My run as a CEO of Bennett, Coleman and Co.

I was the CEO of Bennett, Coleman and Co. Ltd.  and I had the whole media enterprise to run. Because I was the newly appointed CEO and the youngest CEO in the history of this company, they expected me to be magical and do something really unique and show the investors that there choosing me as a CEO was their best move. So…

It’s my first day on the job and I got to meet everyone. I went out for fancy lunches and was talking about newspaper business with everyone. Soon I realized that my use of simple English isn’t really impressive, because usually CEOs are supposed to use terms like strategy, management, efficiency, motivation, performance, bandwidth, processes and all that…but I was doing simple-talk and not using any of those words. And even after I realized that I wasn’t talking the way every other CEO talks, I stuck to my way of speaking and was proud that (if not anything else) this is a unique thing I bring with me, that is, I am straight shooter. Then…

I setup a meeting to give a presentation and introduce my plans. So, I invited all the CXOs, Vice presidents and Investors to the meeting…(and I was feeling like Steve Jobs giving the iPhone keynote speech)…so, I started by saying that I have a 3 year road-map and I wish to start executing all the plans as per the road-map right from next month. Then I went on to tell them about:

1.       How to change the online publishing and how to be a classier product online.

2.       How not to concentrate only on the newspaper content but also on the customer’s experience reading the newspaper.

3.       How to get area specific news accumulated and how to work in agile-fashioned teams to get things done quickly.

4.       How to form a community of writers and encourage newspaper reading as a writer (all in all, read the paper like you wrote it).

5.       A marketing campaign in the lines of where people read the newspaper and how to consume the news (we need to teach people how to consume news, they don’t know it yet)

 

But, for the first month, all I want from the top level management is to come up with a one-page write-up on the top 15 things they do in their divisions and that they cannot do without. I say this and I finish the meeting…in the end, I also say that I want to meet everyone exactly 1 month from now. Everyone agrees and there is some applause and nobody thinks there is anything magical about the new CEO (me, that is).

After one month of discussions, I tell everyone that what we are going to do with our product (newspaper and magazine, that is) is to not do a lot of things and not start doing new things. We have so many subscribers, lets finalize only 7 from the 15 things in the list. Let’s focus only on the most-important 7 things and bring the kind of excellence that isn’t there in any other product…and let’s just get rid of the other 8 things for the time being.

People understand my ideas and roll out totally amazing newspapers and magazines, and the company profits are mind-blowing. I am elated and humble…and then a mosquito bit me and I woke up. I was having an amazing dream, and these fucking mosquitoes spoilt it J. I am sure I would have done a lot more as a CEO if I had a few more hours of sleep; you see, I am just too psyched about leading media enterprises J.

PS: I’ll not forget this dream, it was good…I didn’t do anything ground breaking…but I got amazing results by telling my company to drop 50% of what they do on the daily basis and invest that time in doing the other crucial 50%.

 

Take an off, choose any 8 vacation days a month

If I say "Let's work 7 days a week and throw away the concept of weekends". People will tell me "go get a life :)". True!

I feel very strongly about pursuing what I like and I feel that I am not really waiting for a weekend. I am just waiting to go to my office and I don't really feel I am losing anything by not making use of a weekend because there is not much difference between how I spend my weekend and my weekday (every day is freakishly different and fun), that is, I mix work-time and play-time seamlessly (FYI: by no means am I trying to impress my boss! she doesn't read my blog...and my appraisals are over long long back :-P). But it is very true that everyone waits for the weekend, I think it's because our minds are clocked in such a way that it doesn't want to function on Saturdays and Sundays...it's hard-coded in our minds that those two days are meant for us to relax or go-out. 

I mean, why do we wanna relax or go-out ONLY these two days a week...mathematically, we are spending 4*2 = 8 vacation days out of the 30 days in a month. I believe the vacations will be more valuable if we can have one chuck of a month for vacation and the rest of the chunk for work. For instance, I am trying to think what can happen if we work continuously 22 days and take 8 vacation days every month. This idea simply fascinates me, coz I can plan for an out-of-town trip every month and have an amazingly long and satisfying vacation. 

I think companies should allow employees to choose any 8 vacation days in a month. Why do I think this is good for the employee and the company? It is because:

1. Taking a vacation is a conscious choice and the employees are sure of what to do in the vacation days. Vacation is put to use and it doesn't just pass-by.
2. Generally, Monday's and Friday's aren't really productive because one is just after the weekend and the other is just before the weekend.  You see, everyone is in the weekend mood. (not me, definitely not me; but I know some of my friends who would agree to this)
3. You need chunks of time to do exceptional work. In terms of productivity, (22 days of continuous work) is greater than (22 days of work with weekly breaks). It's simple, if you apply breaks, you lose the momentum.
4. Two days is too less for an out-stationed candidate to visit his parents. Two day vacations are like rush-hour, people go to see their parents and come back really quick...it's more like a formality (I don't mean to hurt anyone, just saying).

PS: These are strictly my thoughts. And it may be ridiculous to implement, so don't break your head if you think this can't be implemented.
PS: A decision like this will need lots of thinking and coordination. May be, there are a million things to consider before you can implement this.

I am high...that's what Christmas is all about

I just have a feeling that why should anyone compromise their lifestyle, I just had an awesome chat with a friend in a bar for almost 1 hour...I pepped him on, why being himself is the best strategy going forward. That is, why should you compromise your lifestyle because someone else doesn't like it, the problem isn't with you, if someone doesn't like your lifestyle, so be it...if you eat weird, dress weird, have a slang or happen to be from a community that people hate...why does it have to be that you gotta change your way of doing things, you do it the way you think is right... after all, human's define what is right and what is wrong...and humans err almost on a regular basis!

Like Garfield says, "you are unique, just like everyone else"; keep that in mind, you don't really have to win others on how you are coz by the time people turn 50, people tend to be themselves irrespective of other's opinion...you don't want to be 50 to understand that, you can do it right away. The next time people hate your moves or if you hate something that other's like...let it be, you don't have to change your mind, even if you are simply being stupid. The point is, being crazy at will is one of the coolest things you'd ever experience, consciously being crazy is a virtue.I consider some people crazy coz they think they would appear bad if they did something they like...if that is what is holding you back, c'mon, take a chill pill and do it anyways.

The problem with having to face facts, truth, reality is that you are not ready for it and that you just don't want to make it a part of you. If so, don't make it part of you, enjoy the moment and when everything gets screwed up, go fix it...and if you can't fix it, try something else. Don't waste your time thinking about what else could have been done, coz on the first place, you were the one who showed maximum dedication and passion towards whatever is that you did (a person/a company/an object). If it backfires, so be it, it doesn't tell you what wen't wrong, it just tell's you want other's think went wrong.

If you reject the lifestyle you love, you are doing the worst mistake of your life...this time, I mean every word of it...it's not just some wise line, it is THE wisest line. If you don't like something- ignore it, don't worry about why people think you are wrong...a terrorist isn't really a terrorist in his community, he is actually doing good to his community by being a terrorist (I am not saying that is right, being terrorist is the worst thing that you can possibly do), all I say is that being who you are is all that you gotta focus on...things change, people go away, companies move on, people ditch you, you ditch people, and you have a change of heart and all that...just remember, whatever makes you happy is the right thing to do as long as it doesn't fuck-up someone else's life.

Enjoy being yourself, merry Christmas. I am so freaking high that I can't even see my screen properly, I just feel enlightened and blessed.

It's shipped...not yet!

Your job should be end-to-end. If you are developing a manual or a book, you have got to know how it's being shipped and how it is used by the consumer (the user experience)...what I mean is that your job doesn't end with book production. I believe a lot of enterprises have their divisions working day-and-night to make sure their product is shipped well, but the point is, not a lot of us get to see how the user experiences it. It takes a lot of cross-functional talks to get to know what our output means to the users and how every division's output comes along to solve a problem.

Making the mistake of not understanding the whole process (and sticking to the work done in your department) will definitely make you think small. It is possible to think big only if you can see what all it takes to make a product, you cannot be interacting ONLY with your team members to come up with an earth shattering idea for the product. Just talk to the guys in other teams, it makes sense. Before you get to know your customers/users, get to know the makers of the product. It is almost around 4 years that I am developing manuals, and still I am not sure how is it being consumed...the point it, the content is static and there is no way to know what the user sees; as a writer, I see helluva opportunity here (Think analytics and online publishing).

Doing to done

The thing that needs to hit you every time you think about doing something is: If I don’t do it now, I am not gonna get a chance to do it in the near future.

This will help you decide if you really want do it or not…the buzz word here is FOCUS. If you have to do it now, do it now or else don’t do it. But, don’t postpone the little things that need to be done today…coz you either do them now or 20 years from now. Period.

To evaluate someone you need answers to these

Have you seen his output? Do you understand his output?

If you understand his output, do you know what has gone into it?

If you have seen his output, do you know how good it is or how bad it is?

If you know the quality of his output, can you compare it with the quality of output from other guys doing the same kinda things he is doing?

If you know where he stands (relatively), do you know where he belongs?

If you know where he belongs and if it's not where he is, is there anything you can do about it?

Now! decide!

Positive stress and the two buckets

Bucket 1: difficult product learning, new way of working, colleagues in the team with totally different personality, change of role, or last-minute additions in the assignment.
Bucket 2: someone screwing up what you had saved yesterday, manually doing a job because someone forgot to automate it, miscommunication that led to wrong email response, a fuck-up micromanaging and rude boss,  or working with a colleague with terrible mood swings.

Bucket 1 leads to positive stress; this stress is a part of your job and it actually makes you smarter, so it’s perfectly fine to get stressed-out by that. Bucket 2 leads to the real stress, this is going to make you feel terrible and that day can be a contender for one of the worst days of the month. So, now you know what kind of stress you are in.

I didn't misunderstand, you miscommunicated

We talk to different people and most of the times we don't know what they make of our sentences. The problem isn't that I misunderstood you, it's you who  miscommunicated. Almost always you will find that people misunderstand only because of the other person miscommunicated his points.

So, make it amply clear about what you think when you say something that has high chances of being misunderstood. What contributes to misunderstanding: how you said it, when you said it, and why did you say it now. (you see everything is to do with your communication)

PS: By the way, "miscommunicated" is not a word in the standard dictionary. The first guy who tells me why  the usage is incorrect wins an iPad.

Awfulness on a regular basis

Create an awful material on a daily basis...you'll be surprised that awfulness reduces overtime (sometimes, you even reach awesomeness). For instance, people complain that they don't get time to blog; actually, they have lots of free time, its just that they fear producing awful stuff. Years pass and they are still awful at blogging...I think, it would have been different if they had created awful material on a regular basis.

All that we must do is Keep-doing-it over and over.

You never know what's going on in the restrooms now

I was hanging out with a friend just outside my office; we have a big (actually, huge) mall  facing our office. It was around 12:30 am and I saw this security guard outside the mall, and I told my friend “To protect this big property (mall, that is), they only have one security guard at this time”…I was thinking about how easy it will be for robbery, as in, it’s a paradise for people who plan and rob properties (think, Oceans 11).

To that, my friend says “You never know what’s going on in the restrooms now”. What does this answer tell you? Some guys (couples, that is) are in the restroom doing whatever-is-that-they-feel-like-doing. Now, what did I ask and what kind of solution I got…it’s freaky, isn’t it…but in a way, it may be true; we saw some vehicles come out of the parking-lot after a few minutes (certainly it’s not the workers from the stores in the mall coz they don’t have an Audi or a Mercedes; so, it has got to be someone else).

There is no business case I am trying to make here; it’s just that my friend had an out-of-the-box solution for my question. And I learnt that, only we know what we are thinking and to get an out-of-the-box solution, it’s best not to dilute other’s thinking with our thinking at the very beginning of asking a question.

 

"I got lucky" is what you wanna say

I feel that we all like the rat race and we can't help but be a part of the trap. For instance, if there is something that can make you exclusive, then that *something* attracts a lot of people, and there are so many guys who want to be exclusive that the *ones* who most-deserve the exclusivity don't end-up getting it.

It is like interviewing sales guys...all the sales guys (the good ones and the fake ones) talk brilliantly and can sell you their talent (even if they can't sell your product, they sure can sell themselves really well); but in your company there is only one opening for the sales position; now, who do you hire when all of them are just brilliant at selling their talent. You hire that guy who is genuinely (the most) talented, and the unfortunate thing is that there is no correct procedure to find out who-is-genuine and who-is-not...believe it or not; it is a rat race and all that you can do is rely on the evaluator's instincts and pray that you get the job. 

You don't get the exclusivity because you deserve it (at least, not always). So, show some humility when you become exclusive, say "I got lucky".

Two more to go (after it hurts)

The last two reps in your workout makes a whole lotta difference (I think you know that, let me tell you why?). During workouts (be it at the gym or when reading the book or doing a course)...your mind defines the maximum limit and just to be on a safer side, your mind trains you to set a milestone a little before the maximum that you can do. So, may be, going two blocks ahead of the set milestone is actually your maximum.

"Go the extra mile" is what we are told to do. But in reality, the extra mile isn't really EXTRA.

20 is the new 40 - The real deal

Age does concern a lot of us; I have a few friends who are pushing 40 and are chilling out more than the guys I know in their 20s. And, I also know guys in their 20s and early 30s who are mostly into controlling their time, playing someone else, trying for that one thing and missing it and feeling really really low, and keeping things for a later date.

I had this idea of changing the way we age to make all of us feel better about our age and to enforce the idea that there are only a few more weekends left. Work expands to the time it is allotted, the same goes for our thinking w.r.t our age. I think, when you are 40, you have the power to let-go and chill more often. But when you are 20, all you do is cry about why am I not progressing quickly (although, you might be).

I’ve heard that the 40 is the new 20; but it would be a whole lot better if it was the other way around…I am wondering, will-it-change-our-mind-set altogether…it might!...Because, just like we have the concept of DST (Daylight Saving Time) to get a few more hours of daylight in our lives, we can pretty much get started with the concept of changing our age all of a sudden to get more life out of our lives (and may be, change it back after a few years).

Let me know if this makes sense, if not, try again.

 

Competition - Being in the wrong competition with the wrong talent

In a competitive environment, someone has to lose, that's how things really are. Overall, there are many competitions that we've been a part of and have done miserably; on a short enough timeline, the confidence level of the guy who did well in the competition is way above that of ours, but, on a long enough timeline, the results from that competition become invalid.

The main purpose of competition is to segregate (that's a no brainer) and then allocate a premium opportunity to one and a not-so-premium opportunity to the other...which is fair coz premium service will not remain premium if it is available to everyone. In the education system we have, the segregation process is very ineffective coz it only accounts for scores and nothing other than that.This isn't a real competition because a lot of us were pushed in the competition, and some of us did not even compete, and some of us were already better than the rest.

The real competition that I see is in Wimbledon (Federrer and Nadal), World Cup (India and Pakistan),  or Companies (Apple and Microsoft)...this is because all the guys in this competition has the following in common: *All the competitors have the same talent and want the same thing out of their talent*. What I am coming at is that "Most of the competitions we are in involves different talent requirements, and "Winning from or losing to someone in the competition is most probably a result of being in the wrong competition with the wrong talent" .