Success, Happiness and Meditation

June 13, 2020 | 6.00pm to 7.00pm IST

Join the Session using the following details.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81871511952?pwd=eDI1ZXF0ZldmRTlBZ0hVYzNvSVdaQT09

Meeting ID: 818 7151 1952

Password: 772936

How Am I Going to Vote This time

The General Elections have started today in the Northeast of India. Over the next ~6 weeks, approximately 850 million Indian citizens would have a chance to cast their vote to choose the next government at the Center.

The intelligentsia is much more active and involved in the world’s largest democratic process than ever before. For the first time, I have decided to share with everyone how I am going to vote this time! The stakes are too high, and we all need to share our perspectives as well as understand others’ thoughts.

But, first of all, we all need to cast our vote. But, for many, the question remains – does my single vote has any leverage? There has been a lot of cynicism, but we need to overcome this. As with any investment or effort, you can maximize the impact with one vote. It is up to YOU. You may want to read some ideas in my previous blog – The Power of 1 Vote.

Let me share the process I have used to decide who to vote for. As with many things in life, I used the process of elimination.

Many of the Regional Parties have done a good job in the states where they have had the opportunity to form the government. However, more often than not their agenda is regional, very focused on the state, almost partisan when looked at the point of view of India. Not that the state level issues are not important, but these cannot become the force for India as a nation. Imagine a combination of regional parties forming the government at the Centre, and we will have a khichdi – not a national level vision that we so direly need. They will get involved in their own pushes and pulls, and we, the nation, would suffer. We have seen this before too. Hence, this option was out for me pretty quickly.

This now leaves the Congress led UPA, the BJP led NDA and of course, the new entrant AAP.

The Congress party has had ~60 years to govern the country including the last 10. If we look at what’s remaining to be done, I do not feel confident of entrusting them to form the government this time. What has especially shaken my faith in them is the huge amount of corruption and scandals that have been linked to them. And what has shocked the nation is the way they have dealt with it – taking a grand stand on the one hand, and giving lip service when it comes to living the principle they are espousing. Secondly, in the last 10 years, the prestige and importance of the highest executive in the country, the Prime Minister, has been eroded. The real power center has been the Congress leadership, and that too its president. This is perhaps one of the reasons why the current prime minister did not speak publicly. Perhaps he did not have the confidence that what he says would be honored. Lastly, with all the experienced leaders in Congress, who have played a very significant role in their career of 30-40 years, how come the default choice of leadership automatically falls on a person whose family name starts with G? There is no experience or track record to show. I am very circumspect of voting for a party given these misgivings.

The Aam Admi Party came to the fore with a massive success in the Delhi State Assembly Elections. They caught the imagination of the people through their passion for removing corruption, of clean politics that was not focused on caste or other vote bank politics, and their insistence on clean funds. They have created a new political paradigm through this and have put a lot of competitive pressure on the other political parties who in general have taken the citizens for granted. However, AAP has certain shortcomings. They do not have any experience of governance, and for the short time they formed the government in Delhi, their actions did not generate the confidence. They need to transform themselves into a credible organization with a national long terms vision and have to have significant experience of governance before they can be entrusted to form the government at the Center. At this time, they appear to be a group of protestors, who have credibly posed a good challenge. But then, it is unimagined-able for the shareholders of a company to make a great union leader as the CEO of the company. For the latter, he/she needs to show different characteristics, capability and experience. I would like AAP to remain as a challenger in the political scenario and would consider voting for them at the village or municipal or state level. Once they show the gumption and create a successful track record, the nation can consider them as a viable alternative at the national level.

Hence, this time the choice for me is clear. Vote for the BJP or one of the political parties associated with the NDA. Not that they are doodh-ke-dhuley as one of my friends told me. However, they have chosen a charismatic leader as their prime ministerial candidates – he has a successful track record, has a vision, and has shown the courage to pursue convictions. There is a famous saying that Strategy = Execution, and we have a great need right now not only to have a vision and strategy, but the capability to follow through on implementation. Under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the NDA had done a good job. Their top leadership has a lot of experience and in general upright/honest people. The party itself is one of the most democratic when it comes to its own governance, and a person who started at the bottom as a volunteer can actually aspire to become a top leader in the party. Given the situation India is in, I think they are the best bet right now.

And when deciding to vote, let us vote to make a strong and stable government at the center and not get swayed by the local factors and who the local candidate is. Vote for the party or democratic alliance. Of course, strongly reject those candidates who have a criminal background or involved in scams and corruption. All political parties need to get a clear message that this would not work.

We need to vote for change.

The Power of 1 Vote

The General Elections in India are around the corner, and this time there is an increased participation by the intelligentsia, i.e., people like you and me, and certainly all those who are reading thisJ. Very often, it is used as a word to denote those are educated. However, the dictionary meaning is ‘intellectuals or highly educated people as a group, especially when regarded as possessing culture and political influence’. Much more of this is happening today in India than ever before.

But, for many, the question remains – does my single vote has any leverage? As with any investment or effort, you can maximize the impact with one vote. It is up to YOU.

The First Leverage

A Lok Sabha constituency has an average of 16 lakh voters.

On an average, about 50% people vote, i.e. 8 lakh.

The Winner usually gets 1/3rd of the votes, i.e., 2.7 lakh votes. In the last elections, the number of seats on which the winner got more than 50% votes was only 110, approximately 20% of the seats.

The 1st runner up usually loses by up to 50,000 votes.

Most people who do not vote are from the middle class (including you and me) – the intelligentsia.

If only 3.1% of the people who don’t vote decide to vote for the 1st runners up, he/she would emerge as the winner!

Look at this the other way – If 1/3rd of the people who do not vote decide to vote, they can choose anyone they want as the MP!

This is the power we have.

The Second Leverage

What should be the criterion for selecting who to vote for? Every action we take needs to serve an ultimate goal? What’s the goal in general elections? I would say it is to install a stable and strong government.

And hence, when casting your vote in the Parliamentary Elections, it is best to choose a party or a well formed alliance. Why? Because we need to have a strong government at the Centre. If we vote based on local considerations, then we could get a khichdi sarkar, and we have all seen that this would not be good for the country. They simply keep fighting amongst themselves.

Don’t get swayed by local issues – the MPs do not really have a say in these. This must be a consideration when voting for the Municipal Councilors or MLAs.

Don’t waste your vote. Cast it for the party that you believe could form a strong and stable government. It could be the one that you want wins. Or even the party that is likely to win.

Don’t sit at home thinking there is no one good enough to be selected. Whether you vote or not, someone is being selected anyway. When the choice is between devil and the deep sea, choose the one who is less evil. If we can get this person to win, then he/she knows we have the power, and will listen to us. Next time, we can negotiate with this party for better results and performance and less corruption. Of course, do not vote for the criminals – simply reject them. Gradually, the system can get cleaned.

The Third Leverage

IPL 7 is about to start. Here is an analogy. In a T20 match, if a team has to make 15 runs in the last over, it is not easy, but good teams know that they can do it. So imagine that you are on the crease in the last over, and a six, a couple of fours combined with a single would take you home, as a winner.

The ‘last over’ of the elections is about to start. We spend 4 hours watching a match. And many of us watch many matches.

Can we take out 4 hours in the next few days, You can also aim to hit 15 to win!

The Single: Make sure that you cast your vote. Treat it like a family wedding – you go there even if you have fever.

The 1^st Four: Call 10 brothers/sisters/cousins and get a promise from them that they will vote. Each family will have 3 voters on an average, this means 30 people cast their votes.

The 2^nd Four: Call 10 of your friends and neighbors, and make sure they cast their vote. Each family will have 3 voters on an average, this means 30 people cast their votes.

With the above, you have got 61 people to cast their vote.

The Sixer: Inspire 5 people to do the above – this means another 305 people will cast their votes. Including 61 by you, this is a whopping 366!!

Tell people not to worry about the bouncers (like hot weather) or the wide deliveries (we are going for a movie), or a no ball (going for a long weekend) etc.

If only 1000 people do this in every constituency, it would mean 3.66 lakh votes – enough to decide the result in all 543 constituencies!

So, let us all get ready, only one more over left, this is the time to give our best.

Let’s vote for change. 

Volunteer for a Better India. 

Vote for a Better India.

Corruption || The Four Choices

Corruption, as we all know, a real issue. This is perhaps an understatement – corruption is the biggest reason for the underdevelopment of the bottom half of the pyramid in India. Or a better way to put this is that if corruption weren’t there in this huge proportion, there would not have been a bottom half of the pyramid in India!

You must have heard of this forum called India Against Corruption which has been started by a few citizens who have taken the responsibility to do something about it – for example, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Kiran Bedi, Arvind Kejriwal, Anna Hazare, etc. And it has now 3.5 crore supporters, people like you and me.

The key demand of India Against Corruption is only one – that a taskforce be set up that will come with the draft of the Lokpal Bill and have 50% representatives of the Government and 50% representatives of the Public. That’s all. And if you see their website www.indiaagainstcorruption.org, they have even made the effort to draft an outline of this proposed bill. Did you know that this has been pending in the Parliament for 40 years?

The government is saying that an inter-ministerial group has been set up to draft this. Looking at the general state of affairs in and around the government, having someone from the government to draft a bill to eradicate corruption is like asking the ‘bhais’ of the underworld to come up with a legislation to eradicate crime:)

Each one of us to make a personal choice about this objective of eradicating corruption. Here are some alternatives:

1. Do nothing, and hope for the best
2. Be an armchair activist and talk about this problem to everyone you know
3. Question the people who are doing something to eradicate corruption: whether they are the right people, whether they are themselves corrupt, whether they have a good plan, etc.
4. Join the cause, and do something, provide some support and momentum – be present in the events, talk to your friends and neighbors and inspire them to join this movement.

Like a large number of people who were present this morning when Anna Hazare started the fast unto death in support of this cause, I had also chosen ‘4’ from the list above…..took the day off today for supporting the cause. The scene there was amazing – people from all walks of life, and of all age groups, many of whom had come from distant towns, were there. The enthusiasm and fervor was at a peak. Way to go!

Any cause requires support – if our earlier generation had made choices 1 to 3 for the cause of freedom movement, many of us may have been born in a British Colony ;)

Check out the website www.indiaagainstcorruption.org for details – and if you have not already joined the movement, it is time. Our children and their children will thank us for giving them a better country.

Corruption – Are You A Supporter?

There have been innumerable cases of corruption – big and small. The Bofors Scam in the 1980s had brought down the then Government – the kickbacks were estimated to be Rs 41 crores. Things have become bigger – in the last 12 months alone, multiple scams (2G, Common Wealth, etc.) totaling more than Rs 1 lakh crore have been unearthed!
One thing is common – hardly anyone gets punished for being caught in a scam. At the most, there is some temporary setback like resigning from a post, raids, being questioned by investigating agencies, some time in judicial custody, etc. Have you wondered what happens to the money that was stolen? It remains stolen – there is no effort to bring it back.
Three things shape our behavior – Values help us to do the right thing, to be ethical. The law of the land defines the things that are illegal. When this does not work, the consequences give a clear message that unlawful behavior will not be tolerated. It creates a fear of punishment if caught doing something wrong.
Today, in India, there is no fear. Why? Because no one gets punished. In fact, the greed has been increasing day by day. People have become brazen, and the quantum and size of corruption related incidents is increasing exponentially.
At some point in our life, we have come face to face with corruption – and got frustrated and angry – and complained and cried – why does this happen! If you gave in, it would have made you guilty and full of anger. If you stood up, the things would have gotten tougher, and it may have required a lot of energy and patience before your job got done, if it did. But you would have felt good, but still wondered – why does one have to fight just to be right?
When talking about corruption, the common man is generally helpless. Our action is generally restricted to complaining in our drawing rooms and intense debates on the television and media. However, no positive change seems to be happening.
However, we do have an opportunity! The India Against Corruption is a Citizen’s Movement started by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Baba Ram Dev, Arvind Kejriwal, Kiran Bedi, Shanti Bhushan and many more. And they have come up with a specific plan – to help enact the right legislation and have drafted Anti Corruption Bill and the Lokayukta Bill. And there is a single goal at this time – to convert these into law. See http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/ – there are crisp details including how the current drafts of these Bills are just a lip service, an eye-wash. There is analysis of what is lacking – the drafts are not proposing enough teeth. India Against Corruption has done research and taken inspiration from successful models, especially what transformed Hong Kong.
For the last 42 years, these Bills have been languishing – almost all political parties have formed governments, but these Bills have not come into force. The political parties are very quick about throwing stones on instances of corruption in other political parties – their sole motive is to bring them down and form the government. None of the political parties are interested in really tackling and removing corruption. These Bills will actually make them accountable!!
If you are reading this, chances are that your economical position is amongst the top 10% in India. The people who suffer are the ones who are at the bottom of the pyramid – the money meant for them gets siphoned and they remain poor – and struggle for basic needs of food, water, health, shelter and education.
Here are 3 things YOU CAN DO to Make A Difference:
1. Read some basic details on tackling corruption on http://www.indiaagainstcorruption.org/
2. Join India Against Corruption on facebook: http://www.facebook.com/#!/IndiACor
3. Join The March on Jan 30 at 1.00pm – Come to Ram Lila Maidan, New Delhi at 1.00pm
I am sending this to 1000 friends and colleagues. If each of these people send it to 50 people each, who in turn send it to 50 people each, this would reach to 25,00,000 people. Wow!
• 25 lac people will become aware that Corruption can be tackled, and there is something they can do.
• If only 10% of the people actually joined the movement on Facebook, we would have 2.5 lakh new supporters of India Against Corruption.
• And if only 1% people join the march on Jan 30, we would have 25,000 people in the march. It is rare to have 25,000 together for something like this – what an impact it would have – and hopefully inspire other citizens, media and NGOs to join.

Surely, the problem will not be solved on Jan 30 – it will be a long haul – tough and challenging. But a beginning would have been made – the longest of journeys begin with the first step.

Step 1 would take 15 minutes.
Step 2 would take 5 minutes.
Step 2a (send it to 50 friends) would take 10 minutes.
Step 3 would take 4 hours (including commuting time).

Are you willing to spend 4.5 hours this month to be M.A.D. – to Make A Difference to your country?
As Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says – 98% of the people are good, concerned but don’t generally take action. The 2% ‘bad’ people are action oriented – great on execution. Can we, the 98%, not take action this time?

If you do nothing about this, you have actually made a decision not to do something about corruption. And are actually supporting it indirectly!

Jai Hind! See you there!

A Laymans Guide to "Thanksgiving"

I wrote this to my sister-in-law after receiving her invitation to a Thanksgiving bhajan evening at her place a couple of weeks ago. Thought you might enjoy it!

Jyoti,


We’ll definitely try and be there if only for a short time.

Just so’s the rest of the family unnerstans a bit more about this here “Thanksgivin”, I thawt I’d give ma version of the his-story of this innerestin American festival!

So there are these 100 odd rather puritanical Brits who were dead set against the Church of England and it’s debauched ways. So one day, they decided to head off to this magical place they’d heard of from previous settlers called the New World. (I really don’t know what Huxley was thinking of - trying to create his perfect world nearly 300 years later – didn’t he read history?) Anyway, so these Brits set off and completely by mistake, they first hit the Netherlands across the channel, thinking to themselves that they’d reached rather quickly. When they learned of their mistake, in pique they grabbed some easily subdued Dutch people and sailed off in the other direction.

After a terrible journey with no air-conditioning or even toilets, they finally hit a big rock which they christened Plymouth, out of respect for the tiny little island that they’d left behind.
They got off the rock and immediately tried their hands at communism, which hadn’t been invented at the time, a fact that did not seem to worry them unduly. They improvised. They decreed (decreeing was big in those days – people never just decided things, they decreed and in some cases proclaimed them) that all the surrounding land was hereby communal property and each man should work as much as he wanted and take as much as he needed. Yeah, right! That has the hallmark of a winning strategy! That’s like telling US Auto workers to decide their own work hours and salaries – whoops. That’s what they did for the past couple of decades, didn’t they? Anyway, just like a dude called Marx many years later, they failed. (Yet another example of how people could learn from the mistakes of their forefathers if they only spent some time reading). More than half of them died of starvation and disease and if it hadn’t been for some native Indians who, after curiously observing them for nearly a year in open mouthed astonishment, decided to help. So they shook hands and taught these strange people how to farm the land and tend to their sick. This worked and by the next harvesting time, there was enough food for everyone and some left over.

Now here is where there is a minor divergence of views on historical facts. Some good people say that in sheer happiness, the Brits proclaimed a great feast to which these very Indians were invited to celebrate and break bread with them in a spirit of “let’s all learn to share and live in complete harmony”. Some others, obviously ‘bad’ people however, rather rudely claim that having learnt how to farm the land and use native medicine, the Brits decided to eliminate the Indians so that they wouldn’t have to share the land any more. So they massacred the entire tribe and then a great feast was proclaimed to celebrate the elimination of competition.

Either way – you get the picture. Proclamations and celebrations are common to both views, so why quibble the details?

And by the way, all this happened in August for the first time following a harvest but subsequent US President’s sequentially changed it to November, declared it a holiday, struck the holiday and then again declared it a public holiday to be held on the fourth Thursday of November. (By this time declarations of various kinds had become popular, replacing the antiquated decrees and proclamations which were thought to be a mite feudal).

So ther’y’are folks! That’s the reel story of Thanksgivin for ya. Hope yo’all enjoyed it and will show up to share the celebrations even though you are Indians!

Sanjiv Desai
Senior Partner

TRANSEARCH INDIA
A-10, Sanskrit Bhawan
Aruna Asaf Ali Marg, Qutab Institutional Area
New Delhi - 110 067, India

Tel: +91 11 4105 1234 (Board) / 4168 9020 (Direct)
Fax: +91 11 4101 7770

sdesai@transearchindia.com
www.transearchindia.com


TRANSEARCH International - Leaders in Executive Search with over 50 offices in 35 countries, we help our clients build leadership teams across the world

This e-mail (including any attachments) is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you are not an intended recipient or an authorized representative of an intended recipient, you are prohibited from using, copying or distributing the information in this e-mail or its attachments. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender immediately by return e-mail and delete all copies of this message and any attachments.

Is Your Company Losing The Right People

India Attrition Study 2008
The Game Plan for HR Professionals

Attrition can never be wished away. One can reduce it to the right level. But what is even more important is – are you losing the right people.

The study of attrition by PeopleStrong and Business Today has thrown some interesting data. Since the study covered 59 companies in 8 industry sectors across India, for the first time, we have comprehensive data on attrition. Until now, each company had only its own data, since others would shy away from sharing theirs.

But, we now have the benefit of seeing some trends that could be used to make HR strategies. Here are some highlights:

Reducing Attrition: Losing new employee early leads to a lot of loss of opportunity as well as wasted expense and energy. The study shows that 33.8% of those who quit are Early Leavers. One of the most effective ways to reduce attrition would be to cut this down by half. If the overall attrition of a company is 15% and early leavers are one-third of this, then cutting down the latter by half would mean that attrition would get lowered to 12.5%, a huge change! A strong new employee induction and orientation program would create strong glue to hold them back. The first 90 days are most risky.

Women are leaving earlier than men across industries. Is there a special intervention that is required here?

Regional Practices: All big companies have regions, and they have regional HR organizations. While each region may have its own cultural flavour, but they all fall under the gamut of common corporate policies. This study clearly shows that different regions need to make a different implementation plan for the same HR strategy. For example, 40% of leavers in North and 27% of leavers in Rest of India are Early Leavers. What this means is that there is a different need in North because of which a stronger and different approach is needed, so common
broad brush may not work. And the gains would be much higher too. Also, as an HR Head it makes more sense to implement ‘reduce Early Leavers’ plan in the North as the gains there would be maximum.

Reducing Early Leavers: Early Leavers constitute a whopping 64% in BFSI, followed by a significant 40% each in ITES and Retail. If your company operates in these industry segments, you know where the priority must be.

Undergraduates and Frontline Staff are the biggest categories in Early Leavers across all industries. A targeted approach in these categories will bring the biggest gains.

Quality of Attrition: No company likes to lose the Top Performers. They are the ones who drive the growth as well as the key strategic initiatives. Surprisingly, the IT sector has emerged as the dubious winner here with 45% of quitters rated as Top Performers, followed by Manufacturing at 23% and BFSI at 22%. The best are Pharma (9%) followed by Retail and Telecom (10% each) and FMCG (11%). What can the HR Heads of IT, Manufacturing and BFSI learn from their colleagues in Pharma, Retails and Telecom?

North seems to be able to keep the Top Performers the best (17%). The other two regions are at 22% each.

One of the best ways to keep the top performers engaged would be by implementing a strong career planning program for them. Give attention to everyone, but focus on them. This is well supported by the study’s findings – the biggest driver of attrition is Opportunity for Career Growth (25%) followed by Salary (10%), Type of Work (9%) and Training and Development (8%). A good career planning program impact 49% of the drivers!

Check out the story at http://businesstoday.intoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=1&task=view&id=10919&sectionid=5&issueid=55&page=archieve.

If you are interested in somewhat deeper data, check out http://www.peoplestrong.com/tl_ias.htm.