10 Sept 2009

Lyrics kyun keeda hai - Quick gun Murugan

बक बक है आपकी सुनली, किस खेत की आप हैं मुली, टेढ़े सवालों के हैं टेढ़े जवाब | मिया न बीवी राज़ी, फिर भी लगे हैं काजी, इतने असमंजस मे हैं क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब |..... होना है जो उसको होने जी होने दे, रोते हैं जो उनको जी रोने दे, ऊँगली करते क्यूँ हर जगह, क्यूँ विचलित हैं क्यूँ खफा, क्यूँ कीडा है आपको, क्यूँ पीडा है खाम-खा, क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब |..... जिसको जो कहना है कहने दे, कुत्ते की दुम है टेढी रहने दे काम से काम अपना बस रखे, ऊँगली करते क्यूँ हर जगह, क्यूँ चिंतित हैं बेवजह, क्यूँ कीडा है आपको, क्यूँ पीडा है खाम-खा, क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब क्यूँ जनाब| |..... असंतुलित संगत है, पीडा के आप चुम्बक हैं, छोडे अपना चिरकुट धर्म, त्यागे ये सब कार्यकर्म, असमंजस है आपका कुछ, करम करें न सोचे कुछ, गुठली छोडे खाएं आम आपसे मेरी त्राहि माम |




"कर्मभूमि मेरा आँगन, terrice मेरा नील गगन, ये पूरा दुनिया मेरा वतन... my name is murugan, Quick gun murugan... MIND it!"


To be contd...

7 Sept 2009

India Unbound - Gurcharan Das

About Author
Gurcharan Das is an Indian author, consultant and public intellectual. He is a regular columnist for Times of India and in several other newspapers. Born on June 9 at Lyallapur in 1946, he has authored many books.  visit him at his blog


 India is now a vibrant free market democracy after the 1991 economic reforms, and it has begun to flex its muscles in the global information economy. This change has not been overnight. It took 50 years after our political freedom in 1947, for our rulers to realize the path we were treading since independence. This book India Unbound is an account of what all good and bad happened in India from pre independence period to  after 1991. Basically Gurcharan das has divided the book into three periods viz. pre independence days, Post independence to 1991 and post 1991. India burst into independence with high hopes and a clean slate. Led by erudite statesmen and men and women of impeccable political backgrounds, the country was all set to sail the seas to wealth and modernity. These soon became distant goals. India's slide into the mire of backwardness has been the topic of countless heated and unresolved after-dinner discussions in every household across the country. Given our infinite advantages why did the country not progress? What caused the ever-spiraling poverty that has now reached unmanageable proportions? What led an honest, dignified people to the door of rampant corruption? How did we earn the epithet that keeps poor countries firmly in their place: The Third World? When will we be rich again? Every Indian and, perhaps, everyone who has loved India, has his or her own answer to these questions.
     Gurcharan das tries to answer some of these questions in India Unbound. He talks about various policies of British and post independence Indian rulers and how they affected the masses in general and Indian Economy in particular. It is a riveting story of a nations rise from the poverty to prosperity and the clash of ideas that occurred along the way. The economic and social transformation of the lower castes is another major theme of the book. The struggle of the one-sixth of the humanity for the dignity and prosperity had a great consequence for the future of the world. Author mentions that whenever the name India is spelled out, two things generally come to the mind of foreigners-spirituality and poverty. The significance of this quiet social and economic transformation eludes them. In the end 'silent revolution' is more significant historically than the constantly changing fortunes of political leaders and parties.
    when India became Independent, Nehru had become world hero. When Nehru addressed nation in the midnight of 15th August, people were ecstatic.
 "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge… At the stroke of the midnight hour while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out of from the old to new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed find utterance…"
People of that generation were just enchanted with Nehru. They believed that whatever steps he would take would lead India to its golden future. But Nehru like many people of that age, had a bias towards business community. He believed that business community's sole purpose is to earn profit. They hardly care for the welfare of the people.
Gandhi and Nehru had many things in common except the way they perceive the Business men in India. While Gandhi believed that bazzar is an essential for the overall development of a nation while Nehru believed business men as a threat to the common people. He believed that state should be the entrepreneur on the lines of USSR and China. That’s the reason when India became politically independent Nehru took it as a state responsibility to set up industries. In the second five year plan according to Mahalanobis model a huge amount of capital was invested to set up heavy industries.
 Mahalnobis was great statistician of that time and like Nehru he too believed that science and reason can be used to find solution to most of the problems existing in the period. Mahalnobis had profound effect on Nehru’s thinking. His draft plan for the second five year plan was possibly the single most important document in 1950s and possibly the most important document in the world. At the same time there was an alternative theory by vakil and brahmanand, renowned economists from Bombay, who emphasized on the employment generation through production of wage goods. But the theory was not much noticed and eventually fell flat.    Besides, Nehru never understood the importance of competition in Bazaar. He framed policies which curbed any and all kind of competition. This crippled the scope of development of companies. It has been noted that India’s failure on the world economic stage is in part due to the lack of competition in the domestic marketplace.
 The other most dreaded thing that Nehru instigated was the Licensing system. It began with the Industries Act of 1951, which required an entrepreneur to procure license to set up new industries, to expand it, or to change the product mix. This draconian system further crushed our industries. Industrialist Like GD Birla, Kasturbhai Lalbhai who were major traders before independence could not even technologically upgrade their units due to the bureaucratic red tapism in the post- independence era. TATAs 119 proposals during the period fell to deaf years. Aditya Birla, grandson of GD Birla had to expand outside India due to this red tapism. Public sectors whom Nehru called “Temples of Modern India” were bleeding the country to death. Bureaucrats who usually controlled these public sectors had hardly any experience in the government of how industry was actually run.
The fact that our fundamental ideology about the mixed economy was flawed is now widely accepted by many of us. Mixed economy, according to Nehru contained both superior features of capitalism and socialism. But eventually it ended up combining the worst features of socialism and capitalism- the ‘controls’ of socialism and the monopolies and lobbies of capitalism. The short-sightedness of our leaders led to bias towards heavy industry and against agriculture and light consumer goods.
   Gurcharan Das has discussed some social aspect of Indians which has been largely instrumental in keeping the tendencies within check. The theme of poor team work has been responsible for large number of defeats, Indians had in the hands of foreign invaders be it Puru in the hands of Alexander or1962 war against china. Das admits that this tendency is still found in the young bloods in the boardrooms of corporate houses. Poor team work is all pervasive in India and it affects national competitiveness.
Das has suggested some very nice conclusions which he had during many of his field vists during his tenure in P&G. Some of which are :
Firstly learn things from observation. Ekagrata, concept of one pointedness which means to direct one’s energy at a point forms the basis of development of core competencies of an individual or an organization. Consumer is supreme. It is usually better to build on your strength  than to try and correct a weakness.It’s important to know who and what you are.In consumer product companies” if local managers believe a product is theirs, then the local consumers will believe it too”. Great businesses are built through discontinuous ideas, and a good manager who is one-pointed knows when to seize them. If only results matter then ordinary employees will surprise managers by doing extraordinary things. It is important not to direct people too much and find their way. It might bring out their creative urges so on and so forth.
After death of Nehru, Sashtri came to power. He was a descent man who tried to rectify some of the wrong doings of Nehru. He emphasized nations energy on agriculture. It was due to shastri ji that Green revolution was successful in India. After his death, Indira Gandhi came to power. And the economic policies of the nation further grim. Indira took India back on the lines of Nehruvian Model and the period between 1965 to 1980s were the saddest period in the Indian history for the Business and economy in particular. The first breather came in 1990 when Narshinha Rao headed the first minority government and along with Manmohan singh, P Chidambram and Montek singh took some bold steps to liberalize economy. Those three years were most eventful in Indian history. It omitted license raj. The act like MRTP and FERA were scrapped and foreign investment was encouraged.
This period saw the emergence of middle class who were fearless and risk taking in attitude. They did not consider making money as sin. Power and prestige was seen in the terms of money you have. More and more people and mostly from middle class went for higher studies. India has become the knowledge power and is a force to reckon with in the entire world. Companies find more talented brain here in India at one-sixth of the cost. The world’s perspective has taken a paradigm shift. Indian companies have grown in character. This is evident from the number of mergers and acquisition Indian companies have undergone in the recent past. Tata’s acquisition of Chorus and clinching of Jaguar deal speaks volumes of the capability of an Indian company. The annual GDP growth rate which is 7-8% if continues to be same until 2020 then there is no doubt India will emerge as third largest economy in the world after US and China.



any difference of opinion is welcome

The Psychology of Change Management - A review (HRM) The Mc kinsey Quarterly 2003 Special Edition


About Author

Emily Lawson is a principal in Mc Kinsey’s London office.
Colin Price is a director at Mc Kinsey, where he also is the Global Knowledge leader for the organization practice. He has consulted on organization design, leadership development, behavioral change and post merger management for two decades in over 50 countries. He’s advised many of the globe’s largest corporations. Price holds a visiting professorship at The school of Management, University of Bath. He holds degree in Economics, Psychology and Organization behavior.
Source: The Mc kinsey quarterly

What is Change Management?

Change management is a structured approach to transition individuals, teams and organizations from a current state to a desired future state. The current definition of change management includes both organizational change management process and individual change management models, which together are used to manage people side of change.
Source: Wikipedia

Introduction

 Human Resource Management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to manage any organization’s most valued assets- the people working in it. It is these people who individually or collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. For the last few decades the companies CEOs of various companies are looking forward to come with a strategy to ensure high performance of their companies. However this requires lot of changes in the companies with top down approach. Organizational change seems a difficult thing. Adding to that the rhetoric of “looking to the future”, think differently”,” be proactive” etc is enough for an employee to take vacation. However it is non debatable issues that change in any form is inevitable. The companies adopting change management shall reap benefits in the long run. ‘Change’ is no longer a buzzword, change and the need to manage it has become prime issue in today’s competitive environment and it is most likely to remain one for many years to come.
Companies in the last few decades have made a lot of efforts in terms of research to find out ways to increase quality and productivity. Early theorists put lot of emphasis on the monetary benefits to motivate employees to perform better. Besides in many organizations a lot of emphasis is put on providing comfort and better working environment. However, in last few years of 20th century it was inferred that in addition to the monetary and other benefits the psyche of the employee needs to change to be changed for a better performance.

The Four conditions

  This article “Psychology of Change management” by Emily Lawson and Colin Price  brings about this perspective of employing the change in the psyche of the employees to perform better. Success of the companies can be brought about by transforming the way people think about their job, their company and their surroundings. The authors have pointed out four important conditions that affect the changing mindset of people.
1.    Employee must be able to see clearly the need for change.
2.    Employees must feel the relevance to change
3.    They must possess the required skill sets to perform what their work demands.
4.    There must be role model who ‘walks the talk’.
The theory of “cognitive dissonance” by Leon Festinger emphasizes that there arises a state of dissonance in mind when people find that their beliefs are inconsistent with their actions, just like an agnostic priest. However the positive outcome of the theory in the concerned article is that people if understand the overall purpose of change they might be able to relate to it and happy to change the individual behavior In order to serve the purpose. However the concept of reinforcement by B.F.Skinner (experiment with rats) suggests that the using right amount of incentive is inevitable as it still remains the primary source of motivation to the employees. However the reinforcements could be both positive and negative.
Skill sets required to perform a job effectively keeps on changing with the changing times. So the employees must update themselves with newer technologies. According to a study by David Kolb, it shows that adults can’t learn things only by listening there is a need to demonstrate them. For better understanding, the subject matter has to be separated into chunks. However there is a requirement of a role model. Most of the human behavior is a product of imitation with reinforcements. Here the need for CEOs becomes prominent. Besides the junior level managers and the people working under them have to be role models for the next level and so on. Even colleagues working together in an organization can be role model for one another.

In Indian perspective

The Indian industry be it service or manufacturing were late in adopting the metamorphosis going throughout the world. The globalization is a great leveler.. But as the proverb goes “Jaba jaago tabhi savera”. Indian companies soon understood the need to undergo change and several companies started the initiative of change.  Focus of management is now reverted on changing the Mindset, an area explored by Indian sages 2000 years back. As the Indian economy opened up for the world the indigenous companies understood that if they need to survive hey had to change.  Most of the structural weakness has been neutralized. And it’s the result of this initiative that we find Indian companies reining all over the world.

Conclusion

It was seen that people put lot of efforts to the job they understand better. Besides this helps to forge an emotional link with their job. And once they understand the importance of their skill sets for the company, which undoubtedly increases the productivity of the employee and hence the company, people do take pains to update their skills. This in turn helps them to gain a deeper sense of meaning and a higher sense of responsibility.





PS: This review was part of our HR curriculum at LIBA


any difference of opinion is welcome

2 Sept 2009

curries n chutneys

Nice food joint opp eithiraj college... a wholesome place for north Indian food, (esp parathas are yummy  and cheap too !!!) and special thaali for Jainis.