Arguments

1. Substituting aspartame for sugar increases the risk of cancer. It is easier to manage diabetes than to manage cancer. So, no aspartame

2. The probability of contracting cancer is very low when compared to the probability of contracting diabetes. So, lets opt for aspartame.

There are meetings with group-think. And there are meetings with pole-apart arguments.

What drives risk taking behavior?

Was reading Satyabratadam's interview and story.

Different people have different appetite for risk taking - some people can take risk in physical space; some with their finances; some with personal life and so on.

Risk taking when one knows that the downside is death is an extreme form. What makes people take such risk - genes or upbringing? Genes should direct any living organism to behave in a manner to sustain oneself. Maybe, risk taking has more to do with how one is brought up.

PS: personally, I am fine with taking risks with finances and experimenting with personal life. When it comes to  doing things where downside is physical hurt or suchlike, I am quite conservative.

Negotiauctions

Prof. Guhan Subramanian of HBS has pioneered work on Negotiauctions. Being in the market place, I see everyday what he is explaining. Corporate Clients - those borrowing large amounts; doing critical deals - are negotiauctioning every time. Most of the times we are at the receiving end - but it is both challenging and fun to compete and win  deals. 

PS:
- we lose deals; but we win many more than we lose.
- unless it is a large deal, I do not involve myself. I operate through my team. It is even more complex and interesting to deal through third parties.

Democracy - Good?

The combination of liberalism, capitalism and democracy is perhaps the final stage of socio-politico-economic evolution, but in a country where socio-eonomic standards are low, is democracy the best political system?

As a citizen, do I want two square meals a day; proper law & order; good infrastructure (which can support my livelihood) or right to franchise and right to freedom of speech*?

PS:
=Mumbai can never become a Shanghai, even assuming best intentions (which I doubt)
=A 11 km flyover will remain the pride of our nation, when long elevated roads are quite normal in China
=* cannot take this for granted

Change or Stick On

which is better? Changing jobs or sticking around at one place. sticking around seems to be a better thing to do. 
1. the power of compounding plays very well when one is sticking around at one place - people who join a company early have higher salaries
2. when people quit, people are perhaps catching downturns in the new company and missing upturns in the companies they leave - while one may get a jump in grade and salary as one changes a job, in the long run one loses out
3. it takes good amount of time building equity at the new place
4. we always overestimate the incidence of politics at the place of work and underestimate the incidence at the proposed place of joining* 

PS: there would be no need for exec search firms if the above holds good all the time. or people believed in this all the time. for many people jumping jobs works best.
* well explained by the saying - we think in generalities but live in details

Endogenous Feedback

Many times feedback is not direct. People use different methods to give feedback - hints; clues; non-verbal language; third party; post cards; anonymous..... But when someone thinks he/she is/become good or great, he tends to have his/her feedback mechanism operating from within his psyche.

Problems in life and organization are attributable partly to this problem of (a few) people having (affording) feedback system which is endogenous rather than external.

Power of Money

Till one gets X amount of wealth, assume, one is willing to keep aside one's values and sail by the wind. After that X amount, will that he/she will be willing to swim against the tide? Looks like the X keeps shifting and sailing by the wind becomes a compromise, er, convenience.

The power of money can never be overestimated.

PS: observation of my milieu

Familiar is everywhere

As it is said, you cannot be taught what you already don't know.

If I buy a brand of shoes, I see more of it around
After I got to know (how?) that Lamborghini is owned by VW group, I read this everywhere


More than trying to know, are we trying to look around for those that we already know?

Deserve / Get

Do people get what they deserve?

it appears that the reality is different- some get more than what they deserve; some less.

Or is my observation incomplete?

If the British continued to rule us

If the British continued to rule** us

- we would have had higher literacy and consequently been less populated
- our infrastructure## would have been better
- our laws would have been modern; more importantly, implementation would have been better
- corruption would be lower
- we would have had better gender ratio
- fewer number of kids would have died because of malnourishment
- human life in India would have been important
- we would not feel bad and sulk because we would be ruled by some foreigners; not back stabbed by our own people
-...................


PS:
##
- It takes the same time to travel between VT and Thane as it took in 1853, when the first train was flagged off
- South Mumbai, built by the British, does not flood when it rains; the rest of Mumbai, as everyone knows, does
-Lutyens Delhi is far superior to the recently built Gurgaon
(we can go on and on....)

** our current politicians also rule, not serve, us.

Sir, change sir

Coffee Day prices cappuccino at INR 51, as if I would not pay INR 60 for it or it would make loss on that product at INR 50.  The lady or gentleman at the counter would promptly ask for INR 1 change.

Try and take a meter taxi or auto rickshaw first thing in the morning. Invariably, the meter would be INR 46 or INR 77 or something like that. The driver would swear that it is boney (first trip of the day) and hence he does not have change to tender.


Many traders or their employees think that it is my business to buy not his business to sell.

Haven't found this problem in any country that I have traveled to. Traders / taxi drivers / everyone has change, however small it may be. Or I haven't traveled to enough countries. But, surely, India is a country with a great dearth of change.

Toxic Assets. Again?

I am a little surprised, actually a little alarmed, at the kind of recruitment by I Banks at b-schools. This in about 12 months since the World Economy, particularly, financial Economy, taking a huge beating.

Why do investment banks need so many analysts? 

Surge in liquidity, M&A, and Equity markets could be some reasons. But just in case Hedge Fund Managers, I Bankers are back to manufacturing toxic assets, then we have an issue.

Life

Life is an accident
Life is short
Life is difficult
Life is beautiful
Life is God
Life is what we make of it
Also
Life is fast

One more year!

Grass is greener........................

An old maxim - Don't compare your inside with someone else's outside.

What you see is not what is. What people want you to show is not what they got.

Get closer; things will look different. Live their life; truth will be seen.

What's Your Orientation?

Taste or Task?
Dil or Bill?
Today or Tomorrow?
Or yet Yesterday?
 

Two species

I have always tended to believe that men and women are two different species. Man's relevance is for 2 minutes; woman's for 9 months.




PS: Apparently modern man had had sex with Neanderthal

Big Boss 3

Big Boss is not a hyperbole but a true reflection of life.

-Bring people together; they will either love or hate one another. Being indifferent is difficult.
-Bitching - a Primal need!
-Trust is not easy to earn.
-Groups are usually formed very early**
-comparative advantage operates even at individual level.


PS: ** at ISB, many groups that existed all during the course formed during pre-terms and orientation

Top 50 thinkers

I have always been skeptical about books which centre around one concept and try to explain every phenomena based on this concept. Numerous examples - In Search of Excellence; Who Moved My Cheese; Execution; Good to Great; Blue Ocean Strategy; First, break all the rules;Core competence; outliers.....

World could not care less about my skepticism. Authors of most of the books quoted above have been listed in the top 50 thinkers.

- Only 13 practitioners in this list; high bias towards Professors
- Fannie Mae and Circuit City amongst 11 great companies identified by Jim Collins
- GE continues to struggle post Welch
- Tata continues to makes lousy vehicles and yet can capture world's attention
- Eric Schmidt, but not the founders, in this list
- Confidence by Rosabeth (in this list) - one of my favorites
- Some of the ideas / concepts from the above books, without doubt, are perspective changing
- iPods/Phones/Macs are world's craze; yet Jobs is at no. 4
- Prof Yunus - had the opportunity to meet him once

Source: Forbes India; www.thinkers50.com

Jet Airways Kaput

Jet Airways was my favorite airline. Was. Oil prices shot up last year; then came recession. To cut costs, it turned inside out its core competence. More than half the flights were converted to Jet Konnect - no lounge card; no food served in the flight. Boeings were replaced with ATRs. Meanwhile, Indigo offered only the basic service - flying a passenger from one point to another - and has been doing it with such precision. And more - it flies only Airbus and not ATRs - which means that customers time is valued. Kingfisher** has not wasted this opportunity either; it has taken away many premium customers of Jet (who have been in the Jet fold for a long time). Its services have improved; its exclusively lounges are a good place to wait (eat) for its planes.

Prediction is difficult; one which I don't do, nor claim expertise in. But, here, I am tempted. Jet Airways has 18 months - if it wants to have a respectable place in the air, it better buck up. Else!

PS: Cost cutting alone can never be a good strategy. There is only so much cost one can cut.

**Its flight attendants continue to be from the fairer sex; they continue to be healthier: hemlines haven't come down either. Compare this with Jet - men host many planes; and the remaining from the fairer sex wear pants.

Decision Making

I have always been fascinated by decision making as a discipline. Why & how people make decisions is not entirely explainable.

Sometimes I would spend many man-hours on gathering data to arrive at a decision; make a decision; then in a flash reverse the decision. Why? - I am unable to explain to myself; forget about explaining it to someone else. There are times when I would have all relevant material to make decision; still, cannot bring myself to making a decision.

If you pick up one side of the stick (decision), you have picked up the other side (consequences). Sometimes, it is simple and good not to pick up the stick.

PS: That said, I make decisions everyday - some work; some don't. Some are decision to correct some other wrong decisions.

One man. Multitude states of being.

Hunger; thirst; love; lust; passion; envy; greed; fear; sadness; doubt; pride; amour propre; liking; affection; affectation; admiration; adoration; dislike; hatred;indifference; impatience; irritation; opinionated; prejudice; preference; malice; joy; ecstasy; confusion; despair; hope; frustration; depression; determination; domination; submission; dogma; silliness; intelligence; dumbness; anguish; concern; cunning; cruel; innocent; kind; remorse; repentance;regret;surprise; shock;bigotry; awe; obsession; complacency; smug; conceit; vanity; narcissism; reverence; idolization; helplessness:impuissance; laziness; indolence; tiredness; fatigue; diligence; gaiety; sorrow; foolish; senseless; brute; cultured; skepticism; sarcasm; instinct;impulse;reflex.............

Each emotion (very loosely used to explain most of the words above) can be so strong and move a man to extreme action. Imagine a few of them operating at the same time. Given the complex circumstances we live in, we deal with many of these every day.

PS: compare these with animals' states of being - eat, sleep, procreate (sex is just a medium; not an end in itself as with human beings), protect self, babies (not children even when they are in 50s as is with human beings) and turf (again limited to small patches of land to ensure food protection).

Live Beyond Grave

Everyone wants to live beyond the grave. Try these - invent or discover something; become a martyr; win Nobel; become the President of a country; go to the Moon; scale Everest. Or simply have kids.

Discount Factor

After I interact with someone for sometime, I subconsciously apply a discount factor to what the other person says - how much of what that person says do I believe?

Needless to say, if the discount factor is high, then (a) the other person has successfully managed to convince me that he is many times off the truth; (b) trust is lost and that relationship is going nowhere.

Stranger, Acquaintance, Friend

Confusion is abound about who a stranger is; who an acquaintance is; who a friend is. Many times, if the framing changes, strangers become friends.