I PUBLISH, THEREFORE I AM

People who know me, know that I am a natural when it comes to bargaining and negotiating. And I like doing this exercise because, almost always the amount of value generated (mostly, in terms our money or excitement) outweighs the time/money invested in doing this exercise of bargaining and negotiating. At one point, a man, who I considered wise, told me that bargaining and negotiating is cheap ...I lived a lot of time believing that as the ultimate truth, but then, now I realize that bargaining and negotiation, if done keeping in mind the value generated, could be a very profiting exercise. So, go exercise your bargaining and negotiating muscles whenever possible. It clearly isn't a cheap practice, as a matter of fact, it is a very wise thing to do. Try it.

As a kid, I remember my mom saying things like "you won't be able to eat it" just to make me want to eat whatever is served on the plate. Similarly, "I don't think you can climb all the stairs" whenever she wanted me to climb the stairs. The thing is that the negativity sounded like a challenge and encouraged me to action. So, I think, discouraging a child with the required tone can put the kid to action. Does the same psyche work for adults? Can discouraging remarks put adults to action? If so, what is the tone we must use. I am trying this on my wife by telling her  "I am not sure if you can be attentive enough to see around the car and drive safely" just to make her want to be more attentive when driving the car. Over the last few months, I realized that it works. Just that when it comes to adults , discouraging remarks sound like a challenge only if you deliver it with a punch of possibility. Plain discouraging remarks can be...

Being an entrepreneur makes you the boss. People want to be the boss of their own and if possible, of a number of other people too. I thought about it for a while, and I concluded that it's our want to be the boss of our own and of other people. But, the real need is to earn profits, not wages . A salaried employee earns wages. By definition, he gets what his skill is worth. His earnings are not related to the profits of his organization. He simply gets what his skills are worth for the company. But then if you focus on what an entrepreneur (generally) gets, you'll see that he gets the profits. An entrepreneur's earnings are the profits of the organization. With that, I was thinking, what if every job has a variable pay component to it that truly gives an employee an appropriate cut of the total profits, wouldn't all of us be able to fulfil our needs, and our wants thereof. I know that a lot of jobs have this variable pay component that depends on the profits o...

A women needs apt opportunities to succeed, zero-discrimination when it comes to the day to day contributions in the society, and equality in the true sense. People and a lot of postcards are saying that women is special, no man can blah blah blah! I sense a lot of pity in that. I seriously do; not because women is special but because we all are. So, don't make a women special by comparing them to men. You are unique, just like everyone else. -Garfield Happy women's day! Let's truly celebrate women's day by deciding not to stereotype people, especially based on gender, and feel truly unique and equal to every other human being. PS : I used to stereotype people. I have become wiser. I have truly treated people as I would like to be treated. So, I deserve a treat. #MyLadiesAreTreatingMeAt10-Downing-street

The premise is that I don't believe that we can't not be judgemental. We are here to make judgements, and it will continue. All that one can do is improve the way one makes judgements. Focus on how strong and fraud-proof is the area that you are focusing on to make your judgement. For instance... If you judge a person by his resume , you will most likely confuse him with a presidential candidate. If you judges a woman by how she dresses , you will be surprised to know that dressing  can be mislead your idea of  ones personality. If you judge a creative by his salary , you would be confused as to why he wastes so much time doing things that people care so little about;  and, will never know that some people don't work to meet a customer's demands, they are here to meet their own. If you judge a kid by his school examination result , you would know why kids cheat. Kids give more importance to grades than you to actual learning. So, drill down and focus on the thi...

Humans like tribes and that's our strength. Families are like a tribe that we form for all our needs and they are our support system . I enjoy living knowing that there is always a backup-system that's got my back. I believe, the extended family concept in India and other parts of the world is very intelligent because we know if any of the tribesmen get old or become defunct, others in the tribe are there to help him out. For some reason, extended families concept isn't really being appreciated as there is a level of adjustment that everyone must adhere to and that's apparently spoiling ones freedom. Anyways, nothing really major to worry about as long as the institution of marriage is perceived as irrelevant . Lots of married people have problems and some even voice their concerns by divorcing one another or by some non-cooperation movement at home. Thing break and I totally believe that some things are broken way beyond repair. Nothing wrong with that, but, the bu...

I have been reading McKinney review, Harvard business review, Deloitte review, AT Kearney review, and others for a very long time now. After a few years of reading, I started to wonder why are these CXO and high-profile professors talking about simple issues like "team-dynamics", "motivating employees", "risk management", "open culture" etc. I stopped reading it thinking that I pretty much know all of that and that these can be handled with common-sense . How wrong was I! Now all of a sudden, I see the details in how teams function and I think to myself, how thoughtful and leader-like it is to note these small things and fix them. After you are convinced that you have hired capable people, you need to concentrate on these small things to make sure your productivity is optimal. Fix the small things.