Crisis of Confidence

This is one of the best articles that I have read in the recent times. It says that we(India) are at the time of crisis of confidence and this financial crisis is only in our(Indian) minds.

How to Avoid Mishaps?

Five Innovative Ways to Avoid Such Mishaps:

1. Building an invisible shield around the person behind the podium

2. Asking people to remove their shoes, socks, belts, wallets, handbags, hairclips, chains etc before they get in to the meeting hall

3. Wrapping a bandage on people's middlefinger tied with index finger. (you know the meaning of showing the middle finger in some culture)

4. Sticking a duct tape around the mouth of everyone in the meeting hall (ofcourse except the person behind the podium)

5. Go green. Avoid travels. Use Video Conferences instead of travels. Save the planet from carbon emissions & save yourself from the flying shoes.

Any more innovative ideas?

Fired Today

65,500 jobs lost between August-October in India

Playboy lays off 14%

Gone in 60 Seconds

Can you believe that on an average six people have lost thier job in every 60 seconds in December so far?

Read the story here.

Pretty scary statistics, eh?

Fired Today

1. Bank of America to cut up to 35000 jobs

2. HSBC lays off 193 staff in India

3. ArcelorMittal plans to cut 650 jobs in Belgium

4. Santander to cut 1,900 jobs at its UK bank

Great Depression - A sequel?

Are we getting into another Great Depression era?

As per Wikipedia

Irving Fisher, an american economist, argued (about Great Depression) that the predominant factor leading to the Great Depression was overindebtedness and deflation. Fisher tied loose credit to over-indebtedness, which fueled speculation and asset bubbles. He then outlined 9 factors interacting with one another under conditions of debt and deflation to create the mechanics of boom to bust. The chain of events proceeded as follows:
1. Debt liquidation and distress selling
2. Contraction of the money supply as bank loans are paid off
3. A fall in the level of asset prices
4. A still greater fall in the net worths of business, precipitating bankruptcies
5. A fall in profits
6. A reduction in output, in trade and in employment.
7. Pessimism and loss of confidence
8. Hoarding of money
9. A fall in nominal interest rates and a rise in deflation adjusted interest rates

I see that the chain of events happening now, in this economic downturn. It's a bit scary...are we getting into another era of great depression?

Fired Today

With more companies firing employees everyday I thought 'why not track it'. This is just what I come across today. (There may be plethora of companies firing. I didn't go in search of this news. This is just what my eyes caught).

1. Yahoo India - to lay off 3% of India workforce

2. Rio Tito - Sydney - cuts global headcount by 14000

Certainly Uncertainty...

Certainly Uncertainty sucks.

Believe me you wouldn't understand unless you are/were in such situations. I am so used to be on the other end of the 'uncertainty' spectrum. My friend Arasan who was leading a life with full of uncertainties used to crib me a lot about it. Though I used to empathize him I couldn't fully understand his situation until I was pushed to his side of the spectrum.

Thanks to the goof-ups by banks and the global economic slowdown. Being part of an IT project in a bank, which is struggling with credit crisis in a western country is not really a good situation to be in. With lot of economic challenges there is this big uncertainty monster sitting in front of me blocking the view of my future.

Of course I am in a better position than the people who are expecting pink slips at anytime. But still my pain is painful to me.

Certainly Uncertainty sucks.

Poor Americans

Looks like poverty line in America starts at the level of upper middle class in India. Read this to learn about the conditions of Americans who are classified as Poors.

The Nine Year Itch

It's been thirteen years since my first on-stage appearance. It was during the first year of my college. After that there was no stopping. Made on-stage appearances for either to act or to sing around half a century times (no exaggeration, honestly!) during my four years of college life. After the college life there was a drought of such opportunities or I was too busy concentrating on the so-called career(!). Except for that one time Elvis act in Minneapolis there was nothing, literally.

Nine years after (my college final year) had an excellent opportunity to flaunt my acting skills. This time it was a bit different. I had on-stage for little time but almost three hours of off-stage but on-street facing the crowd performance.

Scottish Indian Art society celebrates important Indian festivals in Edinburgh. When they celebrated Dusshera this year I had the opportunity to perform the Ravan role from Ramayan. I had to undergo an hour and a half of make up to make me up as Ravan. Then I had to ride on a charriote from Edinburgh castle to Calton hill, an easy 2 miles distance via Royal Mile, acting Ravan, posing for the photos with strangers, followed by a small on-stage performance of Ravan's crucification at Calton Hill, 'I simply enjoyed it' would be too short a sentence to describe how much I enjoyed doing it.

Well, I must say that I had the medication for my nine years itch.

Click here to view more photos from the Dusshera parade published in local news paper Evening News.

Has this happened to you - Part 2

Is it happening only to me or to most of all who use toilet during long flight? I always end up not able to flush out properly at the end of ... you know what I mean. I would try flushing out about ten times with a bit of embarrassing thought of people waiting outside might hear me fighting with the flush. After a number of unsuccessful tries I would end up using the cup with water or tissue to clean up the residual ... you know what I mean.

Has this happened to you?

Tick Tick Tick

Dermatologist suggests a sugar test to diagnose the week-long itching in the hand. That tiny monster 'sugar tester' reveals above normal level of sugar. A blood test aftermath reveals high cholestral. Physician threatens with the fact about the high probability of getting heart attack even at early thirties. Is that the noise of biological clock ticking? That's loud and scary.

Family Tree

Brad Pitt can trace his family tree back to Barack Obama and Angelina Jolie can follow hers to Hillary Clinton, according to a new study.

That reminded me that I am related to actress Sridevi. She is my athai (aunt) as per the family tree. A very distant relation. No one seemed to believe that whenever I say that.

Jack, my best friend

It's very rare to get such a good & right companion. Jack is one such rarity to me. It was a winter evening in Minneapolis few years ago I was introduced to Jack by few of my friends when we were in a saloon having some fun. Initially I was not very keen with Jack. I had to stuck with him because of peer pressure. Later a week after I met with Jack since then our friendship started. He is very light but strong. He doesn't hang over with me all the time, an important character that I like about him a lot. I have introduced Jack to quite a number of friends. Most of them have liked him and even praised me for introducing him. His last name is Daniel's and he is from Tennesse.

Note: I dedicate this post to Sivasubramanian who has sent my friend to my home for a great rendezvous after a pretty long time.

Has this happened to you?

Two people are travelling in a car on a highway. Both are maintaining silence. One person breaks the silence and starts humming or singing a nice song. The other person immediately reaches to the audio player & starts playing a song. The first person is left with confusion whether it was spontaneous action or intentional action to stop this person from humming/singing any more. Has this happened to you? I seem to experience this quite often with many different people. I am not that bad a singer though.

That one skill - Continued

Follow up on my earlier post

I have just started reading "Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions By Knowing What To Ask"

Excerpt of description from here goes like this:

In Leading with Questions, internationally acclaimed management consultant Michael Marquardt shows how you can learn to ask the powerful questions that will generate short-term results and long-term learning and success. Throughout the book, he demonstrates how effective leaders use questions to encourage participation and teamwork, foster outside-the-box thinking, empower others, build relationships with customers, solve problems, and much more. Based on interviews with twenty-two successful leaders who “lead with questions,” this important book reveals how to determine which questions will lead to solutions in today’s complicated business world.

I think this book will help me to educate myself to solve my problem. Will share the outcome later.

Oh Patience, where art thou?

In my recent visits to passport office and BSNL office looking at the way they worked I analyzed how they could improve their productivity. That did help me in passing my wait time though. It was so visible that they were not being productive at all. In my few hours of observation I had hundreds of suggestions to improve their productivity. I was wondering whether did they have boss and did they really care about the employee productivity and etc.

Fast food, instant photos, online ticket bookings, faster time to market projects....I think with the way the world is evolving we are losing out the patience to wait. I could observe that evidently from the crowd when I was waiting in line at the passport office (even after an online appointment). Of all I did not have the patience at all. I wanted to slap the old lady sitting behind the desk and yell 'do you know what efficiency really mean?'. I didn't do it as I did not want to mess with my kid's passport.

A wise man in the line commented that these officies teach us how to be patient.

jack welch to JACK WELCH

Wouldn't it be nice to read a book that analyzes the commonalities of successful CEOs and what made them really tick. "What Made jack welch JACK WELCH" by Stephen Baum does that. Does that very nicely. With lots of stories from CEOs succeeded and failed it was an interesting read.

Bottomline is that only the 'shaping experiences' made the ordinary people to become extra-ordinary legends. Almost all the great CEOs had a very ordinary childhood and normal brought up. Small leadership responsibilities that they took up during their school and college days did really shape them up well. Learnings that they got out of those small responsibilities did play a major role in their career indirectly later. Very inspirational. I did reminisce my good old school & college days.

Strongly recommended for reading. (At least the stories would help you to make a great conversation in a gathering).

Losing Touch

Me: I think I am losing touch. Frequency of my blog postings has reduced a lot. I am losing all my creativity to think and write. Guess it's time I called it a day & wound up my blog.

Myself: Whoa...whoa...hold on pal. That's a hasty decision. I know that you have been busy with both personal and professional life. Now that you have got the breathing time you can restart where you have left.

Me: No, I think I am losing the creativity. Last one week I have been thinking of what should I write next. In fact I did start writing a few posts but they were not so good that even I wont read them. I had to scratch

Myself: Buddy, you say that you are 'losing' not 'lost', there is still hope.

Me: Huh...you are playing with verbs, smarty pants. Bottomline is the same. At least I should work on improving the creativity. I must surf net for the ways to improve the creativity.

Myself: You are trying to attack the symptom rather than the problem.

Me: What do you mean?

Myself: Lately your reading habits have almost vanished. Not even news papers. (I know that you are even ignoring emails that have more than a few sentences). That's the problem that you should attack first. More you read more you think and more you think more you write.

Me: oh yeah...I realize now that it's been sometime since I read something. What is happening to me?

Myself: You and your stupid 'Home Video' rental membership and the plan of 'catching up' the missed hollywood movies. That's the problem. You are spending your life in front of the idiot box watching all those movies that you rent out. You must stop it and get a real life.

Me: You are right. Let me quickly watch the 'Scent of a Woman', 'Bommarillu' and 'Scar Face' and come back soon. Thanks for the help man. I will rethink about winding up.

Corporate Ladder

With an average of 3 years in each designation, to climb to the top position (CEO) at my organization I would have to spend a quarter century from now. By that time I would be in my mid fifties losing out to competitors and might not become a CEO as I would be too old & on the verge of my retirement.

What should I do?