Survive from your so called Thinking

 World’s most expensive item is – you are right, it is a “Wrong decision”.

In an increasingly competitive world, it is quality of thinking that gives an edge—an idea that opens new doors, a technique that solves a problem, or an insight that simply helps make sense of it all.

You are what you think. Whatever you are doing, whatever you feel, whatever you want—all are determined by the quality of your thinking. If your thinking is unrealistic, your thinking will lead to many disappointments. If your thinking is overly pessimistic, it will deny you due recognition of the many things in which you should properly rejoice. if the quality of your life is not what you wish it to be, it is probably because it is tied to the way you think about your life. If you think about it positively, you will feel positive about it. If you think about it negatively, you will feel negative about it

For most people, most of their thinking is subconscious, that is, never explicitly put into words. The problem is that when you are not aware of your thinking you have no chance of "correcting" it. When thinking is subconscious, you are in no position to see any problems in it. And, if you don't see any problems in it, you won't be motivated to change it. When a full grown man has an average of 80000 (yes, you read it right, it’s 80 thousand) thoughts passing through their subconscious mind in a day, hardly 2/3 % of that we consciously think or can consciously control, review, weigh and moderate. The truth is that since few people realize the powerful role that thinking plays in their lives, few gain significant command of their thinking. Most people are in many ways "victims" of their own thinking, harmed rather than helped by it. Most people are their own worst enemy. Their thinking is a continual source of problems, preventing them from recognizing opportunities, keeping them from exerting energy where it will do the most good, poisoning relationships, and leading them down blind alleys.

 Improving the quality of your thinking will help you achieve your goals and ambitions, make better decisions, and understand where others are trying to influence your thinking. It will help you take charge of what you do in your professional and personal life, how you relate to others, and even what emotions you feel. It's time for you to discover the power and role of thinking in your life. You are capable of achieving more significant professional goals. You can become a better problem solver. You can use power more wisely. You can become less subject to manipulation. You can live a fuller, a more happy and secure life. The choice is yours.

When they look back, most people feel like if only they did take a few decisions differently, their lives could have been very different. Yes. Some of the world’s most expensive items are - “Wrong decisions”.

Our happiness and success depends on clear thinking. But too many of us are compromised by confusion, trying to do too much at once, and not knowing what to do next. Lack of thinking skills often lead to pain and sufferings in life that could have been easily avoided with a little application, of thinking. But thinking is a skill that provides the maximum firepower when it is consciously developed in a proper structured manner with right controls and handles on it’s force. Our arrogantly complacent attitude towards thinking is often misplaced, creating a wrong notion about our effective capability in this area. Many who consider themselves as good thinkers often use only one part of thinking, (usually analysis, judgement and identification) and leaves out the whole creative, generative and productive side of thinking.

To be really creative and innovative, we need to first take away all the barriers to free thinking. One’s mind must be completely open, liberal, flexible and dynamic to be truly exceptional. Creativity is an expression of the stream of thinking. Everybody has creativity but the chance to bloom, the expressions are not available in most cases as it is not really nurtured in the right way. But it’s always there, always waiting, always within every person, only one has to learn how to listen to the frequency and tune oneself to it.

Thinking is the most basic education required in every step of life, from personal thinking to academics to Business proposes to life situations like relationship handling or office politics, you just cannot escape it. At every step you have to think to make decisions, often critical and crucial ones, to survive, to excel, to be happy and successful. Just as we breath, we think. Intelligent people can think without having to learn to think. Then many others cannot think no matter what they do. Thinking is the most fundamental human skill. It also determines our happiness and our success in life, because we need it to make plans, take initiatives, solve problems, make decisions, open up opportunities and design our way forward. Without this ability we are like a cork floating on a stream with no control on our destiny.

 But thinking is also a skill that can be learnt, practiced and developed. It is fun and enjoyable too. Only you have to want to develop that skill. It is like learning how to ride a bicycle or drive a car. Intelligence is like the horsepower of a car, while thinking is like the skill of the car driver. Without learning to think properly, you really cannot use all the power or features of that car nor drive it properly. Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers and get caught in the “intelligence trap”. Many less intelligent people often learn and develop a high degree of skill in thinking. Traditional education in school and college teach only one aspect of thinking, the rest are ignored – leading to a poor state of education where many highly qualified people are poor thinkers and operate at a fraction of their potential.

Now you know, Why !!

Survive from the con men

You heard about the guy who had sold Tajmahal to an Arab Seikh, in the 1970s? He had also sold the Red fort, the Rashtrapati Bhawan and the Parliament building !!!!

Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, or Natwarlal, belonged to a rare breed of crooks called ‘thought criminals’. He did not need a gun or weapons to rob people of their hardearned cash or stickup a shop. His expertise lay in vanishing not only from the scene of crime but also from jails all over the country. By 1987, India’s greatest con man had escaped from prison 10 times, which included 7 times in UP alone! He boasted that no prison in India could hold him and as long as there was a dishonest cop, he would always find a way to get out! What is most impressive about the life, crimes and escapes of Natwarlal is how seamlessly it leaves the realm of facts and enters the sphere of myth It takes something special for names of people or things to be turned into verbs. You need to be able to capture the public’s imagination as a unique entity. If you are fearless, you are called Sher Khan and if you are a manipulative personality in public life, in all likelihood, you’ll be called Natwarlal.

It is said that you can’t cheat an honest man. It’s because the honest men are not greedy and the con business runs entirely runs on a singular emotion of the people, which is greed. But this is not entirely true. I myself has been a victim, and I have seen many more basically honest people having momentary lapse of reason, taking impulsive and stupid decisions and taking people at their face value, expecting that because they themselves are honest – these people will appreciate and respect that and will not cheat them.

There is an inherent lacunae in our basic training. Our schools teach us a lot of things, mostly crap, and omit a few small unimportant things like how to think, how to take decisions, when and how much angry or stupid you could be, how to survive in situations, how to choose people in your lives, how to cross streets and other people, how to control your emotions, how to take over the reins of your minds etc. The result is that we make the biggest mistakes in the biggest of the decisions as we try to believe the unbelievable

Remember Tray Whitney in the fascinating book If Tomorrow comes by Sidney Sheldon? The simple honest girl at the glorious phase of her life became the victim of situation and some unscrupulous people and was shattered to nibbles. Later, with indomitable spirit and the lust to survive she fought back, avenged the people responsible, started to learn things with a keen mind and intuition, developed herself into a beautiful and extra-ordinary swan and became a queen of con, also finding the beautiful Prince of Con on the way. You just can’t help falling in love with her, just like Daniel Cooper, as I myself can testify. She has shown how people can change, that consequences change the mind and the way of thinking, from which can arise new goals and dreams. All the worst she did experience, the experience became her treasure, which she later used to protect herself, her life and her reputation. She became tricky and wise, she made people respect her.

The book had shown a few basic rules of con, how to deceive stupid gullible and greedy people. One classic example was how Jeff Stevens had simply put an ad in a newspaper asking for $1 for a beautiful object, saying it was the last chance. And thousands of dollars poured in.

·      See some real life examples that I have encountered in my own life, in the last 20 years :

• ·                   I have probably received till now about 500 mails saying that I have won a big lottery for varied (usually many millions) amounts, and asking me to furnish all my details immediately. Not once I answered, but I have seen in newspapers how people  often lose a lot of money in this way

   

  ·                   Have received at least 8-10 calls, usually from someone who claimed to be a labourer, from a remote district like Bankura or Purulia. Claimed that he and a couple more were digging at a place for a construction and have found a very old pot full of coins and they seem to be very old gold coins. They have clandestinely removed it to their place and now want to sell them at a throwaway price. Would I be interested to buy? They are very poor and would be happy only with some money etc. etc. Once I played along for a few days, it was fun, insisting that they travel to my place with it, but they said they will be immediately exposed and I should travel to theirs. If I did, I would be immediately kidnapped and my family would have been served with a notice for ransom money

   

  ·                   Received at least 100/200 emails / calls / messages that my yahoo a/c or gmail or SBI ATM card or anything of that sort, is being deactivated and I should immediately confirm my date / do it on the link provided  etc. I never answered these emails as I knew the site will be a fake with Trojan software / virus, but played along a few times on the calls. Once I spoke to the gentleman for 15 minutes, showing that I am very confused and afraid and don’t know what to do and it will be a big problem for me as I have a significant amount of money in that account which I will need after a few days etc. Finally he took down all my details (Ha ha) and even my PIN etc. Then when he was asking the branch of the bank, I said Dicson Road (branch of my old Natwest Bank Account), he was confused and suspicious. He said where it is in Kolkata ? I said it is in Blackpool. He said State Bank has no such branch !!! I said ohh not SBI, I have this account in Barclays Bank. He took 1 full minute to abuse me in the filthiest unspeakable expletives and, then hung up, I was laughing uncontrollably.  These are usually called the Jamtara gangs, as per their main centres’ and the operations were usually run initially by Nigerians (just like somalians who are worldwide experts on naval piracy).

•  
  
  
  

• ·                  
  ·        The pay now enjoy later schemes, like the Timeshare Holidays. On this I plan to write a whole article, could be a small book. Don’t trust anyone expect the Mahindra holidays. All the rest the thieves, some may not cheat you the whole money but their business model is so complex and you will be squeezed in so many ways that it will not be exactly profitable at all, but you will lose you independence of travel. Some are full cheats, and often are mafias, like Country Vacations, against whom there are thousands of complaints and FIRs all over the country but nothing happen to them.

   

  ·                   Pay now use later scheme also can take the life insurance industry in a limited membership. For the Non-life, its ok to choose any provider, but as a subject matter expert (I have the highest honours in India and 2nd highest in UK in Insurance practice and experienced the industry from inside for more than a decade, as a specialist in Insurance software also), I would always suggest that you only have your life insurance policies from the state-owned provider only. I can give you at least 5 important reasons for it. Because people don’t understand finance, even less insurance, they often take wrong decisions in choosing the provider and the policy type, not correspondent with their specific unique needs and means, while the smart agents with ties, take them for a ride more often than not.

   

• 

·                   ·        About 5/6 years ago, a man caught me up at our market and said that his things are stolen with money and he has come for medical treatment. Only some dollars he has which he wants to sell, at a much lower rate, would I take it ? I understood from his accent and manners that he was Bangladeshi, probably muslim and ostensibly a criminal. I was going off that evening to IIM Lucknow on some work, for a week. I sent a mail to the DC Detective Department, and went off. After 3 days, a SI from our Police Station called me up and spoke to me for an hour. I gave all the details. He came to my house after 5 days, after I returned and informed that this gang has already struck 4 times and cheated lacs out of those people, with original dollar notes at the top and the rest fake notes and sealing the packet beautifully, but there is no clue. I called the guy and acted, under the Sis guidance, put myself for a bait, and that finally led to the arrest of 5 guys, all muslim Bangladeshi criminals who use West Bengal as a safe haven and has all relevant papers, easily made in connivance of the ruling party.

 

·                   The credit card companies are legal conmen who has seen the fall of way too men, who don’t understand the tactics and are careless about it. Will write a separate article on this. People are too callous and careless about the credit cards and treat it as easy money. I myself, in 20 years of my credit cards, which now have quite high limits, have redeemed about 2 lacs of points but never ever gave any finance charges or penalty and never ever took out cash on any one of them.

People need some training in these crucial aspects of life, just to survive in the jungle. Unfortunately, people are not aware themselves and how they will pass it on . 

Some simple rules one should learn by heart and practice, to survive from these situations are::  

• 1)    DO not be greedy. Anybody wants to sell you dollars or gold or anything expensive at a very cheap rate, even a land,  that is a tell-tale sign that it is a con operation.
• 2)    Lottery, of any type and description, are con. I have never ever bought a lottery ticket in my life, you don’t do it either
• 3)    Never believe anyone who stands to be profited from the deal. Ask for an independent opinion. Doctors or CAs or Advocates are exempted as they take you as clients and are paid for their advices only, though a few doctors are often to quick to conclude that a surgery is a must !!
• 4)    Take independent learned opinion about your financial and insurance planning, if needed paying reasonable advisory fees. It will save you a lot of invisible money.
• 5)    Be very very prudent about using your credit cards. And pay the bills timely and on a mandatory basis. Plan all your other expenses after this
• 6)    Never ever take a loan for unnecessary luxury expenses. A loan should be used for utmost emergency or asset creation only
• 7)    Try to learn and understand some basic aspects of finance.
• 8)    Try to learn investment. Earnings cannot make you rich, unless you are Satya Nadella or Sundar Pichai. Particularly, you have to learn investing in Shares and Real estates, the main two avenues. Then, you cannot depend on the conmen who will give you investing tips on shares, these are often conmen. Learn about fundamental based investing, not get rich quick schemes.
• 9)    Be very very sensitive about CIBIL scores, and try to learn a few thing about how it is affected, both ways.
• 10) While buying online except very big sites like Amazon or Flipcart etc., read the comments and reviews first, then buy. A year ago my daughter had bought from a site, paid 1650/- for 4 dresses which seemed to be dirt cheap. The items never came and the site just vanished after sometime. Then we saw they have done this with thousands of people. 
• 11) Anytime you find a deal that is too sweet, it is a big suspect. In Facebook, you will often see ads from Peter Cat that promises Buy 1 Get 2 for the very popular plate Chello Kebab. They asked to call a number and book. Thousands of people have ordered and got cheated. Now they have started the same game in the name of Haldiram. 
• 12) Real estate is a big quicksand for the gullible. There are too many factors and nuances of Real estate investing. It is not necessarily buying a flat from a fancy name promoter where you are the chicken for slaughter from the word GO. The real buttery opportunities need classy experienced eye and a gambler's nerve to snatch it quickly. But just keep it in mind that too many people sell the same land at half price to 7 people also or there could be big legal problems which the seller will not tell you till everything is done or even then. Just beware

You can’t survive meeting the conmen, they are everywhere, but surviving from their stories need skills and experience, and attitude, and training.

Survive from the failures failing you

 

What is success? Getting 99% in an exam, which has become a joke in any case? Couple of years ago, the first boy in the state secondary exams (10th standard) with more than 99% marks rued in front of the reporters that he is not happy about the 4 marks he lost. In a true educational system, his crown should have been taken away, for he doesn’t deserve it. One who thinks he is perfect in everything, is a real stupid. 

Many years ago, I went to meet the Principal of a very renowned school in Kolkata, floated by a person I have extreme regards about. I have never seen him but heard a lot of stories about him. Way back in the Seventies, he came back from England and took over the administration of the school founded by his father and very professionally changed the face of the school, bringing excellence in the school education for the for the first time in Kolkata, just what Pranoy Roy did in the Election reporting on TV, in the nineties. When I was chatting with the Principal, a lady teacher came up with an answer script, told it is urgent. The Principal asked to be excused and attended her. The issue was if the student can get 100 or not. They went over the full answer script with high focus, finally found one sum where the student had jumped a step, cut half marks for it and made the score 99. 100 is only for the total perfection, she explained to me. I was speechless and very very impressed.   

Success is getting in the IITs? IIMs? Civil Service? IIT exam is the most widely held toughest exam, as after the +2 level, the student community get largely divided. Is that the destination, or just another path to the destination? Then why do so many students commit suicide in the IITs?

 Few years ago, I spent an evening chatting to a very renowned Psychiatrist, Dr. Deb, who was a member of the team given a 6-month assignment to find a solution to this suicide menace, by Prof. Damodaran, the then Director of IIT-Kharagpur. Dr. Deb explained, take a boy from any particular school, good or bad, of the about 5000 schools in our state. Take that each school on average has 3 sections, making it 15000. Then 15000 students become first, in any particular exams. Usually 2/3 or max. 4 students compete for this position in any class, though in half the cases it is seen, someone has made it a habit to become first and they are purely focussed on that aspect. That makes it about 7500. These students, at least 40% of them i.e. 3000, don’t want to think about or do anything else, they can sacrifice anything else in life or any other joy, or even relationships, just to hold to this position. They are often very jealous types, selfish definitely and become sort of neurotic in the constant fear of losing their no. 1 position. Out of this 3000, nearly 98% at least will definitely give all they have for the IIT seats and the survey tells us hardly 250 (from this state) actually reaches there, beside 50-100 dark horses, which is 8%. 200 among them do not get the branch of their dreams or the IIT of their choice, being severely unhappy from the word GO. Then if one of them find himself at the 58th position in a class of 60 (mind it, nearly 90% of the students used to be the first guy in their respective class or section almost all their lives, except a few dark horses), don’t you think he is a fit candidate for suicide?

Another trouble is that, these students are usually pampered all their lives till now. They get habituated with the awe-struck glances of their family, neighbours to the teachers often, and no end to adulations. They get tuned to that kind of treatment, and know that they have the world at their feet. SO when they find themselves “not so special” in that crowd, get bullied by the smarter guys, look stupid among the crowds having fun because few other students look like God and talk like the devil and become the heartthrob of the girls, they suddenly feel that the ground under their feet have moved. Often, some of them are bullied, trolled or just develop inferiority complex (to which they are just alien actually) because they are from the village schools and are not fluent with english-speaking. Sometimes, coupled with a heartbreak by a girl, one of them may just feel like he has been running the wrong alley all his life, till now. Now, he is a perfect candidate for suicide.

This is my own experience also. I have seen some people, whose life generally goes in a straight line, not like the roller coaster rides like me and a lot more. They may be 1% of the people, but they are much more visible naturally, than the ass of the statistics suggests. Because they are usually habituated to getting things easily, any turmoil or resistance can shake them in an earth-shaking way. The people like me, who are fighters and survivors, slowly pick up a different kind of mindset and approach towards life. Even on the middle of the dog’s life, we know and expect that someday, the dogs will also have their day. We patiently and hopefully wait, while fighting the battle for survival, fully knowing that the battles lost are battles lost, not the war itself. Napoleon, who did own 57 of the 60 wars he fought had this same feeling, when he was in Alba?  “Able was I, when I saw Alba”?

Next time you take your children to enjoy the fries at KFC, tell them that Col. Sanders had to approach 1009 shops or cafes to find the first person to agree to buy his franchise. Just close your eyes, and think of the huge patience, courage, conviction, determination, passion and perseverance that were need to approach the next guy after 1008 rejections over a period of three long long years.  

Or when you take them to the Disneyland or see a Disney movie or even a Tom & Jerry show, tell them that Disney had to go to 321 bank branches with his project file, in 2.5 years or more, before a bank manager took his dream project seriously. He was completely broke and cold, but used his dreams to keep him warm, used his dreams to hold him strong.  

Neither of them committed suicide in the middle of the war, nor did I, who has had many failures in his dream projects till now. 

Survive from the bad decisions

 

When I look back, I can see at least 10 major wrong decisions I have taken over the years, at least 5 of them very crucial, and each of them has hugely affected my life in terms of financial and psychological factors. I can also see at least 5 decisions that clicked and also has affected my life very positively.

In life, cost of some wrong decisions are huge. Decisions are key parameters of life, but they depend on many factors. Actions taken on the decision, Speed of taking the decision, accuracy of the premises, detachment of sentiment or emotions, suppression of egoistic tendency, research and analysis on the options, criticality of the decisions, time period of the effects- short /medium /long term, conviction on the decision, moral and ethical view, legal angle, possible consequences, situational constraints, resource view etc.

I searched in Google and found many kind of discussions and the key factor synthesis, one of which I have given above, but I found most of them too academic and theoretical. The practical application side is quite missing. Particularly the step on identification of the decision criteria is too important if you think of it strategically, which is much more focussed on the ultimate objectives and fulfilment of those by the solutions. Peter Drucker invented the theory of MBO, or Management by Objective in the 70s, based on which most of the later strategic management theories started coming out. I would also stress that the essence of decision taking is to have proper practical and pragmatic decision criteria. If you just look at the process by which boys often choose their girlfriends or wives, you will wonder what kind of stupidity get into us most at that kind of age.

Good decision making is an essential skill. Life is ultimately the sum total of the string of decisions taken in life. All our lives, we walk on and constantly reach the crossings where “Two roads” have diverged in the yellow woods. And the road we take, or rather the road not taken, would affect our lives, some to a limited extent and some will have serious effects and consequences. We take hundreds of decisions in a day even, including putting the alarm on snooze for 1 more time to what to have in the breakfast, but most of them inconsequential apparently, though they can sum up over a long period and can influence some important factor.

So, ultimately, the more right decisions we take or the less bad decisions we take, our lives will be richer and more fulfilling in every aspects, be in financial, be it happiness related or be it relationships. But to take more good decisions, we need many things, we need knowledge, relevant home-work, situational analysis, courage, confidence, strength of character, attitude, Drive and commitment, basic knowledge in some common legal aspects, negotiating skills, thinking ability of different hues, humility to seek advice etc. But this usually takes a lot of training and time to create and develop these qualities. Many of these factors are together called “Common sense”, about which G B Shaw had written that “Common sense is the most uncommon thing in common people”.

When in doubt, one should buy time for an answer or commitment or decision. Most wrong decisions are hasty and impulsive decisions. This is my experience too. This is why many cheater kind of organization, e.g. the timeshare selling companies, insist on immediate decision, saying the offers are only for that day. Try to keep the options open for you for as long as possible, even if that costs a little. Often, a little extra time in taking the decision opens up more options, provides more clarity, lead to change of situation, does away with situational constraints, gives more time to research, gives opportunity for taking advice. But sometimes, some decisions need to be taken in lightning speed, otherwise that opportunity goes out of hand. I have had this experience from both sides of the fence.  

In any major decision, seek advice, from your Gurus or experts or well-wishers. Some of them may mislead, but generally these 3 category of people are only trustable and the rest are not.

There are many methods and processes of decision-making which can give a structured look at it. One of them, for example, is “SOAR through decisions” which involves four distinct steps and with right people and being transparent at each of these steps, one can have tremendous benefits. The steps are like Situation-Objective-Analysis-Recommendation.

Note that :

·        Don’t put the steps into a muddled discussion, the best decision is not very likely as the final decision will most probably be governed by one of the three factors, Fatigue, Enthusiasm and authority.

·        Lack of process clarity is dangerous. Rather step logically through a process with right resources only at the right time, say experts on that areas, you may have best decisions with minimum waste of time, which is often a critical component of any decision.

·        Process clarity and clarity of purpose can often be achieved in a decision making if a proven process known by the key stakeholders can be used. E.g. There is a process called SBAR in healthcare, translating to Situation-Background-Assessment-Recommendation. Clinging to a process like this also improves one’s ability to formulate as they are very instructive

·        Criteria guiding the decision, The OBJECTIVE factor which are really the goals and constraints, is crucial. If the objective is convoluted, all other factors will fail. In my hostel days, one of my room-mates had fallen head over heels for a girl of my class (the guy was in a different branch) whom we did not like much for her attitudinal aspects. When we confronted our friend that why he is so keen on that girl who in any case was attractive, he finally confessed that the girl has “terrific boobs”. We laughed a lot, and promised that we will find her a girlfriend of even better points on that factor, much later I understood how often a most important decision like marrying someone (that will affect the next 40 years of your life) is taken, on what kind of shallow factors.

·        Commitment on implementation often is more assured when the decision is taken on a logical informed and fair process, with all interests represented. Muddled or thrust decisions create more cynics and sceptics than the committed implementers.

Small issues and egos have to be carefully handled and the big perspective has to be in focus. I had experienced how people had decided against a deal for a couple of hundred rupees when the deal was of a thousand times in value. You may decide to let not even a rat come out of the front door while the elephant will bolt from the back.

Try not to take any decisions out of the emotional states like boredom, fear, anger, ego, infatuation, sensuality, nonchalance etc. Decision taking is an art and should be learnt as the most basic skill of any person, to be used in all compartment of life, business, professional, personal, spiritual etc. But remember, try to find Gurus in life. They may come from all walks and you must filter the essence from any of them.

Decision is ultimately the single biggest differentiator between success & failure

Survive from the lack of edge, JU placement case study

 

Had a chance meeting on the street with the father of a nice girl I know, a senior of my daughter in her school, and I asked him how was his daughter. He told me proudly that she has passed out and joined Infosys from the campus placement. I didn’t miss the smirk on his face and that started a chain of thoughts. I knew she used to study in a good private engineering college in Kolkata, supposed to be best among the privates, and Infosys, Wipro, TCS, CTS etc. go there for campus placement, as mass recruiters. The salaries offered are most between 3-4.5 Lacs per annum (LPA). While they are good companies, they offer different levels of salaries to different profiles and in different Institutes, and these mass recruitment positions are generally the lowest of them. The parents are generally ecstatic about the names of the companies, but do the names justify the levels or rather the levels they didn’t get?

In a previous article, http://sudipbhattacharya.blogspot.com/2012/10/survive-from-your-relative-position.html , I had discussed why the life coordinates have to be looked in relative rather than absolute terms. Here I will bring out a case study to strengthen the point and show a clear example of how it affects the lives of the people, mostly throughout their lives.

Take the case of Jadavpur University (JU), the premier-most state University in Kolkata, West Bengal, India. In the whole eastern region, this is considered the top place in engineering education except the IIT-Kharagpur, and is quite at par, if not better, than the NITs in this region like Durgapur and Rourkella. West Bengal is a state which has historically supplied highly intelligent students to the country and the world. And JU always gets the top thousand students (except the 100 or so who goes to the IITs and another 100 who choose the NITs instead). Beside the few non-core non-circuit (or non-IT one can say) branches like Food Technology, Printing technology, Pharmacy etc. branches which has a narrow and focussed industrial market only, we will discuss the placement scenario trend of the rest (about 700 students) as per the data available for the last 5 years. While the point I want to drive home can easily be extrapolated in terms of any particular class or branch also, I will go for the total picture only which will suffice to clearly show the divide of the haves and the have nots.

 

Some background : The placement scenario has changed drastically since 2014, when a new TPO was brought from outside by a new VC, breaking the long tradition and practice of JU. It was a desperate gamble for him which clicked like a nut and bolt. Seeing the early results and effects, the VC gave her complete freedom to operate, which angered all others soaked in the JU bureaucratic culture, before the VC himself had to go out due to some political reasons. But the history didn’t, it changed. The lady was in the corporate for nearly 2 decades and could swim in their culture and language like a fish, it was home for her. She was taken aback at first by the deep culture of internal politics in the Institute, often deeply nasty and coupled with very selfish and jealous mind-sets of the functionaries, but the tigress that she was as I heard from many sources, she fought back at this challenge with the highly professional capabilities and mind-set. She just ignored all the shackles and obstacles thrown at her and dived into her work with an animal instincts. Students who were completely alien to a TPO who thinks cares and fights for them like this developed a high trust and love for her, though she was stern with them on many issues, as they understood the caring and the purpose. She became a darling of the students in no time, much to the consternation of the authorities who have traditionally cared a fig for the students, rather than their own power and political games. But JU is a place where the students are the Kings, even the VCs don’t try to cross the paths with them, so she was at least safe from any drastic action from the jealous ones. And students were rewarded with sharply northward graphs of the placement parameters every year, both in quantity and quality. Companies who lost their patience before and decided not to come anymore, started coming back. New companies started coming and taking more than they had come for, often with better packages, after she was through in her negotiations. A new culture of relations and trust with the corporates started, they have found a TPO who really understood their need and culture.  Media started running after her to highlight the silver clouds, she became a mini-celebrity in a few years.

 

The culture of a Professor looking after the placement department is a tradition in most academic institutes, particularly the government ones, but the strong academic leanings and bent of mind provides a serious and severe handicap in dealing with the corporates which have quite a different need and aspirations than the academic ones. This is why it is said that the academic Institutions and the industry have very little interactions and commons in their ways and the chasm is so serious that only about 17% of the engineering graduates coming out in India are employable, found in various industry surveys and analysis. For the top IITs and IIMs it didn’t matter as many professors over there have high levels of interactions and relations with the industry, through short stints, consulting and industry-aided projects. This is a mini-scale of the USA culture where the industry have very high levels of give and takes with the academic Institutions and many top corporate bosses and also many Professors often take short sabbaticals to teach or work in the industry. For example, Prof. Sougata Ray, one of my Professors and a later dean in IIM-Calcutta, had taken a sabbatical for a year in 2013/14 and joined Infosys as their Strategic Advisor, at a total package of about 1.5 crores LPA, about 7-8 times of his the then salary. Prof. Krishna Kumar (KK), a legend and Guru of the gurus in the Strategic Management field in India (now Professor Emeritus in IIM Lucknow), had worked closely with many companies in his teaching career as consultant and religiously wrote case studies on the experiences. Prof. Ranjan Das, another legend in this field and now Emeritus Professor in IIM-Calcutta, had a career spanning more than 2 decades in the industry before coming to teaching, though he did his fellowship in IIM Ahmedabad in the same period with Professor KK.  Also, in IIMs and IITs, the push-sales is not at all required, the alumni has a high pull strength and the companies don’t have much space to dictate, rather they vie with others to get a few students with the stamp itself. The tremendous grinding, as I have experienced in the IIM myself, also change the mind-set and work ethic (and ambition and dedication for sure) of the students, they had to already prove their mettle once for just getting into those places. That provides him a different type of confidence to dictate terms to the interviewing companies. Do they really need any TPO at all for except the liaison and administration? The challenge for this job in the other Institutes are far greater and needs different levels of approach altogether.

 

But in all other Institutes, the concept of applying an academic, who are mostly devoid of any corporate experience at all, to the placement function is a folly in itself. They often do not understand or appreciate that more than the academic knowledge or marks, it is the mindset and soft transferable skills and the creative aspects of a student is much more vital for corporate success or effectiveness. Before being an academic, nearly one and a half decade of corporate experience has taught me how industry operates and why. With more and more thrust on the application rather than raw knowledge in this google world where you don’t need to memorise anything, with the traditional industries like Steel and Oil are sagging and the virtual companies created on just a creative idea become some of the richest overnight, it is high time the academics try to understand what all thing truly matter. It is no more the world of Carnegie or Rothschild, it is the age of Gates and Zuckerberg and Bezos. Mukesh Ambani, of reliance Industries that was traditionally a Petroleum giant and has leapt successfully into Telecom and Retail, represents the bridge between the two worlds. The rich man of India after 40 years of the business history has transformed into one of the richest man of the world in the last 4 years only. Ambani empire may have the ruthless ambition earning him a lot of detractors and critics, but the way he pulled out an investment of 1.5 Lac crores out of the purse of some of the world’s best companies and investors for his companies, is no less than a coup in the world business.

Now, lets come to the issue of edge, the relative strength of one student over another or all other competitor for a particular position. As the rankings in the entrance examination is not very different among the students here or for a particular branch, the basic intelligence level is more or less assured. Usually companies try to take a written test also, mostly with some fundamental questions on the subjects coupled with the IQ sort of questions, basically to conform or force a basic level of understanding and as an elimination procedure. But the real questions and the most vital issues come after that. What criteria will be put in the interview levels? Will they ask subject questions or try to test the attitudinal parameters so vital for the business? For the high-paying companies, the interview levels are graded into several rounds, to test the creative abilities, the thinking capabilities and the characteristic traits, besides the obvious, aspects of the soft skills including the communication ability, which is one of the most crucial need for success in the corporate world in the 21^st century.

 

While traditionally we have relied on the marks to try to understand the level of a student, with that mindset handicap, we can try to analyse the kind of salaries the students get in the campus placement nowadays (running average/ trend of the last 2 years) to understand the aspect of relative edge of the groups of students over the other groups.

Out of the approx.. 700 students, disregarding the non-IT non-circuit and non-core branches, generally have 90% and above placements, many of them also acquiring multiple offers, though there are rules restricting the number of offers they can take. The salary range and the approximate number of the students acquiring them provides a fascinating view to the point I am striving to drive home.

 

Salary Range (in LPA)	No. of students	Example of Companies
35 -50	5	Microsoft, Google
25-35	20	Amazon, Adobe, Uber, ZS, Facebook etc.
15-25	70-80	Many
8-15	150	Many, including higher profiles of the Mass recruiter cos., Some PSUs
5-8	200	Many, including many core sector cos
4-5	Rest	Mass recruiters like TCS, Infosys, Wipro, PWC, Capgemini etc.

 

It is too apparent that though the students had entered on comparable rankings in the entrance exams, all are not equal after the years are over. Take a student who is joining at say, 35 LPA. His next increment will fetch him a rise of about 4 Lacs which is the whole year’s compensation for many of his/her fellow students in the same Institute. I personally know a student, passed out 2 years ago from CS dept, is working in Microsoft. He started at 40, which has become nearly 50 after an increment and a later promotion, at the age of 24 only. Most of his classmates even could not even think of nearing anywhere. But this guy was smart and has a high ambition. He started a start-up with a few friends in the 3rd ^year itself. The start-up was almost a non-starter for then, but the year of pain and trying had earned him an obvious edge that soared him in the Microsoft interview. That now provides him an annual increment of more than the annual salary of most other engineering graduates even in the companies with that haloed name and fame that the parents smirk about.

 

It’s a good time the parents really understood the new world order.

~P.S. Update in December 2022 - 

 The 2021-22 placement results provide an extension in my point. While the lower strata remains more or less in the same arena, slightly better, the upper echelon has changed drastically, making the divide even bigger. Will just give the top level results gist : 

1 Crore + offers - 13 (11 students), all International. 

Highest offer - 2.08 Crores (Google London) (Very important fact is that this was grabbed by a guy from Production Engineering, and not CS or IT, who also bagged   Meta London offer and Google revised his terms twice to beat Meta original and revised offers

Highest domestic offer - 65 Lacs (Apple) - 5 students

40 Lacs + - 50 Students 

I think this speaks enough :)