How to Deal With Bosses

I have to credit a group of bright alumni of IMT Nagpur with whom I had an outing recently for the title of this blog. We thought that MBA programs should include a course on this. So I am setting out a possible map of contents here-

1. Who is the boss? Some understanding of whose orders you follow in life should help in identifying this character-sometimes it's more than one.

2. Why is he the boss? (Could be a she-I had a lady boss in my first job). Understanding whether he is the promoter, his son/daughter, nephew puts things in perspective. If not, how he managed to get there will serve as a useful lesson in how to deal with him.

3. What can he do to you? The worst case scenario and the best case scenario..a range of possibilities, in other words.

4. What can you do? Scenarios and responses to those scenarios if you are a reacting type, or plot possibilities, if you are the proactive type.

5. Should you stay or leave? The million-dollar question. Signals that ask you to look around can be identified early, combined with some of the above.

More can be added, such as a typology of bosses. But that would be in the main course- this was only an appetizer!

Rain Fury

This year, it has spread to unusual places- almost the whole state of Kerala, Kodagu in Karnataka, and a few places in Gujarat.

Makes me wonder if there are any long term measures that one can take to prevent such devastation in case of heavy rains, and maybe also preserve the rainwater for use in lean times. Of course, emergency rescue in the short run needs a lot of improvement too. I do remember seeing some reports of cyclones on the east coast- Orissa, or Andhra Pradesh being handled relatively well sometime ago.

Governments would do well, both at the Centre and the states prone to such disasters (now we know many states are), to think about such measures in advance. For example, can release of water from dams that are likely to overflow be timed better so that it does not cause floods?

That is what progress is for. Otherwise, all talk of mundane applications of AI, IoT, Analytics,  and all that is just talk.