There is a notion in the management fraternity nowadays, that the best talent shall be given the responsibility of managing the rest. This is fundamentally wrong. A talent in doing a job or mastery of a specialized skill does not mean that the possessor of the skill or talent would be good in managing people. Management involves a lot of tasks in administrative nature, that consumes a lot of time. There are people who would be good at handling people, but with limited expertise in specific skills.
We have excellent example to support this argument in Mahabharatha. In the war between Pandavas and Kauravas, Pandavas had chosen Dhrishtadhyumna to lead their troops, a person with a lower profile but with a clear motto of defeating the Kauravas, who was born to kill one of the strongmen of Kauravas Dhronacharya. He was a warrior of an impeccable courage and skill, but not as comparable to Bheeshma or any of the other Kaurava front-line generals. He was given charge of administrative duties of the Commander-in-Chief to device strategies and conduct the war, while the likes of Arjuna and Bheema were left free of other tasks and to concentrate on fighting the enemy.
Whereas in the Kaurava army, the task of commanding the forces was given to Bheeshma who was also the one to tackle Arjuna, Abhimanyu and the likes. He was over burdened. His fall on the war field had a morale damaging impact on the troops. Next came Dhronacharya, who was capable of defeating all the Pandava warriors, but was over burdened with the duties of Commander-in-Chief and the daily chores took it's toll on his performance in the war field. But Arjuna or Bheema or any other of the Pandava brothers were fighting wars and Bheema as sworn was on a killing spree of the Kaurava brothers. No front-line warriors of the Pandava forces were given any additional administrative task of anything.
Their supreme leader Yudhishtra was a good listener of his people, who listened to his adviser Krishna and they often brainstormed before devising strategies and were at unison at mind of the way they were going to conduct the war. After the decision was made the C-in-C was given the powers to carry them out. Whereas in the Kaurava camp the supreme leader Dhuryodhana never listened to his advisers. He made them do what he thought was right and the freedom of operation for the leaders were absent. Any step taken inching away from the idea of the supreme leader would result in the head honcho yelling at other leaders in front of others, which resulted in the loss of morale of the troops and also made the leaders perform what was told, but not what was right.
Let us relate this to the latest of the wars. US has waged war on Iraq. Let us not get into the merits of the reasons given by US. The conduct of war was given to professional generals and they have chosen people to do the jobs and they have served the purpose of the war. Saddam was defeated, dethroned and now he is dead. Whereas the other side had advantages of home ground, patriotic people, courageous generals and staff, but yet the leadership was not listening to them or given freedom to them to do what is right. The generals had to follow what the leader had told them. Unlike the allied forces, where the political leadership had given due support to the military leaders had them conduct the business of war. They had finally defeated the enemy.
The same applies to business also. Where the top management conducts the day to day affairs of the business, it ruins the operations finally. They should get the correct people to manage the talent, nurture the talent and make the talented feel good. The conduct of the business operations is the job of the person who manages the operations. The middle management should be given direction to tread and they have to choose the path to tread. The conduct of the march through the path should be left to the junior management. The junior management had to decide at what pace to march, where to slow down and where to speed up.
The people who are chosen to manage things have to possess some talent in the core business to understand it, and the knack of managing people and motivate them to do the right thing. The middle management has to have an understanding of the business and they have to ensure a different and right way of doing the right thing is devised or found in testing times and lead the people in the chosen path. The top management had to be there to look around and find out how to achieve the broad objective and all involved are rewarded and left happy at the end of the day.
We have examples for this too. Lee Iaccoca was not an extremely talented automotive engineer, but he was instrumental in bringing Ford to forefront. Jack Welch was not an extremely talented chemical engineer, but he turned GE around and is still known for his managerial acumen. We have examples in every industry.
Bottom line is skill has to be taught and nurtured and updated. Talent has to be developed and nourished. People management is taking care of the talent and skill, by not ruining it with more additional responsibilities.
I was reading the much talked about book of former IBM Chief Louis Gerstner. It was like a reference material for management students. Once Mr. Gerstner was referring to an incident with IBM tech support that happened when he was with Amex. The Amex technology people had installed a non IBM server in their department, and the IBM tech support representative refused to support the existing infracture of which 99% were IBM products. The reason behind that was one 3rd party product in the whole lot.As a tech support guy, I could understand the reason behind the IBM stand at that time. It was early 1980s and technology at that time was not as people savvy as it is now. Even products from the same manufacturer would not be compatible with a different model of machine from the same company. So, a 3rd party server in the network would cause constraints in the support process. The way of expression of that IBM techie and the apathetic reaction to Mr.Gerstner's complaint on that were a cause of concern.But this attitude of the tech support continue even today. We have an industry standard architecture for any hardware product. We have the most common Operating System, Windows, that occupies 95% of the computers nowadays. Even in cases of Linux or other Operating Systems , we have applications those enable cross platform compatibility. Well, the issue I'm here to discuss is that of the hardware part. Wehad an issue when one of the customers of the company I work with, had called us for.He had a computer purchased from us which had a network adapter integrated to the motherboard. His internet was working fine for two years. Once he had an issue with the internet. He called us and asked for help. We checked it and found that the network adapter had to be replaced, but in this case the entire motherboard and offered to send a technician to his home to replace it. He said he could not wait for 2-3 days for our technician to go and replace the board. He said he would call us when he was convenient for this arrangement. Someone at his office gave an alternate solution also, that was to purchase a network card and install it. He opted to purchase the network card from a local store and called us for support.Our tech support refused to help him with that card. That was a 3rd party card, so we should not support, was the reason given by our team. The customer had contacted the card manufacturer and they told that they are not sure about installing parts in this computer and asked him to contact the computer manufacturer. We in turn, referred him to the card manufacturer. After couple of hours of shunting back and forth he decided to hire a local computer technician to get the job done for a cost of a couple of hundred dollars.Then came the mammoth trouble. The customer then called us asking for refund of the warranty money. His argument was that we didn't support him during a critical time. He was running a business and was in need of internet connection to work on his orders. He could not wait for 2-3 days, our tech support had asked him to wait for. For getting crucial orders processed he had purchased a network card, but we refused to support him citing policy and procedure.Interestingly during these days, I had gone through a session (online, of course) on customer service. There they had mentioned an incident about a bank taking up a customer's personal request to inform his wife about a flight delay. That bank customer was overseas and called his bank's toll free number, asking them to inform his wife about the flight delay, since he didn't have enough money to make an international call. The bank could have given him some credit and asked him to call his wife and charged him later. Nobody would complain as it was not the bank's job to take up personal requests. But the bank's customer support did take up that request and promptly called the customer's wife and informed about the delay. Then that customer had started recommending this bank to anyone who asked him for any banking needs.Where did we miss in our case? He was our customer. He had some emergency and had purchased a part from local store. He asked us for help. That part was compatible with our computer and the OS in that. We knew what to do to make that work. I think we should have helped the customer, after giving him the mandatory caveat that we're not trained in the product he had purchased, but we were help him trusting that the product is in compliance with the prevalent industry standards. We could have gained the customer's confidence, and might have got the "word of mouth" in a positive sense.Our people were cursing the customer stating that he had asked for a warranty refund after violating policy agreement. We're not running any Government that could penalize anyone for violation of its policy and regulations. We're running a business. To sustain customer base and grow it, we have to be customer centric. We have to get rid of the rigid mindset of following policies and losing the customers, and start thinking rather issue centric and focus on resolving customer's problems. Customer support or technical support should have a dash of humanity to survive by serving humans. People who run the service industry must understand the basic tenets of service. Policies are for customers; but customers are not for policies. Would the metric breathing and number crunching corporate czars have time to listen to my voice, that echo most of our customers'?
It is reported in the media that the TamilNadu chief minister MK has asked for Indian citizenship for Tamil refugees of Srilanka. As a vote minding politician his demand is correct. He could boast of getting them citizenship and end up getting their vote en masse. The ruling Congress at the center, which too could not stay back in expressing its concern about the Tamils as it could not afford to have the "bad name" of not caring for Tamils. Hom Min PC has said that the GoI would favorably consider this.
This episode sends a signal that even our ivy-league politicians could not think of the pros and cons of an issue and come up with an argument for or against a stance in an issue. He has to play second or side fiddle to MK for fear of losing the Tamil votes. Whatever MK says with a dash of Tamil sentiments and a splash of Tamil brotherhood, others have to follow suit or they would be branded as anti-Tamils. This makes democracy a mockery and Churchill a prophet.
The moot question is whether the Srilankan Tamil people want Indian citizenship? They, spread all over the world, prefer to go back to Eezham land and lead a life of their own. They have taken citizenship of many other nations where they stay to make a living. But when it comes to the question of foregoing Eezham and staying put in the country of living, they would prefer Eezham. The question may - no, it should-arise that what should be the problem for India to grant citizenship for Lankan Tamil refugees when other nations have done so.
The answer is, technically by the law, there is no problem. But the spirit of the problem lies with the sentiments of Tamils. Our brothers have been driven out of their homes by some beasts. Do we prefer to keep them at our home forever, or take steps to beat the beasts out and make their home livable? Of course we'll temporarily keep them at our home and take care of them, but won't we take real steps to get them back to their home?
The politicians of Tamil Nadu except quite a few have only done lip service to the Eezham Tamil fraternity. Either they've got money from LTTE and supported them in the name of Eezham Tamils, or they've supported Eezham Tamils for getting votes in their name and on their sufferings. They have merely played with the sentiments of the local Tamil people. Some politicians may go for a defamation law suit against me. They will never have the guts nor facts to tell the court of law what constructive steps they have taken without fear, fervour, fiduciary and political benefits.
Why can't the TN Government pressurize the center to go for an embargo of Lankan tea and other products in protest against the despicable treatment meted out to the Tamil brethren who could not manage to flee the war torn island? Why can't we step up diplomatic pressure on the Lankan Government through the UN, G-20 and other international fora? With an eminent Tamil lawyer as Hom Min in the Center and with the influence in the ruling coalition, MK could easily have got things done in this way.
Rather he prefers to keep our brethren at our home and asking them patiently wait for the good to happen in its own pace. Citizenship for them is not correct politically and sentimentally. Work toward getting them back to their home and let them live with dignity. The feel of losing home and living at someone else's mercy is really painful. The granting of Indian citizenship to the Eezham people would be a disastrous step that would result in forgoing the rights of Tamils for either a few thousand votes or sentimental foolishness. Step up a campaign against the holocaust of the east. Make the Lankan Government do the right things. That would really make MK a leader of the Tamil brethren as he wishes to be addressed to.
Nowadays we hear a lot about people asking for rebates, returns and refunds especially in the US market. Customer support and technical support of businesses get a lot of callers asking for return of products, refund of money or while purchasing they ask for a lot of rebates. Why this has become a trend now? Or are we getting a lot of spotlight on this aspect of business nowadays?
People ask for rebates and refunds but businesses are very reluctant in giving them. We have people lamenting about the worthlessness of products compared to the price. They whine about how they have been duped by the sales person to shell out lot of money on a product that would not meet their requirement.
Many of my friends working in the customer service divisions working on the US markets, tell a lot about this. At times people pay for a service and after completion of the service ask for a refund claiming that the amount charged was too much for the service provided. They would threaten a law suit claiming that the service they have been charged for was part of the free service agreement during the time of purchase. This prolongs the service incidents of the business and costs money as almost all businesses have toll free numbers for which they pay for the customers to call them.
Interestingly some of the businesses call the customers when the issues get aggravated due to unreasonable claims by the callers or untenable service quality by the representatives of the businesses. This case is worse than the tall free call. The business pays money for the call as well as higher pay for the personnel calling the customers and they would have to track the incident till they satisfactorily resolve the issue raised.
Abundance of knowledge through internet has also been a reason for this. Users of products surf the net and read a lot (expert opinion and casual remarks in expert language as well) and get worried when they experience a hitch in the functioning of the product. They tend to recall all they have read about the product, possible causes of failures, possible fixes for the failures etc. before getting the trained experts of the product take a look at the situation and provide a resolution.
Nowadays we see a lot of comments for product reviews and analysis online. Most of them highlighting a negative experience of a distant past and from a dim memory. Headquarters of businesses have seen a spate in receipt of complaints, most of them squealing for a refund/rebate. A careful look into the prevailing economic and social situation would lead us towards an understanding of this scenario.
The mindset of people is that with the loss of jobs and hardship to find new jobs, is to hold money as much as possible for turbulent times. Businesses would like to maximize their profit by cutting costs in every possible aspect. This most of the times put both the parties to the transaction in a denial mode. Customer refuses to accept what the business offers and business refuses to give what the customer demands. They both have no patience to sit and talk their problem out for a reasonable solution.
Businesses need to have people who have the patience, understanding and conscience of the prevailing situation to handle customer service especially during trying times like the present. But most businesses still run on a target of sales and good index numbers for QoS. This makes the representatives of businesses push the customers to buy products. Such a push leads to exasperation of customers who are already irritated.
An exasperated customer is very hard to handle and could hardly be convinced to stay put doing business with insensitive pushy people. Businesses those boomed and puffed their purse with money with sales without responsibility of service are now suffering. Those who were proud of minting money during the boom with insensitive sales and irresponsible service, have now suffered heavy losses. Some have been closed down many of their profit centers.
One good thing that has happened in the worldwide market due to the recession is that people have become price performance sensitive. Most of them already were, but the graph of sensitivity and the count people who have it, has the arrow representing both going upwards. Businesses have to understand this and instead of blindingly targeting to exceed the past number tally, they have to be innovative enough to hold their customer base in tact atleast until the economic recession recedes and boom blooms.
The BJP has sent shock waves through the political circles by expelling its most senior leader and a foreign policy expert, Jaswant Singh. The reasoning and timing stinks indeed. Reason being authoring a book, the title of which appears to question the basic beliefs of the party. Has anyone in the party come up with a strong reason to reject the book and the author? NOPE. A reason in the true sense of the word was not given for expelling Jaswant Singh. The talks of the political leaders are purely echoing the press opinion of the book.
The learned opinion is that the people who manned the "Chintan Bhaitak" (Introspection Session) had appeared not to have read the book, not even the synopsis nor a review. Singh argues that the Congress' top duo during the partition period are more responsible for the cut off than the often demonized Jinnah. This is a fact and that puts the BJP stand for decades that the Gandhi-Nehru duo were responsible for the ruins of nation and the spirit of the democratic system. History has scores of evidences that Nehru had often strong tongued Gandhi in getting things in his way. So, why throw out a man who comes out with a very supportive arguement for the party's stand?
The bottom line of this episode is that Singh has no political strong grounds to stand. He has raised reasonable questions that has put the top brass of the BJP in much inconvenience, by challenging their ego. So they threw him out, as simple as that. Every decision by the BJP brass from 2004 general elections were based on over confidence than on a perfect analysis of reality. Bharath Udai bombed as it painted a double coated rosy picture of the economy, while the plight of the common man was highlighted by the Congress. The fruits of the prudent economic decisions were in the stage nearing fruition at that moment, though.
The party lacked the will to go for the kill as they could have easily snubbed the financially futile Congress in 2004 by some tough politicking. They also lacked the skill to counter the Congress' charges of "Aam Aadmi" being ignored. BJP had some excellent minds those could convince even a staunch opponent to support their ideas. But the way they had conducted business from 2004 makes it very clear that the previous successes had gone into the heads of the party heads. They were over confident and had lost. They could not come to terms with the loss and were strenuously objecting even the negligible errors 0f the UPA Government thus getting an image of Communists who oppose everything for sake of opposing.
The current introspection session has had done no effective introspection on the pathetic performance of the party in the recently concluded elections. The leaders seem to live in an elevated world insulated with their own perceptions that they could not face the ground reality. The leaders have taken stances those defy common social etiquette. A person who was with the team of leaders for 30+ years was simply asked to keep away over the telephone. If a leader of this stature is treated in such an uncivil manner, what would be the fate of the common cadre who tends to question the decisions of the leadership on common man's logic? Only if the leaders show respect for the cadres they could command respect in the society.
It makes one who looks for an alternate to the GOP flinch with the developments in the BJP. Once it happened between the then law minister Ram Jethmalani, and the secretary of Dept of Law, Justice and Company affairs that they both got into a public spat and it was the then PM Vajpayee gave them strictures that usage of terms like Alice in Wonderland in official communication was much below the reputation of the personalities and the positions involved. They both went silent and solved their differences in a different way. But now the party management is termed as Alice in Blunderland, Humpty Dumpty, Jack Sprat etc and none comes forward to advise people involved on the necessity of subtleties in public communication.
This shows the entire party is in chaos. Things go haywire and no one comes forward to control. Those who have come to terms with the prevailing situation have been ridiculed. Those who have asked for streamlining party operations have been sidelined. The basic marketing concept that the same market strategy would not work for every market has been forgotten by the party "strategists" and the issues of the previous century are still hoisted with heavy clamour. People could not come to terms with temple building repeatedly showcased as nation building while the urgent issues of economic, national and social importance were not addressed. Either build the temple come what may, or leave it off and move on with nation building.
The bottom line is that the party still suffers from its historic blunders. It still fights over history and forgets the current affairs. Those who live and fight for the past can never be trusted with future building. Be it Jinnah, Nehru or the British that had divided the nation, now we have cut throat enemies across the border who still take pride in killing people on this side of the LoC.
Instead of fighting for who is responsible for the past, the party should come up with ideas on how to shape up the future of the nation keeping in mind every aspect of security in mind. Let us keep the discussion of the past mistakes for free time and take up the task of making the future.
We shall not give room for another generation to discuss who goofed up in early 2000s as we discuss now on who mess up in early 1900s. Nation needs a strong and vibrant opposition party which tracks the current issues and thinks for the better future. Anyone in the BJP ready to listen? There is a deafening noise over there within the BJP top brass. Who will make them to calm down and think properly? RSS? They can, but will they? Effectively? Hey Ram..... This should not become the last words of the party which was grown upon the same Name.
“Mercy but murders, pardoning those that kill.” - William Shakespeare.
We see tears, shrill and whine over Scottish justice minister's decision to free Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, the criminal convicted of bombing the Pan Am flight over Lockerbie killing 272 people, on compassionate grounds. This leaves every sane mind with a question whether we need the provision in the laws to release criminals of such a grave nature on compassionate grounds. Megrahi was accorded a hero's welcome in Libya, as if he has done something extraordinarily good for his nation or for the world and had been jailed for a cause. Criminals who have the potential to be symbolized for recruits and trainees at the terror camps don't deserve to be released on any grounds.
Megrahi had killed people who hadn't chosen to die over the skies of Lockerbie. The people were common men women and children, who were going home or away from home for reasons personal, business and intimate. They were not allowed to live a life of their choice. They were killed at the behest of Col.Gadhaffi, by Megrahi and gang, to show to the world that they are someone that the world has to be afraid of. Releasing him on compassionate grounds is not what justice is, be it the system of whichever country. Earl Warren rightly said,"It is the spirit and not the form of law that keeps justice alive".
The argument supporting his release is not based on strong legal or judicial grounds. People argue that the American bombers of Iranian civilian airplane were not punished, so none should question the release of Megrahi. American bombing of civilian aircraft is a different case. People concerned should have approached the International Court of Justice or the UNO for dealing with that crime. It is not wise to compare two crimes and justify one. Crime is a crime and it deserves punishment through a thorough legal system.
Megrahi killed people and that is a fact. If terrorists wanted to show “compassion” they wouldn’t have become terrorists. Therefore showing compassion to them is criminal. The abettor of the Pan Am attack is terminally ill and would like to die in peace. Let him do it in the confines of a prison cell. If that Megrahi had repented for the killings he had abetted and took part in, and atleast felt bad for the common people whom he killed under the orders of one who wanted to frighten someone else for some reason the dead were not allowed to comment or even think upon, then his release on compassionate grounds to have him a death at the place of his choice would have some credibility. Peace has nothing to do with the place you live, it is a state of mind.
If people have the maturity to live life peacefully with a calm mind, even petty crimes would not happen. Until then, we need to have mercy only for the victims and not for criminals, especially towards such brainwashed people who take pride in killing in the name GOD in a form they worship. Megrahi should not have been released. Scotsmen have erred in judgment. This is a costly error. This has already cost 272 human lives and may cost more because of the agony and angst.
Englishmen are accused of having vested trade interests in this crime of release. If that is proved we have to hail Sir. Winston Churchill for telling the truth about the mentality of his people so publicly. He said,“The whole history of the world is summed up in the fact that, when nations are strong, they are not always just, and when they wish to be just, they are no longer strong.” Englishmen seem to be strong now and Americans are weaker. If this release is based on compassion, is it a compassion for justice or compassion for commerce?
