Are you M A D ?

Give a hungry man a fish to eat & you feed him for a day, But teach a man how to fish & you feed him throughout his life.

Each one of us is a philanthropist at heart & we all have contributed in big and small ways to help our fellow citizens. I would like to ask you this question – Have you fed them for a day or have you fed them for life? 

Are you Making A Difference?

Let’s go back to December 2014 & transport ourselves 532 kms from Pune to a small town called Digras in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra. Here we meet Sunita Jadhav who lives with her husband Balu and 2 school going children. Balu is a daily labourer & works very hard 12 hours a day & 7 days a week to make ends meet for his family, but life is a constant struggle. Sunita is smart & ambitious and she also has tailoring skills learnt at her parent’s house. But she cannot utilize her skills in this small town without setting up her own business. She cannot take a loan from the local banks or credit societies as she is not creditworthy enough for them. The local moneylender would happily provide her with the required loan against collateral of her jewelry and at a very reasonable interest rate of only 10% - per month. So what can she do now?

Cut back to present date & we find that Sunita has been running a small tailoring business for the last 14 months. She has been contributing Rs. 3000/- every month to the household which now is nearly 40% of the monthly inflow. Instead of using firewood, she now uses a LPG cylinder for cooking & plans to construct a toilet outside the house. She now has a bank account & also saves around 400 rupees every month, which she plans to increase every year. She is now more confident due to her new-found success and also meets other women in her town to encourage them to use their skills to set up a business too. Do you agree with me that this is excellent example of Making A Difference?

You might now be wondering about what caused this transformation? Sunita had connected with a local NGO & was provided a collateral free loan thru a non-profit platform called Rang De. She bought a sewing machine & required raw materials for her tailoring business and started making children & women clothing which she sold at a decent profit to people in the locality. She repaid the loan in 12 easy installments at an interest rate of 10% per annum & now plans to buy another pico machine which will further enhance her business.

Rang De is a crowd-funding platform which helps philanthropists like us to connect with beneficiaries like Sunita. We can channelize a small portion of our overall investment portfolio into Rang De as social investments & this amount is then used to provide loans to rural poor to set up small businesses. The amount repaid back by the beneficiary can then be reinvested or withdrawn back by the investor. In this way we can utilize some of our investment portfolio to improve the lives of multiple people thereby Making A Difference.

Rang De has complete transparency in their transactions, follow 6 Sigma processes and is supported by grants from organisations like ICICI Foundation, World Bank & Tata Trusts. They have been in operation for the past 8 years, disbursed loans worth Rupees 46 crores & have directly impacted 50,000+ families. Again would you agree with me that this is an affirmation of the principle of Making A Difference.

I have personally been an investor in Rang De for the past 3 years & have invested over 1.74 lacs till date thereby directly impacting 286 families. It gives me tremendous sense of satisfaction and therefore I would like to make a sincere appeal to each one of you to consider Social Investing thru Rang De thereby help in Making A Difference.

Advice for professionals

A friend who recently took up the MD's role in a large company requested me to give a motivational talk to his senior management & sales organization. The company is based in a smaller town, has grown dramatically over the last several years & is now embarking on the next phase of it's evolution.

This article is a synopsis of the points covered in that session & focuses on key factors which helped me grow in my own professional life. The actual session was very interactive as many of the participants shared their own experiences. In this article the content is reworked to apply generically to all kinds of organizations & actual examples have been excluded.

1. Knowing your customers – This means that one needs to have a thorough understanding of the motivations & primary drivers of your customers. Besides actual consumers or end-buyers the term ‘customer’ encompasses the market dynamics, competition as well as the channel partners. This perspective cannot be gained by working on business plans in the office & neither is carried forward from a sales stint in the distant past. It needs to be maintained by ensuring a regular touch with your customers on a recurring basis. Having a basic understanding about the changing needs of the customers is a key requirement for long term success in every role - no matter how senior or even if one is a part of production or finance,  This will ensure that the organization is able to evolve products & services in response to changes in customer needs & aspirations. Therefore the requisite investment of time & effort meeting ‘customers’ should be mandatory for every role. 

      2. Win-Win approach – The final outcome of any process is always superior in the longer run when both participants benefit. On many occasions a Win-Lose proposition is accepted by either party to the transaction due to paucity of options or desperation, but as soon as the situation changes they would exit such a transaction with alacrity or compromise on deliverable's at their end. Therefore whether it is a transaction involving sales/channel or procurement/vendor, ensure that a Win-Win approach is driving the final outcome. It might come out of several iterations as this takes more effort but will pay-off better in the longer run by ensuring more longevity. Ultimately it costs more to replace than to retain and the organisation should not lose a good customer, vendor, distributor or employee.

      3. Ethical approach – Sales is one activity which unfortunately gets associated with many wrong practices & sometimes with unethical ones. But these situations can also arise in almost all other functions & departments. As a professional it is very important to draw the line on this front & ensure strong work ethics. An individual who indulges in unethical practices or has a conflict of interest soon loses the respect of his subordinates, peers and external entities who deal with him. If a ‘Nelson’s eye’ is turned to such practices within the company, it will result in a situation where everyone assumes tacit approval and rapidly degenerates into a standard practice. A professional who demonstrates strong ethical practices will always retain the respect of everyone & this will transcend the organization and period they work together. Ultimately it is a very small world & an ethical approach will come back to help you in ways that one does not envisage. The same can be said for unethical practices which will come back to haunt you.

      4. Add value beyond your role – Most people are happy to be aligned to the job definition which is provided to them or understood by them. Obviously this is a hygiene factor and needs to be fulfilled to the fullest extent. But a lot of people forget that one should always be looking at ways to add value beyond one’s role. This might be in smaller ways like process improvements, cost savings & efficiency enhancements or could be much bigger like insights which help develop new products, services, markets or revenue streams. Obviously no one expects such contributions on an ongoing basis, but this should be a something which is definitely expected at least more than once a year. In your own direct reports you will choose to appreciate the team members who add value beyond the job, but conveniently choose to ignore the fact that the same is applicable in your own role too.

      5. Keep Learning – This is a point which I have emphasized earlier within other articles in my blog & I personally feel that this is very critical for personal growth. The rate at which we learn drops exponentially after we finish our formal education & start a professional career. After a couple of years one assumes that ‘domain expert’ status is achieved & learning becomes practically nil. There are some random training programs which an individual is nominated into, but that is normally tolerated with disdain. Many professionals do not even choose to keep abreast with what is changing in their domain except for stuff which is mandated legally or directly impacting their operations. It makes sense to subscribe to industry journals or magazines, join industry discussion forums at conferences or offline / online forums. I would also recommend that one should pursue some other interests outside work & identify opportunities to meet new people who will stimulate fresh thinking. Innovation or ‘out of the box’ thinking can only come when you have inputs outside the sphere of your normal activities.

          6. Develop your team – One constant advice provided by me to professionals is to ‘look at ways to make yourself redundant’. The best way to do this is to develop the team under you in such a way that they can take over your role in the foreseeable future. This is again a tough requirement as it takes far more effort than normal. Many folks will manage key tasks themselves rather than take the risk of allocating the responsibility to their subordinates.  Some times this could be due to the fact that the team members might take twice or thrice the amount of time it might for the leader to complete the task. In all such situations providing guidelines, monitoring progress, rectifying mistakes & providing feedback is a worthwhile investment which will help make you redundant as your team member’s ramp up their own skills & ability to manage various situations. If you look back at your own career, you will have memories of great leaders you have worked with & helped shape what you are today. It is now your turn to do the same for folks under you.

      7. Work in an preemptive manner – Another favorite analogy often quoted by me is as follows. When a fire breaks out, the person who battles the fire & helps save lives is the ‘hero’ who is recognized for his bravery. I will obviously not take away their credit – unless they were the ones who started the fire. But no-one recognizes the person who works in a preemptive manner to ensure that a fire does not break out in the first place. Now look at this in the context of recurring crisis situations encountered within the organization – critical customer escalations,  production stoppages at the plant, supply chain impact due to vendor delays etc. The common theme in most organizations is the fact recognition goes to the person who handles the crisis, but recognition is not forthcoming for the person who ensures that such situations do not develop in the first place. But if you work in a preemptive manner, you will have the satisfaction of doing a better job & in the process leading a more stress-free life.

      8.  Develop BIG picture thinking – This merely means that one needs to build a perspective and understanding about the working of an organization in the larger context. Sometimes the workings of some departments are often at odds with one another, but each department serves a critical purpose and therefore this understanding ensures better operations. A salesperson needs to understand that the finance or audit team is not working against him, but is serving a critical purpose of ensuring that contracts are complete or processes adhere to the requirements of the law. In the same way those departments need to ensure that if there are some fundamental issues which continue to recur which are causing such situations, examine if the policies are outdated or processes flawed. Ultimately a car can run due to the presence both - an accelerator and a brake (besides many other components). A car driven only by stepping on the gas will only seriously harm other folks & the driver. In the same way if the brake is used excessively one is not going to reach anywhere & one might as well walk to make faster progress.

      To conclude, one can add in many more points to this list and would invite you to share the factors which have helped on the path to your own 'success'.

Increasing the Probability of Success

I have literally ‘picked up the pen’ after a long hiatus and article has been added after a year of zero output. A comment by a speaker in a panel discussion sparked off the ideation process & I could ‘connect the dots’ to a series of incidences which have happened over the last couple of weeks to support the main concept.

Today we talk about the concept of ‘Increasing the probability of success’ in any endeavor; I have included several real life anecdotes experienced by people known to me. Many folks undertake critical tasks without understanding the factors which can increase the probability of success. They therefore expose themselves to the vagaries of the outcome driven by multiple factors, most of which are outside their control. What if one could ‘load the dice’ in ones favor to increase the likelihood to achieving the outcome one desires? People call this luck, but I personally believe that you can influence your own luck if you can understand the concept of ‘increasing the probability of success’. In any case this is not propagation of unethical practices or indulging in underhand techniques & therefore one can use these concepts in everyday life.

So what are the mantras for ‘increasing the probability of success’?

Focus on the critical factors and invest in them is the first mantra. When we need to accomplish something we are normally distracted by the many things which might impact an outcome & the attempt to focus on many or all of them leads to a situation where the desired outcome is missed out. It is far better to focus on the critical few and invest in them. Identifying the critical factors can be a tough task in itself, but a rational analysis will always yield the top factors and it makes better sense to invest the majority of your time, money & energy on these few factors. A very successful serial entrepreneur shared with me recently that he has ensured faster ramp of the many businesses launched by him, by investing early in building a very strong sales engine. In one his companies the first hire was a head of sales, who had a very strong track record and tangible credibility in the market. This ensured that the company was able to rack up very early successes in acquiring customers globally and this contributed in a major way subsequently to listing on the NASDAQ and a very profitable exit after acquisition by another company. In a tech start-up the focus inevitably is on the product or service being offered and on creating a better ‘mousetrap’. It is far better to ensure that you have a minimum viable product and then align the final output to what paying customers actually want.

Output is only an outcome of smart Input is the second one. A recurring problem seen by me is that positive outcome is expected from only token inputs. Unfortunately the reality is that when the required result is significant in size, input needs to be similarly smart & sustained. If one does not identify the amount of input required the possibility of assuming that certain actions are not working is higher & one could drop them before hitting the ‘tipping point’. Focus on the critical factors is a good starting point, but this needs to be supported by a systematic process which measures progress and helps one to maintain the path of sustained effort. A friend was disheartened by the lack of progress in his job change search & a change of approach went a long way in helping him get his next assignment. Instead of applying to all kinds of jobs, he worked on a most systematic effort by first isolating roles where he would be in a position to add value with his experience and background. Then he followed this up with customizing his resume to highlight relevant elements & creation of a covering letter where he enumerated fitment to the specific requirements of the advertised role. In parallel he also invested time & effort to network within his target companies that he wanted to work with. This might seem to be a ‘no-brainer’ but it is surprising that so many experienced folks forget the fact that they themselves are brands & should market themselves with the needs of the target market in mind.

Changing your attitude might seem very simple but it has far reaching implications in terms of the success one can achieve. Now many folks would say that this is psychological mumbo-jumbo & that anyone would put in efforts only expecting a positive outcome. If we examine this in more detail, it would be surprising to note that we have many self-limiting assumptions of what we can or cannot do. Also past experiences condition us to adopt certain attitudes about people or situations. A young management student was unhappy with his summer internship as he felt that there was nothing challenging in the work being assigned to him. On the verge of leaving the organization, he was advised to turn the situation around by analyzing how he could add value to the organization due his own previous experience. This resulted in a situation where he was able to propose an approach to build visibility among prospective new customers. Since he had previous exposure to this, he was able to take on the responsibility & add value to himself as well as the organization.

Giving is as important as getting might seem irrelevant to this article, but one would be surprised to note that so many opportunities can emerge from adhering to this concept. Most times people are focused on what they need & focus only on getting it, but helping others might also create avenues for you to get to what you need. Obviously one does not have to do this exclusively all the time at the expense of your own goals or tasks. A young entrepreneur known to me invests a small portion of his time to helping out initiatives in the start-up ecosystem. This might consume some of his personal bandwidth & time, but I have seen him benefit from the industry connects it gets him and this culminates in signing up corporate customers for his services. The visibility that he creates for himself also goes a long way in establishing the credibility of his business when pitching to new investors / customers. Now even if they do not know him directly, they are plugged into the larger ecosystem in various ways & positive referrals go a long way in ensuring positive outcomes. Another student was facing a challenging situation getting an internship in a foreign city in the course of completion of his further education. Interestingly one of the most interesting options within his own city came his way only due to the fact that he was sharing info about other opportunities with a larger audience in his university. If he had not been willing to share out info & help others, he would have missed out on this opportunity.

I hope that this article resonates with your own experience & knowledge and affirms something which you already practice. It would be great if you can include your own comments on other factors which can ‘increase the probability of success’. 

Look forward to hearing from you.