Trades

Ray Allen to Miami - Looks like the Heat will be an offense powerhouse inside the paint and at the 3 point line. Unless this is a move to hedge any lost form or injuries to Mike Miller or Shane Battier

Steve Nash to LA - Honestly, Nash deserves a ring and I only hope he gets one before he retires. Two time MVP and a great team player. He may just be able to get more out of Gasol and Bynum through his killer passes.

USA Basketball - Again nothing short of a dream team. Again a USA-Spain final on the cards, with an overwhelming win for team USA

Of Blog names...

So not unusual to find a blog titled  "random"or "arbit" or "delusions" or a combination of these.

Having been a culprit myself, I am renaming my blog. May read a bit odd, but what the hell, I am a fan of alliterations.

Delayed post on NBA 2012

So Lebron finally gets the ring. Irrespective of public opinion, the guy did deserve a ring. He kept coming back and taking his game a level up every time he was pushed down. I recently caught up on the movie "More than a game" - shot pretty much on home video, which tracks Lebron's growing years as a basketball player. In terms of skill and talent, he was clearly unique.

He can guard the ball, play power forward, post up and shoot 3's at will. What was probably missing was the mental strength that saw him missing clutch shots in his years at Cleveland. He was tested again this year in the series against Boston, but he just came out of it much better. On a player like Lebron, there are immense pressures and expectations, given his talent. But crossing the last mile takes much more mental composure and confidence than just talent. Probably why it took him 7 years to get his first ring, while Wade (drafted in the same year) drove his team to a championship in his third year. Probably coz Wade had marginally lesser expectations and was shouldering a team with the support of Shaq ( in his sunset years). In clutch situations, he also seems more confident that LBJ.

Will we see a Miami dominance in the next few years. The next couple of seasons I am sure (assuming no one goes down with injuries). Eric Spoelstra has put together a great team that is defensively as great as their offense. Something that will see them getting the better of other talented teams.

Prometheus

Finally caught the movie last weekend. Loved the premise and the visualizations. But the movie seemed to lose track at the end with the alien reproduction bit.


Was Charlize Theron a robot too? Interesting possibility.

Corporate 'Paap' and Ethical dilemmas

There are innumerable discussions around Corporate and business ethics but most of them tend to be centered around a person's behavior within the firm and I have not come across much on the behavioral rules for the members in the top management of a company towards employees.

'Employee:management' behavior varies across industries. Traditional manufacturing industries who employ 'labor' have their own way of managing people and the ethical aspects take a backseat when employee management resembles ring master behavior. Although at times unethical, the harsh methods are the only solution for multiple labor problems in these sectors. The unethical behavior equating to corporate paap is quite high in these industries and go unchecked usually. However, there is a constant scare of labor union backlash, curbing the limit of corporate 'paap' that one can commit!

The other end of the spectrum are the advanced industries like Financial services/Management consulting where employee management is structured around giving massive independence and any infringement or bossing around irks employees(although it still happens). The beaten around topics of corporate ethics are mostly relevant to these industries where the focus is on being responsible for the independence and not misusing it. However, there isn't too much talk on the ethical aspects in employee management. There is probably no need of it because smart people working with smart people usually dont need a rule book. Additionally, the HR departments have a very active complaints mechanism because they recognize that people are the core strength of the company. If ever, any manager were to adopt sly practices of employee management, the HR has the teeth to counter them effectively. The corporate paap in these lines of work is limited to

The IT services industry was a place where all the parameters of an advanced sector were relevant. But it has fast transitioned into a commoditized space leading to a mixed situation at large companies.  The IT services firms have seen an exodus of the truly smart people and quantity over quality has become the norm (natural transition). So what happened to the culture in these firms during this transition?

It must be noted that the cultural transition in these firms has to be seen in separate categories :
1) Global firms who grew their Indian arms so much, that the headcount in India far outnumbers any other region in their operations - IBM/Accenture/CSC etc
2)Indian firms that went global - Infosys/TCS/Wipro/ etc..

In either category, given the change in culture, the only way for an individual to rise up corporate the ladder has to do with the head count that you command and (funnily enough) not linked to the economic impact you have on the firm's financials. So, when all that matters is headcount, the shrewd managers do employ any tactic that will get them through each year with more people reporting to them. Add to the fact that the performance management framework is not robust(most of these companies have increased headcount at an insane rate), the manager is at complete liberty to "screw" team members he hates(remember that in a commoditized industry, skill differentiation tends to be lower) or promote team member he/she may have a personal affinity with. The HR backbone, which is meant to be the normalizer has been very weak in most of these firms, thus allowing a free hand to managers.

Therefore there are situations where managers can get away with the most ruthless decisions , which can be equated to what i call "Corporate paap". Increasingly witnessed in the IT industry where the deliverables are intangible and the quality of the leaders is increasingly average. Many a times, the HR in some firms directly indulge in manipulation and unfair practices, because who is to check! Who will police the police.

While I understand that "this is life" ..."deal with it" ...yada yada, why not tighten the focus on ethics in the corporates, why not build in checks and balances that look into the ethical practices of most of the business leaders within the firms? Is it it impossible or just not worth the time or effort?

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"Ethical dilemma"

What sparked this discussion on this topic? Few years ago, during the crisis times, I happened to witness a situation where a particular "Director" decided to not give a raise to any of his team members in the name of crisis, but did choose to fly around on multiple trips around the country in business class to attend an annual gathering at various cities. Simple back of the envelope calculation will tell you that each trip costs about INR 40k and 4 such trips in a quarter will cost the company INR 160k. I did see that he particularly decided to lower the rating for a couple of software engineers(who btw, make approx INR 30k a month and are happy with an increment of INR 3k/month) in the name of crisis.  Anyone who lives in a metros will tell you how hard it is to lead a life with that salary and any increment can make a significant difference to the employees(particularly at the entry levels).

In summary, while INR 160k was spent on "non critical business" travel, the denial of the increment to the employee at best save the firm 36x2 = INR 72k . What am i missing here?!  The leader has the power to overrule an increment (for completely external reasons beyond the control of the employee), but had the luxury of enjoying some perks that are not tightly monitored? Could the leader use his/her conscience?

Every time a company goes into a cost transformation mode(read cost cutting), there is a framework that ensures that the right actions are taken to control costs. These are , in most cases, not watertight, leading to potential situations like the one above. It is saddening to see a downward trend in the quality of leadership, especially in the IT services space, that not so long ago was a revered industry.

Travel (contd.)

I have been extremely busy in the last 6 months and this has kept me away from writing. I will park the topic of Travel (i need to add another continent - AUS ...yay!) and make sure i finish this piece before the world ends ( i mean before Dec 2012!)

Travel 1986 - till date

Being born in a family that loves travel , I have had the privilege of having visited to many a place while growing up. As a family we took off on long tours almost every alternate year and have managed to cover pretty much every state in India. Rajasthan is the only travel destination that is yet to be covered.

There are two main reasons why these elaborate tours were enabled

1)We need to thank the largest bank of India which blessed it's officers with the LTA concept (definitely way better than the LTA pittance in the private sector). For the uninitiated, the LTA in the Public sector is granted every 4 years and covers the expenses of the entire family(no limit on the number of dependents; as long as they are dependent). There is no cap on the expense amount as long as we are visiting a place anywhere in India. This meant we could even visit Andaman Islands or Wagah border (both of which we did btw) and the travel expenses(tickets only) would be covered. Brilliant ain't it!

2)The enthusiasm and energy of my parents in meticulous planning and execution of these trips. While all bankers have this privilege, it takes a lot of energy to actually utilize it extensively(of course in a legit fashion) which most fail to or just choose not to.

Therefore, growing up as kids, we were used to big trips every summer (either a drive to our native village) or a full blown trip to an unseen territory in India. I feel blessed when I realize that I have traveled to way more destinations in India than MOST of the folks in my social circle. All the memories of these trips lie in the form of the 24 roll camera prints bound in huge albums stored in a bag at home but are very vivid to me even now. I therefore want to recount these experiences in installments of blog posts.

To begin with, here is a summary of the tours we have taken as a family -

1986: Calcutta(yea! it was called the same then),Sunderbans, Darjeeling, Bhubaneshwar, Jagannath Puri, Konark, NadanKan Zoo

1988 : Pune, Nashik

1989 : Delhi, Agra, Mathura, Mumbai

1990 : Ooty, Bandipur

1991 : Delhi, Shimla, Chandigarh

1992: Delhi, Agra, Mathura, Ayodhya, Allahabad, Gaya, Varanasi, Rishikesh, Hardwar, Rudraprayag, Uttarkashi, Gaurikund, Kedarnath, Badrinath,

1993: Chennai, Mahabalipuram, Trichy, Kumbhakonam, Chidambaram,Madurai,Kanchipuram Thanjavur, Palani, Kanyakumari, Rameshwaram, Trivandrum

1995 : Mumbai, Pune, Shirdi

1997 : Calcutta, Siliguri, Darjeeling, Kathmandu

2001 : Delhi, Jammu,Vaishnodevi, Amritsar, Wagah, Kulu, Manali, Rohtang, Chandigarh

2003: Andaman Islands

Post 2003, I began working and started having my own plans leading to 'family trips'. Additionally, the touring has gone global since then, with my parents having covered the European and American continents along with South east Asia.

Will follow up the next blog by turning the clock back to1986 based on some sparse memories supported by b/w photos!