Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid

While there has been much discussion about the Lat Prof. C.K.Prahlad's fortune at the bottom of the pyramid, my post has nothing to do with it. The fortune Im talking about is not from the perspective of the business opportunity that lies within the lower middle class, its about the employment opportunity that lies with everybody today.

Last year, when my college placements were going on, there were quite a few moments when we would all go “whoa!” over a huge package offered by a company. This trend seems to only get better and better as the years pass on. But once I started working, I observed few other things as well which were as surprising. Unlike our parents generation, the kind of remuneration offered by companies today is not really dependent on how many people work under you or how big a team you lead. In some firms, there are employees who earn more than the top man/woman, even though they are in a department of the same organization.

It goes without saying that I was quite intrigued. So I tried to find out a little more. A friend of mine, who works in a techie organization with world renowned practices shed some light on it. She told me that in her company, people were assigned grades according to how they perform. But going up a grade does not have anything to do with whether you get into a managerial role, or shift departments to get more exposure. For example, if there is a person who is a very good engineer and wants to be involved in coding work only, it doesn’t mean her growth prospects are low. She could move up grades being a software engineer. This means that there could be a software engineer who is a grade 10 working in a team under a project manager who is a grade 9.

To me, this is the ultimate form of a free organisation, where people do what they love and in turn enhance the productivity of the organization as a whole. I remember the famous Peters Princple which basically says - “One always gets promoted to the level where he becomes incompetent”. This system is the perfect solution to the principle. What it also means is that today, an employee can actually take a decision on what she wants to do and how long she wants to work. With the introduction of flexible working hours and telecommuting, she can even decide when she wants to work. Talk about choosing your own work-life balance. It also means that today, she could decide to work in the same position she is in for the rest of my life and earn her fortune, even if it’s her first job right out of college – right at the bottom of the corporate pyramid.

With the lean organization becoming more and more popular, and outsourcing becoming a phenomenon, it makes a lot more sense to pay more for executives from day 1. The idea that Lean organisations need fat people is becoming a popular one, primarily because its expensive to replace them and also because they could eventually specialize in that job year after year and become an invaluable asset at that level. So I think more “whoa!” jobs are definitely for the taking in the coming years.

Work in Progress

It has been just some time since I have started work. Hardly a few months back I was a graduate fresh out of college, ready to take on the world with my brainstorms. If you would look around, none of them seem to have reached any of you yet :-)

Things haven’t really been as fast paced and exhilarating as I expected yet. But today, when I think about it, slowly and steadily a number of things have changed. The most important thing work has brought in my life is the same as any major incident does – perspective.

I came to work with a number of aspirations. Noting really concrete, except the cliche overdose of ambition. The first lesson I learnt at work was that enthusiasm cannot be faked. It is something I am still learning. The only way to do something really well is being interested,genuinely interested, and that crucial factor really does change the way you work. So it seems that the only solution to that is to always do what excites you.

But the second lesson I learnt was that work is not fun. It seems like a contradiction with the first lesson. No matter how glamorous a profile sounds, the bottom line is that when one has to go day in and day out doing it, the charm wanes off. But the beauty of it is that the only solution is to accept from the very beginning that work isn’t fun. That it isn’t fun for anybody, no matter what they say. So, when you expect nothing, you enjoy every good thing that comes your way. With that outlook, you only keep looking for interesting things you can possibly do within the things available to you.

There is so much to learn out there, its simply overwhelming. Another thing I learnt is that there always will be quite a large number of people smarter than you. But over the long run, does it matter so much? After going through a zillion profiles of distinguished people on the net (yep, I do get distracted easily at work!), the one thing I can say with reasonable certainty is that there are just too many successful people out there. Which, I think, means that if you can stick in there, stay interested and put in the effort, sooner or later you are going to start getting things right. There just cannot be so many brilliant people in the planet. Therefore, most must be going through the old fashioned way of putting in the effort and doing things that interest them.

Here, at least in our generation, we are a market that rewards specialists rather than generalists. Having a well rounded personality is not really such a big necessity to succeed. If you are good with people, there is a job cut out for you. The same applies to those who are good with numbers but hate people. Of course, there are careers which require both qualities. But the point is that there are careers which don't. The problem only arises when you seek to be someone whose qualities you neither have and neither want to develop. Then, there will always be a mismatch. Figuring that out, that is, my own limitations vis a vis what I aspire to be, is something I am far from figuring out...

Seems like I have my work cut out for me (for now) after all :-)

An Update on Life

It has been ages since my last post...something which I deeply regret. A lot of things have taken place in the past year, which I assume would have changed me and my perspective. I regret not blogging regularly so I could look back figure the change in thinking. Anyway, better late than never I guess.

Most people have a fascination towards the world of finance nowadays. I too am a part of that lot. And to satisfy my curiosity, off late I have been trying to discover the secret knowledge that everyone my age is looking to seek - to have an idea of what it is that these movers and shakers actually do. And have I? To some extent yes. But the funny part of discovering things is that you always want to know more... and there are more questions to ask than answers to give, aren't there? And so it is these new set of questions that I'm now pondering over.

The world of finance is undoubtedly complicated, exciting, highly mathematical and relationship based at the same time and very, very interesting. The risks taken are enormous, the gains and losses even more so. From the professional setup to the high profile meetings, from the millions of dollars to the bitter competition, it really is a kick for those who are of that mould. But in the past few months, there is one thing that seems missing in the whole system. And the something is empathy.

Now dont get me wrong, I love what I see. There is something about this world that just draws you in. I cant explain it, but I sure as hell can feel it. And don't assume that I'm saying the place is devoid of ethics either. Its a highly ethical industry. Well, at least the professional ones whom we associate the financial industry with are. But being ethically right sometimes does not mean being morally right. Being ethically right may not be being sympathetic or empathetic either.
Though not clearly, I now can relate to why most successful people turn toward philanthropy at the later stages of their life. The speeches by Bill Gates and the story about high profile CEO's quitting their jobs and turning to non-profit organizations make some sense now.

There are people who are ambitious and there are people who have a passion to do something for the society. And then there are those who are both. Isn't it a real challenge when your job doesn't satisfy both these aspects of your personality? I'm not talking about a situation where the job requires to do something against your principles and the likes. That would make things back and white, far too easy. The question arises when you end up in a job that is challenging, extremely satisfying, something you love to do and have a bright future with but doesn't involve other aspects of your personality. For example, say you have an amazing job that is really stimulating and challenging and you love it but it does not have an impact on the society per se, which really matters to you. Or you are doing a socially meaningful job but it doesn't have the future or career path or remuneration that you are comfortable with. I think these are the questions that will matter the most a couple of years down the line when we get out of college life and the first couple of months of earning and spending recklessly. I guess people don't really want a single thing in life. Each one of us has a certain expectation of himself, and would like to be satisfies that he is able to tap his potential to the maximum. But there are hardly such tailor made jobs and even so, then comes the question of taking the risk to make that jump from one job to another. Sometimes it may involve shifting fields, taking risks like never before.

Another thing that I noticed, something which is quite an obvious statement to make, is that theory is not the same as practice. But another observation that I made is that the difference between theory and practice can be made up for in many ways. In case it isn't, it may result on one not being successful or being just a little successful. In some cases it is made up with assumptions, based on historical data. "This had happened before so it may most probably happen again". More often than not it is made up for by learning, through books, keeping aware or through relationships(professional or personal). But the most successful and beautiful way to make up for this difference is to use all these methods and combine it with a not so common thing called creativity. And I guess most of us will agree to the fact that the more we seem to acquire knowledge and grow old, the more we also feel that we are losing our innate creativity at the same time. Its a peculiarly funny problem to which there seems to be no perfect solution. One just hopes to keep a little bit of both and make up for it with another substitute known as experience.

I have a feeling this post is going to seem like a really vague one to all of you, but its something to ponder about. I hope all of you can relate to it with your lives as well. It may make way for some really interesting introspection and discussion.

Music to my ears

Have you ever traveled in a really noisy bus. Though initially the noise pisses you off, after a while you tend to find a sort of rhythm in the noise the bus is making.

I think that is the basis of music.Patterns!
The first thing that attracts us to music is something distinct that we can identify it with. Some people love basic chords, some have a fascination for crazy guitar solos, some are suckers for an amazing voice hitting a really high note. Each one of us may have different tastes, but all the interests have one thing in common. We love a certain pattern and that is the prime reason for us liking a particular kind of music.

Why do some people like rock? I think initially everyone takes a little bit of time to adjust to rock from soft music because it takes time to identify the pattern. It takes time to get used to finding the beautiful sequences that lie buried in the heavy base and distorted chords. But once you get it, the respect you have for the inherent beauty of the creation is so overwhelming that you want to listen to more and more music of the same genre. There are some songs which get more and more addictive as you hear them, just because each time you do there is some pattern you have never heard before. The depth of the music overwhelms you, and you feel that you can associate and identify with these patterns in a manner that no one else can. That it is something tat only you and the creator of the song can understand, and that means so much. You are so thrilled at being able to identify these patterns and connect with them so much that you start un-liking the previous music you used to admire as a by product of this new found enthusiasm. And then there are those who love heavy metal, thrash metal ,grunge metal etc. The heavier it gets, the tougher the pattern is to recognise.
But the beauty of the entire thing is that it just isnt about identifying hidden patterns. Its about the music you love to listen to. Its not about whether your ears are capable of bearing the harshest music. Its about whether you enjoy it.

Whats music to ones ears and noise to another is just a matter of perspective. But this perspective is a good indicator of you, of what you are, how you feel and what you believe in. How else could one explain wy people grow out of some genre's of music and get enticed into some others as the grow. I believe it is true when one says that you can tell a lot about a person from the music he listens to. But the problem is that how you judge the person would depend a lot on the kind of music you love as well.

And so I have evolved from loving Backstreet Boys to Linkin Park, from Metallica to Iron Maiden, from Black Sabbath to Rasmus, From 3 doors down to Jimi Hendrix, from Pink Floyd to Red Hot CHilli Peppers, From Dire Straits to Bob Dylan.And I feel Ive only just begun.......

Calculating the worthiness of an individual

(Please read this most only if you like math enough to understand it and hate it enough to bear my interpretation of how it can be used)

Let us consider a situation where a person's value (I know it’s a vague term) varies from 0 to 1, where 0 stands for a guy with no morality and is despicable while 1 stands for the ideal morally conscientious guy.
Every decision a person takes would involve levels of morality and immorality, hence varying from 0 to one. Let us say we frame the system in such a way that 1 would stand for a morally correct decision where both the person as well as the persons he is affecting from the decision gain from it and all the parties are morally satisfied with the decision as well.
Once I have defined 1 in this manner, then obviously a possibility arises of a decision carrying a value of more than 1, when the person taking the decision gains nothing from it but the remaining parties do. If one thinks with this logic, if the person makes a loss, then the value would be the greatest.
The trick of playing this game called LIFE would be :
1)To have the ability to make these decisions
2)To have the ability to make decisions to affect many people hence increasing the value of the decision.
3)To make decisions so as to increase the overall value of the net effect of all the decisions at the end of the game.

The net effect could be calculated as

N.E = D1*D2*D3*D4*.........Dn
where n is the total number of decisions taken in one's lifetime.

There are certain traits that one can derive from this above formula.

1) If the value of the decisions is consistently less than one, N.E tends to 0 (for large n)



2) The only possibility of boosting N.E is if the value of D is greater than 1, i.e: when the person taking the decision gains nothing from it but the remaining parties do.



There are certain factors which affect the value of D
1) Due to empirical evidence, it is assumed that most people want to have a large value of n.
Also, most people are also influenced to a great extent by the effect of D rather than the value of D, i.e: the impact of D on the parties concerned rather than whether the value of D is lesser or greater than 1.
Also, there is a correlation with the impact of D with the consistency of D lying between 0 and 1
It has been noticed that when D lies between these limits, the impact of D tends to be stronger. However, this is true only during a certain stage of N, i.e: from the beginning to a certain value.

Considering all these factors, man seems to have evolved with time to use a time tested strategy of playing the game called LIFE.
He starts not bothering much about the value of D, but with the impact of D. Of course, there are aberrations here and there, however this is the overall trend.
At a certain n (the point is primarily dependent of how powerful the impact of his D's are, but n is generally greater than n/2); man takes a shift and starts gradually changing the value of D's to greater values. However, these too, are calculated to ensure that the decline in the impact of the D’s is not too great.
When the n is close to its upper limit( man is aware of this because there would now be considerable periods of time where he would not be able to take any D's as he would by busy with other activities, like staying alive), the value of increases greater than one significantly.

The general trend that is observed is that despite this, N.E is less than 1
However, as man relies on evolution and improvisation, most new generations just try to find the optimum points where they choose to increase the value of D. Some succeed most don’t.

The Pursuit of Happiness

It is the best movie I have seen.Ever.

Terrorism and our response to it

I was in my friends room studying for my end-semester exams in the middle of the night when I heard of some gang war taking place is in Mumbai. Then I heard something about shots being fired in the Leopold Cafe and the Trident. With my father’s office being just next to the Trident, alarm bells started ringing in my head. Only when I confirmed the safety of my parents and close friends did I come to know about the extent of how bad things really where. I couldn’t contact a friend of mine because the mobile phone service seemed to have been jammed but did receive a reply to my message which was this :
“All of us are okay. We had good for a movie near VT station, heard the gunfire and ran home”
This message told me many things, the most blatant of all the absurd normality that the word “gunfire” seems to have in the sentence. I guess I am freaked out even more as all the attacks have taken place in areas where a have lived in the past two years, where my home, my school and friends are. But I guess everyone is agreed on the fact that this is by far the most daring attempts by terrorists on Indian soil.
When the train blasts took place in September last year, the marked difference was that the people responsible wanted to escape. They had a desire to live. That itself can play a huge part in helping the intelligence agencies in foiling many such attempts. But what do you do if they just don’t care what happens to them. I am pretty sure that if I today decide that I don’t want to live and want to take down a lot of people before I go down, I could to a pretty decent job myself. How effective can an intelligence agency actually be in a country as dense, vast and different as India is? I admit I don’t know the kind of technological capabilities they have but I seriously feel it is unrealistic to be expecting much from them.
The point here is not that any one of us could have carried out acts of terrorism easily (though not of this magnitude, of course). The point is that even if we could, we wouldn’t. Because that’s the way our thoughts have been moulded. Talking tough, even acting tough cannot stop terrorism. Only thinking straight can. Even with the Pakistani governments cooperation all that can be done is apprehending those responsible. It will cause no change in the rate at which terrorists are being made out of innocent people. In fact, it may just increase the number. When we talk so much about terrorism in the Kashmir valley, we blatantly ignore the number of outfits that exist in Assam today, primarily because we cannot blame a neighbouring country for it.
And let’s face it; there is no way India can realistically hope to become a developed nation without Pakistan developing alongside. There is just too much history between the two. The more India develops and the more Pakistan faces these problems, the more will be the disparity between the people of the two countries and hence the better the opportunity for jealousy, hatred and terrorism to spawn. I am pretty sure that both the countries would have been playing opposite roles to a great extent of it was Pakistan that was developing the way India is and if it was India which was caught in a myriad of failed dictatorships and corrupt democracies.
I agree that we must be tough in our dialogue with Pakistan and must be firm in our demands and must make sure that the guilty are brought to justice. But I also think that we need to be realistic as to who would actually gain from this whole episode. I does not make any sense for Pakistani forces to be involved in it simply because they have everything to lose from this conquest .However, Pakistani nationals would seem to be the perfect people to brainwash and send to India to carry out these plans if the people behind this atrocious act seek the change in the global attention to the Indo-Pak peace process.
Barak Obama was elected the new president of the USA with propaganda of going and finishing the war on terror where it started, in Afghanistan. He is due to take his seat in the White House early next year. He has repeatedly stated that Pakistan will have to take a strong stance against the war on terror and support USA’s fight against the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Under this pressure, the Pakistani troops participating in the war have been steadily increasing in number over the year. It is interesting that this latest terrorist act comes right after Obama is elected President and right before he assumes office. In the ongoing political turmoil, the USA under Barak Obama will no doubt demand Pakistan to put in more troops to help in the war in Afghanistan to convince the world arena of Pakistan’s stance on the war against terror. If Pakistan does not comply, it would seem to the global community that they are siding with the terrorists or playing a balancing act between the two.
If India does not negotiate with Pakistan in a diplomatic manner, Pakistan will have no choice but to respond in kind. After all, it is a weak democratic government in place there after years of dictatorship. If India makes extraordinary demands out of Pakistan which they do not fulfil, the Indian government will be forced to take action in retaliation to the attacks given the elections next year. In case this happens, the world can say goodbye to cooperation from Pakistan on the war against terrorism, and the war against terrorism cannot be won without Pakistan’s aid. Initially, Pakistan will have to regroup its troops to the Indo-Pak border and sooner or later the USA will have to side with India given the global political pressures.
Once that happens, Pakistan will send all its troops as it sees fit and under the intense global political pressure will seek the support of countries and people who would support Pakistan. And finally, this will lead to cooperation with all those forces that it now stands against.
After saying all this, I surely don’t mean to say that we as citizens do nothing. If there is one thing I found stupid after the train bombings, it was the way the radio stations used to proudly comment on the Mumbaikar attitude of never letting anything affect them and the Mumbai spirit which made them get on the same trains the very next day. How stupid can the guys actually be? It’s not the spirit of Mumbai, its the desperation of the people. They have to earn a living for their families and there is nothing they can do but go on the same trains and risk their lives every day. The people who never travel by those trains and attend high class social functions call it “The Mumbai spirit” over cocktails and drinks. It is nothing but ignorance and desperation. If the terrorists want attention, I think its about time we gave them just that. But not by doing the same things that they do and definitely not by just holding the same peace marches that last for a day and lighting the same candles which last for even lesser, but by taking some concrete steps.
Having studied in a lot of schools all over India including Kendriya Vidyalaya, I have a pretty decent idea of the importance value education is actually given in education. It is not even a course that affects one’s percentage. How can one expect a student to take the subject seriously when it does not even affect his/her percentage? Instead of spending ages discussing the names of various party politicians that should be there in the history books, it is this that is screaming for attention. I do not know what we, as individuals can actually do but recently I heard about something called a professional party. The idea behind it is that it would consist of working educated professionals not part of any of the present political parties who want to get into politics to make a difference and are willing to put in the effort. I think it is an amazing cause, which even if not successful will definitely force other parties to rethink their methods of publicising themselves.
I would really appreciate more ideas on what we could individually contribute to make an impact on our united fight against terror.