2009 An analysis!

Just few more minutes for the year 2009 to end...Thought I will do a quick recap of what happened in 2009 which remain in my memory and which will decide my 2010.

I remember Jan 1st very well. Bought lot of shares (esp. Reliance companies) with the money got as loan from the company. People say new year day is bad for investing, but things proved to be very good for me.. Stocks doubles in few months :)

Till march 23 rd was busy days with Infosys training. The extended training was a relaxed one and I really got to enjoy most facilities of mysore campus during this period. From may 20th onwards,

we all were anxiously waiting for posting locations. And it came by 26th or so.. Me and my best friend Tarun got separate locations :( (mangalore and trivandum 16hour journey!).. We had lot of plans to be executed in our mind of which none really worked out, and this 16hour distance proved to be the major reason!

May 29th, I joined Mangalore office. There was not much job in the initial few weeks, tried to learn some stuffs , but nothing much was learned !! Everyday we were eagerly waiting for a project call, and I have tried all sort of ways to get myself into a billable project.

Lot of things happened in these period, and I even lost faith in my favorite company Infosys. Is it because Infy is doing things which I don't understand or because I see things differently.. I don't know, but the kind of love and passion which I had for this IT giant was no more there by September.

I decided to leave the company and ended up with an offer from another MNC, but later decided to stick on with Infy for some more time (Once a senior manager of mine gave me a advice.."cijo, you are very sharp and brilliant. The only thing you need to change is.. to have some more patience....etc etc") .. I still don't have that kind of patience, because I believe time is precious than anything else.

And finally on October 12th, I was assigned to a client project! Yup.. At last...After waiting for months..... A project! That too in .NET!! I was thrilled like anything , but i never knew this will change my life drastically.

The project life was hectic. 75% time was spent at office. As days passed, my health started deteriorating. Somehow the project was over and I was moved to another project. Nobody ever asked me whether I am interested in this new work , but simply assigned me to it. This is one thing I would like to change in corporates. (more on that in another blog entry).. Had to work even in night shifts for 3 weeks in the new project.

At the end of each day, I do a look back and asks myself. "What have you learned today which will help you in achieving your dreams." My mind answers "null" 99% of days.

I realized the painful truth. Infosys is not the right company for me or I am not the right kind of resource for Infosys. Either way , there is only one solution. Leave the company :) This time I was pretty serious. The only question to be answered was What after this ?.

Though out my life, I was never short of options. Only problem I ever faced was , choosing between options. This time also, plenty of options lie ahead of me. A job as lecturer in engineering college topped the list. Doing MBA was the next in the stack. and so on....

Life is all about making the right choices, considering all the trade-offs. I don't know whether I am the best in making right choice, but I made a choice in my mind.

I don't know if this is the best choice. or is this going to be another bad choice like choosing Infosys from among many offers I had. I will have no one to blame but myself, you take a stick from one end, the other end follows you automatically..

In the past 365 days, I have made a lot of new friends and this alone is enough for me never to forget 2009.

The only thing which I will miss will be the time spend together with my friends.

Anoop,Alex,Jason,Sagish- room mates and

Jerry,Praveen,Lijo,Megin,Arun,Paul, Nidhi,Rini,Dency,Divya......... and a lot other names......

I have made another great friend also, she is not a classmate, not a neighbor, not even someone related to IT field! But we became great friends! (more on that later)

As 2009 is about to be over, I am still working on ways to make my choice happen.

One of my fav teacher-Eldo P Alias

One of my fav teacher. Eldo P Alias

Yesterday was the marriage of Eldo P Alias, my teacher at engineering college. Was thinking about writing about one of my all-time favourite teachers, but this is the best time to do that!!

I forgot to give him a wedding gift , so here goes my wedding gift!

He taught us a wide range of topics, starting with 8085 microprocessors,then advanced microprocessors,operating systems, linux kernel.......

“A guy with sense” describes him the best! He may not be the best in technical knowledge, he may not be the most lavish in awarding marks, and he may not have a degree from IIT, but I respect him for his ability to understand the students. He put himself in the shoes of the students often and thats what makes him my favourite! We had several instances during our college life where he has helped us a lot. Our college tour , tops the list!! (I dont wanna detail it here!)

He mingled with the students as if we were his friends. Ain’t this the thing which makes a teacher the best???

Some of the things i remember about him!!

Just before an internal exam, we people ask him like “whether this Question is important? Will this come for tomorows exam?” etc... he smiles and replies “varaanum chance undu..varathirikkanum chance undu” (There is a chance that it might come, but at the same time it may not come also!!)

I think he gave us some hints about q-paper only when he thought we deserved it! (i am not sure about this point)

He never grew mustache till we reached final year! There were all sort of rumours when he started growing one!! (reltd to GirlFriend/Marriage etc!)

He was quite famous for his PJ’s (chalus!!)... Sorry i am not able to recollect any now!

He dresses smart, and looks handsome. And unlike any typical guy, he was very careful while driving (used to see him in his Yamaha Libero most days! ).

He is not a teacher who comes and gives you ‘n’ advices about career and all... but he regularly talked about the imp. Of having good communication skills etc in securing a good job. He regularly attended Infosys training programs (TTT-train the trainer!)

Never gets upset and has good self control. (When Mr.Brainy interferes him with hi-tech doubts while he is taking class, he calmly replies “Mr.Brainy.. “thokkiil kayari vedi veykkale!!””)

I still remember the days when u asked me not to sit with Mr.Brainy, when we were a nuissance in the class!

The list will go on....!

I invite my classmates to share you thoughts here!!

“Happy Married Life” Dear Sir!!

(M y poor rhetoric skills might have under-stated him! Sorry about that!)

Jack Welch- The Legendary CEO!

Finished Reading the book. "Jack Welch and the GE "...

Jack Welch and the GE way is a book written on the management decisions made by Jack Welch as the CEO of the GE. Jack Welch is considered to be the most respected CEO and is often used as a yardstick to compare other CEO’s across the globe. When Jack took over as CEO in 1981, he saw a company in trouble, unlike most of his peers. His decisions, at first sounded crazy to many others, but time has proved them wrong. Let me share with you some points which attracted me greatly.

Jack always appreciated the difference between leading and managing. He wanted his ‘leaders’ to embrace change, not fear them. He urged them to face reality and act decisively. When people saw a company in its comfort zone, jack realized that the world is becoming more and more competitive and foreign powers like Japan is eating away America’s market share.

Jack wanted to build a market leading company. His principle was ‘be at no: 1 or no: 2... Or quit! ‘ . He shut down some traditional businesses of GE which create some rage among his own colleagues. (GE utensils, consumer electronics was sold off) But in fact what he did was following a simple principle of economics. What business a company should do is not based on the absolute advantage it has on it, but based on the comparative advantage it has! Manufacturing Jet Engines, Electric bulbs obviously had comparative advantage over utensils, etc. In making a market leading company, he was following the approach of fix-close or sell. Jack implemented the idea of restructuring the company, which included inevitable lay-offs. During Jacks tenure his company’s employee strength got reduced by 1/3^rd.! People often described jack as ‘neutron bomb’ which kills people leaving the buildings intact!

Another major culture jack successfully cultivated in GE was ‘learning from others’. Jack considered borrowing ideas from others as a legitimate act of plagiarism. Jack Welch successfully got rid of the bureaucracy that was prevailing in GE and other American business. He was always unhappy to see 6-7 signatures on business documents. He wanted GE to be lean and agile like a small company, tearing down the boundary between management and workers.

Jack always insisted on creating a work atmosphere where workers feel free to speak out. He took the ‘boss’ element out of the company. He believed that the person who is out there in the grounds, doing the actually work might know more than the person sitting in AC room issuing orders. Jack created something called ‘work-out’ in GE, which are sessions in which the boss was to answer suggestion/question from his employee face to face. He was so particular in making these work-out sessions as informal as possible. These sessions have become an integral part of GE then.

Jack’s thought on stretch.

“Stretch is a concept that would have produced smirks, if not laughter, in the GE of 3 or 4 years ago; because it essentially means using dreams to set business targets – with no real idea of how to get there. If you do know how to get there- it’s not a stretch target. We certainly didn’t have a clue how we were going to get to 10 inventory turns when we set that target. But we’re getting there, and as soon as we become sure we can do it, its time for another stretch”

On another occasion, Welch said “We have found that by reaching for what appears to be impossible, we often actually do the impossible, and even when we don’t quite make it, we inevitably win up doing much better than we would have done. “

It was during the reign of Jack, that GE acquired NBC, the leading media firm. People always doubted this bold decision of Jack, commenting ‘what business does the bulb maker has in a media company!’ But time has proved that Jack was not irrational. Jack Welch had a special favor to GE Capital, the financial services arm of GE. The rule’ no1 or no2 or quit’ didn’t quite apply to GE capital. The decision proved quite right, until recently. (Hope all knows why!!(Hint: US financial crisis))

Making quick decisions was another big quality we can see in Jack. I don’t remember the exact scenario, but it something like… when other media companies were still thinking; jack had already made a deal with international Olympic committee for exclusive rights for the next 2 Olympics…..(not sure about this)

Quality

When Jack Welch embraces any idea, he does so with his own brand of fiery commitment, and his customary all-consuming passion. Injecting Quality into GE was no exception. Though he welcomed ideas of Motorola, he had his own way of implementing it. “Make quality the job of everyone” was his idea.

On Ethics and Integrity

“I can’t guarantee anyone in this room that you’re not a thief. That you haven’t stolen something; or robbed somebody this morning. All I know is that if I knew that, you wouldn’t be on the payroll.”

“My whole job is people, I can’t design an engine. I have to bet on people. I’m not like Andy Grove at Intel. He know how to make a chip”

“Numbers aren’t the vision; numbers are the product. We always say that if you had 3 measurements to live by, they’d be employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction and cash flow……If you’ve got high customer satisfaction; you’re going to get a share. If you’ve got employee satisfaction, you’ve got productivity. And if you’ve got cash, you know its all working.”