MyTake

We grew in an environment which was surrounded by people who kept preaching us all through that ‘work is worship’ and somewhere in our inner self it got imbibed that we live to work and there is no escape from work.  The meaning of work changed according to time, for a child it was to go to school, learn and study and perform best in the examinations.  After studies it was to get a job and work as per the nature and requirements.  So the school and the workplaces were believed to be temples.  Temples where we worshiped our work, temples where we were allowed to meditate, temples where we were groomed and mentored by experienced and learned people, temples which helped us build ourselves, temples where we could find our call, temples where we learnt and discovered the purpose of our life.  These were places where we met different types of people and we learnt to deal with them to their and our satisfaction.  We debated, argued and quarreled on some petty i...

Academia has always been differentiating a leader from a manager. And it is believed that a manager can transform himself/herself into a successful leader by learning the art of leadership and by developing those traits that a leader possesses. All business students and practicing managers have to deal with this dilemma often and to come to terms that ultimately if one has to manage affairs of business successfully and produce expected results, one has to have a perspective of a leader. This is something which needs further elaboration for the cause of clarity and for the purpose of practice. The whole idea of leadership stems from the sense of followership. No follower, no leader. So it is the followers who make a leader. Honest intent for the cause, art of articulating the vision, winning attitude, guts to take risk and providing rock solid support to the followers are some such virtues which help one to put forth efforts to attain organizational goal. The vision has to be f...

A lot has been written on what makes one a great leader. I approach leadership from another angle. What does not make one a leader? It is an ALERT to be precise. A for Aloofness (as against friendly), L for Lawlessness or Lack of control (as against Systematic), E for Enigmatic (as against Clarity of purpose), R for Repetitive (as against Original or Innovative) and T for Timid (as against Confident). Leaders cannot afford to stay aloof from the people and purpose as they are expected to lead through their involvement, guidance and support at all levels. They need to portray friendly behavior in order to lead the team. Abiding law of the land is important as nobody and nothing is beyond law. Lawlessness does not just mean abiding by law, it also reflects on orderly structure and flow of things and activities as it drives measurable outflows. Absence of systematic planning and implementation takes away much of what a leader is expected in an organization which aspir...

Raju burst out, ‘This rock is a sign from Lord Ganesha, I want to worship it.’ Chetan raised his voice even louder and said, ‘No no, this rock is going to be used for my next sculpture.’ The merchant shouted, ‘I have invited all my friends to rest on it! It is ours!’ Ajit was giving order to remove the stone to his soldiers. Bholu now grinned and said, ‘But this rock has been there for years and years! Earlier half of it was submerged in the mud.  Now with the rains the mud has got washed off, and you are seeing more of it.  The washermen of Chitpur have been using this rock to do our washing for many, many years! There’s nothing miraculous about it.  Now off with all of you, I have work to do.’ So saying Bholu emptied his bundle of clothes and set to work.  What could the others do? They had to go away grumbling quietly to themselves. This is the last part of the story titled ‘the way you look at it’ , from the book Grandma’s bag of stories, penned by ...

It was some five years back when I visited a Mall in Gurgaon with some friends and afterwards, thought of sharing my take on their present and future.  It was put on my blog and my friends, who read it, were skeptical as to whether what I was preempting was really something that was reality of the future. In this backdrop in all these years whenever I visited a Mall, whether in NCR, Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Guwahati, Lucknow or any other small city my belief got confirmed.  Of late I kept reading stories of empty malls and some of them closing down, it started giving me a feel that business opportunities when not defended by viable research and when it is just following herd behavior, it is bound to result in what is happening in many of the cases.  And that is the challenge before entrepreneurs of all sizes and from all geographies, to respond and work on. One of the issue raised in my earlier post on sustainability of malls was that many of them were involved...

In the month of January, the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi launched Startup India Action Plan to encourage entrepreneurship and to facilitate startups. This Action Plan consists of detailed scheme of things and addresses the issues relating to obstacles which generally entrepreneurs have been facing. The bureaucratic hassles, problems in raising finances, and availability of networks to reach out to the customers have affected the conversion of idea into reality for many new starters. The fight between big and small, old and new has also been one of the deterrent to start a new venture.  Ever since the NDA Government took the office they have been pushing the industry and inviting foreign investments to boost economic growth. It has also created a positive market perception and corporates have welcomed the initiatives, though the hassles like passing of GST Bill by the parliament has posed political challenge and discouraged industry as a whole. It was around six ...

It is about eighteen months that the new government took over the charge. The manifesto which the present government prepared and presented had a huge promise through the catchline of Achchey Din (good days). Month after month media kept writing about the gap between the promise, policies and practice. The government has been on toes for providing a boost to the economy and to send across a strong message that they are committed to bring Achchey Din . There were surging effects witnessed in the market and the steps so taken were being building positive business sentiments across different sectors of economy. Different agencies got interested in sharpening their eye towards economic growth that was projected.  The World Bank recently has put forth positively a strong scenario for Indian economy, better as compared to our mighty neighbor China. It estimates that India is going to grow at 7.5 per cent in the current fiscal so far as its GDP is concerned. It is the result...