(this is again a group mail for one of the company I am associated with)
What happened to aji? Why is he giving such wolf stories now? Don’t worry this is as inline as it can be with our professional life esp with startup companies. Have a little patience and read it, don’t forget to add your opinion to it.

Wolves are professionals like us doing their work for their satisfaction. This is a story about a professional wolf who was very motivated and hard working inline with the dream of his team members. His career looked very promising; everybody believed that he will go on to become a big millionaire wolf with all hunting expertise. He was comparing himself to a professional who dreams of a BMW when others of his age laugh at such dreams. This Wolf was happy and focused.

But one day, he saw a blood Popsicle, a ball of ice dipped in his favorite seal blood. He was very intelligent and knew that such things can be risky and dangerous for his life but he went on and started licking it. “What a taste! I am enjoying it!”. Time was just passing by and he kept licking. He felt as if he is so involved it in and enjoying it thoroughly. But he was feeling a little weak as if his energy was going away but he kept licking. His vision was dimming a bit but he kept licking as it was giving him some pleasure. Now he couldn’t see much and he knew something went wrong and before he could decide to take a step back he fell and saw his tongue bleeding, he wanted to help himself but could not get up. He started recapping about his career that how good it was towards the staring, how motivated he was, how energetic he was but now even with so much of experience he was not able to help himself. With one drop of a tear and few unmeasured quality of wasted blood he ended his career and life. He died a death which he never thought of. He asked the God to give him one chance to do one work. He wanted to know that why he died like this and what was that he licked. God allowed him and he came back and found the following recipe for the blood Popsicle:

Recipe for blood Popsicle
First a knife is sharpened to razor sharp. Then it is dipped in the blood of a seal.
After dipping the knife in blood it is set outside in the cold so the blood freezes on the knife. After it freezes (a matter of minutes) it is dipped again into the seal blood and again with a delay to let the blood freeze. Layer after layer makes a blood Popsicle. When it is done, the knife’s blade is hidden inside the snow just like a popsicle stick.

He understood the story ………………………….
The handle of the knife was buried in the snow leaving the blood Popsicle standing up and I was attracted by its smell and found it as a “bloodsicle“. I started licking it and enjoying every taste. Over and over I licked and without understanding that my tongue was becoming numb because of the cold layer. Finally the bloodsicle got over and I was licking the razor sharp edge of the knife. It cut into my tongue again and again but I did not even notice for my tongue was no longer able to feel anything. My own blood was flowing from my cut tongue. I was thrilled as the blood was now more plentiful and continued to lick more and more not knowing that it was my own blood. Instead of getting stronger I was going weak. I drunk my own blood and killed myself.

God gave him another chance to live and now he is a professional working in an Indian IT industry. He is asking every professional to read this very carefully. “I thought the life is different from the Siberia and esp being a human with IT company but I was wrong. I still see popsicles at different places. I see some people taking negative about India, about company and about my own team. I am very tempted to join them. I see that some of the best people join the discussion just for the sake of fun but slowly they go numb and without realizing that they are hurting themselves. They start killing their passion, their ability to think great and positive dims; they end up being less innovative and energetic. Even after understanding that such negative discussion is not helping anyone (and in reality is hurting everyone including themselves) they still do it as they are carried away by the numbness of it. After few weeks and months I see a very average person who once was a promising one dreaming about BMWs. I have only one thing to tell all such people, don’t die like me, I died my own death. Such negative talks only help none. For the sake of yourself stay positive and do good. If you see a team as bad, IMPROVE IT OR leave it. If you find negative things in a company, IMPROVE IT OR leave it. If you see India to be bad, IMPROVE IT OR leave it.”

Don’t ever die like a Siberian wolf. Do well for yourself and your team/company/India.

————-

Regards,
Aji Issac.

If you want to talk to the Siberian wolf, try this http://www.idealwebtools.com/blog/ … you are free to pass on this story to your friends ..

This is a copy of the mail I sent to all company members. Since I am not blogging enough and don’t have the time to draft better posts so here we go with a slightly modified version of the company group email. As a company and as a person this is a culture we/I want to develop and promote. Decision making/responsibilities should flow to the roots of a company. Enjoy the copy of the email.

Don’t get me wrong when I say “Lets fail more often” as this is a muddy and not so clear mixture of two phrases “attempt more for more success” and “99 attempts out of 100 will fail”. So “Lets fail more often”.

Here are few things that you can start with at decision level (And I SERIOUSLY want you to do that)

1. Take a decision and implement it if you feel confident about it. Once it is implemented or once you have taken the decision throw a mail to the concerned group. I really want the decision making to flow to the roots of the company.
2. Mistakes are often mistaken: Know what a real mistake is, it will give you more confidence in decision making.
3. Grow good in decision-making: I debate with myself more often that I can eliminate obvious errors with decision making (for cumulative respect point). So while making the decision do debate it with yourself and if you feel it as correct, GO AHEAD. Either the decision will be correct or the learning will help you grow OR BOTH :). We just need to attempt honestly.
4. Your decision has a cumulative respect: Don’t expect people to respect your first/second/….. decision, they will be more calculative but once you start making better decision more often your cumulative respect count will grow up. There will be a time when you will ask a person to jump out of window and they will do that before asking “WHY?” but it will take time :), so have patience.
5. Start with small decisions: Don’t jump into bigger decisions until and unless it is to be done urgently. Start with small decisions and grow. A person who is good at decision making at any level, be it home, group of friends, office parties, .. will be good at company level decision making as well. All you need is to start slow and start as smart as possible.
6. Multi-dimension knowledge: Years will only add up physical weakness but proper observation will help you gain experience. A 2 month old team member can sometimes do better decision making than a 2 year old based on a better observational power/attitude. Get multi
   dimension knowledge (Knowledge from all related field). A person who is able to think from various dimensions to the problem can do better at decision making, so get involved with different team works.
7. Ask for more opportunities: Your mouth is an open door to your thinking, talk wise. People give you more responsibilities based on your performance and talks reflects a lot of it. So talk wisely.
8. Make others comfortable: This will help others teach you. Learn from mistakes not necessarily only from yours, you can learn more from others mistakes as well. Keep your eyes wide open, dreams as high as possible and attitude down to earth for a better learning. Let others teach you more often.

Had a day off, made a debt calculator in excel and studied NPER again. Mom is a true diet killer, she made kaju upma with desi ghee and I couldn’t resist it, so had a lot of khanna and little workout. Had 12 hrs of sleep and now back with the series of stories that inspired me, I have learned a lot from these small stories and try to apply it. Thanks for all the appreciation.

There was a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

The servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded. His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.’

But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed.

This story is not as interesting as many others but acts like a mirror. I have faced similar situations many times. (Sorry for taking a better position here, I am sure I also go wrong but at this blog I think I can take a little advantage, sorrrry). I had treated them very nicely when they joined work. I forgave their bigger mistake and never shown my anger. Always helped them improve. But when they get experience they fail to do the same and lose patience with their juniors. I get (nick-picked) silly silly complains by people who were at major fault at times and were allowed to sail smooth. I have defined mistakes in a different way and expected others to do the same. My seniors were kind to me and I tried to be the same as well. After traveling miles lets not forget the first step and the journey, help others make a better journey. Love you all!

Here I continue my series (1,2,3) of short stories. I heard this story during his Aug 15 competition. Here we go:

A successful business man was growing old and knew it was time to choose a successor to take over the business. Instead of choosing one of his directors or his children, he decided to do something different. He called all the young executives in his company together.

He said, “It is time for me to step down and choose the next CEO. I have decided to choose one of you.” The young executives were shocked, but the boss continued. “I am going to give each one of you a SEED today - one very special SEED. I want you to plant the seed, water it, and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from the seed I have given you. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next CEO”.

One man, named Jim, was there that day and he, like the others, received a seed. He went home and excitedly, told his wife the story. She helped him get a pot, soil and compost and he planted the seed. Everyday, he would water it and watch to see if it had grown. After about three weeks, some of the other executives began to talk about their seeds and the plants that were beginning to grow. Jim kept checking his seed, but nothing ever grew.

Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks went by, still nothing. By now, others were talking about their plants, but Jim didn’t have a plant and he felt like a failure. Six months went by - still nothing in Jim’s pot. He just knew he had killed his seed. Everyone else had trees and tall plants, but he had nothing. Jim didn’t say anything to his colleagues, however. He just kept watering and fertilizing the soil - he so wanted the seed to grow.

A year finally went by and all the young executives of the company brought their plants to the CEO for inspection. Jim told his wife that he wasn’t going to take an empty pot. But she asked him to be honest about what happened. Jim felt sick at his stomach, it was going to be the most embarrassing moment of his life, but he knew his wife was right. He took his empty pot to the board room.

When Jim arrived, he was amazed at the variety of plants grown by the other executives. They were beautiful– in all shapes and sizes. Jim put his empty pot on the floor and many of his colleagues laughed, a few felt sorry for him! When the CEO arrived, he surveyed the room and greeted his young executives. Jim just tried to hide in the back. “My, what great plants, trees, and flowers you have grown,” said the CEO.

“Today one of you will be appointed the next CEO!” All of a sudden, the CEO spotted Jim at the back of the room with his empty pot. He ordered the financial director to bring him to the front. Jim was terrified. He thought, “The CEO knows I’m a failure! Maybe he will have me fired!” When Jim got to the front, the CEO asked him what had happened to his seed- Jim told him the story.

The CEO asked everyone to sit down except Jim. He looked at Jim, and then announced to the young executives, “Behold your next Chief Executive! His name is Jim!” Jim couldn’t believe it. Jim couldn’t even grow his seed. How could he be the new CEO the others said? Then the CEO said, “One year ago today, I gave everyone in this room a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds; they were dead - it was not possible for them to grow.

Being honest is more important. I will always prefer to work with a honest below average guy than dishonest smart guy. Failure is not bad just attempt honestly and keep the transparency in life. Happy Monday!

Do you use IM (Instant messengers) at work? I started using MSN towards the starting of my career and then shifted to YIM and AIM. I still use YIM most of the time but Gtalk is also in the list for some of our officials. Most of us learn the IM usage from a different school, the “masti ki patsala (School of fun)“. When asked to use IMs for official talks the old habits stay but here is a chance to learn the basics to stay politically correct.

Here are 10 Unofficial commandments for official IM use:

1. Use “all upper case” fonts sparingly: Upper cases often reflects shouting, anger, extra emphasis and importance. Don’t use all upper case with your seniors, neither on IM nor for emails. Different people have different perception towards all upper case sentences but more often it is taken as a command with shout/anger. “COME HERE” implies your boss is not happy with you and want to point some mistakes, so be prepared .
2. Smilies: Different people use different smilies but more often you will end up hitting the wrong definition. So use smilies carefully. Most safest smiley is :). Then comes and the list will continue. You can spend some time in understanding what different smiley means and how differently people can interpret it.
3. Abbreviated talks: Don’t try this with corporate heads they are really bad at it. To be safe use proper and complete sentences and if possible with proper punctuations. Be grammatically correct to avoid hitting the wrong button.
4. Type fast: You need to type fast. If you are not good that, practice, practice and practice. This matters a lot. I used to chat using multiple windows to train my fingers and now I am very good at that.
5. Expect unexpected: I have seen many love birds breaking off due to IMs. Girl sent a YIM offline, “I will be there at pulia(this is the where we spent most of our time) at 5:00, see you there” and the poor boy did not get the message. She waited for the day and the boy for rest of his life. They never expected technical problems in love life but it certainly happens in techno world. Office being no exception runs on similar unreliable IMs. So make sure to reconfirm the sentences in case you smell something wrong.
6. Use proper status: A proper status helps. It acts like an answering machine. If you are not at your desk then put the status else a senior may feel denied for delayed messages. If you are going out or going for lunch you can put the time you left and expected time of return. You can be really creative over here.
7. Avoid IMs: If you can avoid IMs with the next door team member, avoid. There is so much positive energy when you talk face to face and communicate eye to eye. IMs CANT REPLACE HUMAN TALKS, they act as gap fillers. Turn around, walk to, run to but avoid IMs whenever you can, it certainly helps.
8. First timers: Be careful when you are talking to someone for the first time, like your client. Don’t tickle your funny bone, sometimes they are not in the same mood as you. Know them and then use the right bone.
9. Don’t talk too much: It hurts your fingers and others time. Also it can hurt your performance and relationships. Talk less and talk sense, be funny with known members. Be witty but not silly.
10. Stealth options: Explore the stealth options, sometimes it is really helpful. Online to few and offline to others. I use it when I am working from home.

Happy IMing! Sorry I don’t use personal IMs for various reasons. If you want to talk to me on Gtalk (add ajiissac@gmail.com), YIM (ajiissac1) and drop me mail at ajiissac@gmail.com with the time you want to talk.

Last week I met two new entrepreneurs, one from my batch(she is doing well with the startup) and one a junior (after leaving Saatchi & Saatchi, he is starting his own venture). I will try to interview them in the coming days. I was always attracted towards entrepreneurs (I don’t know why, ohhh I think I know why). After every conference I try to meet and appreciate new entrepreneurs. I just love them and often end up helping them for free.

I am associated with many startups, from being the first employee of my present company to our own startup Idealog. I am also a board member to some non-profitable startups. Also I have stopped/scared many from starting new companies :), sorry for that.

Its a great challenge to be an entrepreneur and here is a small barometer to measure your progress. Take a piece of paper or create a Google doc and list all your team members. Now mark them as either visionary or missionary and rate them from 5 for respective group. See the % of visionaries you have in your team. Now create another column and mark the missionaries who can be converted to a visionary with a time frame and plan. In most of the cases you will see the missionaries with high ranks can be converted to visionaries. I will also pen down the plan for converting a missionary to a visionary. Do this check every quarter and if you can see a progress then I can assure you that all company stars are in right place.

Table will look something like this:

How to mark/be visionaries and missionaries?
There are many factors that separates visionaries from missionaries, both are important for company’s progress but visionaries will decide a company’s territories. Earlier I had drawn the thick line between a leader and a manager. A visionary is one who is inline with the vision of the company or inline with a partial vision of the company and a missionary is one who takes up a mission. A visionary is also a respected missionary but not vice-versa. Here when I use the word missionary I mean a pure non-visionary. Here are top 5 marking criteria:

1. Task vs Purpose OR work vs ownership: A missionary will do the task but will hesitate in understanding the real purpose of the task. And thus a missionary will finish a task and a visionary will add a never ending quality check/innovation based on the purpose understood through this task instance. A missionary will take up a task while a visionary will take up the ownership.
2. Attempts or failures: “Can we do this“, “why not this“, “I think we are missing this“, these are some iterative sentences by visionaries. They always try to innovate and add more value to the projects. The reason behind these innovations/attempts is their feel of ownership towards the project. You need to be crazy towards your work to innovate. Check how crazy a person is, by counting the number of attempts/failure.
3. Making others comfortable while working: A visionary will make others feel comfortable while at work as he understands the need of extra pain. He will enjoy the process and will make it easier for you to work with him. On the contrary a missionary will like a defined list of work, won’t prefer a messed up attempts. Rate them on the basis of “how comfortable you feel with them at work“.
4. Defined territories: “I was not good at that so I did not do that“, “Why should I do that? thats not under my list“, “I am a technical guy why should I do this work“, these are frequently thrown valid excuses by a missionary as they are missing the overall goal of existence. We don’t program as we are programmers or we don’t write content as we are content writers but we do so as that will help us achieve the final goal. A visionary will also redefine his territories to help company progress to next level. Check the various areas of contribution for the person to rate him (from Kitchen food to company ad, from bathroom to conf room improvement).
5. Problem Handling: I remember the first sentence by our Princy at Xaviers, “Welcome to The Xavier family. Xaviers is not the best college to be in (we were a bit shocked, we thought the other way round). If we say we are the best then that takes away the scope of further improvement. We are better and better everyday.” Expect the imperfection everywhere, with yourself, with your girl friend, with your friends and with your company. Do they bring problems to the surface or they hide it at surface level and dig/spread inside? A visionary will frustrate you by bring 2 problems-3 solutions everyday while a missionary will need a perfect environment for work.

I couldn’t frame it as per my expectation but I will end this post with a small thought (that I always believed in). “No one is a perfect congress man or a perfect communist, we have a mix of both“. We have a visionary in all of us, it is only a matter of choice whether we want to develop this side or not. There are instances where I have seen a visionary getting converted to a missionary, thats an ALARMING MESSAGE FOR ANY COMPANY. Start loving what you do by understanding why you do to become a visionary. A visionary will enjoy more of his time. If you want to check your current role then rate yourself using the following table:

If you have a positive count then you can be termed a visionary and a negative count is asking for improvement. Finally ending this long post, please let me know if you encounter a mistake.

I am not getting time for blogging, feeling so bad. I have almost 10 blog post under draft, “I want to be kid again” (A poetic approach), Link title - Quiet but powerful weapon, Company’s success barometer, Do you believe in zodiacs?, A white hat seo course for all, Make the carrot really red, Good Leaders are biased, Right approach can make wrong right?, How to hire best people ….

I will try to complete these posts soon but for the time being enjoy some more pics from 15th Aug Celebrations.

Hmm … Account books	Love is the key to growth. Want to know? Ask me	Bargaining for land, asking too much?
Ohhhhhhhh		Ehhhhhhhh

Enjoy

When he was 2-week-in-days year old he pressed the unusual button. Instead of running after wind, he started collecting it and its power. The motivating factor was the need. To power his family’s home, young William Kamkwamba built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap.

19-year-old William Kamkwamba, from Malawi, is a born inventor. When he was 14, he built an electricity-producing windmill from spare parts and scrap, working from rough plans he found in a library book called “Using Energy” and modifying them to fit his needs. The windmill he built powers four lights and two radios in his family home.

Don’t forget to drop a comment on his blog.

I like the way fashion designers shop. They will not pick the best ready-made cloths (like most of us do), they sometimes shop from streets, they sometimes have very odd selections, sometimes they will buy the costly pearls. It is the variety that is admired but it is the clear vision of a creator that makes them so special.

A fashion designer

• Right team members instead of great individuals. Fashion designers shops the most fitting cloths that can be stitched with other collection for the final product. They look for different qualities of cloth unlike a consumer, who looks at the final rigid product.
• Source is chosen carefully - Fashion designers will travel miles to get the right cloth. White cotton from one vendor (may be from rural areas) and silk from a branded vendor. They know where they can find the specialized vendors. They will not rely on naukri.com for all of its recruitment.
• Constructive destruction (Mentoring): Fashion designers will redefine the individuality to make it a part of the product. Some part of the cloth will be cut short or recolored to fit in better. When they select a cloth they know what part of it is needed and what need a cut. During recruitment the candidate is made aware of such possible cuts and during mentorship it is done in detail.
• Flexibility - Fashion designers know which cloth will react badly to some alterations. They choose it accordingly, the flexibility is highly checked. A candidate who can’t be mentored or changed may not work out as a good team member.
• They see before they choose - Fashion designers can see the overall product (team) before choosing different cloths. When you accompany them you will not understand their moves as you can’t see what they can. They ensure the diversification in a team.
• Specialization is valued - Gold can’t replace diamonds but Gold has its own place in designing. HR managers will always choose the missing specialization for a team with some other compromise to complete the team for an optimal output.
• Taking risks - Fashion designers job is all about creativity and thus experimentations and thus taking risks. I had selected some team members completely under this scheme and today they are pillars to the team.
• Ownership - They take ownership in what they do and are highly passionate about the work. I like people when they say my team was great, my company taught me many things. I sometimes ask them, “What all will you miss if you leave your current company?“.
• Take pride in what they do - They take pride in what they do. Their explanation will reflect the pride.

Summary of the post: As a HR manager, do not look at ready made talents, they are less flexible and sometimes too rigid to be a good team member. Look at following attributes above others:-

• Learning ability over already learned. (You can give them sometime to read and explain it back)
• Passion over achievements. (Look at the way they explain things)
• Flexibility over perceptions. (Debate with them over their strongest areas.)
• Job/Profile matching over individuality (For some posts you need low ambitious people and for some high, for some posts money is the only motivation so recruit money centric people.).
• Character over personality. (Let the receptionist take a basic round of surprise interview at entrance, see the reactions. Allow her ask some stupid questions, attitude change is helpful in understanding character. Give them different situations and let them react to it.)

Overall what matters is the team, no one can be better than team. A diversified, self motivated, empowered and independent team can be the best asset a company can have.

Here is a quick pre-litmus test to help us understand the success possibility for any strategical implementation. It is widely applicable from product development to HR policies, from marketing campaigns to personal life. Not to forget, exceptions do exists and this posts doesn’t address the exceptional cases, rightly so.

1. No follow up plans: Any strategical implementation which doesn’t include a follow up plan will most probably fail, as after implementation some parts may need a pruning. Sometimes the whole plan may need a revamp and a delay can do catastrophic damage. A follow up plan needs allocation of resources for required period. Depending on the investment and the importance of the implementation, the follow up plan should be given priority and resources over other visible tasks.
   
   Some examples:
   • When a website goes for a complete revamp, Google analytics becomes our best friend. The company that does the changes without allocating enough resources for a follow up might not see the true benefit. When Google decided to show 30 results per page the traffic went down by 20%, a follow up plan ensured the user satisfaction, they rolled back to 10 results per page.
   • Implementation of new HR policies without a follow up plan can create internal (hidden at surface level) dissatisfaction generating negative energy zones in a company. Company should allocate resources for follow up plans with the implementation to avoid such negative zones.
   • A major product launch without a follow up plan can fail in spite of of its great features. I wonder whether amazon’s mechanical turk had a follow up plan, now it is full of spam. They should have tried making it free review (using significance factor) or doing something different.
2. The Perception of Unfairness - Communicate - Being perceived as bad is equivalent to being bad, as good and bad is just a perceived feeling. So it is very important to communicate your vision in simpler terms. Example: A company changing its flexible timing to more fixed timing can create dissatisfaction but once the purpose is clearly stated, the dissatisfaction level can be lowered. Sometimes even a good move is perceived as bad, ERP implementation is one such example. After every ERP implementation companies spend a good portion of money on change management, educating people about the changes and its benefits with their new role.
3. Approach can make all difference - Mary Poppendieck’s Team Compensation is a great example of right approach where she involved the team in discussion instead of going by the traditional compensation way. It is the approach that made the difference. Remember satisfaction is just a perception. Sometimes people are satisfied with less if it is done through right approach. A right approach can make wrong right and vice-versa a wrong approach can make right wrong.
4. Trust factor - Trust factor (in terms of product we call it brand factor) plays an important role. This needs to be build with time. For a trusted HR dept, implementation becomes easy as people accepts it trusting the dept. Also the openness in the system keeps the improvement cycle active. Its an attitude based implementation.

There are more things but I am keeping it short. If I have to choose one of the above, I will choose the follow up plan over anything as it will ensure other.