A Birdie Eye View

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There are four Golf Courses in Gurgaon, more than 600 acres of Greens. This may not be a topic of discussion for majority of residents but I wish to draw your attention to this rather neglected sport. Golfing in India shot into prominence since 1970 when Government of India officially banned hunting. Many a hunters switched to Golfing as a respectful substitute that involved aiming, shooting and collecting trophies.

Haryana Government’s annual spent on sports was less than $1 M in 2008 but they produced 1.5 medalists in the Beijing Olympics. Wrestling champion Sushil Kumar lives not just across the street in Delhi but he gets all his provisions except water from Haryana. Second only to Kenya, Haryana has most efficient utilization of public funds in sports. In contrast when we consider golf, with its massive investment in golf infrastructure, the sport has not lived up to the high standards set by the state. Miffed at these findings the State Government of Haryana levied 25% entertainment tax on golf. News like this should have led to international protest at World Economic Forum but not as much as a formal letter from IGF to reconsider the decision was sent to India.

Many of the sponsors of the golf, I have spoken to are deeply disturbed by the turn of events for golf in fiscal year 2009-10. Golf was worst hit by Global Recession, stated here merely as a fact and not to gain readers’ sympathy. Right when things had started to look up on the economy side, golfing world was struck by yet another tragedy caused by one of its greatest ambassador. Now try explaining to your CFO that golf is a sport and not entertainment! Two audit firms appointed by corporate finance and commissioner of tax have independently recommended not granting sports status to Golf until it gets included in 2016 Olympics. A traditional marketing approach to such temporary setbacks is to initiate Golf Appreciation Academy for Finance Professionals/Future CFO’s/Accounting Firms and hope for the best. In hard times hope has diminishing conviction.

There is no time to grief, extraordinary times call for radical approaches. For the very first time in the golfing history certain sales executives were hired to boost the golf membership numbers. Combo offers of golf with Kitty Parties, Yoga and Nature Walk were presented to prospective clients. Major credit cards offered golf to their exclusive Platinum membership with flimsy entry criterion. If this was to continue unabated there will soon be golf deals at retail store near you! Purely from a marketing and branding perspective one may not agree with the Sales approach, but it is hard to ignore the effectiveness of these programs. There are many unbelievable stories in golfing circles romanticizing the sport; most famous one of course was the hole-in-one offer from BMW.

I am sure you are still wondering what it has got to do with you. Your loyalty to Cricket is not up for sale. The only sporting activity to your credit is the automatic morning jogger. You may not be a Golf aficionado but you belong to an aspiration generation caught in the juggernaut of India growth story. Your ability to scale Gurgaon’s shining buildings is unmatched. The glass ceiling that one hits on their way up can easily be overcome by golf. As you stand alone contemplating in your corner office, the only sport that reciprocates back with same loneliness is Golf. You don’t choose golf, Golf chooses you!

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It is never too late to learn Golf as long as you have the right wardrobe to go with it. Jeans are forbidden and round neck t-shirts can cause a mini riot at the course. If you try to smuggle a golfing-set bought at Father’s Day sale from Hong Kong chances are that you will barred from at least 3 Golf Courses in Gurgaon. Though I get no commission in promoting these brands but you cannot go wrong with Callaway, Ping or TaylorMade. The object of the game is to whack a tiny ball and have fun finding it on the course; eventually the ball gets exhausted and runs down the nearest hole. To the beginners golf may appear to be a game of chance however with some practice at calculating weighted averages a handicap is assigned by the authorities. Handicap allows beginners to mingle with scratch golfers without loss of self-esteem. If the Olympics committee adopts golf handicap system for other sports the medals tally will be reflective of Population, GDP and Bilateral Trade. USA could get out of its massive budget deficit simply by allowing other countries to square it off with some medals in return.

When God created humans he deliberately hid a perfect golf swing in the body. The purpose of every golfer is to search for that perfect swing. There are so many external factors to enhance the swing like the number of dimples on the ball, the size of the iron, direction of the wind, the dew on the grass, etc. but if the swing is too shy to come out, it can ruin a perfect weekend. Golf is a discussion game, give a golf club to a recluse and he will be a gregarious chirping bird. It is for this property Golf is effectively used by business to negotiate difficult deals. I could suggest to Times of India to include Golf in season 2 of Aman ki Aasha, it may just turn out to be better a diplomacy tool than Sufi Music.

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Driving Advisory for new drivers in NCR

Driving in Delhi or National Capital Region (NCR) to be precise is not for the faint hearted. The roads here follow different rules and folks who have been living here for centuries can claim some degree of complacency while driving. As for migratory workers from Bengaluru, driving car with “KA” registration number, it is like putting out a vacation update on the Facebook! It is very unlikely to be taken seriously if you were to give a polite indicator to merge in the left lane traffic.

Car registration numbers have undocumented hierarchy on the Delhi roads. At the top of the list are the Yellow Cabbies, the more dilapidated the condition of the taxi, higher is the right-of-way. Cabbies are followed by Car with “UP” registration numbers. These cars belong to folks living in Noida & Greater Noida where law & order is yet to catch up with the fast pace of NCR economy. It is better to allow these vehicles quick passage to their domicile state where they are much better equipped to deal with irregularities in traffic. The cars bearing DL (Delhi) or HR (Haryana) registration number have right-of-way in their own states as nature would have ordained. The rest of the cars follow hierarchy rules depending on the distance from Delhi and language spoken in that state. Punjab is farther from Rajasthan but commands higher right-of-way, purely on language bias. A Marwari car driver from Bikaner is unlikely to win the war of wits with a Punjabi driver from Amritsar.

Folks in Bengaluru having grown on Subroto Bagchi pleas to Kiss the World must be appreciative of Delhi car owners who have fully imbibed the lessons and there is no car left unkissed. This usually happens when the rules of hierarchy are broken in public. If a car has been hit at the rear one can refer this as an unsolicited advance and demand for explanation. The outcome of the discussion will depend on four possible states.

Car in the rear, clearly at fault	Car in the front victimized	Possible outcome
Driver A	Driver B	Kiss and make-up
Driver A	Owner B	Owner B launches a physical assault on Driver A; Owner A sometimes joins Owner B making it difficult to tell what really happened.
Owner A	Driver B	Owner A can detain Driver B until Owner B agrees to pay for damages.
Owner A	Owner B	An all out verbal war breaks out and traffic comes to standstill. A policeman from the nearby junction is called to dispense justice. The guys merely swearing cannot be booked as no law has been violated; the Policeman waits for one of them to get physical. The guy who hits first is booked under IPC section 106.

The moral of the story is that all drivers are assumed to be at fault. This is where Delhi differs with Subroto Bagchi. Now kids in Bengaluru may be respectfully waiting for Respected Ramesh Anna to make his next move on busy Yalahanka junction on their way to “Aditi International School”. They have so much to learn from their Gurgaon classmates as Mr Chander Singhji Rohtakwale at the wheels throws 3-people-on-motorcycle off the Sohna Road on their way to “Pathway School”. No amount of respect for Mr Chander Singhji will help him to skip the hangover drink on Monday morning.

One cannot blame the drivers all the time. The owners set unachievable objectives for their drivers. I know of people who hire driver to save 15 minutes of travel time on a normal 45 minutes journey. The drivers know this game quite well to accept these seemingly unreasonable terms of employment. On any given day the owner to driver ratio on Delhi roads is 3:1, and a good driver knows how to play with the owner’s psychology. Owners love their cars and readily make way for the honking maniacs following them. The driver also knows that for every suggestion of his owner to drive slowly or honk less will allow him 5 minutes margin of delay.

There are some people who have migrated to Delhi after spending good part of their life in Mumbai. The problem with Mumbaikars is that they drive in lanes. Though most of the free thinking Mumbaikars are not ready to debate on the subject; the standoff between North Indians and Marathi Manus is direct fallout of new school of drivers from North India not abiding the Lane Driving principles in Amchi Mumbai. A person from Mumbai draws an imaginary straight line from his home to destination and will not take any deviation unless obligated by law. This is a serious problem in Delhi, where every third person is an expert in the Fence Driving technique. Fence driving is a condition caused by driving in two lanes at once, this apparently gives the driver advantage to choose a lane that progress faster but it causes deep anguish to the following drivers. Though I do not want to sound like a Male Chauvinist whatever but women have mastered the art of Fence Driving. Whenever they a see a lane on the road, they are urged to pass it exactly through the middle of the car. Delhi Police is considering doing away with Lane Marks on roads to assist ladies to drive in lanes. There is another theory suggested by my friend on Fence Driving and Fairer Sex, lane driving makes ladies uncomfortable as they get in line of sight of people looking down on them through the rear mirrors. By driving in the middle of lanes they can avoid rear view ogles. I would suggest that Delhi Police must request IIT Delhi to study this problem in further details before taking any measures.

There are places in Delhi where it is not advisable to go by your own car and one must seriously consider commuting by public transport or rent a cab. Most of the next gen kids look up on Google Map and conclude that taking Bahardur Shah Zafar Road is the best way to reach Chandni Chowk. Things start to fall apart at one approach Tilak Bridge, if one does make it to BSZ Road the theory goes that one in every ten car does not make it to the other side of this slow moving road. I would like to add Cantonment Area to the list of caution purely from a disciplinary purpose. Cantonment Area is home to the Indian Armed forces and when it comes to subject of following discipline in public life there is an invisible but palpable conflict with the civilian society. Some of the NCERT schools in past used to make claims on discipline but thanks to reforms kicking-in the last bastion of discipline rests with Armed Forces of India. One can tell as we approach the Cantonment Area by the frequency and size of the speed breakers. All junctions are manned by uniformed men; there is hushed silence in Cars and Buses as the traffic goes past the Cantonment Area in an orderly manner.

The last piece of advice is on developing watchful ability to track your fellow drivers for taking on the mobile revolution a bit too far. When a driver answers a phone call the car slows down to crawling speed. But if the car swirls, this could only be due to driver attempting to send SMSes. It is best to get out of the way and keep safe driving distance in such events.
I hope these notes were useful in your endeavors to enjoy driving in Delhi. My suggestion is that you take your chariot out this weekend and like Vir Abhimanyu drive into the British designed Chakra Vyuh called Connaught Place. You can only tell if you come out unbeaten that you are true son of soil and let your family be the witness of your bravery. God bless and drive safe!

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First KPO Job Survival Guide

All you remember is that you were in Delhi to attend cousin’s wedding and some well-wisher persuaded you to attend a walk-in interview. In the interview you nodded affirmative to seemingly benign questions on flexibility. There you have it, an offer from ITES Company in the fast growing BFSI sector. Trouble with most of the freshers’ is that they are not really up-to-date on corporate buzz words. It is never too late to learn but first a short congratulatory note from the author on landing in first job.

• Flexible Timing – graveyard shift as they say it on the Radio.
• Relocation – plan to shift the office to nearby SEZ where the state government is extending 10 years tax holiday
• Open communication – boss speak
• Open door policy – disguised observatory deck to measure gossip level on the shop floor.
• Calendar – an entity that defines precise space-time coordinates of working class against the wishes of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle.
• IT Policy – no you cannot change proxy server settings to access internet.
• Ergonomics – the art of preventing injury caused by office equipment.
• Induction Training – stage show conducted by fumbling professionals accompanied by reluctant props like projector, wireless mic and power point presentations.
• Helpdesk – Someone who closes your ticket within 24 hours without solving the underlying issue. You need to understand their SLA before you know your KPI’s.

At first things would appear to go smooth; it is only in the third month of your captization you are struck by an acute sense of anxiety. You were able to cope with problems like not having proper assignment, a permanent boss, a personal bank account, a proper desk etc. etc. however it was the news that your mentor has resigned was straw that broke the camel's back. You have tons of personal issues (like upcoming sister’s wedding, landlord issues, medical report suggesting swollen gall bladder and transportation.) Did I mention the trouble you were having clearing the online diction test? What is coming in the way of an imminent exit is your consent to work the graveyard shift.

Everything can wait, take that one week unpaid leave to attend sister’s wedding. There are pleasant surprises waiting here

• Your mother has been preserving three months salary checks diverted by your office.
• The glances you receive in return of your lecherous ogle towards neighborhood girls have significantly mellowed down in despise.
• Your cousins seem to be paying extra attention to your choice of accessories which as per their assessment is the only hurdle in getting employment.
• Your dad is so proud of you; all the second grades in school have been upgraded to first division and the money you wasted on internet café’s are said to be instrumental in molding you into a techno-financial wizard.

Your decision to not pursue Chartered Accountancy is hailed. The choice of joining IIPM’s Executive Program decreed by eminent SRK turns everyone so green that you could claim carbon credits. You return with a renewed vow to embrace your job with the sincerity it deserves.

The landlord problem in Gurgaon is perhaps the most difficult one to overcome. Most of them, landlords, prefer to keep “ladies” tenant. The vulnerability premium is just one factor, consider this, ladies follow 10 pm curfew rule, switch off lights/fans before leaving for work, don’t invite guests at odd hours and the neighbors seldom complain about them. What is worth trying out is to get a separate visiting card with your caste, gotra, eating/drinking preferences, number of brothers/sisters, link to online matrimonial advertisement and other personal details. Having a good conduct certificate will come in handy in finalizing apartment or paying guest situation. Do make sure that you are within walking distance of your pickup van route. For every 250 meters extra distance you double your laundry bill and for anything above 1 km you run the risk of missing morning meetings at least 14 days in a month. What you save in rentals is made up by losses in annual incentives.

You must consider buying a smartphone with GPRS connection. I am not saying this out of love for Telecom. This will be your only contact with the outside world for next few years. Don’t buy the one with touch screen, somehow the airborne particles in Gurgaon don’t agree with the sensitive logic of touch screens. Your phone makes a personality statement about who you really are. The multi-level caller-tone settings, ringback tone, the wallpaper, the Bluetooth earplug, your dreams, your hopes, are all bundled in this device. Remember, unable to express ones aspiration is most common failure in job.

Alignment of personal objectives to that of company is worth considering during first few years. Most of the corporations are run around vision, mission and values statements. It is easier to follow the system then to challenge it. The first step towards alignment is to get written down objectives from your manager. It is up to you, it can be a short 5 minutes discussion with supervisor if the vision and mission is clear. It could lengthy two hours negotiation if we do deep dive into the value statement, where your manager plays important role in getting the best out of you.

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The confusion in our industry occurs due to minor misunderstanding between the terms “client” and “customer”. Client is your customer’s customer. Mr Client in question was responsible for increasing cost of operations for the Mr Customer. That is where we step-in. By disposing off client’s request with utmost efficiency and professional courtesy we create win-win situation for everyone. NASSCOM is currently working on finding corroborative evidence to prove that countries that outsourced work to India have improved happiness index?

Taking pride in one’s daily work makes world a better place.

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After Rolling Credits, Bhuvan wants Lagaan

Photo Credit: Aamir Khan's Production

Just a few days back the “Three Idiots” team were fighting an industry outsider for making public outcry on story credits. Not a single writer or lyricist from the fraternity spoke in support of Chetan Bhagat. The latest row between Javed Akhtar and Aamir Khan can be best described as “you reap what you sow”. Indian film industry is ruled by big banners and larger than life film stars. Most of the film stars have their own production banners. This system ensures that almost 95% of revenue from the films is retained within a small group of contributors. The rest of the gang is treated on pay per use basis. Over the last few years corporate money has started coming to films. If there are adequate copyright laws that allow creative worker like directors, writers, lyricists to retain royalty, it will be game changing. This is making the big banners baulk. What is most surprising is that many of the producers were at some point in time on the receiving end of the same unjust practice.

It is hard for common man to understand the Copyright Laws, the First Sale Doctrine, the Moral Rights. Are there laws pertaining to inspiration, adaptation and translation from other works of arts? When does one cross the boundaries of artistic freedom? In most cases it boils down to cost of litigation versus what one can get out of position of advantage. Consider the following cases -

· Is it legal for you to borrow music CD and copy it for personal use? This may appear to be quite straight forward case of infringement, try explaining this to your 13 years old daughter who just traded music CDs in return of her Archie’s comic collection.

· Is if ok to play copyright music at a school concert? What if the school is charging a small fee from parents to participate in the annual event? Is it ok for a music teacher to charge fee to teach copyright music?

· What approvals/permissions are needed to throw a dance party at a private club? Who is liable for possible violation of copyright; the DJ who brings in collection of latest music or the organizer of the party? Are party mix songs violations of copyrights or improvisation of the original?

· How do we establish that the movie rental shop in our neighborhood has permission to rent copyright movie titles? Is it ok to copy the rental movie on the home computer for future viewing (assuming legally purchased CD ripping software is pre-loaded on the computer)?

· Can a company or organization take cable or satellite connection and connect it to the TV in cafeteria or any public place for that matter (airports, malls, institutes etc.)? Is a shopkeeper permitted to connect multiple TV’s to a single output by using repeaters without the knowledge of broadcaster? Are the window shoppers watching TV liable for infringement?

· Can an author write interpretations of religious inscriptions or public documents and take copyrights on it?

· Do the producers of reality shows, contests of music and dance using copyright music need to take permission from the copyright holder? How do they know in advance what song is the contestant going to choose?

· Can you sell your music or video or books in a second hand sale?

· Can comedians or mimicry artist make parodies of copyright material? Can I edit a copyright picture and use it for my blog? Can this be considered fair use, if I give credit to originals?Professor Lawrence Lessig has been fighting for copyright battle rather alone.

The answers to these questions are country and people specific. Most of us intuitively believe that technology will help protect copyright laws. Conversely, people also believe that whatever is technically possible must be legally correct. If one is to investigate last 20 years of technological trends it suggests otherwise. Technology has made it not only easy to reproduce but also improve the quality of reproduction. Internet has increased the reach of sharing the copyright material across legal boundaries. Another reason why technology investment in copyright protection is not worth the effort is the market trend where the selloff occurs much before the payoff.

In 2006, Steve Jobs jotted down Thoughts on Music article where he concluded that DRM cannot protect music piracy and most of the music companies prefer to distribute music without DRM. Steve made an important observation “No DRM system was ever developed for the CD, so all the music distributed on CDs can be easily uploaded to the Internet, then (illegally) downloaded and played on any computer or player.” In January 2009 all the songs on iTunes Store available as DRM Free. A classic case of producers opting for selloff instead of investing in DRM. Same is the case in famous Google Books Library project.

We need a robust copyright law that is independent of technological advances and is built on collective conscience of the consumer. The consumer is somehow not willing to digest few billion rupees annual income of film stars and producers. The menace of pirated CD’s is the collective response of the consumer, who somewhere asserts like a Robin Hood by stealing it back. Next is what, should Aamir fight for making audience the part of his creative process?

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Inspiration for Middle Managers

It is tough to be a middle manager in a large corporation. No, I am not talking about identity crisis in commuting using company provided transportation. This is more personal, it is about your career. Your present job may require you to look nervous in the presence of boss but confident when your customer calls. You must plan your vacation a year in advance but roll-up sleeves for the contingency created by unplanned leave of your fellow beings. Your expertise lies in letting your supervisor believe that he actually fixed the bug just by reading the crashdump report. It is time you take up this session seriously before things get out of hand.

Edison once said “Genius is 1% inspiration 99% perspiration”; trust me he would have rephrased it for the modern times, even the GE Research Lab has increased the Inspiration Quotient to 10%. Your family members vouch for the hard work you have been putting in lately and if it was not for the air conditioner duct opening right above your desk, you will be perspiring like a peeled onion. Perspiration has been commoditized by Indian Middle Managers; it is Inspiration we must cultivate. Allow me to be the torch bearer of moment-of-truth, creator of thought provoking crystallization of ideas and invoker of gentle inspiration.

Module 1: The approach we will be using will that be of self discovery and remediation. The object of this module is to introspect. There is nothing better than reflecting on ones industrious existence in a cross-functional-offsite-meeting and in a flicker of weakness admit to the misery one brings to the very corporation that provides for your next generation. As a good external facilitator it is my humble duty to help put these thoughts coherently in more general terms usually divided in three specific areas of management interest –

1. Communication
a. Your company has too many meetings or too few (both are problem)
b. You provide inputs for the meetings that you never get invited to or worse still you attend meetings where key decision makers are missing.
c. You never get sufficient inputs from upstream or the downstream guys have unrealistic expectations from your team.
2. Teamwork
a. Your colleagues send you reports and presentation as PDF attachment.
b. No one tells you why your role was changed but everyone saw it coming.
c. You only respond to emails to clarify false allegations made by incompetent colleagues who make you look small evident from the fact that they copied your supervisor in an email titled “gentle reminder”.
3. Speed
a. You just learned that your competition is ahead, which was so contrary to what you said in the recent campus recruitment sessions conducted by the same HR who recommended this offsite training.
b. You also learned that your previous company used to deliver more with lesser people (which was the precise reason for your early departure from the torture factory).
c. Social networking sites are slowing down our teams. We got to have an external factor.

What we learned in the first module comes as no surprise to anyone, except you, so please stop taking notes. The discovery process helps you learn why your company sucks in a very detached manner. That way, it is much easier to solve these known problems by the reduction method taught in elementary geometry. Not to mention thousands of management books are dedicated on these very subjects. Imagine if someone in a fury of compassion drills down to specific issues like “developing more people with Java skills” and questioned everyone for wasting company resources listening to some Inspiration Freak. Focus on detachment first, by bringing out trivial Java issues, you are exposing your inabilities to groom people and of course you are leaving out serious organizational problems unattended. You must control your urges. It is good to show camaraderie towards emperor’s new clothing by dressing as one and not by standing out.

You are most likely to make the obvious error of jumping to rectifying the stated problems. Your mind is perhaps clouded. Please take a short email-check-break, we will resume shortly.

Module 2: This module requires you to participate in some outdoor activities. These are specifically designed to make you feel wretched. Impossible tasks designed by experts permanently etch in your memory that you qualify as a backstabbing opportunist. Inspiration leaders do this only to ensure recall value and it is part of their brand building. Some people take these exercises seriously and get hurt. Here is my advice – participate in these tasks in actively disengaged manner, remember, this too will pass.

Module 3: I know you have waited long for the conclusion. You deserve it -

1. There is nothing wrong with your company. It will continue to do great.
2. There is nothing wrong with you. You are just protecting your turf. If the companies were half as magnanimous as they expect you to be, there will be no patent battles.
3. You cannot be nice and ambitious at the same time. Most of the conflict comes from choosing one path but treading on the other.
4. There isn’t enough cash in the world to fulfill all the dreams. The money that there is around comes from very few dreams fulfilled.
5. Courage is very hard to find, it is fear that makes the world work so hard. Sphere: Related Content