~~ HeRe I aM ~~

Some important points for better life

2011-05-09T12:03:00.002+05:30

10 effective time management tips for success

2011-01-22T13:34:00.002+05:30

Time management skills are an important personality trait of successful people. People who manage their time effectively generally get better results.

Time management does not mean that you should work round the clock to achieve your goals. It means that most of your time is spent focusing on the goals rather than on less productive activities.

Time management is about receiving more value out of your time and utilizing it to improve the quality of your life. The key to successful time management is planning and then implementing the same plan.

Time management helps each of us to look up and be more productive and efficient. It is about finding ways to do the same task in less time while maintaining and/or increasing the quality/ standard.

Changing bad time management habits to good ones takes time and effort. The following tips will help you amplify your productivity.

1. Learn to prioritize

There is a major difference between tasks that are urgent, important and not-so important. Prioritizing your responsibilities and activities is very important.

You can use the ABC technique to divide your tasks in these categories. Group A includes task that are urgent, Group B includes tasks that are important and Group C includes the not-so important ones.

You can do the tasks according to their priority. Always remember 80 percent of the rewards come from 20 percent of the activities that you do.
Another important facet of prioritizing is learning to say 'NO'. In order to get the most important tasks done, you may have to say no to the less important ones. Avoid over commitment of your time.

2. Plan your day

Failing to plan is planning to fail'. Plan your day on paper well in advance. Doing so shouldn't take more than 20 minutes a day.

It can significantly lower the time spent on wasteful activities. Mention an estimated time frame for each task that you are going to be doing and stick to that allocated time.

3. Start your day the right way

Being busy all day means you are constantly frazzled and rushing to complete tasks, which wreaks havoc on your ability to manage time and, consequently, your productivity.

Take 10 minutes to sit in silence each morning. During those ten minutes, breath deeply and plan for your day.

4. Multi-task

Another suggestion is to combine several activities into one time spot. For example: when traveling to work, read your newspaper.

You will have more time in the day if you do multiple activities at the same time.

Remember, not to degrade the quality of your work when multitasking because that makes it pointless.

5. Use the 'Two More' rule

If you are overwhelmed by the tasks of the day, think them over and then focus on the two most important tasks (the ones you'd take care of if you couldn't take care of anything else). Once those are completed, settle on two more.

6. Avoid procrastination

Procrastination is the mother of all time related issues. If you're going to manage your time efficiently, you need to learn how to minimize procrastination.

The reason people procrastinate is because they don't like doing that particular activity.

In order to avoid procrastination, you can break that same activity into smaller parts and do it one at a time. By doing a little at a time, eventually you'll complete the activity.

7. Manage information

In this information age, there is so much of knowledge that it becomes difficult to manage it. The information which we are exposed to is just incredible.

Learn to get organized in your approach to manage information. It's much easier to accomplish tasks if your information is organized. Documentation is also a good way to manage information effectively.

Make sure the retrieval of information is also an easy task, otherwise you will be wasting a lot of time in the same.

8. Learn to delegate

If you don't learn to delegate the less important task, you are likely to be very busy, frustrated and heading for burnout. Don't try to do it all yourself. Assign jobs to others.

To get the work done well from others, make sure you communicate the tasks well.

9. Take breaks

Set aside time for breaks during the day to refresh and recuperate. Time management isn't always about working more in less time. It is about working efficiently and productively.

There is more to life than just increasing its speed. If you don't take enough breaks, you could be heading for a burnout.

Make plans to get out of the house on weekends and stick to them. Go to a movie, meet a friend or take a walk.

10. Get enough sleep

Although it's tempting to work long hours in the night, it is not advisable to do so as it takes a toll on your health and productivity.

Without adequate sleep, you'll feel lethargic during the day and won't be able to focus on the responsibilities at hand.

Time is precious and its management can help you be more dynamic, victorious and less stressed out. The key to time management is harmonizing your activities so that your life is not all work and no play.

These time management tips will assist you to get more tasks completed and really feel happy in your life.

Get richer by avoiding this money mistake

2010-11-19T22:12:00.001+05:30

Mental accounting is one such money mistake even smart people commit. Understanding this mistake and avoiding this could make you richer.

Behavioural finance experts say that mental accounting works this way: Let us say you have bought Rs 200 ticket to a movie. When you show up at the entrance of the theatre and realise you have lost your ticket, do you buy another ticket?

If you were like most people, you would probably think twice. You may still drop down the money, but you will now feel that you paid Rs 400 for Rs 200 ticket.

But let's construct the scenario differently.

Let's say you hadn't bought the ticket yet, and you show up at the entrance to buy your ticket.

And unfortunately, you realise you've lost Rs 200 in cash since you walked from the parking place.

But fortunately, you still have enough in your wallet to cover the cost of the ticket. Do you buy the ticket?

Again, if you are like most people, you may feel upset about the lost money, but it probably won't affect your decision to buy the ticket.

Why?

Behavioural finance experts conducted similar experiments. They found that 46 per cent of those who lost the ticket were willing to buy a replacement ticket.

On the other side 88 per cent of those who lost an equivalent amount of cash were willing to buy a ticket.

Both scenarios are a loss of Rs 200. However, in the second scenario you separate the loss of Rs 200 from the purchasing of the ticket.

In the first you consider the cost of the movie as a total of Rs 400 and baulk at the high cost.

It is because of the psychological phenomenon known as mental accounting.

One of the fundamental concepts in economics says that wealth in general and money in particular, should be fungible.

Fungibility, in a nutshell, means that Rs 100 in lottery winning, Rs 100 in salary and Rs 100 tax refund should have the same significance and value to you since each Rs 100 has the same purchasing power in the market.

But do you treat them in a similar way?

Mental accounting has enormous consequences in your daily life. It affects how you spend money and how you save. It influences how you deal with losses and windfall gains.

How does mental accounting affect you?

* The source of the money affects how it is spent
* You tend to dine lavishly with the 'gift meal vouchers' given by your company. But you will be dining consciously if you were paying out of your salary
* You are most likely to spend more with credit cards than with cash
* You may consider tax refund as 'free money'. In actual terms it is your own money. You will not spend tax refunds, birthday gift money or lottery winnings on essential things like utility bills, school fees, paying off your credit card debt. But you will be more than happy to spend the same money on discretionary items such as vacations or a trendy mobile phone

Don't be a victim of 'relative cost'

Assume you are going to a super market to buy a laptop. The price is Rs 40,000. But you get to know that there is another branch of the supermarket, ten-minute walk away, in which the same laptop is sold for Rs 39,950.

Will you walk down to the other branch to save Rs 50?

Let us say instead of buying a laptop you have planned to buy a memory card. The price at the supermarket is Rs 100 and at the other branch the price is Rs 50.

Where will you buy the card?

Most of us will make a trip to the other branch for the memory card but not for the laptop. Because we think that the Rs 50 saved on Rs 100 item is better than the same amount saved on an item worth Rs 40,000.

But in both cases the situation is same. You save Rs 50 by making 10 minutes walk to the other branch.

Remember that money is money.

Rs 50 saved on Rs 40,000 laptop is not less money than Rs 50 saved on Rs 100 memory card.

How to face mental accounting and spend consciously?

* You can use mental accounting to your advantage by spending money out of your salary. Immediately invest the 'free money' like tax refunds, gifted money or any other windfall gains
* Imagine that all income is earned income
* Use the free meal vouchers and other gift vouchers to buy essential items
* Pretend you don't have a credit card. I am not telling you not to use credit cards. I am saying you should stop and think: would I buy this if I were using cash?

A successful practical strategy

You can have two bank accounts. One for the purpose of savings and the other one for spending.

Every month you need to set aside some amount for expenses as per your budget or previous experience. That amount you need to transfer to your spending account.

Keep the balance amount in your savings account.

You need to meet all your expenses including your credit card payment from the spending account. You should not spend from your savings account.

In between, if you receive any cash gifts or windfall gains, deposit them in your savings account.

If you receive gift vouchers, then transfer the money equivalent of that voucher from your spending account to your saving account.

This will help you not to exceed your spending limit when you receive the gift voucher. As a result you will not use it lavishly and use it only on pre-planned things.

When it comes to money your mind unconsciously plays this trick of mental accounting. You have understood that today. So hereafter, you can avoid this mistake and you become richer day by day.

Stock basics: All you want to know about PE ratio

2010-11-13T13:09:00.002+05:30

Commonly called the PE ratio (or just PE), it is often used in investment analysis. However, investors sometimes fail to understand the factors that determine it and its limitations

What is it?

The PE ratio is calculated by dividing a company's share price by its earnings per share (EPS). So, if we assume that a company's share price is Rs 200 and its EPS is Rs 10, the PE of the stock will be 20 (Rs 200 divided by Rs 10).

Note that the EPS of a company can be calculated in different ways, resulting in more than one PE for the same stock.

If the EPS for the last 12 months (four quarters) is used, the resulting PE is called trailing-twelve-month (TTM) PE.

If the EPS for the next twelve months is forecasted and used in calculation, the resulting PE is called forward PE.

For a company that operates in a cyclical industry, the EPS considered is the average EPS over the complete cycle, and it is called seasonally adjusted PE.

Interpreting the ratio

As the calculation of the ratio suggests, the PE multiple implies the amount an investor is paying for each rupee of the company's EPS. So, if the PE of a stock is, say, 20, the investors are paying Rs 20 for each rupee of the company's EPS.

The higher the PE ratio of a stock, the more investors are paying for that stock, and vice-versa.

That explains why it is said that a high or a low PE implies whether the stock is expensive or cheap, respectively.

How much should you pay?

The PE of a stock should ideally depend on some factors. The first is growth. Growth is directly proportional to PE.

The higher the growth, the higher will be the PE that the stock should command.

The second factor is risk, and it is inversely related to PE. So, a stock should have a low PE if the risk associated with it is high.

A company's dividend policy also determines its PE.

The greater the proportion of profit given as dividends, the higher will be the PE.

As shares do not always trade at a price based on their fundamentals, a stock's existing PE could differ from the one that should be based on the factors determining it.

So, pay for a stock based on these determinants.

The limitations

With various accounting standards available, a company's EPS figure will depend on which method it follows.

In other words, the PE ratio gets influenced by the accounting norms.

Also, when a company's earnings are negative, assigning a value to its stock using PE is not feasible.

10 things HR managers look for in potential hires

2010-10-20T20:25:00.001+05:30

1. Energy
Organisations need people who are always eager to learn new skills and are eager to add to their knowledge base. They have genuine receptiveness to change and are open to examine new ideas. They bounce back quick after failures.

2. Ability to energise
These people are self-motivated and they demonstrate it outwardly. They inspire people and get people excited about a cause. They have the ability to keep the mood positive even when things are tough. Managers look for that that elusive "spark" that draws others to them.

3. Edge
This is the ability to take decision in grey. The ability to take decisions in tough situations and never allowing the degree of difficulty to stand in their way.

4. Ability to execute
These candidates are action-oriented and are focused on getting results. They are the ones who put strategy into implementation. Organisations look for a candidates ability to convert energy and edge (of self and of the team) into action and measurable results.

5. Customer-focused and quality conscious
These people understand customer business and customer pain points and strive to make customers successful by delivering superior quality products and superior service delivery. They build partnerships with clients and they measure their success based on the success of their customers. They go the extra mile to achieve customer delight.

6. Respect for individuals
These candidates value different cultural and religious backgrounds. They compliment in public for a good job done and offer candid and constructive criticism in private. This helps in creating a truly global environment in the workplace.

7. Integrity
These candidates mean what they say and say what they mean. They make us trusted partners of customers or for that matter they make good partners in every sphere of our life. They help build great organisations that can sustain over long periods of time during periods of prosperity as well as during challenging times.

8. Creative and enterprising
To create a differentiator, it is important that we offer different and unique proposition to our customers, which will bring value superior to that given by peers. This calls for creative thinking and entrepreneurship. Creative people come up with out-of-the-box ideas. They find better ways of doing things or ways of doing things differently. Entrepreneurs are willing to take well-assessed risks.

9. Collaborative/ team player
Organisations need people who have good interpersonal skills and gel well in the team. They put team goals above individual goals.

10. Technical competency and solutioning mindset
Technical competency is important in helping to foster a firm's competitive advantage. People possessing sound technical competency and a solutioning mindset can create and also execute winning solutions tailored to specific needs of the customer/ industry.

Earn interest income while you invest in IPOs

2010-10-11T22:38:00.005+05:30

ASBA (Application Supported by Blocked Amount) was introduced by SEBI in July 2008 but it is not yet known to many.

Under the normal system while applying for an IPO you have to pay the full application money with the application itself.

With ASBA you can make an application for shares without actually parting with your money immediately.

As the name suggests (Application Supported by Blocked Amount), under ASBA every application for shares is supported by an amount, which is blocked in the account of the applicant itself.

The money is debited from your bank account only when basis of allotment is finalised and that too for the shares allotted to you and not for the shares applied for by you.

This helps you in eliminating the problems associated with delay in receipt of refund.

Moreover, now that banks have been mandated to give interest on the savings account on a daily balance, it helps those investors even more who are participating in the public issue of companies.

Moreover the money blocked in your account is taken into account for calculating the average quarterly balances (AQB).

Under ASBA you can make an application for any IPO/FPO/Rights issue and where the company does not offer more than one schedule of payment and the issue price is to be decided by bidding process.

With ASBA your banker blocks the money lying idle in your account to the extent of application money which is payable in respect of the shares being applied for by you.

You can make ASBA application through any bank which is registered with SEBI as banker to the issue and furnishes the required certificate to SEBI. Such banks which are authorised by SEBI to accept these applications are called self certified syndicate sanks ( SCSBs).

It is necessary that you need to have your bank account with the bank, which is recognised by SEBI for the purpose of accepting the ASBA applications.

You can make the application under ASBA either through physical application form or through Internet.

Some of the banks even allow you to make application through phone banking.

Here you need to ensure that you have sufficient balance in your bank account.

Money, which is blocked under ASBA, remains in your bank account till the time shares are allotted to you and is debited only if shares are allotted to you.

The money which is blocked under ASBA is unblocked fully or partly as and when the shares are allotted or the issue is withdrawn.

You need to fill a separate, special ASBA application form available with your bank for making physical application or you can apply through net banking channel of your bank.

For making application through net banking or phone banking you need to register yourself for this purpose with your bank. Also you need to have a demat account, not necessarily with the same bank, through which you are making an application, and of course a valid PAN number.

The ASBA process can not be used for making application for allotment of shares in physical mode.

In your ASBA application, in addition to the details of your demat account, you have to provide your banker with your DP ID and client ID as per your DP account. You also need to specify the quantity you wish to bid for.

Yes, you can revise the bid or withdraw the application before the bid closing date by making an application for withdrawal to your bankers where you have submitted your application.

However if you want to withdraw the application after the bid closing date, you can do so before the process of allotment is completed by submitting your withdrawal application to the Registrar to the issue.

Under ASBA, the bank uploads the data in respect of applications and revisions to the site of stock exchanges electronically and does not have to send physical copies of the application to either stock exchanges or registrar to the issue.

9 investment lessons to learn from Warren Buffett

2010-08-14T12:10:00.002+05:30

Price is what you pay. Value is what you get.

-- Warren Buffett

Every investor dreams of becoming as successful as Warren Buffett, to be the richest person in the world. But rarely do these investors follow their icon's mantras conversed through television interviews, books, periodic journals, etc. It is worthwhile to pay heed to Buffett's stock investing tips. This knowledge on value investing will help drive investors to make sound investment decisions.

1: Invest in quality businesses, not in stock symbols

If a business does well, the stock eventually follows.

Most investors don't analyse the businesses they invest in. They simply follow the symbols or brands of successful corporate houses. The best example is the Reliance Power IPO. When the IPO of Reliance Power was announced, many investors rushed to subscribe to it with the reason that it had the brand name 'Reliance'. However, the stock was overvalued at the time of IPO and investors made a considerable loss after the stock was listed on the stock exchange.

When considering IPOs, one needs to do considerable research about the concerned company, it's past performance, how the IPO money will be utilised, details about the company management, and when the operations will commence so that company starts generating profits.
As, Buffett states, 'An investor needs to buy the stock as if he is buying the whole company down the road'. Investors are also expected to be acquainted with the following before buying the company stock:

• What are the company's products?

• How consistent is its products' sales?

• How receptive is the company to change in consumer trends?

• Who are its competitors? What distinguishes it from them? What is the company's USP?

• What would be the most worrying thing (risk) about owning such a company's stock?

2: Don't invest for 10 minutes if you're not prepared to invest for 10 years

Only buy something that you'd be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

Investors get panicky when they track share prices continuously. Share prices are quite volatile in the short-term. However staying invested in a value company will pay you rich rewards over a long-term period, unlike short-term investments that are prone to constant price fluctuations.
Note: A smart investor needs to also think before selling an investment that may be in a loss due to certain economic factors but has tremendous potential to rise in future.

3: Scan thousands of stocks and look for screaming bargains

It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price.

A smart investor needs to identify stocks of a company that have great potential to grow in years to come. Most investors buy a stock when it is extremely high because it's in demand. The key is to identify stocks which have potential to grow and are available at a cheap or reasonable price.
Such acumen can be achieved by scanning the company's annual financial reports, understanding its vision and mission statements, its business cycle and business process, long term plans, etc.

Essentially, it means taking some time out to carefully understand and analyse the company and its business. Investors also need to keep updates of their selected companies and sector news on a regular basis. Information about a company is readily available through secondary sources such as journals, economic newspapers, television, etc. Many a time such secondary sources are sufficient for analysing and arriving at a decision for investment.

4: Interpret how well money is being utilised by the company's management

Beware of geeks bearing formulas.

The money available to the company's management is called capital. The capital comprises the equity and long-term debt of the company. The success of any business depends on how well its management uses its capital. Such an analysis can be made with the help of 2 ratios: Return on
Equity (ROE) and Return on Capital Employed (ROCE).

ROE: It measures a company's profitability by revealing how much net profit a company generates through shareholders' equity.
Return on Equity = Net profit / Shareholder's equity

ROCE: It indicates the efficiency and profitability of a company's invested capital; calculated as:

ROCE = EBIT/ Total assets - Current liabilities

EBIT = Earnings before interest and tax deductions

A smart investor must interpret the company's financial statements and understand the quality of return on his investment.

One needs to search and invest in companies with good returns on capital invested while employing little or no debt. This means that ROE and ROCE should essentially be the same.

5: Stay away from so-called 'glitter' stocks

Rule No 1: Never lose money. Rule No 2: Never forget rule No.1.

There are thousands of stocks traded each day on Sensex and Nifty. A smart investor has to find the best out of the available investment options. There are stocks that have high trading volume, extreme movements in their price (either up or down), or are constantly in news.
A smart investor should examine whether the stock-in-news has some real value or is just glittering at the moment.

For example, remember the Satyam fiasco? The stock was glittering for many years and was a hot pick among investors and analysts alike until its accounting fraud surfaced in 2008 when Ramalinga Raju (the company's mentor) confessed to the crime. The company tampered its annual reports and fooled investors for years, all the time being 'A-listed' on national stock exchanges.

Although the episode is behind us now, it is wise to do your homework before investing in each and every company. You would also be wise to diversify your investments across sectors and asset classes, which will give you the needed cushion from loss from any one investment.

6: Wait for a fat pitch then decide what to do with it

Value is what you get.

Wait...wait...wait until everything is in your favour while buying a stock. These are the stocks with the highest chance of being successful and making you money year after year. To be able to do this effectively, one needs to master the below steps as suggested by Buffett.
As mentioned earlier, invest in stocks that are not glittering on investment magazines or recommended by stock analysts/editors on popular television channels. Perform your own research then make vital investment decisions.

After identifying great businesses to invest in at a fair price, buy a "meaningful amount of stocks in them". That means hold only a limited number of companies in your portfolio; holding excess stocks results in lower returns on your overall portfolio and spending more time to keep track of the same. This may also add considerable risk as it is not feasible for an individual to diligently observe all companies in his/her portfolio.

Ideally, one should limit the number of stocks in his/her portfolio to 10-15. This way, there is an advantage of your portfolio not being cluttered.

Buffett elaborates about knowledge and confidence. According to him, one must require the knowledge of selecting the right stocks by careful research and also build confidence in one's decisions. Market will test your patience to reach the expected returns. So, you need to stay firm with your investment decisions during volatile trading sessions. Do a good amount of homework and keep faith in your research and decisions.

7: Calculate how much money you will make...

...not whether the stock is undervalued or overvalued, according to some academic model such as the discounted cash flow.

Look at market fluctuations as your friend rather than your enemy; profit from folly rather than participate in it.

A smart investor needs to keep an eye on expected returns from particular stocks in the long term and calculate the entry and exit prices of invested companies. This requires thorough research and analysis of the company's available data. Buffett recommends being one's own analyst to profit from investing in stocks.

8: Remove the weeds and water the flowers -- not the other way around

Someone's sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.
One of the best practices according to Buffett is to sell loss-making stocks during a bull run and buy the winner stocks during a bear hug.

The amount realised by discarding loss-making stocks can be utilised to invest in stocks with future growth potential and there by achieving better returns.

9: Become a conscious investor

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Most of the time investors make little progress due to insensible investment decisions. Their decisions are based on emotion, hope and wishful thinking without carrying out proper research and analysis.

It's necessary for a smart investor to think logically while investing and performing research. You need to keep on asking yourself why you want to invest in a particular company and eliminate decision-making based purely on intuition, emotion and herd mentality.

Due diligence before investing in a particular company saves you from the worry of your money being tied-up in companies and businesses that you have little or no knowledge about.
So follow the sound advice provided by Warren Buffett -- avoid the noise and glitter, do your own research, and constantly update your knowledge and stock-picking skills.

In short, be a smart investor!

Eight things employees want from a CEO

2010-04-27T13:04:00.000+05:30

After working with more than 100 CEOs, Melissa Raffoni, Faculty at MIT's Sloan School and Harvard's Kennedy School has created a list of what employees want their leaders to do.

She says that while interacting with CEOs, she often reminds the CEOs that leading takes time and energy. Directing the feelings, attitudes, actions, and behaviors of a team is a big task. Often, she also hears the secrets of these CEOs' employees, about what truly aggravates them and what they love about their bosses.

Here is the list of what employees want their leaders to do.

1. Tell me my role, tell me what to do, and give me the rules. Micromanaging? No, it's called clear direction. Give them parameters so they can work within broad outlines.

2. Discipline my coworker who is out of line. Time and time again, I hear, "I wish my boss would tell Nancy that this is just unacceptable." Hold people accountable in a way that is fair but makes everyone cognizant of what is and isn't acceptable.

3. Get me excited. About the company, about the product, about the job, about a project. Just get them excited.

4. Don't forget to praise me. Motivate employees by leveraging their strengths, not harping on their weaknesses.

5. Don't scare me. They really don't need to know about everything that worries you. They respect that you trust them, but you are the boss. And don't lose your temper at meetings because they didn't meet your expectations. It's often not productive. Fairness and consistency are important mainstays.

6. Impress me. Strong leaders impress their staffs in a variety of ways. Yes, some are great examples of management, but others are bold and courageous, and still others are creative and smart. Strong leaders bring strength to an organization by providing a characteristic that others don't have and the company sorely needs.

7. Give me some autonomy. Give them something interesting to work on. Trust them with opportunity.

8. Set me up to win. Nobody wants to fail. Indecisive leaders who keep people in the wrong roles, set unrealistic goals, keep unproductive team members, or change direction unfairly just frustrate everybody and make people feel defeated.

Keep the Spark - Chetan Bhagat

2009-07-05T13:46:00.000+05:30

Inaugural Speech for the new batch at the Symbiosis BBA program 2008

Good Morning everyone and thank you for giving me this chance to speak to you. This day is about you. You, who have come to this college, leaving the comfort of your homes (or in some cases discomfort), to become something in your life. I am sure you are excited. There are few days in human life when one is truly elated. The first day in college is one of them. When you were getting ready today, you felt a tingling in your stomach. What would the auditorium be like, what would the teachers be like, who are my new classmates - there is so much to be curious about. I call this excitement, the spark within you that makes you feel truly alive today. Today I am going to talk about keeping the spark shining. Or to put it another way, how to be happy most, if not all the time.

Where do these sparks start? I think we are born with them. My 3-year old twin boys have a million sparks. A little Spiderman toy can make them jump on the bed. They get thrills from creaky swings in the park. A story from daddy gets them excited. They do a daily countdown for birthday party – several months in advance – just for the day they will cut their own birthday cake.

I see students like you, and I still see some sparks. But when I see older people, the spark is difficult to find. That means as we age, the spark fades. People whose spark has faded too much are dull, dejected, aimless and bitter. Remember Kareena in the first half of Jab We Met vs the second half? That is what happens when the spark is lost. So how to save the spark?

Imagine the spark to be a lamp's flame. The first aspect is nurturing - to give your spark the fuel, continuously. The second is to guard against storms.

To nurture, always have goals. It is human nature to strive, improve and achieve full potential. In fact, that is success. It is what is possible for you. It isn't any external measure - a certain cost to company pay package, a particular car or house.

Most of us are from middle class families. To us, having material landmarks is success and rightly so. When you have grown up where money constraints force everyday choices, financial freedom is a big achievement.

But it isn't the purpose of life. If that was the case, Mr Ambani would not show up for work. Shah Rukh Khan would stay at home and not dance anymore. Steve Jobs won't be working hard to make a better iPhone, as he sold Pixar for billions of dollars already. Why do they do it? What makes them come to work everyday?

They do it because it makes them happy. They do it because it makes them feel alive. Just getting better from current levels feels good. If you study hard, you can improve your rank. If you make an effort to interact with people, you will do better in interviews. If you practice, your cricket will get better. You may also know that you cannot become Tendulkar, yet. But you can get to the next level. Striving for that next level is important.

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that.

I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order.

There is no point of getting a promotion on the day of your breakup. There is no fun in driving a car if your back hurts. Shopping is not enjoyable if your mind is full of tensions.

You must have read some quotes - Life is a tough race, it is a marathon or whatever. No, from what I have seen so far, life is one of those races in nursery school. Where you have to run with a marble in a spoon kept in your mouth. If the marble falls, there is no point coming first. Same with life, where health and relationships are the marble. Your striving is only worth it if there is harmony in your life. Else, you may achieve the success, but this spark, this feeling of being excited and alive, will start to die.

One last thing about nurturing the spark - don't take life seriously. One of my yoga teachers used to make students laugh during classes. One student asked him if these jokes would take away something from the yoga practice. The teacher said - don't be serious, be sincere. This quote has defined my work ever since. Whether its my writing, my job, my relationships or any of my goals. I get thousands of opinions on my writing everyday. There is heaps of praise, there is intense criticism. If I take it all seriously, how will I write? Or rather, how will I live? Life is not to be taken seriously, as we are really temporary here. We are like a pre-paid card with limited validity. If we are lucky, we may last another 50 years. And 50 years is just 2,500 weekends. Do we really need to get so worked up? It's ok, bunk a few classes, goof up a few interviews, fall in love. We are people, not programmed devices.

I've told you three things - reasonable goals, balance and not taking it too seriously that will nurture the spark. However, there are four storms in life that will threaten to completely put out the flame. These must be guarded against. These are disappointment, frustration, unfairness and loneliness of purpose.

Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don't go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you.

But it's life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember - if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that's where you want to be.

Disappointment's cousin is frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don't know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release.

Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts , having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life - friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously.

Unfairness - this is hardest to deal with, but unfortunately that is how our country works. People with connections, rich dads, beautiful faces, pedigree find it easier to make it – not just in Bollywood, but everywhere. And sometimes it is just plain luck. There are so few opportunities in India, so many stars need to be aligned for you to make it happen. Merit and hard work is not always linked to achievement in the short term, but the long term correlation is high, and ultimately things do work out. But realize, there will be some people luckier than you.

In fact, to have an opportunity to go to college and understand this speech in English means you are pretty darn lucky by Indian standards. Let's be grateful for what we have and get the strength to accept what we don't. I have so much love from my readers that other writers cannot even imagine it. However, I don't get literary praise. It's ok. I don't look like Aishwarya Rai, but I have two boys who I think are more beautiful than her. It's ok. Don't let unfairness kill your spark.

Finally, the last point that can kill your spark is isolation. As you grow older you will realize you are unique. When you are little, all kids want Ice cream and Spiderman. As you grow older to college, you still are a lot like your friends. But ten years later and you realize you are unique. What you want, what you believe in, what makes you feel, may be different from even the people closest to you. This can create conflict as your goals may not match with others. . And you may drop some of them. Basketball captains in college invariably stop playing basketball by the time they have their second child. They give up something that meant so much to them. They do it for their family. But in doing that, the spark dies. Never, ever make that compromise. Love yourself first, and then others.

There you go. I've told you the four thunderstorms - disappointment, frustration, unfairness and isolation. You cannot avoid them, as like the monsoon they will come into your life at regular intervals. You just need to keep the raincoat handy to not let the spark die.

I welcome you again to the most wonderful years of your life. If someone gave me the choice to go back in time, I will surely choose college. But I also hope that ten years later as well, you eyes will shine the same way as they do today. That you will Keep the Spark alive, not only through college, but through the next 2,500 weekends. And I hope not just you, but my whole country will keep that spark alive, as we really need it now more than any moment in history. And there is something cool about saying - I come from the land of a billion sparks.

How to bring joy back to your work

2009-01-18T10:21:00.003+05:30

How to bring joy back to your work

Joy at work is not a matter of working in a lavish infrastructure, earning countless dollars and partying out every night. It is rather a practice of being happy with what you are doing and more importantly for whom you are doing.
People working in the biggest companies, earning millions of dollars are not the happiest ones always. Someone working in a local company with much lesser salary can be happier. Do you remember the old days when you passed out from the college and landed up your first job?

The excitement of going to work could be seen bubbling out but as the time passed, things changed. Going to work became an obligation rather than an enjoyment. Do you realise what changed in these few years?
Here are some tips to help you regain that joy in your work:

1. Be realistic

We often have a habit of setting unrealistic goals for ourselves. We expect more than what we are capable of and when we are not able to meet our goals, depression seeps in and the work becomes a source of unhappiness rather than joy.
See, if you also aimed to touch skies overnight. If yes, set S.M.A.R.T goals for yourself. SMART here means: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.

2. Turn to the office with a right mindset

Enter your office with a positive mindset about your work, colleagues and employer.
Bearing negative thoughts about your workplace will not only hamper your performance but will not let you like your work.

3. Maintain a good rapport with everyone at office

This is something said ad-nauseam times but not practiced very often. The best way to do is to maintain an open communication with your boss and colleagues.
Practice small things like helping people wherever you can, pass a gentle smile as you see a colleague and you will see that you will always have some to help or advice you when needed.

4. Try to fix the problems rather than complaining

Most of us have a habit of sitting and criticising things.
Rather than just discussing the problems around it will be a better idea to find a solution to them. This will not only create a healthy work atmosphere but also give you a sense of achievement.

5. Focus on your KPAs

Many of us feel that we are doing a lot of work which is not recognised. This acts as a source of depression at work.

The best way to come out of such a situation is to focus on your Key Performance Areas.

If you do everything but your actual job, your performance will never be appreciated. So, see if you are doing the right things.

6. Maintain transparency

If you are a boss or a senior person at your workplace, try to maintain transparency in the work culture.

Well informed employees are easier to work with and will reduce your worries. Moreover, you will see that they will stand by you in the hour of need.

7. Celebrate success with juniors

Keep patting for the next batting.
Celebrate success with the junior members of your team. If they are happy and motivated, half of your worries will evaporate themselves.
Also, such informal gatherings bring your team members closer and increase the compatibility quotient.

8. Accept new challenges and risks

A common feature of most of the happy professionals around.
This will give you not only the joy of recognition but also a feeling of satisfaction. Identify new challenges and volunteer to handle them.
If you are offered an opportunity to handle any new project which might be totally new for you, accept the challenge and do all that is required to make it successful.

9. Stay away from dirty politics

Dirty office politics will not let you do your actual job affecting your performance, will keep your colleagues away from you and won't let you think constructively.

So, keep away from politics and blame game. If you have committed a mistake, accept it gracefully and learn to correct it.

10. Take a rejuvenating break from work

There will be times when even after practicing all the above mentioned things you will feel exhausted. This is an indication from your body that it needs rest.
So, take a break and rejuvenate yourself for the next inning.

Azim Premji's secrets for success

2008-12-14T11:42:00.004+05:30

• The biggest enemy of future success is past success. When you succeed, you feel that you must be doing something right for it to happen. But when the parameters for success changes, doing the same things may or may not continue to lead to success.

• We invested in uncompromising integrity that helped us take difficult stands in some of the most difficult business situations.

• Routines represent our own zones of comfort. There is a sense of predictability about them. They have structured our time and even our thought in a certain way. While routines are useful, do not let them enslave you. Deliberately break out of them from time to time.

• Life's battle does not always go to the person who is stronger and faster. The person who wins is the person who thinks he can.

• Always keep in mind that it is only the test of fire that makes fine steel.

• As you get bigger, you have to learn to delegate. It’s also an excellent way to get staff involved in the company’s operations.

• As an advisor, I can say what I want. If I were a politician, I would constantly have to compromise, and I'm incapable of doing that.

• Character is one factor that will guide all our actions and decisions.

• It requires courage to keep dreaming. And that is when dreams are most needed -- not when everything is going right, but when just about everything is going wrong.

• You cannot fire a missile from a canoe. Unless you build a strong network of people with complementary skills, you will be restricted by your own limitations.

• Playing to win is not the same as cutting corners. When you play to win, you stretch yourself to your maximum and use all your potential. It also helps you to concentrate your energy on what you can influence instead of getting bogged down with the worry of what you cannot change. Do your best and leave the rest.

• Everyone feels the fear of unknown. Courage is not the absence of fear but the ability to manage fear without getting paralyzed. Feel the fear, but move on regardless.

• In our way of working, we attach a great deal of importance to humility and honesty. With respect for human values, we promise to serve our customers with integrity.

• Guard against complacency all the time. Complacency makes you blind to the early signals from the environment that something is going wrong.

• If you are always in the company of cynics, you will soon find yourself becoming like them. A cynic knows all the reasons why something cannot be done.

• Take your time to decide what your core values are. Once you do, do not compromise on them for any reason. Integrity is one such value.

• Nobody can make us feel inferior without our consent.

• Change descends on every one equally; it is just that some realise it faster. Some changes are sudden but many others are gradual. While sudden changes get attention because they are dramatic, it is the gradual changes that are ignored till it is too late. You must have all heard of story of the frog in boiling water. If the temperature of the water is suddenly increased, the frog realises it and jumps out of the water. But if the temperature is very slowly increased, one degree at a time, the frog does not realise it till it boils to death. You must develop your own early warning system, which warns you of changes and calls your attention to it. In the case of change, being forewarned is being forearmed.

• Spend time with people who have a 'can-do' approach. Choose your advisors and mentors correctly.

• We need an open mind to look at things in a different way and allow new inputs to come in. Otherwise, there is a real danger of becoming complacent or even downright arrogant.

• We must remember that succeeding in a changing world is beyond just surviving. It is our responsibility to create and contribute something to the world that has given us so much.

• We believe the combination of excellence in operations and strong execution of our strategy is critical to achieve our vision. We will continue to focus on both in future as well.

• Constantly ask yourself what new skills and competencies will be needed. Begin working on them before it becomes necessary and you will have a natural advantage.

• If you do not take enough risks, you may also be losing out on many opportunities. Think through but take the plunge. If some things do go wrong, learn from them.

• I came across this interesting story some time ago: One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. He invited all his neighbours to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and begin to shovel dirt into the well. At first, the donkey realised what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement he quietened down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw. With every shovel of dirt that fell on his back, the donkey was doing some thing amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbours continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up. Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off! Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick is to not to get bogged down by it. We can get out of the deepest wells by not stopping. And by never giving up! Shake it off and take a step up.

• Some people follow the beaten path. Few take the road less travelled. Yet others choose to create their own path.

• Managing change has a lot to go with our own attitude towards it. It is proverbial half-full or half-empty glass approach. For every problem that change represents, there is an opportunity lurking in disguise somewhere. It is up to you to spot it before someone else does.

• If you succeed 90 percent of the time, you are doing fine. If you are succeeding all the time, you should ask yourself if you are taking enough risks.

• As a country we are on the threshold of a unique opportunity. To manage this opportunity, we need to understand what will drive the changes in the future and how we need to manage them.

• If you set high standards for yourself, you strive to meet standards and hence remain modest.

• The greatest benefit of your education lies not only in what you have learnt, but also in working how to learn. Formal education is the beginning of the journey of learning. In the world of tomorrow, only those individuals and organisations will succeed who have mastered the art of rapid and on-going learning.

• Pessimism is contagious, but then so is enthusiasm. In fact, reasonable optimism can be an amazing force multiplier.

• We must remember that many have contributed to our success, including our parents and others from our society. All of us have a responsibility to utilise our potential for making our nation a better place for others, who may not be as well endowed as us, or as fortunate in having the opportunities that we have got.

• To be able to gain the respect of the diverse spectrum in our country, better than being called just a wealthy person or a successful businessman. I have managed to gain respect of everybody that is the biggest accomplishment. All this, only because of hard work and by overcoming peer competition by working harder.

• Excellence is not so much a battle you fight with others, but a battle you fight with yourself, by constantly raising the bar and stretching yourself and your team. This is the best and the most satisfying and challenging part about excellence.

• Delegating authority and responsibility speeds things up and gets decisions made faster. It empowers people more, and it allows them to further empower those who report to them, because their jobs have suddenly become much more responsible.

• You don't demolish a cash-cow business. You just simultaneously try to build the business of tomorrow, which really differentiates you.

• I don't think customer relationships are really owned. The customer is a remarkably selfish person: He takes the relationship to where the execution is in his favour.

• Any position of power or wealth means an enormous responsibility of trusteeship. The higher the share price goes, the higher becomes the expectation from investors, on the company, to perform. If the price rises to unrealistic levels, it will lead to unrealistic expectations.

• I think the most important reason for our success is that very early in our quest into globalisation, we invested in people -- and we have done that consistently and particularly in the service business. People are the key to success or extraordinary success.

• Our experience as a company is that if your top management is not global, they tend to collect people who are of the same kin. It is the most difficult transformation. If you are a smaller company, a less of an international brand name, it's not easy to get the best globally as your top management. It takes time and it takes a lot of nurturing.

• There is one thing that constantly determines success. Some call it leadership. But, to my mind, it is the single-minded pursuit of excellence.

• Exercise, be active and not lead a sedentary life. A certain physical activity should be maintained -- walk, skip or jog -- along with a good food diet. That is the only way to de-stress.

• The advantage of building teams focussed on quality is that the teaming culture eventually spreads to the rest of the organisation and teaming becomes a way of life.

• Success requires no explanation and failure permits none. But you need to respect yourself enough so that your self-confidence remains intact whether you succeed or fail.

• Progress is defined by the changing nature of issues that a society considers topical. We have made the transition from concern for just basic literacy to improvement of the quality of education. We need to progress from a compulsion to mass-produce stereotypes to creating independent thinkers and active learners. We have to create the right balance between our diverse subcultures and create an education system that caters to the need of every one of them.

• Most people wait for something to go wrong before they think of change. It is like going to the doctor for a check up only when you are seriously sick or thinking of maintaining your vehicle only when it breaks down.

• We should question the customer. Too often we just follow instructions. If we have a point of view that is different, we should question the customer's instructions and say, "We think what you are asking us to do is wrong; it would be better to do it another way." If we have to fight to make ourselves heard, we should do that because customers won't want product problems to come back three weeks or months or years later.

• We cannot be the best in everything we do. We must define what we are or would like to be best at and what someone else can do better.

• No successful company should be taken for granted. A company to survive in this competitive world should change the rules of the game, be it its business model, technology, delivery model, supply chain that significantly affect the ongoing change of the company.

Jindagi Jivi Jano...

2008-11-08T17:27:00.001+05:30

Samay Nathi...

2008-10-05T12:52:00.001+05:30

Good One liners...

2008-10-05T12:40:00.000+05:30

[1] Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them while driving.

[2] Having one child makes you a parent; having two you are a referee.

[3] Marriage is a relationship in which one person is always right and the other is the husband!

[4] I believe we should all pay our tax with a smile. I tried - but they wanted
cash

[5] A child's greatest period of growth is the month after you've purchased new school uniforms.

[6] Don't feel bad. A lot of people have no talent

[7] Don't marry the person you want to live with, marry the one you cannot live without, but whatever you do, you'll regret it later.

[8] You can't buy love, but you pay heavily for it

[9] Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.

[10] Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

[11] Marriage is give and take. You'd better give it to her or she'll take it anyway.

[12] My wife and I always compromise. I admit I'm wrong and she agrees with me.

[13] Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others.

[14] Ladies first. Pretty ladies sooner.

[15] A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.

[16] You're getting old when you enjoy remembering things more than doing them.

[17] It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

[18] Real friends are the ones who survive transitions between address books.

[19] Saving is the best thing. Especially when your parents have done it for you.

[20] Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools talk because they have to say something

[21] They call our language the mother tongue because the father seldom gets to speak!

A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure (Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2008)

2008-10-04T21:59:00.000+05:30

Question: Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure?

Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India's satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India's "Rohini" satellite into orbit by 1980. I was given funds and human resources -- but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

By 1979 -- I think the month was August -- we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts -- I had four or five of them with me -- told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal.

It was a big failure.

That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof.Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference -- where journalists from around the world were present -- was at 7:45 am at ISRO's satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure -- he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed. Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization.

The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite -- and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant. Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, "You conduct the press conference today."

I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

Things That Money Can't Buy

2008-10-04T15:20:00.000+05:30

1. Family and friends
The greenbacks won't bring you any closer to your family if you are far too busy earning them. Nor will they guarantee your family understands you at all. (Mummy's cooking is a sub-group in this 'things you can't buy anywhere' list.)

There are exceptions to this. You might just pay off irritating in-laws to stay out of your hair, or order a hit on them. But in the normal course...

With friends, it works the same way, only more so. If your wealth draws them, they aren't real. If they don't stay, or your life has no place for them, you are on your own. With real friends, you've almost got it made.

2. Home
Get married, start a family, have kids. Will they grow up into fine people? Have you got the hang of father/motherhood? Is your home really your castle, a cocoon of comfort? Or is it just a house with people in it? The card really stops here.

3. Happiness
Alright, cliched, but it gets truer as the years pass. There is always something missing whether you are on the beach at Algarve or adding the newest antique wood furniture to your collection. If you can't get at the root of it, everything you can get is merely a narcotic.

4. Peace
Here is the big one, ever since they started asking smart questions to beauty contestants. The small peace is inside your head and that is elusive enough to come by, for which you have antacids and Ketorol, which only push it away for another day. Also think world peace and other big matters. What if they nuke the city? Kidding.

5. Immortality
If you can make it for three decades on top of the Forbes list, that is a measure of fame. But to be truly immortal requires other things, other ways of striving. Ever wondered how some dirt-poor hardscrabble guys have instant recall value centuries afterwards? And literal immortality is yet several pages farther in human civilisation's sci-fi book. Best you can do is get a ticket on Sir Richard Branson's space taxi.

6. Respect
You can smirk at the poor ants down below on the street, but they will pull faces behind your back if you are the sort who is perpetually asking for it. Dignity is the most fragile of public possessions. And God help you if they know about the skeletons in your closet or that you were called Stinky as a kid. This is one asset you really need to work on all the time to earn...

7. Talent
Another cliched, misused, misunderstood word, like creativity, and maybe no one knows what it is anymore, but you are either born with it or not. No way you can get a bill of sale on this one. What you do with it is of course your business. History has been very frequently marked with astonishing examples of creativity outdoing... well, money and everything else. Possibly the best example is Lenoardo da Vinci and a certain portrait of a woman. He took 16 years to paint it, did not bother to name it, packed it with himself wherever he travelled in Europe, refused to sell it to kings and counts. It was ultimately sold by his assistant after he died. Someone down the line decided to call it the Mona Lisa [Images].

At the other end of the example is Vincent Van Gogh. All that talent and he sold just one painting of the nearly thousand he made, struggling with poverty all along. Didn't make a difference either way: in 1990, his Portrait of Dr Gachet went under the hammer for a current equivalent of $ 136.1 million, making it the fourth most expensive painting ever sold.

8. Health
Sure healthcare costs being the way they are, you need all the money you can lay your hands on when it comes to facing the bills and pills and the doctor scaring you with a dozen different possible diseases you have never heard about. But, viewed sanely, a good efficient treatment is not that much of a substitute for a good healthy life. Isn't it better not to need healthcare in the first place?

9. Love
It matters, that little empty feeling when you are sitting with a Sauvignon Blanc (for choice) on your balcony on a Saturday evening and twenty sober thoughts in your head, and no one to tell them to. That feeling of intense loneliness can neither be bought off, papered over or told to keep quiet and leave the room. Someone says, "Money can't buy love, but with all the other things it can, I'll give love a miss." Your call. You still have the Sauvignon Blanc...

10. Character
In case it matters. It is a sneaky creature, goes by other strange names like virtue and righteousness and at one time, if we remember reading correctly, a certain generation used to call it "true wealth". We don't really know whether it is around in these times but if you are looking to have it, it has to come from within. Or some such thing...

11. Vision and mission of your life
The old age by W W Ziege goes like this: 'Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude and nothing on earth can help the man with wrong mental attitude'.

Without vision and mission you are like a jet without a flight plan or maybe a brain surgeon operating with a blindfold on. Lasting self mastery and excellence will only come about when you set precise goals and have a clear vision and mission plan in place.

Clear goals are foundation of success and if you do not set clear cut goals then it would be like a ship moving through deep seas without a course. And alas these are not a commodity which can be bought!

12. Networking and building nurtured relationships
You are the centre of your own universe. Where your universe intersects or overlaps someone else's, your lines cross that person's universe. If you could draw a map of the entire universe, you'd have a mesh or a web. Staying in touch and focusing on action is not only important for our evolution but is also a vital need to meet the larger challenges facing us today.

When we join hands with other people and share our dreams, aspirations, concerns and dreams not only do we find inner strength in this kinship but also practical help and ideas to carry out joint initiatives effectively. Remember, together each achieves more.

This is something that has to be cultivated and is not something that can be bought overhand.

13. Values
The highest good in human beings is their own self. This is the love, awareness and bliss of our inner most divine being. Everything worthwhile in life is an expression of this divinity. All that we value is the hidden quest for this divine source: Jack Welch in his book Winning.

Everything we do is based consciously or unconsciously on our values, attitudes and or conceptions of what is good and desirable. They are our inherent notions of what ought to be. Thus values are set of behaviours: specific, nitty-gritty and so descriptive they leave little to imagination.

People must be able to use them as marching orders because they are the how of the mission, the means to the end: Winning. And if u guessed it right folks values is not something which you can buy but what is nurtured by your traditional roots.

14. Personal development
There goes an old age saying: 'A little bit of something is better than plenty of nothing'.

The challenge is to use your energy to cut through and go beyond all your fears, your weaknesses, your insecurities and doubts and bring about a change in your lives. Making things happen and anything thought of and considered useful must finally be converted into inspired action.

Aptly put by a Chinese thinker: 'Even a journey of a thousand miles begins with one logical step' and that is development of self.

Everyone aims at self development and this is something which, again, cannot be bought. One has to build personal development as a way of life by organising the day effectively, identify transferable skills and personal competence and improve the overall quality of working.

15. Genius
It's like tooth extraction of a cavity-filled tooth. As a dentist removes the cavity-filled tooth you must get rid of your weaknesses and focus on your strengths and bring out the genius in you by realising what is your liking and your passion.

Genius in you is built by keeping a focus and bringing about daily improvements thus striving to build a genius through sustained efforts.

16. Mentor and guide
Mentoring is a relationship between openness, freedom and confidence. It is a protected relationship in which learning and experimentation can occur, potential skills can be developed, and in which results can be measured in terms of competencies gained.

Mentoring comes in by developing a special relationship which is based on mutual trust and dependence for learning and growing to upgrade your knowledge and skills.

17. Team spirit
'See the world for yourself. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as yourself, then you can care for all things': Tao Te Ching.

Existence is one whole symphony of working together joyfully similar to thousands of species of plant and animals found in a rain forest. Team spirit brings about a sense of belonging and helps us realise the truth that each achieves more.

This spirit has to be developed with mutual benefits to all and incorporates a deeper understanding, a sense of commitment and compatibility by dissolving ego and individual differences. Rabindranath Tagore rightly said: 'There is no such thing as absolute isolation in existence and the only way of attaining truth is through interpenetrating our being into all our objects.'

All this cannot be bought but developed and nurtured through constant interactions. Guides / gurus cannot be bought by money. You need to find a friend, a philosopher and guide with whom you can develop an understanding for future guidance for help in your career, your profession. You cannot force anybody to become your mentor but develop a mutual trust and understanding over time.

18. Humility
The state of being humble .Getting rid of the feeling of pride, ego and being self obsessed. Let others also express themselves. Do not try to superimpose our views on others every time. One has to cultivate humility and, I bet, money cannot buy humility.

19. Developing efficiency
Follow the POLCA mantra: Planning, organising, leading, controlling and taking action. All this cannot be bought with money but it's a discipline in one's life which has to be incorporated in to become efficient and successful.

20. Adaptability and acceptability
Changed conditions induce an almost indefinite amount of fluctuating variability, by which the whole organisation is rendered in some degree of plastic: Charles Darwin. Hence it's your capacity to react and adjust to new and changing situations that will help you achieve your aims. The innate nature of human adaptability can be seen in the way infants adjust physically, socially and emotionally to their new world from the time they are born.

Constant reinforcements of our adaptability to differing situations make it a habit and frame an acceptable behaviour towards the society. This is something that comes naturally and money cannot buy.

Peter Drucker's mantras for success

2008-09-26T12:01:00.000+05:30

# Efficiency is doing better what is already being done.

# The productivity of work is not the responsibility of the worker but of the manager.

# Follow effective action with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.

# No institution can possibly survive if it needs geniuses or supermen to manage it. It must be organised in such a way as to be able to get along under a leadership composed of average human beings.

# The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.

# Rank does not confer privilege or give power. It imposes responsibility.

# Effective leadership is not about making speeches or being liked; leadership is defined by results not attributes.

# All one has to do is to learn to say 'no' if an activity contributes nothing.

# What is the first duty -- and the continuing responsibility -- of the business manager? To strive for the best possible economic results from the resources currently employed or available.

# People do not know that you cannot successfully innovate in an existing organisation unless you systematically abandon. As long as you eliminate, you'll eat again. But if you stop eliminating, you don't last long.

# Leaders shouldn't attach moral significance to their ideas: Do that, and you can't compromise.

# The only things that evolve by themselves in an organisation are disorder, friction, and malperformance.

# One cannot buy, rent or hire more time. The supply of time is totally inelastic. No matter how high the demand, the supply will not go up. There is no price for it. Time is totally perishable and cannot be stored. Yesterday's time is gone forever, and will never come back. Time is always in short supply. There is no substitute for time. Everything requires time. All work takes place in, and uses up time. Yet most people take for granted this unique, irreplaceable and necessary resource.

# The really important things are said over cocktails and are never done.

# Doing the right thing is more important than doing the thing right.

# Concentration is the key to economic results. No other principles of effectiveness is violated as constantly today as the basic principle of concentration.

# Long range planning does not deal with future decisions, but with the future of present decisions.

# Leadership is not magnetic personality -- that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not 'making friends and influencing people' -- that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person's vision to high sights, the raising of a person's performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.

# What gets measured, gets managed.

# No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone's work assignment and responsibility.

# Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision.

# Meetings are a symptom of bad organisation. The fewer meetings the better.

# The entrepreneur always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity.

# Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you've got.

# Objectives are not fate; they are direction. They are not commands; they are commitments. They do not determine the future; they are means to mobilise the resources and energies of the business for the making of the future.

# Any organisation develops people: It has no choice. It either helps them grow or stunts them.

# Don't take on things you don't believe in and that you yourself are not good at. Learn to say no.

# If you can't establish clear career priorities by yourself, use friends and business acquaintances as a sounding board. They will want to help. Ask them to help you determine your 'first things' and 'second things.' Or seek an outside coach or advisor to help you focus. Because if you don't know what your 'first things' are, you simply can't do them FIRST.

# Teaching is the only major occupation of man for which we have not yet developed tools that make an average person capable of competence and performance. In teaching we rely on the naturals', the ones who somehow know how to teach.

# Don't travel too much. Organise your travel. It is important that you see people and that you are seen by people maybe once or twice a year. Otherwise, don't travel. Make them come to see you.

# The leaders who work most effectively, it seems to me, never say 'I'. And that's not because they have trained themselves not to say 'I'. They don't think 'I'. They think 'we'; they think 'team'. They understand their job to be to make the team function. They accept responsibility and don't sidestep it, but 'we' gets the credit... This is what creates trust, what enables you to get the task done.

# Too many leaders try to do a little bit of 25 things and get nothing done. They are very popular because they always say yes. But they get nothing done.

# Efficiency is doing things right; effectiveness is doing the right things.

# The purpose of business is to create and keep a customer.

# Again, let's start out discussing what not to do. Don't try to be somebody else. By now you have your style. This is how you get things done.

# Leaders communicate in the sense that people around them know what they are trying to do. They are purpose driven -- yes, mission driven. They know how to establish a mission.

# I tell all my clients that it is absolutely imperative that they spend a few weeks each year outside their own business and actively working in the marketplace, or in a university lab in the case of technical people. The best way is for the chief executive officer to take the place of a salesman twice a year for two weeks.

# Few top executives can even imagine the hatred, contempt and fury that has been created -- not primarily among blue-collar workers who never had an exalted opinion of the 'bosses' -- but among their middle management and professional people.

# When you are the chief executive, you're the prisoner of your organisation. The moment you're in the office, everybody comes to you and wants something, and it is useless to lock the door. They'll break in. So, you have to get outside the office. But still, that isn't travelling. That's being at home or having a secret office elsewhere. When you're alone, in your secret office, ask the question, 'What needs to be done?' Develop your priorities and don't have more than two. I don't know anybody who can do three things at the same time and do them well. Do one task at a time or two tasks at a time. That's it. OK, two works better for most. Most people need the change of pace. But, when you are finished with two jobs or reach the point where it's futile, make the list again. Don't go back to priority three. At that point, it's obsolete.

# We suffer from over-choice: 67 varieties of toothpaste, 487 styles of shoes, 186 brands of cell phones with 137 telephone companies. We demand more variety than we could possibly need or want; and as a result, we get lost in options, opportunities, and choices. There are 87 varieties of lawyers, and 75 specialties inside medicine. The world of work can be a confusing landscape.

# That people even in well paid jobs choose ever earlier retirement is a severe indictment of our organisations -- not just business, but government service, the universities. These people don't find their jobs interesting.

# A critical question for leaders is: 'When do you stop pouring resources into things that have achieved their purpose?'

# Morale in an organisation does not mean that 'people get along together'; the test is performance not conformance.

# An employer has no business with a man's personality. Employment is a specific contract calling for a specific performance... Any attempt to go beyond that is usurpation. It is immoral as well as an illegal intrusion of privacy. It is abuse of power. An employee owes no 'loyalty,' he owes no 'love' and no 'attitudes' -- he owes performance and nothing else.

# Ideas are somewhat like babies -- they are born small, immature, and shapeless. They are promise rather than fulfillment. In the innovative company, executives do not say, 'This is a damn-fool idea.' Instead they ask, 'What would be needed to make this embryonic, half-baked, foolish idea into something that makes sense, that is an opportunity for us?'

# Innovation is the specific instrument of entrepreneurship... the act that endows resources with a new capacity to create wealth.

# Once a year ask the boss, 'What do I or my people do that helps you to do your job?' and 'What do I or my people do that hampers you?'

# Great leaders find out whether they picked the truly important things to do. I've seen a great many people who are exceedingly good at execution, but exceedingly poor at picking the important things. They are magnificent at getting the unimportant things done. They have an impressive record of achievement on trivial matters.

# How does one display integrity? 'By asking, especially when taking on office: What is the foremost need of the institution and therefore my first task and duty?'

# Ask yourself: What major change in the economy, market or knowledge would enable our company to conduct business the way we really would like to do it, the way we would really obtain economic results?

# Ask yourself: What would happen if this were not done at all?

# So much of what we call management consists in making it difficult for people to work.

# The subordinate's job is not to reform or re-educate the boss, not to make him conform to what the business schools or the management book say bosses should be like. It is to enable a particular boss to perform as a unique individual.

# Effective leaders check their performance. They write down, �What do I hope to achieve if I take on this assignment?' They put away their goals for six months and then come back and check their performance against goals. This way, they find out what they do well and what they do poorly.

# The individual is the central, rarest, most precious capital resource of our society.

# The most efficient way to produce anything is to bring together under one management as many as possible of the activities needed to turn out the product.

# The computer is a moron.

# Successful leaders make sure that they succeed! They are not afraid of strength in others.

# The CEO needs to ask of his associates, 'What are you focusing on?' Ask your associates, 'You put this on top of your priority list -- why?' The reason may be the right one, but it may also be that this associate of yours is a salesman who persuades you that his priorities are correct when they are not.

# Free enterprise cannot be justified as being good for business. It can be justified only as being good for society.

# Executives owe it to the organisation and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.

# A manager is responsible for the application and performance of knowledge.

# Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.

# Business, that's easily defined -- it's other people's money.

# Few companies that installed computers to reduce the employment of clerks have realised their expectations... They now need more and more expensive clerks even though they call them 'operators' or 'programmers.'

# What's absolutely unforgivable is the financial benefit top management people get for laying off people. There is no excuse for it. No justification. This is morally and socially unforgivable, and we will pay a heavy price for it.

# Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things.

# A man should never be appointed into a managerial position if his vision focuses on people's weaknesses rather than on their strengths.

# Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

# Performing organisations enjoy what they're doing.

What is subprime crisis? How it caused financial mayhem?

2008-09-26T11:36:00.000+05:30

The current upheaval in the global financial markets has caused more mayhem in a fortnight than the world has seen in its entire economic history.

Although there are many reasons responsible for bringing the world to the doorstep of financial doom, the main cause of this financial disaster is said to be the �sub-prime loan.'

So what is this sub-prime loan? And why has it caused global panic? If it is related to the American housing sector, why should it affect Indian and other markets?

A sub-prime loan

Sub-prime mortgage loans (or housing loans or junk loans) are very risky. But since profits are high where the risk is high, a lot of lenders get into this business to try and make a quick buck.

Sub-prime loans are dicey as they are given to people with unstable incomes or low creditworthiness. These individuals are not financially sound enough to be given a loan when judged under the strict standards that should normally be followed by a bank or lending institution.

However, there's more to it. Let us simplify this issue to understand better how sub-prime loans work and how they brought the world down to its knees.

It all begins with an American wanting to live the famed American dream.

So he seeks a housing loan to give shape to his dream home. But there is a slight problem. He doesn't have good credit rating. This means that he is unable to clear all the stringent conditions that a bank imposes on an individual before it sanctions a loan.

Since his credit is not good enough, no bank will give him a home loan as there is a fear that the chances of a default by him are high. Banks don't like customers who default on their payments.

But lo!, before the American dream can fade away, there enters a second American -- usually a robust financial institution -- who has good credit rating and is willing to take on some amount of risk.

Given his good credit rating, the bank is willing to give the second American a loan. The bank gives the loan at a certain rate of interest.

The second American then divides this loan into a lot of small portions and gives them out as home loans to lots of other Americans -- like the first American -- who do not have a great credit rating and to whom the bank would not have given a home loan in the first place.

The second American gives out these loans at a rate of interest that is much higher rate than the rate at which he borrowed money from the bank. This higher rate is referred to as the sub-prime rate and this home loan market is referred to as the sub-prime home loan market.

Also by giving out a home loan to lots of individuals, the second American is trying to hedge his bets. He feels that even if a few of his borrowers default, his overall position would not be affected much, and he will end up making a neat profit.

Now if this home loan market is sub-prime, what is prime? The prime home loan market refers to individuals who have good credit ratings and to whom the banks lend directly.

Now let's get back to the sub-prime market. The institution giving out loans in the sub-prime market does not stop here. It does not wait for the principal and the interest on the sub-prime home loans to be repaid, so that it can repay its loan to the bank (the prime lender), which has given it the loan.

So what does the institution do?

It goes ahead and 'securitises' these loans. Securitisation means converting these home loans into financial securities, which promise to pay a certain rate of interest. These financial securities are then sold to big institutional investors.

Many investment banks (or institutions like the 'second American' in our story) sold complicated securities that were backed by debt which was very risky.

And how are these investors repaid? The interest and the principal that is repaid by the sub-prime borrowers through equated monthly installments (EMIs) is passed onto these institutional investors.

The institution giving out the sub-prime loans takes the money that it gets by selling the financial securities and passes it on to the bank he had taken the loan from, thereby repaying the loan. And everybody lives happily ever after. Or so it would have seemed.

The sub-prime home loans were given out as floating rate home loans. A floating rate home loan as the name suggests is not fixed. As interest rates go up, the interest rate on floating rate home loans also go up. As interest rates to be paid on floating rate home loans go up, the EMIs that need to be paid to service these loans go up as well.

With US interest rising, the EMIs too increased. Higher EMIs hit the sub-prime borrowers hard. A lot of them in the first place had unstable incomes and poor credit rating.

They, thus, defaulted. Once more and more sub-prime borrowers started defaulting, payments to the institutional investors who had bought the financial securities stopped, leading to huge losses.

The problem primarily began with the United States keeping its interest rates very low for a very long time, thus encouraging Americans to go in for housing loans, or mortgages. Lower interest rates led to buyers wanting to take on bigger loans, and thus bigger and better homes.

But life was fine. With the American economy doing well at that time and housing prices soaring on the back of huge demand for real estate and bigger and better homes, financial institutions saw a mouthwatering opportunity in the mortgage market.

In their zeal to make a quick buck, these institutions relaxed the strict regulatory procedures before extending housing loans to people with unstable jobs and weak credit standing.

Few controls were put in place to handle the situation in case the housing 'bubble' burst. And when the US economy began to slow down, the house of cards began to fall.

The crisis began with the bursting of the United States housing bubble.

A slowing US economy, high interest rates, unrealistic real estate prices, high inflation and rising oil tags together led to a fall in stock markets, growth stagnation, job losses, lack of consumer spending, a virtual halt to new jobs, and foreclosures and defaults.

Sub-prime homeowners began to default as they could no longer afford to pay their EMIs. A deluge of such defaults inundated these institutions and banks, wiping out their net worth. Their mortgage-backed securities were almost worthless as real estate prices crashed.

The moment it was found out that these institutions had failed to manage the risk, panic spread. Investors realised that they could hardly put any value on the securities that these institutions were selling. This caused many a Wall Street pillar to crumble.

As defaults kept rising, these institutions could not service their loans that they had taken from banks. So they turned to other financial firms to help them out, but after a while these firms too stopped extending credit realizing that the collateral backing this credit would soon lose value in the falling real estate market.

Now burdened with tons of debt and no money to pay it back, the back of these financial entities broke, leading to the current meltdown.

The problem worsened because institutions giving out sub-prime home loans could easily securitise it. Once an institution securitises a loan, it does not remain on the books of the institution.

Hence that institution does not take the risk of the loan going bad. The risk is passed onto the investors who buy the financial securities issued for securitising the home loan.

Another advantage of securitisation, which has now become a disadvantage, is that money keeps coming in.

Once an institution securitises the first lot of home loans and repays the bank it has borrowed from, it can borrow again to give out loans. The bank having been repaid and made its money does not have any inhibitions in lending out money again.

Given the fact that institutions giving out the loan did not take the risk, their incentive was in just giving out the loan. Whether the individual taking the home loan had the capacity to repay the loan or not, wasn't their problem.

Thus proper due diligence to give out the home loan was not done and loans were extended to individuals who are more likely to default.

Other than this, greater the amount of loan that the institution gave out, greater was the amount it could securitise and, hence, greater the amount of money it could earn.

After borrowers started defaulting, it came to light that institutions giving out loans in the sub-prime market had been inflating the incomes of borrowers, so that they could give out greater amount of home loans.

By giving out greater amounts of home loan, they were able to securitise more, issue more financial securities and earn more money. Quite a vicious cycle, eh?

And so the story continued, till the day borrowers stop repaying. Investors who bought the financial securities could be serviced.

Well, that still does not explain, why stock markets in India, fell? Here's why. . .

Institutional investors who had invested in securitised paper from the sub-prime home loan market in the US, saw their investments turning into losses. Most big investors have a certain fixed proportion of their total investments invested in various parts of the world. So...

Once investments in the US turned bad, more money had to be invested in the US, to maintain that fixed proportion.

In order to invest more money in the US, money had to come in from somewhere. To make up their losses in the sub-prime market in the United States, they went out to sell their investments in emerging markets like India where their investments have been doing well.

So these big institutional investors, to make good of their losses in the sub-prime market, began to sell their investments in India and other markets around the world. Since the amount of selling in the market is much higher than the amount of buying, the Sensex began to tumble.

The flight of capital from the Indian markets also led to a fall in the value of the rupee against the US dollar.

Any other reason, apart from sub-prime crisis?

Of course! Sub-prime crisis alone could not have caused such mayhem, although it is to blame for the beginning of the end.

This crisis is spreading from sub-prime to prime mortgages, home equity loans, to commercial real estate, to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans), to leveraged loans that financed reckless debt-laden leveraged buy outs, to municipal bonds, to industrial and commercial loans, to corporate bonds, to the derivative markets whose risk are indeterminate, etc.

It has been a total systemic failure that has its roots in the US real estate and the sub-prime loan market.

Note: Some analysts say that the worst might not be over. . .

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - By Azim Premji

2008-09-15T23:58:00.000+05:30

Every company faces the problem of people leaving the company for better pay or profile.

Early this year, Mark, a senior software designer, got an offer from a prestigious international firm to work in its India operations developing specialized software. He was thrilled by the offer.

He had heard a lot about the CEO. The salary was great. The company had all the right systems in place employee-friendly human resources (HR) policies, a spanking new office,and the very best technology,even a canteen that served superb food.

Twice Mark was sent abroad for training. "My learning curve is the sharpest it's ever been," he said soon after he joined.

Last week, less than eight months after he joined, Mark walked out of the job.

Why did this talented employee leave ?

Arun quit for the same reason that drives many good people away.

The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules". It came up with this surprising finding:

If you're losing good people, look to their immediate boss ..Immediate boss is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he 's the reason why people leave. When people leave they take knowledge,experience and contacts with them, straight to the competition.

"People leave managers not companies," write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman.

Mostly manager drives people away?

HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave,but a thought has been planted. The second time, that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he looks for another job.

When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information. Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don 't have your heart and soul in the job."

Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious,too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets, they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over a trivial issue.

Talented men leave. Dead wood doesn't.

~~ HeRe I aM ~~

Some important points for better life

10 effective time management tips for success

Get richer by avoiding this money mistake

Stock basics: All you want to know about PE ratio

10 things HR managers look for in potential hires

Earn interest income while you invest in IPOs

Earn interest income while you invest in IPOs

How does ASBA work?

Where can you make an application under ASBA?

How to make an application under ASBA?

Can you revise or withdraw your application?

9 investment lessons to learn from Warren Buffett

Eight things employees want from a CEO

Keep the Spark - Chetan Bhagat

How to bring joy back to your work

Azim Premji's secrets for success

Jindagi Jivi Jano...

Samay Nathi...

Good One liners...

A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure (Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2008)

Things That Money Can't Buy

Peter Drucker's mantras for success

What is subprime crisis? How it caused financial mayhem?

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - By Azim Premji

~*~ HeRe I aM ~*~

Some important points for better life

10 effective time management tips for success

Get richer by avoiding this money mistake

Stock basics: All you want to know about PE ratio

10 things HR managers look for in potential hires

Earn interest income while you invest in IPOs

Earn interest income while you invest in IPOs

How does ASBA work?

Where can you make an application under ASBA?

How to make an application under ASBA?

Can you revise or withdraw your application?

9 investment lessons to learn from Warren Buffett

Eight things employees want from a CEO

Keep the Spark - Chetan Bhagat

How to bring joy back to your work

Azim Premji's secrets for success

Jindagi Jivi Jano...

Samay Nathi...

Good One liners...

A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure (Former President of India APJ Abdul Kalam at Wharton India Economic forum, Philadelphia, March 22, 2008)

Things That Money Can't Buy

Peter Drucker's mantras for success

What is subprime crisis? How it caused financial mayhem?

WHY EMPLOYEES LEAVE ORGANISATIONS ? - By Azim Premji

~~ HeRe I aM ~~