Carpe Bagum* (The new urgency of print journalism)

Of late Newspapers, and TV have been going berserk.

This has brought out not only the worst in them but also in their English language skills. It is evident to all who read the newspapers. As regards the skills of 8 to 10 pm Newscasters, the less heard the better.

To wit:

I Seize

This snapshot appeared with the headline – Police seize suitcase from Garage. My eyesight must be quite shot because it seemed to me like two guys fighting over a bag at the station. Or maybe the person sitting in the auto was throwing out Mr. Jeans for not paying his part of the fare.

From what the papers lead us to believe, they were snooping around the garage of an accused when they chanced upon the bag and sent it via an auto rickshaw to the Thana. Who did they seize it from? (The garage reportedly was empty). To my mind the only thing that was seized was the writer’s brain.

Medium or rare?

Another writer, wrote this at lunchtime. Pangs of hunger overwhelmed by the deadline of the copy-desk. There’s got to be a better way to call attention of the reader.  Why would the cops probe a charred body that is being grilled?  They have other fish to fry. Someone please help me here. Is this a statement? Is this a syllepsis?

The East is where it’s all happening.

“Father picked up for questioning”.

You can almost imagine cops with a pair of tongs in their hands. Stealthily they creep up behind their quarry and ….. pick him up with their tongs like an insect and deposit him into a bottle for all of us to stare at. Picked up like an infection.

“Police brushed aside the suggestion…”

Here we have a situation. Imagine a press conference; the mikes bunched up like a shoddy bouquet of greasy grey/black flowers. Bottles of water thoughtfully provided for the speaker in case he clears his throat loudly. A factotum scurries up to the table and breathlessly pours a suggestion all over the table. The person addressing the gathering walks up and with a harrumph brushes aside the suggestion with the back of his hand…. (then wipes his hand, surreptitiously,  on the tablecloth). Silence in the room.

“Cops nail lies…”

“Yessir. This morning all our beat constables went around collecting lies. Then for the inspection of your goodself we called the carpenter and had them neatly nailed up in the front balcony for your perusal. Thank you very much Sir.  Now you will see our backside for more.”

“DIG lashes out at…”

Obviously many of the lies were not nailed properly, so the DIG armed himself with a cat o 9 tails and lashed out at the assembled constables; missing them all, catching his legs in the backlash. What’s a lash when it’s not in the eye?

Calcutta used to be the scene of many a quiz till it moved to Star Plus. But they still have a trick or two up their sleeves. Now all quizzes are in Kol (as spoken in Kolkata) so the Mumbai Police had to specially bone up on their Kol to do the necessary.

I learnt Kol in Kollege

And this poor soul left his pump (and bicycle) in Bandra Bombay 50. 

If only I kept it in Ballygunge

The seizures continue unabated:

How’s that for seize

Meanwhile back at the seizure scene….

Vere is he?

Now, the quiz scene shifts (dramatically) to the west.

Your time starts now

There’s a breathless hush in the packed police station. The lights go dim and simultaneously two spotlights converge on a table with two chairs opposite each other. Shadowy figures seem to occupy them. As the spots become brighter there is a collective release of breath….

The quiz master is in Khaki and the contestant in sweat. They face each other unblinkingly:

“The first question…..how many members of your family? Three, Four, Five or Six?”

Silence from the contestant.

“No answer is correct”

The audience is baffled.

Rajesh Pant

Pune

3 September 2015

*My apologies to Diem.

Lessons from an unemployed strategist who wants to get his job back.

Imagine you have spent fifteen years working for an organization; most of it directly with the Boss. You have given most of your working hours in its, and his, service. You are called upon, and you respond at all times, day and night. At the cost of your family life.

You haven’t been paid as much you think you are worth. But you love the job, because you are a clever and creative strategy officer. You are a backroom boy. You always act on behalf of your boss. In turn he privately acknowledges your contribution; and publicly, takes all the credit. He keeps you in office for long hours at his beck and call; so you have taken to writing plays, comedies and tracts in your favourite language.

You have created wealth for your organization and it’s all gone to the Boss. Not a piece of it has come your way. But you are happy, you love the job. You reason that credit will eventually come your way; you are indispensable to your Boss.

Suddenly your Boss dies. The new one fires you.

You have all the time in the world now. Your family has moved on, they don’t have time for you. Penniless, you publish some of the plays you wrote earlier and send those tracts as letters to others in power in the Organization. Everyone ignores you.

You start writing notes on strategy to the new Boss. Hoping he will re-employ you. He ignores you; so your notes end up as a little book which you try and publish. It is banned by the Boss’s Boss.

Five hundred years after you have anonymously passed away; your book and your other writings and contributions are recognized as contributions to Statecraft and literature. Especially your most famous ‘little book’ called ‘The Prince’.

Your name is Niccolo Machiavelli.

Like other centuries, the Sixteenth was an exciting age. Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel, Goswami Tulsidas wrote the Ramcharitmanas, Ambroise Pare invented the Artificial Limb; Zahiruddin Babur laid the foundation of the Mogul Empire; the Microscope was invented and Machiavelli’s fellow Italian created the world’s first ice cream. Galileo, Da Vinci and Raphael were his contemporaries. He lived in interesting times.

Machiavelli, or his book’s purpose was widely reviled. When published, the Pope banned ‘The Prince’. Over the years Statesmen, Philosophers, Industrialists, Kings have criticized it but have taken its lessons to heart. In fact, Machiavellian is a synonym for cunning; especially political cunning.

That is unfortunate, because at its heart, the book is actually a Practical Handbook for Leaders, in all walks of life. Especially Managers. How to get and keep strategic advantage.

In an age of Rulers, Kingdoms and dynasties Machiavelli was a Republican who saw the state as a secular autonomous structure relying its survival upon human skills and mass popular support. Consider “A private citizen who becomes a ruler of a country not through perfidy or intolerable violence but rather through the aid of his fellow citizens – what ensues is a civil principality. Neither exceptional ability nor unusual good fortune is needed to attain it – but only a certain fortunate cunning”. You may quibble with words like ‘cunning’ but remember what we read is translation. Think about it. If you replace ‘cunning’ with ‘strategy’ and ‘fortune’ with ‘luck’ you have the basis of all democratic politics laid bare. What do Modi, Cameron, Merkel and Obama have in common? And remember, all this when the concept of a ‘Republic’ was hundreds of years past and hundreds in the future.

Put yourself in the position of a Section Head, a Branch Manager or a CEO. You have got there because your Boss or Board thinks you can lead a group of people. You may have got this position ahead of others; there will be people who will grudge you that position; who think themselves or another person better qualified. You may have been lucky to be in the right place at the right time. You may be the best qualified – but you have to prove yourself. 

Most people believe they got there because they deserved to. That’s when the trouble starts, unless you have the wisdom to learn from others who have been there before you.

“One who becomes a Prince with the help of the people will have to preserve their goodwill – an easy matter – since they only ask to avoid oppressing them.” Substitute ‘The Prince’ with yourself; it is advice that will serve you well. Stay humble, stay grounded and understand exactly how you got to a position of leadership.

“Therefore these Princes of ours who were long in possession of their states must not blame fortune rather their own sluggishness for losing them.”  A hundred years later Shakespeare penned “The fault dear Brutus is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings”. On reflection, most outcomes are dependent on the role you played yourself; and the decisions you did or did not take.

“Success awaits the man whose actions are in accordance with the times, and failure whose actions are out of harmony with them.” You may have the best ideas in the world, but if they don’t find acceptance, you're in trouble.

“Anyone who conquers territories must first extinguish the ruling family, the second neither alter the laws nor the taxes”. Interpreted for today, when you become the Boss, analyze your team and remove, as skillfully as possible, members who owe fealty to the previous one. Thereafter continue life without changing the essentials too much. In essence, having secured your position, don’t muck around too much.

Problems will arise. When you are new on the job you have the golden opportunity to change some things because you will be forgiven.  For example upgrading delivery time and service standards; no late working; no overtime etc. You do not yet have the experience to handle these issues skillfully. As you get more experience, you may figure out a way of dealing with them, but by then the problem has become embedded and chronic and thus harder to resolve. “In the beginning the disease is easier to cure but hard to diagnose; with the passage of time having gone unrecognized or un-medicated, it becomes easier to diagnose but harder to cure”.

His advice is simple. Be focused. Simple yet difficult because as a leader you juggle with so many things that the urgent often takes precedence over the important. When Steve Jobs took over Apple for the second time he focused on five products and threw the rest of the developments into the garbage bin. “A Prince must have no other objective, no other thought, nor take up any profession but that of war, its methods and its discipline”

Machiavelli was a great votary for training. “He must never turn his attention from Military exercises in time of peace even more than in time of war”. Even in peace, or on a hunt he advised that the Prince must discuss topography and problems; the Troops would remain fit and strong; thus when war came the Prince would have more solutions than problems. Mao Zedong wrote many centuries later “between war and war is time to prepare for war’.

Most Managers of today do not read enough “never have enough time” is a famous saying. These Managers will invariably lose and they won’t know why they lose market share, profits and eventually their jobs. “A Prince ought to read history and reflect upon the deeds of outstanding men, their causes of victories and defeats; learn to emulate the former and avoid the latter….Alexander imitated Achilles and Caesar imitated Alexander…”

If you are still wondering why Machiavelli is so privately venerated and publicly reviled – interpret this – “Let the Prince then conquer a state and preserve it, the methods employed will always be judged honorable and everyone will praise them.” Before you get very worked up read some of the methods employed by your favourite successful companies like Uber, Apple, Google etc. and you will figure out the genius in these words.

Success is judged only by results, rarely by how it was achieved.

Machiavelli also dispenses wisdom on good HR practices “He must worry about hidden conspiracies against which he will find security by avoiding hatred and contempt, and by keeping the people satisfied.” As well as gems such as “A Prince should delegate unpopular duties to others while dispensing all favours directly himself”

Then he adds “because men are so easily pleased with their own qualities and so readily deceived in them, they have difficulty in guarding against these flatterers” advice that should make you emotionally strong. Followed up with - “A prince therefore, should seek advice, but only when he, not someone else chooses”.

Towards the end of this fascinating book he says   “the rest you must do yourself, God is unwilling to do everything to do everything himself lest he deprive us of our free will and that portion of the glory that belongs to us.”

We started trying to understand Machiavelli’s take on ‘fortune’ and its derivative ‘fortunate’. He is perhaps one of the first writers to have this insight “Since our free will must not be denied, I estimate that even if fortune is the arbiter of half our actions, she still allows us to control the other half”. Heed Sam Goldwyn’s statement “I’m a great believer in luck; the harder I work the luckier I get”.

So how are you going to arm yourself for success? You cannot simply borrow or take someone else’s experience. You must judge your strength carefully yourself. Machiavelli wrote “In the end, the arms of another will fall from your hand, will weigh you down and restrain you”. If David had taken the armour of Saul to fight Goliath, he would have been defeated. Do your own thing. But with skill and judgement!

Finally, here’s the reality from another experienced strategist of the Indian Army “Good judgement comes from experience and experience comes from bad judgement”.

Machiavelli would have applauded.

Rajesh Pant

Pune July 31, 2015

B School vs. E School

3000+ Business Colleges (B Schools) in India pass out about 400,000 MBAs each year. The mission of these B Schools is to create ‘leaders’. Young people flock to these institutions, passing MAT, CAT, and XAT…all in the hope of acquiring a (better) job. The outcome unfortunately, is that for a majority of graduates, the jobs and salaries are hardly commensurate with the perceptions they started out with and the cash they parted with for fees. The MBA has replaced the Bachelor’s degree as the hygiene qualification; taking the value out of the value add proposition.

On the other hand, a few Elite B Schools (E Schools) continue to attract the cream of corporates, who not only employ all those on offer, but also at high salaries and raise that bar year in and year out.

Employers have long ago created a tiered system where E School graduates sit on top of the pile while their B School compatriots occupy the lower rungs. B Schools are continuously adding numbers of pass-outs while E School output is pretty constant. This serves to increase the earnings disparity and is a cause of frustration. It also results in sub-optimal work output which is economically wasteful.

Managements of B Schools routinely (though privately) point towards their young wards, they say that these young people assume that an MBA is a confirmed ticket for a job. That once the students enter college, most put in only as much effort as is required to graduate; that ‘real’ knowledge will only come on the job. It may be so, but so is the effect of the Management’s marketing mantra which reads “we produce leaders who are hired by the best companies”. No wonder they keep attracting students!

At the starting point, there is little difference between the intelligence levels of B School and E School graduates. Discount the experience level of most E School entrants – the young men and women are equally bright.

Students join B Schools almost immediately post their Bachelor’s degrees. This helps to postpone the inevitable job hunt by two years; but it also brings them into a situation which is harshly different from the environment they are used to in their earlier colleges. They somehow continue to yearn for the drip down effect.

Unlike the Sciences, Arts and Commerce – Business cannot be ‘taught’. It has to be ‘felt’. It has to be comprehended from day one that ambiguity is the key word. That there are necessarily no right or wrong answers; that there are only outcomes. And to comprehend outcomes, it is necessary to develop skills such as critical thinking, in depth analyses and hunger for information. This can only be done by an extremely skilled faculty.

Faculty have the hardest task of all. To rise above merely teaching the curriculum in the prescribed manner – and to light a fire. They have to challenge students, to prompt them to think critically, to not accept things as they are. To examine facets and dimensions which can only come out by enquiry. To change their way of thinking into mining for information. To rise above Google and Wikipedia cut & paste. They have to advise and correct student examination papers with the same critical insights as they are teaching. About the joys of courageous decision making in hostile and unknown environments where the outcome may be different from the one intended. To accept ambiguity and the meaning of ‘the fog of war’. To learn business ethics and to broaden the student's mindset. To accept the great ideas which come from the world’s greatest literature. All of which leads the students to become productive value adders to their employers in the shortest period of time.

This can be accomplished when Management’s focus on the faculty by creating the right academic ecosystem for faculty themselves to grow in. To create an environment which encourages research, which rewards publications and encourages participation in academic upgradation. The bottom line of the B School is faculty dependent, not student dependent. Great faculty are rare assets – who create great students.

Finally – Employers do not come to Campus looking for knowledgeable candidates. They seek young women and men who will value add to their bottom line, in the shortest period of time. They are, after all, a Business.

So while it is the Faculty’s job to set fire to the student’s intellect, it is the Management’s job to create the right conditions for a great faculty. And it is the student’s job to be open to such ideas. The formula which narrows the difference between a B School and an E School.

Rajesh Pant

Pune

June 10, 2015