates doubts about why others are giving discounts.

3. “Are they so desperate?” This is in response to a

specific statement by customer “Your competitor is


20% cheaper than you are”. This is similar to point 2 but is more specific towards a competitor.

4. What would be more important to you - price or

cost? Then elaborate on cost. Price is what a customer pays upfront to acquire the product. Cost refers to the sum total of costs incurred in using the product also referred to total cost of ownership. For eg price of a car is the acquisition price. Cost of a car includes petrol and maintenance.

5. Give examples of other premium products where the

customer has paid more – eg for men / women. Men show wealth by watches, mobiles, pens, cars, etc. Women show wealth through clothes, jewellery, bags etc. Sir, this watch that you are wearing is a Rolex. It is by no means a cheap watch. You have obviously invested a lot in it. Why? Because you look like someone who is prepared to pay provided he sees value. Madam, this diamond ring that you are wearing is a high value item…….”

6. Reduce the excess price over life of the product. Sir

this car you are buying will be used by you for 5 years. You say it is Rs 10,000 more than the competitor. Rs 10,000 over 5 years is Rs 2000 per year. That’s Rs 6 more per day. Is that really so significant in the long term

7. Reduce the profile of product being offered. Sir

these shirts are in the range of Rs 1500 to Rs 2300. You could also consider these shirts which start from Rs 1100 onwards.

8. “Actually our product is not meant for everybody….”

This was the opening line of what is acknowledged to be one of the world’s most successful direct mail campaigns by a credit card company. Most direct mail campaigns get a 1% response rate; this one


got 10%, that’s 10 times better. The message positioned the credit card as something meant for special people.

9. “xxxx” customers cannot be wrong (give national

sales data). We have 2800 customers who are using our AMC services across the country. They are also at more or less similar prices across. We understand what you are thinking, others have also felt that prices were high, but after trying out these services, they agreed it was value.

“I have an idea here. Let‟s float a mail across the system asking for a list of standard objections that the sales team encounters. Then we can brainstorm responses to each of those objections”

“And we could also do mock calls at this stage to ensure they practice and internalize these dialogues”

Customer says “Let me think over it”

• Is there something about my product or company that you are unsure of?

• Is there something about me that you are unsure of?

• Quite simply, your business is important to me & you will not regret your decision to purchase this product. Could we start the paperwork now?

(You come to know) I am not the decision-maker

• Stop selling immediately.

• Besides you, who else would be involved in the decision?

• Do not sell through, use relationship to map account.

• Plan to meet decision-maker directly – going top-down is faster.


I’m happy with my service provider

• Definitely, lots of xxx owners……

• Share examples from similar profile.

• The best time to look for a new supplier / job is when you are happy with your old job.

On the phone – I’m not interested

• The worst that would happen is that both of us would have made a new acquaintance.

• Ask for references.

• Ask for permission to call later.

“What’s W - Step 5 of ARROW? - Winning with Closing Skills”

“After the entire sales is over, many salespeople have a tendency to keep the sale hanging by not closing. Here is where the ability to close becomes important. Now there are books by Zig Ziglar which lists out hundreds of closing techniques……..” “The Americans have everything developed to a fine art” “We discuss two of the simplest and most powerful techniques to close” “One must be the most basic. Ask for the order” “The simplest and most effective.” “The other one I like is the Balance Sheet Close. To be used during competitive sales pitches.”


“How does it work?” “Take a blank sheet of paper, draw a line down the center. On the left, list down advantages of your product. Atleast 7.” “By now they should be able to list out these 7” “On the right side, put only the heading – advantages of “competition product”. Pass sheet to customer. Ask customer to fill up the right column. Do not help the customer at this point.” “What happens then?” “Customer will most likely struggle. After some time say “Our product really would be the most suitable for your needs………” “So that is the full ARROW framework. How long will this take?” “To conduct the training, three days. Could be condensed into two days also”. Great, that is set now. What about institutional selling? The broadband vertical has a different selling situation compared to the direct selling products”

“For direct selling, we would need to apply a completely different process. Actually I am not too familiar with it. Let‟s present this to Abhijit, let us see what he says” ************************************************************ Abhijit said “I have just two concerns. One what happens when there is attrition. We spend money, roll


this out across hundreds of people and then they leave. How do we ensure that this is not wasted? Pradyot looked at the others and said “let me share the rollout process. We cannot control attrition; it is a fact that we have to live with. What we will do is develop internal trainers at every level to roll this program out. This does not have to happen in a hotel or in an offsite. A simple conference hall will do. Plus the module would be supported by videos and notes, so even the internal trainers will run them in a standardized fashion. “Who makes the videos?” “We get them made through external agencies. There will be a cost involved but it will be a one off investment. And they would be customized.” “OK, send me a proposal, we will find the budget for it” “What else were you concerned about?” asked Vikram. “Sorry?” “You said you had two concerns” “Ah yes, this addresses the retail part of the business. What about the broadband vertical, which has a different selling situation altogether” “We have not done anything on that” “I will connect you with Manish Didmishe. He heads the institutional business and he takes a terrific interest in conducting the training programs himself. Talk to his NSM Prasanna Ghanekar. I will set the context and you guys can take it further” ***************************************************************


“Tea or coffee” asked Didmishe. Prasanna had set up this meeting within four days of the first connection. Even though technically this was a joint venture with an Australian company, the business behaved like a division of First Telecom. “Check with Himanshu Dayal, he should also be in this meeting” Manish told Prasanna. Pradyot looked at Neelmani with raised eyebrows. Didmishe said “you must be wondering why we got Himanshu into sales training. The biggest problem we are facing is collections and discounting” “Discounting is common” “I know, but in institutional sales, we raise bills and collect in thirty days. Unlike in retail where we collect the money upfront.” “Himanshu will join us in fifteen minutes” said Prasanna. “Ok then let‟s start. See here in this business, we are fairly clear about what training we need to give. A lot of research has been done and a business consultant has come in some time back and done the first round of these programs also.” “So where is the support required?” “In implementation. See awareness has been created through the training. That happened about three months back. But until we get a bunch of people asking a set of process questions at regular intervals, the sales team will slip back into their old methods of selling.”


Prasanna interjected “what we will do is take them through the module and then work out how our Line coaches could be trained to do this” “What are your line coaches?” “See we have four resources across the country stationed at the metros. Sanjeev Agarwal is in Delhi, Nripen Thakur is in Kolkata, Mukesh Bahri is in Chennai and Santosh Nair is in Mumbai.” “What is the role of these line coaches?” “Excellent question. We have still not figured it out” Prasanna had this habit of cracking one liners, very sharp ones at that. “Why don‟t you take us through the Corporate sales module. Then we will take a download from Himanshu also” “OK. See corporate sales require a different capability altogether as compared to retail sales for various reasons. One – It is difficult to track the buying process in an institution. Two it involves selling to multiple decision makers who are not only in different departments but are at different levels in a company. Third - these sales require an understanding of the customer‟s business which is challenging for most salespeople. And lastly these sales happen over a period of time, which is beyond the patience limits of most average salespeople. That makes it difficult to measure progress in the account when the selling cycle could be anywhere from two months to six months.” “Whew. Retail selling is a piece of cake compared to this”


“No, it‟s not about simple or complex, just the challenges are different. The skills required to sell are different. Here a salesperson needs patience and the ability to understand the business of the customer.” “I would like to add” said Himanshu who had just joined in “he needs networking skills – the ability to develop relationships at different levels in the target company.” “Our first module in the training was to give them an idea of the buying process of an institution. Because there are multiple buyers, it is important to understand how they play out their roles, that helps us sell to them” “The first role is the User Role. This group of people actually uses the product or service. Whether you are selling laptops, broadband solutions, training or consulting services, etc, this group of people actually uses the service you provide to make their jobs easier.” “And the importance of this role arises because it is here that the need for the service is felt first.” “Could you explain” “Supposing an organization has many salespeople who need to send proposals and be informed of new products. They travel frequently out of town and access mails only once in a week. They would sooner or later start facing productivity issues. They complain about poor productivity. This is where a need for a service like “Blackberry” would start.” “Supposing the office has a catering contractor who serves food regularly at breakfast, lunch and snacks. His food quality was excellent in the first six months after which the people start asking for change. Increasingly the users get dissatisfied with the quality of catering services being provided.”


“The company uses a transport service for its employees from the railway station every day. Suppose the service starts deteriorating. Dissatisfaction rises till it reaches a point where the senior leadership is forced to address the issue.” “This is when the institution has now initiated its buying process. A Buying process starts with a need being felt, a pain area. The institution‟s need for a product or service is felt in the Users the first.” “The senior leadership now gets involved. A second buying role emerges and gets involved in the Buying process. The King comes into the picture.” “Not Lion King. Hakuna matata.” Suddenly the serious atmosphere dissolved. “The King is a business head or a VP or a senior leader who has budget accountability. Meaning this is a person who has the budgets to buy the service. E.g. a Business Head would have profit center and responsibility for top line and bottom line. He has the final authority to sanction this purchase.” “The King however does not take a decision himself at this stage. He brings into the picture a person we call the Evaluator or Gatekeeper.” “The Evaluator or Gatekeeper is a person whose primary role is to source and shortlist various proposals relevant to the purchase of the service. For e.g. an Admin person might be the Evaluator for a catering contractor, a Head IT might be the Evaluator for new IT systems and a Purchase Manager would be the Evaluator for say a new office.”


“Evaluators are different from Kings in that they can only shortlist, they are not in a position to take the final decision. “ “Evaluators however are the people most in contact with the outside world.” Himanshu came in at this point. “And one of the biggest mistakes made by our salespeople is that they talk to Evaluators thinking they are the final decision makers.” “They are not” “No. They only control access to the King, who takes the final decision” “So how does the Buying process proceed?” “The King tells the relevant Evaluator – get proposals from the market. The Evaluator meets salespeople, collects information, prepares a comparative analysis and presents it to the King.” “And the King then decides” “Yes, but not before consulting others before taking a decision. He consults many other people broadly called “Influencers” which could range from Users, other people, consultants, etc to and eventually takes a decision.” “So to summarize, how does an institutional buying process progress:

1. Need is felt by User. 2. Users influence King to do something. 3. King tells Evaluator to source proposals. 4. Evaluator does the groundwork and presents

a comparative to King.


5. King takes the final decision” “Meeting the Evaluator means therefore that we are entering the Buying cycle at the very end. Also initially the buyer is value sensitive but as the buying process evolves the buyer becomes more and more price sensitive.” “Now if this is the Buying process, how does a sales process follow: 1. All Buying roles have to be met. 2. Sales person must enter the buying process as

early as possible. 3. Sales person then uses his influence to speed up

the process.” “We have designed a framework called ACCESS which works as follows”

A C C E S S

Acquire a

research

orientation

Capture a high

position

Clarify value add

through diagnost

ics

Educate about

service features

and benefits

Settleobjections

Summarize & close on winning

note

A – Acquiring a Research orientation “Unlike retail sales, institutional sales requires the salesperson to do basic research about the following:


The company‟s basic operations – businesses, products, key financials over last three years, funds position, key competitors.

Ownership details,

Key members of management team

News articles over last six months.

Challenges faced by the business today – growth, profitability, competition, people issues, etc. Growth plans over next two years.

Detailed knowledge of relevant processes, challenges faced.

Key members of purchase team, reporting relationships.”

C – Capture a High position: “The higher the first approach to a company, the better it is. Most of our salespeople talk too low in the client organization and then get stuck in the organizational hierarchy.” “Talking higher must be helping in increasing the speed of selling” “Yes it does. There are other benefits. A better Access to the organization is obtained. Better price points can be obtained. And larger opportunities could be tapped” “We also do not get stuck with middle level managers.” “Biggest benefit I see is that it helps form a more permanent relationship with the account. There is usually less attrition at the top; most attrition is at junior and middle levels.” “We looked at three buying roles – User, King and Evaluator. As we have discussed, all three need to be met. “ “But who to meet first?”


“Let's understand the roles better. Take a menu card analogy. A user is only interested in the left side of the menu card. He looks at features, benefits, convenience to use the service. He gets paid for speed and convenience. He wants everything faster.” “And the Evaluator?” “An Evaluator primarily gets paid for reducing costs for the organization. He has a budget within which to operate. His goal sheet requires him to operate at maximum discounts from vendors. He gets paid for cost reduction. He wants everything cheaper” “And the King?” “The King however is the one who allocates the budgets to others. He has a huge canvas, he creates the budgets. He gets paid for top line, bottom line, and customer satisfaction. He wants everything better” “So we should meet the User first” “But why would the user talk to you. He would always direct you straightaway to the Evaluator” “Therefore we need to meet the King first. But he is surrounded by gatekeepers and secretaries. Whose job it is to protect him from the salespeople in the world.” “Also if we go to sell to the King, he would straightaway send us to the Evaluator in any case. And our issues start from there.” “So we need to meet the King. Why?” “But isn‟t the King a very important man, why should he meet us?”


“Why not?” “Because we have so much belief in our products that we believe that a King should have no other role more important than to pay attention to IT systems” “I did not understand. What do you mean?” “Let me explain from an HR example. You get calls from trainers all the time.” “Yes” “So you are the Evaluators for a training purchase decision” “You could say that” “Now, our philosophy is that a trainer should believe that there is no job more important for a King than to invest time and money in developing future leaders.” “Absolutely” “Therefore in our company he needs to meet Abhijit” “Exactly” Suddenly the logic became clear to Pradyot and Neelmani. “Wow” “Take other examples. If you were a picnic organizer, your conviction about your service should be such that you say “there is no job more important for a leader than to invest time and money to ensure employees stay motivated and relaxed”.


“As a recruitment service provider you would say “there is no job more important for a leader than in investing time and money in selecting the right leaders.” “Therefore we want our team to say “there is no job more important than investing in the right IT system”. “So it is belief in our product causes us to want to meet the senior most people in our prospect accounts.” “But we can‟t only meet the king right. The technical guy has to get involved also” “Of course he does. It is accepted that the other roles also are important. So here is the sales approach. Try and meet the King first. However do not sell to the King. Only use King to approach the User and Evaluator. Use King to only gain ACCESS to the organization.” “That‟s the logic of ACCESS to the company. Now I understand why Himanshu is involved. Knowing the CEO would also ensure payments come faster” “Yes, that is so true. Then we want our people to meet other buyers in the company, proceed to the next stage of ACCESS called C – Clarify value add through Diagnostics.” When does this research end? I mean there are people who spend their careers researching companies. How much time is a salesperson supposed to be doing this research?” “Till he can identify any waste, inefficiency, duplication, areas for improvement in relevant business processes? In case company grows as planned over next two years, what would be the likely future challenges?”


OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT Which of my company‟s products & services would be useful to my customer that would reduce the above identified pain? What would be the potential billing? ___________________________________________

“Eg. An IT person would analyze existing IT systems and draw observations on the way IT is being managed right now. “ “A sales consultant would study the sales process and draw observations as follows on the productivity losses arising out of the current way of working. “

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN RREESSUULLTTAANNTT BBUUSSIINNEESSSS PPAAIINN?? Because of the above identified area for improvement, how is my customer‟s business suffering? ____________________________________________

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN RREESSUULLTTAANNTT PPEERRSSOONNAALL PPAAIINN?? Because of the above identified area for improvement, how are my customer‟s people suffering personally (how are they looking bad)? ____________________________________________

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN BBVVAA -- BBUUSSIINNEESSSS VVAALLUUEE AADDDDEEDD?? –– BBYY UUSSIINNGG

MMYY SSEERRVVIICCEESS::


What costs can I save for this customer? ___________________________________________ What quality & productivity improvements can I bring about? ____________________________________________ What time savings can I bring about in processes? ____________________________________________

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN PPVVAA -- PPEERRSSOONNAALL VVAALLUUEE AADDDDEEDD?? –– BBYY

UUSSIINNGG MMYY SSEERRVVIICCEESS:: How does my user benefit / look good? ____________________________________________ How does my Evaluator gain / look good / avoid looking bad? ____________________________________________ How does the King gain / look good? ____________________________________________

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN RREESSUULLTTAANNTT BBUUSSIINNEESSSS GGAAIINN?? By using my services and saving costs & time & improving process quality, how else does my customer gain? ____________________________________________

CCLLAARRIITTYY OONN RREESSUULLTTAANNTT PPEERRSSOONNAALL GGAAIINN?? What can the User do, that he is unable to do today? ____________________________________________ What can the Evaluator do that he is unable to do today?


___________________________________________ What can the King do that he is unable to do today? ____________________________________________ The rest of the process viz. E S and S of ACCESS mirrors the steps of ARROW: E – Educate customer about products and services. S – Settle objections. S – Summarize and close on a winning note. “It seems you have done a lot of work on this model. How many people do you have on your sales team” “About 150 people” “But we expect them to be also extremely knowledgeable about the buyers they are interacting with” “You mean personal knowledge, over and above business knowledge?”

Name of Buying Role: _________________________________________

PERSONAL INFORMATION: Birthdate: _________________ Hometown: _____ Home Address: __________________________________________ Education: __________________________________ Schools attended: _____________________________


College Education: ____________________________ Extracurriculars at college: ______________________ Achievements at College: ______________________

FAMILY: Spouse‟s Name: ______________________________ Spouse‟s Interests: ___________________________ Wedding Anniversary: _________________________ Children‟s names, school: _______________________ Children‟s interests, issues: _____________________

CORPORATE BACKGROUND: Previous Employment: __________________________ Designation, roles & responsibility: _______________ Key Achievements: _________________________ Previous position in Current Company: _____________ Status Symbols in Office: ________________________ Long-term business objective: ____________________ Long-term personal objective: ____________________ Short-term business objective: ___________________ Short-term personal objective: ___________________ Key Challenge in business: _____________________ Key Challenge with people: _____________________

SPECIAL INTERESTS: Political Orientation: ___________________________ Sports Orientation: ____________________________ Religious Orientation: ___________________________ Strong feelings on Other Subjects: ________________ Any Medical Issues (self or family): ____________ Drinking Habits: _____________________ Smoking habits: __________________________________________ Eating Out (favourite places, type of food): __________


Reading Habits: _______________________________ TV Viewing Habits: ____________________________ Favourite Holiday Spots: _______________________ Current Car: _________________________________ Desired Car: _________________________________ Key Achievement / favourite conversation topic: ____________________________________________

“The salespeople are expected to know all this about the King?” “Not just the King, all the other roles also” “The standards are quite high here” “Yes sir that they are” Pradyot was beginning to realize why Abhijit had sent them to meet Didmishe and Prasanna. Their retail module was looking quite ordinary compared to this institutional sales module. “So what do you think?‟ asked Abhijit. Pradyot, Neelmani, Ajay, Vikram and Nikhil were sitting in the conference room. They had just presented their ideas about how the learnings from the institution sales model could be incorporated into the retail module. Nikhil and Ajay had also finalized the rollout plan with the line coach concept borrowed from the other business. “There are two more requirements that we have worked on” said Nikhil. “What‟s that, the presentation skills and the Business Negotiations Workshop”


“Yes, the presentations module came from the back office team who said that they have a lot of people who have basic communication and confidence issues.” “And negotiation skills?” “The purchase team wanted that” “So let‟s talk about what you have designed” Nikhil looked at Vikram. Vikram said “go ahead” Nikhil started “First point we need to address is why presentation skills are important. Then how to prepare and finally delivery skills. The two day program would give three opportunities to each participant to present. Two of these rounds would be recorded on camera and analyzed for strengths and areas for improvement.” “Sounds good. How are you addressing the why part?” “He, who speaks well, gets credit for an ability way beyond what he actually possesses. The ability to stand up and confidently address an audience, convince them on points gives power and influence. Most of us envy a speaker who can address audiences, it is something we are too scared to do ourselves.” “Good point. Any quotations being put here for impact?” “The human brain is a superb thing. It starts working right from birth and works superbly all throughout our lives till the time one stands up to make a presentation.” “I guess the module will cover anxiety handling”


Fear is the single most important reason why speakers disintegrate in front of audiences. Why do we get scared while making a presentation?

Fear of audiences – Not used to making presentations

Importance of the event.

Not knowing the content.

Not believing in the content to convince the audience.

Not comfortable with the flow of the slides.

Not comfortable with the environment.

Fear of audiences – Not used to making presentations

50% of the fear is simply fear of the unknown. Most of us are just not used to the limelight. Give us a topic; ask us to write an essay no problem. Ask us to speak on the phone or talk to two / three friends on it, absolutely no problem at all. But tell us to talk to a group of twenty people and we freeze!!!. The solution – get practice. No amount of watching other people swim is going to make us better swimmers; we have to get into the deep end. The only way to improve presentation skills is to seek out opportunities to present at all occasions. Office functions, birthday parties, given the choice between meeting and presenting, choose presenting, Saturday fun events, etc Anxiety because of the Importance of the event. Is the year end appraisal so important? Can a presentation be so important that the entire year‟s appraisal depends on it? Unlikely. If we feel that the yearend appraisal depends on one presentation in front of the board, then our goose is already cooked. We


tend to get quite worked up over one or two events thinking they are career changing events. Do you even remember stressful situations from two three years back? In three years time, will this event be so important? Unnecessarily building up pressure on ourselves does not help at all.

Not knowing the content. Not familiar with flow of slides.

Only one solution to this. Know your content. No excuses, no beating around the bush. Just get the facts clear. If you are not ready, indicate that to the boss and get someone else to make the presentation. Else postpone till you get a chance to do a better preparation It is better to keep your mouth shut and let others think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. Not believing in the content to convince the audience. Many times we know there is a flaw in the data. Our product presentation is not absolutely true. Anxiety happens because we are afraid we would get caught. No other option but to build belief by knowing the product better and addressing the drawbacks in the product Not comfortable with the environment. Most important presentations happen in unfamiliar settings, a client location, a hotel, a board room. Try to arrive at venue atleast one hour before your scheduled talk. Set up your laptop and projector / sound system ten minutes before the arrival of the first guest into the room. Greet people as they come in, familiarity with


audience helps overcome some of the fear associated with stand up speeches. “How long will this section take?” “About an hour at the beginning. The rest of the program develops the concept of Planning and preparation for the talk” “Tell me about it” Planning and preparation for the talk. Objective of the talk Presentations, like meetings ramble on and on because many times the speaker himself is not clear about the objective of the talk. When that is the case, one question from the audience takes the speaker off on a tangent altogether with the rest of the audience wondering what‟s going on. Objectives could be of two types:

To inform.

To influence. However if merely conveying information is the objective, a presentation would be one of the worst ways to do this. Why? Because immediately after a presentation the audience remembers only 25% of it. One day later, they remember only 10% of it. A week later they remember only 5% of it. One month later, you would be lucky if they remembered you!!.


Now these retention ratios are dangerous therefore if you are communicating information. The best way to convey information is in writing thru email as an attachment. That way it can be remembered. Presentations are made to influence. Merely giving information tends to irritate people and comes across as a time-waster So examples of typical presentation objectives could be: By the end of my talk:

I want atleast half the audience to buy the book “Rich Dad Poor Dad”.

I want my audience to change the ppt template to the new one.

I want my audience to adopt the new sales reporting format that I am proposing.

I want my audience to…….. Audience Analysis: Based on above objective: How much does my audience know about the topic so far? How does it view the proposed changes - positive / neutral or negative? Based on above research a structure would emerge as follows: If audience is happy to receive the message, mention the main point upfront then give details. If audience is going to be unhappy to receive the message, give the detailed logic first, and then mention the message.


Presentations need to be structured as follows: Opening – Tell the audience what you are going to tell them. Body – Do the telling Closing – tell the audience what you are going to tell them. In opening – introduce self, introduce the topic and provide a benefit statement. A strong opening remark or statement that will get the audience‟s attention straightaway. In the body, mention the points clearly outlining the flow. Support each point with examples. In the closing – summarize the talk and call for action. This call for action should be linked to the basic objective of the talk “Are we giving some kind of a preparation sheet to the speaker.” “Yes we are”

The POWER Presenter

Speaker Checklist

My Topic:

By the end of my talk, I want my audience to:


I have written down my objectives.

These are specific and measurable

They define an action to be performed by my receiver after the talk.

I am using some of the following techniques to open my talk

personal example or story

powerful piece of data

attention grabbing visual

universal saying / management wisdom / quotation

a joke / some humour

a compliment to audience

Series of "yes" questions

In the body of my talk, I am using some of the following techniques

personal examples / stories related to concepts being discussed

Summing up at regular intervals

Asking questions from audience regularly

Innovative use of support material - pictures, cartoons, data presented in charts / graphs


a joke / some humour

In the closing of my talk, I am doing the following

Summarize entire talk.


Call for Action

To achieve a powerful impact I shall be varying my delivery as per following

Modulation / tone changes

Volume

Use of Pauses

My speech will be clear

I shall involve all sections of audience through proper eye contact

I shall use the space available to me

I shall stand with weight evenly balanced on both feet.


I am somewhat overdressed as compared to the seniormost member of

the audience.

I will not put my hands in my pockets

I will refer to the past / present / and future in my talk.

I shall highlight similarities between the audience and me

I will have a mind-blowing impact on the audience

YES

“Similarly the audience is given a checklist to analyse each speaker as he speaks.” Abhijit said, “let's spend more time on the negotiation skills workshop. Our purchase team plays a critical role in influencing the cost structure. At the same time, they need to be tough without being rude” “Agreed. Would you like to go through the module in depth” “No not really. But are you covering various tactics and counter tactics used in negotiations “Yes we are. You do not get what you deserve, you get what you negotiate. Skilled negotiators use a variety of tactics during negotiations and it is important to know what these tactics are and how they can be countered.” “The concept would be developed over a series of role plays. They would sell cars, houses etc to each other”. “Sounds like fun.”


“It is. You should see what happens. You should see the range of prices that get discussed between different groups.” “Some quote ridiculously low, so low that the customer says yes immediately. That causes some unexpected issues.” “And some quote a reasonable figure which leads to an interesting tussle that in most cases ends on a satisfying note. Both parties go home happy.” “Some quote such a ridiculously high figure, then discount to the tune of 40 to 50% and end up looking like fools in the process. Else the figure is so high that the other party does not even enter the negotiation. Both lose in this case.” “Most interesting part of the negotiations is that price has virtually no impact on satisfaction in a negotiation. What other learnings are you driving at?” “We are discussing the existence of three levels of feelings. The first feeling is immediately after the negotiation concludes. That‟s usually euphoria. The next is after some time when some additional information emerges. Some doubts usually happen. The most permanent feeling is the feeling one has after information sharing is perfect. That happens a few days after the event.” “I hope we are focusing on this last feeling that remains after a few days” “Yes we are. Good negotiations are those which create a good feeling when information sharing is perfect. It goes like this. When we do b-to-b negotiations, initially both the companies do not know anything about each other. They decide to do business. After a few weeks,


the client comes to know what are the prices and terms the seller has offered to other clients. And the vendor comes to know what are the prices given to other vendors for similar services in the past and present.” “The Attitude of win-win comes when we consider the question. If the other party knew as much about the situation as I do, would he consider this deal worthwhile?” “The days of hiding information and winning with knowledge as a weapon are over.” “Are you defining an attitude of win-win” “Yes we are. Win win would be:

Doing research about the other party.

Keeping a value proposition where both benefit.

Pointing out benefits to the other party which even they are not aware of.

Looking at this transaction as an ongoing series of transactions in a long relationship.”

“Explain the last point” “Let‟s elaborate on the last point. Many people have a “transaction” orientation. They look at the transaction as the only activity that would happen. Salespeople with a transaction orientation conclude win lose deals that leave the other party short changed, frustrated and angry. Customers do not get mad, they get even. They complain not only to the service provider but also to other buyers. The seller‟s reputation gets destroyed. He runs out of prospects sooner or later. He succeeds for some time with a win-lose approach and then finds success difficult to come by.”


“And that‟s not supposed to happen. Negotiation is not supposed to be a stressful scenario. Negotiating is satisfying. The process of asking for something, giving concessions, bargaining, explaining own value proposition is a process of give and take and creates a satisfaction of having fought for something and got it. Anything earned easily is not perceived of value – standard human nature.” “In fact in some negotiations, the client has been so surprised by how low the quote is that he says yes immediately. Instantly two suspicions emerge: a. I could have quoted more. b. Something is wrong here. Therefore even if the first offer is well within your target asking price, still negotiate further so that the satisfaction levels remain high.” “Maybe we could buy some reference books on negotiations. Zig Ziglar is one excellent author” “We are also recommending Roger Dawson‟s Secrets of Power Negotiations” “So what tactics are we discussing in the program?” “Your first price cannot be your best price: If our first price is our best price, then there is no room for negotiation further. Any negotiation that happens we will lose.” “What else?” “Be clear of your Walk away price before you get into the negotiation. It is this price below which they will walk away from the table. Next their first offer is somewhat higher than their walk away price, so they leave room for concessions to be given. Not leaving scope for this conveys the impression of rigidity and inflexibility.”


“Never say Yes immediately: This point we have covered earlier. It tends to create suspicion.” What about No budgets” “Yes that is the next one” “And how are we responding to this?” “Our response would be something like this. If you are in sales, remember a cardinal rule in selling. There is no such thing as a budget, whether as an individual or as a corporate. Budgets are found or created when the buyer thinks is a priority. Look at a “budget complaint” as a “value complaint”. The budget is not being taken out because we have not been able to convince them of the value of our product or service.” “What about all those boss responses” “Like - My boss will never agree to this. Usually a smokescreen. Different tactics to use:

Perhaps I could convince him differently…… Ask for a meeting to be set up.

Appeal to ego – “But surely he agrees to whatever you recommend.”

Plan to go directly.

Introduce a “boss” of your own. “My boss would never agree to this. If I go with these prices, my boss will ask me to look for another job.”

“Anything on the police interrogation types with two people involved?” “You mean Good Guy, Bad Guy” “Yes”


“We might show some videos to explain the point better. Remember the scene of the police interrogation in Sarfarosh starring Aamir Khan. The interrogation is going on. The senior cop i.e. Aamir Khan plays the Bad guy says “let‟s shoot everybody”. Threatens and walks away. Then the constable goes, gently becomes a friend and says “just tell the names of the gang leaders, he will spare you”.” “This is a very powerful technique. Good Guy, Bad Guy is used extensively when you are talking to two people. Bad guy in this context simply means someone who is “aggressive”, not necessarily “bad”. It is simply someone who sets higher standards However, most people implement it wrong.” “Wrong?” “Who is supposed to be the Bad Guy? – the senior or the junior person.” “Obviously the senior person” “And obviously wrong. Usually it is the Senior Guy who ends up playing the role of the Bad Guy. However that is the incorrect way to do it. When the senior guy plays the Bad Guy, the junior guy loses all respect from that moment on. “ “So what is the correct method?” “The correct method would be The senior guy plays the Good Guy. The junior guy plays the Bad Guy. This way the junior person gets the respect because of the behaviour, (aggression – not physical aggression but higher standards). And the senior person continues


to get respect because of his designation. That way, the complete hierarchy does its job and everybody is happy” “Fine, let‟s roll this across the system. Make sure the purchase guys are involved in the delivery of this module also” “Can do, will do” I can get whatever I want in life, if I just help enough other people get what they want





Nobody ever joins an organization to deliberately do a lousy job.

Leaders create their own path………. Ladies and gentleman, welcome to this round table on Talent Management. I am Vineet Singh, Chief Editor of the India Business Globe. With me are Abhijit Joshi, CEO of Telecom India, Prof M S Rao from Entrepreneurship Indiaworld, Santosh Nair, CEO from Travel world services, Rahul Sinha from Technoworld Financial Services, Krishnan Chatterjee from Foremost Digital and two gentlemen from the education business Atul Gopal from Bulls Eye and Arun Sharma from Mindworkzz “Gentleman, welcome to you all. I would like to start with you Abhijit. Abhijit could you share with us what are your basic assumptions about the way you manage talent within the company?” “We operate on one basic assumption. Nobody joins an organization to deliberately do a bad job.” “And how this translate into a day to day operations implementation” “Well, let me explain what we mean by that statement. Most engagement programs by the leadership assume that something is wrong with the “individual” when there are productivity issues. For e.g. people are not motivated, they want to work less, they don‟t want to take initiative, they just want more money for as little extra work, etc. Our assumption is completely different. We say that if people are not as productive as they can


be, then the people are great, it is the “system” that needs some work. “ Rahul Sinha, who was listening very carefully, commented “so your initiatives on talent management essentially work on the system in which the person works” “Right, it is a very difficult assumption to make because it is always easier to assume that “people” are the problem. When we assume that the system is the problem, then the area for improvement is then in the people running the system and that is the senior leadership itself” “In fact, I can give you a specific example of that principle we applied in our company, said Krishnan. We did something that was radical, we shared all relevant financial details of the company including costs, rentals, expenses, etc. We even shared everybody‟s salary on a mail to the whole company” “How did that help?” “Every employee wants money of course. But there is something far more important than money for every employee and that is the feeling of contributing to the organization.” “This feeling of contribution becomes clear when we see the financial impact of our own jobs on the company‟s bottom line.” “That‟s interesting. Abhijit have you tried anything like that in your company. Will this work in a large company” “Definitely, we in fact did that and continue doing it. The first time we did that was about three years ago when the company had cost pressures. It puts tremendous


responsibility on people and puts them into the limelight. You see, when you earn as much or similar to others, it‟s fine. But when people come to know that you earn 50% or 100% more than others doing the same job, that person stands out, he comes in the limelight. Nobody wants to stand out, especially when the company is cutting costs. People start asking uncomfortable questions. Why is earning so much? What is he doing that I am not?” “It is also means more maturity on the boss who is recommending the higher salary knowing that his decision is going to be scrutinized by others.” “But the main point here is not the employee‟s salary. Salaries would only be about 10 to 15% of the total costs in a manufacturing business. In a service business they would be higher. But other costs especially overhead are what need to be looked at.” “What happens is that when financial information is shared with others, it gives people a tool to analyze their own productivity, their department‟s productivity in detail. Why are there so many unproductive people in every company? Most of the responsibility lies with the employee himself. As we know, many people are stuck in the wrong jobs, fail to derive meaning from their work, do not manage their money well, are poor time managers and fail to create demand for their services.” “But being junior employees, there is only a little they can do” “One man with courage makes a majority. There is however a lot that a senior leadership can do to enable a High Performance Culture.” “And sharing financial information is laying the foundation for unleashing employee productivity.”


“Definitely. Organizations are large entities with complex operations. The average employees, the front line people who actually do the job, tend to miss out on the significance of their job to the bottom line. Two reasons for that - They do not know the financial performance of the company. And they find it difficult to link their day to day tasks to these results.” “Knowing the financial performance of the company mainly the month on month actual sales, collections, expenses, key cost heads and salaries of people enables people to understand how well their company is doing. Good companies post this information on the notice board or the intranet. Knowing this information enables people to point out waste and inefficiency happening in the operations to the leadership.” “Should we share salary information of everyone (including the boss) also?” “One of the most difficult things to do, and the one thing that sends out the most powerful message to the overpaid employees.” “Shape up or else. Once salary information is shared with everyone, everybody instantly knows who is an asset and who is a liability to the company. Including the highly paid person himself. Suddenly peer pressure builds up. The highly paid people stand out. So do the underpaid people. Consensus builds up towards rationalization of salaries.” “A superb strategy to follow in tough times.” “When times are bad, nobody wants to stand out. Because everybody knows that the highest salary earners have the maximum impact on cost savings when they go.”


“Let‟s bring in the educators also. Both Arun and Atul run their own education businesses and do consulting too. What else could leaders do to manage talent better?” “My main point would be that leaders should measure processes too, not just results.” “What you mean is building a process culture?” “Building a process culture means tracking people not only for results but also on how much effort they are putting in.” “We have looked at sales productivity before. Let‟s look at finance operations productivity. Somebody is slow in analyzing data. He takes four hours to analyze a spreadsheet. He also has an area for improvement in comfort levels with Excel. Consider a design form. A manager may take four hours to do something which a junior employee may do in one hour.” “I‟ll tell you what we do in a sales operation. We measure productivity not just by target achievement but also by new accounts opened, Value per sale, collection period, conversion ratio (proposals sent to sales closed), etc” “I guess selecting these measures is critical. Too many, the focus gets diffused and too less and we might miss out on some things altogether” “I agree. What used to happen in our company that every new manager used to decide his own measures to track. Every change at the top, a new set of measures used to come in”


“We call these measures a dashboard. Something like an instrument panel that a pilot uses to fly the aircraft” “Precisely. And the dashboard helps us navigate the company” “What typically are the measures that go into a dashboard?” “Usually a combination of financial and process measures. In a channel sales operations like fmcg, it could be measured as lines per call, bills cut per day, total lines sold per day, no of productive calls etc. In a finance operation, it could be measured by days or TAT, turnaround times measured to do the process, time taken to send tds certificates, etc. In a purchase operation, it could be time taken to issue a new purchase order, time taken to introduce new design changes, etc” “Very few companies have such a process culture. Abhijit‟s company being one shining example” “Agreed there are very few. But the tribe is increasing every day” “Professor Rao, what in your opinion could companies do to ensure better productivity of their people?” “Shut down at 6” “You mean they should go home at 6. Lots of people here might have a problem with that” “A large private sector bank we worked with used to have a policy where the office lights would switch off at 7 pm. Its main effect was to make employees aware that they are now expected to go home.”


“I agree with that. In the west, they are actually thinking in terms of four day weeks. Many people sit in office because the boss is also sitting in the office. Many bosses have a tendency to call meetings at 6.30 pm which drag late into the night.” “Let me share with you an example from my early days as a management trainee. We had a boss Mr. P K Bose, who used to leave at 5.30 pm. With his bag, he used to go on a tour of the office before leaving. Whoever used to be furiously typing away to glory on the computer would get an instant reprimand. “Why are you still working at this time? How come you have not finished your work? Scope for you to improve your efficiency” Next day onwards, the managers would make sure they would be out of the office at 6 pm.” “I wish, in my younger days, I had a boss like that. In many offices in the financial and advertising world, managers work late in the night, weekends, god knows what?” “So the message to all leaders is” Vineet Singh summarized “finish your work and get out of the office at 5.30 pm. That is the easiest way to make sure the office shuts down at 6 pm.” “Professor Rao, coming back to you. What else would you recommend that leaders do?” “We get a lot of people in our management institute who are bored with their jobs, want a break. If we go into depth, the main reason they are bored is that they are stuck in roles where they do not get a chance to exercise their creativity.” “So any ideas on how the others manage that”


“We have a policy that frequently moves people out of fire-fighting roles into process design” said Krishnan. “It's based on GE‟s Jack Welch who uses a technique called Work-out. Basically it consisted of getting practicing managers to brainstorm on new ways to do a task or a process.” “What is the philosophy?” “All jobs are repetitive. And lots of fire-fighting happens in companies every day. The leader asks the following questions. Why do we do fire-fighting every day? Are the issues we are fire-fighting on the same issues that we faced three months and a year back.” “And if the answer to these two questions is a resounding yes, then it is a leadership problem.” “Which is the case most of the time. So what is to be done?” “Then create a task force of relevant stakeholders. Get them into a conference room for two to three days. Ask them to brainstorm a new process that is lesser work and more effective. Get the bosses in to the final session. They approve or reject. New process goes into flow immediately.” “Forming task forces is a great way to empower people and identify potential leaders who could move into supervisory roles.” “I can give an example of why job rotation helps and how. In one of the banks I worked with, we had this daily problem in our business loan department. The sales team used to procure financial papers from business people and handover to the credit department. The credit department wanting to justify its existence in


the company would regularly reject some applications and put in somewhat unreasonable conditions for some other cases. The heads of credit and sales used to be always at loggerheads with each other. Same with the Area Manager sales and the Area Credit Manager. Top management was sick and tired of it.” “So what did you do?” “We instituted a job rotation policy. After two years, a rank CA would be transferred from Credit to sales. And an MBA marketing would be transferred to credit after a similar period.” “What was the result?” “Greater respect for the other person‟s role. When the credit resource, sourced the business person‟s financials, he could analyse the numbers on the spot and give a yes or no with a loan amount immediately. He did not over promise. And a resource in credit with a background in sales had a greater orientation to ensure that the bank would protect its interests and get the money back.” “Coming back to Rahul, you have worked in many companies in your career, what do you think companies should focus on?” “Even though we are all MBAs, the MBA way of running a company is not the best way” “Why do I get the feeling there is a double meaning there?” “There is. No MBA please – No Management By Apologizing. Focus on getting it right the first time” “A lot of companies sell first and figure out a way to service the customer later. They have huge customer


issues with existing customers. And huge advertising budgets to get in new customers. And large sales teams to follow up. Etc etc. What a waste.” “One happy customer tells four other people, one unhappy customer tells eleven other people.” “If we leaders of companies kept this basic fact in mind and handled existing customers well, the word of mouth would be so strong that our need to do business development via advertising would dramatically reduce over a period of time. The size of the service call center is a direct indicator of how good the service is. Ideally the customer should have no reason to call, if the basic service is delivered well.” “Handling existing service issues and tackling it on a war footing would enable the company to attract newer customers effortlessly without wasting money in the chase.” “What about the human resources function? What do you think should be their role? We are talking about talent management; shouldn‟t HR play a critical role here?” “Yes of course. They can play a critical role” “But they don‟t” “Not in too many companies. I think the main reason is their lack of comfort with business issues” “So you are saying, leaders should expect business knowledge from HR” “Most HR people are hr specialists. They know next to nothing about business. Ask them the turnover of the


company, the market share of different products and they would draw a complete blank.” “How can HR be a Business Partner if it does not even understand the business?” “It cannot” “Expect detailed business knowledge from human resources function. Get them into the field; train them on the nuances of the business. Then ask them to assist you in a larger role of creating a better business. Ask them probing questions on how they expect a training program to deliver results and how that should be measured.” “How does one do that? Most HR people focus on the admin part of HR, the salary payments, the recruitments etc” “Ask – through training inputs, which processes are we trying to improve. How could we follow up on the training to ensure implementation or as my ex boss once put it – “digest” the advice that is given in the training program?” “What about handling customers. Any points here?” “In my company, we did an analysis – an 80/20 analysis. We discovered that 20% of our customers gave us 80% of the pain.” “80% of the pain?” “They were the ones who complained the most, had maximum service issues, etc” “And probably did not pay you on time also”


“So true. Does your business have the same issues? I think we should just fire customers who do not pay us on time” “A customer who does not pay on time is not a customer we should keep; he is a crook and deserves to be treated like one.” “Irrespective of how much of pipelines we have or don‟t have customers who are bad paymasters affect the emotional strength of an organization. Many times such a customer is also a large customer who gives a lot of business to us.” “Ensuring financial discipline, billing at regular intervals, communicating well at all times about the late payments and implementing late payment penalties are all the hallmarks of a confident organization.” “How would this help in talent management?” “Direct link. These customers destroy the emotional energy of the organization. They start by asking for and getting discounts, then rising service standards to unreasonable levels so the organization struggles to cope. Senior leaders get into the picture to sort out issues and the costs rise. Net net it works out as a loss making proposition for the business.” “And then we spend hours debating how to address these issues in offsites” “I have a point to make on these offsites. The team tends to look at it as a picnic. It should be more than that. We need to run offsites as a series of events, not just one. To use offsites and management games to bring about radical process improvement.”


“Last month we asked for a module on Team Building in our Regional conference. Two days of the conference, we gave a slot of four hours in which to do some management exercises. The brief to the consultants – get them “- thinking different.” Also get them to think as a team – they tend to work in isolated cubicles with the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.” “So what happened? The consultants would have run some good management games.” “They did. In fact They ran a series of team-building exercises with the final one culminating in the entire company cooperating together. One of the exercises was “Acid River”, a superb outdoor game based on Eliyahu Goldratt‟s book “The Goal”. We split the large group into smaller groups and using “resources”, they have to cross an “acid river”. Activity brings out creativity, team building and thinking different. The last exercise was a Treasure Hunt in which participants were given clues kept in different parts of the hotel and the final clue required the entire team to collaborate.” “So what is your discomfort with offsites? They serve a purpose to engage employees in a joint forum” “They do, no doubt. The exercise went well and the entire team was oriented towards the concepts of “thinking different” and “thinking as a team”. Then what – lunch break. Butter chicken, paneer, etc you know the story.” “That‟s what happens all the time” “What could have been done more – for any activity to be relevant, an activity taking “x” minutes should be followed by “3x” of debriefing time. In the debriefing, what we need to focus the discussion on - How can we apply these thoughts to organizational processes? How


can this apply to sales, service, operations and finance? How can we see bottlenecks to customer service because of the way we work? Using these ideas as a seed, how can we quickly attack our most inefficient processes and target dramatic improvements in productivity.” “That would requires a lot of thoughts and design to get into the pre planning stage” “Yes. When an organization‟s people that work in their functional orientation at different locations meet in an offsite, a lot of emotional bonding happens. Junior managers get to meet their senior bosses and get a chance to show their skills and achievements. Senior managers get to reach out to their subordinates directly without going through the middle managers. Middle managers catch up with each other after a long time.” “This positive energy can be used to get commitments on the entire organization‟s proposed new direction. Quickly, action plans can be decided to bring about productivity improvements through multi functional task forces. These would be given people, support and put on a deadline. We take 90 days to pay vendors, could we do it in ten days. We take 15 days to respond to a customer‟s changed order, could we do it in two days. We take 21 days to change a production order, can we target to do this in three days. We take 8 days to send a proposal to the customer, could we do this in four hours. We take 48 hours to respond to a service request, could we target a response with two hours at no extra cost.” “Well gentlemen, that kind of sums up our discussion on talent management. I think what we take away is working on the system is the best way to manage the talent, ensuring that they do not waste away doing unproductive and inefficient processes but focusing their attention on what matters most”


“Thank you all. Please give them a big hand”





The Epilogue The speaker cleared his throat. “Distinguished members of the audience I present to you…………………….. The hectic activity had started about three months back. “Sir, we require your presence on 12 May.” “Why is that?” “This is to inform you that you are one of the five nominees for the Indian CEO of the year award. Congratulations.” “Wow. I mean, thanks” “Yes sir. Could you pl confirm your presence on 12 May in writing within a couple of days.” “Yes of course I will” The speaker continued “And The CEO of the year is………………………….”



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