Managing Egos= Managing People?

 Yes, most of the time, these are the same thing. 

That is one reason why flattery works in a lot of places. Bosses, for example are usually happy to hear good things about themselves. King's courtiers knew this very well, in the days when monarchy was prevalent everywhere.

It is a rare person who is immune to praise- deserved or undeserved. I am not recommending this route to get ahead, but maybe awareness of it may still be useful. Even otherwise, you can get things done if you recognise that people have egos- sometimes, bloated egos and the easiest way is to play along and get that satisfied.

Government servants in monopolistic situations are a good example, because they can block any initiative or request, unless egos are massaged. Well, that is sometimes given other names, but like Shakespeare said, the name is not very relevant. So, recognise and work around it if you face a monopoly of power. 

Tribes India

Not satisfied with buying a house with a lake and a plane (my last post was about those), I went shopping again. To an interesting place (Tribes India) that sold tribal craft from all over India. Managed to chat up two lovely young ladies working there, and their manager. Got some interesting stuff, too. They have outlets in multiple places across India. Do visit one when you can. Support our tribals.

 Priya and Srinanda work at the store, and were good salespeople-persuasive, but not aggressive. Their boss is in the pic below- a selfie!

 They pose sportingly at my request, in their metalwork products section!

Book Review-The Evolution of Everything by Matt Ridley

I am in the middle of a fascinating book about how everything has evolved, and will evolve. No, it does not tell you what will be the end result, but says that it won't be planned. Instead, it will evolve as a result of various events, pulls, pressures and so on. And this covers every aspect of life as we know it.

Almost anything you can think of is covered, not just our evolution from a Darwinian standpoint. Culture, religion, morality, civilisation, institutions, the Law, and almost everything. The central argument of the author is that you can only achieve so much through planning, and free enterprise actually works better than control. Human action helps, but design, planning,...very little.

All you control freaks out there, you need to take a chill pill, if what he argues is even half-correct. For instance, he finds that the Epicurean principles espoused by an ancient author were suppressed a long time because they were inconvenient to, and contradicted the Church. The author's writings were accidentally found and propagated to an extent (or at least were out in print) in the fourteenth century.

Many interesting fields bound together by a common thread. There are references to another book I had read a long time ago, Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene, about our evolution.

I can't wait to read the rest of it. See you later.

If Women Ruled All Countries

There is a joke going around that says if women headed all the countries, we would have no wars-just a lot of countries not talking to each other.. wouldn't that be good? On these lines, a few other things one might expect in a country that was headed by an all-women govt. (disclaimer: this scenario may not resemble reality, and is a flight of fancy)-

The National Animal- Teddy Bear
National TV channel- FTV Men
Banned- Arnab Goswami, as he stifles women's self-expression
Man of (our) nation- RaGa, for supporting Women's Empowerment

Free land for Retail chains, or anyone promoting shopping in any way
National Pet- Kitty Cat
National Pastime- Kitty Party
National Icon- Ekta Kapoor
National Brand- Joy Alukkas (a gold jewellery retailer)
National Award- To any film that resembles a marriage video, such as Hum Aapke Hain Kaun

Traffic- Whatever women do is right
Banned-Parking fines
Admissible Cause for Divorce- Not listening
Punishment for Call Drops-Death by hanging

Birthday and Anniversary Reminders through large outdoor hoardings at major traffic junctions for all females residing in the area (meant for male commuters), in addition to SMS provided free by service providers.
Chocolates and flower shops to be mandatory every 200 metres on major roads.
National greeting- Awww..

The Positives

In the make-believe world that Arnab Goswami and others create for us every day, it is easy to get fooled into thinking that there are only Scams like Lalitgate happening around us. Even if they are, there are quite a few good things being attempted by the government of the day. Let us give them credit where they deserve it.

Digital Locker is a great idea that might be useful for a citizen to store his educational or any other govrnmental records such as license, passport, home registration etc. digitally. It is linked or operated through an Aadhar number and a mobile or email number, so it may be secure.

Clean India or Swachch Bharat campaign. It is the first time in many years that someone has raised the issues of cleanliness, and sanitation, through the Vidya Balan campaign running on TV and radio. That is something we badly need to seep into our consciousness. If we can eliminate spitting in even fifty years, I am all for it.

Kalyug- Book Review

This is an original fiction title, just published. Written by first-time author Sreeram Ramakrishnan, it is a thriller set in present-day India.

Meticulously detailed, it sets out with a writer being called upon to witness a coup 'as it happens', in Delhi. A shadowy organisation claiming to do it in the nation's interest, puts up a puppet as the Head of the new government, and runs it by remote control. There is another organisation run by an industrialist, with nexus abroad, which is a rival power-monger, appropriately called 'Powerhouse'. The coup succeeds, and the rival, Powerhouse, attempts to sabotage the new 'government' by all means available to it. There is an exciting finale to resolve the various threads.

The unique thing about the story is its contemporary Indian setting, and characters drawn from recent political history. Many of the characters and events are recognisable, and add to the curiosity of the reader about how things will pan out for each one of them. The crux of the story is a defence scandal (from recent memory of a similar one that actually happened) involving shoddy equipment that ends up killing soldiers on the front, and one general's commitment to expose it. A female journalist also takes it upon herself to get to the bottom of things, and plays a pivotal role, and the love interest.

There is also interference from Britain and the US, sometimes positively affecting events, but usually looking down upon India from their high horses-pretty accurate in its depiction. There are plenty of surprises, and the writing is first rate.

A well-researched, high-voltage drama, and scary in its implications, it reminds the reader of how easily democracy can be subverted, with just a few years' planning, and a handful of committed people, if things are rotten in Denmark. A good read!

Tax Talk

Brand Management for the Department of Direct Taxes was the topic for a small invited talk (not 'small talk') that I gave at a gathering of Chief Commissioners of Income Tax at their training centre in Nagpur. Rather intimidating, at first sight, you would think (and I thought). But we got along well, and nobody asked me for my PAN number at the end- so the revenge motive is ruled out.

Seriously, it was quite interesting to talk about marketing and branding to people from a government department. After all, it is a monopoly, and with a lot of power, so what would it be doing with marketing? I had to also think differently, and came up with a passable presentation based on basics of services marketing- the 7 Ps. We came up with a positioning statement for the dept. to uplift its image or give it a positive spin- call themselves 'Bankers to the Nation'. The trouble is, State Bank of India already uses the tagline. So we left the concept at that and moved on. There was a also a lively discussion about Mr. Nilekani and his project called Unique ID that seeks to generate one for every Indian. I also put forth my pet theory that Indian post offices along with e-seva centres can be used to deliver almost every known government service that a citizen needs in his lifetime, including driving license, passport, ration card, marriage, birth and death registration, and so on.

In general, the ideas that the image is important even for a govt. department went down well. We had an added bonus in the form of a TV crew that shot a few moments of our session for a documentary film on the tax dept. that they were shooting.