In any organisation ask the top Management, do you have a R&R policy,  invariably you would get a reply, we have R&R policy, last year we gave so many Rupees or Dollars as reward to our Star Employees, sent them abroad, and so on and on. We recognise “x” number of employees and this has been increasing YoY.

In any organisation ask the top Management, do you have a R&R policy,  invariably you would get a reply, we have R&R policy, last year we gave so many Rupees or Dollars as reward to our Star Employees, sent them abroad, and so on and on. We recognise “x” number of employees and this has been increasing YoY.

In the same breath, ask them the second question, in how many instances employees efforts were recognised which did not materialise into results and, chances are you will be confronted with a stoic silence in most of the cases.

Imagine two employees, working for the same company but in different Geographies

One slogs and sweats in his territory, does a great job, a professional and crowned sales rep, always ready to help clients and team mates. However, due to circumstances beyond control he doesn’t reach his sales target for the year. Maybe biggest account has gone bankrupt or maybe there’s just less economic activity in the region.

Another case, you have one more sales rep from the same company. He is not very competent and he never bothers to go the extra mile to help his colleagues or his clients. But due to circumstances beyond his control he achieves his sales target for the year. Maybe a big order drops in completely by chance, or maybe the growth in his region is increasing, or maybe his sales target just wasn’t ambitious enough from the start.

Who among the two deserves Reward & recognition? Former rep , who does a great job, but performs below target or later, who just got lucky this year?

Its not confined to Corporates alone, its all pervasive. Take a look at all such instances where  you come across R&R. Probe a little more and chances are, most of them had rewarded for results, efforts materialising into concrete gains for the company or institution in the form of Larger order flow, a Key Account coming into the fold etc etc.   none or negligible for  “efforts NOT materialising into results“. If there is a miscarriage in the 8th month or god forbid for any reason the pregnancy has to be terminated, would you discount all the pains the women has undergone. The care for herself, diet restriction, Control on her movements, periodic checkup, etc etc…All this for what, a successful parturition. In the end if things dont go as planned, do you discount all the pains and pangs.

Corporates and more so the HR professionals have a lot to learn from Sports….many a time , some of the awards are given to players from teams who might not have made it to Semis. Now, thats recognition, this trait is noted by many and motivates many to give a try.

Further, from the employee perspective it gives impression to him or her, that while its OK to get rewarded for Results, Efforts are also recognised and that they should keep trying and question Status Quo. Further, this makes organisations more inclusive when it comes to R&R.

Every year, the festivities of Dussehra end with the effigy of Ravana being burnt. Since ages we have been told that this is symbolic of the Victory of “Good” over “Evil”. A nation which doesn’t get tired of celebrating festivals looks forward to this with lot of anxiety. The economics of this festival alone runs into billions of dollars, literally. No festival lasts so long.

Ramleela is staged across the Northern parts of India, during the same period. People throng to the pandals to worship the deity during the day and visit the Ramleela grounds. The festive fervor continues unabated during the 09 days. Vijay Dashami comes to an end with the demon [although some desist him to be called so] Ravana’s effigy being burnt. End of Dussehra also signals the entry of winter which lasts till Feb March of the subsequent year.

People slowly start getting into welcoming goddess Lakshmi and Lord Ram takes a back seat. But it seems this is not going to be the ritual at least this year….Ram and Ramayana will be enacted till the end of UP elections in 2017. At least that is what one can make out of the political barbs which are being dished out to the people daily. The voices are becoming shriller by the day. This seems to be some, Olympics of the sort for the political class, with the sole objective to prove who is closer to Ram. Parks, Museums are being announced. TV debates are becoming interesting. One cannot but leave this issue in UP if one has to take active part at the hustings.

Just look at the venomous outbursts, I really wonder whether, Ravana ever used such words. History also portrays him as man of values; he didn’t harm Sita, despite keeping her in captivity. It seems he played by the rules. He was very kind to Ram even during his last breath,  This has been testified by Devdutt [in First published in Asian Age and Deccan Chroncile, on 27 Sept 2009 as ‘The Wisdom of Ravan’

He writes and I quote “The story goes that after firing the fatal arrow on the battlefield of Lanka, Ram told his brother, Lakshman, “Go to Ravan quickly before he dies and request him to share whatever knowledge he can. A brute he may be, but he is also a great scholar.”  The obedient Lakshman rushed across the battlefield to Ravan’s side and whispered in his ears, “Demon-king, do not let your knowledge die with you. Share it with us and wash away your sins.”  Ravan responded by simply turning away. An angry Lakshman went back to Ram, “He is as arrogant as he always was, too proud to share anything.” Ram comforted his brother and asked him softly, “Where did you stand while asking Ravan for knowledge?” “Next to his head so that I hear what he had to say clearly.” Ram smiled, placed his bow on the ground and walked to where Ravan lay. Lakshman watched in astonishment as his divine brother knelt at Ravan’s feet. With palms joined, with extreme humility, Ram said, “Lord of Lanka, you abducted my wife, a terrible crime for which I have been forced to punish you. Now, you are no more my enemy. I bow to you and request you to share your wisdom with me. Please do that for if you die without doing so, all your wisdom will be lost forever to the world.” To Lakshman’s surprise, Ravan opened his eyes and raised his arms to salute Ram, “If only I had more time as your teacher than as your enemy. Standing at my feet as a student should, unlike your rude younger brother, you are a worthy recipient of my knowledge. I have very little time so I cannot share much but let me tell you one important lesson I have learnt in my life. Things that are bad for you seduce you easily; you run towards them impatiently. But things that are actually good for you, fail to attract you; you shun them creatively, finding powerful excuses to justify your procrastination. That is why I was impatient to abduct Sita but avoided meeting you. This is the wisdom of my life, Ram. My last words. I give it to you.” With these words, Ravan died.

Look at the humility of Lord Rama, he never uttered any word which would hurt Ravan, who has kidnapped his wife, and here I am forced to think, where all the humility has gone, we call Rama the Maryada Purshottam, and do not follow any Maryada in choosing words.

Is it sheer coincidence that, every time during the UP election the issue of temple comes to fore and then after the results, the issue goes to back burner.

What started with development, gave way to Surgical Strikes and then slowly to Ram.  Almost all parties have used god in one way or the other. So as India braces for hostile relations with its neighbors, especially Pakistan and as winter approaches, internally the temperature will be kept high, Courtesy Ram.

It is a general saying in India that, after you have exhausted all your options, you should leave the consequences to God, here it seems even before the battle parties have left it to god.

No war in the history has been won without a general; such seems to be the internal bickering in the ruling party that they have sighed away from declaring their General in the UP elections.

I just hope sanity will prevail and temperatures will be brought down, BJP has an excellent opportunity to produce performance of SP government and corner them. They can ask the performance of each district and expose them, do not understand why they have chosen to invoke the name of Ram.

Of all the Ramleela, this one is going to be an interesting Leela of the sorts and let’s see who triumphs.

…..” I wasn’t born to follow and I’m not sure if I was born to lead, but what I’m certain is that I was born to fight my way through life and win……said by anonymous, caught my eyes when i was going through a Political Journal.

POLITICS and POLITICIANS are our favorite punching bags. Otherwise how can you explain the fact, from 7.00 p.m to 11 p.m, in almost all the prime channels, National and vernacular,  they are subjected to such micro scrutiny For the all the ills that plague the country, we don’t shy from pointing fingers at them. From ECONOMY, RAINS …HEAT WAVES…..FAMINE…..HUNGER…..and very recently natural calamity, you think of a problem and we love to attribute to one political party or the other. Yes, I am also one of them and we are not wrong, for they came to us telling they will solve all our problems.

Other than chiding them for all the problems facing the country, is there nothing in this class, which we cannot learn anything from. I am sure there would be something definitely positive for all of us, and this has been intriguing me for a long time.  After talking to lot of people and doing serious introspection, I came to conclusion that the two most important elements that one can pick from this class is, perhaps how they handle “REJECTION” and how they face ” FAILURE”.

There is no other class, which puts themselves under the scanner of Public, Media, RTI,….and off late courts, the way political class does.  Most of us have fixed Jobs, with regular hikes, and we happily plan for our retirement, pick any job, they are not subjected to such minute scrutiny as this class is subjected to. Today’s top bureaucrats, top professionals like Lawyers, Doctors, Professors, CEO’s started their career some 25 yrs back……..and can easily sail for another 10 – 15 yrs without any hitch. But, here is a class which has to subject itself to a more than 360 degree test [if there was any] every five years, they have to go through this electoral furnace, where FAILURE seems to be more close than SUCCESS.  Failure comes with a lifelong ignominy, whereas success has a time frame of five years or even less.

Isn’t it quite surprising that, almost all political parties have lost power and most of the top politicians have lost their seats, but what is more surprising is the resilience with which they bounce back, Loosing an election is both FAILURE on the part of the candidate and REJECTION by the electorate, which just five years back had voted for him. We also see the politician coming back to same electorate, without running away [ of course there are exceptions] and winning with a thumping majority.

This happens across the world with this class. But, the grace with which they accept the outcome of the husting and the vigour with which they come back is indeed not for the weak soul. It’s not easy as it may seem to be……..for if it were, look around at the society,  students committing suicide for not getting good marks, or resorting to acids attacks or violence when they do not get what they want, which in simple terms translates to our inability to HANDLE FAILURE and HANDLE REJECTION. 

If we were taught, how to handle FAILURE and REJECTION at the school itself, I am sure life would have been and will be more enjoyable. There are indeed many aspects to learn from them, yet I picked these two as I felt they are very relevant and important.

Looking forward to your suggestions / comments in building this theme further….

A kid gets 5 marks out of 10 in an exam. In the same school it is mandatory for the teacher to ensure that all the students get minimum of 7 marks, else she would be questioned. What is the option before the teacher….and the easiest one? Even if the student gets 05 marks, she can make it 07. This would save her from embarrassment and while she would have prevented herself from questioning, the fate of the student can be easily predicted, he became weak and weak and weak.

The other option would have been, the teacher spends more time with the kid, understand why he finds the particular subject difficult, talks to his or her parents, guides and coaches him to excel and perform better.  The result, in the  next exam, he may get 06 and in the next finally more than 7. Now this going without saying that it would indeed take more time, effort and pain. Neither most of the teachers nor the schools seem to have patience. Instant results is the mantra. 

A good number of organisations are caught up in this, what i call, the METRICS conundrum. 

Just look at some of the cases. ” The Indian subsidiary of Swiss drug maker has dismissed some 18 middle-level sales executives for fabricating and inflating the sales numbers of its diabetes drug Galvus, a news report said.

Novartis sales representatives used the sales incentive provided to them by the company to buy stocks from wholesalers and show a spike in the sales of the drug in order to meet their targets, a report in business wire magazine PharmaAsia News said ” 

Consider another case, The former executives of ADIDAS are formally under investigation over allegations that receipts were falsified, Reebok merchandise was siphoned off, Adidas-owned goods were hidden in four different warehouses and that goods were sent to fake distributors, two investigators told the Financial Times.

In both the instances, inquiry is going on. Now why does this happen? Just ponder for a moment.  I feel it is an ever increasing instance of trying to meet the expectation of Principals of Indian subsidiaries to grow the business month on month and each and every parameter. Metrics is good as long as it really tells and reflects  the true health of the company. If the health of the company is not sound, the metrics cannot be realistic, somewhere something is cooked….Leadership teams to sometimes resort to the easy way of managing the metrics rather than work on improving the process.

This is killing the organisation and a new breed of professional are in demand, those who can manage metrics. Executives are not being allowed to focus on the process improvement. Hence, although by managing the metrics, some of the organisations are meeting the demands of stock market and investors, yet in the long run they are making the organisations weak by not focusing on the processes.  

EGO, has go in it, but many people want to keep it with them like shadow. Why, each one has his own reason? My own experience has been the less the people understand and more they talk of EGO, the more the problems they land into. How and when this element of EGO comes into us and how is this aiding or destroying us is indeed not known, but what is known and certain is the problem it creates for the person in Interpersonal relations, creating an impression in person of his larger than life image, which often prevents other people or selectively allows access only to some people.

NIGOSYB, an acronym for Now I Get You Son of Bitch, is a psychological game which most of us unknowingly enter into. As the expansion goes, i wait for an opportunity to hit you when you are weakest and vice versa. This goes on between MOTHER IN LAW and DAUGHTER IN LAW, between two departmental heads, two functions and two neighbors and so on…one party keeps waiting for the other two make a mistake and the moment they find one, they just pounce on the person. Similar behavior is exhibited by the other side too. Often this behavior becomes problem not only to the leader but also the organisation. You see two high potential employees engaging in this self destructive behavior.

Little is known about the advantages of EGO n NIGOSYB, one thing is certain, it is a very deadly and lethal combination having the energy and power to destroy an organisation.