10 Successful Indian Women Entrepreneurs Who Converted Challenges into Opportunities!

I honor entrepreneurs more than the politicians and the bureaucrats because they are the real managerial leaders who successfully mobilize men(women), material and money in a sustainable manner to enhance wealth of the nation. More importantly, they are the ones who create sustainable employment opportunities to those of their kind who are not so enterprising. 

It is very much possible that the entrepreneurs, industrialists and the businessmen have been generally identified as a kind of workaholics in the society who are mostly interested in making profits for themselves at the cost of others. The communists call them capitalist exploiters of the society. It is not that this definition is without any substance. 

It is a sad reality that a good majority of capitalists are domineering exploiters who in the process of achieving greater heights of business success become prey to their over ambitions and greed that they fail to recognize the genuine aspirations and needs of the working classes. 

In reality entrepreneurs are ambitious people who have a greater degree of enthusiasm to do some thing big and a greater desire to make money than the common people. They are driven by the passion to work and overcome challenges to achieve big. No doubt, these are good qualities. But the problem comes when their ambitions turn into over ambitions and their love for money and power get converted in to insatiable greed. And that is philargyria-the insatiable greed for money and material pleasures! I had written about it some time earlier also.

But greedy businessmen and women are becoming a thing of the past. Now more and more young entrepreneurs are arising in the society who are driven by the passion to do some thing good for the society instead of satiating their own selfish needs. And that is definitely a good sign!

When such good leaders arise in the society, it is our duty to honor them and appreciate their good deeds. We should also appreciate the fact that no business can survive unless it is sustainable. Sustainability requires that the business processes are reasonably profitable and are done in accordance with the laws of the land as far as feasible. A business is good when it provides employment and satisfies the needs of the society honestly with out adopting fraudulent practices.

But setting up a business and managing it successfully in an environment of conflicts, unfair competition and impractical laws and governmental systems is indeed a challenge that can make a normal leisure loving human to lose his or her cool. It is a stressful feat indeed that could make even a strong man to become weak both mentally and physically.

When that is the case, what should we say when we find successful first timers belonging to the so-called weaker sex from an underdeveloped nation like our India who had over come myriads of life challenges to become successful entrepreneurs? 

I simply say, salute them! They are real heroines of not reel life, but real life!

I have read about the achievements of a few of such ladies of India in some of the websites. I am sharing below the links that give some salient information about 10 of them with my readers:

1. Jyothi Reddi - the farm labourer who became an IT CEO 

2. Roopa Hungund- the technology entrepreneur 

3. Rashmi Singh _ The art entrepreneur

4. Kalpana Saroj- the exploited girl turned CEO of steel industry

5. Kiran Majumdar Shaw- the formidable women entrepreneur

6. Chanda Kochhar- the woman who made ICICI bank click.

7. Neelam Dhawan- the non-IT lady who took IT under control

10. Shahnaz Husain- the pioneer in beauty clinic  business

The above are just illustrations. I have omitted the names of ladies who took the reins of family businesses.

While I honor and salute the success of such ladies, I also earnestly wish that they do their entrepreneurial responsibilities honestly without getting trapped in philargyria-the insatiable greed for money and power that keep trapping several of their male counter parts!

Picking the Right Person for the Right Job: An Artistic Skill Possessed By Successful Leaders!

Some time ago, I had written a blog in this forum,  a case study highlighting  the differences in the working styles of two chief executive officers in the same company that impacted the company positively and negatively respectively. 

I had named these two CEO's as Mr.X and Mr.Y in my case study-Mr X being the one who made the positive impact and Mr Y who caused the negative impact. In the case study, the incidences that I had mentioned were personally involving me and known to me. I had written this as an example to remind the readers about the importance of the personality traits of leaders, both inherent and acquired, in ensuring organizational success.

Successful leaders do have the knack of identifying the potentials of people and taking advantage of the hidden potentials for the collective benefit of the organization and ensuring organizational success. It may be easier for some people to know about the qualities of individuals who are directly in touch with them. However, higher level interactions in most large organizations tend to become highly formal which result in people getting evaluated mechanically and statistically with total neglect of their human values. 

The so-called human resource management (HRM) in such organizations, where the top leaders become careless about HRM, becomes too routine and mechanical. Soon, people of such organizations become mere entities with employee numbers rather than human beings with warm hearts and responsive minds! The organization becomes too socialistic with all employees getting treated more or less in the same manner, disregarding their individual functions, experience and expertise! The Human Resource Department (HRD) takes over and determines all aspects of human resources routinely and mechanically instead of the CEO's or other functional leaders within the organization. The role of the latter in HRM becomes too insignificant in such organizations. At this point onward, the organization begins to slip down to its failure!  

The top leaders in such circumstances slip away from their fundamental leadership quality of picking, projecting and mentoring (what I prefer to call as the PPM process) the individuals who are the keys of sustainable success for their respective organizations.

Many of the successful start up companies have leaders who possess the leadership skill in PPM. Many failing organizations (companies, governments and the like) do turn around when they get a CEO or equivalent leader who is artistically skilled in PPM.

Mr.X about whom I mentioned above was one CEO who possessed the PPM skill. I would like to tell about two other instances, personally known to me, in which this skill in him made the difference.

Let me call him ERC instead of calling him Mr.X.  He was the CEO of a large public sector organization employing some 70000 people at that time. At that time I was a junior level chemical engineer  in this company engaged in metallurgical production in massive volumes. During this time, I was moved to the in-house design and engineering department of this company entrusted with the task of finding solutions to production problems arising out of inadequacies in water management systems in this huge metallurgical production facility. 

At that time one additional steel production facility got commissioned and the management was constantly trying to enhance production to its rated capacity. The new facility which was to produce steel slabs through its continuous casting machines was not able to produce quality steel slabs. The slabs the machine produced were with many surface cracks.

Foreign experts were called and there were several international experts working to solve the problem, but unfortunately none of them were able to find the root cause of the problem and to find a solution to the problem. As days and months passed, the CEO Mr ERC became a worried person. 

Then perhaps he remembered me as the young engineer who solved the chocking problem of the Gas Cleaning Plants that affected commissioning of the steel converters some months ago, by suggesting some unconventional ideas.

There was an apparent communication from the CEO's office to my head of the department (HoD) that forced the latter to call me personally to his room and asking me to study the problem independently and suggest ideas to resolve the problem just as I did earlier.

I knew nothing about steel making through the continuous casting method. Yet, I accepted the challenge and made my first visit to the new continuous casting department, interacted informally with many engineers and other technical persons. I also studied about all the aspects involved in the process of steel casting through the continuous casting machines. The slab cracking could be due to several reasons, such as machine speed variation, casting powder quality, steel chemical quality, cooling inadequacy and the like.

Just as the experts kept working on these issues, I too thought about all these through my fresh engineering mind which was totally unbiased as I was no expert in this area. Then it struck me. The problem was apparently due to a defective secondary cooling. I thought about it in detail. Then I got convinced and found the reasons of the problem. Inadequate secondary cooling zone water spray cooling was indeed causing the cracks due to partial chocking of a few spray nozzles here and there over a period of few days. The spray nozzle tips were irreversibly getting scaled with water impurities in a hot area affecting the spray distribution geometry.

I thought about the possible solution. The solution was to isolate the secondary cooling zone from the rest of other cooling water circuits and to use specially treated water for this purpose. It involved some technical issues and installing a new water treatment facility. 

I gave my findings and my suggestion to my HoD who in turn forwarded it to the CEO's office. Just in a day's time, the CEO studied the suggestion and gave his decision. His noting entrusted me to work out the detailed feasibility report (FR) in line with my suggestion so as to enable the company to take the necessary approvals to set up the new facility as suggested by me. I prepared the detailed FR in a month's time. 

I remember Mr ERC personally pursuing the FR and getting the approvals of the company Board in a week's time, some thing exceptional for the company. I was made the lead engineering consultant for the project. The project got commissioned two weeks before the scheduled date. And the problem of steel slab cracking got resolved for ever.

Later, a new government came in to power in India. Mr ERC was called for a meeting in Bangalore with the new minister concerned with our company. Mr ERC never returned back. He was unceremoniously removed from the post of the CEO for reasons still not known!

Being an eminent steel professional, Mr ERC was soon picked up by an emerging steel company in western India with huge ambitions in the Indian steel business. He was also in the director-boards in a few other private companies as well at that time when privatization trend took momentum in India.

I had seen Mr ERC from a distance only. Being a junior officer of the company, I never had an opportunity to interact with him directly, face-to-face.

After Mr ERC left our company some time in 1989, we were not knowing much about his whereabouts. During that period, the private steel company based in Western India, started recruiting professionals for various senior positions for their proposed integrated steel plant project in the west coast. There was one senior position that appeared as well suited to my experience and qualifications. So, I too applied and I was called for the interview.

The interview was scheduled at the company's steel project office quite away from a well known city. The company had arranged vehicles to take the candidates to the interview venue from their city office. 

I was quite surprised to find more than 50 people who had turned up to attend the interview for just one HoD level post. Most of the people had been from the private industry, for whom jumping from one post to the other was not a big issue as compared to the few people like me from the public sector and the government.

The interview began at around 11 a.m. For each candidate, they were taking about half an hour. They were also not allowing the people who got finished to meet the others who were waiting. I began to feel a bit irritated when my turn was not coming even after few hours. Then I decided to quit without attending the interview. But my problem was the transport to go back to my hotel in the city. Unless the company provided some vehicle, it was impossible for me to go back.

I decided to approach the concerned HR personnel. To my surprise, I was directed to a person whom I find was a senior officer  who superannuated some time ago from my own company. We knew each other to some extent. I told him my intention to go back without the interview and my disillusion with the whole process that they were adopting.

When I insisted, this old man suddenly asked me a question. He asked me whether Mr ERC was someway connected to me. I did not realize why he was asking that. I knew Mr ERC as our company's powerful ex-CEO. But we never interacted one-to-one and there was no chance that Mr ERC knowing me, just one among the thousands of engineers who were in his past organization. So, I replied in the negative.

Then this person produced a paper from his table drawer. He handed over that paper to me and I read what was written in it. Mr ERC had scribbled something on it which surprised me a lot. He had instructed the HR department to get me to be appointed for the post. He had written my name, my then place of working and other details quite unambiguously. 

My senior now sitting on the other side then told me their part of the story. He said that this instruction,  from Mr ERC who had become one of their directors, came after they took actions for advertising for the post. They were thinking of approaching me directly. But then they saw my own application among the people who had responded to the advertisement. Their job had thus become easier.

He then informed that I was their choice for the post. Now the interview that was being done was a formality and also an opportunity for some of them to assess my potentials. That was the reason why they had deliberately kept me as the last candidate for the interview.

My interview took place late in the evening. The interview board consisted of very senior and aged people. I was quite young and would have fumbled facing these stalwarts from the industry. But soon I realized the manner in which they interacted with me. They were treating me like an industry expert in my area of specialization. It was a true professional interaction.

Soon they announced about my selection to the post. I remember, the full bus load of candidates returning back to the city with all the rest congratulating me for my selection.

But I did not accept that offer due to some other reasons. That is another story.

I have wrote this to illustrate the special skill of Mr ERC in evaluating people under him even when he never directly interacted with them. He had his own channels of knowing the pulse of his organization. He had his own methods to know about the potentials of the individuals who worked in the organization even when he never had the necessity to meet any one of those individually. 

Knowing people and using the PPM process wisely were some aspects of his successful leadership.

Many of our leaders in the industry and in other areas unfortunately ignore this and make their respective organizations risk potential failure.

If successful companies become suddenly unsuccessful and if governments fail to keep up the expectations of the people, it is all because of the failure of the concerned leaders in recognizing the individuals that form the organization and their failure to make use of the people appropriately.

Would you respond with your views on this?

Suicidal Corporate Drivers Who Over Speed To Destruction !

Today morning I was reading the views expressed by the lady CEO of Axis Bank as published by a leading Indian business newspaper. She had opined that Indian Businessmen and entrepreneurs are intrinsically risk taking. So long as they are risk taking, there is not much problem for the banks to disburse their monies as business loans with potentials for good earnings.

On the other hand there are news in the media regarding the resignation of the lady CEO of an Indian Public Sector bank -the United Bank of India. This bank is burdened with a heavy non-performing asset or NPA. NPA is nothing but the unrecoverable loans of the bank. The bank officials perhaps had distributed heavy amounts as loans to many 'risk taking' entrepreneurs who had taken the risk of pleasing the bank officials with 'necessary' documents and the bank officials had in turn taken 'the risk' of clearing those loan applications expecting big success of the risk taking businessmen. But in this case, the risks actually became real and the money has become non-recoverable!

People are of essentially of two kinds. The majority are non risk taking and less adventurous. They will not risk their lives by venturing in to dangerous adventures. But then there are another group, a minority who are risk taking and adventurous in nature. They are the brave men and women of our world. They are the ones who move ahead for achieving their goals. Their goals could be anything. Exploration, travel, sport, business, politics or anything of that sort. In these, business and political risk taking are a bit different from the others as these two are determined by what is known as greed. The greed for money and power! 

The minority of people who are greedy for money and power too are essentially risk taking in their nature. However, their risk taking nature is not only detrimental to them, but also catastrophic to several others whose lives are directly or indirectly dependent on them. 

The risk taking politicians could drive the entire nation and its people to miseries for generations. Businessmen manipulate money, men and materials (the so-called 3 M's of management) for making more money while trapping more men and materials. In their high enthusiasm and high ambition many of them set high and achievable targets for them to accomplish. They dislike the word, impossible. For them there is nothing impossible. If there is a will, there is a way. That is what they prefer to believe!

Short and long term success of some others are their examples that they wish to emulate. Per se, it is not something bad. But what actually happens to such people is the manner in which impatience becomes too visible in their actions and decisions. They fail to recognize the fact that impatience is a mind poison.

Thus their business enthusiasm and ambition become poisoned by impatience. Impatience for achievement of high targets. Impatience for doing things or achieving results in the shortest time. 

What happens when you drive a vehicle at 100 km/hr speed when the road conditions do not permit you to drive more than half that speed? Even when your vehicle is capable, you are bound to make accidents and destroy your vehicle and yourself! But if you happen to be a good driver who knows well about your vehicle, the road and the rules, you would not venture into such an adventure of over speeding.

In a similar way, there are over speeding businessmen and chief executives who try hard to push their business organizations to impossible tasks and performances. It they are knowledgeable about the intricacies of the business and their business organization (the company or the firm that they manage or own) they may not take such a risk that might eventually cause great harm.

Unfortunately, in the world of high competition that we have today, there are chances that the businessmen and their chief executives are mere manipulators who are not competent in many other aspects of their own business processes. They may be good in one or two aspects but not in all. Since they are successful in their own areas, they tend to consider other areas of work also to be like their own and force others to fall in line without realizing the consequences.

Let me explain this by a simple hypothetical example. Imagine that there is a real estate developer.He is not a technical man but he knows the technique of getting the land purchased and also getting the approvals from the statutory authorities by hook or crook. He has experienced that the approval process which takes usually a few months time got reduced to a week because he could 'manage' the authorities. He had seen that the architect who asked for three months time to develop the drawings finally agreed to give all the drawings in a month's time when he put sufficient pressures including some inducements. But in this process he failed to understand that the drawings the architect now supplied were some quick copies with some quick manipulations and not something specifically made for him by applying proper mind. The result was that this builder was going to spend much more money, efforts and time to complete the work later, though he apparently made a quick success to get the drawings much earlier.

In a similar manner this builder could force the civil contractors to speed up the work to such levels which are neither practical nor technically justifiable. If he forces them, they are likely to adopt short cut methods in construction to speed up the work. They may even start building the higher floors without giving enough time for curing of the lower floors or reinforced cement concrete (RCC) construction. This could cause heavy structural weakness  to the building which might even cause total failures some time later. If that happens, this builder might even land in jail. But if he a risk taking sort of a man, these eventualities may not deter him. He would proceed in a haste and make some quick bucks. If nothing serious happens, that becomes his benchmark of success. 

The organizations of today's world are more and more getting created or managed by people of this sort- the so-called successful leaders who maintain their success projected by hook or crook till proved otherwise by some untoward happenings. Since organizations are more and more getting responsible for the economic activities of people, their failure is bound to affect people adversely.

Organizations are essentially to ensure long term sustainability of collective work and activity of people and hence they are supposed to last for a few generations. If organizations are created only to disintegrate in a few years, that is not a desirable thing and if it happens too frequently, it is a sign of ill health of the society or the nation where it belonged.

If organizations are disintegrating, it is often the top directors or top executives of the organization who are responsible for such breakups. And often, it is the suicidal risk takers at the top decision making levels who are responsible. They are like the captains of the large ships who pilot the ship to destruction and escape using the only one life boat in the ship leaving the rest in the ship and the ship to destruction. The maritime laws consider this as a punishable offense. Unfortunately, the captains of large organizations who do such acts to destroy their organizations are not often taken to task.

It is a serious issue and the right thinking should think about it for some solutions.

Competency, Character , Courage and Compassion -the 4 C's that Ensure Long term Success of a Leader!

Some time ago, some one in a large organization asked me the essential traits that are required for any leader to lead an organization and ensure long term success. I explained the relevance of Competency, Character, Courage and Compassion the way I understood it, to answer his question. My friend was not so convinced. I know, a good majority of my fellow country men in India would not take my views.

But whether they accept it or not, it is a universal truth. Leaders who do not have these traits might seem to be successful for a while but the irony is that they would not be able to sustain their success for long.

The organization could be any thing. Political, business, governmental, administrative, religious, social, educational, military, law enforcement, judicial, etc, etc. It could be large or small. It could be autonomous or dependent. It could be a organizational conglomerate with multiple objectives or a simple one with a single objective. Whatever it is, leaders lacking the 4 Cs above could ruin it after some time.

Human civilization has seen many powerful political and national organizations such as many great empires of the past rising and thriving for some time, only to be disintegrated wholly after a while.

Even in the recent times we have been observing such phenomena.

While an individual human being with  a life span of say 70-80 years on an average is considered generally as a very good one with regard to age an organization sustaining it activities for a few generations is viewed with some admiration. We have very few organizations of that kind. Even political or national organizations that have survived a few generations are also rare, yet they do exist.

What makes an organization to sustain a life exceeding the average life of a human being? If you study such organizations, you would realize that the leaders of such organizations had the above said 4 C quality much more than their contemporaries. 

I think this phenomena is due to the existence of an invisible divine over control over human organizations.

When the majority of people desire their leaders to be some one with the above 4 C's there is a potential divine blessing over such peoples to have such leaders elevated as their leaders. When the majority of people do not give any importance to this aspect, the reverse happens and they are bound to suffer collectively.

Now let us examine what is meant by these four words.

Competency is the ability to perform a desirable task well. It comprises of knowledge, intelligence, wisdom and a desire to learn and update. It involves skills for language, communication and such other soft skills as well. Common sense is very important. Competency is a mixture of inherent qualities enhanced by proper education and training. A leader should be competent enough to know his organization, understand the work, differentiate between good and bad and should have the ability for reasoning and decision making. Different works might require different kinds of competency.

Competency of a person is polished by his or her character. Character is that innate quality of a person to select and opt good from bad. It involves such traits such as honesty, values, ethics and the like. A highly competent person can have a good character or may be ever characterless. A characterless leader with high competency is highly dangerous for the organization and the people. If we study history, we can see hundreds of examples of this kind.

Courage is the trait that makes a leader different. If a leader lacks courage to lead and take appropriate decisions at appropriate moments, such leader could bring failures and disasters for the organization that he leads even while he has enough competency and is a person of character. At the same time courage should not be such that it causes misadventure. In other words, courage should be reflected through wise decisions.

A leader must be compassionate to fellow human beings. His or her decisions should always be based on compassion to other humans. But compassion should not blind him or her from taking corrective actions. A compassionate leader is bound to be 'mild and soft as a dove, but clever and assertive as a serpent'. Love and mercy to all humans be his guiding force. But his competency should come to his aid in weeding out those inherently bad elements who do not deserve love and mercy. Perhaps this is one of the greatest problems many leaders face in their lives. They often commit great errors of judgement in realizing the real motives or natures of others. Often this causes, leaders to like and promote those around them who are good in the art of sycophancy. The fundamental principle to understand here is that people with competency and character are less likely to indulge in pampering others with good words and deeds with some hidden agenda of receiving favors. They are also not likely to fall preys to flattery.

If a nation has survived a few generations successfully, it is an indication that it has strong internal organizations led by people with the 4 C's at various levels. The moment, the national organizations get people who do not have these 4 Cs, the organizations begin to disintegrate. So, it is highly essential that organizations resort to proper leadership changes when leaders of any level is found to lack in the 4 Cs to some recognizable degree.

Though all the four Cs are important, my personal priority of arranging these four in the order of decreasing importance (higher to lower) is like this: Character-Competency-Compassion-Courage!

Often people have this doubt. Would it be possible for a person of character to withstand many others who are characterless in other organizations around?

I would say, yes. And my belief is that in the years to come, characterless people are bound to fail more often than in the past. When I say this, I have some strong intuitive reason for such a belief. That does not mean that we would not be seeing characterless people making successes. Characterless people are going to make short term successes in the future too, just as in the past. But their fall would be quicker.

So, no nation or business would sustain longer when they are infected with people lacking the 4 Cs that I mentioned. Organizations that give honest importance for these 4 Cs for their people are bound to succeed and win over those who do not, in the long run.

Our world is not going to face any global apocalypse or Armageddon . Such scenarios in minor levels could keep happening in the future, because of nations and organizations infected with people lacking the 4 Cs. But total destruction of this world is never going to happen, as feared by many, because of the over control exercised by divine powers. It is absurd to believe that God has created humanity for facing ultimate destruction because of the foolish deeds of some inferior humans or even some inferior angels as believed and taught by some religious leaders of the past or the present.

While the misdeeds of some inferior humans who lack competency, character, courage and compassion in them might bring some disasters now and then, here and there, with some of us facing the consequences, such things should not dishearten us or cause our minds to such levels as praising and admiring evil. In that case we are aligning to the evil that gets happening due to evil men and women who lack the 4 Cs. Instead, it would be better idea to look for instances and people who bring lasting success and the importance of the 4 Cs in those cases. That would help in us aligning towards good rather than evil.

Just think about these and make your own judgments.

Getting the Best out of the People: The Critical Area where Indians Fail !

India as a nation has not been performing well in any field even when it has several advantages as compared to most of the nations .

The above is a generalized statement which most Indians and non-Indians would perhaps agree, at least in private discussions.

Often I think about the reasons for such a sad state of affairs for my country.

I have written about these earlier [ Read those here in the home page of the BewareIndia site ! ]

The problem with India is that you cannot see consistency in organisational excellence while that is seen as existing here and there in some organizations or in some organizational pockets.

When excellent organizations pervade the length and breadth of the country, the country as a whole becomes excellent !

Organizations are made of individuals , physical systems and regulatory systems. Problems with any of these can affect the overall functioning of the organization adversely.

Individuals without character, commitment and competency [the three critical C's] can ruin any organization.

But inadequacy of physical systems can make even those individuals with enough of these three C's to fail miserably from performing (within an organization).

Let me try to explain this with some simple examples.

I once had to visit a police station in one of the growing cities in connection with a notice I got from them regarding police verification of my credentials for getting my passport renewed.

A reasonably acceptable practice should be that a responsible police officer should make a visit to my residence and my locality and make a fair assessment about me and then sent his report to the concerned passport issuing authority. But for doing this, the police station should have the following facilities:

1. It should have a reasonably competent officer who could be spared to do this investigation.

2. The officer should be provided with the means of transport to do such an investigation.

3. He should have the necessary tools and facilities for preparing his investigation report error free and keeping a record of it for future reference.

4. He should have someone equivalent or more experienced to check his report.

5. There should be facilities for dispatching the report confidentially.

In any progressive and developed country, perhaps no compromise is made to deprive the concerned officer in any of the above.

But in India, it is something very different.

I observed the following in the passport verification incident as above:

1. The police station incharge did not have a police man who could be reliably assigned the duty of the investigation. So he sent the message, through one of the policemen who visited me by travelling almost 5 km by pedalling his bicycle in the otherwise crowded city of fourwheelers, for me to visit the station. The police station had just one vintage model jeep which in my assessment never moved ! But remember this was the time most of the higher level police officers who were not necessarily involved with any on site investigations moved around in brand new red beaconed SUVs which were twice or thrice the cost of a jeep that the junior police officers have to use for field work !

2. There was only one policeman, designated as the police station writer, who could do some documentation work; that too in his shabby handwriting, deciphering of which may not be an easy task for even the so-called educated Indian citizens. Absence of a desktop computer, printer or typewriter, almirahs for keeping the files, paper and other essentials for an office was strikingly obvious.

3. The police writer himself was not provided with a proper table or room or chairs for those visiting him to sit comfortably to provide the necessary information to him. It was not possible for me to take out my papers and show him. All he had there to do all these important work is a table which is hardly 2.5 ft x 1.5 ft ! He was profusely apologizing me for the lack of facilities in his office ! (that was after he got motivated enough to do his work in such a hostile work environment !)

I am not elaborating. Now this is the case with most offices in India, whether they are government departments, private organisations, or public sector or other institutions like the universities. Situation in the private sector are improving, though.

I once had the opportunity to visit the Reserve Bank of India office at New Delhi. At that time I was ashamed to see the way its officers (Class-1) sitting !

Regrettably, in India,  facilities for the working people are not provided commensurate with the duties they are required to perform. Most often the rank or position determines the extent of facilities provided in the office or work place. As you go up in the organizational hierarchy, the actual work to be done gets reduced. But that is the time the person concerned gets the power to grab all the facilities that were deprived for him in the formative years of his career when he needed those the most ! He might not require those computers, big tables, chairs, big spacious office, file cabinets, almirahs, scores of chairs, etc., etc. now. But most of the senior officers in India invariably are fond of these while doing pretty nothing for their juniors in the organization who are supposed to do the work using such work enabling facilities.

In effect the Indian organizations keep spending money for such things but miserably fail to ensure that the required physical facilities are available to those who are to use those facilities to get the best performance.

In my opinion this kind of a situation is one ( just one, there are many; but important !) of the root causes of inefficiency in the Indian organizations.

In India, it is a common thing that people appointed to do various functions have to spend most of their time and energy to set up their offices or work places. They have to run from pillar to post for getting their tables, chairs, office accommodation, consumables, etc., etc. I know many cases when such appointees had only achieved some of this only in their entire tenure, and nothing else concerned with their actual work for which they were appointed.

Some  time ago, I happened to listen to a speech made by a very senior IAS officer appointed as the head of a very important mission with the direct intervention of the PM wherein he explained the pains and troubles for months for getting their place of work (means 'office') arranged ! If it could happen for such very senior VIPs (VIPs in front of the common man !) what would be the case for others ? It is just a matter of imagination !

In India, organizations keep getting re-arranged every now an then for adjusting new people within it. Together with it the physical systems (means offices) also gets re-arranged, changed, removed or added.

Its not the people for the posts, but posts for the people !

Perhaps the only office where the physical office does not change much could be the Rashtrapati Bhawan. Here too, internal readjustments and re-arrangements are perhaps made drastically to suit the person who occupies the post !

We talk much about standards and standardization. Unfortunately there are no standards for such things. Though it is very easy to do and should have been done to avoid pathetic inactivity during the change over period or warming up period.

The ripples of this are felt all around the organization and the organization as a whole fails to perform in time ! The organizational sluggishness of action sets in !

It is not because the individuals in the organization do not want to perform or act ! The organizational inertia created this way does not allow the individuals to act faster !

Remember, when offices and the people in offices are changed here and there routinely, even the systems in place fail to perform.

For example, in one place an office in the process of getting re-arranged. A communication received in this office for onward action get stuck up in this office due to discontinuity of the physical systems. That happens whatever be the urgency unless some top boss personally monitors and follow up. Would it be possible for them to do for each and every urgency ? If that is so, it clearly shows that the organization to which they belong no longer works as an organization. The organization of this kind will fail to perform even when there are competent, committed people with character occupy many of the organizational posts !

Perhaps you never find such a situation in the developed nations ! The developed nations are developed and progressive because they know perfectly well how to organize their organizations to perform well. And one of the things that they do take care is to see that the physical systems needed for the organization is provided in required quality and quantity and are not disturbed whimsically or arbitrarily by anyone at any time.

Had there been proper organizational systems in our Delhi Police organization , the three Police Control Room (PCR)  vans that reached the crime site would not have waited so long indecisively to take the injured victims to the hospital.

Had there been such organizational systems in our government, they would not have taken such a delayed decision to take the dying victim for a better treatment !

Making a flawless organization that performs well is not so difficult. It is simple, provided the head of the organization knows those simple techniques to do it.

Just as driving a car is so simple for a driver who knows how to drive ! But if he or she does not know how to drive, it is indeed very, very difficult !

The only difference here is that the car is an assembly or organization of mechanical systems where as our administrative or governmental or business or educational organizations are assemblies of people,  physical systems and of course bound by the rules that govern their functions.

The people ( more of them with the essential three C's are always beneficial), the physical systems (ensure that all the people have the required office facilities or work tools having good quality and in required quantity always) and the guiding rules (ensure that these rules that govern the organisation are fully known to the people of the organization) when placed under a committed head of organization would do wonders. India needs more and more of such successful organizations to weed out our problems.

If we do not know how to do it, we need to attempt to do some benchmarking with the successful organisations of the developed nations. But honestly and with commitment.

Enacting more and more laws with harsh punishments are not going to solve our problems, unless we have successful organizations to perform various functions properly.

When some organizations are utter failure always, it is better to disband that organisation altogether and make new ones from scratches with due care not to repeat the mistakes of the past .

What do you think ?

[View the linked list of all Blogs of the Author Here ! ] 

Infrastructure in India : Talking Much and Doing Nothing !

Perhaps Atal Bihari Bajpayee was one such Prime Minister of India who openly admitted to the poor state of infrastructure in India and launched the visionary 'Golden Triangle Highway Project of India' with much fanfare.

Prior to that the young PM Rajiv Gandhi initiated the dream project named the 'Ganga Action Plan' to clean the River Ganga from pollution.

Unfortunately and most regrettably, it appears that the country has failed miserably in fulfilling even the dream projects announced by the top most political authority. 

It appears to the common man that the political authorities are only interested in gaining some cheap popularity by announcing mega projects and not at all interested in seeing that what they announce gets materialized ever !

On the other hand, starting from a similar back ground a quarter century ago, the neighbouring country China has progressed enviously as far as infrastructural development is concerned. It has become the number one in the world in many things during this period and is progressing forward surpassing even the glorious developed nations of the past.

Just a couple of days ago, I wanted to visit Bhilai, the steel city very near to Raipur, the capital of Chhattisgarh state, which is just a bit over 600 kilometers away from my present city of residence, Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand.

The need was an urgent one and I had to spend hours together to formulate my plans to make the trip.

Both these cities, incidentally come under the steel corridor of India with the largest movement materials, both finished and unfinished. Both have airports and major railways stations. They are located on the so called trunk routes of India.

Yet there are no direct flights nor daily running trains with comfortable class of accommodation. The train journey takes hardly 8 hours provided there is a train with the accommodation and the reservation. Unfortunately there is none even after this country becoming an independent nation more than half a century ago. Incidentally the major railway infrastructure as existing are all developed by the British raj whom the Indians curse perpetually for their misrule !

So there was no choice for me except to make the travel to and fro by road which are prominently marked on the maps as national high ways.

If you search the google options you may find these two cities 'beautifully' connected by a number of roads most of them marked NH (the short name for National Highways !). Google may even suggest that you can perhaps make the trip by car within about 9 to 10 hours by travelling through a combination of NHs.

Believing google, I ventured to make the travel by an SUV and finished the up journey in about 16 hours. Trying a better combination of NH for the return journey using the prestigious NH-6, my luck was more miserable. It took me 22 hours ! Remember, the total time spend for taking some rest for each of the journey was not more than 2 hours ! Had the roads be of any reasonable standard, I could have accomplished my travel easily as suggested by Google ! But then Google doesnot maintain the Indian roads !

[Incidentally, this site Map my India is more practical. They had assessed the road conditions much more practically and predicted the time of travel at about 17 hours!]

These National Highways of India are only in the maps and physically they are just some barren spaces with some signs of paving by asphalt or concrete some time earlier for most of the stretches. These NHs of India pass through some regions which are geographically endowed with good natural beauty and not overcrowded. Perhaps these green regions actually showcase the natural abundance of India ! Had I been responsible for the administration of these highways, I would have seen that these highways are maintained properly always to make my fellow citizen take pride in the country. But thats' only a dream !

But I keep wondering. How can those fellows, who are entrusted with the upkeep of these National Highways which ought to be the symbols of pride for all Indians, can ever disregard their responsibilities to such an extent that they keep these highways a national disgrace ?

There are some more things I observed about these so-called national infrastructure roads called national highways which are obviously maintained so shabbily as national disgraces.

In most places, there are no sign boards. Even if they are there, they do not follow any standards. Especially of importance is the sign boards at the junctions of two or more roads. Sign boards to give proper direction to the motorists are practically absent. If you think that the GPRS navigation will help you, perhaps it could, provided the signals reach you properly. Again do not expect, the local people would be in a position to guide you always. If you take the wrong route, it could turn out to be hundreds of kilometers of extra travel. There are chances of you getting even totally lost for hours.

I noticed some sign boards that declare the same road differently with different NH numbering. Enough for a motorist who travel using the maps to get confused and lost !

If your car develops a snag, it could be the worst situation. There are no known help in the near vicinity. Neither are there any highway patrols who are entrusted to help the motorists. That is again the Indian way of managing things in this context.

I was feeling empathetic to those hundreds of drivers who drive their heavily loaded trucks through these routes, day in and day out, helping the rest of India with the supplies. Their vehicles are always at the risk of going out of balance in these poorly maintained national highways of India. They are also at the risk of untimely breakdowns due to the uneven road surfaces for such long stretches in hundreds of kilometers. Imagine the truck owners spending such huge sums for their vehicles whose life span gets shortened by a few years just because of these roads! Imagine the more fuel they spend on the roads for transporting the goods as the roads are not energy efficient !

The roads are no private property in India. The state and central governments are the sole custodians and managers of the roads. I need not to stress then who is to be blamed for this national shame.

A few decades ago, I remember the Indian roads in a much better condition than now. There were not toll tax collectors at every 15-20 kilometers as the road managers of India has made it to happen in some of the trunk routes now.

The road maintenance was entrusted to the Public Works Department (PWD) of either the state or the central governments. The roads prominently displayed the concerned PWD officer who was in charge of the particular section of the road concerned. At least the people could have known the fellow actually responsible for maintaining that part of the road. If you travel by road, you could see hundreds of workers keep working to maintain the roads. The PWD authorities kept surveying the road conditions regularly and kept doing things on a war footing that no part of the road is in such a shamefully shabby situation.

I do not know what has happened to the Indian PWD now. I do not have any idea about the authority or authorities who are responsible for maintaining the roads and NHs of India now.

The governments keep taxing the new vehicles substantially in the name of road tax. Then some short segments of  roads with heavy traffic are auctioned for maintenance by private players who are allowed to tax the vehicles for decades making much more money than they had spend in making and maintaining those roads. It is a disgrace that the authorities have allowed such privatisation of roads in some of the roads, that too in small patches that pass through the cities, just as the portion of NH-6 which passes through the city of Bhilai forcing even the local populace to pay on a daily basis to use these roads for routine commuting.

Regrettably, Indians have long forgotten to protest. Because they know that their protests no longer carry any weights. They also do not know with whom they should make their complaints or register their protests. The ruling political parties and the opposition political parties are all at par in understanding or not understanding the woes of the people. Neither they, nor those at important positions seem to be ignorant on fixing the responsibility for such sad state of affairs.

Then comes the so-called fourth estate of democracy, the media. In India, the major part of media space and time is devoted to reports of mudslinging and other mundane things not of any value to the people or the country. They prefer to do little research and provide any concrete suggestions. Media also fail miserably in highlighting the actual cause of failure of the governmental systems. They do not feel it comfortable to get to the root cause of the problems by actual pondering about an issue of national importance.

Had they been responsible, their space and time would have been filled with the stories of success, failures and other related matters concerning various developmental aspects of the country including such major issues such as about the roads and highways. There would have been regular media follow ups on such issues. Unfortunately the noted journalists of the country are paid for being in the company of noted politicians always to report and make commentaries on what they want to utter publicly, even when their private opinions could be just the opposite. I found people no more are interested in reading or listening to these stereotyped media reports. Unless the media takes up things responsibly, their days in the future might be numbered !

Are we a nation of wide mouth talkers with absolutely no regard to what we talk?

Are we a nation not interested in actions any more ?

Is it possible to create roads, bridges and other major infrastructure only by issuing plans and policies and doing nothing for their implementation?

Will it be possible to implement any project in time when experienced people are in short supply to do such activities?

Would it be possible to develop people of the right experience and expertise when there are long spells of non-activity ?

Would it be possible to do all these things just by wishful thinking without actual planning and plan implementation ?

Incidentally, I read in the news papers that the Bihar government has realized that their projects are not getting shape because they do not have experienced engineers to make the project proposals properly, including the basic engineering.

Similarly the Jharkhand government has an acute shortage of experienced clerical staff to make the reports typed in order and maintain the files properly.

If that is so, the situation in other states would be no different.

What has happened to all our responsible departments like the PWD and their experienced engineers?

Who butchered those departments ? Who butchered the expertize of India that the independent India kept acquiring all those initial years ?

Any answers ?

Any suggestions ?

Consequences of Haphazard Management Systems !

Modern terminologies of management are invented by management academicians who work in management schools located mostly in the United States of America.  They routinely invent new terms and terminologies which are fed to the rest of the world through their research papers and books published year after year. Business media further try their part to popularize these.

Taking cue from these leaders of management from the leading country of the world, other modifications and adaptations of management theories keep flooding the information circuits of the world.

In the days when computers began making an impact in the world, those of us who chanced to interact with those gigantic electronic machines using the human understandable machine codes such as FORTRAN and COBOL, soon learnt a fundamental aspect of modern technology with special regard to computers. In those days we used to refer that as ' rubbish-in-and-rubbish-out' syndrome.

In a similar way rubbish-in-and-rubbish-out situation exists in all facets of information including management.

I am not telling that all that is researched and published in the field of management are rubbish.

A good number of Indian brains have contributed to the development of management 'science'. The popularity of the term 'management guru' to denote an expert academician or writer in management is a living example of the Indian influence in modern management.

The management principles and research discoveries that have been introduced to the world under various nomenclature, idioms and personified theories that got evolved from case studies from big money making businesses gave modern management the aura of a super science or philosophy. Management Gurus in the recent past have become so influential in politics and business that they could sell their theories so effectively to the decision makers of most of the countries.

The most remarkable one being their success in  removing the ceilings on individual service remunerations or simply salaries that existed a couple of decades ago. Now those occupy top slot positions in any organization are deemed as the top management personnel and very high remunerations to them are fully justified. This was not the case in the pre-globalization era !

In the past a public company could not have paid very high salaries to the top management personnel the way they liked. There existed some statutory guidelines limiting the pay and perks.

In India, the post liberalization scene greatly benefited the top management people working in the private sector companies. All of a sudden the promoters appointed themselves to the top management slots and began to draw such high salaries never ever imaginable by the common citizens.

Some top management persons of privatised PSUs also benefitted immensely.

Some PSU managers who migrated to the private sector also benefitted as far as their salaries are concerned.

In no time, the ratio between the lowest paid and the highest paid jumped to the order of thousands from the order of tens that existed before.

The best part of the new policy was that the top management could draw enormous amounts as salaries or 'management fees' to a couple of individuals of the company even when the company made no profits !


This logic perhaps came from the interesting philosophy of management which postulated that there is 'nothing absolutely right or nothing absolutely wrong' which in simple terms meant the non-existence management failure or success !

That meant that companies can go ruined or bankrupt under the able leadership of management experts holding positions like the CXO or CEO and the good fortunes that they had siphoned out as management fees cannot be taken back from them for their management failures. Because in management there is no real failure. The situations are all various facets of management !

With this logic, a company could be set up using a small percentage of promoters' money and a larger portion of public money either as bank loans or equity from mutual funds and in a couple of years time a good part of it could be siphoned out to a few individuals holding the top management posts as their salaries. If the company's business became successful by any chance, very good. If it does not, then also it is very good !

The Management of the company has nothing to lose, either way. The losers are the public. They could be the ordinary employees of the company or the ordinary share holders or the mutual fund investors or even the simple account holders of the banks.

The consequences of such a ridiculous management system without proper checks and balances on management accountability are for every one to see.

All at the same time the policy makers allowed the existence of other sectors with administered restrictions of pay and perks.

Is it not an insane policy where a lesser experienced person holding a top management post in a smaller private company drawing a monthly salary equivalent to the yearly salary of a more experienced person holding a similar post and performing a management task at a much more complex environment only because the latter is in a company bound by certain statutory clauses which prevents the latter to draw a salary equivalent or better than the former ?

Had it been a transitional thing which existed only for a shorter period of time, we could have perhaps ignored it as a systemic fault which is unavoidable. But if such an illogical situation is prolonged for decades then the whole society would have to bear the brunt in one way or the other.

For example in India even after two decades, the economy is still in mixed mode. Earlier India had a mixed economy where private and public enterprises co-existed more or less on a levelled playing field. Certain sectors were reserved for the government and there was no competition in those.

But now again it is a mixed economy where both private and public enterprises co-exist and compete each other, but in an unbalanced playing field. The situation is neither favourable to the private sector  nor to the public sector.

It is such a situation that all management principles and theories that got evolved in the west can be either proved or disproved at any one's choice and convenience.

A situation has now come in India where honest and competent public sector managers do not find it rewarding to aspire for the top management posts. Managing the company well is not the task which need to be accomplished in this sector now. A different kind of expertize is needed for this management which is yet to be defined by the management gurus !

At least in one aspect both private sector and public sector companies are on an equal footing. Failure of the company is no more the failure of the top management team- it is either the fault of the employees or the policies.

Because some how the modern management gurus have not yet defined management failure !

Then what is haphazard management ?

Or why should we bother of the consequences ? 

How to Kill a Successful Organization ?

Don't ask me why I selected a title like this for this blog. Some of you are familiar with famous book titles like 'the games people play'. Knowingly or unknowingly people also play 'games' aiming at killing or destroying successful organizations.

Organizations are well knit networks of people for accomplishing some defined tasks or objectives in a defined framework of rules or bylaws. There are governmental organizations and non-governmental organizations, business organizations and non-business organizations, charity and non-charity organizations, professional and non-professional organizations, registered and non-registered organizations, etc., etc.

Our governments function through various kinds of organizations. Businesses are carried out through organizations called companies or firms. In short every individual now-a-days is associated with one or more kinds of organizations. Even your family is one kind of organization, perhaps a smaller version of it.

If you are an employed person you belong to an organization which employs you and you work within the organization to earn your livelihood.

So government departments, companies, societies, trusts, partnership firms, institutions, professional bodies, etc are all organizations.

Organizations are for the collective benefit of the individuals of the society or the nation. But unfortunately, organizations which do destructive, anti-social or illegal activities also exist. But for the purpose of this discussion I do not include the latter here.

I want to discuss only about those organizations which are set up for objectives which are legally approved , socially acceptable and for the common good of both the individuals within the organization and outside it.

I consider such an organization successful if it is fulfilling its objectives reasonably well for quite some time and has made a visible presence in the society by their collective efforts.

If the public and those members or individuals connected to the organization generally perceive the organization as good, then the organization can be deemed as successful.

Just as individuals, organizations also has a birth, a childhood, an adult hood, periods of sickness and old age and even death.

Unlike individuals whose life expectancy is determined by natural law and cannot exceed certain maximum, organizations can be kept alive and healthy for longer periods by some techniques known as 'good organizational management'.

If the head is the main organ of an individual, the head of the organization is perhaps the most important member of an organization. He or she is called the Chief Executive Officer (CXO) of the organization.

Just as a brain dead individual can be kept alive for some time, a headless organization also can be kept alive for some time without performing.

Just as individuals have parents, organizations also have parents, some one who takes initiatives in creating it. But once an organization gets created and gets a good CXO and survives its infancy period, it is normally capable of surviving provided its CXO functions well.

Unlike individuals, organizations are capable of replacing its heads by itself or by adopting self sustainable techniques devised for its survival.

However big or strong an organization, its strength and weakness both lies with its CXO. Interestingly, this CXO has to be an individual. Experiments to have a sub organization as a CXO have been found not so successful.

Just as successful individuals have other individuals as their envious enemies, successful organizations also can get such kind of enemies who try to destroy it or weaken it from time to time. This is the threat to any organization.

Even individuals who grudge an  enmity or envy can pose a threat to an organization. Even individual members of an organization sometimes become intellectually or mentally sick posing an internal threat to an organization's existence.

Though normally, such periodical threats and attacks are overcome by an organization which is run by an efficient  CXO. Organizations where good systems and practices are in place also can resist such attacks for quite some time.

But clever enemies who are determined to destroy an organization knows the trick to accomplish their task. They know that the CXO is their trump card. What they normally do is to get a characterless and incompetent person selected and installed as the CXO of the organization.

They know very well that an incompetent driver, pilot or captain can very easily drive the truck, plane or ship to destruction very easily.

And exactly that is how the enemies, both internal and external, of an organization try to destroy a successful organization.

First get a pliable, not so experienced or competent individual, project him as great and then install him as the CXO of that very successful organization as its CXO.

Occasionally some organization parents, out of sheer love and affection to some individuals, allow them to direct the organization, just as some wealthy kids are allowed to drive the expensive car by their parents before they get the driving license, to the eventuality of an accident later.

In either case, one thing is sure. If the CXO of the organization is an incompetent and characterless person, the organization will definitely suffer seriously. But the effects may not be visible immediately always !

Leadership by efficient, competent and honest individuals is the key to success for any organization.