Ramzaan Days

Although I am going to talk about Ramadan in its last phase (Akhiri Asra- as our religious genius calls it), the sense of sanctimony is somewhere missing out of me this time. Earlier same Ramadan used be a font of joy for me but pragmatism of the situation has engulfed my elation, holding me to have more of my mind towards my career and job rather than enjoying the festivity of the ongoing carnival of Muslims. The days of pious fervour began on 23rd of sept 09, though the aura and aroma of this exotic session had excited me at its start but the churn caused by hectic schedule of the program, that I am undergoing, was also at its peak causing differentiation of my mood from feeling its real essence. Meanwhile some of my friends namely, Ganesh, Shivani and one more guy (my IPM friends know him) got their final placement call from a FMCG company giving them a timing edge, further added up to the worrisome story of mine. Well, it’s not that I am dismayed out of it, but the thing is that time is running at an alarming speed and I am still apprehensive about the level of preparedness on my part giving me notional thought about my level of readiness to face the situation yet to follow.
This is merely momentary apprehensions caused by my inability to perceive the future and lack of experiences as my friend Nikhil D. implied about me and my situations on the basis of one of my earlier post claiming this as dialectics of life, I am still amazed in my inability to find what all better situations are yet to be exposed before me. Nikhil please see if you can help.
And yes, meanwhile I found some special, in fact some unusual characters, who all had been mate in this sacred voyage for whole period of Ramadan. Starting with Shadab Ahmed, a Kumbhakarna personified character with his solid Islamic beliefs, making him the person closest to me during this journey. Then comes the talk of an obvious diplomat and proponent of practical Islamic view and a very special character Md. Noor Islam, you can see his name itself reflect how Islamic he is. There were few smart and fanatical juniors of our college, all of them collectively and rightly defining that yes every individual is unique, among them I would first like to talk about Md. Azharuddin, unpredictability at its best, and then is Mr Javed Arif, Mr Fresher of IPM and Darshil, what his friends call him out of love. He is an entertainer, a joker and yes a good cricketer, Man of the Series of Nagesh Memorial Tournament. And here comes the name of a very intense, recluse guy and an addict of yahoo messenger, Md. Absar. There were few more people who had coupled me during this religious ride, one of them is Mr Vakil shahab of IPM, Kuldeep Sharma, he always used to wait for Aloo ke Pakode, that Satpal use to make for us. And, another one was Vikas, he used to remain wake through all night and almost every night for whatever thing Satpalbhai used to cook for us for sehar. And most sad story is related to warrior Tapan Ray, who used to fight against his sleep for whole night till sehar for having those items which were being offered to us during those days, but you know he could not have those things because he tended to sleep just before our time of taking sehari.
Things are on their way yet to get accomplish and the mixed sentiments keep me occupied with varied thoughts.

Realizing the Dreams

Let me put the context which led me storm my mind to accentuate my thoughts to meander through future. This was an assignment to us by our leadership faculty who asked us to bring into present your aspirations of future. Though these are merely a thought process to glance into future and my dreams about what I want to be with my efforts of present. But let me tell you that there are all sorts of possible chances that my these dreams will certainly get true some day, yes certainly if I put my heart out to bring these imaginings into reality. In this imaginary tale I was asked to think five years ahead of today and describing state of affairs where I am studying about myself in a magazine of my choice about the situation when I have achieved something big and am celebrating this moment of success of mine. Let’s journey through my future.......................................
Here we present before you another success story of an optimistic manager, a leader, a kind hearted but a true professional; these are few words to describe his personality. Here we bring you the autobiography of Mr Kaisar Ali, Marketing Head- North, Coca Cola India, in this edition of Forbes. He found some time to pen down his thoughts recently when he was in-charged up with his recent designation. Here it goes;
Moments of success often comes in bits and pieces for some while as a windfall for others. For some it is achieved through roller coaster ride while for others it runs through smooth journey. But for me it has been a mixed bag of all the alternatives. The nostalgia has certainly enveloped me today, when I count upon the days through which I have cruised through to reach this moment of success commemoration- that is I am celebrating today being the Marketing Head of Coca Cola India (North).
The day has turned out which I have been dreaming of, today I command a respectable position in organization of my dream. This has certainly come after crossing many challenging thresholds of my life’s hurdle, hurdles at places which led to a complete stoppage. Crossing through the dialectics of life was never simple. Today when I enjoy the day with my loved ones, my family, my friends and all colleagues and all those people who have been a source of inspiration and co-operated me in reaching to this height, I find things were never simple and today same is true when I try to foresee future which again is going to be very challenging and task driven which would involve and strain me to best of my capabilities. As everybody know that with big powers comes the big responsibilities. I remember the day when I started my career as a Business Development Executive in Value-On-Web, a website developing company, in Delhi, though the company was small but my dreams were always big and aspirations were at the pinnacle, which certainly has helped me getting through all the hurdles to reach this present summit of success, and reason I could achieve so much so fast.
Critical Decisions:
These successes could be achieved owing to many critical decisions that I had to take while undergoing the rigour of Life and Career. The hurdles that I traversed were related to taking care of the politics and bureaucracy of the organization, long hours of work and remaining away of the home were taking toll on the personal arena of my life. My home relations were turning up awry and at time journey of my life- personal and professional, were taking an odd shape.
This was the phase when I had to take critical decisions which cumulates prioritising among personal and professional duties. I had to prioritize my concerns and set a balance between family and career. I established best of the network of dealers for my next company that I joined post PGDM, which was a FMCG company, from there my career graph started to rise. I developed ways and tactics through which my organization could grow and also ensured my acceptance with great respectability among my superiors and colleagues.
This came out to be a turning point of my career, taking care of these critical success factors it would have been possible for my career to ladder up with extreme rapidity. Thereafter I led many crucial situations, where I showed my leadership quality and helped my organisation to bail out from the situation, which not only caused my organisation to typically take care of situation but also to remain unaffected out of same. Among other major organisational decisions I prevented my organisation from making any kind of retrenchment even at the times of recession; in fact with the same human resources I turned around my organisation’s face.
My Future:
In coming five years I am determined about my path and destination that is to reach CEO position of COCA COLA, through successfully analyzing the environment and constraints. In next five years I will bring myself on international platform and will be executing my responsibilities towards my company, family and country. And, there my leadership qualities will help me executing these dreams.

Business Ethics- A Passing Fashion

As per words of Aristotle
“We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly”.
Truth don’t have any alternatives the same is true with topic under discussion. Yes business ethics has certainly turned up as a passing fashion nowadays. First of all, what does business ethics means it refers to the moral principles that govern business activities. These provide the code of conduct for managers & employees in performing their business related deeds.
As per Stanley Jones, a famous American, among seven deadly sins one is business without morality. And same is true for today’s business scenarios.
Examples of few years back scandal associated with ENRON, and that associated with SATYAM is still fresh in the minds of common people, had there been ethical practices, things would have been certainly different for the IT giant. Each and every businesses and corporations of today are having their Mission Statement engrossed with customer at the centre, but there is no say of ethical practices and behaviour in achieving the goals and plans of the businesses.
Companies having greased with ethical practices in its organisational systems are more likely to attract investment and human capital, retain talents, differentiate themselves in the markets and create a perception of being friendly.
But, scenario has changed and everything has undergone a transformation as far as ethical practices are concerned. Now every company is just putting the cover of ethical practices in order to lure the best possible gains to the company, in particular, spending few thousands of rupees in the name of corporate social responsibility is just a way to swindle the stakeholders, people and government.
Value based organisations, such as Infosys, has demonstrated that even so-called soft concept can be very powerful. As ethics covers all the possible areas of business, end and means should justifiable as per the norms of society. Rather than to become showy characters businesses should integrate core values, such as, integrity, honesty, fair practices, trust, respect with policy making and decision making.

COLLEGE TO CORPORATE

My first choice towards doing any work is to go straight forward with my goals, aims and ambitions. So is the aim of mine to enter into the most important phase of the life which is known as corporate life. But is it so easy to enter into the corporate life? Is it as glittery as I think? Will it be a bed of roses or does one will have to have a roller coaster ride before entering into this corporate world? All these feelings bring into me mixed responses.
My life right now is passing through a phase which seems to be inculcating within me the ways of leading theoretical corporate life. Whatever I am studying today is not merely a study of the any course as such rather it is the way to sustain our life in a way which is as per corporate requirement and I am suppose to learn all those etiquettes which are not only acceptable to corporate life rather those will make my future life full of glamour and success. Life is making me tough for the kind of experience that I will be enjoying in my life to come. One never know in what form life comes to help you out, so one must get him/herself ready with all arms and ammunitions intact in his/her arsenal (preparation).
In coming days I will be going through some more learning experiences that would be more of practical in its character and I will be then exposed to practicality aspect of my upcoming life. Things are going to be more teaching and will be providing me ground to flourish and grow multi-dimensionally. Workshops, Summer Training and many other practical pedagogy means ensure that I don’t miss on any of the knowledge base in any respect when I faces all these situations practically.
So learning all these processes and methods are surely going to make my ride to working life to a greater extent smoother. And my chances of getting success throughout post this learning phase is more and higher than ever. Further all glitters are certainly not going to gold so is this truth that life will always walk on and on with ups and down on its way and with every miles covered one got to learn something new every time. So is this journey of learning towards my future life – I am working out through learning. Wish me success for my life to come.

COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP – THE NEED OF HOUR

Anything which is permanent in this world, is change. We see the same in our day to day life. Innovations are increasing like population taking place in every element of this universe. The corporate world is no exception. One recent innovation in business leadership is development of the Collective Leadership. Gone are the days when an individualistic approach of the leadership was appreciated. When Ford developed new cars, showing his individual leadership quality, he earned all the praises. Every company wished to have somebody as superheroes or saviours, who could generate growth and could take them out from crises.

The scenario has changed in this present corporate world. Now, like a team effort, the need for collective leadership has started to be felt. It has been seen that team can be a critical differentiator for any organization. Becoming JACK OF ALL TRADE is quite an impossible task in this complex corporate world. So there is a need of a specialised leader i.e. each leader to have a special quality that could differentiate him from the other. There should what is called portfolio leadership concept. And collective leadership i.e. the combined efforts of all different portfolio leaders should come together collectively to meet the strategic imperatives of the corporations. With this effort, dealing with diverse situation; such as; crisis, transition, growth and stability, will be quite easier. In fact, in this present scenario of recession this need of the collective leadership is more relevant. Recession demands every leader to come together and to check out where the actual problem lies in the respective organization.

Very specifically, development of this collective skill as well as making organization more lissom and compliant can be met through Collective Leadership. The requirement of legitimacy and resilience is even more critical to the corporate world. In this period of crisis what is also required is to keep your human inventories intact. The leadership qualities that need to be taken care of, to keep intact human resources are to counsel employees and communicate with them. Leaders need to encourage employees to innovate and to truly understand the nuances and requirements of the business. Although the route is tough but it is possible in any situation, whether it is a normal situation or a crisis.

So this decentralized way of performing leadership is one of the most important tool for improving the collaborations and performance in the present complex organizations. A larger portfolio of leadership group with an open and positive mind set is a distinguishing feature of the high performing unit; also it will create the kind of communication and information distribution channel which will bring an edge to the corporations.