I really thought that a sales person would want to sell and grab every opportunity that comes his or her way. After all it’s perceived as no easy job. I am certainly wrong in my thinking. Recent experiences have me convinced that salespeople want to do anything but sell. In fact I believe now that, no matter who you are reading this – your company or you individually have at least 100% of value left out in the market because you wont take it – Simply wouldn’t – it sounds absurd but its true. I will share recent experiences that have convinced me of this conclusion. I have made the necessary adjustments in our company – I hope you will too. In December I came across these advertisements for studio apartments being launched in Bangalore. Looked interesting. I went to the project website, saw the layouts, plans, options and decided I should book one. It was very reasonably priced in a pre-launch offer. I filled the contact form online. Now, I thought someone with over a thousand apartments to sell would be a little eager.<< MORE >>

Conformity (in dictionary): behavior in accordance with socially accepted conventions or standards . There is a very popular Harvard experiment started in the 50’s spanning about ten years from then on. It was very decisive in its conclusions and much relevant to us today. << MORE >>

An article by Shoaib Ahmed. Shoiab is a President at Tally Solutions. He is a successful entrepreneur, great friend and most of all a wonderful human being. You can reach him with your comments and thoughts at niluahmed@yahoo.com << MORE >>

mmoral, Deceitful, Ignorant – the modern day managements are setting themselves up for destruction. Man has achieved enough knowledge to destroy himself at the click of a button. Man has achieved enough knowledge to destroy himself physically, emotionally and morally. Advances in behavioural sciences through ‘conditioning’ has turned the man into a machine that is run by manipulation of fears and emotions, without values and beliefs, without compassion and pride and without humanity altogether. These machines are the work force of our organizations. An average human being today is more guided by fears and insecurities than by compassion and humanitarian values. Managements today are aspiring to be the largest in the world. They aspire to be in the top notch of power and success. They aspire to be the biggest in their areas. Lets just for a moment take a look at what do some of them do when they do become the biggest – << MORE >>

Ever since the Kasab verdict came out, and I saw in the news channels, people dancing on the streets and burning crackers, I have been a bit disturbed. Why? I am struggling to find an answer myself. After all after he did what he did, it isn’t unjustified – in my mind though, rejoicing it in any manner is foolish.  

Before I get on to my very contrarian view on Kasab situation, which might not be very liked by my readers, some might find ...

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On the 2nd of March this year, early in the morning, 530 AM, I was driving to the airport to board a flight to Ahmedabad. About 10 kms short of the Bangalore airport, on the road, I saw a woman signaling cars to stop, to may be drop her to the airport. Cars whizzed by in complete ignorance of her, as did I. Moments later I had this question in my head, why didn’t I stop? Was it because it is unsafe these days? Was it because I don’t care and it’s not my problem? Was it some other fear? I felt uncomfortable about it, took a U-turn, stopped my car. She sat on the back seat. She looked as if she were in her 50’s. Not a word said, I drove to the airport as I were, assuming she’s going there too. She was. As we walked from the parking to the terminal, we exchanged a few words. She was still in a rush as if almost missing her flight. As we were entering the airport terminal, she said she had been waiting 45 minutes for someone to stop. She asked for an email address. I was carrying one of my books, I handed it to her and said she would find it there. I never heard from her. The question – why didn’t anyone stop to help out – hung in my head for a while. I concluded in my head that the world is a selfish place, though all was forgotten after a while. On 29th of April, I was boarding a flight from Delhi to Bangalore. I’d reached the airport a couple of hours early.<< MORE >>

I was in a discussion last week with some of very well regarded industry leaders. The subject of discussion was achieving greatness in groups. Most discussions on groups, and this one no different almost always and implicitly leads to the notion of ‘least common denominator’ and finding ways to round off the rough edges. The magic though lies elsewhere. Examine carefully the leaders of the Indian cricket team in the recent past. The turnaround that started under Sourav Ganguly, the magic lay in Sourav allowing other players to be themselves. The magic for example lay in allowing a Sehwag to be more Sehwag than he himself knew he could be. He didn’t attempt to round off Sehwag’s rough edges or for any of the other youngsters. The magic though lies elsewhere. Examine carefully the leaders of the Indian cricket team in the recent past. The turnaround that started under Sourav Ganguly, the magic lay in Sourav allowing other players to be themselves. The magic for example lay in allowing a Sehwag to be more Sehwag than he himself knew he could be. He didn’t attempt to round off Sehwag’s rough edges or for any of the other youngsters.<< MORE >>

“What a distressing contrast it is between the radiant mentality of a child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.” These words of Sigmund Freud have come to life in almost all of my interactions with groups of people of the last few months, which fortunately in the recent past have been plenty. There is nothing more exciting on the face of this earth than curious little four year old who is absolutely fascinated by anything and everything at which point we (almost as if to destroy it) send him or her to school.<< MORE >>

I am about to make a contrarian point to a popular belief. I am writing this article to communicate a very simple message – the less you do, the more you have. This is obviously opposite to how most people will live their lives, most of us have been taught to work harder or smarter. It makes no difference how smart you are or how hard you work. I am here today to tell you without any doubt and hesitation that the more you work, the less you will have. I have done my research on this statement. You can do yours and reach the same conclusion or for a while just trust mine.<< MORE >>

Marvin Bower, a law graduate, joined McKinsey in 1933. A mere six years later upon the death of James O. Mckinsey, Bower bought over the then 18 person management accounting firm with regional presence and 13 year history of problematic existence. The 35 year old Marvin Bower was the founder, creator and inventor of ‘management consulting.’ Lets put this in perspective – in the 30’s and 40’s in the US, business was regarded as a job less desirable than any profession like law, medicine, armed forces etc. it was usually meant for the third or the fourth child who had nothing to inherit. Marvin after taking over the company, shut down the accounting division<< MORE >>