SMS, Thoughts...........September 2007 (2)

10/9 Conscience won't prevent sin, it only prevents us frm enjoying it.

11/9 Half of the 100 largest economies of the world are countries. The other half are companies.

12/9 A face can speak thousand emotions but it can easily mask what d heart truly feels..Dont b fooled by d happiest face. It may b masking the most hurt heart..!!

13/9 The Worst Thng in Life is "ATTACHMENT"
It Hurts wen U Lose it
The Best Thng in Life is "LONELINESS"
Bcz it Teaches U Evrythng & wen U Lose it,U Get Evrytng.

14/9 We have to learn to be our best friends, for we fall too easily into the trap of being our worst enemies

15/9
SUTRA: The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.

17/9 Ugela suraj kadik athmi jay che, jindagi na tofano pan kyarek shami jay che, pan DIL Nu dard kone kahiye ke, BHULATA nathi kyarey je ek var GAMI jay che.

20/9 Do not count what you have lost. Just see what u have now,because past never comes back but sometimes the future can give us back our lost things!!

SMS, Thoughts......... September 2007(1)

Koi Na Mila Aisa Jispe
Duniya Luta Dete,
Sab Ne Dhoka Diya
Kis-Kis Ko Bhula Dete,
Dil Ka Dard Dil Mein
Daba Rakha Hai,
Bayan Kiya Hota To Mehfil Ko Rula Dete!!
Have a great sunday!

The worst regret we can have in life is not for the WRONG THINGS we did..
But for the RIGHT THINGS we could have done but never did..
Think deep act now..Mornin..

Common lines after people get drunk-
1.tu mera bhai hai
2.gadi mai chalaunga
3.tu bura mat maanna bhai
4.mai teri dil sey izzat karta hoon
5.aaj chad nahi rahi hai
6.yeh mat samajh ki pee key bol raha hoon
7.yaar kam to nahi padegi
8.ek chota sa aur ho jaye
9.after 6thpeg-apney baap ko mat sikha
10.after last peg-tu bol bhai kya chahiye.,tere liye jaan hazir hai...

Every morning in africa, a gazelle wakes up. it knows it must run faster than fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up it knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. it dose not matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle... when sun comes up, you would better be running.

"Give thousand chances to your enemy to become your friend..
BUT Give no chance to your friend to become your enemy."

People spend too much time trying to perfect something before they actually do it. Instead of waiting to perfect, run with what you've got, and fix it as you go & have a great week.

Living in the Favorable & Non-Favourable situation is "PART OF LIVING" But Smiling in all Situations is called "ART OF LIVING".

Regards,

Anaggh

SMS, Thoughts......... June; July; August 2007

Some more people joining in the Hub & Spoke - Gina; Mukesh......Keep them coming guys!


"Best saying for a rainy lazy Sunday: Progress isnt made by early risers or hard workers, but by LAZY people, trying to find easier ways to do the same."

"Chela swas sudi manvi aash rakhe che,dawama ane duwama vishws rakhe che,ughadi ankho na sambandh che mitro, ahiya kaun jarurat thi wadhare lash pan rakhe che.."

"Ideas are funny little things,
They won’t work unless you do"

"Whenever you win, win as if its your habit & whenever you loose, loose as if you have enjoyed it just for a change, That’s attitude"

"Solitude is an obstinate foe. The more you become friends with it, the more the enmity."

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways – Chardonnay in one hand – choclate in the other – body thouroughouly used us, totally worn out and screaming…..Woo What a ride!!!"

"It takes two things to be a consultant – grey hair and hemorrhoids. The grey hair makes you look experienced and the hemorrhoids give you a concerned look."

"We don’t see things as they are.
We see things as we are."

"Many things can be preserved in alcohol. Dignity is not one of them."

"Many people have a good aim in life, but for some reason they never pull the trigger".

"How odd is the logic of mind?
It seeks compromise when we are wrong and it seeks justice when others are wrong!"

"The hard reality of life is that – When you need advice, everyone is ready to help you, But when you need help, everyone is ready to advise you."

"A soothing fact – “We always feel bad, that good things happen only to ‘others’ But we always forget that we are ‘others’ for someone else too!!"

"Never walk away from a true friend When you see some faults, be patient and realize that nobody is perfect, its affection that matters; not perfection"

"Fate is like getting raped
If you can’t fight, learn to enjoy it

Work is like group sex
10 people are behind your ass to take your place

Education is like hiring a prostitute
It needs both money & hard work

Success is like masturbation
Only your hand can let you achieve it".

"Those who know what is enough are wealthy, those who persevere have direction, thouse who maintain their position endure and those who die and yet do not perish, live on"

"Those who know others are intelligent, those who know themselves have insight, those who master others have forces, those who master themselves have strength."

"Scotch is a wonderful drink. If you have a DOUBLE, it makes you feel SINGLE once again…!"

"No sound in this world can be louder than Silence. If a friend can't understand your Silence, he/she can never understand your Words either!"

"The secret to success is to start from scratch and keep on scratching."

"Sometimes in life it is better to keep one's eyes wide open; other times only half open, and still others shut tight.
The question is knowing which each time...."

"We learn lessons by being beaten. It's not just about ability, its about applying pressure all the time...only then we will win."

"jindgi ane maut no jo farak na rakho tme, jena hath khali chhe ae sikender lagshe tamne"

SMS, Thoughts......... The Beginning

This post goes specially to my friends:

Tehmasp Printer; Hemant Shah; Wajid Ansari; Vishal Bhatia; Bela Gupta; Aparna Gupta who have been regular in sharing their wishes & thoughts during the past so many months.

Others not so regular Hemant Gajjer; Kaushal Gajjer; Mihir Shah (All From Ahmedabad); Dilip Hemnani; Vijay Chandodikar; Ranajit Tendolkar; Shamik Vora; Bharatt Desai; Pravin Agarwal; Sampath Iyengar so on & forth who did the same, on a irregular basis.

Madhurie; Keshav; Mehul; Amal; Nirav; Bhavin; Faridi; Matthew;Soeb; Sundar & others who kept egging me on to circulate these gems & at times change & coin to suit the occasion.

Finally Snehal Kulshreshtha - for being the one to actually force me to write "Boss if all these are original - You need to write a Book - forget working for someone" (20/Aug/07)

Guys - Do not know 100% original or not; maybe book or not; But intend to start collating them. Who knows may be able to publish them! But Promise to use the Income generated to push for girl child!!

The ones in Bold are personal favorites. So keep them coming.......

May 2007

"Relationship is like a book.It takes few seconds to burn.But it takes years to write.So write it carefully and never let it burn".

"Great People Like Us Work On The Principal Of Rockets, Not That We Aim For The Skies, But We Dont Start Performing Unless Our Ass Is On Fire." (Truly Apt)

"For every 80 people who say 'it's the 80/20 rule', there are 80 nodding and saying 'yeah, yeah, I know'"

"Creativity is allowing urself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep"

"Perfecting an art for profit is the science of management"

"Success seems to be connected to action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit".

"Focus on the bottleneck. Expand, find alternates, bypass or exploit".

"CRITICISM - If it is Untrue DISREGARD it, If it is Unfair STAY CALM, If it is Ignorant SMILE, If it is Justified LEARN From it.."

"The ultimate measure of a human is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

How to pay the Right Salary - Some thoughts

First Fix the Internal Compensation
Then make it externally competitive
(In the current scenario at times this may have to be interchanged)

If we increase salaries across organization arbitrarily, would we be able to reduce our attrition?
Can we build a robust team at minimal cost?
How should our salary structure be to attract the best talent in the market?
What is more important - Internal Pay Parity or external competitiveness?

INDIA,a job market driven by knowledge workers, fluctuating pay scales & high attrition, HR managers need to find these answers on an ongoing basis.

Developing/Revising a salary structure for an organization is extremely difficult & time consuming. The most complex is to find a compromise between 'Internal Parity' (paying people in proportion to the relative value of their job) & 'External Competitiveness' (paying people in proportion to the market price for the job), & at the same time ensure that the Salary is a source of motivating the individual employee.

Some points that may help:
Job Evaluation - Descriptions & profile to avoid ambiguity of expectations
Market Price - look at benchmarking similar jobs in the market across different industries.

More points & thoughts are welcome!

Regards,

Anaggh

Hiring & Recruitment - Modified Thought of 2004

(This is a modified thought received by me & expanded in 2004 from an unknown gentleman in the internet space who was looking for people)

Looking to build an organization, your most important skill is hiring. Get excited! If you are not thinking about it or networking, you need a partner/colleague/subordinate who does it. Having been there done that, the amount of hiring I have done, led me to list some important elements.

And surprisingly a lot of people agree though becomes difficult to practice!

Why is hiring so important?

Think of your teams in the past.

Think about the best person you ever managed...

Think about the worst person you ever managed...

Everyone wishes that we have more of the former than the latter.

Hiring Criteria

Listed in order of my priority.

1. Bandwidth. I'm a sucker for intelligence, preferring to surround myself with people much smarter & faster than me. People who can multi task, are extremely important.

2. Attitude. I like

People with fire in their belly, competitive, & are very goal / results driven.

Who are fun and who laugh a lot, including at themselves.

Who are so confident in their skills that they are openly and instantly humble about things they are not good at.

Who delight in seeing others perform?

Who are open and honest?

3. Experience. I want people who have been successful at something-- getting stuff done. They don't need to have done what I'm hiring them for, but they need to bring some new success experience to the team. (People with more exposure to extra curricular activities/hobbies such as singing, dancing, acting; this is not their job, but I know if they are good at that, it say's a lot about his/her determination etc.)

4. Lack of dysfunctional behavior.

I will not tolerate anyone who hurts the team. I don't care how good they are. We all have insecurities and much dysfunctional behavior is bad responses to such.

Recruiter(HR)/Headhunters

The most important hire is your recruiter, the partner you will work with to hire the rest of your team. This person must be someone you trust completely, and someone you enjoy spending lots of time with.

If you hire the wrong recruiter, change them immediately. Be prepared to pay money for a superstar recruiter, they are well worth it.

The CEO and each hiring manager should meet with this person EVERY DAY even if just for five minutes.

I prefer to have all new hardcopy resumes handed to me by the recruiter, and I review them all WHILE THE RECRUITER(HR) IS STANDING IN MY OFFICE. This might seem like a waste of time, but it is not. If you do this, and think aloud while scanning, you recruiter will VERY QUICKLY get tuned to your criteria, and you will find that you will start getting much better candidates.

Some headhunters are good, many are bad. With some work, you and your contract recruiter can just leverage your own networks. If you do end up using any headhunters, here are a couple important rules:

(a) Train your managers to never take calls or receive resumes from headhunters unless they have already signed a contract with your contract recruiter or HR manager, and

(b) Do not let the headhunter be involved in offer negotiations, as they can screw them up to just to try jack up the offer/fee, and you also want to directly get this important experience with your new potential employee.

SEVEN-DAY Rule

One of the nice things about using a database is that it will show you how quickly you are hiring, as you can see how long a resume has been in the system. I push the heads to make an offer within seven days of anyone on my team first hearing about a candidate. Does this mean my team rushes, and thus makes mistakes? No, it means we are/have to be very focused on our hiring process. We can make better decisions that our competitors who are not as disciplined, and we can save time, and (perhaps most importantly) we can energize candidates by showing them how fast we can move. Example: get a resume on Monday, phone screen, schedule interview for Tuesday or Wednesday, back channel references after that, then second interview on Thursday or Friday, with offer that night, acceptance by next Monday. This requires a very good process so you can efficiently get all the steps done well at this speed!

Visitors

Train all of your people to be energized and nice to all candidates and visitors to your workplace.

Make eye contact with all visitors; give them a smile and a hello.

Ask the visitor if they want some tea/coffee/water or need any help.

Do not ever leave a job candidate sitting on a couch waiting for someone.

If you see someone sitting alone (bored), energize him or her by saying hello and chatting with them.

If you train all your people to do this, it very well could mean the difference in winning over that superstar candidate, and also having

ALL candidates always speak highly of their experience with your team.

The Interview

30-60 minutes. Try and NEVER be late. Avoid interruptions. Ask them about the person they just met. Be focused. Know ahead of time your plan, what you are evaluating this person for and what questions you will ask. Give the candidate immediate feedback, tell them something about them that excites you! (Do not ever give anyone false feedback.)

Ask the candidate about specific projects to get their philosophies based on something real which happened. Otherwise it is too easy for them to miss-speak if they are speaking in generalities.

Challenge the candidate; give them difficult problems to solve. You can get away with this, and not only not offend the candidate, but energize them, if you do this correctly and handle the candidate's entire experience with your team (including phone calls, hallway meetings, interviews, etc) correctly.

Each interviewer will develop their own favorite questions and style; I have my own which I'm not listing here as it won't help if others use the same techniques.

(Provided the interviews are not held in a complete forum/team) When you are done, bring the candidate to the next person on the list. (Do not have an admin do this, and do not leave the person alone in a conference room without calling the next person first.) If you have a minute, tell the next interviewer which things to probe (if you have some discomforts) and which things are important to this candidate (if such a thing came up).

The Decision

For any position, ahead of time have a job description including requirements, responsibilities, and work style needed. All interviewers for a position must know this stuff. I have candidates meet 2-4 people, no more than that. Trust your interviewers, give them veto power. Better to lose a good person (if you are good at hiring you can find another) than to hire a dud. Usually do a five-minute stand up meeting with all interviewers (or the key few decision makers) to make our decision. This must be done at the end of the day of each interview.

The Close

Once you decide you want someone, do whatever it takes to get him or her to join you. Sell them on your vision; mission; show them how you will be changing the world. Make them like you; show them how much the organization likes them & why they will be so important and successful here. When necessary for critical positions, take the candidate out to dinner.

Close the candidate on the job, not on the compensation. I always try to get the candidate to tell me they accept the job before we talk about compensation. And then negotiate a fair and good package. Ask the candidate the following: of their entire job opportunities, which one will make them, drive a little faster to work in the morning, which one seems the most exciting, the best team, the best mission. You want your opportunity to be the best one for them.

Post Hire

1. Requirements. Every one of my team members, regardless of their role, is required only to do two things: be world-class high quality output at your field, and make the team stronger. It is not enough to be team neutral (not to hurt the team); you must make the team stronger. At the end of the day, ask yourself what you did to help the team? Did you encourage people? Did you give people (at all levels) honest and immediate feedback and coaching? Did you laugh a lot and have fun?

2. Reverse indoctrination. Some companies train new people on the culture and rules, so they can get up to speed. Looking at our current situation, I think this is a bad idea. I would like to instead do the reverse, go out of your way to learn from new people all the time, before you warp them to become a clone of your pre-existing team.

3. Networking. If your new hire is good (hopefully!), use them to network to find more good people to hire!

Have I been successful, in following these!

70% YES. (Not a bad %)

Anaggh Desai