A tale of Two Seas.....And experience life. Experience the magic!

Here is an interesting story on two seas with some interesting lessons. I had heard of Dead Sea in school. No one ever told me this side of the story. You may find it interesting. I look forward to your perspective.
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A tale of Two Seas   Sitting in the Geography class in school, I remember how fascinated I was when we were being taught all about the Dead Sea. As you probably recall, the Dead Sea is really a Lake, not a sea (and as my Geography teacher pointed out, if you understood that, it would guarantee 4 marks in the term paper!) It’s so high in salt content that the human body can float easily. You can almost lie down and read a book! The salt in the Dead Sea is as high as 35% - almost 10 times the normal ocean water. And all that saltiness has meant that there is no life at all in the Dead Sea. No fish. No vegetation. No sea animals. Nothing lives in the Dead Sea.

And hence the name: Dead Sea.

While the Dead Sea has remained etched in my memory, I don't seem to recall learning about the Sea of Galilee in my school Geography lesson. So when I heard about the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea and the tale of the two seas - I was intrigued.

Turns out that the Sea of Galilee is just north of the Dead Sea. Both the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea receive their water from river Jordan. And yet, they are very, very different.

Unlike the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee is pretty, resplendent with rich, colorful marine life. There are lots of plants. And lots of fish too. In fact, the Sea of Galilee is home to over twenty different types of fishes.
Same region, same source of water, and yet while one sea is full of life, the other is dead. How come?

Here’s apparently why. The River Jordan flows into the Sea of Galilee and then flows out. The water simply passes through the Sea of Galilee in and then out - and that keeps the sea healthy and vibrant, teeming with marine life.

But the Dead Sea is so far below the mean sea level, that it has no outlet. The water flows in from the river Jordan, but does not flow out. There are no outlet streams. It is estimated that over 7 million tons of water evaporate from the Dead Sea every day. Leaving it salty. Too full of minerals. And unfit for any marine life.

The Dead Sea takes water from the River Jordan, and holds it. It does not give.

Result? No life at all.

Think about it.

Life is not just about getting. Its about giving. We all need to be a bit like the Sea of Galilee.
We are fortunate to get wealth, knowledge, love and respect. But if we don't learn to give, we could all end up like the Dead Sea. The love and the respect, the wealth and the knowledge could all evaporate. Like the water in the Dead Sea.

If we get the Dead Sea mentality of merely taking in more water, more money, more everything the results can be disastrous.
Good idea to make sure that in the sea of your own life, you have outlets. Many outlets. For love and wealth - and everything else that you get in your life. Make sure you don't just get, you give too.

Open the taps. And you'll open the floodgates to happiness. Make that a habit. To share. To give.

And experience life. Experience the magic!

Eight lesson learned from Narendra Modi

Forty-five days from now, we will know if Narendra Modi's stupendous effort to bag the country's top job has been successful or not. But no one, friend or foe, bhakt or critic, can deny that he has mounted one hell of a campaign that will, at some point, provide a global B-school case study. Consider the sheer energy he has put in. The election dates were announced just about a month ago, but Modi has been on the campaign trail since September 2012 – yes, 2012. That’s when he began the Gujarat campaign. That’s 19 months on the stump, a punishing schedule. If Modi finally makes it 7, Race Course Road, it will be one of the most fascinating victories in Indian history – a story without precedent. What are the key management lessons one can learn from the success of the Modi juggernaut so far?

 

First, declare your ambitions and goals clearly. Rarely in Indian elections have we seen any candidate clearly state what he wants and what he hopes to achieve if he gets what he wants. While others pussyfoot around the idea and act coy, Modi has always been clear he wanted to be PM. This is the main reason why many voters are clear about giving him a chance.

This is simple logic. Consider that there are three applicants for a job. The first applicant says it does not matter if he gets the job or not, for he is on to higher things. The second applicant says everyone else is a crook and doesn’t deserve the job. The final applicant says he wants the job and he is best qualified for it. He is willing to work hard and brandishes his past achievements to support his candidature.

Who will you give the job to? The chances are you will consider the person who is keen on the job, seems to have the qualifications, and willing to toil for it.

This is the power of goal clarity and focus.

 

Second, break the final target into a set of smaller targets and milestones.

Modi’s milestones were clear: First, win Gujarat convincingly, next win public backing for his candidature through carefully-choreographed speeches to specific audiences (starting with the address to the Shriram College of Commerce in January 2013 in Delhi), then win party support by getting the cadre excited at various fora, and then expand his support base by winning votes for his party CMs in various assembly elections (but after sealing his candidature for the top post). Now he is in sight of the final peak: getting enough votes in crucial states to lead his party to victory and form a government. Modi ran his campaign like a US presidential election - from primaries to the final party nomination and on to voting day.

 

Third, demonstrate strength, then invite stakeholders. One of the big myths perpetrated by the media is that Modi would never get allies because of 2002. For a while it seemed likely to prove true. But Modi did not bother with this theory. He knew allies would come if they saw winning potential in him. Once he demonstrated public support and the opinion polls started conveying the same groundswell of support across the country, allies started trickling in one by one. It is strength that attracts allies, not entreaties.

 

Fourth, eliminate doubters and bring in team players. This is one of the core philosophies that saw Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer, beat Robert Scott to the South Pole in 1911. Amundsen knew that if his team had to make it first, it needed competent people, but more important, he needed people who would fall in line and not try to be too individualistic. As Morten Hansen writes in this HBR blog: “Amundsen emphasised unity and teamwork over individual competence. He got rid of his best person, Johansen, and booted him from the final assault team because he had quarrelled with Amundsen openly in front of all the others. Amundsen could not risk fracture in his team, which could jeopardise the whole enterprise. Likewise, Bill Gates was quick to manage out people who didn’t fit, including two presidents…”.

This is exactly what Modi did. First, he got his bête noire Sanjay Joshi out of Gujarat in 2012. Then he got the party to appoint his key person, Amit Shah, as the person in charge of his most important state – Uttar Pradesh. Shah is facing cases against him in some encounter killings, but for Modi his loyalty and political acumen was what mattered. He brought back BS Yeddyurappa despite opposition from within, and tied up with Ram Vilas Paswan in Bihar despite misgivings in his party. Inside the party, LK Advani has been neutered, and Jaswant Singh shown the door. Everybody knows now who is boss. To be sure, Modi will still face some internal conspirators – political parties are not like South Pole explorers with small teams of specialists - but he will probably deal with them if he wins.. He can’t outplace everyone and still seek to win.

As Hansen writes in his HBR blog: “Amundsen was not nice, warm, and fuzzy. However, he didn’t take the easy path (“let’s hope it will work out”) but made difficult choices ahead of time. In selecting people, it is not about being nice, but rigorous.”

Modi is not in the race to win awards for being nice to people.

 

Fifth, plan meticulously and in detail. TV viewers watching Modi’s speeches in various places may think it is all about oratory, but that is only one part of the Modi plan to communicate with the masses. The truth is there is an entire army of people working to support his rallies. There in a huge IT crew that monitors the buzz on social media. There is a huge contingent of on-ground researchers who thank people who come to his rallies and seek feedback.

A Narendra Modi rally is not about erecting a stage and giving the speakers a mike. There is water-tight security combing, there are LED screens to give everyone who attends a clear view of the man, there are speakers at vantage points to amplify every soundbyte from the stage - the works. Plus there are feeds organised for the TV channels, and facilities for live streaming on the internet.

Says an Indian Express report: “Narendra Modi rallies have, in recent times, gone on to become full-fledged stage productions involving light, sound, carefully chosen music, stage design and sky cameras — all intended to enhance viewer experience and build the Modi brand.”

An Economic Times report explains why a Modi rally is not just any event: “At every Modi meeting, an army of volunteers combs through the crowd, gathering feedback, profiling attendees and making a headcount. Later the party's IT cell collates all the data.”

 

Sixth, set the agenda and keep control. Companies which hope to win in a competitive arena must choose their battlefield and the agenda. In this election, Modi has been setting the agenda most of the time. During the Gujarat campaign, he spent more time attacking Sonia and Rahul than on local issues – he took the nation’s eyes way from any nagging issues in his own state. The media labelled him as uncouth, and pooh-paahed him. He won by setting the agenda to his advantage.

After emerging from Gujarat on the national stage, he began talking of the Gujarat model. Suddenly, the man who everyone labelled communal was talking growth and development and introducing new talking points to the TV and media circuit. The agenda excited young voters at a time when Rahul Gandhi was talking elliptically about “escape velocities”. The Gujarat model is now being questioned following Arvind Kejriwal’s foray into Gujarat, but the agenda has changed again. It is too late to debunk the Gujarat model. The Congress gave him space to introduce the Gujarat model by initially ignoring him. Now that they have decided to take him on, he has shifted the agenda again.

Over the last few weeks, the main issue in this election is Modi himself. All his detractors have taken him on – making him the focus of this election. This suits Modi since this election will now be a referendum on him. He has not only set the agenda, he has become the agenda.

Take another example: Till a few months ago, the general assumption was that everyone votes regionally – and regionally alone. Indian Lok Sabha elections are about parties and alliances, not about the candidate. But Modi has succeeded in making this election substantially presidential.

 

Seventh, attack the enemy where he is weak. This strategy is, of course, obvious. Modi’s strength has been the UPA’s economic failures, and the meekness of Manmohan Singh as PM. It did not need a Modi to discover where the UPA’s chinks were, but it required genius to discover whom to attack, how to attack, and for what.

Contrary to general assumptions, Manmohan Singh’s weakness is actually his strength and his weakness his strength. As LK Advani found out in 2009 and even later in parliament, if you attack Singh’s meekness, you risk public opprobrium and Singh can easily turn the tables. But if you pity him, you gain. The meek always inherit the public’s sympathies. Modi was happy to defend Singh when Rahul Gandhi insulted him by rubbishing the ordinance to help convicted criminals as “nonsense”. Modi defended Singh. He attacks Sonia and Rahul more in order to expose the weakness of their government.

 

Eighth, never play to your weakness. Answering direct questions from aggressive TV anchors is an uncontrollable situation.. As Rahul Gandhi discovered in his TV interview with Arnab Goswami, you can make a fool of yourself. Modi, in contrast, uses only friendly interviewers for his Q&As. He has learnt from bitter experience – as in the India Today Conclave in 2013, when he lost his cool following aggressive questioning about 2002. It is unlikely he will change this strategy as long as he is not PM.

This is not to suggest that every part of his strategy is well worked out. That’s not the case. Modi still does not have a substantial think-tank lending weight to his interviews. He probably talks too much extempore with small strategic inputs, and does not prepare enough when talking on the economy or complex subjects.

On the other hand, he has also not committed himself to making elaborate promises to the electorate that he cannot keep. That will work to his advantage if he gets election. He has great expectations to meet, but few promises to keep.

Azim Premji @ ISB: Success comes from the ordinary

 

All of us here are privileged, some more some less.
I think that privilege gives us not only a responsibility, but the way I see it an opportunity, to help those around us who face inequity, injustice and deprivation.
And I do believe, that if each of us does whatever we can, within our capability, capacity and our constraints, to reach out to even one of our fellow underprivileged citizens, it can make an enormous difference to our country.
Wipro Chairman Azim Premji's inspiring address to the graduating batch of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad...
Good afternoon. It's a great pleasure to be here with you.
My congratulations to all of you who are graduating today. Let me also congratulate this excellent institute where you have been studying. In the past two decades, very few high quality academic institutions have been built in India, and ISB has definitely proved itself to be amongst the leaders.
Today as I stand here I recall a personal incident from way back pertaining to another excellent business school like this one.
It was in the mid-1970s Wipro was a small company making vegetable oils. We had just begun to diversify into manufacturing soap. I was then about as old as some of you are today.
I realised early that if Wipro had to grow we had to build a good team. I intuitively knew that strategy and other important issues could be worked out if Wipro had the right people.
So I decided that we must recruit the very best people from the very best places.
At that time that meant the IIM Ahmedabad.
So I set out to recruit from IIM Ahmedabad. You can imagine how presumptuous I must have appeared to the management at the IIM.
I was in my early twenties, running a small business which no one had heard of.
Hindustan Lever, the leader in our product category, and other similar blue chip companies were clearly the places which business school graduates wanted to join.
Lever, then perhaps 100 times our size, did not even know we existed.
Suffice it to say we were not taken seriously. I was not even given a chance to have a dialogue with the students.
That was the first time we tried and we came back empty handed.
But I did not relent and I also did not change what I was saying about the company.
I presented Wipro with absolute candour, which I have continued to do.
We kept trying. We also tried at other good institutions like TISS. We tried at different campuses, and we also attempted to recruit those who had recently passed out.
After three whole years of trying, we finally succeeded.
It started with a couple of people, and then over a period of time, the trickle became a steady stream.
By the early 1980s, we were being invited to all the top business school campuses for recruitment.
Business school graduates who joined us were given a clear understanding of the company they were joining.
We made sure that they knew exactly what Wipro stood for.
I think it's because of this that most of those who joined us in that period stayed on through their careers.
Many of them played a determining role in shaping Wipro.
The thing about being comfortable with who and what you are, and presenting that with candour, has always stood us in good stead.
In fact now our clients tell us that this is one of the big advantages that they find in dealing with us, vis-a-vis our competitors.
That brings me to my next point. The point is about the critical importance of things that we consider ordinary.
In the world of today, we seem to be caught with the notions of the extraordinary.
What I mean is that we are always thinking of what could be the next big idea, what innovation could be done, how we will stand out and be different and so on.
We seem to getting in to a mode of thinking that success comes from extraordinary things. 
My experience suggests that this is quite wrong. Innovation, big-ideas, being different, all have a place -- and sometimes can be very important. However what really builds and sustains success, are the much ignored ordinary things.
The three ordinary things that we often don't pay enough attention to, but which I believe are the drivers of all success are: hard-work, perseverance and basic honesty.
As I look back at the past 30-40 years of Wipro, I can hardly remember any decisive turning point that came from some single big idea or great innovation. Everything was built with steady, painstaking work.
No innovation or big idea can compensate for lack of hard work and perseverance, but I have experienced that often hard work and perseverance can compensate for most other things.
I talked about my experience with Wipro on this issue; I can also refer to my experience with people.
Over the years I have been privileged to have met and worked with some of the most successful people in the world.
What is clearly common to all these people is what I have called the ordinary things.
Many of them have startling brilliance or extraordinary creativity, but these are just flashes.
What makes them what they are, is hard-work, perseverance and basic honesty.

Lastly, I would like to share with you two ordinary events from a different sphere.
Recently I visited a place called Surpur, which is about four hours driving distance from here.
Surpur is a block head quarter in Yadgir district in north Karnataka.
The Foundation that I have set up has been working in that area for over eight years.
The main objective of our work is to improve quality and equity in education in our rural government schools, in which our poorest and most disadvantaged children study.
In one of the villages which we visited, the government school had organised a 'baal mela', a children's fair.
Perhaps it was nothing that would impress anyone who goes to one of the more privileged schools in Hyderabad or other urban areas.
But when we remember that this was a small village of marginal farmers, in one of the most backward areas of the country, where most of the children were first generation school goers in their families, it was very gratifying to see.
The sense of excitement was infectious.
The entire village had been involved in organising the fair. There was enormous enthusiasm.
The fair was full of models and charts to explain various concepts in science.
The school teachers were running around busily.
What amazed me was the passion with which the entire village was engaged with the event.
It was an eye opener as to the resilient spirit of our people, which can be sparked with just the little intervention from outside.
From the baal mela, we went to visit another government school where we shared the mid-day-meal with the children.
It was simple and tasty food. This meal is prepared at a budget allocation of Rs 3.40 per child.
While we were eating, I observed that three small children were accompanied by even younger children, who were eating from their plates, the older ones feeding the little ones.
I was told that they were siblings who were too little to be in school.
They came to school because their parents were both out in the fields working as hired labour with no one at home to take care of them, but mostly because that was the only way they could get a half way decent meal in the day.
The school understood the situation and accommodated these young children in the meagre budget that it had.
I cannot think of too many schemes where the taxpayer's rupee has been better spent.
How distant the world of those children eating the Rs 3.40 mid-day-meal seems from the world that awaits you after your graduation, but it is not really. It is very much part of our world and one which we often find it easier not to see.
There is extraordinary inequality, deprivation and injustice all around us, and I think we need to be conscious of this reality, because it is highly intelligent and capable people like you who are key to making our country better.
I don't think this will happen just by each one of us doing their job well. That may be a good place to start, but I think it is necessary to have some genuine social engagement. You may ask why?
I don't have a simple, compelling answer. To me, it seems that all of us here are privileged, some more some less.
I think that privilege gives us not only a responsibility, but the way I see it an opportunity, to help those around us who face inequity, injustice and deprivation.
And I do believe, that if each of us does whatever we can, within our capability, capacity and our constraints, to reach out to even one of our fellow underprivileged citizens, it can make an enormous difference to our country.
Finally, all battles are fought in the mind, and if we all search towards a common goal with like mind and common purpose, the difference must and will show.
Let me end by wishing you all the very best, for a life and career that is fulfilling to you, and also makes this world a better place.