process over results

This month is possibly going down as the most confused month i have had since a long bloody time. Ever since i started the blog, one thing remained firm - at least one post a month. I thought that this month is going to be an epic month. I would have just started working in my new firm and there would be plenty of updates and hence plenty to talk about. The truth is that there was plenty to talk about and plenty to update.  A lot of things happened in this month. i think the problem was reverse, so much happened that actually a paralysis happened on what all to talk about.

The new job has been a roller coaster of emotions. Too many emotions to handle. I tried working hard… really hard, i tried giving freedom, i tried letting go, i tried everything. Sometimes things just cant move that easy. 

on the home front - there was another battle of epic proportions! Jispa had her exams and this time she was to prepare for it on her own. Five days before her math paper she asked for help. I sit down with her only to realise that she not only requires help - she requires a complete revision of the entire portion. Everything. She might have understood while the teacher taught but now, its gone for her head. I had to do almost every sum in the text book. So in 5 days i had to cram in a few months of work. the stress and the tension of all this was extremely high and impossible to handle. We were so angry at her. Overtime we used to ask her and she was maintained that she understood and had studied her portion. But when we did math - she was completely off. So everyday i would reach home and get her to study. we would do sums from the notebook. Certain stuff, i could teach her, but certain stuff, she had to teach me before i understood enough to teach it back to her. How was this even possible… I have no clue. On one occasion, we had house the powers of youtube to help us. Finding the squad root of a number using division method. This was something completely alien to me and Jasmine. So we studied on youtube and then explained what Jispa had written in her notebook.

This was a project that Jasmine and me had to do together. In the end - it was so intense that it consumed all our free time. We were so pissed at Jispa. She would have failed for sure if we had not intervened. At the end - her paper went off pretty ok. there was one question which a real googly. something that required me to think quite a bit before i could safely answer. Jasmine too was confused on that one. this was not even something that was taught in class. I don't understand this - I understand asking questions outside the base, but asking questions that aren't tackled in class at some level - i disagree. but still it did really matter. We told Jispa that now onwards - you are not studying only by yourself. You will study on Saturdays with us and you will do a lot of math. Also i told her - give your exam with no worries - now whatever you get in math we wont tell you anything.

Jispa sis not quite understand this. Why would we scold her and make her study and then tell her to forget about the marks. Its simple really. Process matters not results. thats what i have always maintained. If you insist on studying on your own and not want us to interfere then you get good marks. But if you get us involved from the start itself and allow us to help you and push you to do better, then in the end your results are our results and we are in it together. Math we did together. We should have started earlier and done better, but its ok now. you have got enough stress from us on this itself. So now lets focus on the exams which you give without stress.

I have had the stress of exams for a long time. I hated them. For many years afterwards i still got nightmares on giving exams. that i have reached the exam hall and i am not prepared for the papers. i am blank in front of the paper. I did not want to give this stress to Jispa. Invariably there is enough on her. It seems after the math paper - a lot of kids cried.  Around 10-15 girls and a couple of guys cried that either they could not finish or the paper was tough. Jasper didn’t. thank God! After all - it was just a  math paper and nothing much beyond.  there is no point stressing so much. Even the class topper cried. Whats the point in being topper, if you cry after the paper. Seesh.

So now i am dying to see how I fared in the math paper. Or how we all fared in the math paper. The stress of this is too much to bear.

So that came along with my new job and screwed my brains twice over.

It was a great month. Also this new job, i sit outside in the bay and i dont have a keyboard draw and it hurts to type so much on the laptop, plus i have taken a mac for the first time… ohhh… this is going to be painful! But at least - i hit the one post per month minimum program!

belong

Its been three days at the new office for me now. The first day was very tough. I spent the day battling a sense of depression. It come from various sources – a stong missing of my old team and the new office which somehow doent know how to welcome a new person. I remember the last time I was at a new place. It was 11 years ago. My first interaction with my new team was an offsite. Here I remember feeling like shit and alone and not knowing whats going to happen. I did not know if I could belong here.

This place was also a nightmare on the first day. When my old team celebrated a birthday at office and sent me the photo, I was completely upset. Smashing a cake on everyone at a birthday was my thing. By the time I left it was a ritual for everyone to smash a cake on everyone and then take a selfie with all the constituents. This time I was not in photo and instead there was my replacement. That was not fair.

I returned home in a bad mood and was not sure what I wanted from life. It carried on till the next day morning and then I did not have time to sulk as I had one meeting afetr another. Suddenly after the second meeting – shit changed. Something happened and I got my groove back. I got out of the meeting and started taking charge of the numbers. I got the relevant people in the teama nd started barking orders left right and centre, I started teaching how the numbers must reflect, started attacking the existing way of doing things, called the team one by one and started talking to them. I spoke to each one of them and asked them what they were doing what they wanted to do in life. I started talking to some of founders and asked them what they wanted to do in their streams of business. Then I started cracking the whip on everything I could see.

Now I am in control, now I am back and suddenly nothing is new to me.

Yesterday I was telling Jasmine, All it needed was me to believe in myself and my abilities. The first day was just an abberation. Once I believed in myself and knew that I belong here, everything else just fit into place. I asked the right questions and got the right direction. I pushed for what I wanted and the people all fell in line.

Of course right now, the guys must be wondering what kind of a mad man they have as a boss. This guys comes in at 8 am and then leave a little earlier than 8 pm. Constantly pushing, showing agression and urging them on while laughing, cracking jokes and suddely calling a spade a spade.

Of course I have matured in the 11 years. With more than 17 years of work experience, I know how to push the bar on work to be done. The first day as I said was an aberration, it was an important transition day. The second day was even more important – now I know that I can and that’s easy. Just trust your instincts. Like the first day for a  new batsman on forign soil for the first time in a test match. You prod, you poke, you sulk, you move around. You get a few overs in, you possiblyget out and you don’t know what hit you.

When you come back for the second innings or the next day, you have had time to reflect and to look back at yourself. Then you tell yourself to just chuck it and trust yourself, and enjoy your time. The first ball hits the bat and then things fall in place. When I played cricket I have opened many times. I always liked to go to the non striker first. It allows you to get a feel of the match. I also always liked to listen toteh sound of the first time the ball hits the bat. I hate to get out without even touching the ball with the bat. Once I feel that, I know I can bat and then I know I belong and then its on form there.

I started here by the numbers and the way we looked at them. I got my team to start working on them. To start analysing them in a way that made sense to everyone who needed to analyse them. Things started falling in place from then on. Analysis is something that I have always been good at. Getting numbers in a format that aided decisions is extremely important but a few get it right. I cant understand why it would be so difficult, but now I have had years of training on it.

So yes, the first ball was outside the off stumo which I left. The next ball was on the stump which I defended firmly and the ball raced away between covers to the boundary line. I belong.

long good bye

On the 31st of last month, I closed a huge innings of my life. I resigned finally from the Kotak Group and searched for my passions elsewhere. This was a really difficult decision to make. I knew I had to do what I had to do. The digital industry was booming and I couldn’t stay out of this for a long time. I had to experience and understand digital in its entirety and had to take the plunge.

The difficult thing was the team and the fact that I had to leave a team, which I had so painstakingly built. Everyone barring two, were people that I had hired and trained. The two were from before but I had trained and groomed them as well. It was an emotional thing more than anything else.

There was a three-month notice which I had to serve. This was a really weird period with me not knowing what was really expected of me. It was a tough phase emotionally and mentally. At the end of which my team got really emotional. Towards the end – I was dreading the last day. I think others were as well. Everyone knew it was going to become tough and emotional and people would cry. No one really wanted to cry openly and neither did I want to nor did I want anyone else to. Normally when people leave, we do a speech session where each one gives a short talk on the person leaving and the person leaving gives one talk on every individual. That is the surest way to kill you emotionally. So tactically I think everyone agreed that this was something we were not going to do. So we assembled and had some coffee and then I gave a speech to all. I gave my last words of advice and a brief about what I thought I faced at the firm and the obstacles and the high points. I gave advice that I thought was relevant for them. And I left it at that. And then I let it go. Some were teary eyed and some went to the loo and cried and some just hugged.

Also I tried to write something that they would read at rest and get a sense of what I thought and what my philosophy was. It was my feeble attempt at a legacy!

Here it is

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Hi Guys

I have spent the last 5 years trying to build the marketing function in the middle of the digital landscape. The truth as I saw it was very apparent. Mass media as we understood it as marketers is dying. The new digital landscape is allowing for a large range of options that we were not available for the marketer. The times have changed. While it is easy to deride the old ad ring in the new, not everything we learnt in the past is to thrown out. The fundamental principals of marketing remain steadfast.

Understanding customers, gaining insight and solving unfulfilled needs uniquely is still very much in fashion and I think it will remain in fashion for a long time to come. Yes Kotler and all the gurus will be even more relevant. The digital landscape allows the marketer to micro target and follow a customer through many of his life stages and the brand can stay relevant and push for an appropriate call to action at each of the stages. Brands with deep understanding and intellect will be able to build even stronger bridges with their customers. Digital allows for this – it encourages it. the success you see around you is from those companies who have managed to keep this connect very sharp and alive across the life cycle.

More math and more tech will surely come in. Does that mean that creative will die?  On the contrary creative will see a reinissance like never before. With a spectrum of moods and million ways to reach, what will break the clutter? Mere relevance is not going to be enough. Creative will come in. And the best part – creative will get instant validation of whether it works or not.

The good old days of planning your year with one big campaign will go. If tech development can get Agile, marketing will as well. Marketing will release in versions. There will be wave of marketing campaigns. These will run parallel and sequential to each other.  There will be chaos – organized and unorganized. The marketing manager will have to live with ambiguity. In fact the fuzziness of campaigns will have to be built in and accounted for.

It’s not that wastage will stop. Waste will always be there but this will be in the form of exhaust that can be analysed. This will lead to further efficiencies to be built in. Campaigns will be designed for testing and collection of feedback and data will decide which one will run its course.

These are what I see playing out in marketing. These are forces that I have learnt will shape marketing for time to come. But the greatest mystery I have tried my best to solve is the mystery of motivation of man! This has taken me most of my adult years and I don’t think have come too close to cracking it. Many different incidents and experiences have shaped my thinking. When I first started my work life my limited interaction with leading people was the stuff I did in college – I was the secretary of a few societies. But clearly I wasn’t that good at it. Later on when I started work, I was a disaster as I took a lot of time to understand that people have various different motivations and many different things that make them tick or not… Understanding this has taken up most of my time.

The challenge here is also not the people per se. The challenge I felt at start was simple – where does the person end and where does the firm start. Who is more important? The firm or the person. What if they are at cross purposes to each other? Whom should I develop first? Whose interest is paramount in daily interactions or even at a strategic view point?

It then dawned upon me that the answer was simple – it’s the people. I got upon this in a simple way – people were in front of me all the time. The firm was still two steps away. Firms are more complex and very weird. They designed for profit maximization. People aren’t generally built that way. They respond to stimuli and they tend to reciprocate. You get feedback over a period of time.

People are what make an organization and people are what take it forward. People are capable of going beyond what you thought was possible. People are ones executing things for you. And people need to be trained or pushed at best. They need to go beyond what they think is possible by them. All they need is someone to trust them and believe in them. Surely some funny characters come along. These don’t believe you or are skeptical of everything they see or hear that doesn’t fit their world view. My aim was to simply take people who were positive, wanted to do good and helped them do good. And people grow, invariably they grow by doing good things for the firm and then the organization grows along. The organisation growth is the byproduct of people pushing the paradigms of growth and not the other way around.

Hence this philosophy shaped my work life. Bet on people, train people, push people. This is reality as I see it. Push them hard. Those who don’t want to be pushed will move aside. Those want to be pushed will do good things for themselves and others. They take the team forward as well because at the end… everyone wants to do well.

This has been deeply enriching and rewarding for me – and of course deeply frustrating as well. But in the end as you stack up all the pros and cons – I realized this is the way I like to lead my life. By putting faith in people. Always having time for them and always being there to guide them. It works weirdly within the organization as the rest find the camaraderie developed uneasy. They throw stones, call names and express disbelief. They laugh at the times it fails – which invariably it will in isolated instances. But on the whole, it creates something that many aspire to but few actually do.

These are my big take aways or leave behinds.

Things around you will change – at a pace slower than what you predict but will come and hit you faster than you realize it. So keep learning all the time.

You are nothing without people around you. Keep them as your priority all the time. Push them forward, propel them but don’t hang on to them. So keep teaching all the time.

This is my distillation of my life. All of you have contributed in many ways to this. Some by your mistakes and some by your advice and some by your behavior or attitude. But the one I treasure the most is what you taught me by your love. You show it different ways and I treasure it so much. this is what I carry on as confidence when I move on. That  - I may piss off people, some may hate me, but some – some I think genuinely love me.

All I hope is not that we keep in touch. Life is fast and busy and many forces push us away. If we are in touch then great and if not then great. But if you catch me at a mall, or at a movie or anywhere just loitering about – I hope you will shout out to me or at the very least look at your friend or kid or anyone with you and point out to me and say – you know that guy – he is Jaimit – I worked with him and I learnt a lot.

Because honestly with all of you – I learnt a lot!