Wk6, Day 4/5 @ Harvard Business School : The future of history.

Wk6, Day 4/5 @ Harvard Business School : The future of history.

I missed two days blog. The first day, I did not write, because I had a condition that mimicked Writer's Block, very closely. The only thing different was it was not lack of inspiration but being overwhelmed by the multitude of source of inspirations. Read on, read between the lines to find out why ? ;-) - yesterday was just too much work, thinking, emotions all at the same time. 

Good now that I have convinced you that there was a 'grand' plan behind my missing the schedule and it had nothing to do with the ball game one night, the Desi Dinner on the other and  living group night ... lets get on to some truthful insights. 

Learn from the history.
We spent the last three days looking out into the world and understanding the world economics. We spent one day each on China, India Latin America and Africa. Of the dozen or so, case studies that we went through, each of them reminded us that we need to look at the history of people and the culture, before you can define your choices of future. What works for country A, may not (most likely will not), work for Country B.  In order to get to the core of the problem, it is critical beyond doubt, that one needs to peel of the layers of historic environment, historic attributes to being your future in focus. It was interesting to put on table that large economic countries like China, USA, India (11th largest in absolute and 4th in PPP) had tonnes of things yet to be done and changed - just to ensure we survive our future.

The dog on its tail
Listening to speakers and class mate's discussion, I wondered, if I have been giving too little credit to politicians of our country. The decisions they take are never without consequences and dire ones at that. 
Current account deficit is a problem. Sure, let the dollar appreciate further. Exports value will increase, exporters will be happy. Trade deficit will be lower. Not really.
Imports on oil will be higher, your central bank would have to buy dollars by paying local currency - thus currency supply will increase and hence inflation increases. Additionally, there is a cost of purchase, that will again put pressure on inflation. Hmm, ok - then let's increase the interest rates. Sure, why not. Increasing interest rates means money is taken out of market, that would reduce the money and cool down inflation. BUT. It will also slow down your economy as new ventures, investments will not be done. Exports will suffer, GDP will be depressed. And current account deficit of the country remains.
Another similar example - the load of subsidy, that really is bleeding our county. While the subsidy is actually costing us dear, reducing subsidy on fundamental products (like oil, gas) will flow back into economy in shape of inflation.

The future of a global company - localization or globalization
Then there were several interesting topics on the level and degree of localization.  There is a raging ongoing conflict that global countries face throughout their international presence. To localize or to super-impose global best practices and learning on the local space. When, you look deeply into it what becomes evident is - that there is hardly any yardstick to arrive at the conclusion, almost always you need to go deeper into the history of your customer, understanding the local environment to really appreciate what the future decision would be.

India - History of 1894 or Future of 2007

Well, we had an overwhelming 'India' packed into the current week. It started with one day dedicated to case studies about India. We learnt, how a blunt state organisation can be re-vitalized to be a bank of preference by its customers. Even while, working in inert circumstances, there are more ways than one to galvanize your corporation, to give people their pride. Another case, saw how a leading automobile giant mis-interpreted the legal mandate and thus missed the pulse of larger masses. After all, the land acquisition act of 1894 is still in force, or so we thought. The debate on proposed modification of land acquisition act of 2007, was intense and brought up many core questions - about the role of government and the meaning of Public Use.

On the Africa day, we learnt of the potential challenges faced by an Indian telecom companies missing their targets, since they did not understand the history and culture of Africa. The 'Desi' gang (for non-Indians, the word desi [d̪esi] is a term for the people, cultures, and products of the Indian subcontinent - Wikipedia), decided they wanted to top off the day with a Desi dinner. So off we went (23 of us) to an awesome evening of desi food, desi music, desi shairi and just loads of desi fun !!

The next day, "India" sort of lingered on at HBS, through visit of Mr Ratan Tata coming and speaking to GMP/AMP participants. 

My favorite person - Me. My history and my future.

Another key topic for this week has been. Me.

Author of True North George Bill was at HBS to teach us, the concepts, meanings and application of True North for myself. The discussion and the book really starts asking some very pertinent but important questions of what you truly want to achieve and is the goal in sync with your executive actions.

One of the assignments of  module 3 (ya when we were on vacation back home... well.. that's what it looks like from here :-( ), was to get your 360 degree feedback from your managers, peers, customers, direct reports etc. The result is meant for your sole consumption. The idea behind the Emotional and social competency inventory, is to identify your individuality, your leadership style - and most importantly, how your leadership style is perceived by others. The results were neatly summarized and presented to each of us in confidence. Its an interesting discovery journey, to really see yourself from the eyes of others. To learn your improvement areas and to build on your strengths.

I chose to leverage the theme of the week and reached out to various senior professors, faculty, Dean and other industry seniors. It was amazing to discover how super gracious they were with their time to listen to your past, understand the history of your choices, your desires and aspirations. And then provide thoughts of guidance that you may use as your tool for your future. 

I can tell you folks, this has been one of the most intense defining weeks of my professional career and as I said earlier, could not have come at a more opportune moment for me.

My experience at HBS has changed from the "Learning phase" (which I still do... duh... not everyone is super smart man !! ), to the "Thinking phase" - ah ha !! 
Many of the discussions in class, are around topics that you may not have straight direct answer to. Some of these are just footnotes, that you would want to be aware of as you go forward in your career.

What I learnt today?
1. "Be shameless to learn" - learn from anyone and everyone.
2. You do not need to own your business operations - to be able to realize the value of business. (think Outsourcing by companies in India)
3. It takes courage to be different. And THAT provides you with the competitive advantage.

What I thought today?
1. For your company, is there value in operating in diff geo markets.
2. Can you get out of your comfort zone - and still remain true to who you are ?
3. Leadership is a journey not a destination.
4. There will be a time, when I would be able to see around the corner. (business world).

Alok Sinha

Wk6, Day 2/3 @HBS - The blanks in life.

Wk6, Day 2/3 @HBS - The blanks in life.


This section intentionally left blank.



Things I learnt today.
This section intentionally left blank.

Yes, this is also required. ;)

Alok

Wk6, Day I @HBS: The art of communicating and the wish to listen

Wk6, Day I @HBS: The art of communicating, the wish to listen

On the last day of the previous module (yes, i did not ever get to write the learnings for that one), we were discussing about the importance of communication. We got to establish, what is communication.

Communication is not about transmitting, it is about receiving.

This is further, compounded by difficulty in a natural world, where people really do not want to hear what you are saying (well mostly). People are wanting to hear, what they want to hear.

Let me elaborate a bit. 

At the beginning of our fourth module.

What HBS said: "Week 6 is going to be hectic and intense", 

What we heard them saying "Like we scared you for the previous weeks, which you evidently got through, the next weeks are going to be slightly more challenging, you can go to watch game, lobsters, wine, dine and have fun."

What they actually wanted to say "Effective first hour of monday, you would be slaved into four lectures in a day. We will bombard you with exponentially more papers per case study. And just when you thought, picture could not get any bigger than the Minister of planning for a country to teach you, we will get the Former president to come and speak to you guys, and you better 'act' that you know 'something' !!"

Get the feeling, yes that one... 

Masses, and their wish to listen

Its no different than the US current account deficit. That seems to say, loud and clear that (from a US point of view), we are eating more than what we are producing. That it is prudent to build some resilience into the system through savings, investing in 'export led strategy'. But then, that is what is being transmitted, I wonder if this is being received. (See S - I = X - M below)

Sub-prime crisis was the very same thing.

At a retail level all consumers wanted to hear was the good story about the house price escalation and the profits and returns. Banks wanted quick acquisition of business. Appraisers wanted to paid well, regulators had everything going as they had done for the last 30 years, and the Government was happy with the new growth story.

It is as if, everyone wanted to hear what they wanted to hear and simply ignored the underlying messages that were actually quite evident. And USA is not unique in this position, pick up any crisis that any country has seen, you would find barometric indicators showing the picture in all its clarity, only to get convoluted in what end users want to hear.

The art of communication makes the greatest leaders

When you meet with the President, he seems to appears to be more of a seasoned, business person. When you listen to him, his statesmanship is  evident, loud and clear. His visions are crisp and his grasp of in-country, global and inter-country issues are spot on. (And who do you think, you are Alok ??) Well, I am merely presenting my view point.

Anyways - a passionate man, he presented some statistics that really open your eyes. You receive the message in such sharp contrast. In his short presentation, he has made a lasting impression - of not only the strong steps his country has taken under his leadership, but also the charisma that he draws to himself. Here are some position-altering stats from his speech.

1. For a foreigner, time to start a new business in Mexico now reduced to 9 days (as against 58 earlier)

2. If New Orleans was a country, it would be world's second highest homicide rate 62 (per 100,000 people). Detroit, Baltimore, Washington, Newark, Houston, Chicago - all of these will have higher homicide violence as compared to Mexico !! India comes way down at 3.4 (with cities like Delhi, Mumbai hovering at around 2-4)

3. Immigration from Mexico to USA, has remained at zero for the last three years.

My point, is these information data points existed all over, but for the President to come into a classroom of (atleast prospective) business leaders of the world and make a position statement for his country. To communicate in less than 40 minutes, how the picture in his country is that of a resurgent Mexic - Effectively, accurately and most importantly - a lasting impression. Now that is truly a remarkable person.

What did I learn today?

1. Answer to yesterday's equation

Y = C + I + E + (X-M)

GDP (Y) = C (Consumption) + I (investment) + E (Govt Spending) + (X (exports) - M (Imports) )

2. I also learnt  

[Faint hearted folks may please skip this section] 

• Y - C - E = I + (X - M) (Just realigning equation)
• Y - T - C + T - E = I + (X - M)   (where T = taxes)
• (Y-T-C) + (T - E)  = I + (X-M)
• Pvt Savings + Govt Savings = I + (X-M) (That is what earning - tax - consumption means)
• Savings - I = X - M

[Calling all of you back here]

So a net exporter country has savings greater than investments

A net importer country has savings less than investments.

3. Media typically does not know much about business. They are in business of reporting not understanding.

Alok

Wk5, Day 6 @HBS. The big picture..

Wk5, Day 6 @HBS.  The big picture..

Did I forget to tell you, on Thursday, we had our Group photo taken. Well dressed ladies and gentlemen of GMP14, made it to the steps of the Baker Library for the Big picture (GMP14) to be taken. Was a nice sunny day, optimal from a photographers view.

So the classes, that we missed yesterday came back to haunt us today. The day began with the first lecture at 0820 am and cramming three lectures by the mid day. Well we finally did get to the end of the tunnel.

The big picture - Macro-economics

• Learning macro-economics is one thing. 
• Learning macro-economics, at Harvard is yet another thing - to know, these walls have shaped the planet's macro-economics in more ways than can be counted, gives you a nice feeling :)
• It's a completely another thing, when the professor teaching you macro-economics has been a minister of planning for a country.
• It's indeed, quite another matter, when the professor goes the extra mile to ensure, that you actually understand what the big picture is all about.

That is the kind of macro-economics I like.  Yes !!

Needless to say, the class is actually quite interesting. I am already looking forward to it.

Changing the big picture.
Most of us who have been agents of change in our organisation, have learnt it the hard way, that you need to address the team differently for different situation.

• Willing and able to change
• Willing and unable to change
• Unwilling and able to change
• Unwilling and unable to change

Its important to include these team members in the execution of plan, and also the discovery of the big picture. The "Unable to change" set of folks, need your support to make them able. Education, communication, incentives, flexibility in your plans are some of the enablers you may try. The quadrant of unwilling and unable to change are the people you would have most trouble with engaging.  Identify them, and help them move to the next levels, where the willingness and the ability changes. 
Irrespective of who you are addressing, the ability to see the big picture and identifying the big picture as it relates to me (the person impacted), is perhaps the single most important thing in terms of resistance management.


Things I learnt today
1. Macro is not the sum of Micros.

2. Y = C + I + E + (X-M)

3. Y = f (K,L)

PS: I will leave these scary little equations here...  for those of you who have done the basics of macro-economics, just glance over it.. and for those, who have not, standby for the answers on Monday. :)

Gotta go, we have a summer shack planned...need to be on the bus in 15 minutes... I cannot miss the date with the lobsters !! (slurrp..)


Alok

Wk5, Day 5: Humility triumphs.

Wk5, Day 5: Humility triumphs.

While most of the Baker hall was sleeping on Thursday I night, I was awake working the computer. Normally, outside the window, the darkness was largely un-interrupted, except for once a while, police vehicle racing along, with sirens blaring. Normally this felt comforting as well.

Not tonight.

The blue, red flashes on the streets were far too common and too frequent to be comforting. Twitter was the early messenger reporting the Boston shootout. Hurriedly, TV was checked and the developing news became evident. One of the Bomber of the Boston bombing and one policeman was killed (in gun fight), and the other was on the run, throwing grenades and explosives outside the car (learnt later). All this happening within a mile of where we are.

My room and our living group is almost towards the Soldiers Field road, right at the edge of the campus.  For a brief 3-4 minutes, there was a huge convoy of police vehicles - must be more than 30-40 of them, descended right below our window, almost ready to pull into the campus. That seemed to be most scary part of the experience, to believe that someone could have entered your campus with guns and grenades. Fortunately, they seemed to move on, and for the night our campus was safe.

Anyways, most of us woke up in the morning under curfew. None of us were allowed to go out of the Baker Hall, and the surrounding areas were shut. Obviously the professors could not make it to the campus either. And hence lectures were cancelled.

All through the day, the events on television kept moving from one spot to another, and the police cars kept converging on to the ground zero (Dexter, Watertown). While we could not actually see the spot from our fourth windows, but were very certain, action was right behind one of the buildings. This was perhaps the nation's most intense man-hunt, more than 9000 officials were deployed to hunt down the suspect (one had already died and the other was on the run), 

So we spent, the full day, exploring nooks and corner of our room and our living group.


At a time, when there were no public transport system and the state has asked you to stay inside, some individuals took the huge effort to make it to office for our sake. They kept our kitchen running, on top of it - to lift our sunk spirits, we also had a reception dinner in the evening, with a luxurious spread of Prawns, Crab Legs, Chicken, Steaks and what not. Imagine, all this to lift our spirits !!

That was not all, it seemed that Dean (Mr. Nitin Nohria) thought, it to be important to connect with us, in this difficult time. Not only, did he come in for the dinner, he made it a point to go to each table and exchange a few words (and this was a shared event between AMP+GMP - so am guessing 300 people !!). Of-course, some of the participants thought, this would be a great opportunity for a photo-op and he obliged smilingly. 

What drives you to be super-successful, and then also be sensitive to your community needs and prompts you to walk the extra mile ... Humility.

This day, has been etched into my memory for the rest of the life. A tragic reminder, once again, that we are leaving behind a huge burden of terrorism for our next generation. 

My key learnings today.
1.  The table lamp on my study table did have a knob to make it turn. Hence, when switched on, it did not always shine directly at my eyes. Damn, I knew I was missing something...  
Did I not tell you, that we spent the full day inside.

Stay safe. !!

Alok

Wk5, Day 3&4 @HBS - Its easy to forget the ABC of your business

Wk5, Day 3&4 @ HBS - It is easy to forget the ABC of your business...

Very early, in the last module, the lead faculty had given a simple formula for ensuring business remains on track. He had also challenged, us that even though this is a simple thing to remember, we would soon forget it. "The difference between those who forget it and those who remember it - is the difference between a  good business leader and great business leader" he had said.

At that time (about 8 weeks ago), it was quite amusing to see that professor's believed we were so low on our IQ that we will not remember a simple three point program.  Well guess what.

We actually did forget it, at least most of us. I have tried to articulate a simple mnemonic based method to remember this.

"A" - Address your customers. Get to know WHO your customer is. What does he look like. What is his segment, his profile. It may sound basic, but you may want to define who your customer is NOT, and therefore arrive at a sub-set. The finer you can define your customer, higher is the delta returns of your investment.

"B" - what Benefits do you provide your customer - What need of your customer do you fulfill. Pretty simple, but keep the focus on the question and list 2-3 clear needs that you fulfill.

"C" - What Competitive advantage, do you have that others do not. Customer will buy something from you ONLY, when you have a unique proposition that your competition does not have. The sale happens, ONLY if you are able to demonstrate specific competitive advantage.

I have seen so many corporations failing to recognize the above three issues. You do not need 20 points in each of the ABC section, you need just one or two - as long as they are crisp, definable and your team, your leadership, your customers understand that.

Yesterday Google, Today Facebook... errr.. ??
While Google continues to please the business analysts and is happy posting progressively better results, Facebook has really never picked up the high mast it had set up at the time of IPO. In our rotation dinner last night, discussion also pointed to the fact that the very first quarter, post IPO, facebook had pushed in losses. This had not gone well with retail customers or financial institutions. As I write this blog, Facebook shares are still hovering @ around $25.69, down from an initial $38 IPO. In contrast, Google is valued at $600bn, it earns a revenue of $13.5bn while $60bn market capitalized facebook, earns around $5bn annually.

And when you get one of the facebook core team members to come and speak to you in the class, you realise the problem is not so easy to solve as it appears on the face of things.

Demographics of Social media

• Facebook has more than 1.0 bn subscribers - MORE than the total email addresses (about 800M)
• 57% of facebook users are Women.
• City dwellers are significantly more likely than rural residents to be on Twitter *
• Women are five times as likely as men to use Pinterest *
• Blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to use Instagram * 
• 33% of time spent on facebook is to view profiles of their friends.
• 35% of time spent on facebook is to view profiles of strangers.
• 8% of time is spent on viewing your OWN profile (come on !!)
• Balance is games, ads, sharing etc.
• As of last week, Whatsapp has more subscribers than Twitter. More than 200 M active users, 8-12 Billion messages per day!!
• Click here for some interesting twitter facts.

Fine print: The above values may be off by a few points here and there.

One would assume that with more than a billion people to serve, it forms an ideal platform for advertisements. Well, it so happens, that flat advertisement is not so well. It acts more like an interruption. 

Therefore, the trick to leveraging social media is not through advertising - but to introduce concepts of "sharing", "network" and "interaction". It is important to think, what your social media strategy is going to be - how to truly leverage the value of social media. Be it whatsapp, twitter, linkedin or facebook. 

It seems, the problem of monetizing the social network is not going to go away so soon. It is important to define, (A) Who you would be addressing via the social media , (B) What benefits will the social media offer to your customer and (C) How would you use social media that your competition cannot. The simple ABC.


What did I learn today ?
1. Thinking like a Union Leader.
Another important angle of discussion that came up, was the role of the Union Leaders and their expectations. If you lead a large sized worker organisation, then it is safe to assume that sooner or later, you would need to engage with the Union Leaders. So what does the Union leader want. 

• He would want more salary/perks/benefits for the workers. This impacts in your direct wage bill.
• He plays another important role in shaping the job description. (yes Job Description). At a macro level, he wants "MORE" people to be employed by you, (or conversely protect the interests of workers), by ensuring enough enough open jobs.

When you lead your business and want his support, these two things will be playing on top of his mind.

2. More for less is different from Less for less. 
There is a market and need for both types of strategies in your offering. When you define your competitive advantage, make sure, you understand this and factor in the same.

3. Change Management is about perception management. Manage them well.


Alok Sinha

Wk5, Day 2 @ Harvard Business School: Outrageously innovative..

For many of the senior business managers, making a product business case is nothing new, it's actually quite simple

1. You come up with some practical product idea,
2. You make a case to get basic dollars funded, 
3. You then set out to make prototype
4. And you go ahead and create the complete product.

Of course,  your plan must be innovative - who does not like innovation !

When I look at Google, I begin to think, what would a conversation between the idea proposer and the manager sound like.

Early morning the manager has settled into his plush chair, having his early cup of coffee and looking forward to a peaceful week ahead. In comes his favorite employee, flashing a set of documents and face flushed with excitement !!

"Boss, I want $230M to build a product, that will map EVERY single square feet of this planet". 

On yet another day, another one pops up .. 

"We need to build a car, (car - really? we were software company right ?) that does NOT need a driver, and here is how we can do that."

Some days later, another bright spark says, 
"Lets map every muscle, every neuron, every bone in our body, so that doctors can see through 3D models"
"Keyboards and eyes a passe, lets make a searchable NOSE !!"

"Let's build a system, that has records, of all the travel points, that all the human beings on this planet has ever been to - for every human being !!!"

And what can be worse than the concept of such ideas - The fact that these ideas actually got approved.  Can you imagine the courage you need to have as a manager to approve such  fantastic projects, and then to rally the entire organisation behind it. That is what Google does so efficiently. 

That, in my humble opinion is Google's core business. To be "Outrageously Innovative", as an organisation.

Some of the ideas, actually see the market.

• Google Dashboard - You do not know about it, but it already there. If you are a Latitude customer, you also have access to this kind of data, you can check exactly at what point of time, where you were.(Any day for the past 5 years),  Or how much time you spent where (wow !! ... ooops !!) or for that matter, how many flights you have taken when. Scary !!
• Google Maps - Incredible success story, read about the tremendous growth and the future it holds.
• Google Nose - Still a bit futuristic. This is designing a "Smell based" search engine. 
• Google Glass - Yesterday, the final specs were released of this product, due to hit the Shelves on Sep 13. More than 1200 such prototypes have already been released in the wild !!
• Google Body - Was given away for adoption, after birth. This is mapping the entire human body.
• Google Cloud Robots  - Coming soon, sooner than you think!
• Google Self driving cars - Product is past prototype.

What did I learn today ?
1. There is a direct relation, between slack in the system and speed of execution.
2. When you want/have to give free giftaways - items with telescopic values, have more value... (hmm... something to think about... )


Alok Sinha

Wk 5, Day 1: The value of learning, making sense of madness

Back to school... after a great break of 5 weeks... !!

For me, it was landing at Newark @ unearthly four thirty am. I am no big fan of US domestic airline travel and hence almost always choose to drive. Needless to say, it was a pleasant and enjoyable drive.

For many of us, coming back to Harvard this time, was more like coming back to a break, coming back to our own comfort zones. As if, the intense focus on the learning, acts as a meditative alternatives for our tired minds.

Pleasantries aside, it took HBS exactly 3 hours, to push us back into, much desired, strenuous routine, that started with a session on Sunday 5pm. 

"If you find students available, teach them." - An old HBS saying, (sort of).

In the previous module, we had touched upon the concept of "Simplicity", today we re-visited the theory and tried to understand the how the simple things called Lego bricks, camouflage the  complexity that goes behind building the same. The second session focussed on human connections. How a bleeding airline giant, was transformed from the damned position of "I hate this airline", to a very profitable, high performance airline. It was all about people and getting to trust and believe in them.

By the time, the academic day was over, I was pretty much convinced that we have found the magic mantra to make this world a better place to live.

For today, it is the Human touch.

And for tomorrow, make simple, creative tools that Children, can play and learn with.

It made so much sense. Human touch and Children make such amazing story for our future.  That's it, this is what I had to understand and its all clear to me now.

And then, in the afternoon..... Terror strikes at Boston. Three blasts, three dead, more than 25 injured (as on Apr 15th, 23:40 hrs). One of the dead was an eight year old child. The blast occurred where friends and family came in to greet the Marathon runners at the finish line !! This was just about 2.5 miles (as the crow flies) away from our campus. Though, it was not the first time, that I was in such close proximity of such an incident, but this was very very disturbing.

What chance do we have as Humans, if we are not able to solve basic things such as terrorism. All our learning, our so called - great understanding of life and success, remains confined to the theatre set by terrorists. 

Our legacy to the next generation is terrorism. 

Forget, winning the war on terrorism, we are simply trying to survive and not even sure, if we will indeed survive.

Of what good is the learning, if we cannot make sense of this madness and put a stop to it ???

My apologies, if this sounded depressing, but it is.....

My learnings of the day.

1. Treat complexity like you would treat cancer. Measure, review, re-align and re-focus the corporation, away from complexity.

2. Trust your employees. Fundamentally, those who come to work to office every day - WANT to be successful, creative and contribute. 

3. Charisma seems to be a qualification criterion for a leader.

Alok Sinha