EVER THOUGHT......

If it's Zero degrees outside today and it's supposed to be Twice as cold tomorrow, how cold is it going to be?

Why do ballet dancers always dance on their toes? Wouldn't it be easier to just hire taller dancers?

Why do scientists call it "re"search when looking for something new?

Why is it called a building when it is already built?

If pro is the opposite of con, then is progress the opposite of congress?

How do you know when invisible ink pens run out of ink?

If vegetable oil's made of vegetables, and olive oil's made of olives...what's baby oil made of?

Is it possible to be totally partial?

If a book about failures doesn't sell, is it a success?

What do you do when you see an endangered animal that eats only endangered plants?

Isn't it a bit unnerving that doctors call what they do "practice"?

Why does your feet smell, and your nose run?

If all the world is a stage, where is the audience sitting?

If work is so terrific, how come they have to pay you to do it?

If you're not supposed to drink and drive, then why do bars have parking lots?

If you got into a taxi and he started driving backwards, would the taxi driver end up owing you money?

Great Stuff from a great ex-HLL manager.

These are the personal views of Mr. R. Gopalakrishnan, Director - Tata Sons.
Great Stuff from a great ex-HLL manager.
A Story on how to manage your career & your expectations by R.Gopalakrishnan


There is a Thai saying that experience is a comb which Nature gives to man after he is bald. As I grow bald, I would like to share my comb with your people, about their career ahead.

1. Seek out grassroots level experience

I studied Physics and Engineering at University. A few months before graduation, I appeared for an HLL interview for Computer Traineeship.When asked whether I would consider Marketing instead of Computers, I responded negatively : an engineer to visit grocery shops to sell Dalda or Lifebuoy? Gosh, no way. After I joined the Company and a couple of comfortable weeks in the swanky Head Office, I was given a train ticket to go to Nasik.Would I please meet Mr. Kelkar to whom I would be attached for the next two months? He would teach me to work as a salesman in his territory, which
included staying in Kopargaon and Pimpalgaon among other small towns. I was most upset. In a town called Ozhar, I was moving around from shop to shop with a bullock cart full of products and a salesman's folder in my hand. Imagine my embarrassment when an IIT friend appeared in front of me in Ozhar, believe it or not he exclaimed, "Gopal, I thought you joined as a Management Trainee in Computers". I could have died a thousand deaths. After this leveling experience, I was less embarrassed to work as a Despatch Clerk in the Company Depot and an Invoice Clerk in the Accounts Department. Several years later, I realised the value of such grassroots level experience. It is fantastic.

I would advise young people to seek out nail-dirtying, collar-soiling, shoe-wearing tasks. That is how you learn about organizations, about the true nature of work, and the dignity of the many, many tasks that go into building great enterprises.


2. Deserve before you desire

At one stage, I was appointed as the Brand Manager for Lifebuoy and Pears soap, the company's most popular-priced and most premium soaps. And what was a Brand Manager? "A mini-businessman, responsible for the production, sales and profits of the brand, accountable for its long-term growth, etc.,etc." I had read those statements, I believed them and here I
was, at 27, "in charge of everything". But very soon, I found I could not move a pin without checking with my seniors. One evening, after turning the Facit machine handle through various calculations, I sat in front of the Marketing Director. I expressed my frustration and gently asked whether I could not be given total charge. He smiled benignly and said, "The perception and reality are both right. You will get total charge when you know more about the brand than anyone else in this company about its formulation, the raw materials, the production costs, the consumer's perception, the distribution and so on. How long do you think that it will take?" "Maybe, ten years", I replied, "and I don't expect to be the Lifebuoy and Pears Brand Manager for so long"! And then suddenly, the lesson was clear. I was desiring total control, long before I deserved it.

This happens to us all the time - in terms of responsibilities, in terms of postings and promotions, it happens all the time that there is a gap between our perception of what we deserve and the reality of what we get. It helps to deserve before we desire.


3. Play to win but win with fairness

Life is competitive and of course, you play to win. But think about the balance. Will you do anything, to win? Perhaps not. Think deeply about how and where you draw the line. Each person draws it differently, and in doing so, it helps to think about values. Winning without values provides dubious fulfillment. The leaders who have contributed the most are the ones with a set of universal values. Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King for example. Napoleon inspired a ragged, mutinous and half-starved army to fight and seize power. This brought him name and fame for twenty years. But all the while, he was driven forward by a selfish and evil ambition, and not in pursuit of a great ideal. He finally fell because of his selfish ambition. I am fond of referring to the Pierre de Coubertin Fair Play Trophy. It was instituted in 1964 by the founder of the modern Olympic Games and here are two examples of winners.A Hungarian tennis player who pleaded with the umpire to give his opponent some more time to recover from a cramp. A British kayak team who were trailing the Danish kayak team. They then stopped to help the Danish team whose boat was stuck. The Danes went on to beat the British by one second in a three hour event!

What wonderful examples of sportsmanship! Play to Win, but with Fairness.


4. Enjoy whatever you do

Sir Thomas Lipton is credited with the statement, "There is no greater fun than hard work". You usually excel in fields, which you truly enjoy. Ask any person what it is that interferes with his enjoyment of existence. He will say, "The struggle for life". What he probably means is the struggle for success. Unless a person has learnt what to do with success after getting it, the very achievement of it must lead him to unhappiness. Aristotle wrote, "Humans seek happiness as an end in itself, not as a
means to something else". But if you think about it, we should not work for happiness. We should work as happy people. In organisational life, people get busy doing something to be happy. The more you try to be happy, the more unhappy you can get. Your work and career is all about your reaching your full potential. Working at one's full potential, whether it is the office boy or the Chairman, leads to enjoyment and fulfillment.

A last point about enjoyment. Keep a sense of humour about yourself. Too many people are in danger of taking themselves far too seriously. As General Joe Stilwell is reported to have said, "Keep smiling. The higher the monkey climbs, the more you can see of his backside".


5. Be Passionate about your health

Of course, as you get older, you would have a slight paunch, greying of hair or loss of it and so on. But it is in the first 5 - 7 years after the working career begins that the greatest neglect of youthful health occurs. Sportsmen stop playing sports, non drinkers drink alcohol, light smokers smoke more, active people sit on chairs, starving inmates of hostels eatrich food in good hotels and so on. These are the years to watch. Do not, I repeat do not, convince yourself that you are too busy, or that you do not have access to facilities, or worst of all, that you do this to relieve the stresses of a professional career.

A professional career is indeed very stressful. There is only one person who can help you to cope with the tension, avoid the doctor's scalpel, and to feel good each morning - and that is yourself. God has given us as good a health as He has, a bit like a credit balance in the bank. Grow it, maintain it, but do not allow its value destruction. The penalty is very high in later years.


6. Direction is more important than distance

Every golfer tries to drive the ball to a very long distance. In the process, all sorts of mistakes occur because the game involves the masterly co-ordination of several movements simultaneously. The golf coach always advises that direction is more important than distance. So it is with life. Despite one's best attempts, there will be ups and downs. It is relationships and friendships that enable a person to navigate the choppy waters that the ship of life will encounter. When I was young, there was a memorable film by Frank Capra, starring James Stewart and Dona Reed, named IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE. It is about a man who is about to commit suicide because he thinks he is a failure. An angel is sent to rescue him. The bottomline of the film is that "No Man is a Failure Who Has Friends".

Conclusion:

My generation will never be twenty again, but when you are older, you can and should be different from my generation. Ours is a great and wonderful country, and realising her true potential in the global arena depends ever so much on the quality and persistence of our young people. Good luck in your journey, my young friends, and God be with you and our beloved Nation.

FAMOUS U.S. PRESIDENTS

ANSWERS AT THE BOTTOM

1. Which president smoked marijuana with a nude playgirl while he joked
about being too wasted to "push the button" in case of nuclear attack??

2. Which president allegedly had affairs with both a winner AND a
finalist in the Miss America pageant??

3. Which president had sex with one of his secretaries stretched out
atop a desk in the oval office??

4. Which president allegedly had an affair (as well as children) with a
slave who was his wife's half sister??

5. Which president called his mistress "Pookie"??

6. Which president married a woman who hadn't yet divorced her first
husband, and was branded an "adulterer" during his re-election
campaign??

7. Which future president wrote love letters to his neighbor's wife
while he was engaged to someone else??

8. Which president had a torrid affair with the
First Lady's personal secretary??

9. Which president had sex with a young woman in a White House coat
closet, while, at one point a secret service agent prevented the
hysterical First Lady from attacking them??

10. Which president had sex in a closet while telling his partner about
the other president who did the same in a closet??

11. Which Vice-President was ticked off because he felt that HIS record
of sexual conquests was much more "impressive" (i.e.
numerous) than the President's??

12. Which future president, while a college student, enjoyed showing
off his penis, which he named Jumbo??





Answers:
1. John F. Kennedy
2 Bill Clinton
3. Lyndon B. Johnson
4. Thomas Jefferson
5. Bill Clinton
6. Andrew Jackson
7. George Washington, Lyndon B. Johnson
8. Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy
9. Warren G. Harding
10. John F. Kennedy
11. Lyndon B. Johnson
12. Lyndon B. Johnson