Jane Goodall, who has spent decades in Africa as the world’s top authority on working with chimpanzees, attributes this remarkable achievement of hers to the freedom and encouragement given by her mother since her early childhood. Her mother resisted the advice of her friends and relatives to bar Jane from pursing her passion that seemed so untraditional and do something more “respectable” and career oriented.

Tony Bennett, once described by Frank Sinatra as the best singer in the business, describes how his quest for success began from his childhood by sitting by his mother’s side while she worked as a seamstress, during the depression. He remembers the constant hum of the machine and how her finger would frequently get caught beneath the sewing needle causing severe pain to her. He decided that he’d become successful so that his mother would never have to stitch clothes again.

The above real life stories assume special significance on the eve of Mothers Day falling tomorrow on the 14th of May. Aren’t all mothers similar to what Jane Goodall and Tony Bennett have described about their mothers? It’s a different story that all of us, the children, may not turn out to be super successful like them, but mothers are all similar- caring, tolerant, concerned, empathetic, sacrificing and selfless! All of them may not be necessarily stitching clothes to make the two ends meet or giving exceptional leeway to their children to indulge in any activity! But the underlying spirit is same – giving the best of life to their children, expecting nothing in return !

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers and their children for whatever they are today – they owe it to their mothers more than anyone else!

After long years of monopoly by Air India for overseas destinations and Indian Airlines for domestic sector ( along with Vayudoot in certain sectors), there came a period, when domestic flyers were really pampered and spoilt for choices. I more prominently recall two specific instances – first flying between Delhi and Mumbai in a Modiluft flight that served top quality scotch during the 2 odd hours that we were onboard and a 2.5 hours long flight from Mumbai to Kolkata in a Damania flight that kept us busy all the while with multi course dinner. Air Deccan brought in the novel concept of “ making flying possible for everyone” and it pioneered low cost flying. Later on Jet and Kingfisher took the flying experience to a different level. It’s another story that many of the above names stand consigned to annals of history. The general perception was that aviation companies had since managed to break the logjam and that in future we might not see a repeat of multiple failures witnessed in the past. Indigo led the way by its unique strategy of buy and leaseback and is currently managing a large fleet with more than 50% market share. Others, more pronouncedly SpiceJet and Go First seemed to be doing alright till Go First, owned by Wadia Group, referred itself voluntarily to NCLT. It has since suspended all its flight and stopped booking tickets for future flights.

In one of the previous blogs that dealt with failure of banks, I had suggested that Government should move in swiftly like it did in the case of Yes Bank to minimise the suffering to the common man. The fact remains that whether it’s a bank or airline that fails, sufferer is only the common man. While his hard earned money gets stuck up in the first instance, his hard planned travel plans go haywire in the second. Government cannot be expected to bail out every failed venture, but the regulating and monitoring agencies should preempt such a drastic eventuality, as such rot cannot be setting in overnight!

Just to digress a bit, there should be a thorough investigation and remedial action concerning faults in both – A320 Neo and Boring 737 Max aircrafts that have led a large number of aircrafts to be grounded causing losses to airlines and acute inconvenience to flyers. Whether fault lies in Pratt & Whitney engines or some other spare parts, the fact is that these supposedly new generation and fuel efficient aircrafts seemed to have fallen short of very high standards set up by Airbus and Boeing. If this issue is not fixed immediately and comprehensively, a few other not so financially strong airlines could be in troubled waters.

For the time being, let’s hope that house of Wadias support their dream venture and hand it over to another operator/ owner in a running condition and not as insolvent venture, if they are gonging this non viable to run. Let all the concerned stakeholders, including Aviation ministry, join hands to ensure early resumption of Go First’s operations as its grounding has already caused serious disruption in the market with fares on certain sectors covered by it being skyrocketed!

In general, most of the private sector banks have been reporting Q4 numbers on the expected lines. Axis Bank reported loss solely on account of an extraordinary item arising out of the purchase consideration paid to Citibank for acquiring their retail business that could have been amortised over a longer period but was fully charged to P&L account as a prudent measure.

However, the Bank that has posted extremely strong numbers is none other than IDFC First Bank. And its CEO responded to some hard questions with utmost confidence that ruled out any one time/ short term windfall but sustainable business being built on solid foundations.

My readers would recall that I had very enthusiastically lauded IDFC’s proactive initiative of waiving all kinds of charges for their retail customers. Many pundits were circumspect about the merits of this act, but the Bank seems to have reaped rich dividends from its farsightedness. In fact, to my mind, loss of income due to the aforesaid measure has been more than adequately made up by the Bank by improving its NIM to unexpectedly high levels of more than 6%. As I could make out from what the CEO was explaining, I think the Bank is no longer paying very fancy interest on SA deposits.

On a slightly different note, there was a major disruption when RBI freed interest on Saving deposits in the year 2011. Some of the smaller banks offered rates as high as 7% and beyond, though larger banks held on to the then existing rates. It was opined by the experts that customers were not influenced by interest rates in respect of check accounts ( as saving accounts are also known as) and therefore, over the years savings interest rates have more or less evened out. However, customers, especially the liability customers who place their deposits with banks, are definitely sensitive to whole lot of charges being applied by banks on various services used by them. It’s also true that though customer sign off is obtained on the schedule of charges, many of these are not adequately understood by the customer! IDFC’s strategy could be a way forward for companies that are trying to wean away a portion of the market share in a highly competitive and overcrowded market.

Any organisation or corporate entity has several stakeholders attached to it. Here for the sake of simplicity, we shall stick to a banking entity, part of the industry that I have remained associated with for decades.

The first stakeholder is the promoter; while for PSBs, Government is the main shareholder and promoter in that sense, this stakeholder is more relevant for the likes of Indusind and Kotak, where an individual and a family clearly enjoy this position. ICICI, HDFC and Axis have always been institutionally promoted and currently widely held mainly by FIIs.

The second stakeholder are shareholders; for listed entities, retail investors are more vociferous and employees through ESOP routes also assume the status of being a shareholder. Institutional shareholders are more strategic and have a bit longer term perspective.

The next important stakeholder are the employees led by the CEO. While the top management provides vision and leadership, the middle and lower management actually manage day to day affairs. The top leadership is a major beneficiary of high salaries, perquisites, bonuses and ESOPs that’s justified given their larger responsibility in achieving corporate goal and vision.

The last stakeholder in this chain are the customers who provide the fodder to the bank by trusting it with their deposits and borrowing funds to start/expand their business.

In the sense of value or importance, the last stakeholder viz. Customer, assumes the most important position as the company survives to see another day till it has customers and their transactions to handle! Therefore, it’s important for any promoter, shareholder or management to do what’s ultimately right for the customer. And I am not talking anything new. When I joined banking industry four decades ago, the importance of customer and his satisfaction was never understated! And what started as customer service, gradually evolved into customer satisfaction and further into custom centricity. Now, some organisations are taking this into a different level calling it customer obsession.

And mind you, my above view is nothing new arising out of my current status, which is merely that of a customer of a bank. Customers trust banks with their life’s earning and it’s paramount upon all the stakeholders to keep customers’ interest uppermost. Everything else – promoter’s investment returns, shareholders’ value appreciation, employees’ remuneration should come after customers not necessarily in this pecking order.

The provocation for this post is the Q4 results announced by my erstwhile organisation that has reported losses due to upfront booking of total cost of acquiring Citi’s retail business as a good conservative policy. Obviously, this has earned the wrath of some retail investors who feel that this has been done to deprive them of higher dividends and also adversely affected their chances of exiting at a higher market price. My take if that if it’s a conservative measure aimed at the eventual good of the organisation ( and hence its customer) , let’s take it as an ultimately a good step rather than what could be a temporary aberration for other stakeholders. If something makes an organisation stronger, it’s for ultimate good of all concerned.

I think pressure at workplace is not quite a recent phenomenon but has all along been there. Recently came across an article in a popular periodical that regularly publishes articles from its previous editions that could be decades old. This article republished after two decades has a beautiful line that reads, “ Nagging boss, crabby clients, looming deadlines…. if unemployment didn’t pay so badly, you’d choose it as a career.” To this, if I may add the following two lines of my own – (1) If only starting a new business wouldn’t be so risky and expensive, I’d be rather my own boss and (2) It’s so disheartening that startups have a failure rate of 90% and I may not be lucky or brilliant enough to not to be burning my fingers there! And the above three scenarios loosely sum up the challenge before today’s youth. Jobs are highlighted by pressures from bosses, clients, targets and deadlines. A new business in one of the traditional industries can entail huge investments and competition from the established players. A start up converting a brilliant idea into a commercial proposition is prone to exceptionally high failure rates.

I am of the opinion  that all the above scenarios need to change. Jobs have to offer a more pleasant and lasting experience, existing players in the established industry have to be more open to new competition that helps them improve their own  efficiency and quality  and we probably need more of, now defunct, Silicon Valley Bank that understand the risks associated with startups promoting new technologies. 

Sent from my iPhone

Till the other day, nobody had heard the name of Dr C R Rao. Today, this centenarian is a household name and an inspiration for several new senior citizens like the author of this blog, who hitherto treated their retirement from job as end of the road! US Government’s decision to bestow upon this statistician/mathematician an award that’s considered at par with Nobel prize for his contribution to mathematics at his ripe age of 102 years, reads like a story straight out of the pages of a racy fiction thriller.

After superannuating from his job, Mr Rao decided to emigrate to US, acquired citizenship at the age of 75 years and is now felicitated by US Government for his contribution to mathematics.

Many of us, with children abroad, tend to think of relocating ourselves as loneliness sometimes can be excruciating. However, the objective of migrating to the country where our children are working is to continue with sedate life that’s being led in India and help our children with household jobs and babysitting our grandchildren. Seldom one does and achieve what Mr Rao has accomplished!

At least, I, who almost one year into retirement was almost reconciled to living a life of idleness and rest, feel immensely inspired by Mr Rao’s fairy tale achievement and am ready to wear my boots that I thought I had hung for good!

Mr Rao’s feat is a testimony to the fact that it’s never too late to pursue a dream or an objective and the life needs to be lived to the fullest by generously interspersing passions, hobbies, interests with active participation in societal and community development activities. This could also be a key to living a longer, healthier and more satisfying life.

Thank you Mr Rao for inspiring millions of new senior citizens like me, reconciled to living a life that’s sedentary, staid, unexciting and basking in the past glory and achievements. You have shown the way and it’s up to us now to walk this path. May you live longer and healthier and continue to inspire a whole generation of those who think life is just to be dragged along after a certain age!

In the last article on attrition, in which I covered the other perspective viz. employee driven attrition, there was a suggestion that I also touched the aspect of the employees leaving in distress.

The reason for an employee getting distressed are as wide and varied as individual personalities! Some of us are hypersensitive and can take the extreme step of quitting the job at the slightest provocation caused by the boss’s displeasure at some act of ours! And mind you, it may not necessarily be humiliating firing by the boss, but just a subtle expression of displeasure! But on the contrary, extremely impersonal and curt attitude by the boss that leads to vitiation of office atmosphere, remains the single most important reason causing distress to employees and their ultimate attrition. And this I am writing from my personal experience! Many employees in my department sought to change jobs because of humiliation and suffocation caused by their immediate bosses, the team leaders! I used to tell such employees that this did not warrant such an extreme step, because bosses came and went and were not permanent. To the bosses, I used to advise them to be more patient, approachable and humane ( of course not telling them to emulate me as every boss considers himself/ herself to be unflawed). But we generally tend to blame organisations and their policies for high attrition rates, whereas the fact is that even in highly demanding professional organisations, good natured bosses can soothe the nerves by absorbing some of the top management pressure at his/her level. Many diktats from the top are for the consumption for senior managers not to be passed ad verbatim to the junior team members, who are already slogging hard on day to day basis.

PMS and year end appraisal are the next big causes of distress. After working hard for the entire year, employees expect, and rightfully so, good rating as all the year end benefits and promotions are a function of year end assessment and rating of the employee. While it’s true that performance based differentiation is a must for any organisation to encourage high performing employees, the fact is that several not at all bad employees fall victim to the forced bell curving that organisations indulge in to comply with certain prefixed metrics. We generally observe high distress, disappointment and attrition in the period immediately after year end assessment

Transfer to an undesired place or department, reduction in the scope of work or realm of responsibility, denial of leave or some other privilege and pressure of business targets and the ways and means of follow up thereof by the supervisors are a few of other reasons causing distress.

It’s important that employees overcome the instances of personal distress by learning and adopting stress management techniques and adapting to the prevalent conditions. Disappointments relating to rating, increment, bonus, promotion, boss’s behaviour should be taken as temporary aberration rather than as end of all. They should quit only for a better job.

I wish I was still working and had a great year end closing day,

But it was not so, as it turned out to be April Fool’s day;

The world was not divided but one family having a fun filled peaceful day,

Instead, I got a rude shock to know it was just April Fool’s Day;

And that our earth was replete with food, shelter and water for all each day,

But I was fooled on the April Fool’s day;

And there’s no ethnic, casteist, religious divide as humanity spent together a day,

Unfortunately, I woke up to reality to realise it was an April Fool’s Day;

And as I got deeply mired in pessimism and negativity on this day,

I realised- Reality is not so stark as it was only an April Fool’s Day!

This April Fool’s Day, let’s befool sectarianism, casteism, ethic/religious divide, terrorism, separatism, hunger, treachery and other such vices and celebrate this day in altogether a new spirit that spreads happiness!

As I confided into an old friend and a colleague of mine that it was after ages that I was so relaxed on the last working day of the year for a Bank. Why ages? In fact, for the first time after I turned a professional banker in 1985 that 31st March is just like any other day and I can really say to myself that “ Thanks God it’s Friday”.

I recall that how the last working day used to be an extremely stressful and busy day. Whether it was a branch role, a business role or an ops role, the last day always held an unmatched importance. It was as if we were all sleeping till yesterday and that there was no next day! Every transaction worth its salt needed to be consummated before the last day ended! And here I am not making any mention of the internal, non- customer maintenance jobs that was an altogether a different story!

It was often discussed that bundling of transactions on the last day should be avoided, but it never happened and it was understandably so! I never complained then and now that there’s no ground for me to complain, I feel even happier!

Like many other events in life, the changed priorities have rendered quite a few of these redundant. Year end closing, PMS, promotion, increment, bonus are all the things that were so important till the other day, are today only confined to my memories!

V K Sehgal ( VKS), Vijay Mana to me, is not merely my mother’s younger brother and a Mama by that relation to me. In fact, his status in my life is quite exalted- in a sense higher than that of God! Because, apart from being a Mama, he has been a Guru, a pathfinder for me and our scriptures rate a Guru higher than God.

And what a life he has lived! A brilliant student, he put his knowledge to good use by joining academics and was a senior chemistry teacher for quite a few years. In this role, he not only guided and inspired children in the family, but students community in general and students taught by him achieved academic and professional excellence. But such was his aura and influence on their impressionistic minds ( including mine) that after more than 5 decades, a few of his students holding eminent positions in their respective yuve fields today, have same regard and respect for their onetime school teacher!

But he was destined for bigger things. Much later into his married life and after attaining fatherhood, he cracked much sought after but feared civil services examination to join Indian revenue services. After decades of excellence in his career, he today leads a relaxed, but not reclusive by any standards, life with his children and grandchildren.

What makes him unique? His intelligence, sharpness, wit and such faculties of mind are all laced with human kindness, empathy and helpfulness, making him to be a person with golden heart! The entire extended family, including people like me, living more than a thousand kilometers away from him, feel secured that if any of us in trouble, our Vijay Mana is there for us! And for me, it’s been all the more relevant, because he treated my parents ( his much elder sister and brother in law that’s my further) like a son, being there for them through thick and thin!

On 1st of April this year, our Vijay Mama turns 75, a diamond man with a heart of gold turning platinum. His loving sons, Amit and Nitin along with their spouses Rupali and Vandana, have decided to celebrate the life so far of this great man with the grandeur it deserves by hosting a gala bash! I am unable to join the celebrations due to some prior commitments, but my heart will be there and mind focused on almighty, praying for this man’s long and healthy life, because not only this extended family but this world in general needs people like VKS to be around to make difference to the humanity!

This year has another landmark in store when VKS and his ever elegant and gracious wife, Sarita, celebrate their Golden anniversary. May be that would be another opportunity for me to have a sakshatkar of my guru!

Happy birthday Vijay Mama!