What is good for the goose is obviously not for the gander

The on-going tussle for a house on Tughlaq road between the government and a former cabinet minister is as interesting as it is disgusting. Yet what needs to be appreciated is the perseverance of the government of the day in ensuring that housing rules are made applicable uniformly for the hoi polloi as well as the high and mighty.

That repeated excuses parroted by the occupant seeking time to pack his things were not genuine was exposed by the emergence of the demand to convert the house into a memorial for a kisan leader of the nation who happens to be his late father. That a battery of farmers threatened to cut off water supply to the city of Delhi in retaliation for applying rules on those who regard themselves above the same tantamount to blackmail for a cause that is grossly unfair and unjust.

What else does one expect from the political class that is the true mirror of the materialistic society that has evolved in the nation since the tryst with destiny almost seven decades ago. Perhaps we were not ready for democracy, a system in which rights and responsibilities have to go together if it is to be a success. And therefore I am also often amazed at the national penchant that seeks improvements in the nation without paying the price that the act warrants.

In the last ten years the nation witnessed a nadir in governance. Corruption touched new heights and scams that surfaced with amazing regularity remained the popular topic of discussion among the masses. Rise in prices as well as crime was a natural corollary and the people at large, fed up of shoddy governance therefore effected a change, a change that had disenchantment at its root. The populace tired of a glaring lack of ethical conduct in those who govern expected things to look up. It also expects that those who had their hands in the till will be made to pay. One seriously hopes and prays that these expectations will not be belied.

Talking of memorials, I fail to appreciate the need to have a memorial for people other than saints or those who changed the course of history. Merely being a leader of a class of people or even a state or a nation should not justify creation of a memorial, as that would never touch the chords in the hearts of the citizenry. And memorial on political considerations, as many of them are is indeed unacceptable by any stretch of imagination.

I vividly recollect asking a leading local politician during my stint as the head honcho of Delhi division, whether he would keep aside one room in his house for the encroachers whose case for not demolishing encroachments he was so vehemently piloting. Obviously what is good for the goose is more than often not good for the gander.

I also often witness to manipulation of laid down rules by the babudom with the specific motive of pinning down or favoring individuals. The same guy for whom the rule was manipulated for cries hoarse when he gets affected by a manipulation aimed at helping someone else.

I wonder when the era of double standards and double talk would come to an end. Till then we would continue to be witness to such dramas being played on the national stage.

Please do not let us down Mr Kejriwal!

That the rapidly changing political scenario would ultimately lead to rapid changes in governance is a hope that the aam aadmi of this country is carrying in his heart nowadays. The ascent of Kejriwal marks the beginning of the descent of corrupt politicians.

Sceptics should step aside and allow the man to perform by taking a path that he chooses – after all he has earned the mandate and also the goodwill of the people of Delhi.

Whatever one may say about the Times Now debates, Arnab has a commanding personality. For the aggression and the confidence that he displays he has to be a man of immense conviction and integrity. There are many who dislike him, but in this country of mediocre people, it is rare that a man like him will be lauded universally. Yet I like him and his trampling of puny people with unethical mind-sets, consistently and sanely.

The intransigence and petty mindedness of even well-known political leaders comes out sharply during Arnab’s debates. I fail to understand why even astute politicians are unable to understand that plain acceptance of good as good and bad as bad is what really appeals to the conscience of the ordinary man. Why Pinky Anand of the BJP continued to bat for Yeddy and Sanjay of the Congress for Virbhadra Singh, despite well-known connivance of these two in dubious deals baffled me yesterday.  And that too in the face of an environment suitably tempered by the Kejriwal effect. For once cant’ our political leaders accept that building a government based on integrity and value systems is much more important than building a government at any cost. The means are also as important.

Kejriwal spoke at length yesterday on the floor of the house. He spoke from the heart and that is all that matters. During the Times Now debate yesterday, the man from Samajwadi Party mockingly gave Kejriwal the advantage of a clean slate. He was not prepared to give Kejriwal the credit that is due to him if only for bringing the issue of corruption and mal-governance centre-stage, and I wondered why.

Even the good qualities of a rival need appreciation and acceptance and our so called leaders need to assimilate this basic premise. It is apparent that we have indeed travelled a long way from the times of Nehru and Patel when the battles were issue based and the welfare of the nation the core focus of those manning the treasury as well as the opposition benches.

Perhaps Kejriwal would show the light to the politicos, but who would be the torchbearer for the real culprits – from the bureaucracy. It is they who fail in their duty to function as the conscience keepers of the government and connive with all and sundry purely for personal gains. It is they who derail even the well-meaning politician with a clear intent. It is they who instead of showing the path to glory focus on the path to doom. Perhaps clean politicians with bureaucratic backgrounds on the lines of Kejriwal have a better chance of being able to clean the stables. 

Please do not let us down Mr Kejriwal. There is too much at stake!

Organizational Excellence

Inaugural Address

Delivered by Ashwani Lohani at ISM, Dhanbad on 6^th December 2013

Really a pleasure and an honor to be with all of you here for the national seminar on organizational excellence with emphasis on ethics. An honor because the Indian School of Mines is a great institution and a pleasure mainly for two reasons – the first - it is an enlightening experience to be addressing a big gathering of budding youngsters and the second – it was at a god forsaken place called Patratu in the Dhanbad division that I got the first field level administrative posting in my railway career. Oh what an experience it was – I was 29 and Patratu was the biggest hub of activity on the eastern railway and a place always on the edge. It was here that I realized the tremendous, almost overpowering role of the human resource in running organizations. It was here that I learnt that “Men” is by far the most important of the 3M’s that one talks about in management.

And so ladies and gentleman, I am indeed happy and honored to be here today.

I am no management expert as is often misunderstood. In my career spanning over 33 years I have never been nominated even for a single training session in a management institute and therefore I regard all of you from the department of management studies as far ahead of me in so far as management techniques and strategies are concerned. My only plus is the varied experience that I acquired during various postings in the railways – open line, headquarters, production units and the National Rail Museum, in the Govt of India as Director Tourism, as a public sector honcho at the infamous ITDC and later at MPSTDC along with my role in the state government of Madhya Pradesh handling all governmental functions in the department of Tourism. This variety in postings gave me an insight into and experience of the grand mess that in other words is known as a government department or undertaking. The two public sectors that came my way imparted a rare experience of handling loss making commercial entities about which I can confess I knew nothing about till then.

It is my varied experience and that indeed is all I have that therefore forms the basis of  my talks and any impression that conveys eulogizing of any kind needs to be taken in the right spirit. This is my humble request to this august gathering in all humility.

The subject of today is organizational excellence yet what really is excellence in organizations all about, I often wonder?

Perhaps it is all about achieving the optimum blend of profitability, productivity, operating ratio, work culture, employee and customer satisfaction, ethical values, environment and corporate social responsibility. Or maybe much more, as I said earlier I am not an expert on this subject. Please bear with me therefore if at times you feel that my blabbering is not making any real sense. Yet if I am asked to lay a finger on the one single indices that can be a pointer towards organizational excellence, it has to be the operating ratio of the organization.

My first visit overseas was an eye opener. It brought me down to earth and that did me a lot of good in ensuing years. I would therefore like to relate two or perhaps three incidences that really had my head reeling and made me appreciate that there are no rich and poor nations but only productive and unproductive nations. My second visit overseas mainly to the land of the rising sun and then England also opened my eyes wide and fully awake.

By then I was almost convinced that the road to prosperity goes via deliverance. What is needed in our country is a quantum jump in deliverance – cutting across sectors and states. Since then the hindu rate of growth has failed to impress me for that would keep the nation relatively at the same place almost forever. Why cant’ we aspire for growth rates in excess of twenty five percent per annum especially in the case of commercial organizations, I have since wondered. Perhaps therein lies the difference between capabilities of managers and leaders.

We need to cultivate leaders rather than merely focusing on imparting managerial skills. One definition of leadership is that it is the art of achieving many times more than what the science of management says is possible. This is one singular trait the trail blazing results of which have been amply witnessed in the cases of Gandhi from India, Lee Kuon Yew of Singapore and Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia to name a few.  

Leadership is the issue, nothing else is. It is a lot about believing in yourself even when none believe in you. It is also about being more committed to speaking the truth than seeking the approval of others. Besides it encompasses all core managerial and human values.

Now let us look at success.

We all aspire to be successful, yet what is success all about?

It is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions. Success is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.

Success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. 

Success is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connectedness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.

If wealth gave happiness and satisfaction then Mukesh Ambani should be the happiest person in the country and if power and position gave that, then our prime minister should, yet that is not the case. There is something else within us that is the true  fountainhead of happiness and satisfaction. The sooner in life we understand this simple philosophy, the better it is.

At Patratu I started appreciating the real value of the human resource. The combined strength of over a thousand men working in unison delivered much more that what even the best of my predecessors ever expected of the team. That the men in return expected neither enhanced wages or promotions or rewards but genuineness on the part of management was a realization that dawned on me at Patratu and continued during my next stint at the Diesel Locomotive Works at Varanasi. That unions are an essential part of any enterprise with a substantial workforce, yet they merely thrive on the incompetency or non genuineness of primarily the apex management was also a deep realization.

Slowly with the passage of time it dawned on me that whether it is a parchun ki dukaan, towering corporate or a nation, it is the top guy who really matters and everything else is merely a symptom. Yet how wrong most of us really are in almost always attempting to tackle symptoms? Thankfully our family doctors are not like us – they rightfully attack the disease!  

Tackling the 3 M’s in a defined time frame to achieve the desired objective is at the core of the philosophy of management. Yet in the complex maze of organizations that we live in, we invariably fail to appreciate that the “will” to achieve is at a much higher plane than the how’s and the why’s. The regular engagement in the How’s and Why’s therefore amazes me no end. There are examples galore of the tremendous success achieved by nations and organizations inspired merely by the sheer will power of the leader. The meteoric rise of Germany in the thirties and then again after total demolition in the second world war is a vivid example of the power of the will power. I often wonder what would have happened if we Indians were left in the lurch in 1945 as the Germans were –we would still be begging the developed world, the world bank and the IMF for dole. What we would have done with the dole is another matter. National catastrophe’s like cyclones, earthquakes and what Uttarakhand recently went through have started emerging as occasions for the rulers to make hay while the sun shines. Unfortunate yet true! How deep is the abyss still I wonder?

A few days back one of my younger colleagues asked me how to differentiate between a good and a bad posting. My reply was that a posting conventionally regarded as good by the masses is bad and vica versa, provided of course rollicking in power and money is not the aim and making a difference is. After all who ever said that USA has potential or Germany has potential? It is India that is still accumulating potential in almost every sphere of activities. Potential is indeed a dirty word and generally postings regarded as bad possess tons of untapped potential.

Tackling the tourism major, the India Tourism Development Corporation and that too during the era when the nation was going through the motions of selling the family silver was an interesting assignment. Beleaguered on all sides – heavily loss making and corrupt organization, my not belonging to the elite service of the nation, the adhoc appointment and the disinvestment ministry excited about the selloff to follow, even paying the salaries to staff was by no means a cakewalk. And then 9/11 came as the icing on the cake! Yet Hotel Ashok, the flagship and the conscience keeper of the corporation posted the biggest ever hotel turnaround of those times – its turnover grew by almost 60% in the year when the hotel industry worldwide plummeted. This turnaround that gave jitters to the powers that be was mainly fuelled by two components – the decision to turnaround taken by the apex management and the absolute commitment of the staff in ensuring the success of the effort that followed.

Firm adherence to ethics, value systems and genuine concern for the employees is what really differentiates excellent firms from the routine. Clamping down on corrupt practices, imbibing value systems and providing genuine leadership to the men therefore has to be the fundamental focus area of the top guy. That this is far more important than merely chasing production or revenues is not yet apparent to many of the corporates especially those from the sarkari sector! 

In the rotten sarkari domain often most of us are at a loss to decide from where to start, and therefore there are umpteen sad stories of merely confining ourselves to planning and power point presentations that paint a rosy future yet fail to impress. Grandiose future emerging from dingy rooms occupied by demoralized employees is just not acceptable. And therefore in all my postings I literally begin with a cleaning up drive starting with the seat of power to be followed by other offices, units and workplaces. I really cannot visualize a bubbly enterprise in the absence of smart offices, units and workplaces. The men have to start feeling the change and that is what started happening at the dingy headquarters of Madhya Pradesh Tourism in 2004 and continued to happen for the next five years.

The organization turned around in the very first year and the turnover rose so fast that the profits at the end of five years were almost double of the turnover at the beginning. Meanwhile rapid strides in infrastructural development, innovative and bold promotional campaigns and making things easy for the private sector to make an entry propelled the state to the fore front of tourism in the country – an achievement celebrated by a number of recognitions in the form of national awards given by the federal government.

While managerial excellence played a major role, the almost vertical growth was made possible by inculcating ethical values, rooting out corruption and genuine concern for the men of the corporation. 

What however took me by surprise was the tremendous positive response of the railway staff in the Delhi division of Indian Railways. Infrastructural development works that normally take decades to show were completed in a record time and at such low costs that even the CAG profusely complimented the renovation works at New Delhi station in its audit report of the CWG games. Here again a transparent environment, genuine concern for the men, quick decision making and regular emphasis on value systems played a major role. 

All great performances appear smooth, be it Geet Sethi playing billiards or Sachin Tendulkar scoring centuries and all bad performances give an impression of tremendous activity. The test is that if an organization and its constituents appear to be at peace with themselves it is almost always certain that the organization is on the road to achieving excellence. 

Leaders clearly differentiate between remaining busy and delivering. They also quickly separate the grain from the chaff. 

Finally I would like to conclude by saying that achieving organizational excellence is simple though it often appears impossible. It only requires the will, commitment, genuineness and integrity on the part of the management. Once the decision to achieve excellence is taken, the next step is merely to put our life and soul in achieving the objective. 

Thank you everyone for being patient. 

Thank you for this honor once again.

Hastinapur would show the way!

Kejriwal gives hope, to the nation as well as humanity. A meteoric rise indeed yet there may be many years when he finally arrives unless of course all poll predictions go wrong that they may and he emerges from the shadows to occupy the throne of Hastinapur.

A former civil servant whose better half still serves the national government and for one who still resides in accommodation provided by the very sarkar he seeks to replace, his guts are indeed amazing and therefore the slight tinge of envy in many of us who would love to be in his boots yet do not have the courage, integrity or the commitment to be so.

His incessant battle against the establishment and also the anti establishment is against all odds, yet a battle that he is fighting with gumption. For his cause is right and intentions noble and this is what really matters when one is fighting for righteousness. Perhaps his integrity and commitment to the cause is what gives him the strength to keep on fighting what appears to be a one sided battle. This reminds us of the Mahabharata, the epic battle between the kauravas and the pandavas, the battle between the right and the wrong, between evil and goodness where despite heavy odds the pandavas won and in the process gave eternal hope to the people of Bharatvarsh.  

“Ekalo Chalo Re”is his slogan and perhaps the right and the only way when the odds are stacked almost to the level of being regarded as impossible. It is always only one man who can take an organization, a state or a nation forward. Gandhi dressed in the barest of attires amidst a sea of immaculately attired adversaries achieved for this nation what even massive armies would fail in. Truth was his only weapon and renunciation of ego his biggest attribute yet he achieved what till the very end appeared almost impossible. 

Arvind Kejriwal is not a Gandhi, but the closest to Gandhi that the nation has got so far. His battle is for a cause that is right, though his means are more direct and do not totally abjure violence. India is not China or Egypt or Syria where the masses have sufficient inner conviction to move out on the streets and face bullets for a cause, yet many people have often come out at his call, not sufficient enough to cause an uprising, yet sufficient enough to create a nationalistic fervor.

The nation is staring at the toughest electoral fights in its history. The battles are bound to be severe and maybe violent at times as patna has recently displayed yet the thought that nectar emerges only after a massive churning exercise has kept the nation moving forward in search of good governance, something that we have missed in the first sixty seven years of existence of an independent yet not a free nation. 

Mahabharat

The battle for the throne of Delhi is indeed getting exciting by the day. With the ongoing affairs reminding us of the reign of “Bahadur Shah Zafar” it is apparent that a takeover is on the cards and rightly so, the kingdom of sycophants, robbers and people clueless about what character and value systems are all about needs a shakeup and an overhaul.

Arvind Kejriwal of the RTI and Anna brigade fame is eyeing the premier state of the sultanat and it appears that he may scrape through to victory. His strategy is simple yet may prove to be effective as the two main groups have more than disenchanted the aam aadmi with the result that the aam aadmi party that lacks money and muscle power may yet make the finishing line. Even if it does not, it appears absolutely certain that the party would have made its presence felt sufficiently enough to cause discomfort to both the national level dispensations. 

That the forthcoming hustings due in the spring of 2014 would turn out to be the battle royale of the century is beyond doubt. Never before in the history of independent India has its populace felt so helpless, so cheated and so angry at the bunch of nincompoops who constitute the ruling clan. The Durga Shakti incident of Uttar Pradesh, the wave of rapes and indignities heaped on the fairer sex and the repeated and blatant cases of loot with absolutely no concern for the aam aadmi have led to the ongoing wave of disenchantment with almost everything connected with the state. The fine line that distinguished the robbers from the rulers has become blurred. 

Closer home, the ongoing affairs in the lifeline of the nation have also deprived its constituents of any sense of pride and dignity that they possessed. We have shed both our wealth as well as dignity.  

At birthday parties of tiny tots, one often witnesses amusing fights for the cake. It is sad that in real life, in the political arena of modern India we are forced witnesses to fights over pieces of the cake with members of the ruling clan as well as prospective rulers leaving no stone unturned in ensuring a disgusting display of concern only for the cake with the sole intent of self gratification. The nation can and is indeed rapidly going to hell.

Yet being a hindu I believe in destiny and the almighty. With Modi around, perhaps the next hustings may provide us with the faint ray of hope that can lead to sunshine and brightness all around. 

The Sleeping Republic

Walking along the outer circle of the Connaught Place on the sixty third anniversary of the republic day, I could not help wonder why it still resembled the remnants of a bombed out place, despite the (in)famous common wealth games being over more than two years ago. While one appreciates that the rampant loot during the games ensured the failure of the attempts to revive the glory of the round market place named after the duke of Connaught, what one is unable to fathom is the inability of the city government to finish the job even after a lapse of over two years, despite repeated promises made by none other than the chief minister of Delhi.

With half hearted restoration efforts having been launched almost two years before the games began the time period that has since elapsed is exactly equal to what it took to build the market place from scratch during the period 1929 to 1933, almost eighty years ago. The Duke of Connaught would indeed be turning in his grave at the plight of the place named after him.

Eighty years of nothingness! And what a downfall and that is what saddens the heart of every nationalist who still walks on the soil of the nation that was once regarded as the richest in the world in terms of wealth, culture and civilization.

A nation brought to its knees by its very own government elected by its own constituents and what does it indicate? Perhaps our inability towards self rule, otherwise why should one witness, day in and day out rank incompetence in almost every sector of governance, irrespective of the party in power. The rampant loot that the politicos and bureaucrats indulged into during the commonwealth games, that otherwise should have been an occasion of national pride is ample evidence of our inability to govern our own nation. Beggars on the street, abject poverty, lack of basic infrastructure, rampant corruption and lack of value systems in the society at large are symptoms of a nation that is yet to arrive on the world scene.

That mere consumer goods and a glamorous parade on the Rajpath does not make a nation is what all of us have yet to learn to appreciate. We also have to realize that mere criticism would not take us forward and the only way ahead lies in all of us setting an example in delivery and value systems irrespective of the rot that one witnesses all around.

Long live the Republic!