Conversations with myself - My first prepared speech at The Toastmasters International Club

Dear Bloggers,

I have recently become a member of The Toastmasters Club and had a chance to present my P1 (first prepared speech) speech. For all the amateurs, the Toastmasters International is a world renowned institution that helps better one's public speaking skills. I took this opportunity to boost my confidence and learn from my peers. 

I had to speak for a minimum of 4 mins and maximum of 6 minutes to qualify for an evaluation. I clocked a 5.45 on my speech and received a good evaluation. In fact I even went on to win the Best Speaker Ribbon! 

Following is the script of my P1 speech. 

Conversations with myself

Toastmaster of the day, fellow toast masters and guests, my name is Asawari Sathaye and I am here to present my P1 speech.

When I nominated myself for today, I did not think it would be that difficult a task for I only had to speak on myself. I mean, who here than me to speak on me?! And yet it took me a good one hour across 3 days to remind me about myself. And that's when it struck me, have I lost touch with myself?  Ask me and I can tell you 5 good things about Pooja, but myself, m still thinking. M I humble? Maybe, but more than that I am too pseudo busy with life to actually live it. And so are many of us here in this room. Reflect on this. Tell me the last time you had a conversation with yourself? For this particular reason, I thank toastmasters for this opportunity; they let me have a conversation with myself.

While I was engulfed in the thoughts that were crowding my mind, I chanced upon something that I had long forgotten. I saw it staring back at me from the corner of my eye  and I just wanted to avoid it’s gaze, I felt very guilty, for it occurred to me that besides myself I had also not paid attention to things that earlier used to complete my life – case in point, my harmonium. There it was lying peaceful, unclean and untouched like a virgin for I had not played it since some days. Let me now help you understand the deep connection between my harmonium and myself. My name is derived from the thaath asawari in Hindustani classical music. I am a trained classical singer and have won Zee TV’s Close-up Antakshari. Besides singing I like to read, blog and travel. My husband and I love to take time off every year to explore new destinations and try our hand at adventure sports. The last time we were kayaking in Krabi and a few years before that went sky diving in Germany. This time we travelled to Italy and were mesmerised in its beauty, history and art.

I think of myself as an empowered dreamer, and that has a lot to do with the way I have been brought up. I belong to a typical maharashtrian family that places a lot of emphasis on education. We believe that education has very high Returns on Investment. The women folk in my family have always lived an independent and empowered life. We were and are the custodians of our own decisions. I remember looking at a photograph of my grandmother who would drive a two-wheeler wearing a nine-yard saari to go to her college every day. My grandmother was a BA in Sanskrit and my mother is a Masters in German and Economics.

To let the cat out of the bag, I am still considered the black sheep in my family. My father is an alumnus of IITB and IIMA while my brother is an alumnus of the famous North Western School of Management – Kellogg. My husband is a Chartered Accountant. So where does that leave me? I completed my bachelors in economics and statistics and my masters in econometrics from the Mumbai University. I then started working as an economist with the Tata group. But I guess I had not satiated my hunger for education yet. After working for 5 years with the group, I decided I wanted to study more. Wanted to get a global degree. So I started applying for MBA schools. Got through to one of the high ranking schools in the world, its ranked no. 34.  That 52 week roller coaster ride taught me a lot of things about life. I cherish all the moments I spent on campus right from my induction on day one to my placement and my graduation. Amongst all the other things, my b-school taught me that time and sleep are luxuries in life. This was my mantra when I started working with PriceWaterhouseCoopers as a consultant in their strategy consulting practice.

I spent a good time in PwC but I could not stop myself from dreaming what life would be on the other side – the industry that is. So I decided that I wanted to take a break from consulting and chanced upon an interview with Jayant and Emmanuel at Voltas. I have just about started my journey here and hope I continue to do well. Thank you.  

   

It takes two to tango!

It takes two to tango. But if this is true and so is the other adage birds of the same feather flock together, then is it not wrong if your co-workers think you are reflection of your boss? Is this then good or bad? I tossed this question around while on a Sunday brunch with friends and well not everyone was ready to speak the truth. Most of us are in our mid career phase (which basically means we are over the slogga-thon phase and are ready to be managers, to delegate responsibilities and to lead teams and reporting to the heads of companies that we work for). Given this scenario, how would we have answered this question?

I conducted an experiment, took a random sample of ten people (well it is <30, but at the cost of the results that could be biased, I present to you the results of my experiment). More than half, seven in this case, said that were as different as chalk and cheese from their respective bosses, while only three admitted that were ‘’kind of’’ similar to their bosses.

For those seven who were chalks while their bosses were cheese, I had a question. How did they manage to work so closely with the boss considering their differences? Did they face any problems if and when they differed in opinion with their boss? Were they given a fair share to explain their PoV and was it given due consideration? Did they feel valued and thus more engaged with their work therefore?

I started focusing more on their engagement levels at work and what were those engaging factors. Two of the seven pointed out that their boss gives them valuable inputs and suggestions and was open to consider their opinions as well. Only one pointed out that his boss actually acted on a plan suggested by him, making him feel more valued and appreciated as an employee. The remaining four agreed on the point that even though their boss would listen (only sometimes) to their PoV, not always were they counted in the same league as his/her (the boss in this case). So credit was of course taken by the boss while these employees felt they weren’t rewarded enough.

These four were now curious to understand how the earlier 3 got their work done from their boss. (haha, hit a home run, I thought). The 3 stooges explained that they had understood their boss better than the remaining quartet. In understanding their boos, they knew

• How and when to time their suggestions – depending on the boss’s mood
• How to present the suggestions – making it sound intellectual and as if your boss was the inspiration behind this thought
• How to implement the suggestion – send emails through your boss on the PoA, team involved and roles and responsibilities

We all had questions, lots of them, but they only had one answer, you cannot standardise this solution. You have to understand your boss better first and only then go about with this attitude. Gaining your boss’s trust is very important and so is working hard towards it. Spend time in the system, understand people and processes and draw your battle plan. After all work place is a battle field and majority of us are surviving every day.  

Stop. Pause. Think. (Re)Act.

I mean what is with us humans, it seems we have forgotten the old adage from earth thou hath cometh and into earth thou shall lie.

Mans apathy with nature has only increased with time. While on one hand we are breaching the unknown, understanding the mysteries of nature, and adding a 4th even a 5th dimension to our world, on the other hand our actions are only being disrespectful towards nature.

We are increasing the economic prosperity at the cost of social. Exhausting natural resources, usurping billions of barrels of oil everyday, mining for coal, while emptying all sorts of pollutants and toxic waste into the seas and rivers.

Most of the unrest in the world today is over capturing majority of the rapidly exhausting natural resources. While the PIGS* economies are battling with a political and economical instability, there is a civil unrest brewing in majority of the African countries, and mind you these countries are very rich in natural resources.

The erstwhile growth drivers, the developing economies are already slowing down; yet are the major contributors to the increasing carbon footprints.

Seriously where and when do we stop? We cannot call ourselves an evolved and intelligent species at the cost of degrading the nature. Its high time we realise this before nature tallies its balance sheet.

Now why am I writing this so early in the day, well while driving to work on a dug up road, I saw they had uprooted a tree, that has been a part of my neighbourhoods life for the past two decades, to increase the width of the road.

Makes me think is it not time for the governments to put social benefits before economical benefits, or do we still continue to play to the (voters) gallery? 

*Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain

Customisation losing simplicity

Is customisation taking a toll on simplicity? Just the other day, I was out shopping for reading glasses with the Mater. We choose to go with a brand which has a history of manufacturing products and services across the spectrum right from salt to software. The real reason goes just beyond this brand being trust worthy and credible. It was that being a share holder, the Mater had discount coupons.

So we entered a very crisp, elegantly designed, bright and vibrant showroom. What I really liked, is their customisation, they had spectacle frames across price ranges and brands. So essentially it was a good place for both a college student as well as an office goer and a retire person. Now Ma fell in the latter category and therefore, promptly went across to the lower priced section of the showroom.

Contrary to taking time and getting confused over the frame for her specs, she was quick to choose her frames within 5 minutes of entering the shop! But little did she know that the customisation process had just but begun.  

The helpers asked my mom for her prescribed eye power and suggested that we get her eyes checked. They have all these facilities in their shops! A prescribed optometrist operates in all their showrooms. Now where a normal eye checkup would have taken about 15 minutes, this gentlemen, explained the whole process to us and took 30 minutes. He took us through the check up journey, explaining the whole nine yards! Initially we thought very high of this service, I mean, who gives you so much importance, when time is money!? So we went through the process, and mind you, this a complimentary service too! Now after spending about 45 mins in this showroom, they happy-helpers came to explain us the different types of lenses used for the glasses!! You see since this was a new experience, initially, we enjoyed the explanations and the one-to-one attention.

But slowly and steadily I started realising that we were actually increasing the footfall for this showroom, we had been in this showroom for over an hour! And that invited (unintentionally) about 6 new customers, and converted 4 of them into buyers! So basically, for the shop manager, we were a sure shot formula for increasing sales that evening!

As I sat there listening to the various terms in glasses and glass materials and of course sipping on my cola, I realised that customisation had made the simple process of ‘spectacle frame shopping’ very complicated! Yes, we did increase our knowledge quotient, so there was a value-add.

May be the company knows that given a choice customers wouldn’t really care if they choose one material over the other, but if because of this customisation, I end up spending more time at the shop I will actually buy more directly and indirectly by increasing the footfall. 

Bulls-eye!

The P.R.O.C.R.A.S.T.I.N.A.T.O.R.S.

The P.R.O.C.R.A.S.T.I.N.A.T.O.R.S.

This is a competitive world, a highly competitive world. Right from the moment you are born till they sing you an epiphany, you are competing with everyone around you. Ambitious people thrive on competition. It is after all competition that helps segregate the ‘best’ from the ‘better’. The optimists look at competition as an opportunity to prove their worth and that golden chance to get to their goals. The pessimists frown upon it, call it names, and would rather have nothing to do with it. So they label themselves as the ‘satisfied crowd’ calling the optimists as the ‘go-getters’.

So which label suits you the most? Now thats a tough question isn’t it? I mean life is not always black and white, it almost always grey... and thus the birth of our clan; the Procrastinators! We literally are somewhere in between the optimists and the pessimists. We want the best of both the worlds and yet would cringe at working hard to achieve our goals.

Don’t judge us yet, you are one of us too. You had that smirk when while reading the above paragraph! No, don’t want to be labelled a procrastinator yet, well how about this, tell me how many of those “new year resolutions” have you actually implemented and striked off your list? Hurts doesn’t it? Well all I can say it, welcome to the clan!

But this blog is not about procrastinating and its good and bad effects on individuals. It’s actually on how to get beyond the procrastinating attitude and into the go-getters zone! (And to say that it took me a whole of a week to sit down and write this blog...!)

So my dear clannisters, here are the steps to help you beat the $h!t or whatever hell it is to get going

1)      Listen

Listen to the people around you, to your close friends and family who really care for you and dare to show you the mirror. This will help you decide your long and short term goals.

2)      Set your Goal(s)

Set a goal(s) for yourself. This can be long term goal e.g. I want to be fit and healthy or a short term goal e.g. I will reach office on time. And please do not postpone this activity to December 31^st!  

Set yourselves a date by when you would want to achieve this goal.

3)      Plan a timetable

“When in doubt retrace your steps”. Back track from the goal achievement date to today and plan out every detail of how you want to achieve your goal. Remember this is not an engineering exam that can be cracked in one all-nighter! This is what is going stay with you for life! So plan every detail, step by step. In fact also include some cheat time.

4)      Get going!

Yes, get up from your couch or from the bed. Put an alarm (only really bad, boring songs allowed) for 6.00 am! And do not snooze it.  Get up and get going.

5)      Remind

Remind yourself everyday that you are doing this for yourself that this will help boost your confidence. The more credit you attach to this activity, the more you would want to do it.

6)      Reward

Reward yourself on every small achievement. Recognise your efforts by indulging in something you love doing (how about procrastinating?! Kidding, do not even think about it) and encourage yourself thus.

Hope this helps. For now, Accelerate and Go for it!

Of discoveries and inventions – the big picture

Have you ever sat down and thought? Just thought about the air around you, the incessant honking on the street downstairs, the sweet chirping of the birds in the trees, the thumping sound of the rain drops as they hit the window pane, or even the silence of the rain as it pours through the day? I am sure you are just like the many who take the same road to work (literally and figuratively) and have no time left to think post spending (any) the free time on social media that is.

See, you are the best and the easiest target audience for marketers today. They just need to track your usage of internet data; which is easily available (and we also have big data analytical programs for better interpretation) and trap you with advertisements. They make sure you buy these products and/or services by helping you not moving an inch, you buy these products online and these are delivered to your door-step within 2-3 business days.

And why am I thinking like this? No I have not read any philosophical book nor am I in the mood for poetry. In fact currently I am reading Ruchir Sharma’s Breakout Nations so I am very much present in reality and far away from fantasy. So why am I thinking on these lines? This thought struck me today suddenly like a lightning bolt. I was going about doing my daily chores when suddenly I asked myself, what if Christopher Columbus has actually discovered India and not the West Indies and The United States of America.

Would history have been any different? What if Thomas Edison hadn’t invented the light bulb or Graham Bell the telephone? Would technology have progressed so far? Then I thought were we dependent on the person who discovered/invented the place/thing of use or were we dependent on the place and/or the invention? I mean we had a Vasco da Gama for a Christopher Columbus and a Steve Jobs and Bill Gates for a Graham Bell; it was the invention that changed the course of humanity, while the inventor/discoverer was a channel; a medium that helped bridge the gap between the product and its target segment.     

This blog is about a few of those inventions and discoveries that changed the course of human history. (Disclaimer: This may be somewhat of a history lesson and I may have missed out on some)

The invention of the wheel in 3500BC helped man improve efficiency in logistics and transportation. While the wheel helped man conquer roadways, the invention of sails and later ships helped him conquer the water too. The Egyptian civilisation has provided the world with many wonders and it was them who introduced the sails. It helped them move across the river Nile faster and thus increased connectivity.

And it was left to the Romans to build roads. Roads that led to Rome and connected them to the world. The European economy’s rise as a world power was mainly due to the intellectual capacity provided by the Greeks and the engineering marvels of the Romans. The Europeans were better connected and were intellectually more stimulated. Trade blossomed and so did inter-state peace. This gave impetus and time for the monarchies to encourage innovative and exploratory thinking. While the Greeks introduced the world to the principles in mathematics, philosophy, economics and other sciences; the kingdoms of Spain, Portugal and England invested in sending sailors on exploratory voyages. In fact it was the governments that sponsored the voyages of Columbus and da Gama.

 The 15^th century invention of the printing press helped curb the influence of the church on the monarchy. While earlier the bible was only present with the highest church in the land, it was left to the interpretation (often biased) of the church. With the invention of the printing press, the bible and its teachings and learnings reached the man on the street and with it society started adapting to the changes by making judiciary independent of the crown and church.   

The industrial revolution in Britain laid the foundation for the modern age engineering marvels with the invention of the steam engine and motor vehicles. The Germans led the way further in WWII with the invention of a fleet of submarines, fighter jets and their innovative techniques of the blitzkrieg. German missions to discover the knowledge in the Antarctic and the higher peaks of the Himalayas were duly supported by their engineering power.

Perhaps the most deadly innovation was of the atom bomb; most deadly because the world was unknown to its capabilities until the Hiroshima-Nagasaki incident. Then came the incredible space mission programs by the United States and the then USSR and Man’s landing on the moon was a ‘gigantic leap’ indeed.  Today’s age is of digitisation and comprises of marvels like the NASA’s Mars Rover, and of the broadband internet and smart phones.

What are common across the ages have been man’s quest for the unknown and his hunger for more knowledge. In fact even earth isn’t enough to satiate this hunger. But in this grand scheme of things are we forgetting to appreciate the smaller joys of life? Just something to ponder on… 

A nation finds its voice

As India struggles to come to terms with reality, with the Modi Sarkar’s “Acche din ane wale hai” slogan, I have started believing that we have found our voice. And I would not really blame the people of India; for the past ten years we were subject to politics and politicians who were blind, mute and dumb just like Bapu’s teen Bandar (3 monkeys). Whether it was through Anna Hazare, or that a volcano of patience erupted that India finally found its voice.

The burgeoning middle class came onto the streets (finally) literally through protests, hunger strikes, rallies in support of the numerous rape victims, Anna Hazare, transparency, better governance and figuratively through the various social media platforms. For days together, facebook and twitter were full of status messages supporting these strikes, protests and rallies.

For years, Indian politicians had ignored this middle class and this was coming back to bite them. Economic policies were written keeping the lower income and the super-rich in mind. The Indian middle class with incomes in the range of INR 30000 – INR 100000 per month had developed the ‘this too shall pass’ attitude of patience; the English version of the Indian ‘chalta hai’. They were used to corruption, inflation, high unemployment rates, low level education and healthcare facilities and poor infrastructure. The common man (the metaphor) for the Indian middle class assumed that this was life and it would not change. The idea that change had to come from within was lost; until 2011 when a series of revolts against governments erupted across the globe, starting with the Arab Spring. India awakened in the true sense and the demographic dividend came onto the streets to demand what was rightfully theirs.. access to better infrastructure, better education and health facilities, better wages, lower inflation, more transparency, lower bureaucracy and red tapism, no corruption. This time though the youth wanted to take charge and technology gave them an increased and more penetrated reach. It was not only the urbane India but also the rural India that protested. The nation wanted justice against corrupt officials, politicians and criminals. They supported Anna’s call for implementation of the Jan Lokpal bill and the Right to information act in the Parliament. The sheer strength in number and voice changed the political landscape of India. The erstwhile ‘family’ politicians had to face a massive loss at the hands of a smart, internet-savvy, forward thinking Hindu nationalist. The BJP came to power with a thumping majority in the lower house of the parliament. And this victory came again from both the Indias - Urban and Rural.

People had finally found their voice and poured out in millions on the election-day. The nation voted for a candidate they believed could bring that change!

And this belief was not limited to only to the man on the street but also reflected across business houses and the SENSEX. The nation had after more than two decades elected a majority government. Now the ball is in the government’s court to deliver. One of the jarring issues was on opening up the economy and allowing more FDI. Growth in FDI inflows, increases employment opportunities and thus demand that indirectly leads to economic growth.

A country’s economic growth is generally funded by two sources:

1. Public funds/Savings
2. Private investments

When public funds fall short, the government opens up the sector(s) for private domestic and or international investment to bridge the gap. Private investments can be via two sources:

1. FDI (International)
2. Domestic entrepreneurs

In fact growth in FDI inflows is one of the leading indicators of economic growth.

GDP equation states:

•       Y = C+I+NX

•       GDP is a function of Consumption, Investment, Net Exports

We are assuming here that FDI inflows will affect investments. However more FDI inflows might just crowd out domestic private sector (indigenous entrepreneurial) investments.  A simple correlation analysis between GDP and FDI inflows gives a very low correlation coefficient (0.02) indicating FDI inflows is not the only indicator that leads to GDP growth, it is rather one of the many that influences growth.

I may be wrong here but I really hope that the government plans to invest more in infrastructure projects both soft and hard to generate growth besides just exploring sectors that could be opened up for investments. That is one change we are eagerly awaiting…