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 :) 

Survive from the stupid media management

 

(As most of my readers are International, they can skip this post as this is purely focussed on the Indian politics. My apology for the inconvenience)

The above picture has been posted in facebook from a fake Id created by the Vote-Guru Prashant Kishore's team. PK has engaged thousands of boys, all paid temporary positions, to fight it out in the social media for the 2021 election in WB, India. 

I strongly believe that it is absolutely crucial that BJP must come to power in West Bengal in 2021, for a hundred reasons, for the health of his beloved state and even survival in a few key areas. Because of certain aspects, that will call for all hands on deck, no quarters given nor asked and fight to the last man standing. 

I would like to focus on a simple but crucial factors that goes a long way towards a high velocity war, Media (and image Management)

I will start with an analogy. Being in IT sector for nearly one and a half decade, I keenly watched Infosys for both sectoral and the investor view.  I narrowly missed being in it, as I stood second in their terrific written exam (the most difficult I have ever given) and stood 2^nd in Kolkata, still they couldn’t take me because I was awfully stupid in the interview. Anyway, in spite of the huge image of the co. from all aspects including the ethical ground and the corresponding Godly status of Narayana Murthy, I made a conclusion that Infosys has done a tremendously strategic image management of the same, a highly unusual and brilliant one. Just for example, in an interview in 2000 or 2001, Murthy explained he will only keep 5% of the wealth for their children and give the rest to charity. I later kept track how in every ADR exercise, Murthy and other promoters have squeezed thousands of crores selling some of their shares, which in any case, grew exponentially with huge options, while at the lower levels the co. simply acted like a ruthless sweatshop, I heard the stories from friends who worked there. How the image was used? To get lots of orders through the halo of authority, ethics and quality. One example will suffice. When I was in Siemens, in 2004, we were after a big order in Australia. My Boss, the head of Kolkata Center who also headed the Insurance practice, went to Australia to fight it out as we were in the last phase of it, with TCS and Infosys as main competitors, Wipro and Satyam were already out. Just the day before going, I got a call from him, that what is the point in going, Infosys will get it. I said why ? We are T1 and the commercial you can always tune a bit !! He said, I just saw in the news that Murthy has gone there and the PM Howard has given a dinner in his honour. End of story.

The same could be surmised regarding our great Mahatma who, in spite of many virtues, was evidently in possession of many ill traits and misdeeds. My father always made him accountable for making Nehru the PM and being ruthlessly insensitive to the plight of crores of hapless Bengalis and Punjabis in the partition, the greed for power conveniently forgetting how crores of the people were massacred and made worse than beggars overnight.

Now lets come to the topic in hand.

In terms of media policy, Mamata has given 10 goals to her detractors. Sly and cunning, ruthlessly selfish and jealously dictatorial, she always understood the issue of blowing the trumpets, even with laughable lies, in a Goebbelsian manner. She has tried to control the whole print and TV media in the state by hook or crook, stick or carrot or anything else. She has brought newspapers (with the cutmoney of course), forced the chit fund owners to spend on media and channels that will constantly blow the trumpet for Trinamool and given many sops or favours to some important journalists so that they are bought and obligated for the rest of the life. Media house owners, even the biggest ones like ABP groups were told in no uncertain terms that it’s my way or highway. Hundreds of crores of advertisements are given to them every year, and the owners, ultimately businessmen and not the Don Quixote after the windmills, have all fallen in line, The spineless boot-licking media make a lot of hulla-boo over a rape in any BJP ruled state (like Hathras is there for 2 pages over the major papers today) with the same incidents in the state (3 major rape cum murder in 2 days) conveniently ignored and overlooked.

BJP, very sadly, is very low-scoring on this and whatever little it thinks, is poorly implemented in terms of reaching to the masses with your own version. In politics, right and wrong, even truth and lies, depend heavily on the interpretation of the masses and what they want to believe. I have told this in many forums and still found no serious intent. This is a crucial aspect which can cost BJP 10 tightly fought seats, that could be valued at a 100 crores if they have to trade later. Why not spend a fraction of that to get huge publicity advantage now ?  There is absolutely no replacement for propaganda, right or fake. Do the leaders think people will try a lot and give a lot of effort to know their versions ? I find the neglecting attitude towards this tremendously powerful tool in politics an absolute stupidity. Or should BJP depend on people like Sanmoy Banerjee who is fighting like the lone wolf (Kumbha rather ?) against this government despite the attacks on him too ? And the small channels like Arambag TV who is a small fry but a crusader on a small scale. After being given 7 false cases by the police and kept in custody for more than 2 months, he is a little tired but still not enough intimidated,. BJP at least needed one paper, even a tabloid of 4 page only, one youtube channel in the line of Banglar Barta of Sanmoy Banerjee, and one TV channel. There are many small youtube channels like Bharatdarshan (of Dr. Anirban Ganguly) and others but they simply have such a low subscriber base that no major effect is expected. They simply cannot stand for the wider reach and influence on the mind of the common people who don’t have access or the time for these channels.

In the social media policy also BJP has scored poorly. This is another poorly handled area where ill treatment of the brave and dedicated ideological warriors is the norm. TMC has been relegated far behind in this space for quite a few years, because the BJP supporters are not mercenaries  and fight for their deep ideological dedication and conviction, but TMC (read PK) has lately woken up to the fact and uses a pretty big team now who are capable and well-paid. For this samurai brigade, I believe that a huge part of the credit for the Loksabha elections (where he publicly predicted in facebook a tally of 13-19 seats) should go to them also. And BJP leadership simply ignore and neglect the brigade, most of whom are highly educated, intelligent and dedicated to the point of being indoctrinated. Lacs of people have jumped the fence in the last few years simply because of the hurricane presence of the BJP social media brigade. They should at least be thanked, sometimes.

BJP has to look responsible to the mass, to really look a sought after change agent. Even intent is not enough, it has to look purer than the Caesar’s wife. Much before the actual manifesto is made, some major policies have to be decided upon, and should be voiced time and being, one at a time only, by a few top leaders only. This strategy has a tremendous potential to shut up the fence-sitters and apprehensions, also to make a serious difference to the perceived future under BJP. Properly used, this can be a huge differential, pointing out the biggest deficiencies of the current government as well as how life will be changed under BJP.

BJP is having a very high stake in 2021, because if they lose by any chance, all will be lost for the hindu Bengali populace. This has to be a red flag war, no hostages taken, no quarters given nor asked, it must be a fight to the finish. It just cannot play any percentage. Then, why should we wait for the announcement of elections and then start preaching? They have to get the people on their side much before that, and win the battle even before it actually starts. Covid is a very unfortunate affair, but as she has mishandled it tremendously, we have come back to the field actually. As BJP is somewhat weak in the field and also exposure, they cannot just throw away this opportunity. This may be quite fatal. Having people support is one thing and winning an election is another. BJP should not wait for the election campaign, people should wait for the election so that they can teach Mamata a lifetime lesson.

Because of the weakness of BJP in transmission and desemination of information, Mamata has always been able to eat all the credit of all the good measures of the center. The sticker politics has it's toll in the minds of the rural people, but it is BJP’s discredit that they have not been able to push the issue further. This is a very potent area to call the huge bluffs and lies of her. E.g. BJP can start a block/ booth-level awareness campaign (with the state-level created strategy and materials like leaflets and small books) to create awareness about all the central benefits and how the state people are being deprived of them, by theft, by cut-money, by blocking access (like Ayushman, Farmer cash relief, One nation one ration etc). This will work wonders in the rural areas, no doubt. Photos should be included to show how the central work signboards of the rice bags are pasted with new stickers. This exercise will simply knock the bottom of too many lies that she is trying to create or make-believe for quite a few years.

Even the influence of Ganashakti, mouthpiece of CPM in the state, is commendable and even more, considering their voter base has come down to 7% now. Mamata has learnt fast on each of the strategies of CPM and used them to the hilt for her own purpose after customisation. 

BJP, alas, does not want to learn. It only wants to win !!