The CEO-The Other Side

The aspiration of anybody who passes though a B-School is to be a CEO. He is the great figure of our times. He is intelligent,powerful,smart and experiences life in ways that other people cannot. It does not hurt that he makes loads of money. The media has stories about these celebrities and their lifestyles which encompass but are not limited to , buying art, diving in Australia and spending the summers in Finland besides driving the latest cars. There is a massive industry of consultants and reporters which thrives on understanding this great animal.

So a couple of years ago, four of us sat down to unravel the mystery of these creatures. Was it genes or parenting or the management school that made them successful? Or was it exceptional communication skills or interpersonal ability or strategic thinking? Or was it all of them?

Arun Sarin of Vodaphone has probably given the best answer , I have come across, to explain the phenomenon. He says to be a CEO you need to be two sigma on the seven or eight key management competencies like analytical ability, communication, interpersonal skills, strategic thinking etc. rather than three sigma on some and one sigma on others.

But coming back to our discussions, we tried to analyse the thirty odd CEOs we knew or had interacted with between us. It was a sad story. Most (may be about four exceptions in the group) of them had reached their positions due to luck or their exceptional maneuvering skills. They were obviously very good in touting every success in their functions as theirs. They were also very good in reading signals and adept in manipulating these signals to their benefits. Several of them were good functional heads but being CEOs was a question mark.

Many of them had no character and were low on integrity.Many misled their phirang bosses shamelessly.

We tend to think that everyone who is a leader or CEO is a great performer. This is not true.If it were true then it would be so simple to choose the leader-just make the best performer your leader or CEO. So the CEOs also did not have sterling performance records also. It was more of a case of being in the right place at the right time and using the environment to suit your own interests.

None of them could be our role models. And here I am talking about the CEOs, of the may be top two hundred employers in the country.

But still at the end of the day the prize of being a CEO is worth it for the influence and satisfaction you can get. So the rat race will go on.

History Through News Reports

Nothing brings the magic and flavour of history back like news reports of the time when the event happened. No historian today can reflect the mood and temper of the moment better than the news hacks who were present at the place of the event.

Read the Oct 1931 article on Gandhi in Time magazine when he visited the House of Commons. He is described as a small ,nut-brown man, bare-legged and bare-footed as usual. A special meeting of the house is convened to meet him.There Gandhi meets the world's most talented hecklers, the members of the House of Commons.

Rajmohan Gandhi said recently that Mahatma was not a bore as he has been portrayed by Indian historians and media. He was witty and interesting.The first member of the House sarcastically asks him about the meaning of the term Mahatma. Gandhi replies with a deadpan face that it means an insignificant person!

He then travels to Lancashire where the mill workers have been hit hard by the boycott of British textiles by the Indians. He has genuine sympathy for the workers and tells them that he will try to help them after the British rule is over in India.

Charlie Chaplin insists on meeting Gandhi and finds him a tremendous figure but cannot understand why he promotes an ancient piece of technology like the spinning wheel.

Speed of Snails and Origin of Tennis

It is really a fascinating experience to see your children grow. It is even more interesting when you discover through them that you are an ignoramus about the world. It is more galling to understand that when I thought I was the well-read types. Rian is two months short of his sixth birthday and his mission in life seems to be 'Exposing Papa'.

Today, he saw a snail in the park while playing and the question to me was,"Papa,how many years will the snail take to go around the earth?" I said,"I don't know beta but we will find out on the net."

The snail has a fastest speed of 0.03 mph and the circumference of the earth is 24900 miles. So the snail, going at its fastest speed, will take 95 years to circle the earth. Not bad for a snail!

We came back home and he saw a bit of U.S.Open. So the missile thrown at me was,"Which country did Tennis start in?". Flummoxed again, I ran to my reference book. It started as Jeu De Paume in the middle ages in France and came to England in the 15th century.

And then in the evening he enlightened me that Indra had broken young Hanuman's jaw and from then on he was known as 'Hanuman-monkey with a broken jaw'.!

And the voyage of knowledge goes on..

Resuscitating the Blog

After a long time saw the blog again and got a shock to see that the last post was in April-four and a half months back. And then,I did a google search for Green Monsoon blog which threw up the name of Indiblogger on the first page. They have an interesting cut-off period for defining dead blogs. Any blog which is without a post for four months gets listed under R.I.P. So, it seems, to the world at large this blog is well and truly dead !

But it probably comes like its namesake -the monsoons. It will appear at regular intervals.

But now I intend to make blogging a regular practice and see where it takes me.