Shantaram- Book Review

It’s been a while I blogged and this is the first time that I am blogging about a book- “Shantaram” by Gregory David Roberts. I read a lot of books and usually I am tempted to blog but never got the enthusiasm or energy to do- I normally move on to the next book. This book was suggested by Shareen.C [ One of my good friends who share the art of reading! ]. Initially I thought this book has something to do with self-help or as the title suggests, it is something of a philosophy/religious undertone laced book. NO ITS NOT- the title is so misleading. This is the name given by the Maharashtr-ian mother in a small village to Roberts!!

Nevertheless, I just followed what Shareen said and bought the book- It was an amazing roller-coaster ride for 900 pages and quite sincerely I did not want the book to finish. It’s a great journey of fate, love, compassion, empathy, Mumbai- underworld, Mumbai-slums/zhopadpatti, Afghan war, Leopalds café at Colaba and Kano the bear!! I could not resist not adding “Kano” the bear and the fact that its transportation to Nariman Point was given in the last parts of the book made me laugh and think a lot!! Kano the bear was “wanted” by Mumbai policemen and Roberts was involved in transporting him from point A to point B- This whole thing seems simple but it’s too hilarious and thought provoking when you read the book. The slum dwellers were more bothered about transporting the bear safely rather than thinking about themselves- This small thing alone reflects the whole humanity piece!! This is a real-life story with great attention to detail and his journey across multiple things and what he does at multiple places- The common thread is his journey of fate and love and his ability to connect to people with compassion. Wherever he goes, his unique ability to look at humanity is something that struck me very hard- I mean we all go to multiple places and interact with multiple people but looking at humanity in this angle seemed very sincere! As Robert says in the last chapter of the book – “Every human heartbeat is a universe of possibilities”. This resonates with the journey and the closing credits of the book- “Human Will has the power to transform its fate and Roberts always felt that fate was unchangeable, fixed at birth- But the truth is that, whatever be the game you are in and whatever be the luck you have, you can change your life completely with a single thought or a single act of love”. This is exactly what he wanted to portray through his semi auto-biographical book!!

For starters, there is a lot of thought-provoking ideas given by Robert in this book- If you want a ride of life irrespective of your fate, just get in and enjoy the ride with love. The author came to Mumbai after escaping from a prison at Australia and then learnt Marathi in a village at Maharashtra. That made him a “Gora” [Hindi term for foreigner] speaking Marathi at Mumbai. I am sure some of the Indian political parties will be proud and they can even use Roberts as their brand purely from a linguistic perspective!! Roberts then moved on to a zhopadpatti [hindi term for slums] to treat diseased folks with basic first aid knowledge- Understood what it takes for survival for these slum-dwellers. Then joined the Mumbai underworld gang that’s known for honor- Here there is a beautiful distinction between honor and virtue!! Here is where there is a lot of underworld philosophy that laces through the book – Things that I loved here were: The cocktail mix that all powerful men have are the fact that they are afraid and are cruel. I also particularly loved the analogy of fake passport, fake ID business to “Red Queen Contest” where Alice meets the red queen who runs incredibly fast but never seems to get anywhere. She tells Alice that in her country, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. I wonder that some-times we do the same as Red Queen in our professional life. J That is a separate blog altogether.

For people who want to understand universe, good, evil, big bang theory- there is a good section where the Mafia don explains all of these interlacing with his perspective! Roberts then pledges his loyalty to that gang and then goes for an Afghan war and then comes back to rebuild the gang without the leader. In the gang, the key things that come back and back is the honor in which they conduct the business claiming to do “ the wrong things for the right reasons”. In the middle, finds his love [not fully able to express] in the Leopolds up-market international gang; Helps them out for various activities including helping a Californian girl escape Madam Zhou [ One who runs the biggest and kinky escort services in Mumbai- This part is an interesting twist] and then gets trapped in Arthur Road jail due to this. The whole story is set in the 80’s and there is a flurry of movement that makes one wonder whether it’s for real or not and how could one travel this journey!! Well, Gregory David Roberts has done it with love and compassion- Most importantly there is no hatred in the whole sequence which I loved the most!

I can go on and on with this blog as I liked everything about the book and lot of phrases has inked a part of my memory- I like to take one good statement [told by the mafia folks] from the book, “Fate always gives you 2 choices- one you should take and one you should do”. I think it’s the same for this book- Every book store gives you 2 choices- one you should buy and one you should read. Howz that to end this blog?? :-))

Innovation-Ideating a Product

Today morning, I was reading on a mobile economical water purifier product launched by TATA by name “SWACH”- This seems to be an awesome innovation that crosses social, technological hurdles and really is revolutionary!!

TATA Nano was path-breaking in its own way but “SWACH” has surpassed that- Research states that most of rural India lacks pure drinking water and this water purifier aims at solving that. TATA’s product pricing is going to be extremely low- maybe under Rs.1000 (<$20) and it aims at solving water-borne diseases like diarrhea, jaundice, typhoid, polio etc.

The product claims are as follows:
• Replaceable filter based
• Filter is based on low cost natural ingredients- Rice husk ash encapsulated with nano-silver particles
• Requires no energy or running water to operate
• Purify up to 3000 litres of water after which bulb needs to be replaced

TATA Swach is a result of collaboration between TCS Innovation Labs, TATA Chemicals and Titan- Fourteen patents have been filed for technology and the product. Aqua-guard should definitely watch out for this product!

From an innovation perspective, this is heavily thought- provoking – we were in an innovation workshop recently and the whole notion of ideating a product to fruition seems to be fantastic. I can correlate some of those concepts when I try to visualize it for TATA Swach. On an alternate note, I do remember a HBR innovation article on break through thinking where the researchers(Trish Clifford, Renee Dye and Kevin from Mckinsey) have elaborated on thinking “inside” the box rather than outside the box. Their whole claim was attributed to the limitations (prolificacy of ideas and data slicing ) of thinking outside the box. The whole idea was to generate questions that are not too broad but are abstracted at least 3-4 levels lower than the first point- This way innovators can arrive at the right questions that can prompt organizations to create the right product. I have got permission from Trish Clifford some aspects of that article and here goes the key take-aways which are the 21 questions!!

They have come up with 21 great questions for developing new products under these categories:

• “De-average” buyers and users-
1. Which customers use or purchase our product in the most unusual way?
2. Do any customers need vastly more or less sales and service attention than most?
3. For which customers are the support costs (order entry, tracking, customer- specific design) either unusually high or unusually low?
4. Could we still meet the needs of a significant subset of customers if we stripped 25% of the hard or soft costs out of our product?
5. Who spends at least 50% of our product costs to adapt it to their specific needs?

• Examine binding constraints-
6. What is the biggest hassle of purchasing or using our product?
7. What are some examples of ad hoc modifications that customers have made to our product?
8. For which current customers is our product least suited?
9. For which particular usage occasions is our product least suited?
10. Which customers does the industry prefer not to serve and why?
11. Which customers could be major users, if only we could remove one specific barrier we’ve never previously considered?

• Explore unexpected successes-
12. Who uses our product in ways we never expected or intended?
13. Who uses our product in surprisingly large quantities?

• Imagine Perfection-
14. How would we do things differently if we had perfect information about our buyers, usage, distribution channels, and so on?
15. How would our product change if it were tailored for every customer?

• Look beyond the boundaries of our business-
16. Who else is dealing with the same generic problem as we are but for an entirely different reason? How have they addressed it?
17. What major breakthroughs in efficiency or effectiveness have we made in our business that could be applied in another industry?
18. What information about customers and product use is created as a by-product of our business that could be key to radically improving the economics of another business?

• Revisit the premises underlying our processes and products-
19. Which technologies embedded in our product have changed the most since the product was last redesigned?
20. Which technologies underlying our production processes have changed the most since we last rebuilt our manufacturing and distribution systems?
21. Which customers’ needs are shifting most rapidly? What will they be in 5 years?

Data Vs Information

Business Intelligence has come a long way but the essence of data and information remains the same. To understand BI and Information Systems, one needs to understand the essential difference between “data” and “information”.

I once remember having a debate with a CIO on all systems being called as “data systems” or “information systems”- I do strongly believe that it needs to be called as data systems rather than information systems. I also had a mental debate on google’s mission which is “to organize world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful”- Ideally this is to organize world’s data.

Here is my disconnect- I don’t think so, in today’s dynamic world, we can actually classify “information”. All we are doing is to classify “data” and we never know when it becomes “information”. Its extremely dynamic!

I will illustrate with couple of examples but before going there, lets get in to the fundamental difference between data and information. Traditionally we all know that processed data becomes information- when does it become processed? Based on my know-how, data becomes information when we make a “decision”. Suppose I want to meet a renowned dentist in a new town, I surf the internet and get the relevant contact details so that I can meet that dentist- My decision here is to do a root canal treatment with that dentist and at that time the data on the contact details of the dentist becomes information. Till that time, its just raw data- When I don’t have to do the root canal treatment, I will be least interested in even getting to that data or looking at that data. Does that ring a bell?

Let me take another example- Suppose you run “pizza hut” in India. You get unique 200 customers daily and you store all their relevant details viz., first name, last name, wedding anniversary, birthday, what pizza they like the most etc in a database. Now in this list of details; which one is data and which one is information?- In my mind, all of it is just raw data. Suppose, I suddenly decide to run a promotional campaign to give free pizza’s for “x” number of customers whose birthday falls on some date, then that filtered data becomes information for me as I need to email all of them to come to my place. This decision of running a promotional campaign was all of sudden- I could have taken a decision to send free pizza for people who frequent my place all the time. I can’t document all the decisions that I take all the time as business is dynamic and so are decisions. My decisions are dictated by the dynamic nature of the business! That’s where the real catch lies on data and information. Don’t you agree? Based on my decision, the data that I have stored becomes information. If I don’t create large “data systems”, I never will be able to take information out of them.

Given this logic, I do believe that google is organizing world’s data so that it becomes information in the right time for people when they make a decision.

Business Intelligence all the time is grappling with this dilemma because we cannot document all our decisions based on past history. Based on my business need, my decisions become super dynamic and at that time I cannot be found wanting for data. So in my endeavour to ensure that I have all the relevant data, I capture everything because I don’t know what becomes information and when? I cannot control or tabulate all my present and future decisions but definitely I can invest on storing all types of data because it can become information depending on my need. Given this, real time business intelligence becomes an tricky challenge unless and until we document all our past, present and future decisions.

Don’t you all agree? I would love to hear your views about this…

Then comes the whole angle of “analytics”….Till then

"You Know"- Is this communication's greatest filler or failure?

Imagine this scenario- A senior leader or a politician or a management expert comes in to speak and the topic goes this way:

Good Morning Ladies and Gentlemen- I came here to talk about green energy- What is green energy? You know, this is a……You know…..it has….. You know….blah…You know…blah…You know…blah… You know repeated 150 minutes over the next 10 minutes then moving on to infinity of “you know”’s.

In December, 2008, Caroline Kennedy used “You Know” 142 times – a lot of internet sites has that video; during that conversation, I am sure that all of us gave our full focus on the fillers and its appearance the next time. It’s more of predicting the occurrence in a speech rather than listening to that speech. Don’t you agree?

A lot of times, we inadvertently use the filler, “you know” while we communicate- There is no harm if it is used once or twice during a conversation. But it becomes super frustrating to understand someone’s thoughts if it is used throughout the conversation. Some of my preliminary studies on various leaders, various communicators indicate that they use this filler quite generously.

My observations indicate an alarming frequency of this usage- This one is for hardcore statisticians and for folks who like data; On an average, I have observed the usage of fillers some 150-200 times in a 15 minute conversation. “You Know” as the filler is the leader of the pack followed by “like”, “I mean”, “means”, “as in”, “huh” in some geographies. In other geographies, some other filler takes the place!- Somehow YW (shortened for “You Know”) has this egregious ability to penetrate all conversations and spoil the whole show. It’s like a virus that’s constantly spreading unless we consciously ostracize it.

I have personally experienced the ability of YW peeping in my conversations- Most of the times we never recognize its destructive ability until someone points it out. In your professional life, people rarely point out; sometimes people point out depending on the hierarchy level that you are in. The higher you go, the number of people who give you candid feedback comes down tremendously and you have to rely on informal sources. Interestingly, my wife pointed this all the time whenever I was giving a talk- I used to get all irritated when she used to point out but I never got angry on YW. I have consciously eradicated the frequency but it does take time when one is habituated to use fillers.

Based on my experience, I can suggest couple of measures to eradicate it:
• Please acknowledge that we use fillers
• Observe your speech- The best way is to listen a recorded speech as that has the best prophylactic effect
• If you don’t have the means to record your speech, have a neutral person outside your organization evaluate your speech – During that time, please ask him or her to note down the fillers
• Once you have done this, you can validate the annoyance of fillers in our daily speech
• If you have reached this stage, you have won 75% of the battle
• The remaining 25% is just execution- Consciously avoiding it, replacing it with silences- Sometimes a pregnant silences will do. 
• Once you have done it, re-record your present conversation and compare it with the earlier one- Then pat one on your back and reward yourself a “Hagen-Dass” ice cream or whatever “you know”! 


On one of my earlier listening sessions, I was hearing one of the senior leaders speak on one of the management sessions and the frequency of YW in a 10 minute conversation was 250 times. It was really an arduous task for me to segregate the real content after removing the fillers. The person really had great content but YW really made a mess of the content. The only thing that remains is, “you know”, I don’t know what to say!

In today’s world, communication has become the greatest tool for everyone irrespective of his/her designation- Communication coaches, advisors and mentors should definitely point this out to senior leaders today. It’s okay to use it but definitely not okay to overuse it- When someone does that, the real content vanishes and all it remains is the filler!

Although fillers are a good tool to create on the fly thinking especially when you are on the spot, or when you are thinking aloud or when you want to wing the conversation; this tool needs to be used sparingly!

Don’t you all agree? Would love to hear your views or your experience of fillers or your experience on listening to a fun-filled overused “filler” conversation?

Mandated Sabbatical for Leaders

Leaders should take a sabbatical once in 2 years??

Can this be institutionalized? This blog post idea came up after reading up articles about Steve Jobs health and his forced vacation from Apple leaving to his successors - Apple’s shares slumped down by 5.7% after hearing about Jobs health news. There was a lot of talk on media, internet about CEO jobs unexpected absence raising uncertainty over leadership, innovation, deal-making, Apple brand building et al. There were talks about Jobs earlier sabbatical and how it influenced Apple and how it will be influencing now; There is also a good amount of bytes spent on Apple sustaining innovation during this period and how it can bounce back etc etc. Tim Cook (COO) is currently acting as the chief-in-command for Apple and recently Scott Forstall (senior VP of iPhone software) gave a good performance in the Macworld- this really signaled the fact that Apple could continue to pull off its marketing campaigns without Jobs at least for some time.

I am not attempting to write about Apple or how it can work in Steve Jobs absence- I want to correlate this to a concept in management on whether leaders should mandatorily take a sabbatical once in 2 years or not. The open questions are:
1. Is it really healthy for the company?
2. Is it really good for the shareholders?
3. Is it feasible in the long run?
4. Is it sustainable?
5. How long should the sabbatical be?
6. Is it 1 month, 2 months or 3 months?
7. Will the incumbent organization benefit because of this sabbatical? Will the leaders bounce off with new ideas after getting rejuvenated?
8. How do we calculate ROI on this sort of thing? What should be the measure?

In my view, I think at a high level, top leaders taking a short sabbatical is certainly healthy for the organization in two ways-
1. Can strengthen the organization in leadership development & succession planning and get new perspectives- There will be mandated change and there will be a culture of change
2. Can allow the leader to think of revolutionary new ideas, new ways of making the organization achieve its objective- This is possible during a sabbatical as technically the leader is still thinking about the organization

Diving deep in to point one- Strengthen the organization in to leadership development & succession planning:

Leadership development is becoming very important due to change in demographics as the “baby boomers” are getting to retirement age. In addition to this, it has been estimated that 50% of the organizations are facing talent shortages especially in the mid-management and director-level positions. There is an acute need to respond to generational differences and organizations are trying to understand the difference between generations, motivating employees from different generations, leveraging talent of these generations.

Typically lot of organizations have a mandate for succession planning and developing leaders in the pipeline- But the statistics say otherwise! Succession Planning plays a crucial role in developing a strong leadership pipeline. This has to work at all levels and not just at the top level or only at the middle level- The culture of succession planning enables a culture of change and its necessary for all organizations to undergo this. When leaders take a sabbatical, they necessarily have to get the successor focus on all the issues, challenges that s/he was doing; This creates a degree of self-assurance for the successor and indirectly builds up the confidence for both parties. Imagine all of these wrapped in a process and a culture whereby all leaders mandatorily should take a sabbatical and come back to reassess where things stand. It is also a reflection of how well they have built teams that can withstand without the leader and also enables the leader to sit back and think of new ideas for the organization. We all know the challenges surrounding it? The challenges are different for a public listed firm, VC backed firm, privately held firm. But, hey we are still talking about the concept- At the top part of the decision tree, if the decision is YES for a sabbatical, then we drill to the next decision tree- Is it a public/private/VC? Then we get to the next level of challenges but at a high level, are we in agreement?

For the attention to detail readers, I will dive deeper in to each one of the challenges in my next blog- I do not want to digress from the core topic of mandating a sabbatical for a leader?

On Point Two- Gives time for the leader to think of new ideas!

This is definitely a loaded statement- Does it mean that leaders don’t think of new ideas while they are working? Are they not supposed to think of it all the time? It is an utopian thought to get everything done at the same time- How can organizations create this framework whereby leaders get some time to think of fresh ideas? We all can guarantee that a “true” leader will be always thinking of continual improvement even when s/he is on vacation or a sabbatical- Its anyways leading for a positive change in the organization. You can take the sabbatical from the leader but you can NEVER take the leadership thinking from a leader. With this optimistic view, don’t we all acknowledge that this creates a framework where in leaders understand the expectations, go back to the drawing board in a leisure manner and think about it in a holistic manner. I am sure that this will happen and everyone will benefit from it tremendously. A lot of people in Silicon Valley are eagerly waiting for the next big blockbuster from Apple as they all feel that Steve Jobs will come up with some cool idea during his health break! Maybe it will happen- We never know!

In addition to this, it will also give time for the leader to think of challenging roles/areas in his current portfolio rather than walking away from it. Let me give an example- Most of the time, leaders get bored with their current portfolio and they want change (although this is never openly told but it’s always there!). The sabbatical can help leaders understand the fact that the “grass is never green on the other side”. It gets back the rigor and focus of new ideas!

What do you all feel? I know that I have consciously made it provocative in some instances but the idea is to publish my thoughts and get yours as well on this topic!

Nano Launch: Sentiments!

There is a lot of talk around Nano launch- Being in India and being a hard core Indian, we all have multiple questions on the launch:

· Is it the right time to launch when the world is in recession?
· Is this a car that India needs now?
· Is this the car that rural India is looking for?
· Is it going to be a huge success?
· How will India’s traffic scenario alter due to this?
· How will parking be in future for people who own sedan’s/luxury cars?
· What will be the modus operandi for tour/travel operator?

Some of the voices around this launch are:
1. This is great for India’s international image and we should capitalize that
2. All patriotic Indians should buy this
3. This syncs up well with CK Prahlad’s vision of “Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid”
4. All two-wheeler population will acquire a new status owing to Nano- this is great for them!
5. This is a good extra car that can be had!

While this blog is not going to attempt to answer all the questions or try to say that the voices are right/wrong- this blog is just to reflect the populist sentiments around this launch and get other opinions from my blog readers on what/how they perceive this to launch to be. The reason why I selected “Nano” is simple- This is a great vision by Tata and I would like to understand from the readers what they feel/think about it.

From my perspective, I would like to say that this is a great vision translated in to execution- A great example of “Activity Based Costing/Target Based Costing”; I set up the price of my end product and work backwards to ensure that it is feasible. An awesome example of lateral thinking in manufacturing where the bonnet does not consist of the standard materials and the whole design is optimized around my target cost. This is also an example of sheer execution whereby all the roadblocks have been averted to achieve the objective. Don’t you agree?

I do have a lot of thoughts regarding Nano on how it can:
1. Bridge the status for many people
2. Allow people to convert their dreams in reality
3. Ensure safe travel
4. How a good segment of population will take a cautious approach before buying? They will wait and watch till the official verdict is on

Again, I don’t want this blog to sound like a product information log or a feature log but would like capture the sentiments of every Indian who is thinking about Nano.

What do you all feel? Please feel free to share your sentiments on comments.

Understanding Captive Centre Dynamics

We had one interesting issue that came up recently with one of our Fortune 500 account- We won this customer after a lot of homework (their Indian captive centre was not given this work!). This is typical of any large organization where they give certain set of projects to captive centres and certain set to vendors- The alignment between the headquarters and the captive centre itself is a challenge. I assume, that this US arm of our customer had given the project to us without consulting the Indian arm decision makers (as they were not present in the decision making at all)- We were completely oblivious of these things and continued our own way of delivering the project.

Our team started working on the implementation plan and they were collaborating constantly with the US arm stakeholders and things were totally fine. The US arm stakeholder wanted our team to work extensively with the Indian captive centre and we were completely fine with that arrangement as well. This project demanded understanding of the customer proprietary environment for us to configure and install the final version- This is quite natural for any vendor to ask for details related to the environment. Our project manager asked for a face-to-face session(termed as “training”) from a stakeholder who is working in the Indian captive centre- Since it involved some expenses, this Indian stakeholder sent an email asking for expense approval from the US stakeholder. The US stakeholder forwarded the same email to the Indian captive centre head of that practice- Now the whole issue started because the practice head looked at the term “training” and escalated to the US head stating that the vendor does not know what he is supposed to do.

The practice head went to the extent of cancelling the whole contract because of a wrong usage of the word, “training” by one of our project managers. It is really frustrating and disappointing for us after having done 60% of the project to be in this state because of us not understanding the overall politics and it was a great lesson. The price of this lesson was obscenely expensive but it really taught us certain dynamics that exist between captives and the headquarter companies.

In a snapshot, whenever any consulting company is dealing with a customer that has a captive centre, it is super important to understand the priorities of the captive centre. The following steps would be useful:
1. Meet the particular captive centre head for that particular practice and if possible explain to them why you were selected in the first place. This can be a ego alleviating thing as well as building networks for future collaboration.
2. Set expectation with the US stakeholder on collaboration with the captive centre resources- Also get an introduction with the right people in India!
3. Direct your team to be extremely careful and sensitive on dealing with captive centre resources- Its important for them to collaborate but they need to be cautious
4. Make sure that you get the common goals/success criteria for the project from the US stakeholder clearly
5. Circulate the common goals/success criteria of the project to everyone so that there is no room for anyone to point something that does not align with the common goals

In my experience, this is the most bizarre way of cancelling a contract- One can cancel a contract if they feel the common goals/success criteria of the project is not met and ideally that should be basis; This was sidelined and nobody looked at the deliverables or the quality of the deliverables!

This was really disappointing for us and our mistake on hindsight was clearly:
1. Not meeting the Indian captive centre head for that particular practice
2. Not circulating the common goals/success criteria with the captive centre resources
3. Wrong usage of certain words (specifically “training”) by our project managers