Category: Corporates

Dissect Fear and get rid of it

A 36-year-old Indian origin Stand up Comedian died on the stage in Dubai, while he was talking about his own anxiety. You try to be stronger, you try to be immune… you try whatever, when anxiety strikes, it definitely does and no Gyan can help. Gyan can only irritate. 
Build kindness into the system, build forgiveness into the psyches, build relationships that do not have the judge and the victim. There is no cure for this epidemic of anxiety and social awkwardness. 

Humans are social animals…, just like most other animals. The only difference is that we are layered and therefore blessed (or cursed) with brains, that develop in leaps and bounds for good or worse.

Introversion or extroversion cannot be the parameters of ‘smartness’, as the prevalent societal norms make people think. It is the place that you have given to ‘fear’ in your psyche that decides and defines you as an introvert or extrovert or ambivert.

Why does social anxiety get the best of the tribe? Why do successful entrepreneurs seem to be the conquerors of fear and doubts?

Read more in my book ‘The Entrepreneurial Outlook’ available on Amazon

Being normal

Conformity is a major building block of the giant superstructure of Normal. Normal keeps the engines of the human structures of society, culture and politics, oiled and running. Those who stick their necks out and decide to create their own path and walk or even better, sprint on it, are not ‘normal’. On the other hand, conformity is the way to go for the most because it ensures survival. The jagged edges of exceptional do not bruise their inner child, who is scared as it is. Fear ensures conformity and courage challenges it. Courage leads to extreme successes and failures and many times failures are the stepping stones for success and vice- versa. Success is like walking a rope above the ocean of conformity. This is so because, success thrives on exceptions and challenges. Success needs its own path. Do you still want to be normal?

Co-ordination is an art

Problems occur when the right hand doesn’t know what the left arm has done or is doing. And that hits customer service the most. I have two examples to quote here from my recent experiences.

Firstly, a well known investment firm’s representatives tried to sell some investment advice to me. I listened quietly and feigned ignorance about the matters of money making strategies. This emboldened the salesperson and he started giving me exaggerated figures, so much so, that he calculated the principal as the taxable amount instead of the interest earned through investment. I guess he wanted to scare me. 🙂 I realised that he had indeed become ambitious and certain about acquiring a new client. I curiously asked if they conduct training for investors through some experts. Very willingly he talked about an upcoming training for investors in the area that I live. I thought of exploring the network by attending a training programme. With hope for getting some business out of me he immediately enrolled me online for the said training programme, which interestingly did not happen on the dates promised by him. His organisation’s training and development department totally kind of disowned him and refused to acknowledge his promise. It is an extremely bad example of a complete lack of coordination, greed and insincerity.

Secondly, the hospitality industry in India has indeed come a long way when it comes to customer service. For example, I stayed in a couple of two-tier cities’ hotels. Both were indeed exemplary and stellar in their service to the guests. Each guest is treated as special by them and that is the way to survive and grow in this highly competitive field.

Ensuring better coordination among the staff is the management’s job and to the highly discerning customers of today, it shows and when it shows it benefits the organisation. So, how to achieve that excellence is a challenge. To be continued…

Outsourcing and Offshoring: Preventing cyber security threats is a Challenge for the Leadership

Outsourcing and Offshoring are the two solutions, for lot of issues that businesses face because these solutions ensure cheaper human resources, infrastructural conveniences, knowledge and skills and higher growth potential. But at the same time these solutions bring along with them; the apprehensions pertaining to – data protection and security, knowledge and information security; in a nutshell, cyber security. The threats can range from theft, loss or destruction of sensible information and intellectual property, unauthorised access to the network service, infection with malicious code, disclosure of someone’s personal data and identity theft etc. The reasons for such threats can be varied; for example, at offshore locations the cultural and legal environment is less able to protect foreign investors etc. Nonetheless, outsourcing and offshoring are the realities of today’s businesses, so it is essential for the decision makers concerned to do the due diligence in terms of risk assessment that should involve, a thorough analysis of the existing politico legal and cultural environment of the outsourcing partner/offshoring location is concerned. It is more important to think of a mechanism to prevent any threats in such a scenario, rather than treating the very business models of outsourcing and offshoring as potential threats because that would simply mean that we are trying to put the clock behind or reinvent the wheel. The three areas that can be covered to prevent any such cyber threat event are- technological safeguards through building effective encryption mechanism, authorisation schemes, digital signatures, passwords, firewalls etc.; legal, by putting in strong agreements with the other party; and last but not the least, a set of organisational rules, procedures, and having the right kind of people at the right places to ensure effective implementation of the projects. Business is always about risk but it is important for the stake holders to minimise risk by doing the home work properly because risks should not deter one from taking a well thought action.

(This post is from my blog http://www.deepshikhasingh.org, which unfortunately does not exist any more.. Fortunately I had some of the content covered in an ebook which is available on Amazon & iTunes as well.)