Raj Shankar's Blog, page 52

The Power of ‘We’

Last couple of weeks I have been intensely engaging with entrepreneurs and small business owners through workshops on growth for early stage companies . One thing that invariably comes up for discussion is the challenge of finding the right people!

We discuss tools for opportunities, vision, business models, finance and all others – but the singular stumbling block we hear from entrepreneurs is: but who is going to execute all these? Don’t be perplexed at this question! Doesn’t the answer seem too obvious – the entrepreneur (that is you)!

No! I always share the fact (not my opinion) that, companies in India never grow beyond a certain size simply because of this attitude – the attitude of the entrepreneur keeping most of the important portfolios (if not all) with himself. Almost always he/she takes pride in the fact that they work so hard to handle multiple activities. They also make it amply clear that they will not get people as passionate as themselves (audacious / arrogant)! The reasoning is that if anyone did have it, they would have become entrepreneurs themselves.

These above opinions have almost become widely accepted half-truths! People are asked to come to terms with it. You will have to learn to multi-task, one will not find passionate talent, etc.,. But every single instance of a successful company (be it India or anywhere else in the world) displays the power of a group. The power of a group of people coming together to achieve a distant dream!

How did these successful entrepreneurs find a quality A-Team? From where did they get these passionate people? Who are these people who seem to understand the entrepreneur’s vision and partake in the journey? These and associated questions are simply brushed away by saying these entrepreneurs were “plain lucky” to get such team members. Very sad indeed!

If only each of us a leaders of our businesses, take the effort to identify the changes that we need to bring in ourselves and our system to attract and create such an A-Team; and muster the courage to go ahead and share the control  and dream; the ‘I’ in no time would become the ‘We’.

So what’s your plan for your A-Team?

Vedantic Wednesday: Anger Awareness

Starting from where I left off last week, we need to explore ways to avoid getting angry and if weget angry find methods to control it. Hence instead of anger management (that happens once it is felt), it should be handling anger (that involves activities from sensing it right till we defuse it). This is an attempt to slowly reach a stage when we never get angry.

The most telling benefit as already spoken about, is its effect on our immune system. Once you have lesser instances of anger attacks, you remain calmer, have less variation in your body parameters and therefore have an opportunity to develop a healthy body.

What I am sharing below is definitely not the last word on the subject, but an approach that has worked (atleast from the personal experience). The first method that we will discuss here is becoming aware of our anger. By being aware about the change taking place in your mind you can catch it early. The second method is by analyzing the basis / underlying reason for your anger – is it the trigger or is there something deeper?

The first method requires us to come to terms with the fact that we lose our cool more than we think we do! It is a fact! We are always too liberal with ourselves when it comes to judging behavior. The basis for this approach is that when you catch yourself turning angry early, you can actually defuse it faster. Being aware of the fact that you can unnecessarily lose your cool increases the chances of early detection. Early detection leads to the possibility of stopping yourself before the momentum catches up. Once you get a tingling that you are about to lose your cool – stop. Quickly take a break from the situation the moment you know you could be on the way to an anger attack. A short walk, a quick face wash, a walk to the rest room, a few deep breaths of fresh air, a good coffee/tea, etc can make a huge difference. When you get back at the least you have a chance to relook at the situation once again!

If you want to check this out, why don’t you consciously try getting angry? Today pick a person and decide you are going to get angry with them as soon as you see them. Work on telling yourself you are going to be rude, harsh and will shout or even break things. What happens? Most often you find it comical rather than it fueling your anger. Anger is an emotion that is involuntary. It takes over you only when you are not aware of it. So if you become aware of you getting angry – you already have won half the battle.

Announcement: Tools for Growth Workshop on 11-12 May 2013 at Chennai

Happy to share the details of an upcoming workshop at Chennai on 11-12 May 2013. The program is called “Tools for Growth” and is aimed at entrepreneurs / owners of early stage and small companies which have aspirations to scale. The workshop will share tools such as opportunity evaluation, business models, vision, cash flow analysis and how getting to plan B can help you scale up.

Disclosure: After conducting this workshop at Indore and Bhubaneswar, i am going to be leading it at Chennai as well. Hope to see some of you there!

Here are the details to the program as received from National Entrepreneurship Network (NEN):

NEN is delighted to invite you to attend our Tools for Growth Workshop. If you are an entrepreneur who wants to grow your business, this workshop is tailor-made for you. This is a two-day hands-on workshop facilitated by faculty and experts from the field.

Learn about:

•    Evaluating the next big opportunity

•    Understanding business models

•    Setting the vision for your organisation while understanding the challenges of growth

•    Understanding key numbers for your business

•    Essential tools and techniques

Also, hear from the experts from you city on panel discussion on “Challenges for Growth in your Market and the Probable Solutions“.

Date: May 11 and 12, 2013

Last date to register: May 3

Time: 9am to 6pm

Venue: To be announced

Fee: Rs 1000 (online registration); Rs. 1250 (On spot Registration)

To know more about the agenda and the speaker please  click here. We look forward to your acceptance of our invite. Do reach out to us for any clarifications or queries.

Sneha Sinha

Senior Associate, Entrepreneur Support

Phone: +91 9731898822

Making Businessmen Out Of Engineers

I happened to teach a group of engineering students at IIT Madras this semester on business design. Helping technocrats commercialize their innovations is always fun. They are so much rooted in their product designs and the technical feasibility, that it takes a lot to make them appreciate the so called soft side of business. Absolutely – for technical entrepreneurs, business design is like learning soft skills.

Its always the soft that is hard!

But in a short set of interactions I was happy to be able to get them thinking about their business and look at commercial feasibility as well. The best part was that they were able to pick and choose the elements that mattered most to them based on their products. I am very positive that when they get to the stage of actually kicking-off their businesses, they would explore the softer side of the business in much more depth and detail.

While there is a lot spoken on the difficulty of getting engineers to think business, it is still a lot better than getting pure business oriented people to think products. In the former the problem is getting them to cross the technical aspects and make them see the customer and the market side of things; but in the latter, it is much tougher to pick up technical skills. There is a huge need for technology entrepreneurs in India – no, I’m not referring to technology enabled entrepreneurs. We need more product companies and they are bound to come from application of fundamental sciences. The area of biotechnology, bioinformatics, knowledge management, farm mechanization, etc are all green field areas for budding entrepreneurs.

However difficult it may be I don’t see MBA as an alternative to teaching engineers, entrepreneurship. It is better to convert them into entrepreneurs right after engineering education rather than having them move on to do an MBA. Because in most cases after an MBA, the engineer is almost always lost…

So that’s why I enjoy teaching engineers business and entrepreneurship, however daunting the challenge may be. I wish all the students of the current batch who underwent the course at IITM the very best to take their products, convert them into commercially viable business and kick-start their enterprises as soon as they complete their courses. India needs a lot more job creators and they are all sitting in colleges today.

Happy Teaching…

Interesting Links This Week: 28-Apr-2013

These were my favorite links this week: 

a) A great video – in the way its made, in its message for all of us who are so concerned about education of our children http://bit.ly/XHWqWd

b)A short article that I liked not for its own sake but for bringing back the words of Steve Jobs ‘Stay Hungry! Stay Foolish’  yet again to my mind http://bit.ly/Zme3Mc

c) A very interesting read on aspects that will determine success of your products in the market http://bit.ly/15MU0O2

 

Books and Me: Khushwantnama

Title: Khushwantnama

Author :  Khuswant Singh

In recent times we hear  constant complaints from people about life and living. Very few truly remain healthy post retirement. Even the one’s who do, have very little to give back, since they feel unfulfilled in some way or the other. All these have reduced the average lifespan of people from what it could actually be. So when somebody who is close to 100 years of age has something to say it is worth listening. Even if you don’t learn something that you will want to imbibe, you will definitely learn a few things that you wouldn’t want to do.

When I saw (about a month or so ago) the pre-order listing on flipkart, display Khushwant Singh’s upcoming book  titled ‘Khushwantnama’, I decided to read what this nonagenarian had to write as the lessons of his life.

I have not read any of Khushwant Singh’s novel or titles that actually made him popular. A chance reading of his non-fiction work led me to believe that here is a man who is being honest with what he has to say about anything that he ends up seeing.  So it was natural for me to wait for this book to be delivered by flipkart. I devoured the book in full, the very next day of receiving it.

Apart from his reflection over his long lived life, he also shares in this book his opinions on subjects such as religion, journalism, politics and society,   His interest for literature and poetry especially Urdu poetry comes out strongly. Galib seems to be his favourite.

Four chapters particularly caught my attention. They are

What it takes to be a writer
Watching nature
Dealing with death
Humor is a lethal weapon

Though I do not fully endorse the views in the chapter titled ’12 tips to live long and be happy’, everyone will find something to take-away from them as tips to increase the chances of leading a healthy life.

His thoughts on Gandhi increased my interest in the Mahatma and hopefully I will take some time off to know more about him and his philosophy of life.  The chapter titled ‘What religion means to me’ was contrarian and interesting. But being a keen student of the advaita philosophy, I beg to differ with some of the points made. However I must agree to his declaration that, truth is the essence of religion!

At 98, Khushwant Singh has delivered yet another honest, entertaining and amusing account. Though he declares this could be his last, I like many others look forward to the next one.

Though the book is a hard-cover, penguin has created a great physical look, making the book readable while keeping it light on the hands.

Where are your customers?

Most entrepreneurs do what most MBA’s do – think about their marketing by following the STP route namely – Segment, Target and Position! The trouble with this approach is that the method is built for existing large enterprises. They are the ones who already have buyers, who already have a sales force, who already have a marketing and PR team, who have product recognition if not brand recognition, who already have the cash and wherewithal to withstand cash flow problems for a while!! But most early stage bootstrapped entrepreneurs don’t have most of the above luxuries (almost none). So the extrapolation of this functional approach does not work. Many entrepreneurs don’t get this because they are not trained to be marketing / sales people – but they simply have to be! But rarely have I come across an entrepreneur who has spent time picking up sales and marketing knowledge, let alone talent. So when I started working with small businesses I realized the need for an alternative solution. Here is a quick look at it.

For entrepreneurs I have always found, it works best the other way. Yes! Turn it right on its head! First figure out who is your ideal customer? What are his/her characteristics? Where will you find them? Where do they aggregate? How can I reach those little aggregation points in my immediate vicinity? Are there more such groups? Keep expanding the size of your serviceable market as you gain more and more over. By approaching this way the entrepreneur is always in control of his addressable market – he / she is always servicing customer and winning them over. Though the approach seems pretty simple, it works and works every time. It brings control on cash flow. It brings effective cost controlled advertising. It enables entrepreneurs always keep an eye on scaling. This is also an easy way of planning sales and marketing as an extension of the business modeling exercise. Since the growth of a firm is high, redrawing the business model and hence your sales and marketing plan becomes a repeated exercise. They go hand-in-hand.

Strong businesses are built on fundamentals, strong fundamentals. And strong fundamentals are always a result of simple thinking!

The Gen-Y Student

I got the feel of  Gen-Y Students as I interacted with some school children last month! The image you see is the pains that a student took to sketch me, while I was taking equal pains to teach them aspects of Entrepreneurship! This attempt and subsequent conversation around this brought out to me how students have evolved over the last two decades (when I was a student)!

When we were students our sketch of our teachers were our expressions of frustration at either the subject or the teacher. Not an expression of artistic drive!

Even if it was a positive expression, we would never dare to show it to our teachers! But this student was quite easy on gifting me this lovely drawing.

I had told him I would post it on the blog. But as I was travelling I could not scan it. However after giving me enough time of two weeks, he politely reminded me that I have not yet posted it, and requested if I could do it.  The tone and the earnestness made the task get done. As a student I would not have had the temerity to push on with my teacher. In my era they were best left alone after class!

I find this ability of today’s students to be positive, be confident, be trusting and willing to talk to teachers definitely an evolution on the positive side.  Not only do they challenge us in class, but very often they goad us to push our own limits of understanding at the levels of subject and life! I am glad I am teaching these Gen-Y Students. However, I could not shake out the feeling that somewhere between school and college this spirit gets eroded in our students. Why and How is something that requires attention of all involved. It is time we put together thoughts on how the energy present in a school student can be preserved till they reach college.

This sketch was made by Anirudh! Thank you Anirudh for the sketch and all the very best !!

Vedantic Wednesday: Angry but why?

People losing their cool is not uncommon these days. In fact what starts as a technique to get things done soon becomes a habit for many of us. People get angry over petty things. Little things are enough to spoil an entire day if not more. Why does this happen? Why do people get angry? What is the repercussion of getting angry?

If you read any piece of literature on Indian Philosophy you are bound to find that the root cause of all anger is the possibility of unfulfilled desires. If anything comes in the way of what we expect, the almost immediate outcome is agitation and anger. Most often the anger is diverted on the person / thing that comes in the way of your achievement or path. While the anger is justified what happens as a result of this expression of anger is  inflicting physical or mental hurt to an object/ person. This then serves as a trigger for one more person to react. This person (if he is not matured enough to understand that it is just a trigger!) then carries a seed of this effect and waits for the next opportunity to pass on this emotion – anger at another object / person.

This is very easy to understand. Just think back over the last few days if you have come across any person, spouse, parents, siblings, colleagues, bosses, clients, vendors, etc who at your slightest provocation or over a really petty issue, lost his/her temper and ended up speaking number of things he/she would have never intended to say? Almost always we come across situations like these and there may have been times where we have been that angry person!

Why get angry? Why spoil the mood of ourselves and others? All because things did not go according to our plan – according to our expectations! So apart from hurting all around us – which some of us realize the moment the anger leaves us, who is getting hurt the most? Us! Anger is said to hurt the immunity system of our body. One does not require scientific proof for this. Just look at yourself when you get angry next – you allow your blood pressure to rise, your heart beat rises, you sweat, your tremble, you expend energy unnecessarily, you lose your cool and do you think all these symptoms are taking place without any changes in your body?

So the next time something irritates you and you are getting angry, try to stop yourself and ask if all of the above physiological and psychological changes to the body and mind is needed at all? There are two fundamental ways to overcome anger and this I will share in the next Wednesday blog! Till then just think about the last 3 instances you got angry and lost your cool, and try to find the underlying reason for your anger! You will be in for some surprises!

World Book and Copyright Day!

Did you celebrate? What did you do? It is increasingly becoming a fun thing to find out what day of the year it is – Dad’s day, Mom’s day, Friend’s day and so on… In similar lines today is World Books Day and also World Copyrights Day (are we combining days because we are running short of them in the calendar?)

Being an author, a voracious reader and an avid collector of books, I was delighted to know that today was an important day for me. Thanks to the papers to let me know that and the Government to put out half page advertisements to highlight the importance of it! But usually if it was any other day I would have found great traffic on twitter or FB to know about it – but understandably it was not so today. Reading habit is on the decline even among students! Surprising but true! While all stakeholders are giving enough excuses why there is justification for such a trend – I beg to strongly differ. It is just that we are not encouraging the young minds to read more. We are allowing them to avoid it by providing alternate quick fixes (Example: Guides / Solved answers, etc) – but this is going to make almost a whole generation graduate with “half knowledge” – who is concerned?

When I work with entrepreneurs and small business owners without exception they have very poor reading habits. Most of them aver books. However everyone of them without fail talk about the super star entrepreneurs of the previous generation and also number of ones from contemporary life – all of whom had found reading as an important skill for not just success in business but also in life at large.

The excuse that I get to hear is that entrepreneurship is all about “doing” and business is about “getting things done in the field”. In both these activities there is no need to read books. Why did so many successful people identify reading as an important activity in their lives and also recommend it to so many others? Because reading widens an individual’s world view, it broadens his / her thinking, and allows liberal thinking to set in. This allows entrepreneurs / business owners and other successful people to seek avenues for inclusive growth (which is rare today!)

Copyrights – less said the better! Ask any artist, be it a writer, singer, musician, painter, etc and all of them detest reproduction especially ones that don’t even respect to acknowledge the original. I have nothing much to say here except the fact that if individuals are not allowed to open their minds towards giving credit to others – we cannot stop plagiarism and IP infringement!

Today being a day to celebrate these two aspects of an artist’s world, I thought I will use this opportunity to share the following two suggestions:

Read widely and voraciously – it helps you appreciate life! It enables you open up and grow as an individual.
Give credit liberally and openly – try to extend work and take it to the next level after giving the right credit.

If we do the above two, we will be able to collaborate and benefit mutually. Don’t you think?