Women Can't Have It All; Neither Can the Men!

Today morning I was going through the excerpts of the views expressed by Indra Krishnamoorthy Nooyi, the high profile lady President and the CEO of the multibillion, multinational soft drink company of the world-PepsiCo, that the Times of India published. 

The Times of India titled the article like this: Why PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi Can't Have it All?

The views expressed by this lady CEO essentially highlight the high work load of a CEO and the problems that such persons face in their lives due to paucity of time for the home and family especially when the CEO happens to be woman. The lady CEO is in the dominant role of the boss at her work place but has to be in the conventionally submissive  family role of a daughter, wife and mother at home!

Coping up with these mutually antagonistic roles is not an easy task, according to Ms.Nooyi. She has been 'trying all kinds of coping mechanisms'. 

As compared to the men, the women have additional problems. 

'The biological clock and the career clock are in conflict with each other'. Indra Nooyi admits from her experience.

So having all the benefits of the career and the family in one go is very difficult for the women. Women simply can't have it all!

So, those women who can't cope with all these either sacrifice the career or some thing of their family life!

Otherwise they have to do the continuous balancing act consciously through out their lives just as the trapeze artists. It is indeed a risky game of life! You simply can't enjoy a high profile career and a good and satisfied family life simultaneously, unless you are prepared to do some adjustments!

But is it an exclusive problem of the women alone? I think, men also can't have it all without doing the trapeze acts! But unlike the women, they prefer not to complain because of their male egos. Perhaps there won't be any one to listen to their problems.

Biologically men and women are to become complementary pairs to form the basic unit of mankind, the family. They are naturally made for different functions to complete the human functions. They are not made for doing the same functions!

Thus both husband and wife cannot be both heads of the same family at the same time. Life becomes smooth and natural when men and women go according to their natural designs. 

CEO's by nature are people who have the first degree priority attached to career growth and official work regardless they are men or women. All of them face the dilemma of prioritization of priorities of life and have willfully chosen career as the first priority over others. That is how they have become the CEO's. But having accomplished that they have to cope up with the pressures of prioritization of priorities! 

They have to do the cope up acts, the balancing acts, the sacrificial acts and many such things which are difficult for normal human beings. Many CEO's thus become naturally abnormal as a consequence of their balancing acts!

But all bosses are essentially minor replicas of God on earth. 

If they knew something of the great secrets of God, perhaps they could have accomplished all their tasks much easier. 

Because God is the Supreme CEO of the Universe and yet He copes up with all the CEO pressures so easily without any one ever noticing it. 

And one of the most important secrets of God as the Universal CEO is the manner in which God has delegated work and power (responsibilities) to all His subordinate personalities of the universe. [Read the potential of delegation in progress and development!]

Our management gurus know much about the power of delegation and mentoring in management whether it is management of the family, small business, big business or even the governments. 

But we are all with human weaknesses and that prevent us from perfectly practicing what we know. 

Most CEOs fail utterly in delegating work and authority. They fail utterly in mentoring people to perform and progress. They keep indulging in others work because they fail to trust people even after delegation, making their delegation degrade to pseudo-delegation.

Have you ever seen the Universe CEO interfering in your life? God has delegated you free will for all decisions and choices. Having done that, God will not interfere in your free will in any way even while He possesses all powers to do that. 

And imagine the problems of God, had He been to solve the problems of all in the universe even after he delegating the powers of solving the problems to all below! But God is perfect and He never changes the rules in between, even while He has the powers to do all that.

And just imagine the situation, when the human CEOs ( we are all CEOs in one way or other for some situation) trying to imitate God and work as true replicas of God on earth by truly using the God given powers wisely! Perhaps then, the work of others would not shift unfavorably to a few others, making imbalances in our human relations. 

Perhaps we might tend to become a society in true progress with less and less individual problems.

Neither Indra Nooyi nor any others like her need not be over worked and without paucity of time, provided they know how to delegate responsibilities to those who are capable of discharging those responsibilities equally well.

A good leader or boss knows the art of distributing his or her powers and responsibilities to each and every individual down below in the team commensurate with their individual capacities to make use of those delegation effectively.

When the boss does delegation of authority and responsibility improperly, the organization fails to perform adding to the woes of the boss. 

In the family too, such delegation of work and responsibilities is to be implemented with much care. If done well, the family too would become a smooth running mini organization.

When every one is enabled to perform according to their inherent capacities we get complimentary families and organizations that run well without causing problems to others.

At least, things would be better and bosses may not be required to devote more time than their subordinates to make their organizations perform.

The gender of the boss would not make any difference too!

15 Most Critical Problems that Force India to be a Nation of Imbalanced Progress and Development!

There many public problems that remain unresolved in India, but could be resolved to practically acceptable levels if there is some competency, character, courage and compassion (the 4Cs)   in the minds of the concerned people who occupy responsible positions in all levels of governmental organizations in this country.

If these issues are resolved, India would become a developed nation from that of a perpetually developing nation.

In my opinion, the following are the fifteen most important Indian Public Problems that need to be resolved on priority:

1. Problems Due to Improper Land Reforms and Property Laws.

2. Problems Due to Improper Urban and City Management

3. Problems Due to Improper Health Care Management

4. Problems Due to Improper Animal and Environmental Laws

5. Problems Due to Regressive Taxation Laws

6. Problems Due to Improper Social Security Systems

7. Problems Due to Lack of Compassion and Trust in Laws

8. Problems Due to Improperly Regulated Education Systems

9. Problems Due to Improper Electoral Reforms

10. Problems Due to Improper Judicial and Law Enforcement Systems

11. Problems Due to Complex Administrative Approval Systems for Business

12. Problems Due to Complex Contract Settlement Mechanisms

13. Problems Due to Inadequate Public Record Keeping and Communication Systems

14. Problems Due to Neglect of Competency and Character of Individuals in Work Teams

15. Problems Due to Neglect of Planning

But in general all these problems together make India a unique nation of irrational logic and a mysterious economy among all the nations of the present world.

It causes this nations to become more and more imbalanced as it makes every step towards progress and development.

Would that imbalance topple the nation later?

It is time to think and act!

Inhuman Working Conditions of Indian Railway Loco Drivers: Think about it when You Travel!

Indian Railways being a central government monopoly would perhaps be one of the  whole sole business opportunity that the unconcerned bureaucrats and technocrats associated with the Indian Railways mismanage to the core unwittingly due to various systemic lacunae associated with the whole system.

The railways have a tremendous potential for business enhancement because the demand for its services are much higher than the supply. Unfortunately, either due to incompetency or due to various deep rooted vested interests the railway authorities at the top and at the bottom seem to keep the Indian railway services as a matter of perpetual scarcity. Had they managed it well, it could have provided much more employment than the present in a much more decent manner, besides giving satisfaction to the millions of its users. Indians as a whole would have some thing to showcase and be proud of. But unfortunately it has not been so ever since India got independence.

As a railway user, I would not have felt it as a problem to pay a little more, had they enhanced the quality of services, its availability and its safety.

The railways in India is a monopolistic business directly run as a governmental organization unlike many other government controlled businesses. Once upon a time the telecom business was also a similar governmental monopolistic organization in India. Telecom sector has since been opened up to the private sector. Some how those in power do not want to try the telecom experiment with the railways and lose the power and privileges they have been enjoying even from the British Raj days!

I had written about the Indian railways in this forum in earlier occasions too. When governmental systems try to manage business it causes several challenges and those challenges cannot be addressed with a conventional mindset. It requires forceful people who could remove the lethargy of legacy in government. Unfortunately lethargic systems of people hardly facilitate that. Even those who are part of governance become unaware and helpless to effect changes because the systems blind them from understanding the root causes.

What tempted me to write about the Indian railways again is a news that appeared in the national newspapers a couple of days ago.

The news was regarding the pitiful working conditions of the Indian locomotive drivers. Perhaps this news was a small synopsis of a detailed doctoral thesis paper published in 2013 in the IOSR Journal of Business and Management titled Work Life of Indian Railway's Drivers (Loco Pilots)  authored by Dr Rajesh Ranjan and Dr T Prasad based on their detailed investigative studies. 

I recommend all those who are interested and concerned to have a reading of this research paper for themselves.

It is most unfortunate that the Indian authorities have not considered it to take any appropriate actions to fill up the acute shortage of loco pilots during the past years that the shortage as of now is reportedly to the tune of over 20,000. This has caused the train drivers who drive the goods and passenger trains in India to work much more time on a regular basis than what is humanly possible. It is reported that the heavy work load has made the loco pilots to work on an average 10 hours at a stretch now. 

Instead of enhancing the rolling stock to cater to the ever increasing demand, the authorities have been trying to enhance the use of the available rolling stock (loco engines, passenger coaches, goods wagons, etc) to maximum use, sometimes even necessitating compromise on their maintenance, safety, inspections and replacement of spares. Since they have been adopting a policy of decreasing the manpower for enhanced profits and cash generation, the availability of trained and experienced personnel has been on a continuous decline over the years. This has caused difficulties in using even the available equipment optimally. 

It is all the effect of some foolish management consultants propagating the idea of reducing man power for better business sense that has been percolating the corridors of power slowly in such a way that the conditions that existed at the time of the original proposal is no more valid as time elapsed in years. With some bureaucrats getting the idea later, become proponents of the idea much later when it is warranted the least, we land into a situation of complex and contradictory policies!  Effectively, such a scenario causes the governmental systems to work in an antagonist manner always. The resultant is a non functional government which is under constant ridicule by the informed citizens and facing the ire of the common citizens! Under such circumstances, citizens feel pity about their political leaders who head the railway ministry and keep parroting the verses taught by the officialdom under them as explanations to all the ills of the railways that people keep facing day in and day out! 

Some years back there was a report in the news papers regarding Indianization of imported high power locomotive engines as suggested by some of the 'enlightened' technocrats and bureaucrats of the railway ministry. The foreign supplier was delivering air conditioned locos with much facilities to the loco pilots as was the usual practice as per the international specifications.

But some individuals of the Indian techno-bureaucratic system that manages the Indian railways wrote their expert opinions in the concerned files advising against the air-conditioning. Perhaps that had forced the supplier to charge more for removing a standard facility from their advanced engines in order to Indianize them! Unfortunately such decisions that take place within the system of governance hardly get noticed and the concerned technocrats and bureaucrats are never questioned by any one for their so called wisdom! More over the Indian political bosses hardly have the competence to overrule the recommendations of the techno-bureau-financial expert recommendations always. Virtually more often they are contented to act as rubber stamps giving approvals without the ability to get themselves convinced as the representatives of the common man before they give their approvals or disapproval.

Is it not inhuman and cruel that the loco men and women have to keep entrapped in their engine rooms under hostile environment for hours at a stretch even without the facility to attend the nature's call? 

Who are to be blamed if their human bodies succumb to the tiresome situation and their eyelids close for a few seconds and miss the signals while the engine haul them at tremendous speeds exceeding 100 km/hr? 

Are they responsible or those who sit in cool and comfy cabins to write their own opinions on the files without ever understanding what the railway or the loco are? 

Fatal rail accidents are a common feature now-a-days in India. The railway administration is very keen to penalize the loco pilots for all accidents.

Are they responsible? 

To be very frank, I have never ever imagined in the past that our railway loco drivers are discharging their duties under such compelling circumstances.

I salute them. They are our heroes. But what about those who try to exploit our heroes?

Think about it when next time you travel by the Indian railways!