Recently had an opportunity to teach at a Management College, thanks to a friend, who called me in for a full course on HR due diligence in M&A. It was quite an experience. I have been in situations where I have had to address client organisations and teach them about various new / old concepts of HR / Business, but teaching a bunch of youngsters in a management college is a very different experience.
The most satisfying thing from my perspective was the fact that I learnt a lot during the experience. Having had to read a lot to prepare the course outline and to combine the experiences from my past work situations by itself helped me in doing like a review of things which were done in those situations and understanding what else could have been done to make those better.
In most of the consulting assignment, we were always short of time, so one worked with available tools, tried methodologies and templates to ensure that the deadlines were met. There was rarely an opportunity where one could sit back and find new ways of doing things. This experience gave me time to look at alternate theories / tools / processes etc which could have been applied in the same situations and how we could have made the deliverables better.
I also learnt that easy availability of information on the net can be a good learning experience as well as a bad learning experience. Good if you took the pain to read through and broaden your perspective. Bad if you just found a quick link and completed your assignment :-) since one did not apply ones mind.
The other learning experience came from the questions that the students asked. Some of the questions can really require you to think very differently and open up a new perspective that you may not have thought of a situation about.
My suggestion to everyone who wants to learn or become better at his / her subject will be to try teaching a course on that subject. Because I believe from my first experience, that to TEACH is to LEARN.
Sanjay
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Is freelance consulting a good option ?
Having jumped ship and started my entrepreneurial journey a lot of people often ask me about how I managed to take a big career decision and survived the crash that the world market has seen. My savior during the process of setting up our retirement home venture has been freelance consulting work. A lot of people ask me questions around how difficult or easy it is to find freelance consulting work and many a times I find that they carry a lot of wrong notions around how lucrative it is to be on your own. So thought will try and put down my perspective on freelance consulting, hope it addresses doubts in a few people's mind.
Freelance work is easy to get
Sure its easy to get, but then you need to have something of significant value for people to want to work with you. There is a big requirement that a lot of consulting companies have for associates on a flexi basis, many corporates would like to work with individuals and there is lots of requirement out there. The challenges is to be in the right place at the right time, to encash an opportunity, and believe me its a big big challenge. As a freelancer you have limited reach and don't have others selling you.
Freelance work is very rewarding
For some it is, but for most its not. If you are not attached to a regular source of long term freelance work and have to go and sell yourself practically on a daily basis, then budget for approx 3 days of selling for 1-2 day or work. This makes the equation very unfavourable. Mind you no one is paying huge amounts of money for freelancers, cost saving is the biggest driver for employing freelance consultants. Consulting companies employ freelancers predominantly to bring down their cost of delivery, a full time consultant would be priced nearly 4-5 times for equivalent talent.
Freelance work is easy to do
One of the biggest challenge I faced when I moved out of a big consulting firm on my own was the challenge of managing everything on my own. There was no one to do research, no one to print invoices, no one to format presentations and so on and so forth. Suddenly doing the same assignment becomes much more difficult to do, especially availability of information, templates and benchmarks that did not require any effort become big challenges. And when you start thinking as a consultant, thats a lot of valuable, expensive time going waste.
Everyone who is freelancing is having a great time
The grass always looks greener on the other side :-). Freelancing's biggest challenge unpredictable work load. One would have to be prepared for long periods of vella time and then hopefully sudden level of activity. If you do not know how to utilise your vella time well, then you are in deep trouble. If no work coming your way makes you anxious then you have had it, be prepared to enjoy watching TV, meeting friends (hopefully they would have time for you), generally flooding all social networking sites with arbit information to make people jealous or take up new hobbies. I know of many of my friends who tried it but could not bear the uncertainty and were back in their jobs. If you are a married guy, also factor in the fact that your wife who used to complain about you never being in the house, will start chasing you out of the house precisely after two weeks of sitting at home :-)).
My friends will give me work
This could be the biggest mistake when you are out looking for freelance work. Most of your friends and network will not be able to help you, and many a times genuinely, because of company policy or engagement with other established consultants. This can create a situation where people may start avoiding you and you may lose a lot of friends, especially if you start chasing them aggressively for work. Don't expect much out of friends in established large corporate setups, they will feel jealous about your guts, they will always say they will push your case, they will always meet you for the first couple of times and then they will suddenly get very busy :-). Be prepared to not push your friends who you genuinely want to keep.
If you still decide to go ahead and take a plunge, some of my golden rules are the following :
- Have good friends, who believe you have genuine talent, you need to have something of significant value that your friends can push your case
- Attach yourself to a few consulting organisations who are on a lookout for free lance help, most of them are, so you are in luck at this time.
- Never sign an exclusive arrangement with a consulting company, unless there was guaranteed days of work in the agreement
- Find friends in smaller organisations, they want good talent at low cost, thats the sweet spot
- Create consortium with other free lancers so that jointly you can create bigger market reach and support each other on large, complex assignments
- Make sure you know how to enjoy your free time, believe me you will have lots of it, else what was the point on going in for freelance work :-)
Hope you guys find this useful. Feel free to ask questions and will be happy to help.
Regards,
Sanjay
Freelance work is easy to get
Sure its easy to get, but then you need to have something of significant value for people to want to work with you. There is a big requirement that a lot of consulting companies have for associates on a flexi basis, many corporates would like to work with individuals and there is lots of requirement out there. The challenges is to be in the right place at the right time, to encash an opportunity, and believe me its a big big challenge. As a freelancer you have limited reach and don't have others selling you.
Freelance work is very rewarding
For some it is, but for most its not. If you are not attached to a regular source of long term freelance work and have to go and sell yourself practically on a daily basis, then budget for approx 3 days of selling for 1-2 day or work. This makes the equation very unfavourable. Mind you no one is paying huge amounts of money for freelancers, cost saving is the biggest driver for employing freelance consultants. Consulting companies employ freelancers predominantly to bring down their cost of delivery, a full time consultant would be priced nearly 4-5 times for equivalent talent.
Freelance work is easy to do
One of the biggest challenge I faced when I moved out of a big consulting firm on my own was the challenge of managing everything on my own. There was no one to do research, no one to print invoices, no one to format presentations and so on and so forth. Suddenly doing the same assignment becomes much more difficult to do, especially availability of information, templates and benchmarks that did not require any effort become big challenges. And when you start thinking as a consultant, thats a lot of valuable, expensive time going waste.
Everyone who is freelancing is having a great time
The grass always looks greener on the other side :-). Freelancing's biggest challenge unpredictable work load. One would have to be prepared for long periods of vella time and then hopefully sudden level of activity. If you do not know how to utilise your vella time well, then you are in deep trouble. If no work coming your way makes you anxious then you have had it, be prepared to enjoy watching TV, meeting friends (hopefully they would have time for you), generally flooding all social networking sites with arbit information to make people jealous or take up new hobbies. I know of many of my friends who tried it but could not bear the uncertainty and were back in their jobs. If you are a married guy, also factor in the fact that your wife who used to complain about you never being in the house, will start chasing you out of the house precisely after two weeks of sitting at home :-)).
My friends will give me work
This could be the biggest mistake when you are out looking for freelance work. Most of your friends and network will not be able to help you, and many a times genuinely, because of company policy or engagement with other established consultants. This can create a situation where people may start avoiding you and you may lose a lot of friends, especially if you start chasing them aggressively for work. Don't expect much out of friends in established large corporate setups, they will feel jealous about your guts, they will always say they will push your case, they will always meet you for the first couple of times and then they will suddenly get very busy :-). Be prepared to not push your friends who you genuinely want to keep.
If you still decide to go ahead and take a plunge, some of my golden rules are the following :
- Have good friends, who believe you have genuine talent, you need to have something of significant value that your friends can push your case
- Attach yourself to a few consulting organisations who are on a lookout for free lance help, most of them are, so you are in luck at this time.
- Never sign an exclusive arrangement with a consulting company, unless there was guaranteed days of work in the agreement
- Find friends in smaller organisations, they want good talent at low cost, thats the sweet spot
- Create consortium with other free lancers so that jointly you can create bigger market reach and support each other on large, complex assignments
- Make sure you know how to enjoy your free time, believe me you will have lots of it, else what was the point on going in for freelance work :-)
Hope you guys find this useful. Feel free to ask questions and will be happy to help.
Regards,
Sanjay
Friday, April 16, 2010
Complicated Consulting
Sometimes we consultants can really make things too complicated. Faking News carries an interesting perspective on how a Chai wallah hires McKinsey to find out if he should sell omelets and maggi too. Found it very funny, which can mean that probably I am not a true consultant.
http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/04/chai-wallah-hires-mckinsey-to-find-out-if-he-should-sell-omelets-and-maggi-too/
A true consultant would be able to find multiple arguments around how McKinsey is ignoring some critical assumptions which are important to get the right business model :-).
Cheers !
http://www.fakingnews.com/2010/04/chai-wallah-hires-mckinsey-to-find-out-if-he-should-sell-omelets-and-maggi-too/
A true consultant would be able to find multiple arguments around how McKinsey is ignoring some critical assumptions which are important to get the right business model :-).
Cheers !
Monday, February 08, 2010
Build on your strengths
Recently I was addressing various groups in a client organisation around creating development plans for their subordinates. The people were required to identify strength and weakness areas for their subordinates and then create a plan for the next one year.
Nearly all the development plans got created around the weakness areas and hardly anyone thought of developing the strength area further. This is a huge problem with development planning in my mind. To me the strength areas are more important than the weaknesses purely because those define my uniqueness and my capabilities which I need to focus upon and use to my advantage. There is no point in teaching a creative person numbers but the best use of the person is to use their creative skills to the advantage of the organisation.
Most of us as managers need to focus maybe 75% of our energies in developing our as well as our subordinates strength area and only focus on 25% of our energies on bringing the weakness areas to a level of acceptable performance, which should ensure that the performance of the strength areas do not get diluted by the problems in some of the weakness areas which are interlinked in some manner.
Sanjay
Nearly all the development plans got created around the weakness areas and hardly anyone thought of developing the strength area further. This is a huge problem with development planning in my mind. To me the strength areas are more important than the weaknesses purely because those define my uniqueness and my capabilities which I need to focus upon and use to my advantage. There is no point in teaching a creative person numbers but the best use of the person is to use their creative skills to the advantage of the organisation.
Most of us as managers need to focus maybe 75% of our energies in developing our as well as our subordinates strength area and only focus on 25% of our energies on bringing the weakness areas to a level of acceptable performance, which should ensure that the performance of the strength areas do not get diluted by the problems in some of the weakness areas which are interlinked in some manner.
Sanjay
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Demo-Crazy
India is apparently a democracy, but is it really? Looking at the recent happenings in Mumbai, does not seem like it. So the Shiv Sena and the MNS have the sole point of view about Mumbai and who can live there. Any other person, including Sachin, who is also a Maharashtrian cannot have any other opinion about it, which is counter to the opinion of the Thackrey family. And also if you decide to have any other opinion we will not let you do business hear, beat you up or threaten with all kinds of things.
The government is a silent spectator to all of this for a long time and does nothing, because there are votes to be counted in the end. Despite the fact that the fundamental rights of citizens provided in our constitution about freedom of speech are being trampled upon.
But what is amazing about the Shiv Sena and MNS is that they hate competition. They want sole right to bash up North Indians and take offence when the Australians do the same, I atleast did not see a Maharashtrian name in any of the ones reported in the newspaper.
Its high time we stopped these elements from spreading more discord in the country, we already have too many points of differences available to fight about.
Hope good sense prevails and the government takes some action against such open goondaism.
The government is a silent spectator to all of this for a long time and does nothing, because there are votes to be counted in the end. Despite the fact that the fundamental rights of citizens provided in our constitution about freedom of speech are being trampled upon.
But what is amazing about the Shiv Sena and MNS is that they hate competition. They want sole right to bash up North Indians and take offence when the Australians do the same, I atleast did not see a Maharashtrian name in any of the ones reported in the newspaper.
Its high time we stopped these elements from spreading more discord in the country, we already have too many points of differences available to fight about.
Hope good sense prevails and the government takes some action against such open goondaism.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Aall izz well !!
Today, no conversation is complete without mentioning Aall izz well so let me start out by saying that and be done with.
For some of my friends who keep asking me why I have not been writing on the blog, some clarification. There was a recession of ideas that I was facing predominantly because I was working on a new business venture, which refused to take off given the market dynamics. So was not involved in too much consulting work during this period hence was not generating too many ideas in my head.
I am happy to report that our new venture "Aamoksh One Eighty Hospitality Pvt. Ltd." has taken off and has launched its first Retirement Home, which will come up at the foothills of Kodaikanal and have world class international facilities for Retirees, including a Golf Course. So all you people who have been wanting to retire early, we are giving you a good reason to take the plunge now.
Please visit our website at www.aamokshoneeighty.com for more information and of course please inform people who need these services about us.
Regards,
Sanjay
For some of my friends who keep asking me why I have not been writing on the blog, some clarification. There was a recession of ideas that I was facing predominantly because I was working on a new business venture, which refused to take off given the market dynamics. So was not involved in too much consulting work during this period hence was not generating too many ideas in my head.
I am happy to report that our new venture "Aamoksh One Eighty Hospitality Pvt. Ltd." has taken off and has launched its first Retirement Home, which will come up at the foothills of Kodaikanal and have world class international facilities for Retirees, including a Golf Course. So all you people who have been wanting to retire early, we are giving you a good reason to take the plunge now.
Please visit our website at www.aamokshoneeighty.com for more information and of course please inform people who need these services about us.
Regards,
Sanjay
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Penny wise pound foolish..
Nowhere else will one be able to find a true example of the above statement "Penny wise Pound Foolish".
Our great leader Rahul Baba travels by Shatabdi to save the government some Rs 20546 odd (Now don't ask me how I come up with these numbers !! But trust me its probably thereabouts in range).
Some children throw stones at the train, which is a common happening in India across the country and I don't remember the railways ever taking note of this.
Now the government will spend Crores worth in investigating who threw the stones and if there was any terrorist organisation involved in the act. Probably the security level will also be upgraded and will become from Z+++ to ZZZZZZ++++, which may cost the country some more money (Yawn !! I am sleepy looking at the number of Z's).
My simple question here is WHY THE HELL DID HE WANT TO SAVE Rs.20546 !! Can someone please explain !
Our great leader Rahul Baba travels by Shatabdi to save the government some Rs 20546 odd (Now don't ask me how I come up with these numbers !! But trust me its probably thereabouts in range).
Some children throw stones at the train, which is a common happening in India across the country and I don't remember the railways ever taking note of this.
Now the government will spend Crores worth in investigating who threw the stones and if there was any terrorist organisation involved in the act. Probably the security level will also be upgraded and will become from Z+++ to ZZZZZZ++++, which may cost the country some more money (Yawn !! I am sleepy looking at the number of Z's).
My simple question here is WHY THE HELL DID HE WANT TO SAVE Rs.20546 !! Can someone please explain !
Friday, September 11, 2009
Unprofessional employees
I am appalled by the behavior of the jet pilots.
Normally I always believe that most of the companies will not care about their employees as soon as the tide turns negative and all talks about the company being a family will be tossed out of the window. We saw that on display recently. No company will ask its investors who have made super normal profit during good times, to fund the salaries of its employees during a rough patch and when I say most companies I mean practically 90%. So when I make this comment about the employees this time around, I think they have crossed the limit.
I think the employees (pilots) of Jet don't deserve any sympathy for calling in sick and inconveniencing thousands of passengers, who finally pay their salaries. This is the worst display of unprofessional attitude that any employee of an organisation can display towards its customers and I hope that Jet airways has the guts to terminate all such employees who have taken leave on a false pretext.
I definitely do not believe any more that Jet Airways can deliver on its promise of customer satisfaction, as its employees are just not interested in the problems of the customer and any compromise with this unprofessional bunch does not solve the problem for future.
I also wish that all these pilots are blacklisted and not hired by any airline company in the country so that we are sure that the other airlines are not being run by a similar set of unprofessional people who will leave you stranded midway if it suited them. In any case there is no dearth of pilots in this country, I am told that there are more than 3000 + pilots looking for a job in these recessionary times, one can easily tap them and get them trained to fill the vacancy.
I definitely am going to move on from Jet Airways and will only fly when it is the last option available.
I hope the HR teams of the airline companies and their management have the guts to take a bold step and ensure that its customers are not exposed to the blackmailing tactics of such employees.
Normally I always believe that most of the companies will not care about their employees as soon as the tide turns negative and all talks about the company being a family will be tossed out of the window. We saw that on display recently. No company will ask its investors who have made super normal profit during good times, to fund the salaries of its employees during a rough patch and when I say most companies I mean practically 90%. So when I make this comment about the employees this time around, I think they have crossed the limit.
I think the employees (pilots) of Jet don't deserve any sympathy for calling in sick and inconveniencing thousands of passengers, who finally pay their salaries. This is the worst display of unprofessional attitude that any employee of an organisation can display towards its customers and I hope that Jet airways has the guts to terminate all such employees who have taken leave on a false pretext.
I definitely do not believe any more that Jet Airways can deliver on its promise of customer satisfaction, as its employees are just not interested in the problems of the customer and any compromise with this unprofessional bunch does not solve the problem for future.
I also wish that all these pilots are blacklisted and not hired by any airline company in the country so that we are sure that the other airlines are not being run by a similar set of unprofessional people who will leave you stranded midway if it suited them. In any case there is no dearth of pilots in this country, I am told that there are more than 3000 + pilots looking for a job in these recessionary times, one can easily tap them and get them trained to fill the vacancy.
I definitely am going to move on from Jet Airways and will only fly when it is the last option available.
I hope the HR teams of the airline companies and their management have the guts to take a bold step and ensure that its customers are not exposed to the blackmailing tactics of such employees.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Cut the flab..
I have been lazy !! I can blame it on the recession so am hopefully back to write about what laziness has costed me.
In my state of laziness I have managed to emulate the six-pack wonder Aamir Khan, only difference being he has six-pack muscles, I have six packets of fat on my tummy :-). So big lecture from wife and a quest begins to lose the extra weight. Now gaining it was so easy, but losing it has been a painful experience, without any gains.
I did what any sensible(one can always debate what this means) person would do, looked for the quick-fix solutions, surgery, some sauna belt, medicines so on and so forth and armed with huge amount of data and research sat down to evaluate the best option for me. My doctor friend walks in and tells me that all these methods will not help, I will be gaining back the weight back in no time unless I made fundamental changes to my lifestyle, which included change in food habits, exercise, regular sleep, regular hours etc etc. Sounded very difficult to do.
Applying my new gained knowledge to the world of business, I realised that most organisations seem to be in the same state as me.
Suddenly there is a realisation everywhere that there is extra flab which needs to be shed and everybody seems to running for the most 'sensible' thing to do, shed the extra weight and fast, so organisations are going for quick fix solutions, firing the bench, firing non-performers, going for VRS and so on.
What they are not realising is that as soon as the markets turn around, all this flab will come back more quickly than how much time it takes to shed it. In the business context, also, there needs to be a systemic change to ensure that the organisation changes the way it manages people, performance, skills etc to ensure that they have the right people at any point in time and do not have extra weight. All the people are skilled and re-skilled (just like I am trying to exercise my right muscles) in the right manner to ensure there is no provision for extra weight. And ofcourse good planning is a key to managing your weight, including your manpower numbers.
My simple thought hence is that while you are trying to shed your extra weight, make sure you are making those fundamental changes to ensure that you stay trim in the long term.
Wishing everyone and myself all the very best in this weight losing quest !! Cheers !!
In my state of laziness I have managed to emulate the six-pack wonder Aamir Khan, only difference being he has six-pack muscles, I have six packets of fat on my tummy :-). So big lecture from wife and a quest begins to lose the extra weight. Now gaining it was so easy, but losing it has been a painful experience, without any gains.
I did what any sensible(one can always debate what this means) person would do, looked for the quick-fix solutions, surgery, some sauna belt, medicines so on and so forth and armed with huge amount of data and research sat down to evaluate the best option for me. My doctor friend walks in and tells me that all these methods will not help, I will be gaining back the weight back in no time unless I made fundamental changes to my lifestyle, which included change in food habits, exercise, regular sleep, regular hours etc etc. Sounded very difficult to do.
Applying my new gained knowledge to the world of business, I realised that most organisations seem to be in the same state as me.
Suddenly there is a realisation everywhere that there is extra flab which needs to be shed and everybody seems to running for the most 'sensible' thing to do, shed the extra weight and fast, so organisations are going for quick fix solutions, firing the bench, firing non-performers, going for VRS and so on.
What they are not realising is that as soon as the markets turn around, all this flab will come back more quickly than how much time it takes to shed it. In the business context, also, there needs to be a systemic change to ensure that the organisation changes the way it manages people, performance, skills etc to ensure that they have the right people at any point in time and do not have extra weight. All the people are skilled and re-skilled (just like I am trying to exercise my right muscles) in the right manner to ensure there is no provision for extra weight. And ofcourse good planning is a key to managing your weight, including your manpower numbers.
My simple thought hence is that while you are trying to shed your extra weight, make sure you are making those fundamental changes to ensure that you stay trim in the long term.
Wishing everyone and myself all the very best in this weight losing quest !! Cheers !!
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Taare Zameen Par
Suddenly all the Big Stars of the corporate world have been brought down to earth with one big name company falling after the other. The recent fall of Citibank brings down the bank which never sleeps. Only if they had followed the age old advice that a good night's sleep does a lot of good to your health. Hopefully now Citibank will start sleeping well to ensure it can regain its health.
I think time has come to go back to the basics and go back to age old advice that our ancestors have been giving us. Its a good time for the companies to stop chasing the latest management fad and start looking at creating organisations which work on realistic targets and do not chase unhealthy profitability and growth goals, do not grow beyond what they can manage, sincerely start believing that employees are their greatest assets and finally go back to respecting your customers, which was getting ignored since there were just too many customers out there, so what if a few were unhappy.
The challenge I see right now, is that laying off people has become the latest fad, and organisations are trying to outdo each other about how many they are planning to layoff. A few companies have started trimming salaries at the top, the biggest impact on cost reduction on salaries is there, which is the right way of going about changing the organisations. At least these organisations start looking at accountability for the top management and hence are showing 'walk the talk', unlike the CEOs of the large car companies, or AIG top executives, who continue to splurge at the cost of job loss to juniors.
My simple advice to companies is that this is the right time to get your house in order, now that there is excess capacity, utilise this time to build capability, upgrade your processes and be ready. I am confident that we have a boom cycle coming our way in a few months time.
I think time has come to go back to the basics and go back to age old advice that our ancestors have been giving us. Its a good time for the companies to stop chasing the latest management fad and start looking at creating organisations which work on realistic targets and do not chase unhealthy profitability and growth goals, do not grow beyond what they can manage, sincerely start believing that employees are their greatest assets and finally go back to respecting your customers, which was getting ignored since there were just too many customers out there, so what if a few were unhappy.
The challenge I see right now, is that laying off people has become the latest fad, and organisations are trying to outdo each other about how many they are planning to layoff. A few companies have started trimming salaries at the top, the biggest impact on cost reduction on salaries is there, which is the right way of going about changing the organisations. At least these organisations start looking at accountability for the top management and hence are showing 'walk the talk', unlike the CEOs of the large car companies, or AIG top executives, who continue to splurge at the cost of job loss to juniors.
My simple advice to companies is that this is the right time to get your house in order, now that there is excess capacity, utilise this time to build capability, upgrade your processes and be ready. I am confident that we have a boom cycle coming our way in a few months time.
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