Friday, June 3, 2011

Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev: Can they SHAKE Government and MOVE corruption out?

I find the shaky Indian Government’s nervousness and challenged-beyond-the-obvious state of existence very amusing!

Led by an economist by education but politician by profession, the Indian Government is being held at ransom by two individuals who have shown the guts as whistle-blowers.

What needs to be seen is, how strongly the Government dodges the second googly, thrown at them against shielding the corrupt and not being proactive to bring back the black money, hoarded and boarding in foreign banks for ages, back into Indian soil! (This IS a long sentence!!).

Why did Baba Ramdev’s fast shake our leaders to have made go to receive him at the airport, whereas Annaji fasted for days till they agreed to meet him? Were they wary of what the proposed fasting would result across the nation? Is it that they wanted to negotiate with the Baba before he set camp up in the Ramlila Ground? But WHY is the government so scared?

If they had nothing to hide or rather nobody to hide why negotiate and make the entire nation sigh with exasperation on their inability to manage two individuals who have proved they can SHAKE a democratically elected government with a single statement of a decision to go on fast.

What led Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev to go on fast? It is definitely not to be in media’s glare. Not for getting newsprint space! Not to test their popularity! Not to be showered with national, international awards for national leadership.

It is sheer frustration about a spineless, puppet government who lives on corporate houses making policies, corporate deciding how much a common man would pay for gas on alternate weeks with prices hikes going up like a sensex out of control. The blind-to-common man who forms 90% of India but seeing, hearing, doing for the 10% of corporate houses Government brought it on themselves! Now live through the nightmare of common man’s strength of voice and choice!

With no such media coverage, with no super fast communication media, no news channels covering every sigh from the action ground, Mahatma Gandhi woke up an entire nation with his freedom movement. Sheer will, belief in what he wanted for the nation and of course a unique leadership quality missing in the two new-age crusaders against corruption.

I wish the government gets more life into themselves, get back the pawned spine from funding sources to who they have mortgaged the nation and its wealth for helping them hoard funds and make their life safer in a nation reeling under price hike, scams, land takeovers, bursting-on-the-seams population with metros becoming more richer diminishing rural India into micro sized villages lacking in basic amenities.

Will Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdev usher in a new-age revolution in India and be known as IT-age crusaders against corruption and black money? Or will they be forgotten as Indian citizens whose voices were hushed by a puppet government?

And will the ‘civil society’ ever know how it is to live in a land of no black money? High hopes! 

Thursday, May 26, 2011

How does social networking (internal and external) matter to an organization?

I look at my BB handset in awe of its power to keep me socially connected. This handset ensures I am told what my close relatives, my peers in office, my dear friends and at times even what their pets do on a daily basis!

How does it pay off is you are socially networked over the Internet and not in the society you are in? Why are we dependent on our mobile phones, laptops to know what’s going around than meeting people in our neighborhood?

I guess, the answer is simple: Convenience!

Internet socializing offers me the comfort to keep in touch with my friends and relatives at any given point of time, day or night. I do not have to spend money on phone calls, travel to my friends' place, post a greeting card on a friend's birthday and without much effort; in between my travel or at work place I can keep all posted on what I am doing. Convenience. Speed.

How does social networking matter to an organization?

I have and am still playing a key role in evaluating various social networking applications from multinationals selling packaged tools. It is impossible for any ambitious organization to ignore the impact on social networking presence on its public and even industry image.

But why do we need a presence in all the micro blogging, social networking sites?
Is it because all my competitors have a profile of their own? Is it because my business gets a boost with what I post about my organization? Is it because I get to keep track of my alumni? Or is it because, social networking is a combination of informal and formal way of advertising with minimal cost and bigger returns?

I think it is a combination of all the points mentioned above.

Government organisations that are more conservative when it comes to public relations too have realized it is impossible to keep social networking out of their workplace. Young, ambitious organisations have discovered social networking as one of the few powerful medium to expand business and even retain talent. Matured and stable organisations have discovered the wider reach and high volume of responses to their profile refreshing and motivating.

Reasons are many but objective is one: Be seen, followed and read by as many as possible at any given point of time.

Is there a price to pay for being socially connected?

The answer is YES! One has to pay in cash if you are to buy an application that ensures your organisation needs to be socially networked, internally. You will need to pay by adding a couple of teams to be organisation’s spokesperson, professional representatives and even individual teams watching over misuse of the facility.

You may have to pay for application licenses if you are to buy a multi-featured tool which might come free if taken as is but with the plug-ins you like making the vanilla application more useful, trust me you will be shelling out more than what you have budgeted for.

What should one watch out for when negotiating for a good social networking application?

Ensure you KNOW what your organisation wants and be very clear about your requirements when meeting vendors. Tell yourself and your team, just before you get into the meeting room, we will not be lured to shell off more money for 'nice-to-have’ features. Ensure you buy an organization license and not user based. Read and re-read the agreement on after sales technical support, hidden charges on usage, customization of the branding, content editing part after you buy the application and how end user friendly is the UI and features.

The change management should be to showcase the ease of use of the application to your end users and not on how to wade through links before they can create a simple profile! And finally be very careful if there are integrations involved with other systems in your organsiation. Please see to it that the vendor installs, integrates, tests, transfers knowledge about managing the tool before they exit your organisation.

After all these efforts, is it worth enough to have your employees blog, micro blog, create their professional profile, fish for people with skills and add them to a group to chat and share information... all during office working hours?

The answer in today's world is YES. You need to be socially connected on the Internet with outside world by creating your organisations’ profiles, code of conduct in social media for your organization, designated teams to use the public profile and internally linking your employees with internal social networking applications.

Most companies are always on the lookout for innovative retention engagements. I will not totally support the claim that having a social network application will help you retain talent in your organisation but it is indeed a very effective medium to connect with your peers, esp. in a medium to large organisation (5000+ employees)when it comes to knowledge sharing without delay. It feels good to find out how many other employees are there in your organsiation who are as skilled or more skilled as you are and in what technologies or trade.

As this is not a blog to market any particular social networking applications, I have not mentioned any product or company names. I don’t think they need a mention in my blog for more business. :-)

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Letter to an Editor

Dear Editor,

Our concern is about the lack of response from the office bearers in
the KSEB office. In the past couple of months, we have been
going through flash power cuts at least 8-10 times a month. The power
loss happens mostly after dusk or late night. If it rains or there is
a medium-strong wind, we wait anxiously to see if the fuse or the
transformer supplying power survives or succumbs to put us in dark.

Unfortunately, the transformer succumbs every time. What transpires
between us and the KSEB office bearers is being given as a dialogue to
help you understand the exact response, words and if possible their
arrogance! Whatever mentioned below is NOT fiction but exact responses
from KSEB office we been hearing for the past 18 months!

Time: 06: 25 PM
State of power supply: No Power
Possible reason: Rains for 20-25 minutes (summer showers)
Waiting period before calling KSEB: 45 mins (To ensure we do not jump
the gun but let them fix it on their own!)

Dialing KSEB’s land line numbers (forever engaged!). Dialing KSEB’s
mobile number … and as there is no known technology to
keep it ‘engaged’ unless there is a call, an officer answers it,
gingerly!

The following is a typical conversation:
KSEB: Hello KSEB...

Consumer: We do not have power for the past 45 minutes…

KSEB: (Grunts) … what is your consumer number?
Consumer: XXXXXX

Response A
KSEB: Aaa! Yes… we are aware of your areas’ problem. It is 09:30 PM now. Linemen have gone for a movie… they will come back by 10:30 PM or
so…. I will see if anyone can help look up the transformer after then…
So, madam… Please adjust till then…

Response B
KSEB: Oh! Is it? Well… I think a transformer (somewhere) is under maintenance. Maybe your area falls under the power supply of the transformer. You may get the power back in another 2-3 hours!

Response C
KSEB: Madam, it was raining all the while. There was lightning too.
Maybe the fuse in the transformer must have broken. All linemen are
here in the office. But if and when there is no lightning (!!), we will
look into it. Else you will get power in the morning. We cannot do
anything for you!

Response D
KSEB: Nobody has complained yet. So we will look into it a little
later. Power may come soon, anytime! Please wait.

Response E
KSEB: Is it so? Where is your place? Does it fall under my KSEB office?

To all the above responses, we have been pleading citing the lonely
surroundings, relying only on the inverter power, for some quick help,
offering directions to reach the area at 11:45 PM and to hear these
words when they reach our gate, “This call for help is such a bother in
the night!

And we have been paying all our bills on time!

Is there any relief to our concern? We are not asking for well
behaved, educated KSEB office bearers (there is a resource crunch
world-wide!!) but all we are requesting the KSEB is to ensure there is
periodic maintenance of the line, ensure transformers in and around
the area are checked frequently and some training to the office
bearers on call management!

As I key you this mail, the power has been playing hide-n-seek for the
fourth time! Time now is 09:00 PM! I can see another call being
attempted to reach KSEB! We will be kept busy by the KSEB officials
all night! Thank you so much!
---------------------------------

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Organisational Change Management: A Must Have

"That was a great demonstration of the new project management system", remarked my Portfolio Manager for Applications the other day. We were stepping out of a team meeting where all of us were showed the new Project Management tool to be soon rolled out into the organisation.

It sure was a good demo and an impressive system which was easy to use and looked to have no integration problems with other systems in the organisation.

I take care of the OCM (Organisational Change Management) part for all internal applications and systems roll out in my Information Services team. Change Management to ensure all changes have proper buy-in from the senior management or leadership team, stakeholders in a change, those who are going to use the change or asked for the change and those who are the end user or the target group for who the change means a lot.

Change could be anything in a corporate: M&A, Reorganisation, Restructuring, automating a popular manual process, introduction of a new system along with a new process, change work timings, a new HR policy or a change in the vendor management. It could be anything but involving more than one group.

And in any instance of life or work, when you have two groups or more involved in a change, there is bound to be resistance, queries, push-backs, passive-fence sitters and extremely, passionate promoters or supporters of the change.

the trick is to use the voice of the promoters to convert the fence sitters to promoters, answer queries, testimonies to win over push backs and finally face and manage the resistors. It is 'gathering' process where you gather what you have and get what you do not have but can have! :-)

Where does the success of a change program lie?

It is in identifying resistance, isolating the concerns and groups who show or express resistance to the proposed change.

How to achieve this is by following a simple but intense change management program that has a Pre-Piloting, Piloting and Production phase build over a framework suitable for your organisation.

It is easy to manage a change! Ensure you are bold, patient, innovative, communicate well and are convinced of the fact that the change you are rolling out is for the good. :-)

I can go on and on about OCM, till the cows come home but I have a few change programs for which I need to put to plans around and do all the above mentioned in this blog... Lots to do and have fun too!

Change is a must! Change it well! :-)