The Path Lies Within…

The path lies within……..

If eternal Bliss is destination, then the path lies within. You need to surrender to your inner self to conquer the world

You cannot seek an acquaintance with the world when your inner self is a stranger to you.

Peace of mind is something everyone aspires for, and yet nobody seems to know when, where, and how to get it. Over a period of time, term “peace of mind” has undergone a transformation from a qualitative entity to a quantitative entity. People now a days speak in terms of “some peace of mind” to describe their aspiration or achievement. It can no longer be equated with the total tranquility of mind and the body. Peace of mind or lack of it can be the result of conquest over or conflict with self.

“In the final analysis, the hope of every person is simply peace of mind.”

Please read the complete article HERE

Social Entrepreneurship

An extract from the text of the lecture delivered by Shyamsunder Panchavati at Hyderabad on 31st October 2010.

“Social Entrepreneurship: A Change in perspective, from “Not for Profit” activity to a “transaction” towards Social Assets Accumulation”

“I am extremely happy to note that so many young entrepreneurs have taken time today to attend my lecture on Social Entrepreneurship. I hope this will probably help in removing misgivings in the minds of the youngsters about Social Entrepreneurship.

Social Entrepreneurship is an entrepreneurial effort like any other business. Only difference is, it is wholly or partially cause driven and more often than not, it complements in terms of increased brand equity to the brand that supports it.

The debate about the capitalism and “All Truism” is eternal and will continue till eternity. We arenow looking at a model that is a combination of the two. “All truisms” is a noble concept, but it is too noble a concept to sustain. What is an ideal combination depends on geographic, demographic and other factors. However there has to be a flexibility and scalability in action & approach as per the need and situation.”

Please read the full text and view the presentation

Best wishes,

Shyam

STEM (Science,Technology,Engineering,& Math) education in USA, The initiative, The interest, The action.

(Please also read my article on Wiki.This article was featured on the wikiHow home page during Septmber-October 2010)

When it comes to technological innovation, the United States remains number one. Yet, among 15-year-olds worldwide, the US ranks 29th in math literacy, falling behind Finland, Croatia, the Czech Republic, and Liechtenstein.[1] This means that the US delivers a less-than-excellent education in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM education).

STEM (Science Technology Engineering & Math) education has again come into limelight suddenly with everyone concerned including White House taking initiatives in this direction.

I very vividly remember almost a year back in 2009 when this issue was raised by my favorite author, Harvard professor and former editor of HBR Prof. Rosabeth Moss Kanter raised this issue in one of her articles during her India visit to attend Nasscom seminar. She said

“America will create new jobs by tapping the inventiveness of entrepreneurs who can draw on a large pool of talent with so-called STEM skills – science, technology, engineering, and math. I wish that the federal stimulus package included less money on banks and more on investment in higher education and companies of the future.”

Nice words spoken, but no concrete action in that direction. A typical case of ‘intent and action’ going in opposite directions. Industry at least seemed happy building their empires outside United States ‘CISCO’ CEO John Chambers prided in his Indian talent acquisition. He said at same conference.

“Cisco CEO John Chambers, who spoke before I did with his usual charm, repeated his company’s investment in Bangalore as its second global headquarters because of the 600,000 engineers a year that India produces.”
Is it a preference of convenience over construction? STEM education is a huge construction work involving the Government the industry and the intelligentsia. Till now none of them seemed to have taken it seriously.

It however is a happy augury that people have suddenly realized the importance of it. Let us hope this new found enthusiasm results in some concrete action being taken in this direction.

However the implementation of STEM is not as easy as people think. For the student perspective to change, it is essential that the changes are brought in the teacher perspective, the parent perspective, and teaching institutions perspective.

The role of Institutions

The institutions need to make the science curriculum more down to earth. It is should be relevant and related to day to day applications. The indifference to science & math should in a gradual process transformed in to interest, love and finally to passion. A sufficient dose of practicals, puzzles, & games could help, but more importantly it should be related to the happenings and applications around us.

The natural affinities

Another reality that parents & the teaching community should take note of is that if one scores less in math & science, it is not the student who needs too be blamed. It has to be understood that, Science, Math, humanities learning are related to different but overlapping functions of the brain. Each individual has a circuit naturally designed for a particular steam and a profession. The Bio-individuality of Human beings needs to be respected. This has been proved by many neurophysiologic studies and has strong empirical evidence in its support.

However on the positive side is the Neuro-plasticity, which states that every one can learn, only thing is some of us just need to be Re-Booted More often than not, it requires that we start from the ground up

The quotients IQ, EQ & PQ

STEM education is just not the case of IQ (Intelligence Quotient). It also involves EQ (Emotional Quotient), & PQ (Physical Quotient).

First factor is the PQ. The physical ability to learn, which includes the ability to hear, see, feel, move, and have the energy they need to learn.

Second factor is the EQ. Children need the right attitude to be able to learn. Without a good attitude learning becomes almost impossible. EQ includes attitudes about themselves, others, their work and the future.

Last but not the least is the IQ. The cognitive ability to learn which includes the ability to attend, understand, imbibe, process, recall & reproduce when required.

Pedagogy & Content connection:

There needs to be a symbiotic co-existence between the pedagogy & the content. “The Process & the Produce”. Iteration is an important prerequisite in any teaching process, more so in STEM education. The second most important requirement is for the teaching to come out of its linear mindset. A non linear spiral process could be a better alternative.

The faculty and the Involvement

The whole above process can be accentuate or negated by the most important factor, the faculty and its involvement. What is need is, informed teachers who are passionate about the subject and who show how the content is relevant to the real world. Strategies and gimmicks are secondary.

We need strategies that allow students to write, discuss, create visual representations, and organize concepts meaningfully. The majority of students coming through public education are not naturally doing this. Strong learners are. But we need far more teachers teaching kids how to think than ever before.

I would like to see more about the connections between content and active learning.
Let us hope that the initiatives taken by the Government and intellectuals transform themselves into concrete action plans which are implemented with all sincerity & in not so distant future, United States starts producing sufficient number of STEM graduates.

Best Wishes,

Shyam
Please also read my article How to impart STEM Education to your children on wikihow.(Featured Article)

Made In India

By Navi Rajdou
Navi Radjou is the Executive Director of the Center for India & Global Business at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge. The Center brings together business, academic and policy leaders and young people from around the world eager to shape India’s leading role in the global knowledge economy. Previously, Navi was a vice president at Forrester Research, where he led the firm’s analysis of how globalized innovation is driving new collaborative market structures and organizational models. Navi is an Indian-born French national and is based in Cambridge, UK.

follow me on twitter
http://www.twitter.com/shyam17

Made in India

Is demography destiny? I used to believe so. But these days, I think that depends on how a country leverages its human capital. Merely boasting a big population doesn’t confer superpower status to a nation. The quality of its human capital must match its quantity. This hard truth is finally sinking in among Indian politicians and corporate captains.
Recently, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh stated that India is projected to provide 500 million workers — a quarter of the world’s total work force — within a decade. Indeed, by 2020, the average working age is projected to be 60+ in both US and Europe, 45 in China, and merely 29 in India!
But Mr. Singh was quick to point out that without proper education and training, the majority of these potential workers won’t be “employable” by either public or private sector firms. In a country where half of the 1.1 billion population today is below 25, Indian politicians are finally waking up to the employability and talent challenges facing the Indian youth.
India’s explosive economic growth is fueling demand across industries, ranging from IT to manufacturing to retail, for a huge number of skilled professionals. Unfortunately, while India produces over 3 million graduates each year, the percentage of those graduates that are employable by the industry is fairly low. Two studies, one by McKinsey & Company and another by Duke University, showed that fewer than 25% of the 500,000 engineers graduating in India are of comparable quality to the 70,000 engineers produced in the US — and therefore “employable” by the industry.
Aware of this challenge, the Indian government is collaborating with the National Knowledge Commission to unleash the country’s human potential by, for instance, opening more IITs and IIMs and imparting “soft skills” to young workers. Unfortunately most of these initiatives take a quantitative approach that merely aims to improve the supply-side of the Indian labor market. I personally think that the issue (and therefore the solution) lies on the demand-side, and requires a qualitative solution as well.
Why? Because employability is only half the problem. Even if they do find qualified workers, companies can’t take their Indian employees’ loyalty for granted: attrition rates in Western IT providers’ Indian offices run as high as 50%, due to lack of engagement by their employees. In a global workforce study conducted by Towers Perrin, a whopping 56% of Indian employees said that they feel disengaged at work – the highest percentage among all countries surveyed. These disgruntled Indian employees feel a big disconnect between their personal aspirations and their day-to-day professional activities.
This disconnect results from the fact that while young Indians are attending colleges (let alone high schools) neither their parents nor the educational institutions pay attention to their individual talents and career aspirations, and help tie them to the skills needed to be successful in an organization. This paucity of attention later results in high employee attrition which hurts Indian industries’ ability to sustain growth and build globally competitive and adaptable workforce.
However resourceful it might be, the Indian government can’t afford to take a top-down approach to igniting and coaching the minds of the 550 million-strong Indian youth. It needs to enroll the help of creative entrepreneurs worldwide to accomplish that mighty goal.
Fortunately, some entrepreneurs are already responding to this call. Take Dr. Ravishankar (Ravi) Gundlapalli, whom I recently met in San Francisco. After 12 years of working as a supply chain professional (Ravi has a Ph.D. in Fluid Mechanics), Ravi decided to become an entrepreneur in the education sector with a global mission. Ravi told me that his passion for teaching and education goes back to his own high school days in Chennai, when he learned Tamil to teach mathematics and physics to his fellow students from Southeast Asia who had difficulty understanding concepts taught in English at school.
Ravi’s extensive field research in India with individual students, colleges, employers, and trade associations shows that most of the 3 million graduates that India produces each year are not receiving adequate career-based education and orientation. So Ravi is launching a new startup, Turning Point Global (TPG), which aims to address the employability and talent management issues faced by the Indian economy.
TPG’s vision is to “ignite the Indian students’ minds” with career planning and career success principles that are aligned with the students’ own genius and career aspirations. By engaging with Indian students while they are still in college, TPG plans to make them career-ready by the time they embark on their first job, armed with relevant functional, behavioral, and career success skills. TPG has many other innovative ideas to ensure that these students continue to maintain clarity of self and clarity of career, and in the process help reduce employee disengagement and attrition in the industry.
Ravi also told me about former president of India Dr. A. P. J. Abdul Kalam and Prof. Sudershan Acharya’s Lead India 2020 youth national movement, and how his vision for TPG is synergistic with that of Dr. Kalam’s, which is to ignite the minds of 550 million youth of India and transform them into employable human resources with strong leadership and human values.
I was moved when Ravi described how he is currently “igniting” the mind of a blind but super-bright Indian student, whom he met through Lead India 2020. This blind student received a youth leadership and outstanding scholars

Work at home or At home at work Place

Follow me on twitter
htp://www.twitter.com/shyam17

This article should have been published by me in April 09. Just when the draft was ready, a thought occurred to me. The question of work from home or work place arises, only when people have work. A sudden realization came to me that my friends in USA ,UK, India and other countries will be benefited if I can help them access jobs in their countries and if possible in their neighborhood. With that in mind, I embarked on the “Mission Impossible”.

From April till September 09. I was able to publish close to about six thousand jobs based in more than 32 countries with a viewership of around Thirty Thousand on approx. forty forums. Of course a matter for some satisfaction, however still a far cry from my goal of reaching Hundred Thousand people in hundred countries. The necessity to work for a living prevented me from putting more efforts in this direction. A couple of years down the line, I think I will be full time involved in this task.

I got huge support and encouragement from many large multinational organizations & development agencies, which helped me and allowed me to publish their job requirements on my blogs. The letters of thanks I received from people, who accessed the jobs & got the jobs, gave me satisfaction more than any remuneration could give and provided the maximum motivation for me to work further in this direction.
Now having done my bit, I can excuse myself for publishing this long pending article. “Mission Impossible” however continues. To view some of the jobs please Click Here

Work from Home or at home at work place

I do understand that work from home is not possible when you are working in a manufacturing unit or you are doing a work which requires your physical presence at the work place.

However if you are working out of your laptop, and the organisation is in a position to offer you the facility of home login, then I feel the work is more important than the workplace.

Several multinational organizations operating in India have realized this, implemented it and found appreciable increase in productivity levels for the same man-hours and the efforts.

In fact in the recession hit United States and Europe, certain organizations are contemplating the implementation of the norm for everyone to work at home at least one day a week. This single step could raise productivity, save energy, decrease pollution, reduce traffic congestion, cut household expenses, increase quality of family life, and keep educated women in the work force.

In this fast moving and fast growing jet age, everything including technology, thinking, people, processes, and policies have changed to more dynamic pattern. Yet one thing that hasn’t changed and refuses to change is the rigid workplace of the last century. It is amazing in the digital age that most work is still associated with industrial age work rhythms and the symbolic chains that tie workers, knowledge and otherwise, to fixed locations. Flexible workplaces with flexible hours and days are long in coming. This I tell you is a very mild understatement in relation to the present situation. This is because of the business owners who while using latest in technology and machinery,are very primitive when it comes to work pattern. I have seen managed family managed conservative organisations managing to remain as as small as thinkng even after years of existence They are of course encouraged by the overenthusiastic HR managers fresh from B-Schools, and yet to get into the unlearning process.

I can give a classic example of a Indian Corporate with more than hundred years of existence. The chairman of the corporate had his chamber at a location from where he could view the senior managers’ cars entering the building. He used to call the senior managers coming late and discuss with them.
A good one hour used to get involved in this exercise. One hour loss at senior management. Apart from this the other loss was that the senior managers used their time, resources and ingenuity to work ways to avoid detection. Leave alone the loss in productivity & optimization levels, if the attitude at the senior management is such just imagine what would percolate to the down line managers and thousands of workers in the organisation.

One thing is very clear. When the management is fixed mentally on the entry time the employees are fixed on the exit time. productivity and work take a back seat, tasks are left uncompleted, manager can no longer influence the workers to stay back and complete the tasks. Production and productivity suffers.

Discipline at cost?, self extinction?, certainly not I hope. I would always manage with a little less discipline if it ensured a better cash flow for my organisation.

Now let us take a look at the situation in USA
Many U.S. cities have become commuter nightmares as urban sprawl sends people across longer distances in their cars every week day. According to the 2008 U.S. Census estimates, 84 percent of the U.S. population lives within 363 metropolitan areas that spill over central city boundaries and, in some cases, over state lines. Jobs within central business districts have been declining, while jobs outside a ten-mile ring have been growing. Vehicle miles traveled have increased twice as fast as population growth.

Now does this remind you of cities in India ? Bangalore, Delhi, Hyderabad,Mumbai, Chennai and of course “Oh Kolkata”.

Choosing how long to work and on what schedule has long showed productivity benefits. People are less stressed when they can adjust their hours or days to family or personal needs. A greater feeling of control is associated with more energy and better health, studies show, making those workers more productive. Some savvy senior executives stay out of their offices occasionally even when not traveling, because they get more done in a setting with no interruptions, at home.

For many working parents, the chance to work remotely is the primary way to achieve work-life balance. Many women leave high-powered corporate and professional careers when they have children, frequently starting their own businesses they can run from home, because there is no flexibility and no middle ground between the all-out grind at a workplace demanding physical presence or opting out. A norm of remote work for everyone would ease the strain.

Technology exists to make remote work feasible and effective. Cell phones have liberated people from desks. The need for high-speed network connections is another argument for universal broadband and wi-fi access, with tax deductibility or reimbursement to employees for the connections to their home, as IBM and many US multinationals do in India.

The barriers are the usual human ones. Without a culture of strong accountability, collaboration, trust and personal responsibility, remote work doesn’t work. That culture is missing in too many organizations. Managers don’t always know how to coordinate and communicate with people they do not see face to face; they must value the work product and not the face time. Leadership is important. People need clear goals, deadlines, and performance metrics.

I know there is a huge other side to this also, the disadvantages. I leave it to my friends to argue and debate. As of now, I thank all my friends for their patience and allowing me a few lines about my work.

Regards,

Shyamsunder Panchavati

Some of the recent comments on this post from various forums.

Hello Shyamsunder,
Appreciate your insight. A position we both share.
In all of history, never before has communication devices and technology existed like the ones that exist today. This comment for example, physical location is becoming less important for the conveyance of information.
It has been my dream to enlist a ‘virtual’ workforce, void of physical constraints, and opportunity to embrace knowledge held by professionals in various locations, by the retired, physically challenged, and home workers to name a few.
It is my understanding that your question (captioned above) continues to be challenged, and the response will continue to weaken, to the point we all can work more remotely.
It will become the ‘norm’, help me re-engineer this future.
Change is in the air my friend.
-Harley

Shyam,

I see two separate and distinct separate issues being addressed in your article. First, are there drivers begging the facilitation of greater use of virtual work places. And second, is the specific workforce ready and able to adopt and accept responsibility for participationion the virtual workplace.

You aptly address the drivers for remote / virtual workplaces. I think most of us can identify with these issues and can draw from experience the many times we’ve been responsibly and productively engaged in working from remote sites. Although somewhat more elusive and greater challenge is in identifying the personality characteristics or traits of those who adapt to this model versus, what I see as the majority of individuals, those who need the structured workplace in order to remain engaged, productive and focused on their 8-10 hour daily assignments or unstructured tasks as they may be.

I’m not yet convinced that the 80-90 percent of deskbound workers are at the work maturity level at which they can thrive when working sans office. While automated call distributors insure that work is kept queued and measureable for remote call center personnel, the same is not true for knowledge workers or ‘meeting bound’ program team members.

I believe that driving success for this larger mass will come thru improved use of integrated video/telecommunications services and social networking tools which will spur an alternative social fabric to the office coffee station. The immediate next step being adoption and integration of these services into common work protocols.
Ron

We do a lot of “virtual” work and I find it that it is good to have it when you have very “proceduralized” work flow. Long project when all people know what they do etc. When nature of business is very dynamic we find it is very hard to have “virtual” work force.
Here is an example, one of our clients have a server performance problem that results in service unavailability. Server are up and down. When they down you need react right away and mulitple people have to work together to response quickly. If they all remote it is very inconvenient.
Posted by Michael Petrov

Many US companies are way behind in 21st Century management/HR with regards to the “work from home” opportunity that exists for both the company and the employee. Not all employees are equal in their job descriptions, skill sets or abilities – therefore, no outdated mandate should be given that no one can work from hom – when some can and should. I would greatly appreciate any further testimony from US that promotes the work from home opportunity.
I’m in sales – primarily by phone and email – there is absolutely no reason for me to drive 50 miles a day to come to an office when I can do the same job and work longer hours from my home office.
Any persuasive facts or thoughts that I can send along to my management?
Thank you.
Posted by Le Anne Dolan

* Create an email alert, google picks all my new posts and informs the subscribers about the new post

* Add a blog search gadget for this blog

* Subscribe to Google blog search feed for link for google reader

Body tattoos are exhibit, Mind tattoos are they inhibits ????

internet marketing

Few more University degrees than others does this make you a better educated person than others?
Humility born out of knowledge is divine,
Confidence born out of knowledge is good welcome and acceptable.
Arrogance born out of knowledge is Ignorance magnified.
Ignorance is trait born out of captive mind set.
Kupastha Mandukam are we one?? (Frog in well)
As Intellectuals, well we are not expected to be one.

Mind tattoos, the responsible factors for captive mind set
People are led by the captive mindsets which lead to inhibition and inaction
Mind tattoos, the responsible factors for captive mind set
“Dr Norman Vincent Peale the famous author was walking by a tattoo shop when a confused looking young man came out of the shop with a tattoo in his right arm that read “Born to Lose”. Dr Peale asked the tattoo artist about it and the tattoo artist replied…. “ I did ask the young man if he was sure that he wanted to state “Born to lose” in his arm and the young man was pretty stubborn in that. A surprised Dr Peale asked the tattoo artist – “Is’nt that surprising?” For which the artiste replied “Not really! Much before he tattooed it on his arm, he has firmly tattooed it in his brain, and his body tattoo act is just a reflection of his mind tattoo”.””

But what we tattoo on any part of the body for others to see is not as important as what we tattoo in our minds…. And positive, successful, energetic mind tattoos are a must to attain success…
So, it should be our conscious and subconscious endeavor to keep tattooing our mind with thoughts that are ONLY about winning, what we want be, want to reach, want to achieve, that perfect day as desired, ALL THAT IS SOUGHT BY US FOR A GREAT LIFE.
A few degrees less or more doesn’t decide whether you are intelligent, Creative leader

Creative people are full of curiosity.

Creative people are wonderstruck. They are tickled by the newness of every moment. They have lots of questions. They keep asking what, why, when, where and how.
A questioning mind is an open mind. It is not a knowing mind. Only an open mind can be creative. A knowing mind can never be creative.
A questioning stance sensitizes the mind in a very special way and it is able to sense what would have been missed otherwise.

Problems & the blame game
When there is a problem, some people can be seen wringing up their hands. Their first reaction is to look for someone to blame. Being faced with a problem becomes a problem. Such people can be called problem-averse.
Intelligent people, on the other hand, are problem-friendly. They just roll up their sleeves when faced with a problem. They see problems as opportunities to improve the quality of life. Being faced with a problem is never a problem.

Value ideas and suggestions from the colleagues

Creative people realize the value of an idea. They do not take any chance with something so important. They spot an opportunity in the ideas suggested by their colleagues.

Delegate and define responsibility to make them accountable & responsible.

Delegate and clearly define responsibilities to each member of the team. Allow them controlled discretion & inculcate a sense of responsibility & accountability in them. A responsible and winning team can only make you a winning leader.

Visible enthusiasm for achieving set goals

Effective leaders are enthusiastic about their goals. This enthusiasm works as fuel for their journey, propelling them to their goals. This is also extremely contagious and spreads fast in the team.

Perennially dissatisfied.

Leaders are acutely aware of their dissatisfactions and unfulfilled desires. However, this awareness does not frustrate them. Their frustration never reflects in their behavior with colleagues. As a matter of fact, they use this awareness as a stimulus to realize their dreams.

Be an optimist, regardless of adversities & constraints.

Creative people generally have a deeply held belief that most, if not all, problems can be solved. No challenge is too big to be overcome.
This doesn’t mean they are always happy and never depressed. They do have their bad moments but they don’t generally get stumped by a challenge.

Creative people make positive Judgment.

A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn. It can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a right man’s brow – a businessman Charles Brower

The ability to hold off on judging or critiquing an idea is important in the process of creativity. Often great ideas start as crazy ones – if critique is applied too early the idea will be killed and never developed into something useful and useable.

This doesn’t mean there is no room for critique or judgment in the creative process but there is a time and place for it and creative people recognize that.

Academics excellence should not bring about arrogance of Endemic proportions

Your having more knowledge than your colleagues is the most natural thing and that should not make the other person less of a human being. If that knowledge gives you a sense of arrogance and self righteousness, You are endemic diseased get yourself cured immediately. Your superior knowledge should be used to help build ladders out of ignorance for lesser qualified colleagues & students.

Great people are good at reframing any situation.

Reframes are a different way of looking at things. Being able to reframe experiences and situations is a very powerful skill.
Reframing allows you to look at a situation from a different angle. It is like another camera angle in a cricket match. And a different view has the power to change your entire perception of the situation.
Reframing can breathe new life into dead situations. It can motivate demoralized teams. It helps you to spot opportunities that you would have otherwise missed.

It does not mean that excellent academics make you less educated. It only means that excellent academics & education are not interrelated directly or inversely. We had great academicians who were also excellent human beings. Dr. Rejendra Prasad, Dr. Radhakrishanan, Dr. Zakir Hussain, and Dr. Kalam. Remember our word action directly impacts the destiny of the future generations. Our actions should help to mould the youth to become future leaders and fulfill Dr. Kalam’s dream to lead India to lead the world by 2020.

Best wishes,

Shyam,

What Only the CEO Can Do

The CEO wears many hats: communicator, coach, problem solver. While others in your organization can also fill those roles, there’s one critical job only a CEO can do: link the outside world (society, economy, technology, customers) with the inside world (your organization).

Here is an interesting article by by A.G. Lafley CEO Proctor & Gamble
Please also view the video

Shyam

I became Procter & Gamble’s CEO in June 2000, in the midst of a crisis. On March 7 of that year the company had announced that it would not meet its projected third-quarter earnings, and the stock price plummeted from $86 to $60 in one day, leading the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a 374-point decline.
The price dropped another 11% during the week my appointment was announced. A number of factors had contributed to the mess we were in, chief among them an overly ambitious organizational transformation in which we tried to change too much too fast and which distracted us from running the everyday business with excellence. But our biggest problem in the summer of 2000 was not the loss of $85 billion in market capitalization. It was a crisis of confidence. Many of P&G’s leaders had retreated to their bunkers. Business units were blaming headquarters for poor results, and headquarters was blaming the units. Investors and financial analysts were surprised and angry. Employees were calling for heads to roll. Retirees, whose profit-sharing nest eggs had been cut in half, were even angrier.
The news media chronicled the drama with headlines ranging from “P&G Investor Confidence Shot” to “Trouble in Brand City: We love their products. But in a tech-crazed market, we hate their stocks.” The most painful one was in a major industry publication: “Does P&G Still Matter?”
At 6:00 PM on my first day as CEO, I stood in a TV studio, a deer in the headlights, being grilled about what had gone wrong and how we were going to fix it. Everyone was looking to me for answers, but the truth was that I did not yet know what it would take to get P&G back on track. Welcome to the job of CEO—a job I’d never done before.
The Work of the CEO
In October 2004 I looked back on that first day and the even more difficult weeks that followed as I sat with Peter Drucker and several other CEOs and management scholars who had come together to ask, “What is the work of the CEO?” (Most of the quotations in this article come from Drucker’s notes for the remarks he made on that occasion.)
It seemed an odd question, because enormous attention has been paid to CEOs, who are alternately revered as corporate saviors and reviled as corporate scoundrels. Yet the question remained: Do we really understand the role and the unique work of the chief executive? Drucker believed the answer was no. He argued that people wrongly view CEOs as coaches and utility infielders who jump in to solve problems as needed, and that CEOs indeed have work that is their own. On his death, in November 2005, Drucker left behind an outline of his emerging thoughts on the role. (The Wall Street Journal had published a portion of it as “The American CEO” in January 2005.) In 2004 Drucker said, “The CEO is the link between the Inside that is ‘the organization,’ and the Outside of society, economy, technology, markets, and customers. Inside there are only costs. Results are only on the outside.”
My experience validates Drucker’s observations, and my actions since those early days and weeks have been consistent with them. I’ve gone back to his unfinished draft time and again, reflecting on his central question: What is the unique work of CEOs—work that only they can do and that they must do? Over time I’ve come to see the power in Drucker’s words about linking the outside to the inside. The CEO alone experiences the meaningful outside at an enterprise level and is responsible for understanding it, interpreting it, advocating for it, and presenting it so that the company can respond in a way that enables sustainable sales, profit, and total shareholder return (TSR) growth.
It’s a job that only CEOs can do because everybody else in the organization is focused much more narrowly and, for the most part, in one direction: Salespeople are externally focused; just about everyone else is inwardly focused. Integrating the outside and the inside is hard; it’s far easier to pick one. The CEO can see opportunities that others don’t see and, as the one person whose boss isn’t another company employee, make the judgments and the tough calls others are unable to make. The CEO is the only one held accountable for the performance and results of the company—according not just to its own goals but also to the measures and standards of diverse and often competing external stakeholders.

The CEO wears many hats: communicator, coach, problem solver. While others in your organization can also fill those roles, there’s one critical job only a CEO can do: link the outside world (society, economy, technology, customers) with the inside world (your organization).
To link outside to inside, says Procter & Gamble CEO Lafley, chief executives must focus on these four tasks:
• Define the meaningful outside: Determine which external constituency matters most. Not surprisingly, at P&G, the consumer is king.
• Decide what business you’re in: For example, what are your core businesses, and which of them will you grow? In 2000, P&G decided to target low-income consumers and developing markets.
• Balance present and future: Ensure that stakeholders’ near-term interests don’t overshadow your company’s long-term future. To fund long-term bets such as compact detergent packaging, P&G lowered its short-term revenue goals.
• Shape values and standards: For instance, P&G defined trust as consumers’ trust in its brands.
The Idea in Practice
A closer look at the four tasks enabling CEOs to link outside to inside:
Define the Meaningful Outside
Your company has many stakeholders, each with important demands. Once you’ve defined your most important external constituency, ensure that everyone acts on that understanding.
Example: P&G is obsessive about understanding its customers. Almost every trip Lafley takes includes in-home or in-store consumer visits. Offices and innovation centers have consumers inside working with P&G employees, who also spend days living with lower-income consumers and working in neighborhood stores. These activities keep P&G’s two external moments of truth—consumers’ choosing a P&G product and then using the product—top of mind for employees.
Decide What Business You’re In
Analyze the attractiveness of the businesses you’re already in, your company’s position in existing industries relative to competitors’, and industries’ strategic fit with your core competencies.
Example: P&G decided to grow from its core businesses—laundry, diapers, feminine care, and hair care—where it was already a global sales and market-share leader. Though mature, these businesses had significant opportunities for growth, evidenced by demographic trends. For instance, people are living longer and experimenting with beauty and personal-care products at earlier ages. So P&G invested more in these businesses as well as in low-income consumers and developing markets, which show the most population and income growth.
Balance Present and Future
Balance short-term investments with investments in resources needed for your company’s longer-term future.
Example: P&G allocates human resources with an eye toward the skills and experiences leaders will need to run businesses that don’t yet exist. Lafley personally grooms people for the future. He knows the top 500 people in the company and involves himself in career planning for the 150 potential presidents or function heads. He reviews their assignment plans, assesses their strengths and weaknesses, and puts them in front of the board at company events.
Shape Values and Standards
Define your company’s values (its identity) and standards (expectations) in ways that encourage the right behaviors.
Example: Over time, P&G’s company values became interpreted in a way that implicitly placed employees’ needs ahead of consumers’. For example, its value of trust had come to mean employees could count on lifetime employment at P&G. Lafley encouraged the company to embrace outwardly focused interpretations of its values. Trust now means consumers’ trust in P&G brands and investors’ trust in P&G as a long-term investment.

View Video

l

Lead India 2020 Photographs

Here are your photographs

2nd National Movement Launch15th August 2007 SangaReddy Medak

2nd National Movement Karimnagar Chapter Launch

Dr. Kalam specially for Lead India 2020
workers (must see)

Meeting with Dr. Kalam at Hotel Novatel

Photographs of training programme in Karimnagar Dist

Awareness Programme on fundamental duties

Guru Brahma

This is a series where I will be coming out with little known facts about the movement, the unsung heroes, the barefoot soldiers, anonymous acts impacting anonymous people. The first post is about the first citizen of Lead India 2020 Foundation. A very private tale of his Guru Bhakti. “ Guru Brahma”. Though I have not taken his prior permission, I intend to write to him. I hope he excuses me for this in the interests of Lead India movement.

The person I am referring to is Sri. Dasari Jai Ramesh General President Lead India 2020 Foundation & Chairman of almost 13 billion corporate giant Vijai Electricals Ltd with almost wide operations.
Sri Dasari Jai Ramesh hails from a small village in Krishna district and from a very humble background. His Akshara Abhyas was done by a teacher from the village. After that Sri Ramesh went on to conquer great heights in education field and moved to Vijaywada and Hyderabad to start his won enterprise Vijai Electricals Ltd. Every one knows that Vijai Electricals enjoys a niche position in the transformer technology in the world.
The humble school teacher went on to become head master and retired. There was no contact between him and his student for decades. How can teacher remember one student out of the thousands that he must have taught, but the student always remembers his teacher? Teacher Sri. Sivaramiah then in his nineties, passed away in 2006.
Sri Ramesh was browsing through the newspaper the next morning when he saw the photograph and the message in the obituary. He immediately recollected that this was the same person who had performed his Akshara Abhyas. He immediately called the people located the address and rushed there to pay his respects and express his condolences. This he did despite his extremely busy schedule.
This is an excellent example of Guru-bhakti. Sri. Ramesh is very modest and has never mentioned this in Lead India. I know about this only because the teacher Late Sri. Sivaramiah is distantly related to me.
Experiments with truth
Sri. Ramesh when he realized that he was an icon and had people were taking him as role model, decided to reform himself he quit smoking, and resolved to always speak only truth, to this day he is following it.
Sri. Ramesh & Lead India
Sri. Ramesh is among the founder members of Lead India 2020 Foundation. He is a silent worker and has silently served the foundation. He has not only provided office, furniture, infrastructure, telephones, internet, free, he has also paid salaries for the state office from 2004. He has donated heavily towards the conducting camps in Krishna & Medak districts. He arranged more than Rs. 2.5 million for Dr. Kalam’s birthday celebration event at L B stadium and oversaw the successful management of the event.
The 2nd National Movement launch from Sanga Reddy Medak on 15th August 2007 by Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was a grand event we still talk about. Sri. Ramesh was a major contributor (almost quarter million rupees), along with two others towards the costs of T shirts, Caps, badges etc.
In 2007 December when the movement was in financial stress due to the leaving of a major contributor & trustee due to personal reasons, Sri. Ramesh took upon himself the responsibility of financially supporting the movement with a monthly budget of Rs.150, 000 towards salaries and trainers expenses.
Finally I would like to conclude that, I am writing this article in my personal capacity, and it is not a Lead India official document. I have not interacted with Sri. Ramesh before writing this article. I will inform him after publication. The financial figures quoted are known to me because I was handling Finance, Administration, and operations for Lead India during that period.

Best Wishes,

Shyam

Small & Silent is also work . Charity doesn’t beg for recognition, But at least once in a while, shouldn’t they be mentioned at least ?????.

“Everybody can be great…because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love” —Martin Luther King,

There are hundreds and thousands of silent workers the unsung heroes with limited or no resources working under great adversity with just grit determination & self less zeal as their tools. They are all around us, but, we fail to notice. Unfortunately we tend to look for brand equity to serve or associate with a development project.

I am happy to enumerate at least two examples of individuals or group of individuals working tirelessly to bring about transformation in the living standards of the populace& sacrificed their lives to save precious lives. Names of the individuals and groups have been deliberately blanked out so that the focus remains on the work and impact.

Live bombs do not deter this man from his commitment to save innocent lives.

Panna Lal ,who saved hundreds by defusing bombs ,dies unheard, unsung
Braver than film heroes, in real life
There were no official words of condolence nor were any wreaths laid as the body of “Chacha Bomb Squad” was consigned to the flames.(cremated)

The exploits of unsung hero , Panna Lal , or “Chacha Bomb Squad” as he was popularly known among his former colleagues in the Punjab police, will not find mention either in history books or in the numerous books written on terrorism in Punjab. However, those who worked with Chacha still carry vivid memories of this lean man bending over a live bomb and studying for some time before snapping at the circuit of the device in order to defuse it.

When bomb explosions by terrorists were a common occurrence in this Punjab state in India, the one member bomb squad of Chacha helped save hundreds of lives by defusing the devices. Panna Lal must have defused at least a dozen bombs hidden by terrorists in the busy lanes and by-lanes, in vehicles and in trains. But he received no laurels for these acts except for the occasional letter of appreciation.

The services of Chacha, Who had retired as a subhedar from the army, were sought by the Punjab police in the late 1980s as the department was hampered by the lack of a bomb disposal expert here .He rejoined the police in 1989 as a special police officer (SPO) and left the organization three years, let down by the attitude of his superiors who were always on the looked for an opportunity to berate him.

At the height of terrorism when unidentified objects were detected, the wireless sets would frequently blare “Chacha Bomb Squad come here quickly”. Shopkeepers of the busy area in a Punjab town in India cannot forget that fateful day in 1991, when disposing a bomb in pouring rain,he himself sustained injuries which led to his arm being partially disabled .
Due to his army background, Chacha could handle complex bomb circuits as he proved in 1992 when he defused a bomb planted in a compartment of the Frontier Mail minutes before it was to explode.

But recognition eluded him .For all his acts of courage, Chacha’s name was never considered for any bravery award and neither was he compensated for his medical bills.

Senior police officers often took the credit for any bomb that Chacha defused .On the plea of certain well-meaning local citizens however, Chacha’s name was forwarded to the state home department for the shaurya chakra but his file continues to gather dust in the department.

Note .
Chacha – means uncle (father’s brother elders are fondly addressed like that)
Shaurya Chakra It is a gallantry award instituted by the government of India

How Grit determination & perseverance pays for james, and his community

James ( name changed) is a 47-year-old Bolivian with a wife and eight children. He is a skilled, gifted leader and tenacious about seeking solutions – solutions not only for himself and his community of Jatun Pampa, but for his children as well.
Problem

He knew something had to change. Once, the rain and sun provided good growth of crops and residents maintained their families on crop income. But lately, they were besieged with drought, and then flooding. They had little rain, new growth dried up, there was ice in the summer, and strong winds blew where trees once stood. It was the result of natural disasters, the need for firewood and climate change.
Making the Connection
Residents agreed it was a problem, but felt alone or resigned to their struggle. So James travelled to Wayrapata, Bolivia, where an International organisation was working with another group. James was persistent in requesting a facilitator come to his community and soon after, he was in Jatun Pampa.
“Trees neutralize the strong winds,” James explained to Marc, the facilitator. “They hold the ground from erosion. We call the trees the lungs of the earth because they restore and replenish it. And when the ground is not eroded, we can also plant gardens.”
Through the process of authentic participation, a community group was organized of 16 families. Which acquired small trees from a Bolivian forestry organization. But the trees were delivered to the valley and had to be transported by donkeys because the mountain road was not maintained. It was difficult work, and after planting the tiny saplings, many were eaten by animals.
So the community group petitioned the government for a better road and, once built, 9000 pine trees were delivered to the top of the mountain and 18 acres of the Jatun Pampa village were reforested with new trees.
Families then sought seeds for vegetables and apple trees for their gardens.
Now, after only a year, the trees have stopped erosion down the mountain, helping even the vegetable gardens to succeed. There is a surplus beyond feeding families, and vegetables are sold in nearby communities.
The greatest growth
But the greatest outcome of planting the trees has been on the children.
“I planted a pine tree with my children,” one mother says. “And I believe they will continue planting trees when they are older.”
“My children take the initiative to care for our trees. They are the first ones motivated to give new ideas, too,” another says.
“When I was a child, we didn’t have gardens and I didn’t know how to plant,” a proud mother says, “But my son Rodrigo is eating fresh vegetables and already knows how to plant. It is a good thing.”
And James, who helped to initiate the transformation in his village? He just smiles and watches his own children watering the trees.
Conclusion
This recession, has however brought a welcome change in the mindset of the people, It seems to have nudged the pendulum a bit in the other direction. Incredible acts of generosity are occurring — often between complete strangers. Helpful communities and support initiatives have sprung up on social networks with people freely offering time, advice and encouragement to get others through difficult periods or job searches. Individuals are engaging in volunteer work.
I realize that the giver also derives benefits — both karmic and tangible. I do my share of charity, but that has to remain anonymous for the present. I hope this article will motivate people to do their bit, within their resources to impact a few lives.

Best Wishes,
Shyamsunder Panchavati