Sunday 21 October 2018

Advice to my younger self



Difficult times these are. Transformation in the way business is executed will mean many of us would be irrelevant soon. Conventional education system and societal upbringing has simply not prepared us for the changes which are happening.

Those who are change averse are sure to be left out of the future. Even those few who embrace the change would need to be completely different versions of themselves to continue to excel in future.

Could I have been prepared for this when I was younger? I think so. So here is the list of advice I would have given my younger self:

  • Read/ Write more and envision the future - Reading expands the horizons and writing makes these thoughts clear. These two are bedrocks of for an exciting vision of future.
  • Practice communication - All types of communication included.
    • Verbal
    • Non verbal/ Gesture
    • Written
    • Electronic
    • Public speaking- This is must for success in future
  • Build strong relationships based on trust. 
  • Network, network and network. Even with seemingly unconnected people, share extensively and selflessly. You will be amazed at the returns.
  • Learn, not memorize- Much of the adult learning happens through experience and not memorizing. So focus on building a career based on experiences and not mugging up corporate policy manuals/ OEM manuals
  • Respect time- Only commodity which we control and is always in short. It would be even more so in future because of tsunami of information. We become how and with whom we spend our time. Respect yours as well as others time through your actions, behaviors and content created for consumption by others.
  • Don't allow yourself to be a clone of your job!!!! You are far more than your job. Cultivate hobbies, travel, read, write, teach, coach, play, track....No body will remember you for the designations you held.
  • Know when to leave, develop people around you. Don't be a clerk doing same thing all your life. You grow when you develop people who work for you. The pride and glow of seeing them deliver outstanding results when you are not there can't be valued in earthly measures. Develop and then step aside, do something different every four years.
  • Solve tough problems- Every one can solve easier ones. Differentiate yourself by solving the harder ones. Be driven, break shackles and remove obstacles which stop others from achieving greatness. Chances are you will be remembered for being a pain, but it is better than not being remembered at all. It takes determination to be a tough problem solver, but it is easy, because it is not a crowded zone.
  • Find a coach who is a mirror to you. 
Many more could be added. Would be interested in knowing the ones you think are missing in the list above.

Festive season is almost there in India. Let there be love, light and laughter everywhere.

Wishing you great success in everything.

Friday 12 October 2018

Is young India worried about machines taking over our jobs?



ThePrint.com conducted a 12 days long event "Democracy Wall" in various engineering colleges across India.

My daughter Riddhi  participated with following entry:


"World Bank data estimates 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation. And India isn’t alone here: China’s figure was 77% and other developing countries also scored highly. But are the young millenials really worried? The answer, as skeptical as it seems, is a no. This country's young population is wiser, smarter and more future oriented than possibly any of the generations before. They are flexible and have identifed the fact that continuous upgradation of their skills is the only way the ongoing and upcoming machine onslaught can be survived. In times like these, the skills profile changes faster than it did before, but at the same time, there is this ever increasing range of technology ready to help the millenials adapt and learn better. With machines taking on the mundane jobs at the soul of today’s workplace, the jobs in the future will mainly be about skills like critical and analytical thinking, collaboration and imagination. But as automation smoothly takes over this routine work and the young generation works on being relevant, the low-skill works– where the bulk of Indian IT employees work – are the most at risk. They do know that the reality is change, one which there is no shying away from. The only escape is in finding new roles and in moulding ourselves to become useful in the newer and advanced times. There is no one not worried about how the middle sectors in India is basically long cries of unemployment about being replaced by technology or automation. The impact is here and is being felt in the past few years and it's only going to magnify. Back then when humans wanted to automate the landscape, it was more of a race. But now, it's about getting the folks on the right path. The present world is ever - changing, developing at a pace like never before. There is, quite honestly, no way to put a stop to automation for it was this very thing that brought Indian economy on the world stage. Fighting machines is futile and we know it. The key to survive, let's just say, or to be employed is to fight passivity. Being passive and letting the machines impact us is the last thing to do. Doing something big and developing something groundbreaking, hand in hand, with automation is as appealing as it sounds. The young people of the workplace understand that most jobs now ask employees to be adaptable about learning new skills as they go along. To strengthen these young millenials to thrive in this great digital age, our education methodologies must bring a sharper spotlight to endless learning, experimentation and exploration. A larger value placed on education than in the West is one of the many reasons that the young millenials may just survive. All of these machines, robots, Artificial intelligence products can either be a poisonous curse on the Indian economy or a potential cure. The option is, quite evidently, ours to choose."

Young generation of today is far more ambitious and fearless. They see every disruption as an opportunity,

Proud to say that she won the first place in the contest...way you go dear daughter, so very proud of you....

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it!

Sunday 7 October 2018

Cost of actions that we don't take




All of us make choices, many of these relate to taking an action or not taking an action. Many of us even have an strategy to not to act! We then rationalize the choices that we made.

But have we ever analyzed the cost of actions we did not take?


  • While walking on the road, we see a person walking with air pods completely oblivious to traffic. Do we stop and ask her to be careful or just walk by. What if the person is hit by a speedy car?
  • Person working at height, without hooking up the life lines. We walk by, thinking to talk to contract supervisor about this. What if in the meantime, the man fall from height and injures himself?
  • A small leak from a gas connection, we rationalize its a small leak, what if a small fire , goes unnoticed and burns down the whole facility?
  • Performance issue with a colleague and we don't initiate a feedback dialogue, because its a difficult job. What about opportunities which are lost because of this?

Most of us don’t actively promote inefficiency, or aim to keep others down, or purposefully contribute to a less hospitable workplace or harm others. But we do strap on blinders. We rationalize, deflect, and deny. We follow the easier path. And we own every choice we make. The greater our power, the greater the weight each choice carries.

We can choose not to engage in improving the world. We can seize on every advantage available to us and our companies without thought to the consequences. We can act as if the planet and the global economy are not among our most critical stakeholders. We can join the crush of others who are just hoping to play out the string: keep our heads down, meet our numbers and abdicate long-term responsibility to someone else.

But when we make these choices, we leave out a crucial impact we can have on building a better workplace.

The alternative is to have the courage to accept a more difficult reality: The only way we can protect what we love is by actively pursuing a can make a change attitude. Every action has a consequence. Every inaction perhaps even more so.

Buckle up, move out and make a change. You matter a lot more than you think....