The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

If you look around our blog, you will find quite a few articles that deal with the ‘ambiguity’ of things, being comfortable with the uncomfortable is an underrated activity. There are many times when there are no clear answers, Entrepreneurship is no different, and it actually would be a tad misleading to associate the ‘entrepreneurship’ phenomenon to any one single attribute – but if we are to talk about the most dominant one, it would probably be instinct.

There is the instinct bit, the drive, the ability to sniff out an opportunity, the packaging, the yearning for freedom and value-add, and yes, wealth creation. If the instinct is matched with the requisite skills that can be taught and learnt – that is, fiscal planning, learning from others who failed or succeeded, go-to-market strategies and tactics, hiring right, surviving on shoe-strings – then you have the perfect mix.

Resources for entrepreneurs

• Guy Kawasaki suggests entrepreneurs to Make Meaning and Get Going (Download PDF).
• Entrepreneurship resource page by Havard Business School.
• Alltop page for Start-Ups is another great resource for entrepreneurs.
• About.com has a knowledge base and blog dedicated for entrepreneurs.

For those of you who have missed it…

The tickets for NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 are sold out! But there’s hope yet… IndiBlogger (India’s largest blogging community) is organizing a contest and are giving away T-Shirts and free passes to the event itself! Two passes have already been given away, three more to go. Read their blog post for further information and knowledge about how you can help spread the word.

1. NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 and a contest (via IndiBlogger.in)
2. The Official NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 Page (at NASSCOM.in)
3. IndiBlogger on Facebook
4. Nasscom on Facebook

Why do we think of energy in conventional terms? With right approach and motivation, humans can be as charged.

At the ripe old age of 81, Lal Krishna Advani of the Bharatiya Janata Party had to travel to several places by air in the summer heat in the previous two months, as he was projected as the prime ministerial candidate by his party. When the Hindustan Times tried to probe the secret of Advani’s energy, he replied, “Food and sleep are two things I need very little of.” Advani’s frugal diet of curd and fruits would perhaps make him feel more energetic, since he has to travel a lot.

One often comes across the expression “saving time, money and energy” quite often. However, though it is possible to bump across articles and power point presentations on time and money management, energy management from an individual’s perspective are relatively rare to come by. When it comes to energy, we generally think of thermal energy, solar energy and nuclear energy etc.


Energy From Passion

One’s chances of success improve with the degree of high energy levels that one is able to generate and sustain throughout the day. Apart from one’s energy level, this would also depend on one’s interest in one’s work. The more passionate one is about one’s work, the more energetic one is likely to feel throughout the day. The grand old man from Bollywood, Dev Anand, who at the age of 85 is contemplating a new film called Chargesheet, has this to say in this context; “No drug can turn you high as your own work. I am always on the high. You cannot enjoy your life unless you enjoy your work.” Perhaps this is why the word “ever ebullient” is used for Anand since he epitomises the expression”zest for life”. One certainly needs to be charged up to make Chargesheet at 85. UK-based website http://www.careerenergy.co.uk/index.shtml states, “The key to a successful career lies in understanding four things: What we are good at, what we enjoy, what matters to us in life and what motivates us at work.” In the book Lead to Succeed, the authors states, “Each of us is pure energy and it is our personal responsibility as to how we direct that energy. When we involve ourselves in something that is not of interest to us, we are not channeling our energy effectively. Entrepreneurial leaders naturally raise the energy levels of people within an organisation because they ensure people are able to focus on what they are best at. Energy is always higher when what you have to do is what you want to do.”

Right Approach

In a more practical context, it may not be possible for everybody to be in the work that he enjoys doing, is good at, is motivated by or is in congruence with what one believes in. If this is the case, then drive and energy become two different factors unlike what is mentioned above. If you are not driven by your work, energy management becomes a top priority as it is bound to mitigate suffering. The choice of work may not be within one’s control but how one approaches one work is definitely within one’s control and one can try and generate and sustain high energy levels.

People like Advani or filmstar Shah Rukh Khan may need very little sleep but for an average person, getting a good night’s sleep is the first step towards high energy levels. One gets to read off and on how Yoga is very good for depression as well because of the secretions of the endocrine glands that are caused by the various Asanas. The problem is that unless one is really passionate about Yoga, it can be quite boring.

It is better to play one sport, in which one is interested in, regularly and with intensely but if that is not possible, one can combine different forms of exercises than merely depend on Yoga. We are witness to the fact how our sportspersons in many categories have the talent but do not have the endurance to give good performance consistently. Talking of sports reminds me of a lady with whom I play Tennis on the weekends. I have seen her play non-stop for four hours in peak Summers several times which is surprising, since she must be somewhere in her mid-fifties. She also claims to do Yoga or cycling for one and a half hours on occasions, going on marathon runs, doing all the housework by herself (including washing cars) when the servant is not around etc. I found that her knowledge of exercise and nutrition was quite exceptional. Eventually it all boils down to good energy management.

Energy Drainers

There is a saying in management that arriving is more difficult than striving. Similarly, generating high energy levels in one thing, sustaining them is another. Energy drainers apart from the work itself are work relationships and bad office habits.

One is lucky if one is able to consistently work, with those people with whom one is able to bond better, but that is not often the case. Arguments are major energy drainers and one can try and avoid them to the extent possible but many times, one has to take a stand and one is perhaps better off with learning argumentation techniques or how to be assertive without being aggressive. This is normally done for good inter-personal relations but also helps prevents energy for being drained in futile verbal battles.

Right Questions

In February, I attended a three day seminar of Results coaching system, from where I learnt that coaching is about asking questions to a person about his own thinking about a particular dilemma in a manner that the solution comes from him rather than telling him or advising him what to do. Their book called Quiet leadership says, “The more successful a person is, the less you can tell him what to do and the more you can help them think better for themselves.” It reminded me of one quote from Sir Winston Churchill, “Personally I’m always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught.” This is a common day-to-day situation which causes friction.

I realise that asking questions even in general and not just coaching situations causes less friction than going around advising or telling people.

On listening to one of the recordings on coaching, I heard someone say that in their view, coaching was one of the ways to move towards silence. That reminded me of meditation.

According to an article Energy is the real healer in The Times of India, Paramhamsa Yogananda described the body as a battery. He taught that we need to learn to recharge the battery by drawing more on the divine source of energy. By consciously attuning with the healing forces of the universe, one could feel a dynamo of power flowing through one’s body. Prayer and meditation are a means to draw energy from that divine source.

In addition, silence and fasting can also help in quieting the mind.

Ayurveda speaks of Vata, Pitta and Kapha tendencies and having a pacing and restless mind is indicative of the Vata mind which should be avoided. One has to be careful currently because the pace at which change is taking place, are arousing Vata tendencies in even people with other dispositions. In negative moods, they can prove to be disastrous, apart from being harmful in positive phases, as well when they go out of control. Lifestyle also plays a major role in keeping oneself calm.

Back to Basics

In his wonderful book Success v/s Joy, seven-time world billiards Champion Geet Sethi describes how the standard of his game fell after his lifestyle had become dissipated and fragmented when he was overcome with materialism and acquisitiveness. He went back to the basics and his performance peaked when his mind became calm. He describes how a disciplined lifestyle helps in developing will power and concentration, which for all practical purposes is mental strength. Apart from that, what one eats, as also chewing food properly, has a significant effect on the mind, which reminds of the famous saying “Avoid hurry, worry and curry.”

The medical profession has begun to realise that energy is the real healer. The old approach is to kill the disease by attacking it, using medicines, radiation, surgery etc. The new approach strengthens the organism so that it won’t be vulnerable to disease, using herbs, diet, exercise etc. In order to make ourselves immune to disease, we must learn to strengthen the flow of energy in us and remove obstacles to its flow. The basic thing is to remove energy blockages — trains in Japan and Germany move at 500 miles an hour because of the concentrated force of superconductivity or electrons moving in one direction without any resistance. Reiki and Pranic healing are highly specialised energy healing systems and would probably justify a separate article devoted to them.

The Tight Spots

Coaching is one strategy but how one reacts to situations during the day is the most important factor in conserving energy. An acquaintance in the US told me, “People in India are so emotional that when we come on vacation, everybody in me and my wife’s extended family expects us to visit them, which is not practically possible. Therefore, I myself throw a party to gather everybody at one place, which saves time and energy considerably. I am not bothered about people who do not agree with this.” Though this indicates emotional fortitude, it is practical emotional intelligence in action.

I have often heard people say that one can’t change people but can only change one’s responses to them. That may be true for certain situations but one should effect change in others whenever possible. This is true both in personal and professional life. I read in a Harvard Business Review book how the management should try and modify the behavior of six personality types when excess of the behavior pertaining to each type starts to prove counterproductive. The book Power of Now says it very well, “If you find the current situation intolerable, you have three choices — remove yourself from the situation, change it or accept it totally.” In my view if there is a mistake in reading the situation and responding to it correctly, there is considerable waste of energy. Acceptance of severe tragedies is never easy and in absence of a sufficient level of acceptance, Yoga and meditation remain mere tools and techniques. The better the acceptance, the sooner one can get to normal energy levels and is able to sustain them.

This article is written by Hiren Shah and was published in the October issue of Management Compass.

September, the month gone by, when the weather starts turning a little hospitable this side of the globe – nip in the air and all of that, start of festivities and a general sense of well being amongst the population at large. This year, there was more good news – indications are that the Corporate world has shed some of the caution that infested it’s spending on the nice-to-have activities (yes, I AM talking of activities on the Human Resources front here, unfortunate, but true).

On the national front, the déjà-vu brought back a sense of unfairness, almost as if the Gods were conspiring yet again – India has lost a disproportionate number of leaders to unnatural deaths – Gandhi, Bose, Shastri, Sanjay, Indira, Scindia, Pilot, Surendra, the list is endless – and now we have the Andhra strongman, YSR added to this unfortunate inventory. While not all of them will rank right up there in terms of leadership skills, popularity, expertise or skill, the fact remains that the political canvas of India just might have been a little different if all of them were still around, or had lived their full lives.

What was more disconcerting was the senseless ranting amongst even the senior state party functionaries to pass on the baton to his greenhorn son. THIS is our own doing, the craving to attach oneself to someone who is not even close to his father or uncle or husband, or what-have-you, for short term gains and miss the big picture completely. My father served as the Vice-Chancellor in two prestigious Universities of India – and when he retired from there, none of his senior Deans and professors put pressure on the authorities to hand over the mantle of running the Universities to his son

Why, you must ask – and the answer is clear (apart from the fact that I would stand nowhere close to my father in administrative or subject-matter expertise, but that’s the obvious one) – the real reason is about structure – the more ambiguity there is in the surroundings, the more the uncertainty, the more the insecurity, the more the chances of the wrong decisions being taken. Universities, unlike states or nations, are run, like well-oiled machines – on policies, rules, regulations and structures.

You must ask yourself whether your HR department will fall apart if the existing HR guys left you (and they will, sooner or later), will it take you long to recover, and will some knowledge be lost forever? Similarly, if you’re setting up an HR function, do you want to let it remain at the mercy of the person who sets it up? Benifys provides seamless transition of your existing HR set-up (or setting up the function, if you don’t have one now) on templatised, time tested methodologies and implementation expertise. Would you rather trust this important function to professionals and experts, or take the long-winded route of hit-and-trial, and yet not get the HR function contribute in the manner that it actually can?

Choose, and let us know – we’re here to help.

I don’t even want to talk about our campaign in Champions Trophy. Another case in point, though – if you love your Hummer more than your profession, you’re bound to let people down. And if you don’t concentrate on your core competency (we help you do that, by the way), you’re probably delivering a sub-optimal result.

Finally, I have to force myself to agree with Mr. Tharoor when he says that we should work on Gandhi’s birthday. It is only by working harder and smarter that we will take India to the heights that he would have wanted us to scale. Working on his birthday is the least that we can do for him.

In the meantime, enjoy the festive season, and keep smiling

It is said that adversity brings out the best in some – well, far from the truth for the only viable alternative that the people of India had to the ruling coalition. Just the beginning of the second term out of power and the house of BJP is in shambles like never before. It seems every bad wolf in the neighbourhood can huff and puff and bring it all down. Not only this, they are squabbling over petty issues that the country does not even care about. Reminds me of Ponting and his men, but that’s another story. So, back to the BJP and the disaster – the links with the right wing RSS are now clearly out in the open – something that everyone knew all the while, but something that they have been try to keep a tight lid on by ignoring, refuting and what have you. It is not a nice scene – they have some great leaders. Maybe life will come a full circle for them one day – seems pretty far away as of now.


The other house that is a little shaky right now is that of the TATAs – humungous losses in the steel business, the price to pay for taking over Corus, and they’ve got to keep the Jaguars and the Land Rovers floating too. They’ll pull a trick out of their bag still, but cautious times ahead for them, I’m sure. The bigger you are, the bigger your problems – thank God Benifys is lean and hungry and manageable. We’re looking at some good things to happen to us in this month. And we’re raring to go.


Something else to cheer about – lots. India’s in a Grand Slam main draw after 7 long years. While this statement has a depressing side to it, we prefer to look at the brighter side – we’re there, right? So what if it does not happen every year. What about Force India and the F1 stupendous achievement – shows that victory does not always come to the big and the strong and deep pockets – it is guts and determination and the zeal to win that gets you there. Missed the top spot by a whisker, but this is just the beginning. We stock all of this in plenty at Benifys. Our team is well equipped to provide a solution to any HR issue that you might be facing right now. All it takes is a click or a call – try it.


No rains still, and time’s running out – some people happy not to have to experience the tragic consequences that rain brings in any city of consequence in the country. But that does not mean that people are celebrating – we know at what price we’re reaching home in time. This is like the many dilemmas that we face all the time – build or buy, retained services or outsourced, trust someone else with my data or not, have HR run by an external agency or drain my bandwidth all the while and hang on to something that I don’t have to do – ah, what we’d give to find an answer to these. Well, all that you have to give is an hour to us – we’ll be happy to show you what’ll work best for your set-up.


Till that time, keep smiling – it’s not all that bad

Ajay has converted his zeal for people development into his career. An alumnus of Modern School and Hindu College, and equipped with a University Masters in Sociology from JNU, and an MBA from FMS, University of Delhi – from the very outset, he decided that people were his passion.

He has held leadership positions in HR in blue chip organizations cutting across industry verticals and domains within the HR function.

Lateral thinking is an unpredictable and unconventional approach to solve problems in a non-evident manner against the normal logical step-by -step linear or sequential thinking. Lateral thinking is a step-by-step method of creative thinking with prescribed techniques that can be used consciously. The objective here is not to get into technicalities of lateral thinking (well covered in Wikipedia) but explain lateral thinking in a way the students can understand through practical examples.

One simple example is that of my brother, a businessman who, several years ago, wanted to buy a personal computer when the production reached 10,000 units from the current 4000 units because only at that volume the computer was justified because of the administrative work involved. I pointed out to him that he could buy the computer first, then from whatever time that was saved by the computer could be used to manufacture those 10,000 units. He liked the idea and on implementing the same he was able to achieve a production figure far in excess of 15,000 units.

The best example of unconventional thinking the world over is that of Henri Ford who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the motor car. He saw profits in mass production and to make his car affordable to workers, he adopted a totally different approach. He shocked the world with what probably stands as his greatest contribution ever: the $5-a-day-minimum-wage scheme. The average wage in the auto industry then was $2.34 for a 9-hr shift. Ford not only doubled that, he also shaved an hour off the workday. In those years it was unthinkable that a guy could be paid that much for doing something that didn’t involve an awful lot of training or education. The Wall Street Journal called the plan “an economic crime, adopting biblical teachings where they do not apply” and critics everywhere heaped ‘Fordism’ with equal scorn. But as the wage increased later to a daily $10, it proved a critical component of Ford’s quest to make the automobile accessible to all. The critics were too ignorant to comprehend that because Ford had lowered his costs per car, the higher wages didn’t matter —except for making it feasible for more people to buy cars. He increased his market share from 10 per cent to 40 per cent while the share commanded by General Motors slipped from 23 per cent to 8 per cent. After cutting the prices 30 per cent during the 1920 economic crises, Ford commanded a 60 per cent share in the market that had grown by a factor of 12 in a decade. Within a decade and a little later his net worth increased from the original $ 28,000 to $ 715 million.

This upside down thinking or supply creates its own demand has been followed in India no better than Dhirubhai Ambani and his sons. This is what a Reliance manager has to say about Dhirubhai’s initial moves in the textile industry:

“Against conventional wisdom, he started manufacturing synthetics on a mega scale realising that the poor would pay more for a reasonably good quality because they got an image boost. He did not look down upon consumers or take them for granted. The polyester pasha had stumbled upon a polyester market which the older mills has missed completely. When Reliance entered the domestic market, it met with a lot of resistance from traditional cloth merchants whose loyalty was towards the older mills. Following a totally unusual approach, he bypassed the traditional wholesale trade, opened his own showrooms, tapped new markets and appointed agents from non textile backgrounds. While he may not have pioneered the concept of company stores, he pursued this policy on a grand scale. In a drive to achieve high volumes, Ambani spotted an entirely new market- the non metro urban segment and opened it up. Other mill owners watched enviously as Ambani scooped rich profits from fabric marketing in smaller towns as the first to both recognise and exploit their potential. Setting up capacities far in excess of what the market has required is the trigger that sets off unconventional thinking in Reliance; on product applications, new grades and interesting methods by which growth can be accelerated. It gets Reliance to think. If Reliance had set up capacities in line with the then-existing consumption standards, it would never have emerged as a pioneer because there would have been no trigger within the company.”

Reliance Petroleum’s systems manager once stated, “Being unconventional is the biggest convention in Reliance.” This is what their president, basic services, had to say about bidding “We bid successfully for the Gujarat basic services circle on the conviction that the more phone lines we give out, the greater will be the demand. Not a linear expansion, but a geometric extrapolation. Typical Reliance thinking? This is very true. This is what one of their assistant vice-presi-dents had to say in this connection

“Reliance has been built on the premise that supply will create demand. This is something that one must remember when the capacities installed by the company look crazily in excess of what the country may need at that moment in time. The installed capacity for polypropylene in the country when Reliance conceived of the project was two lac tonnes per annum (tpa) against an existing domestic supply of 1.5 lac tpa. Reliance commissioned its plant with 3.5 lac tpa capacity. Crazy? That one move more than paid off in the late nineties. The market expanded significantly and prove the above measure to be correct.

According to the Reliance website, executives are constantly encouraged to think out-of-the-box, not traditionally or sequentially and the brothers themselves have this tremendous ability to think laterally and look at business as a series of processes. As Mukesh says, “We work in concentric circles, rather than in straight ranks, but there’s always a centre of accountability. To meet Dhirubhai’s deadlines in one of their major projects, Mukesh’s young project team discarded several established business practices in favor of unconventional methods which have now become part of Reliance’s corporate culture

Reliance followed lateral thinking very successfully in all departments. Though it is not a recipe for success which also depends upon the market profile of the particular industry at any given point in time, considering the kind of success Reliance has achieved, maybe it could have been a part of formal school curriculum the way Edward de Bono suggested.

From here, I am going to discuss lateral thinking in the education context but those desirous of knowing more about Reliance’s application of lateral thinking can read the gallery portion of their website or read the Dhirubhai Ambani section of the book Business Maharajas.

Edward de Bono, the world famous proponent of lateral thinking had said once that children and people should be encouraged to think of a different answer and not the right answer which genuine educationists also advocate. Edward de Bono had also said that lateral thinking is so important that it should be taught in schools along with other forms of thinking.

I once had a discussion on this issue with the best boss I had come across in my life, AK, who got several double promotions and went on to establish businesses of his own. Though in the context of lateral thinking, one has to probe different answers especially in education, the reality is poles apart. He narrated his experience at one of the most prestigious management institutes in India from which he did his MBA. On my request, he wrote down the experience.

They were given a case study for which they were asked to think and offer their solutions. In his words:

The problem/case

A 14 storied building had only two lifts. The municipal laws did not allow more than two lifts, so adding more lifts was out of question.

The building housed offices of various companies, all, obviously, in different floors – and more than one office in each floor. Due to the limited capacity of each lift, there was a long queue every morning at 9 am when offices opened. All the occupant office managements complained about this to the management of the building, and asked them to sort out the problem.

Solution given by my study group:

We came up with the following solutions, to be used in conjunction with each other:

1. Since the number of lifts cannot be increased, we should assign one lift for odd numbered floors, and one lift for even numbered floors.
2. Secondly, the lift should not stop at the first floor, as the offices based on this floor can easily use the stairs.
3. Request half the occupant offices to change their opening time to 9:30 am, so that the traffic is halved between 9:00 am and 9:30 am. Solution as per the professor (or as per the published guideline available with the professor):

1. Fix two full length mirrors along the lift area walls. This way people will look at themselves and others, and not feel the delay.
2. Fix magazine stands with magazines in them — those waiting for the lift would then not get bored waiting for the lifts.

Our argument against the published solution:

1. If I am a staff in one of the offices, and I have to reach the office on time, or if I have a meeting at 9:15 am, how would looking at others and reading magazines help?
2. The published solution may be applicable in one way, but the concept of the published solution and our solution was different

a) The published solution looked at creating an environment so that people would not feel the problem of delay, or would not mind such delay;
b) Our solution aimed at removing the delay.

We argued, that management is firstly not about fixed solutions (this we said because the professor was insisting that his solution is the only solution). Moreover, management is about removing problems, not making it easier to face them. To explain my point to the professor, I told him, that if he (the professor) went to a doctor with a stomach pain, which resulted from inflammation of the appendix, the doctor could do as follows:

a) If he followed the concept of the professor’s solution, ie, making it easy to face the problem, the doctor would administer pain killers and play classical music, so that the professor would not feel the pain and would be distracted from the pain. But the problem would remain, and the pain would continue.
b) If the doctor were to follow our concept, he would operate on the appendix, so that the problem itself would be removed. Which solution should the doctor take?

Needless, to say, the professor got his way by asking me to leave class!

Einstein may have said “Imagination is more important than knowledge” and the Ambanis may have been phenomenally successful because of unconventional thinking but there are some theoretical academicians who are hell bent on making the students toe their line and preserving status quo.

Sometimes I feel that lateral thinking should be applied to change education as well. This is what a couple of Reliance’s senior management people said about training, “We have tied up with a leading business management institution to train young. recruits.” We said : “Teach them in six months what the IIM fellows learn in two years. That is the foundation of our thrust into learning and training. The traditional concept of trainees for mechanical skills doesn’t work in Reliance. No one gets put out for six months to attend some fancy course after which he can be expected to come back and experiment with his ideas. Our concept of training is one day off to study and returning the following day to apply that to the running of the plant.”

This is the training or coaching approach of learning as opposed to teaching which would probably suit the learning style of many if not most students as a lot of people are inclined towards kinesthetic while doing a kind of learning which has been elaborately covered in my previous articles. Here also supply may create its own demand just the way T20 cricket has proved to be hugely successful in the last one year but one cannot know unless one tries but then, who educates the educationists?

Hiren Shah is a multi-faceted professional with over 2 decades of work experience in General Administration, Coordination and Personnel Administration and has published various career related and other articles in Magazines, Public websites and Newspapers.