Do politics to reach to the next level in your career?

Dear Reader,

I hate to get involved into any sort of politics whatsoever. I want to do my job and keep moving. That's what many would say. But the reality is far from truth. Most of them gets sucked into the viscous circle(Organizational Politics) someway or the other. 

I remember reading in one of the management guy's blog that if you want to grow in an organization, you need to understand the organizational politics. As much as you wish you would want to learn about organizational politics, there would be enigma surrounding it.

Ultimately you would want to grow inside an organization. Drink Complan inside the organization.(PJ). Jokes apart, I firmly believe that any sort of politics or even understanding of it, isn't going to bring any positive outcome. If you think that you can provide solution for the negative influence caused by politicizing people there isn't one. Ignoring these people would itself solve the issue.Barking dogs seldom bite.

Dignity Vs Objective

Dear All,

I have hell loads of pending work but I still want to write this blog. Frustration is a creepy thing. You will never know when it gets to you. Mohan Kurvilla, one of the best sales professor in  my perspective said in one of his you tube video, "In sales, objective is everything". Can this meeting objective lead to more and more frustration as time goes-by esp. when the expectation from you are unrealistic.

 
Before carrying forward let me write a few words about Mohan Kurivilla,

A sales trainer cum professor with humble tone,assertiveness and the depth in thinking. He is a perfect sales man material many would say. His classes were overloaded with students even without taking attendance. He doesn't give you too many evaluation test but you will mostly remember what he taught.
Sample lecture of him in this video : 1)www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfmuRHpZtvU
2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CG7lbZ86wQw&feature=colike

Coming back to the discussion, if you think from the employees perspective who is working under you, will they know that the objective you set are realistic or not.? When the objective is not the realistic one and you push too hard to attain it, you can end up jeopardising the system. I heard of stories about people who lost their job as they pushed too hard to reach to his objective. You are forced to take short cuts which will hurt you sooner or later.

Bullying employees, threatening employees about removing them from the job if objective is not met without knowing about the market conditions and the problems faced,  having multiple bosses for an employee and there-by treating him like a wife who has multiple husbands, the so called go-getter's does it all. Dignity and respect for a genuine worker no longer exist in few companies.

I have played lot of strategy games. There is a strategy game named "Crusader". It has lot of relationship with real life. If the moral of the soldiers are low, no matter how much skill,arms,talent you got you can't win. But then there is one way to boost the soldiers and people. Buy them lot of Alcohol, pamper them and they will give immediate result. Though in short term this is a very effective tool, in long term it will completely destroy the kingdom. It is sad to see some companies go down to this extend to ensure the objectives are met.

This is a reason why I consider few companies in corporate world as a "Pandoras Box" too. They make you believe that they are showing you a bigger picture while all they want is their objective to be met. Their is no win-win in most cases.Values, Dignity and  Vision takes a back seat in front of immediate objectives.

Company needs to sell Brands not products

Dear Job aspirants/B-school graduates/Other professionals ,

You might be wondering how come some companies grow easily while others fail. A company which promotes a product, thinking that people are buying because of ingredients will fail sooner or later. The company without compromising on the quality identifies the fact that they are selling a brand and not just a product, will taste success sooner or later.


When you are making a career choice, identify companies which has strong brands and you have made a right choice in your career. Before choosing any company, ask this question. How many strong brands does that company have in its portfolio?. In every big company there are various divisions and various functions. If you enter a big company and end up working for a  small division, it wouldn't affect you as long as you have strong brands. (Strong doesn't mean bigger brands but also the potential ones.)

Assume you are looking for an Operational manager role. You might think how would a strong brand, affect ones career? It has a relationship. Every brand to become a successful brand needs support from all the functions like Marketing, Sales, HR and Operations. Operational efficiency also plays a vital role in its success. Let me quote an example which I recently heard. Ranbaxy was successful in gaining market share for some of its brands by reducing the lag in delivery of their goods to their customers. Operational efficiency doesn't improve overnight. It requires a strong foundation which in-turn needs a good operational team. You will definitely gain good knowledge from a good operational team.

Learning is the most important part in beginning of your career. What you learn in B-school need to be refined in few years of your career. For this refining to happen you need to be at the right place, at the right time.

  Favorite Quote : Think like a owner every if you are doing the smallest of role in an organisation. You will become owner soon. :-) 

Real Training

Dear Readers, (If any) ;-)

I am not writing this post because I am excited. My heart is filled with sorrow and my face is still smiling. Hazard of Corporate world. I admire my boss for the talent he has got. I had let him down two days ago. After a good performance in the field, I went to meeting without fully prepared. I am generally good with numbers but what I displayed in the meeting was absolutely stupid.

My boss's boss was there in the meeting. I was asked to make the presentation for which I was not prepared. I was confident to get through the presentation without hurdles but then I realized I had entered data in a column wrongly. Also the presentation was incomplete. My boss's boss said "Even without you the territory would have done the same".

All the hard work I had done seemed like of no use after hearing this from Indian head of our company. My boss said " Corporate people form opinions". "You had cut my nose". I had to hold my head low after giving the best performance of my career. Most importantly I should have made my boss proud and I did the opposite.

Well, I consider this as the real training. I am learning. I learned a very good lesson here. Never rest in your laurels and become lethargic.Things can turn worse in a moment. I need to learn quickly and move ahead.
Corporates give zero room for error.

Third Post - First Anniversary of Management Trainees and Training part 2

Dear Readers,

April 17th,2010 was the first day for the first management trainee batch of our company. One of the management trainees in facebook had suggested to go celebrate the first year anniversary in the hotel where we stayed during training. Good idea but will your boss give a day off for this? First is it a thing to celebrate? Or is it a day to moan for wasting one year of our careers? Answers remain unclear.
Let me continue from the last post:

Training Part 2:

The product training was so much fun as some of the great,witty and yucky jokes were cracked.  Even our trainer couldn't control the laughter. I am sure he would have been laughing even after reaching home that day. After that there was exam and people were copying answers as if they were in school.

After all the admin training we were given the useful training. On the field training. One of the best in any industry I would say. There was a review after the training. People were given thir location. Forgot to mention. My Shadow stint was the most interesting part in my training.
Note:
Shadow stint is a one month program in which you work under a existing manager.

To be continued...

Second Post - First day as Management trainee

Dear Readers(If anyone is reading it :) ),

I am glad that I am able to find time to write this blog.

First day in my company was the most unforgettable day. Don't expect me to exaggerate like this. In fact I hardly remember what happened on the first day. I remember my date of joining. That's all. That too, I remembered it so that I will know when I will get the confirmation. Otherwise I don't remember anything about my first day.

Training:

Our HR head who have resigned recently came to the training hall.(For most of our employees our company remains as a great launch pad to get better opportunity.) He said quickly about what are the perks with in a very short time so that nobody understands anything. Being our starting days no one was asking for explanation except our "Kitna hua" hero. He started questioning everyone from the day one. I am sure he is still asking questions. Though he cleared few of his doubts others weren't sure what they are entitled too.

Then came our training in charge. I still remember the smiley face even after 8 months. She smiles/laughs almost for every Pj's said by our training batch mates. Forget to mention. We were close to 10-12 management trainees. There were 3 girls and 9 guys. Finding girls is sales field is rare. Hot girls. Don't even imagine. But the whole batch were fun loving people. :)

Reason for writing this blog and First post

Rating:

Dear All,

First of all Thank you for reading this post and for the support you gave for my earlier blog. As usual let me warn you guys this blog "REAL WORLD LIFE AFTER MBA" will not contain any out-standing posts. If you are absolutely idle or you have an aspiration of becoming a manager in future then do read. All the contents in the posts are author's views which might also be an exception to the regular norms. I have made up my mind not to write any serious stuff but if it happens kindly bear with me.

Reason for writing this blog:

There are two kind of managers. One kind work hard and be consistent performers. Because of their achievements they are promoted and other kind is that they study MBA and become managers. This blog is about the second kind of people. I being second of the kind will share about the reality without censoring and inflating. Being a manager in one MNC showed me the secret lives of managers. I am not talking about the affairs managers have but it is about real lives of Manager after MBA. First few posts will be my experience as a manager and then I will be writing about the other Managers after MBA who I  have met in the recent times.

I will try and not write about my boss. If he reads it someday I might end up in trouble. But whenever it is required I will mention him slightly.

It was in Feb 2010, this MNC I work in came to campus for placements. That is the first time I met my boss. Had I known that he is going to be my future boss I would have showed little more respect then. :) After lot of elimination rounds finally they took 4 people from that campus interview. When I came to know that I was one of them I was happy. I had been celebrating almost everyday with friends then so I didn't waste some extra money on parties for getting placed.

First Day:
April 17, 2010. My first day in my Company.

I will continue this tomorrow...Feeling sleepy now....