Being Professional is Hazardous for the Society, We Need Unprofessional Organisations

At last there is some motivation. Some hurdle on the way.
I had earlier applied in my state to be registered as an NGO and there were a few problems that had been coming up from time to time. So, this Saturday, I went to the Registrar's office, to try and convince the officials there that microfinance indeed is a development activity. I cannot believe that with so much of hype around the sector, I still have to convince people about it, that too to the government officials, whose work is to deal with development organisations, day in and day out.
Anyway, the first shock that awaited me (actually, I found it extremely amusing), was that my application had been rejected, on grounds that the organisation I wanted to start was going to be a 'professional' one. Can you beat that? They rejected it because they thought it was going to be professional. They want unprofessional organisations only here. Well......I could have understood had they said commercial, but 'professional'........Though it is very frustrating, I find it quite funny, but I am game for the fight.

P.S. - I tried talking to the 'high' official who had finally rejected my application, and he was downright rude to me. 'I have written whatever I had to say in the letter of rejection that I have given you. I do not have so much time to sit down and discuss this with you. If you have to say something, give my office a written reply to this, then we will see what can be done,' was what he told me. All this while he was sitting leisurely in his office and sipping chai and having sprouted chana from his tiffin box. As for the written reply, his secretary told me it was not worth it as he is never going to even read it, let alone take action. This when I had to juggle my plans so much to be in that place for that one day. When I had waited in his office in this summer heat without a fan for 4 hours to meet him. And this, to sacrifice a settled job to come and do something meaningful for the society. I guess that hardly makes a difference. These people have been given tremendous authority and they are rulers of their fiefdoms who can do anything within that and no one can challenge the, As public servants, they are not even supposed to be as much as polite to the public, who they consider to be unwanted intrusions in their 'busy' lives, busy with coming to office at 11 am and leaving at 5, and in between have endless rounds of tea, paan, gossip, telephone conversations with long lost friends and the like. If they sometimes do move some files, you can be rest assured that either there is a pull from some one in power higher than their own, or the power of the moolah.
So, if you are a professional, move over, they need no change, sorry, things need to move the way they have always done........inculcate some unprofessionalism, they will be happy to oblige you, just do not forget the green bucks.

Modern Day Motivational Quote

Apne boss ko maro maska itna, ki har assessment se pehale wo tumse khud poochhe,
Bata tere increment ke baare mein teri raza kya hai........

Priceless

Getting a piece of mind from the boss - 50 abuses, 2 hours of bitching
5 reports pending - A grouchy face, handful of hair torn
Reminders for pending reports - 5 curses for each reminder
Non approval of genuine travel claims - 1 sleepless night
Promotion/increment held up - 3 sleepless nights, 5 days of bitching
A poor performance appraisal - 2 days of sulking, 100 curses to the reviewer, 2 sleepless nights


Becoming the CEO and being able to do the same to your staff - Priceless

There are some things that an employee has to tolerate, to get everything else, become a CEO......

Attrition Blues

Any organisation I see today, is plagued by the problem of attrition among staff. However hard they try to retain their staff, the staff, especially the younger ones, move out to look for better opportunities. The funny thing in the microfinance sector is that, since the sector is so small, people move in circles in the same organisations. So, for example, if an employee from organisation A is leaving it to join organisation B, another employee from organisation B leaves it to join A. Both leave for better opportunities. Now, if an organisation is not good enough for one, how does it become better for another person?
And the timing of someone leaving the job is amazingly predictable. Going by trends, most people leave the organisation in a period of 10 - 14 months of joining it, and they do it every 10 - 14 months. This is soon starting to become the 'one year itch'. Looking at this phenomena, I once jokingly told my friends that our educational system is to blame for this. We move from one class to the next higher class every year, and if we do not, it means there is a failure. We have grown up with that psyche. So, even in the jobs, we try moving after a year. Does not make much sense, but the only reason I can see why people would be so desperate to leave their jobs after a one year stint.
Probably also the times we are living in plays a factor. So many options and choices for everything we do, so many television channels, so many entertainment options, our attention spans are getting lesser and lesser. We cannot focus on one channel in a TV for more than a few seconds. We get bored too soon and too often. We all need change more than the previous generations ever did. Also, the pace of life has gone so high, we burn out sooner. The pressure of work, untimely shifts and then equally exhausting and physically draining ways of partying, means we work and party in one year what the earlier generations would probably have done in three. So, we get bored of our jobs and need a change.
One more reason I see is that in these days, loyalty to an organisation pays much lower rewards than shifting continuously. You will see that you get your normal increments every year when you stick to one organisation, whereas when an offer is made, you negotiate and bargain a much better deal. Organisations also offer much higher packages and profiles to people who they are trying to poach from others than what they would pay to their own existing employees.
Times are changing.
In the earlier generations, people would join a job after college, and then retire from that job. This was pretty much the norm. At that time, it was strange for people to quit and switch jobs, sometimes even scandalous. Nowadays its just the opposite. Even when a person is perfectly happy with a job and is with a good organisation, it is common for his friends to ask him, so, how long do you plan to stick in this place, or, What? You are still with the same organisation? Its more than a year man, whats wrong? ..........
I have not added here the various other internal institutional factors that are there why people switch their jobs so frequently. There are many. But probably you all know all that already. Just though I will add on a few of my own points.

Should I Burn My Ships

I have always been fascinated with the stories surrounding Alexander the Great. One such story which I read somewhere long back, was quite interesting.
On one of his attacks on an island kingdom (I do not remember the name now), his troops were very tired, bruised and injured from the numerous battles they had fought and were also a little anxious because the island kingdom they were now attacking had a strong army and had never been conquered before by any army. The army of the kingdom was also much larger than Alexander's troops. In short, the odds were highly against Alexander's army to win the battle.
What did Alexander do? Once his troops landed on the island, he ordered his men to burn all the ships that they had come on. So, there was no way for them to go back or to run away if they lost the war or if their position was weak. It meant only one thing. They would either have to win the war or die.
What happened was that Alexander's army fought hard and with everything they had. They knew they had no other option than to win, if they did not they would die. Everytime they were weak, they came back with renewed energy to fight. The thought of having everything at stake and no going back, filled them with strength they had never known before. Very soon, the smaller army of Alexander had conquered the island kingdom's large army.
The story is quite inspirational. It shows how when someone has everything at stake and no options to go back to, they will give their everything and come up victorious. I loved it when I read it.
Today, when I take a new road, I am reminded of this story. There are a lot of challenges on the way and lots of self doubt. So if I put everything at stake, risk everything so that I have no option of going back, will it mean that I will be more hungry and desperate for success? Will it motivate me to keep going when the chips are down and when the going gets too tough to bear? Will it give me no other option than to never give up as I would have nowhere to go back to if I give up the fight and lose the battle?
So, should I put all I have at stake knowingly, as Alexander did, or keep some exit options open? Should I be prudent and not put all my eggs in one basket but save some resources for the time that I may fail? Will that not make failure more acceptable? But not doing it would make it much more risky and life much more unstable.
I do not know what to do. Someone advice. HELP......

The Lamest Excuse for Business Failure - II

I just cannot get out of the mode of thinking of excuses of why my business initiative will fail.
Why do I want to give up a job and a stable career to get into the unknown? There have to be solid reasons for the same, is it not, to keep me motivated and egging me on to success. Some of the reasons I could think of and why they will not be applicable to me are:
1. I really want to make a difference to the world and help the poor and make a difference in their lives. Now, why this motivation will not work, is that I always think, can I not do it even by working for some other social institution? How will it be different if I am working for myself? Does it not mean that I was not as motivated when I was working in my previous jobs?
2. To do things the way I want to do them, without any interference from anyone else. Now, why this will not work is, I am not that smart. I need instructions for everything, or else I make a mess.
3. To boost my ego, to be the CEO, to be called 'sir' and 'boss' - I feel uncomfortable anytime someone calls me like this. I am always going to be called by my first name, so that is never going to be an incentive. As for the position of CEO, the kind of person I am, does not really matter to me what designation I hold, as long as I am doing something meaningful.
4. To be one day remembered as a a Great, someone who created a great institution - While I have my doubts (that is what the article is all about anyways) of how great the institution will become, even if it does, I will not like to become a Great. I am a simple person who wants to lead a simple life, and do not want greatness thrust upon me (sounds wonderful to me, am I not talking as if people are trying to load me with greatness and I am refusing it.......high hopes!!!). I just do not see myself as a person who can give speeches, cut ribbons, be on boards, go to high profile parties....naah, this is scary, not a motivation or incentive, I am fine with my daal roti life.
5. To make loads of money - Two things here. One is that, as I already said, I am a simple person. I have simple needs and simple demands. I do not need lots of money. What will I do with that. So, it is hardly an incentive. Also, my venture is a social business, working for the poor, it will not make much money anyway.

So, with nothing to motivate me, no incentives, I am sure my business is going to fail. Why I am still doing it??? Even I have no idea.

P.S. - Actually why I want to do it is for all the reasons mentioned above. But except for the first point, I cannot admit the others publically no, so had to write all that crap. Even for the first point, if someone actually asks me whether I could not do it working for others, I would have no answers, so by saying it myself, I am not giving anyone the chance to ask and embarrass me.

Looking Out for Fools

A leading consultant once told me, when you start a business, you should not invest only your money in that, even if you have it. Remember the 3 F source of start up funding, family, friends and fools.
I remembered that well. Now that I am starting on my own microfinance venture, my family and friends have refused, so I am now on the lookout for fools.

Waise Ghalib ne kaha bhi hai ki duniya mein bewakoofon ki kami nahi hai, eik dhoondho hazaar milte hain.....

Anyone around????

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.....

Steve Jobs would be proud of me.
I am constantly hungry (as evident from my ever expanding waistline), and anyone who ever talks to me for a while ends up remarking how foolish I am.

Identity Crisis

"What do you do?"
This is the most difficult question that I need to answer.
Working in the microfinance sector, I find it very difficult to answer this question to people who are from outside the sector. Just telling them that you work in the development sector does not help. They want to know more. You say, I work in microfinance. Now, what is that? And then you start explaining. They do not understand, but nod their heads as if they do. After you have finished, they will end up asking something or making a comment which makes you realise that they got nothing of what you had said.
The other day, my landlord told me to help him out with his financial investments. I was happy to offer advise. But then he told me that this must be my daily routine explaining people financial investments. I was surprised. I said no, that is not what I do. My landlord was miffed and said that while taking the house you had told me that you work for a consultancy firm which worked in finance??? This is after I had explained to him in great details what I do while I was taking the house on rent.
The task is a little easier these days after Dr. Mohammad Yunus has won the Nobel Prize. You can just say that I do the same thing that he does. People would nod in agreement. Again, while Dr. Yunus' award has given a lot more visibility to the sector, it still is not understood by many people, and people just pretend that they know and do not ask more questions. It would show their ignorance otherwise that they do not even know about a nobel laureate.
Similar problems when you are to say which organisation you work for. It is easy to explain if you work for the TATAs, Birla's, Reliance, Infosys, Satyam, ICICI, SBI, HDFC. Even McKinsey and Goldman Sachs are now known names in India. But as soon as I said Friends of Women's World Banking, people would say, OHH, World Bank!!!! After that, however you explain them, they would understand it to be World Bank, or at best, some Indian wing of the same. And my current organisation, MicroSave, always becomes Microsoft. Sometimes, even Microwave........
I am suffering from a major identity crisis.......

Bureaucratic Tales

Microfinance has now been accepted as a proven tool for poverty alleviation. It has been found to be more effective then most other development initiatives that were grant driven and government sponsored. Even though this has become a globally accepted fact, somehow, the registrar of societies office of my state does not seem to understand this.

When I went with the required documents to register my microfinance institution as a society (society can be formed only for not for profit purposes, and is registered as an NGO), the registrar’s office told me I would have to make quite a few changes in my memorandum of association and bye laws to be able to register as an NGO. They had high objections to the terms used in the documents, like microfinance ‘business’ and charging of interest for meeting the organisation’s expenses. They asked me to have it changed. While I did not want to, I still made a few changes so that atleast the organisation could get registered.

After submitting the papers and while coming back, there was a phone call from the office saying that my organisation could not be registered as it was not for charitable purposes. Trying to convince him of the same was to no avail. For the next few days I tried my best to convince all officers in the office. I told them how this was a social activity, how it was a global phenomena and that the organisation, as a society, was not going to make any profits. The strange replies to all my arguments were many. In this state we do not give license to societies to carry out any activities of finance. I cited examples of other organisations in the same state doing the activity. The answer to that was equally funny. “Do you think that if we have made some mistakes in the past, we are going to keep making them?” They even told me to register my society in some other state, and carry out my activities in my own state, they would have no problems with that. Strange!

There was also this very strong point of theirs that if the society was charging interest to its clients, its not a charitable society. First I tried to explain them the concept of microfinance, which they did not buy. Then I told them that this was not an interest being charged, but service fee to meet the expenses of the organisation. They said no, you cannot even charge that, a society cannot earn even to meet its own expenses. I do not understand, do they want our social institutions always to be grant based? Do they want to keep the begging bowl always in our hands? What would the organisation do when the donors stop giving funds? With the amount of money that is required for microfinance, will grants suffice? Also, from the point of view of the poor, do we never want them to become clients rather than beneficiaries? Should we never let them hold their heads high and demand services but always ask them to beg for alms? I do not understand why these people do not get this simple point.

What is more frustrating is the fact that these are the people who are given the responsibility of registering the institutions for social activities. They are the ones who should know and understand all these nuances, should be sensitive and be up to date with all the development sector trends throughout the world. But they still live in their own cocoons, their authority over the people who try to do something for the poor making them high on power, which they have got addicted to and treat the place as their fiefdom.

In the meanwhile, I fight on against the bureaucracy and ignorance. I have a meeting with a senior official in the same office next week. Wish me luck.

To Be or Not to Be.........

When I first read and understood it, I loved it. This soliloquy of Hamlet, truly explores the depths of human feelings. Yet, after the idea of leaving a well settled job and getting into my own venture entered my mind, these lines make special meaning to me. Not that I am in any doubt that I want most definitely to do it, yet, the self doubts do crop up at times.

To be, or not to be (from Hamlet) – Shakespeare

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;

No more; and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation

Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;

To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long life;

For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,

The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscover'd country from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;

And thus the native hue of resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment

With this regard their currents turn awry,

And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!

The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons

Be all my sins remember'd.

Wonderful when in self doubt. Is it not much easier to have a settled career, not to risk losing anything because all the risk is of the owner and one can always get the next job. You can always follow instructions and get support and directions and do not need to stress yourself out with sleepless nights (okay, I know its not exactly so good and I have experience of that myself, but it is definitely much less in degree than that of an entrepreneur). Yet, you are dissatisfied and frustrated and want to be your own boss, even though there is so much of uncertainty and you do not know what is going to happen. Shakespeare was a sweetheart, a man for all occasions.

The Grass on the Other Side

The other day I was with a few of my colleagues, outside office, taking the what we call 'sutta' break. And what we were doing was routine stuff, bitching about our bosses. Somethings just do not change. I remember doing the same in my previous job. And I have seen other people in other offices doing the same whenever they get together to take a break. It is a kind of a stress buster that I guess all employees need. You will find everyone, right from the drivers to the security guards to the peons, right up to your COO, CFO, RM, GM, VP doing it, about their immediate bosses.
Then a thought stuck me suddenly. In a few days from now, I am going to start my own institution. And I will recruit people. And they will, in the same way that I am doing now, bitch about me in their 'sutta' breaks. Not a very comforting thought. Suddenly, my respect for my boss grew. But then I am sure, even my boss bitches about his bosses when he is sharing a beer with his mates.

The Lamest Excuse for Business Failure

Times sure are changing.
Sometime back, I decided I wanted to do my own stuff, to become an entrepreneur.
I had expected lots of thrill when i make this decision public. I was sure that, coming from a bengali middle class family, my parents would never let me do it. For those unfamiliar with bengali middle class values, let me tell you, unless you are good for nothing else, you never start a business and this is viewed to be highly insecure. People would rather marry their girls to a person who is in any service of any kind and of whatever value, rather than marrying him to a businessman. What was worse (as I had thought), I am the only child of my parents, so they do not have anyone else to realise their dreams through. Again, I plan to be a social entrepreneur, rather than a profit making high earning one, which makes it all the more undesirable, one was sure to think that you are good for nothing and must have surely been fired from your high paying, comfortable job to be doing something as crazy as this.

I was in for a surprise (and disappointment). My father was so happy he hugged me when he heard that I have decided to be on my own. "Not worth working so hard for others, with no time for yourself and your family. If you got to do it, do it for yourself. So, now that you have decided to do it, do it soon. Do not waste any more time." From then on, whenever I talked to him, he would repeatedly ask me to come back and start soon, even chide me for delaying my resignation. My mother was just plain happy that I will atleast be based at home, so she can cook for me and add to my already bulging waistline.
The whole thrill of fighting with the family, of tense moments and of heated arguements, of probably telling people at a later date when I am a successful entrepreneur that I had to fight all odds to start what you see today, to go against my family to reach where I am today, the thrill of proving others wrong, was gone in one stroke. 10 years from now, when CNN interviews me, what romantic stories of my struggle will I tell them?
So now I lack motivation. If my venture does not do well, remember it was because my parents were too supportive of it. Also remember that my first post on my first blog for my first venture, started out with an excuse to why it would fail.