Tribute to that master story teller - K Balachander

As 2014 came to an end, so did the life of one of the greatest film directors of the Tamil movie industry - K Balachander. Though KB, as he popularly called carved out masterpieces in several Indian languages (Hindi, Telugu etc.,), his legacy lives on mainly through his Tamil masterpieces. Over the years, I have had the wonderful opportunity to watch many of his movies and have just been stuck by the sheer simplicity with which he conveyed his messages powerfully. KB's legacy as a director spanned 5 decades ranging from the 1960s to 2006 and ranged from simple adorable comedies to movies with hard hitting social messages that were well ahead of their times. In this tribute, I am going to provide my view on which was the top movie in each decade and the rationale for the same. A full filmography is available here

1960s

This was really the decade of the lovely comedies which even today would put a smile on fast paced Next-Generation like Bama Vijayam, Anubavi Raja Anubavi, Ethir Neechal, Poova Thalaiya amongst others. Over the decade, KB came out with slightly more serious topics with interesting screenplays like in Major Chandrakant, Iru Kodukal (which focused on the dilemma faced by a man who due to circumstances gets married to 2 women, one of whom comes back to be his boss). My vote however goes for his directorial debut Neerkumizhi which starts of a subtle comedy but then morphs into an emotionally charged screenplay leading to a touching climax. Over the decade, KB also made that famous comedian Nagesh into a brilliant actor.

1970s

KB's movies in the 1970s were a reflection of the times. The 70s in some terms signified the coming of age of India as the nation grappled with increasing levels of unemployment, Emergency and the initial signs of rebellion against social evils. KB's movies during this decade focused significantly on the Indian women and the challenges faced by them. Arangetram focussed on a woman who decides to become a prostitute to support her family. Avargal focussed on the challenges of a single mother (separated from her sadistic husband) who tries to make meaning of her life. Maro charithra (later remade as Ek Duje ke liye in Hindi) focussed on inter-caste marriage. Nizhal Nijamagiradhu focussed on a servant girl who is sexually exploited by her employer. My vote however goes for Aval Oru Thodar Kathai which focused on a woman's singular journey to keep her family moving amidst several challenges. It also introduced to Tamil cinema, an explosive actress Sujatha who in several respects embodied a modern Indian woman. One of the best parts in the movie which was presented in such a subtle manner was the way how Sujatha manages her sexual feelings when her sister and her husband (who has been a former lover of Sujatha) consummate their marriage. The dialogues were raw and well ahead of their times. This was also the time, that KB introduced and chiseled 2 of his most famous proteges - Kamal Hassan and Rajanikanth who would go on to be superstars and legends in their own right

1980s

This decade was a mixed bag ranging from films that focused on social issues - Varumai Niram Sigappu, Unnal Mudiyum Thambi, Achamillai Achamillai, Kalyana Agathigal, Thaneer Thaneer. to wonderful comedies like Thillu Mullu to strong screenplays like Sindhu Bhairavi. What remained consistent however was the sublimity with which KB crafted his screenplay and extracted fantastic performances from even fairly mediocre or lesser known artists.  My vote here goes for Varumai Niram Sigappu which portrayed the challenges faced by 3 youngsters amidst an era of unemployment and despair. I personally think that this was Kamal Hassan's greatest performance where for once, he played a character rather than himself. 

1990s

This decade was when KB morphed into more of a mentor or a role model for several next-gen directors like Mani Ratnam who did take leaves out of the maestro's books.I also felt that this was the time that age caught up with the master.  While he didn't lose his skill, his audience had evolved. Oru Veedu Iru Vaasal was quite a masterpiece in storytelling on highlighting the state of different sets of women ranging from the uneducated house-help to the sophisticated and erudite ones. Vaname Yellai was quite ingenious on the frustrations being faced by youngsters and was reflective of the early 90s when the Indian Economy was just opening up. However in my view, the best KB movie of the decade was Kalki which was taken to the cleaners by the critics and the audience alike for its bold theme. The way the protagonist made the chauvinistic Prakash Raj (another KB-introduced talent) repent for his hitherto mistakes was brilliant and was a strong reflection of woman power. 

2000s

As the maestro moved into his 70s and beyond, the handful of movies that he directed in this decade did not pay any tribute to his enormous repertoire. So nothing much here. 

Just like all great artistes, KB will remain immortal for future generations through his  movies. His movies are a good reflection of the times in which they were taken and for any tamil movie lover, they offer rich content conveyed in the most subtle manner through a combination of strong screenplay and character development. 

RIP KB Sir !!!. 

Defining the problem statement is really half the problem solved. How profound and how so easily not followed?

Some years ago, I was attending as a participant in a workshop for new managers. One of the sessions was a case driven one where a group of us were asked to work on a business problem and come out with solutions. The case was about a firm that was the market leader in mattresses and which has been losing market share rather heavily over the past couple of years and was looking for solutions to arrest the trend. There were a number of items mentioned in the 10 page case study including market information, financials, product variants etc., Our group was a diverse one with folks primarily from a technology background. We had a 1 hour slot to come out with some options. 

Barely had we started reading the case, when one of the guys who was the oldest in the group and who had been a Siebel CRM consultant started out

Siebel Consultant: “Guys, this is a ridiculous waste of time. The solution is to implement Siebel CRM and move on. That should just help them get market share. I have done 7 Siebel implementations and every time the market share of the firms increased.“

“Hold on” came a rather harsh voice. It was a close acquaintance of mine who at that point in time had been asked to build a SAP Practice.

SAP Consultant: “SAP has just launched some cool features that will help their call center executives get upto date order information as it seamlessly integrates with the SAP SD and FICO modules”

I was furiously running through the pages to see if I saw the word “SAP” anywhere as I wanted to see where my SAP mate had got this rather interesting information. Another thing that intrigued me was the issue around call center executives for a firm which sells mattresses. Well stranger things have happened and I just listened to the group continue. It was now the turn of the Open Source guy, a Java expert to talk out

Java Expert:”Come on folks. The future is all about open source technology. While the packaged tools have their advantages, you need Java folks to build the interfaces to the legacy applications to ensure smooth flow of data”

The last part of the straw was the data warehousing expert who was skilled in a rather rare skill at that time (Ab Initio).

Ab Initio Expert: “Remember all these implementations are useless unless the management can have robust reports. Make sure that you include that as part of your solution”

Within a few minutes, what was mooted as a business problem became a technical architecture piece as each of the guys started talking about different ways to implement the system. 

The meek “generalist” in me was overwhelmed with all this technical know-how and watched the drama unfold. One of the guys was actually polite enough to ask me about what I felt. I started out by saying “Should we probably look at the case to help define the problem”. This was met with a startled “You moron” looks and the group returned to their animated conversation.

When it was time to present, the CRM Expert proudly went to the board and announced “Our group has discussed the case and we think that Siebel is the way to go. We should implement a Siebel solution which will interface through Java interfaces with the SAP modules and support it with a strong reporting system in Ab Initio to provide management with the necessary reports to take the right decisions.” He then went on to describe how this can be implemented in a rather accelerated fashion using some assets (that his team has developed).  He finished it with a rather arrogant flourish which seemed to indicate “This is just too simple for my level”

Our arbitrator who was a management consultant took a few minutes to digest the information and then started out what was actually a profound response.

“Team, excellent solution. But can somebody just tell me as to what problem is this solution intended to solve? If you had bothered to look at this case properly, you would have noticed that it is about a mattress company that is losing market share. It is also rather intuitive that Mattress firms don’t sell their products through a call center. A little bit of analysis on their financials and product portfolio would have told you that. And you are telling me that you want to implement a Siebel-Java-SAP-Ab-initio solution which will generate reports that will very likely tell me the info that I already have today?”

While this may appear rather intuitive, this kind of behavior is increasingly becoming the norm today. People are ever so eager to apply their skills on problems that they don’t bother to define the problem in the first place. As my boss once said “This is akin to a doctor who performs a heart surgery on a patient (because he is a surgeon) only to realize that the patient actually came to him for a common cold”

A close pal of mine who is looking for the next big job opportunity thinks that getting his resume updated by an expert will probably help him get that coveted job. Again a great solution but what is the problem that he is trying to solve? Does he have evidence that his existing resume is sub-standard? Not really but somebody mentioned it as a solution which has got his thinking going.

Problem definition is the first and the most important step in any problem solving exercise. It is very important to hold on to solution finding till we have probably defined the problem. But any good problem definition requires the participants to analyze the landscape fully and come out with the right facts that would help put the jigsaw of the problem in perspective. Many a times, people come to the table with half-done analysis and then try to define the problem in a haphazard manner which further confounds the problem solving. A common mistake is to identify a symptom and conclude that it is the problem. A headache is rarely a problem but is a symptom. The problem for this symptom could be as drastic as a brain tumor or as simple as not having had adequate breakfast. To identify which is the problem, the physician has to systematically go through the diagnosis including analyzing various medical reports. Only then is a solution recommended.

A systematic approach to problem definition will go a long way in finding the right solutions to the problems. It will take effort but it will be well worth it as very often than not, solutions turn out to be very simple once the problem has been properly defined.

Too big to fail? Is that a healthy place to be in?

Over the last few weeks, I have heard the audio book of Too Big To Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin as well as watched the movie based on the same book, which outlines with some good insights on the 2008 credit crisis, the actions/intentions of the various key players involved and the catharsis which started with the fall of Bear Stearns and ended with the massive bailout of the financial industry by the US government through the TARP Plan. Towards the end of the movie, Cynthia Nixon (of Sex and the City fame) who essays the role of Michelle Davis(who was at that time, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, Public Relations) makes an interesting comment on the bankers resistance to participate in the TARP plan which kind of put things in perspective.

“These guys bring down the entire financial system. And we can’t impose any restrictions on the money that we give them to stabilize themselves because they won’t take it”

The comment is quite profound and quite bewildering to a normal observer but it comes as no surprise to those who have been through the “Too big to fail”(TBTF) phenomenon. Corporate as well as world history is littered with organizations (political/corporal/military) which also grew to a position of being TBTF and then came crashing down in spectacular fashion. The empire of Alexander, the Roman empire, Hitler’s 3rd Reich, the Soviet Union are quite a few that come to mind instantly. The corporate world especially over the last couple of decades is littered with Enron, Worldcom, Bear Sterns, Long Term Capital Management(LTCM), Lehman Brothers, AIG to name a few.

Looking at the rhetoric around “Too big to fail” makes me wonder if this exalted position is really something that an organization should aspire to achieve. Well, it does offer some compelling benefits

• Gives it unique arbitrage (read bullying) opportunities. Gives it additional leverage to arm twist competitors/suppliers/employees and even customers. (Does anybody remember Enron and California?)
• Gives it an opportunity to become a monopoly
• Aids it to influence government policies.
• Offers greater opportunities to gobble up (read M&A) smaller competitors.
• Offer additional/new pockets to hide losses/misappropriations as much as possible
• Sell the “success story” to an extent that the halo around tends to sound like the real truth.
• Does keep the shareholders happy. However bear in mind, the shareholders that matter to the corporate are only the institutional investors who buy in chunk and not the singular retail investors.

However the biggest learning from history is that almost all of these benefits are “short term pleasures” and the support structures that help create these benefits are extremely fragile.  A organization which is reaching the TBTF position also inherits the following pains which significantly dwarfs the short term pleasures specified above

• They become fat and sloppy (like some of who are fighting a losing battle against body weight). They lose the ability to be agile to market changes. Even if they are, getting the entire organization to turn rapidly around proves almost gargantuan
• The arrogance which comes naturally with the TBTF position leaves tons of bad taste/enmity in the entire ecosystem. The TBTF corporate inherits the maximum number of folks who actually want to see it fail.
• Leaves the corporate open to leaks all over the place. The sheer size means that the possibility of leaks increases almost exponentially. A significant amount of senior leadership effort goes away in handling the leaks as opposed to thinking about the future (The story about Westinghouse is a good example of this phenomenon)
• Ultimately leads the management to adopt a ponzi scheme. Whether it is Hitler’s policy to keep the war machinery going in the 1930s in Germany (and building the halo of a post-depression growth explosion) or Enron trading its energy products in the form of spurious derivatives or the complex mortgage based derivative instruments that created the credit crisis, all of the TBTFs have ultimately landed themselves in ponzi schemes

So who really benefited from the TBTF firms? It is probably the rich banking fraternity or the leadership of these firms which ripped the firm off during its heydays by getting dividends/fat salaries/bonuses or capital gains by buying at a low and selling at a high (by getting insider information). The rest of the ecosystem(The employees, customers, supplier, retail investors) has had to deal with the excreta left behind due to these excesses.

Interestingly another lesson that history teaches us is that this phenomenon never really goes away. As Gordon Gekko (played so adeptly by Michael Douglas in Wall Street) says “Greed is good”, the anger after the fall of a TBTF firm is invariably replaced by investment in another similar entity which then over the next decade attains the TBTF state and then the next disaster happens.

Research done in this area like the ones documented very articulately in the book “Built To Last” by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras does allude to the fact that the more successful or enduring firms have been the ones that have learnt from these mistakes and have learnt to stay agile even if it means that they don’t reach TBTF status. Wall Street is of course a strong exception to this rule. Another recent movie that I watched, “Margin Call” illustrates this very well. Towards the end of the movie, when the CEO of the fictional wall street firm, talks to his head of trading portrayed by Kevin Spacey, he talks about the different disasters (read crashes) that have enveloped Wall Street ever so often and how that the Wall street firms are helpless. They seem to have made a business of just creating products and services which lay the basis for the next crisis. The ones that survive the crashes are so greedy to make money from the opportunities that arise from the recovery that they achieve TBTF status very fast by indulging in a number of activities(many of which are beyond scruples) geared to make sufficient money to survive the next crisis.  However they may also be reaching their nadir as this time around, they needed Japanese/Middle East/Chinese financial institutions to actually bail them out this time.

So the key question for corporate leaders or governments is that whether they want to reach the TBTF status? How often do we say “How the mighty have fallen”?

How well do we harness the power of listening?

The following is a recent conversation between a boss and a subordinate who are working at multiple options at diffusing a critical situation

Subordinate: I have analyzed the situation and there are 2 possible options. Option 1 costs C1 and provides benefits B1, B2 and B3. Option 2 costs C2 (which is greater than C1) and provides benefits B1, B2, B4, B5. In my opinion, we should go for Option 1

Boss: Good analysis. I would still recommend that we go for Option 2 because cost is not a major consideration at this stage. Further the client has specified that B4 and B5 are an absolute must while the other benefits are nice to have.

Subordinate: I totally agree with you. However I think that we should go for option 1 as C1 as it costs us less.

Boss (a little surprised but still retains his cool): Did you listen to what I said? The client definitely needs B4 and B5 and so option 2 is the way to go.

Subordinate: I completely agree with you. Nevertheless we as a firm don’t sometimes understand that cost is the main problem with our operations. So we should go with option 1

Boss (now getting irritated): Ok, I don’t think that you are listening to me. Further I don’t want to lose any more time. I have made the decision. Please proceed with Option 2.

Subordinate (now animated): I totally agree with you. But I think we should explore Option 1.

Boss (now close to bursting out): Time out buddy!!!. Get going with option 2 and if you can’t do it, I will get another guy to do it.

Subordinate (goes out grumpy and murmuring to himself): This idiot!!! Doesn’t listen to reason. He has no respect for individual views. And finally takes a silly decision.

I am sure that people would agree that the above is not a unique situation  and that all of us have faced this quite often. Many times, we have been the grumpy subordinate and at a number of times, have been the boss who has to try hard to make reason with his subordinate. Interestingly both the boss and subordinate in most cases are intelligent and sensible individuals who have the best interests of the stakeholders. But then what causes this discord?

The more I think of it, I begin to come to the conclusion that the primary culprit in this case (who, in my view is the subordinate) and in general in other similar cases is the inability to listen to what the other person says. For instance in the above example, the subordinate who has every right to disagree with his boss is not engaging in a constructive dialogue for the following reasons

• He first wants to be seen as an understanding person and starts the conversation by saying "I agree with you". A few other euphemisms that are in vogue are "I hear you". If he really did agree with what the boss said, there was no reason for any further debate. That is a first indication that while he has been hearing to what his boss said, he has not been listening.

• The boss who in general must have a better understanding of the bigger picture has specified clearly that the client is looking for only B4 and B5 and that cost is not a major consideration at this stage. The subordinate could have disagreed with this and pointed out why he disagreed with this hypothesis. Instead he again starts with "I agree with you but". This only irritates the boss as it is very clear to him that the subordinate is not listening.

• In essence, the subordinate is fixated on the solution and feels passionately about it but not on the problem. This is good but then any solution needs to be assessed with respect to what is the problem that is being handled. Defining the scope of the problem is always the first step to defining the right solution.

I believe that this behavior seems to be getting more and more common in today’s world because in the quest to make our voice heard, we have forgotten to listen to somebody else's voice. Yes, it is important to speak your mind, let people know what is your point of view but what is more important than all of this is to clearly know your audience and then present the proposition to the audience in such a way that ensures that the right decision to come out. We have to remember that debate is not a monologue and listening to an argument is sometimes more important than commenting/reacting to it.  Increasingly I find myself mediating in situations where for some funny reasons, both warring parties keep saying exactly the same point of view but keep arguing because neither is willing to listen to the other. Very often, the only thing that I do is to create an environment where each of the parties are given an option to articulate their position and the other party has to acknowledge/disagree point by point rather than jump to generalizations or past history. Invariably once this is done, both the parties are able to come to a logical understanding pretty quickly.

Sometimes, a position of belligerence or an extreme point of view is adopted in a controlled position so as to dictate the proceedings of a negotiation. In this case, even the person taking the stand is listening to the others but is sticking to a definite point of view with an ulterior motive. Even in these cases, listening effectively will help us get a few clues on how to diffuse the stalemate. Not listening at all and just hearing the words is only going to move things to an argumentative and rhetoric stalemate from where recovery is almost always exceptionally painful than if the receiver listened to the argument with an open mind and responded appropriately. We will have to remember that disagreements are absolutely welcome and highly respected as long as the disagreeing party lays it out in a sensible manner and after providing due respect to the person with whom he is disagreeing with.

Listening is not a sign of weakness. On the contrary, it has immense potential and the folks how have harnessed its power are definitely better influencers than the ones who just stop at hearing and go on the aggressive only to find that it has not got them anywhere.  But is anybody listening?

Does Fear of Failure(FOF) ultimately makes us a loser?

As I was wading through the maddening Chennai traffic en-route to work, a familiar sight greeted me. An auto rickshaw driver blatantly came on the wrong side of the road and bludgeoned his way through the traffic (with absolutely no regard for the anguish it was causing the other folks on the road) only to get stuck at the next signal. The interesting point is that he would probably have reached the same point even if he had followed the traffic rules. This set me thinking on what triggers this kind of behavior. Many of us are familiar with the concepts of the zero-sum game and the Prisoner's dilemma which are principles that do dictate human behavior by piggy-backing on one of mankind's pet phobia - The Fear Of Failure (FOF)

Thinking aloud, one begins to wonder if we are all victims of FOF in some way or the other. Our lives, habits and behavior are getting increasingly determined by not what we really want but by the peer pressure or competition which are nothing but manifestations of FOF. Andy Grove in his landmark book "Only the paranoid survive" advocated the need for firms and individuals alike to reinvent themselves so that they can be relevant to the markets or enterprises that they serve. To ensure that this is followed, he had propagated that both firms/individuals should be paranoid about the next wave that is coming and ensure that they ride the wave. Through FOF, we seem to be carrying this principle to rather ridiculous levels. Increasingly employees are getting upset not by their ratings but about better ratings that their colleagues obtain. They want to get promoted not because they performed well but because some other guy is getting promoted. Even parents or grandparents fall victims to this phenomenon as they indulge in a competition to showcase the achievements of their little kids. I came to know of an acquaintance who claimed that his 3-year old grandson could actually boil vegetables (LOL). In the name of competition or even innovation, we are slowly but surely becoming like the auto rickshaw driver. The key point to note is that this attitude did not really propel the driver to beat the traffic. As more people started adopting the same, it only lead to chaos and the driver actually had to spend more effort to reach the same point which he could have very well got to with minimal effort by following the traffic rules in the first place. Firms are no different. Advertising for instance is becoming more and more mean with firms trying to portray the virtues of their products by pointing out not what they have but by pointing to what their competition does not have.  As more and more folks start doing the same, the competitive edges start getting diluted leading people to an even higher level of FOF.

FOF ensures that its advocates stay in a constant state of tension. They need to be aware of all that their peers or colleagues are doing. In many a case, this state of tension makes them undertake immoral/unethical practices that possibly may help them get some temporary competitive edge but ultimately does take its toll in different ways. Paul Coelho in his masterpiece “The alchemist” mentions that "If you try hard enough, the whole universe conspires to get it done for you”. While I subscribe to this view, I also believe in the fact that “The universe manages to retain the balance by ensuring that with every gain, there is always a loss”. In a war, every inch of land is gained through loss of lives. In most business, every marginal point increase in market share seems to come with ever increasing costs that sometimes seems to be dilute the business case for the increase in market share. Every penny obtained through illegal means brings with it a loss of peace of mind. By being victims of FOF, the practitioners do gain temporary fame or quick wins, but generally tend to lose their peace of mind or state of health.

In my personal experience, I have found that discarding this FOF gives one the tremendous confidence to do the right thing. One still has to subscribe to the rules that govern but the amount of support that the universe provides is just amazing. However discarding this attitude is not very easy and at best, I have been able to stay clear of it for weeks if not months. It does have a funny way of reinforcing its ugly head once too often.

It is indeed times like this that I keep telling my 7-month old daughter “never to grow up” lest she be engulfed in the flame of FOF. I am sure that excellence can be achieved without FOF. And that possibly is the way to make the world a better place as we would all be better human beings. But is anybody listening? After all it is time we replace the "what's in it for me?" with "what is the right thing to do?"

First Available Reason:- Do we take it too FAR?

Over the last several years, i have been exposed to an interesting phenomenon which seems gives a rational explanation to some of the irrational aspects of human behavior. I should thank my boss at work, a very wise man who triggered this thought process. This phenomenon is what i would refer to as FAR - First Available Reason.

Whenever a human is asked to provide a rationale for his decision/judgment, FAR invariably kicks in and we get into an endless mechanism of excuses/explanations which collectively sometimes makes sense but unfortunately fudges the point of view. A simple illustration is as follows:

"A subordinate is expected to be in the office at 9:00 AM in the morning for a client meeting. At 8:45, he calls up his boss to mention that he is stuck in a traffic jam and so can't make it to the meeting"

Upfront the excuse seems reasonable. However to understand FAR, you need to read between the words. The main thing to focus on here is the word "so". Without the so, the statement is fairly innocuous and is just a status update. The "so" transforms the sentence into a "cause and effect" syndrome. Here is where FAR kicks in. The subordinate is pretty clear that the reason why he is late for the meeting is because of the traffic jam. However his boss is aware of the FAR phenomenon and so decides to have a nice chat with him. Here is how it goes

Boss: "Hmm, traffic jam eh? Interesting! So where was the traffic jam?"

FAR subordinate: "Oh, it was near the airport.”

Boss: "At what time, did u get to the airport?"

FAR subordinate: "Well, at about 8:40"Boss: "Is it the usual route that you take from home?"

FAR subordinate: "Oh yeah. It is. I am an expert on this route. The traffic jam around this time is absolutely dreadful. The police don't seem to want to do anything and keep frustrating us every day"

Boss: "Indeed you are an expert. So i am sure you would know that the airport is about 35 minutes from our office even if the road was absolutely empty".

FAR subordinate: "Absolutely. I always hated our management team for putting up our office so far"

Boss: "So let me get this straight.

• You take the same route everyday
• You are aware of the fact that you will hit a traffic jam at a specific spot at a specific time
• You are aware that even if there was no traffic jam, you could still not make it your appointment.
• You also know in advance at what time was appointment.
• Still the traffic jam is the main reason why you could not make it to office in time today?"

FAR subordinate: "No, No, No. I think it is our management that doesn't seem to understand that we have to travel so far.”

Boss (with a smirk): "Oh, that makes sense. So it is our management that screwed up things and made it difficult for you to attend the meeting today. But I understand that you were among the guys who preferred this office as opposed to the one downtown which was not that spacious.”

FAR subordinate (now stuttering): "Of course, of course. To be honest, the real reason why i am late is actually the irresponsibility of the traffic police. They are so callous to the challenges faced by us and don't want to do anything about it. They are a disgrace to our nation.”

As one can see, in such a situation, the FAR phenomenon does provide some explanation for the ridiculous responses of the subordinate.

• The subordinate decided that the FAR - "the traffic jam" was why he couldn't make it to office on time.
• When his boss made him realize that the traffic jam was an expected event, the FAR became the "The management which decided to put up a office so far"
• When his boss again made him realize that the subordinate was an advocate for the current office, the FAR became "The irresponsibility of the police" and further the "the police have become the disgrace of the nation".

Normally the FAR cycle does continue till a point where the subordinate runs shot of excuses or does figure out the actual reason. In this case, the actual reason was that he had actually forgotten about the meeting and started for office in his usual time. When he got a reminder on his cellphone that he had a meeting at 9:00 (15 minutes before the meeting), that is when he realized his predicament and decided that the traffic jam was the cause for the problem.

Now this situation is not unusual and manifests itself in every walk of life. I have also been a victim of FAR for however long i can remember. However recently, i have realized a couple of things as the reasons for FAR

• An inherent hesitation to take responsibility for our actions
• An inclination towards self pity which subsequently becomes a comfort zone where poorly developed habits reside
• A desperate need to transfer the blame on to extraneous factors.
• Trying to find reasons to justify the point of view, just to satisfy our ego

So do we take FAR too far? I think so and this results in a number of unnecessary side-effects

• Breakdown of trust and credibility
• Unnecessary mental tension as we focus our mind towards finding the next FAR rather than sort out things in a rational way
• Poor problem solving skills. This results in poor judgments that can impact our life in fairly dramatic and painful ways.
• Sometimes, it can affect our families and subordinates and can dictate their behaviors as well. Just as mosquitos transmit malaria from person to person, we do transfer negative behavior very easily over our spheres of influence.
• Also often results in incomplete solutions. We think that the solution to the FAR will solve the problem only to find that it just cleared the way for the next one to be rearing its ugly head. This then turns into a situation which i would call as "Running like headless chickens".

How do we combat FAR? No easy solution but here are a few tips.

• Stop blaming others for your situations. It is very likely that you are in a specific situation because of your actions/decisions.
• Stop giving excuses. They are the biggest single deterrents to logical problem solving.
• If in doubt, if something is the reason for a situation, very likely it is not. Most situations have a very simple and logical explanation. Simple doesn't mean it is easy to identify or accept but it will be definitely be logical.
• Be unemotional when you are doing this introspection. Emotion is like a smoke that clouds our judgment.
• Learn to take full responsibility for your actions. Do realize that it is ok to make errors in judgment as they indeed do provide tremendous learning opportunities.
• If your subordinates or folks within your sphere of influence get into FAR, don't hesitate to correct them.
• Not letting ego come in the way of logical reasoning. Don't try to bully facts into a rationale just to satisfy Mr. Ego.
• Last but not the least, accepting your mistake and saying sorry is a virtue and not a self-defeating proposition.

Hope we can do something FAR? After all, taking anything too far has never been helpful, isn't it?

A nice perspective on work

Lucy Kellaway is one of my favourite columnists. For those of you who dont know her, she is a popular British columnist on Financial Times and her columns are witty and is especially known for her jabs at management fads/jargons. This recent article (If you are unable to log in, just register for free on the site and proceed) by her presents a different face of our pet hobby/crib - Work. It takes a deviation from the classical way of looking at work as something that is done as a means to sustain yourself financially to one that is an absolute must. If you read past the obvious British sarcasm, it is quite insightful. Happy reading and of course, WORKING.

Tamil Cinema's coming of Age - hope the spark continues

This year's Gandhi Jayanthi (october 2nd) found my wife and i watching 2 brand new movies at the Theatre, one after the other (yes, we decided to do some crazy stuff) and to our luck found ourselves thoroughly satisfied with both of them. Considering that tamil cinema in recent times has been littered with depressingly crass, mediocre and senseless movies (Kanthasamy, Ninaithale Innikum to name a couple) which ended up getting much fanfare sheerly through a combination of aggressive marketing and some star power, we found ourselves thoroughly surprised. The two movies that we saw were Eeram and Unnai Pol Oruvan (the remake of the much critcally acclaimed " A Wednesday"). The fact that i enjoyed most about either of them was the fact that neither of them had any stupid gravity-defying fights, crass item numbers or irrelevant comedy sequences, which over time, despite their "insult to intelligence" characteristics have become to dominate tamil cinema over the last couple of decades.

Eeram is a brilliantly shot and innovatively told murder mystery. The director, a Film institue gold medallist clearly had the audience engrossed through this unusual movie through a combination of brilliant camerawork, logical & clear story-telling as well as employing little-known actors (though i am sure that all the key characters should have a bright future if they chose their projects wisely). Every scene in the story depicts the wetness (Eeram means wetness in Tamil) with water being vividly shown in some form or the other. Another novelty pertains to showing a red-colored wet object to highlight the onset of the next murder is very clever. The color of the frames depicts the dark nature of the story very well. The climax could have been thought through a little more but is nevertheless smart in its own way. Director shankar has once again revealed his keen eye in identifying different stories and sponsoring them to unravel fresh talent into the industry.

Unnai Pol Oruvan is an outstanding story of how a common man holds the entire Chennai police administration to ransom for an entire day to administer a very different form of social justice. The ensemble of brilliant senior actors including Kamal Hassan and Mohanlal as well a bunch of fresh-faced new comers combined with a fast moving story line (the entire hardly lasts for an hour and a half) keeps the audience spell bound. The police officers shown here are not the stereotyped caricatures that we have been used to. The challenges and difficulties that they face in a typical day are depicted very realistically. The sharp and witty discussions between the police commissionar and the Chief Secretaty as well as the hard-hitting chats between the common man and the commissionar (not to mention the hillarious Telemarketing call that frustrates the commissionar while lightening the grim mood) are very realistic and entertaining.

I sincerely hope that 2009 heralds the onset of a new and sensible year in Tamil Cinema and that we do get to see more of these masterpieces in the days to come.

From IIM to Tollywood

As the wife and i were reading through reviews of the recently released movies in order to chose one for our weekend outing, we came across this interesting one. A person who shares my first name as well as a similar background seems to be stirring some interest in the Telugu movie industry (popularly referred to as Tollywood). The portion that stuck me was that the variety of things that this person has tried out since graduating from one of India's leading business schools. He started out with a Pharma firm, dabbled into stock broking, worked for an advertising firm, started a shopping mall amongst others and has recently even produced a movie, Ashta Chamma. No doubt, his thrilling career journey has found its way into a case study on entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business

It is quite refreshing to see more and more professionals entering the Indian film industry as the world's largest unorganized glamour & glitz factory comes to grips with the challenges of corporatization and globalisation. Also encouraging to see smart young people dabble in different things rather than take the stereotyped Indian-middle-class dream of a good education and then a job till retirement. While these adventures are quite common in the west, the average Indian professional is still a novice in figuring out what he/she wants to achieve in their careers. Kudos to guys like Ram who are prepared to defy convention and are willing to experiment.

Nono to Nano? Or TATA to green environment?

Two very interesting but quite related incidents took place over the past week

• India's vision of seeing a Rs 1 Lakh ($2500) car finally became a reality as the Tata motors delivered the Nano to its first customer. This project went through significant challenges and this event definitley deserves mention amidst this background.
• India's Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh recently signed a declaration at the Major Economies Forum (MEF) in Italy, committing India to curbing its carbon emissions. There is a debate still going on in the India media on whether this has caused india to compromise on its development agenda.

As one can see, these 2 developments seem to be a classic case of the right hand not being aligned to the left hand. The Nano, albeit an engineering marvel is all set to do its damage to the environment in terms of flooding the already bustling indian roads and potentially increase the carbon emissions exponentially. With a 620cc engined, Nano in itself is unlikely to be an issue but imagine the impact of having a million nanos on the roads over the next couple of years. Considering this fact, is the Government really serious on what it is committing to ?

If we step back for a minute, it just seems to be a case of bickering over insignificant spoils. Sure, the western world has contributed to most of the environmental destruction till date but can the developing countries use this an excuse to add their own piece to the pie? At the end of the day, quite a few of these destructions are irreversible damages and it is unlikley that a significant portion of the world population will be able to enjoy the benefits of such ill-conceived development (if it happens).

With a bulging population (that is showing no signs of slowing down) , unplanned development and loose regulatory environment, India is still trying to come to terms with the spoils of globalization. The Nano is something more than just the release of a new model of a car. It possibly is the inflection point in India's growth story as it slowly starts doing for Iwhat the Ford Model-T did for America, more than a 100 years ago. But a Model-T to a 100 million population in 1895 is a far cry from a nano to a 1.2 Billion population in 2009 . So is Nano the begining of the end? I do not want to define what does "end" mean as it is just too scary. Do we have the guts to say NONO to the NANO? Or is it TATA to green environment?

The Great Indian Fuel Hike - common sense takes a backseat

The new government ushered in the month of July 2009 by announcing a fuel hike of Rs 4. per litre of petrol and Rs 2. per litre of diesel. In a sense, the announcement was not completely a surprise. Consecutive governments use fuel price as an effective lever in the political drama by taking advantage of the regulatory mechanism prevalent in the country. It is not uncommon to see a drop in prices in the buildup to the elections during which time the oil companies(most of which are state owned) start accumulating losses. Once the election is over, it is time to pass the buck back to the populace and give a relief to the oil companies. The fluctuating global oil prices have not helped the cause either as India pretty much imports all its oil.

What is surprising however is the reaction by our population to the fuel hike. The most predictable and thereby the most ridiculous reaction is the way, people queue up to the fuel bunks on the eve of the announcement (most times, the fuel hike kicks in only from the following day) and try to fill up their tanks. This silly reaction results in the following

• Huge traffic jams across the board
• The bunks run short of supply very quickly thereby leading to rise in tempers.
• Unneccessary pollution caused due to the traffic jams
• Significant pain to people who really need to fill up their vehicles (because their fuel tanks are empty)
• It is not unusual to see people having heated arguments with the staff at the petrol bunks who reel under the onslaught of the mad rush. In a number of cases, the police had to intervene to bring the situation under control

If you step back and think about this reaction, it makes absolutley no economic sense. For a car, if an average person fills up 20 litres of petrol on a price-hiked day, he stands to gain Rs 80 (which is equivalent to saving up of 1.75 litres of petrol) vis-a-vis filling it up on the next day. If it is diesel, this number goes down to Rs 40 (which is equivalent to 1 litre of diesel). Considering that a litre of petrol gives an average petrol car user a mileage of 12 kms/litre in the city and a diesel car gives a mileage of 15 kms/litre, one is left wondering at what the fuss is all about. It is quite clear that for 4-wheelers, there is just no gain in queueing up on D-day at the bunks. The argument is slightly different for 2-wheelers who do stand to gain slightly more because the average mileage in the city for a 2-wheeler is about 45 kms/litre and thereby makes slightly more economic sense. But if you think about it, a 2-wheeler only runs of petrol and an average 2-wheeler user does not fill up more than 3-4 litres at any point in time, the savings are just about Rs 16 and thereby they really do not save much either. Of course, 2-wheelers are less inclined to cause a traffic jam and also take lesser time to fill up their tanks.

Agreed that this hike could eat into the meagre savings of the middle and lower class who are already reeling under the impacts of the global recession but this mad-rush does not in any way alleviate their pain. As a matter of fact, it just increases their frustration at the eco-system. It is time that we as a population, get mature and stop reacting in such an emotional and senseless manner to the Great Indian Fuel Hike.

The Satyam Fiasco - A good opportunity for corporate India to come to terms with reality

The last 3 days have been probably the most dramatic in the history of Corporate India for quite some time. Satyam (which ironically means truth in Sanskrit) - India's 4th largest IT Exporter which is listed even on the US bourses saw its fortunes crumbling overnite with an interesting confession from its chairman that it has been lying about its accounts and that the firm was an artificially stacked up pack of cards hanging on a slim thread. He equates his journey to a ride on a tiger not knowing when to get off and also avoid being eaten up. What followed was absolute chaos. A quick team of Satyamites with equally dubious credentials tried to cough up a task force to handle the impacts of this confession which ended up only making the scene worse. No doubt, this has been talk of the town in just about every television channel/radio/newspaper and just about everywhere. Of course, Satyam claims to have over 53000 employees who are supposedly facing a blank future and this is supposed to be a complete blemish on India Inc's image. A hero became a vilain overnight as India came to terms with its own Enron. The parallel with the failed Energy giant could not be ignored as we do have an international auditing firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers doing what Andersen did to Enron. The auditors seem to have ignored some very simple measures like Cash position/Accrued Interest. Suddenly IT is no longer the spoilt child that Indians thought was going to be their gateway to a super-power. We have had some ridiculous programmes on the supposedly intelligent media channels where reporters try to dramatise the accounting disasters emerging (bear in mind that all of these are based on pure speculation as it is going to be a while before the true financial statements come out). Of course, the SEBI, Ministry of corporate affairs (i dont think that many realised that there is such a ministry around) the Andhra Pradesh Government (which till a few days ago was calling Ramalinga Raju as one of its illustrious sons) and the ICAI have all stepped into the game in an apparent move to get at the truth. Of course the share markets did their bit by battering the stock to just about par value which has resulted in a new bunch of stakeholders holding the stocks and pressurising the governement to incldue them in the scheme of things as it tries to assemble a new board.

When you step back and take a slightly more objective look at things, one would realise that this is not such a bad thing after all. It is an essential part of any sensible capitalist market to have a few disasters along the line which generally tend to only improve things. You do need an Enron to get a Sarbanes Oxley act and to get the Accounting firms which also used to offer consulting services for the same clients, to part ways. (Imagine advising a client to do a certain action and then auditing the same). Anybody thinking that Indian companies are world-class in corporate governance or financial transparency must be truly kidding. We are still an infant in the big brute world of globalization and will grapple with challenges. There are definitely more Satyams lurking in the background (The American markets did have Worldcom/Tyco/Xerox/CA among a host of others which did similar illegal stuff and some of them survive even today). Regarding the employees facing a bleak future, they do face some uncertain times but the good ones will find happy homes soon. Satyam was to a large extent, an unusually succesful also-ran that was intelligent enough to make some inroads during the Y2K and the boom period for outsourcing that followed. More than anything else, this is a great opportunity for Corporate India to step up and clean its house. The financial world is no longer constrained by geographical boundaries and is extremely inter-twined as the sub-prime crisis taught us. A bad quarter for Wal-Mart means closing down of a few textile mills in a remote city of Tamilnadu in India. At the end of the day, India might probably be the world's second largest populated country but it is still a blip on the world's corporate arena and most of this noise will have negligible impact globally. The western world to a large extent hardly gave more than a passing reference to this episode as it tries to grapple with even larger issues like rising US unemployment and the Gaza crisis. But let us make sure that we crank up on our regulatory mechanisms and use this to clean our act. The US did send a strong message with the succesful convictions of Bernard Ebbers (Worldcom)/ Kenneth Lay and his gang (Enron)/ Dennis Kozlowski and quite a few others. Bear in mind that the actions of these exalted professionals with amazing qualifications has significantly larger after-effects than what Mr. Raju has done. Above all, don't let the crazy folks from the stock markets prevent the business leaders from taking tough decisions that may be painful in the short run but would offer benefits in the long run. A bad quarter is sometimes the right panacea for sustainable long term growth. Let us learn from this minor disaster and reduce the risk of major ones happening in the future. After all, nothing like a good crisis to fuel such actions.

Varanam Aayiram - Movie Review

The wife and i spent yet another friday evening at the sathyam multiplex complex catching up on famed director Gautham menon's latest offering staring his favourite hero surya. The promos of the movie were pretty cool showing surya in various getups including one with a awesome six-pack. The movie had also been in the news for various things including the fact that it was for 2-years in the making, financial problems with the rights being ultimately purchased by the infamous MK Azhagiri , the son of the Tamilnadu chief minister and its final foray into the theatres was eagerly expected. The music by Harris Jayaraj was already a hit with a number of soothing pleasant numbers.

At the end of the unusually long film (about 3.5 hours), i would say that it is a pretty good effort overall though by the time, we reached the end, most of the guys in the theatre including myself were yawning and this was not certainly due to the fact that it was 2:00 AM in the morning. The film tracks the life of Major surya who is embarking on an important mission to rescue a journalist who is held by terrorists and who has just been informed that his father krishnan (surya again) has just passed away after a fight with cancer. Krishnan has been surya's hero right from childhood and they have shared a close bond over the years. The film tracks the time from the glorious 70s when a smart young college goer, krishnan woos his college mate malini (Simran with a hideous wig) and marries her. Subsequent scenes then turn their attention on to the adventures of their son Surya who cruises through his life right from being a naughty teenager to a fun-loving college goer to his romances/failures and subsequently Surya discovering a mission for himself in life. A number of characters/ events are throw into the mix including: Sameera Reddy as the smart, acadmically brilliant Meghna who sweeps Surya off his feet in their fist meeting itself, which leads to a cute albeit cinematic romance which ends in a terrible tragedy; Divya Spandana as the calm neighbour pining for Surya and who ultimately marries him; the romance/love between Krishnan and malini as they help their son navigate through life etc.,

At the end, one was left wondering at a couple of things. Surya's outstanding performance in changing everything from his body language to his physical side in conveying the different characters. Rememeber Krishnan and Surya are characters essentially being essayed by the same actor but they have to appear on the same frame on a number of occassions. Think about the 6-pack clad Major surya and the aging Krishnan who can hardly talk as cancer grips him talking to each other in a single scene. The movie is an example for brilliant editing and the fact that surya has to transform himself into a number of characters itself justifies the 2-year long wait. Nevertheless, the movie was a wee bit too long and a number of things like surya's foray into drugs due to Meghna's tragedy, the susequent helping in the rescue of a friend's child from terrorists etc., only serve to elongate the story without any meaningful reason. Also the movie focusses little on surya's sister as all the action seems to be around Surya and a little more diligence in this angle would have aided the storyline better. This further frustrates the audience as an end seems nowhere in sight. The movie cannot expect a repeat audience and will be a product that can be consumed just about once.

All the actors do justice to their roles. Surya is outstanding, Sameera fits the role to a glove, Divya spandana is adequate and Simran is just fabulous as the ageing mother/wife (her natural outburst when krishnan is diagnosed with cancer is lovely and extremely natural) though her makeup as a college student was just plain hideous. Also this is one movie where the last line in the movie explains the rationale for the title as the family comes to terms with Krishnan's death (describing krishnan as the person who can tackle a thousand elephants with each elephant being linked to a new problem in life and who comes out succesful). Gautham who has been mentioning that this movie is a tribute to his own father who has been his mentor in life has done a competent job, however the issues in the movie especially the length of the movie are not going to set the box-office on fire. Gautham is defiintley one of our best directors with some really brilliant movies and i am looking forward to him learning from his mistakes and giving us some classics in the days to come. And surya does stand alone as the only beacon to the futue of tamil cinema as the only really talented hero from the current pack who really has the potential to become an extraodinary actor (and who does not get tied to the image hangover)

The White Tiger - A book review

I have always held a perception that the books that win literary awards are probably the boring ones which are only understood by a select pretentious few who like to portray themselves as guardians of literature. It is with the same skepticism that i began to read Aravind Adiga's book, The White Tiger which recently won the Man Booker prize for fiction and to my pleasant surprise, discovered a masterpiece. It is indeed a hard-hitting work sketched on a canvas filled with a liberal dosage of dark humour and sattire. The narration is rather unique as a series of letters to a fictional chinese premier. The darkness that the protagonist battles in his quest to break the shackles of a complex India - which is a seeming potboiler of contradictions and imbalances, has been narrated in a rather humourous and novel way. The Rooster coop - is arguably the most creative way to describe the average Indian mentality - one of the biggest contradictions of the 21st century - a land where the people laugh at the west for lack of culture but find it extremely difficult to maintain even basic cleanliness; a culture where collective good is conveniently sacrificed at the altar of individual prosperity; a nation struggling to bridge the widening gap between the haves and have nots; The transformation of Balram Halwai from a munna(caught in the shackles of a low-trodden north indian family) to an enterprising entrepreneur is to a large extent, a reasonable depiction of India's struggles to come to grips with these contradictions amidst the significant economic developments of the last couple of decades. I have not read any other books which have won a booker but if any of them have characters like Balram, they are definitely going to occupy front places on my book shelf. The White Tiger is worth a read and its stripes are definitely endearing. Of course, i will definitely be keeping an eye on my chauffeur

If God was a Banker - Book Review

The latest book that i devoured was the fast paced book by Ravi Subramanian, a leading Indian Banker and who went to the same business school that i did (though i was almost a decade behind him). The book is highly entertaining and gives a very interesting perspective of how Consumer Banking in India developed over the last couple of decades. It tracks the career of 2 diverse individuals, Swami and Sundeep, both of whom graduate from leading Indian business schools at the same time and who embrace the changes of a modern India. Each of them follow their own recipes to success, with Swami being the more mature, good-old ethical way while Sundeep pursues life on the fast track using every possible trick in the game to achieve his objectives. The book takes a potshot at some of the corrupt practices prevalent in the banking industry including the rampant misuse of the fine print in banking products, illegal liasons with business partners and the sales tactics used to thrust products upon the unsuspecting public by the relationship managers. It has also tried to portray a realistic view of how corporate politics operates and engulfs unsuspecting individuals in its tight grasp. The build up to the climax where Sundeep's sins catch up with him is a fitting tribute to the old management whim 'The opportunity cost of sin, when it catches up with you in the future has an compounded interest variant to it". Overall, an interesting fast paced novel which should pave the way for an interesting movie in the near future for the multiplex goers. Mr. Madhur bhandarkar, Are you listening?