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
--
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!
