Why ''Make in India'' is still a far fetched dream?

In December 2010, a group of 19 Indian students landed in Beijing after an exhilarating voyage across the islands of Indonesia and Malaysia. None of us expected any surprises. A temperature controlled bus would ferry us to our cozy hotel rooms and we would prepare ourselves for the gruelling study trip the next day – that was the standard plan.

But fate had different plans. The luggage conveyor belt stopped turning and I realized that my luggage was missing. Lost in transit at Malaysia – we were told by the airport staff at Beijing airport.

The temperature outside was -4 degrees Celsius and all I had with me was a hand luggage with just a night's change and a fleece jacket. While it might sound like a lot to most men, it is definitely not enough for a woman. Trust me about that. The lady at the airport understood that too. With 400 Yuan as compensation for the hardship and a promise of luggage recovery the next day, we had no other choice but to leave for the hotel as scheduled. On the way though, I made it a mandate to stop and shop for some essentials to tide me over for the next couple of days atleast.

It was midnight by the time we booked into our rooms and we had an early start scheduled for the next day. The only thing I was capable of thinking about was sleep and that’s what I did.

On waking up the next day, I realized how cold it was in the room despite the heater. So I made myself a cup of coffee. The standard red Nescafe sachet beckoned and the coffee was made. With my very first whiff and sip, I realized that this coffee smelled and tasted better than the one at home. Perhaps, the Chinese grew better coffee than Indians hence, Nestle created better products here I thought.

But I didn’t have much time to ponder, so I rushed to get ready. Now, I truly believe that if you want baby soft skin, use only baby products. So a Johnson’s baby oil is a standard feature of my toiletry kit. Since, my luggage had gone missing, I had to purchase one last night. Again a known and much loved product but this too felt different. It felt creamy and smoother in comparison to its Indian counterpart. I will be fair - The smell was the same though. Never mind I said to myself, they make it better because Chinese babies are more important perhaps for Johnson & Johnson.

My luggage was delivered to my hotel my noon that day and the hotel called me to confirm the same. I was elated. What service!

After a long day of study visits across Beijing, we were all tired and hungry. The hotel plan did not cover dinner. But more than the prices, we shuddered at the menu that was on offer. So we decided to take a walk and catch some grub at the nearest KFC or Mc D. The Mac came first and we ordered a Mc Chicken with fries on the side. As students, we opted for the cheapest combo. At 50 Yuan (~ 300 rupees) we were thrilled and shocked to see the portion size of the meal. So why were Indian Mcs so tiny? They looked like a joke in comparison. Believe me, Indians can eat just as much as any Chinese if not more. Our hunger is no less inferior to our Chinese friends.

This was just a one day account of my experiences with different brands in a NON-INDIAN environment. There are more.

Back in the 90’s when dad came back from London, Singapore, Oman and other foreign visits, we eagerly awaited the perfumes, cosmetics and soaps he brought for us. The sweet scent of the perfumes lingered even after the clothes had been through a wash. The Camay soaps were milky and the scent lingered for hours after a bath. The makeup made us glow and made heads turn not because we wore too much of it but because, the product was doing its job right.

The QUALITY was top notch. There was no compromise on the quality of a product made in a NON-INDIAN country.

If we want to really “MAKE IN INDIA” we INDIANS have to be QUALITY CONSCIOUS. It is not okay for Olay so deteriorate to a runny consistency just ten months after its initial launch. It is not okay for Nestle or Coke or Pepsi to sell us substandard products that will be rejected in the international market. To those in the decision making echelons of this country and corporates, please note – RESPECT INDIA before you MAKE IN INDIA.

“Wanted - SUPERMAN OR SUPERWOMAN with a better dressing sense”!

While I love to write and share my thoughts with others, I rarely get the time to do so these days. So I decided to write a few short articles on some recent observations at work and in the industry as a whole.

Most HR professionals identified in the elite cadre across the industry, agree that it is important to induct non-HR persons into HR roles in order to speed up the function of an HR Business Partner (HRBP). However, over the last year, while more and more roles have opened up for HR Business Partners across all organisations, the job descriptions have sadly remained backward in approach. Most JDs of HRBP outline the role of an HR purist.

An HRBP according to any typical job description (JD) is expected to deliver a role that spans across the entire spectrum of HR operational activities such as recruitment, performance management, exits and statutory compliances as well as analyze the myriad data, capture trends, report the same to the management, train and coach on leadership development and manage the talent pipeline. Oh Wait! That’s not all, the HRBP has to also strategize, manage the external branding as well as internal communication, engage and motivate employees and aid in change management.

Here’s a thought - Why don’t we simplify the JD instead and simply write “Wanted - SUPERMAN OR SUPERWOMAN with a better dressing sense”!

If your organisation is in a bad shape and really needs an HRBP, what you are actually serving the HRBP at the very start is a ‘’big basket of rotten apples’’.

In case you are an HR person who belongs to an organisation that cares for its employees and is really serious about sustaining an HRBP role, here are some helpful tips you can use –

1. If you add too many areas for any role, then don’t expect the incumbent to succeed.
2. Don’t expect an HRBP to start performing from day one.
3. The first job of the HRBP is to listen to the employees and the leaders. Make copius notes and then bring order to the chaos.
4. An HRBP is not a one man/woman army model. HRBP has to be a team of experts who identify and undertake one project at a time in order to succeed at the same.
5. Do not expect an HRBP to succeed if he/she has to impose upon the remaining HR team members. He/She will belong to the HR team and in order for them to succeed, they need to be able to make friends in the team. A role that acts as a data collector/fault finder of his own team will seldom be able to make friends internally. Such an HRBP is bound to be de-motivated the fastest and leave your organisation for greener pastures.
6. None of the HRBP JDs mention anything about knowledge of business or developing leaders from within his/her team or grow more HRBPs internally.

Lastly, an HRBP role is that of a doctor who has to treat an accident victim. No wound can be healed overnight. No one medicine can cure all ailments and no one treatment is a sure shot guarantee of complete recovery. Hope this helps.

Own your Professional Growth

The role and responsibilities of professionals, needs to change and evolve over a period of time. People often ask me how this can be done. So here are six easy steps to do just that.

1. One of the easy ways to make this change happen is to track the changes happening in the industry vis a vis your role.
2. Even if you do not have a network of professionals in the same role at other organisations, just look up the job descriptions of a role on multiple job boards. See if you fancy any new addition to your role and list that on your KRA.
3. Don’t be over ambitious though. Understand what you can do and what you cannot keeping your organisational context in perspective.
4. Identify low hanging achievables and jot them down.
5. Make a separate list for training and certifications that you need to achieve a certain competency.
6. And last but not the least, keep abreast of what is happening in your organisation and the industry in general. An outdated professional with a meritorious past is the worst qualification to have.

Just remember that if you don’t own your own growth, no one else will.

The Child Boss and his Toy Chair

1995 was the year when a telephone entered our house. I remember racing my three year old sister to answer the phone, every time it rang for the first two months. The novelty wore off soon though. But quite early on, our parents taught us the value of short conversations and meaningful relationships. My first job as a call center executive in GE taught me another lesson. The importance of keeping conversations short and simple. Even today, I find it a criminal waste of time to speak to anyone for hours together. It is a shameful waste of productivity and a costly drain of airtime.

I once read an account of a company driver who remembers an incident that happened in the long past. One day in the peak of summer, four corporate executives had to travel to a remote rural location. Given the poor condition of rural roads, a tyre went flat and the passengers were forced to stop while the tyre was changed.  While three of the executives scurried away to take shelter from the scorching sun, only one executive stayed back. He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves and squatted down with the driver to help change the tyre. Working together, they changed the flat in half the time it would have taken for the driver to do it alone. They resumed the journey soon after. The executive who helped the driver was none other than Ratan Tata. I felt a sense of pride just hearing the story. Imagine the pride and the sense of association the driver must have felt on that day.

Over the years, I wondered how so many people could spend hours talking over the phone with their "soulmates" (ironical) and one or two years after entering the institution of marriage, their conversations dwindled. The youth today has a burning itch to check their mobiles every few seconds and feel lost if the slow data connectivity delays the delivery of their life saving whatsapps. I rarely see these young guns read books while waiting at the airport. There are barely any young minds absorbing the beauty of nature while travelling with family and friends. We do not have the time to connect with the real people around us. Yet, as we enter our organization and begin work, we want our leaders to be connected to us.

Three to four years of graduation and two years of post graduation from premier institutes and presto, you have theoretically produced a professional who is ready to hit the corporate ground running! BUT, their academic degree is not a passport to becoming a great leader. Talking to bosses, attending late dinners and stretching over the weekend is OK for these bright minds but sparing some time to help the junior recruit settle down at work is too much work. With our heads buried under spreadsheets and numbers, we often forget that everything in life ultimately boils down to people. So when the office guards opens the door for you or the office boy runs your errands, saying a simple "Thank you" seems like a bit too much effort. A message on whatsapp or a friend's foreign vacation pictures on Facebook are more important than acknowledging the live person in front of you. It is so easy to give orders to your reports but so very hard to coach them and help them grow. I feel sorry every time a bright executive leaves for consulting roles simply because they could not master the art of connecting with people. Leaders are not made by the degrees you earn or the title you hold or the people you network with. Leaders are made by the attitude you have and the behaviour you display even in the passing.

How many of us thank the office boy who brings our mail to us or serves us tea or coffee? How many of us take the time to just smile at the receptionist every morning as we enter the office? These are just some people we meet everyday. But under the enormous weight of our inflated professional titles and super inflated egos, we rarely have time to notice these people who don't play a role in paying our salaries. Yet, we all have something to say about the "company culture not being quite right". The "what's in it for me?" attitude works well - but only for a while. Time is a cruel performance appraiser. The best leaders are not those who made the most money but those who connected the most with people.

Your life is a huge blank canvas and your behaviours are all the colours that you have at your disposal. The picture you paint on the canvas is entirely up to you. Just remember. that the canvas has two sides. On one side is the picture you paint as a professional and on the other, the picture is that of you as a person. The colours you choose and the picture you paint on either side it entirely up to you. But remember that one day, the professional life will end and only the picture that you painted on the personal side will see you through to the end.

The Success Stoppers

Have you ever run a relay race? A relay race is a team sport where the entire team has to work together one after the other to each the finishing line. Each time you pass the baton to the next runner you place an implicit faith in your team member that he or she will give their best to reach the finishing line first. However, imagine running a relay with some members who did not have the motivation to come first in the race. Imagine what would happen if one member of your team suddenly fell down during the race and could not continue running. What if someone did not have the right shoes and ran slower than the rest since they were afraid to fall down. And worse than everything, what if one of your team members did not realize than they were falling behind in the race and had to run faster to keep up with others?

It is a terrible feeling to lose a relay race when one or the other team member does not perform their best and as a result the entire team fails. Similarly in an organization, it is team work that gets us success. Organization success is not a one man job. Neither is it the responsibility of one person. Hence, when the organization goal is clear yet, we all look to a single leader to give us direction every time, we are bound to fail.

At Adani Power, our rate of growth has been phenomenal and we only have to go further. We have already created several benchmarks in the industry but we cannot stop there. To do so however, each one of us needs to be a leader in our own jobs. If we don’t own up to our responsibilities then we are thee roadblocks to our organization's success. In this article, I will give you a few examples of how someone can be an organizational roadblock and how to avoid becoming one.

The Credit Seekers (Vindictive by Nature)

One of the worst kinds of attitudes that some employees in an organization have is the quality of vindictiveness. Vindictive employees are those who deliberately stall decisions or work without thinking of the consequences of delay for the organization. They are aware and empowered to do what needs to be done. Yet, they deliberately postpone certain activities in order to cause harm to someone or defame someone. They are not indecisive by nature. Instead, they are calculative and manipulative and take pleasure in making others feel uncomfortable. Vindictive people also have a credit seeking mentality. They claim credit for success and blame others for failure. As team members they do not gel well with others. Most employees reporting to vindictive leaders feel stressed or frustrated since the leader is never transparent in his speech or behaviour.

   

The Free Riders (Happily Indecisive)

These are the second worst kind of roadblocks for an organization. These people are fully aware of what needs to be done and have all the necessary resources available to them. Yet, when it comes to taking the decision, they hesitate or procrastinate for fear of ownership. These people love to delegate upwards or play the blame game when work does not move ahead. Such employees never show ownership and display a responsibility avoidance attitude in everything they do. Success or failure does not matter as long as they do not have to decide. Such lethargy in willingly not letting work move forward is a matter of grave concern for an organization. As employees, you must make sure that work does not stop at your table. Take quick decisions. If you are unable to decide yourself, ask your team or your supervisor, do your due diligence and let the work conclude or pass to the next person.

The Energy Suckers (The Perpetually Negative)

Failure is the stepping stone to success. We have all heard this but when it comes to our daily life, we often forget the saying. If you don’t take the risk, you have failed by default. Hence, before you say no to a challenge, stop and think what it would feel like to try and succeed instead of failing by giving up. To continue our forward motion to success at Adani Power, saying no without trying is not an option.

Being conservative is not wrong. It means you have calculated the risks and are taking a logical decision. But negative people start talking without facts. They quote stories of failure and hypothetical situations instead of trying to think of ways to counter the risks that may befall. Negative people tend to spread negativity around too. Even if you have reservations, as a team, you must give your best efforts instead of pulling down the team’s morale by being negative or non-supportive. Speaking ill of your own team is also a big no-no. It shows that you are a bad team player let alone a leader. Stick with your team and support their activities even if you think you might all fail.

The Blissfully Ignorant (Unaware or Uninformed)

The least you can do as an employee in an organization is to stay informed of what the business goals are and the timelines. You don’t need a supervisor to tell you what needs to be done. Build networks with your peer groups across the organization to understand what everyone is doing and if you or your team need help or can help others in any way. So pick up the phone and start talking to peers.

Being unaware or uninformed of what is happening around you and what needs to be done by your team is unacceptable. It cannot be an acceptable excuse at any level. Buying time by saying, “I did not know it had to be done”, is professionally unacceptable behaviour.

The Hoarder (Afraid to Delegate)

As normal human beings, none of us can be an expert in everything. Neither are we infallible or indomitable. However, when an employee is good at a particular job or has shown consistent performance, it is natural that people look to them when new work has to be done. It is quite normal for such employees to sometimes feel overburdened. However, most of these people are perfectionists by nature and do not like the way others work. Hence, they hoard all the work and keep it to themselves. They refuse to mentor or coach their team members for fear of devaluing themselves. Therefore, they cannot delegate. In the event such employees fall sick or forget to finish a pending task, the entire work stops completely since no one else knows or is aware of what needs to be done.

As leaders or as employees too, you must learn to coach others in your team to do a job as efficiently as you do. Reverse mentoring is a new concept but it is true that even junior employees can coach senior employees. Remember, you can move up to the next level only if you have helped your supervisor move up. So help your supervisor trust you and delegate work to you so that the work never stops entire organization benefits.