Indian managers and caste system

This analogy came to my mind three weeks ago when our manager from US came to visit us. We were having a knowledge sharing session with our manager, when suddenly he was posed with this question, "We see that Indian managers are more of 'people managers' whereas managers in US manage a team and still contribute to the team output and are also experts in their field. Any particular reason for this difference?" Hmm ... our US guy gave a politically correct answer that he was supposed to give :)

The fact that Indian managers are pretty much slackers can't be denied. But why are they like the way they are? Not all are slackers, well if you are really lucky, then you may work under an manager who epitomizes the "guru" that our Upanishads talk about. But our culture is influenced by the mirage that "Life without hard work is what one should aim for". Is it an artifact of our age caste system is the real question?

If we try to understand the caste system in the modern organization then, the CEO and the top management would be Kshatriyas,  the HRs and the so called middle managers would be Brahmins, the Marketing/sales team would be Vaishyas and the oppressed operations team which is the only productive unit of the organization would be the Shudras. The Shudras have dreams about changing their caste, but in the long run very few of them are successful in doing that.

Nowadays there are MBA shops that promise to change one's caste to a better one so many people try that too. So in the end, everyone wants to be a HR Professional, a middle manager or even better, a CEO.

Well let us look at the western culture. According to Max Weber, the success of capitalism or English imperialism is related to a highly specific series of ethical norms grounded in the Calvinistic traditions of honesty, hard work, and integrity. I am not agreeing to this but if we look at what they did in India was just taking advantage of the greed and laziness of Indian rulers.

Hence, managers in the west are programmed to work even after they achieved what they set out for, whereas Indian managers are programmed to escape work even after reaching the highest form of achievement that they set out for.

Go Kiss the World - Review

As an avid reader I am sometimes scared that I might get stuck to a particular genre, so recently I picked up this book, guessing that the author might have shared some business cases or just his professional experience. As I reached the second page I realized that this is an autobiography. And after the first few pages, I just couldnt wait to finish this amazing book. Its so great that I am picking the right books recently, because I am such a moody reader. Sometimes I am in a political novel mood, sometimes just world war 2  reading mood and sometimes just a chick lit mood!

Before picking this book, I didn't know that Subrato Bagchi is the founder of Mindtree. As I begun reading, I couldnt help but appreaciate his fluid narrative and the fact that he had such an open mind about things. And interestingly one of his wisdom nugget was "Open your mind before you open your mouth". The last book I read, which was as amazing as this was "India Unbound" by Gurucharan Das. The best part about both these authors is how they recount their stories modestly and Bagchi took another step of even sharing learnings out of his experiences.

I have read many philosophical books by western authors, who go back to recite their favorite verses from Bible. Finally, I got an Indian author who recited a couple of verses from Upanishads! I am not really a religious person as such, but felt proud about this!

Finally my favorite lines from the book "Most people covet good jobs, great postings, higher salaries than their friends and a rather elusive elixir called job satisfaction. Conceding that all these are legitimate desires for every professional, I would, however, trade all of that for the opportunity to work for a great boss"

Hunger Games - Review

Its been a while since I read the first book "Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins. My only dilemma was to watch the movie too and then write the review or critique the movie seperately. Between that time, I was so curious as to what would happen in the second book "Catching Fire". So I just completed the second part today and I must say that though there are some moments where the author let me down on her page turner trilogy, but on the whole, these are a set of amazing novels. I am yet to catch hold of the third one.

To begin with, this maybe the third or fouth young adult novel that I read but this definitely falls under the chick lit section that I am so fond of!!! :) . Well let me get on with the plot now. So the novel is set at a time, after the natural disasters, where only a part of North America is inhabitated (How obvious...). There are only thirteen districts remaining, where life is difficult for all except the one called "Capitol", which colonizes the rest of the districts. Every year Capitol conducts hunger games where participants from each districts are pitted against each other and the last man standing wins. The story is narrated by the protagonist -Katniss Everdeen. So its obvious that she participates in the games and wins it. How? is what the novel is about.
One of the things that amazes me is "How does a seventeen year old girl hunt and kill rabbits, squirrels, eat raw eggs?" To survive yes ... but still its hard to imagine. The lane where I live is an unfortunate one, having halal shops at both the ends. So I can hear an occasional cry of a hen, when I am eating pani puri and on the other side when I am buying fruits... And my heart does go out for their pain, each time. Ya, well I have a weak heart, but  if I am put in the same condition where I need to hunt to survive, can I do it?

The author has characterized Katniss brilliantly, and far far better than what you see in those stupid teen vampire crap (Yes I am talking about Twilight. Thank God I did not read it because I saw the movie first :P.) And again she left the end of the first novel hanging with a climax, which makes you get hold of the second book immediately. But I must say that the second book is very slow in the beginning, and takes some time till Katniss get back to the arena. Yup she participtes again. This is where I think the author could have done better . Catching fire too ends without an ending where the author tries to tempt you towards the third book immediately. But I guess I will take a break here. Enough of eating oysters from their shells and roasting rodents for supper. I will watch the Hunger Games movie now and maybe even wait for "Catching Fire" to release in 2013.