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My next post will be – Can this Poor man handle his new Ferrari?

(Just a snippet, subscribe to this post by commenting on it)
I am getting frustrated every day when I travel on this poor man’s Ferrari. People say that he bought this Ferrari for really cheap from a Monk. The monk is also pretty famous as “The monk who sold his Ferrari”…..
This Ferrari is luxurious, amazing seats, glasses all over, big screens, amazing leg space, plug point for my laptop, table space between two seats, right curves and much more. I like it, it’s really cool ….. (wait for the post, right here)

(I too bought few ferraris and learned big lessons here)

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Meet the devil and Angel in one taxi – Win Clients

Purpose: Helping you retain your clients. You will retain if you are an angel, you will lose if you are devil. And there is no real devil or angel, you can either at the same time. Read on.

We generally have a perception that devils have little horns and angels have white feathered wings. I am also trying to get the same answers here.
thanks extraordinaryintelligence.com for image

I generally give this example to our sales team, account managers, project managers.

Real Story: It happened some 2 months back. I was traveling from our office to our client’s office in Salt Lake where we do SEO consultancy for large clients (Search Engine Optimization for better ranking). It is generally a 20 mins drive through Rajarhat road which is connected to the Airport. You generally get shuttles (people who are willing to give you a lift for a minimum amount). The rates in these routes are almost fixed. It generally costs me Rs xxx (I will reveal the exact amount after some time as the story is all about the exact amount).

I entered the taxi and was about to reach my destination, just before 2 stops, one fellow passenger asked the cabby to stop.

  • There the main character gets down.
  • He took a Rs 10 note and offered it to the cabby. Cabby said to the guy, kya yeha thak ka Rs 10 hai kya (Is the charge to this place Rs 10)?
  • Since I was the only guy there and the question was not directed to me, I did not say anything (as I am fed up playing the good guy role for last few months, nobody wants a good guy).
  • Cabby took 10 Rs, the guy goes and cabby starts again. 2 stops to my destination? Only I and Driver was left.
  • Will I be called an angel or devil? It will all depend on the next two stops.

thanks to superpimper.com for image

Devil: If the driver stops in between and asks anyone about the right price, he will come to know that it is Rs 15, not Rs 10. He will call me devil as I did not raise my voice for right (and also he is not aware that I am not going to cheat as I would be paying Rs 15 anyway). Even if I would have given Rs 15, he will always assume that I was to cheat but he caught me and thus I am paying Rs 15. I will remain a devil for him throughout.

Angel: Now if he doesn’t stop in between and when I get down, I hand over Rs 15 and tell him that the charge is Rs 15 not Rs 10, “Sir, please do charge Rs 15 now onwards”. He may consider me an angel as I did not cheat when I could have easily and also helped him learn from his mistakes.

Another scenario: Now if I would have raised the voice and said that the cost is Rs 15 at that time (when the other passenger was giving Rs 10), it would have created a tussle between me, cabby and the guy. It is cabby’s responsibility to know the right price (business rules: Know or learn from your mistakes) not my responsibility to correct the society.

Now my question is? Did I do anything right or wrong? I was silent till the last moment but still I could have been labeled a devil and an angel in one taxi. Whereas I travel daily as pure human being by paying the same amount.

I learned that being perceived right or wrong is also about timing. I work very honestly but if my boss only comes to my desk twice a day and finds me on my facebook, he is going to get me devil wrong. My dad visited our hotel only 5 time in 3 years span and surprisingly all five times all our roomies were sleeping including me (he came at different times too). He always feel that our friends don’t study they sleep throughout the day. He told many people :). Coming back to the point. Was I devil or angel?

Let’s take business communication. We have a client, Pune based, we worked really hard for him, we prepared a lot of documents for him and asked our team to arrange a meeting to discuss things. Since the project needs a push, client is also worried about our initiatives. Now if we mail the client first about the meeting, our efforts will be considered angel good but if he mails us first then all our efforts will be labeled “Worked under pressure”. The timing in communication does play a very important role. As in the same taxi, I was consider a devil and an angel based on 2 stops, similarly I will be considered an angel or a devil with this client based on who mails first.

There are perceptions and other things that contributes to a good vote or a bad vote but timing is also very crucial. As I mentioned in my facebook status that there is no good or bad life, only there are good and bad moments.

Moral of the story:

You can control a lot of develic and angelic work by playing right. Only God can judge people right without any additional information but people make judgment based on the information they collect (things they saw, heard, felt etc). A good person also needs to learn the art of sending right signals. You can watch all the daily Soaps that my wifey watches where a good person is always taken wrong based on what others saw (where as she was to do good). A good example that I remember, this soap star goes to prostitute hub to save her family and her fiance sees her and refuses to marry her considering her character to bad. Soaps will ultimately respect the good fellow but real life can be really painful. So better learn some art of sending right signals for good.

Spam part

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Internship in India

This is a mail we got in one of the OCC groups and I just copied shamelessly to answer in detail.

My purpose for this post is basically an open question to everyone. I
would like to know some of your thoughts/criticism/experiences/doubts/
questions/etc on the following question. There is an internship fair
to be held shortly in Mumbai, Pune, Kolkata, Ahmadabad and Bengaluru,
for which we need some inputs from you to make this a successful
event.

Q: As we all know there are many internship positions available in
various companies around the country, also that most of the intern
positions are filled by references or some connections.

– So what is that you as an individual, an employer or an employee
would want to change in the internship industry?
– What would according to you be the best way to hire worthy
candidates?
– What is that extra punch, that you would personally want to see
in \’Intern hiring\’?
– On what basis (parameters) should a candidate be alloted an
intern position?
– Do you think the companies should directly receive candidate\’s
application form, or should there be a filter who would vet the
candidates and match them to specific opening as per their abilities?

I request you to please share as much information as possible. it
would be really helpful for us really understand the missing links and
requirements of the internship industry. Once again, thank you very
much in advance for all the great responses you would send in.

Personally, I will like to have interaction with the candidate atleast 6 month before the internship or Ideally I will like an agency to contact us, understand our requirements, interview candidates, select candidates, we do the final round (atleast 6 months before the internship), then the agency should provide the materials to study for the internship and connect with us so that we can clear any doubts. After 6 months, the intern should enter with a purpose and gel with the team to do something that can benefit the company and himself/herself.

Our (AIMK MCA) internship was the best, we had internship in 3rd year (final year) first and second trimester, then one trimester was study and another trimester was off for either internal or external project. In this way a person who is interested to work with the company can even continue working for the whole last year without effective much of his study. I started like that, I left college after 2 years of MCA, I worked at Alumnus and then joined another company where I did my final project + final job. It was beneficial for all.

>> Do you think the companies should directly receive candidate\’s application form, or should there be a filter who would vet the candidates and match them to specific opening as per their abilities?
This completely depends of the company and the cost involved, since interns are not for long term, as a company we don\’t want to invest anything to get good interns … we just want to take few, try one stuff …. but in case if there is any intern that is interested for a long term with us, things can be completely different, we will like to have different layers of filters before they enter in ..

>> What is that extra punch, that you would personally want to see in \’Intern hiring\’?
We just worked with the IIM interns, they had their mentors (professors) guiding them, this is very much needed, we need mentors at both end, in company and in college.

>> – On what basis (parameters) should a candidate be alloted an intern position?
One interview + The CV (it shall go easy on them as the risk is less here for the companies)

>> – What would according to you be the best way to hire worthy candidates?
There is no best, there is one that suits us and there is another that suits others but in all cases we want good people to be in. I recently spent by 2 days with an intern, I got so upset as his basics were so poor (we did a bad hiring here), I think I shouted a little too much, he ran away, never came back again 🙂 … this time we were more careful, we hired amazingly good interns and they are doing really cool. Loved working with them so far. They have already worked on FB apps, Joomla, wordpress and few more architectures ….

Hope it answers to some extend. Thanks.

Best Regards,
Aji Issac

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Wearing mask will increase swine flu chances of spreading…

I got this email from a friend of mine, so thought of posting it here. Please do your learning to this thread and lets spread awareness. I see more and more people are scared of swine now, thanks to our media (esp Arnab of Times Now)

PLEASE GO THROUGH THIS

I agree with you that swine flu awareness is needed, but there is no need to be panicky and join the publicity propaganda carried out by media and others which acts as a vehicle to spread misconception than
to spread scientific information. These are few facts about swine flu when discussed with the leading
epidemiologists.

  1. Swine flu, that is H1N1 flu is not new, first detected in 1987
  2. Infective stage of flu is 5 days, 1 day before and 4 days after onset of symptoms
  3. The best way to prevent it spreading is asking patients having symptoms of flu like fever, cough and running nose to take rest at home for 4 days so he does not transmit it
  4. Masks are of limited value if any, in this disease, it can spread through droplets on your skin, through contact etc, and I have seen that the masks in Pune are worn as fashion statement, while walking on road today morning I saw people wearing masks coming out for a morning walk with their dogs!, many wearing masks around their necks, and so on, in fact these masks shall act as the vehicles to carry the virus, instead, avoiding crowded places or cinema halls or malls where air conditioners are on, is advisable, because you get recalculated air, where the virus density multiplies
  5. Death after H1N1 flu is not common, in fact infections like measles is taking toll of thousands more every year, and we are oblivious of the facts. Swine flu is being blown out of proportion by media trying to create hysteria among lay people.
  6. Fever accompanied by respiratory distress, should be immediately notified which is likely to be a complication of H1N1 flu
  7. The mortality is less than .01 percent of those affected, that means may be one in 10,000 affected is likely to suffer the life loss.
  8. If you remember, 2 years ago SARS was blown out of proportion, what happened? Humans develop immunity to the virus, the same is going to happen, we develop immunity in due course of time, the virus is in the air, you can not stop it, our body is already developing the immunity so nothing to panic.

We need to take care of children and elderly who have less immunity and do not let them go to crowded places that are all.

WE MUST START THIS CAMPAIGN OF NOT TO BE AFRAID OF THIS FLU AND LET YOUR DAILY WORK CONTINUE AS NORMAL, NO MASKS FOR ORDINARY CITIZENS, HEALTH CARE WORKERS OR SPECIFIC EXPOSED TO LOT OF CROWDED ENVIRONMENTS MAY BE BENEFITTED, NOT PROVEN.

I am amazed to hear that people are selling masks of RS 20 each which are available to less than Rupee 1 in the market. See who is getting benefitted?

Please spread the scientific info, do not join the band wagon and stick to science, that should be the order of the day.

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It was never between you and them

Working in a company, frustrated with baised world? Here is something to cheer you up?

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.
What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.
Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.
In the final analysis, it is between you and the global CEO. It was never between you and them anyway.

🙂 May God bless all of us to do Good. Life is not about what you get but about what you enjoy.

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Vikas Kedia – Vikasism, 11 lessons I learned from Vikas Kedia, My first CEO & mentor

Recently I got a tweet from Vikas and it took me back to 2003, when I was a student, dressing up for the corporate life and got the first job offer. I got the reference mail from Kolkata Linux Group, where he had posted a job requirement for his new venture. To cut the long story (Click here to read my Story) short, I joined and learned many Great Lessons. This post is a summary of what I learned from Vikas Kedia (CEO of InterNext Technologies Inc, my first boss, less of a boss and more of a mentor. We had different viewpoints at various points. Even we departed arguing :), looks like yesterday and brings the smile), I am going to call it the first 11 Vikasism.

Vikas Kedia - 11 Vikasism

11 lessons I learned from Vikas Kedia

  1. About dreams & stars: “You see things; and you say, ‘Why?’ But he dreamed things that never were; and He said, ‘Why not?'” …. His dreams were so big and so strong that his team could see it real all the time. He always talked big. He talked about Nasdaq when the bathrooms were smelling. You might find it crazy but his dreams always pushed him and his team for the extra mile. I used to dream about visiting NASDAQ too, I think it was too contagious 🙂 and too fun. Dreams are like stars…you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny. If InterNext Technologies Inc is something today then a lot of credit goes to his dreams (and I am sure he will take it to NASDAQ one day). He always said “You dream big and the rest of things will be added to you”. Even InterNext Technologies Inc’s website will reflect an image about dreams. I hope the new building will also have the boy looking up towards the star. DREAMS.
  2. Hard work has no substitute: There are so many people to criticize your hard working abilities, some will call you workaholics but I wish there was a substitute for this hard work for an Entrepreneur. He will work day and night to make a thing work. He will be on a call while traveling, he will be on call while shopping and almost all the time he will be available for work. We all are born with various limits but there are few who believes that “Life has no limitations, except the ones you make” and Vikas is one of them. His CV would reflect all the non-technical educational achievements but his technical knowledge and expertize is much above a professional techy. I often asked him, “Vikas, how did you expertize so many technical things”. He will always answer, “I tried, I failed, I retried till I understood”. His hard work made him a TRUE LEADER, whom people respect from their heart. I always respected him for all his hard work. I always prayer for his success as if anyone who deserves success then it is him as he has worked so hard for it. I met so many ex-colleagues, we all had our own complains but almost all admired Vikas for who he is and his hard work. I think a great achievement for anyone. HARD WORK!
  3. Impatient Early releases: He always pushed us for an early release. I was not a very big fan of releasing something too early (I still struggle with it but to lesser extent, we released our new design without even completing it). It certainly helps to release a bit early with some bugs. IMPATIENT.
  4. Best Infrastructure: He will change the computers, will have all of us use the dual monitors, will have the best infrastructure. Being a programmer, all I cared about was a pujama and computer (may be thats why people still call me pujama programmer) but he taught us how good infrastructure influences the company. You will always find InterNext Technologies Inc to be full of Gizmos, latest network cables, advance networking, best phones and so on. INFRASTRUCTURE CRAZY.
  5. Programming standards: I remember the days when I and Vikas were the only two programmers in the company, we will change the file and keep a copy of it with a note about the changes. Our codes will have all the includes. With Vikas, we have come a long long way with proper coding standards, version controlling with SVN, inline documentation (I LOVED IT THE MOST, I STILL FOLLOW). Our function names will be like FnGetSomeSleepAjiAsYouNeedToGetUpEarly($ArrayInputs). Alpha, beta, productio and multi layer backups. IP KVMS, over 50 servers and much to add to it. Architectures and a lot to write about it. He is great programmer too. He is really TECHY.
  6. Documentation: Documentation is like sex: when it is good, it is very, very good; and when it is bad, it is worse than nothing. He will create great documentations. All the technical team used his documentations to solve many FOP (frequently occurred problems). It helps to have something immediately accessible, … Getting documentation immediately available online is very appealing to a lot of people. At InterNext Technologies Inc we learned the art of documentation using Google docs. The credit goes to Vikas for pushing us towards Google docs. Documentation.
  7. Failure is OK: One of the biggest lessons we learned in InterNext Technologies Inc, Failure is ok. Infact we had plans to launch a campaigns for Indian B-Schools, where we wanted to teach about failure. “An inventor fails 999 times, and if he succeeds once, he’s in. He treats his failures simply as practice shots.” This is so true for an Inventor like Vikas. He tries too many things, he fails more often than anyone. I remember how he shifted the task system from gforge to google docs, then to google calenders, then to emails, then to …. He tried, he failed but he always knew the importance of these failures. Failure is OK, Inventor.
  8. Create products like Gods: He was a strong believer of products over services. He always wanted to create products that providing services to other companies. InterNext Technologies Inc would have been 5 times richer financially than today if Vikas had taken service path but his decision to stick to products helped us experience the magic of brands and products. I will always remember InterNext Technologies Inc for the innovations we did for our own products. Products.
  9. Converting quality to numbers: Our new company SEOforClients is fully running on it. We have implemented all over. Even the stock options are about converting work output in numbers to your stocks (may be a good HR innovation). Vikas was always in favor of putting quality and work into numbers. He always said, “If something is not Measurable then it is not manageable”. Measure-ability is manageability (and manageability is scalability and scalability is GOOD for business).
  10. Let the problem come, we will see it: Another great lesson for life. We used to worry a lot about future problems, the problem that don’t exist. The problems that will be encountered only if the products becomes successful. He always used to say, “Let the problem. These are welcome problems that comes with success”. Now I focus on the core product, launch it and when we hit the success we have enough resources to fix a lot of possible future problems.
  11. Learn it yourself, no spoon feeding There are occasions when you love spoon feeding. I remember an instance where I was asked to password protect a folder. It was late at night and I was about to leave. I had never done something like that before, so I asked Vikas. He asked me to Google and get the solution. I was disappointed but it made a rule to try yourself to the possible levels. Also in the process of password protecting a file, I learned a lot more about .htaccess. GOOD Mentor.

I guess I can write many more lessons that I have learned from Vikas. He once said, “Call someone sir only when they deserve it not because they are your seniors or your boss”.

Vikas Kedia in 11 words

DREAMS, HARD WORK, IMPATIENT, INFRASTRUCTURE CRAZY, TECHY, Documentation, Failure is OK (Inventor), Products, Measure-ability, Let the problem come, GOOD Mentor. (and a good human being, may God bless him with all success)

Summarizing Vikasism: Don’t listen to those who say, you taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don’t listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says. they all smarter than you out there. They’re more talented, they’re taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections. I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you’ll be a person worthy of your own respects (and others). Thank you Vikas SIR!

External links that talks about Vikas Kedia

Vikas Kedia
Rest at Wikipedia page on Vikas.

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Twisted answer – “Teacher” is the best job in the world

We were discussing about our jobs and one of us said “teacher” is the best job in the world (in terms of job satisfaction) as they limited responsibilities and many other reasons to count. So argued about having your own business is more satisfying. And of course, there was a group supporting IT sector, high profile branded job and so on …

I had been a librarian, a volunteer teacher (taught every sunday for almost 2 years), secretaries, programmer, researcher, team leader, marketing head, leader and a lot more full time jobs …. what I have seen is:

  1. I see that every sector offers space for innovation and improvements.
  2. I see that every sector offers great satisfaction of achievement when we achieve some targets and standards. In library, it was about how to make more and more people read books, in programming it was about the final display with no errors.
  3. and more …..

Now I am on discussion point on whether the job satisfaction is about job or person or both? I will say both, everyone will say both? But how much person and how much job then :)?

I get dissatisfied with my job when

  1. I don’t see money coming my way
  2. I see my boss is screwing himself and his company AND ME
  3. I see mistakes, I suggest improvements but still the politics hardly allows the change
  4. I see a mismatch with my expertise for long run (This is just not that very important), I am still open to become a travel guide and I will fit in my expertise there, or a cook … But when I have spent years into a line, i will like to milk it.
  5. The company is selling my blood for money … Some people are never happy with the quantity of work .. they demand more … I will SAY NOOOOOOOOOO to them right then … run company where we all earn our breads and the owner his cake.

I am in hurry so stopping here, whats your take on it?

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Sramana Mitra – Books & Some pages

Last Saturday I visited starmark and spent some good hours after some really long time. The only condition was “NO SPENDING AT ALL”. The days of Rs 5000 per month on books are over (Thanks to the companies that allowed me the luxury that time). Now my total income per month is less than Rs 5000 🙂 …. Things are good at my end, its good to work on some of the interesting things. Anyway, at starmark I stumbled upon Sramana Mitra’s books, I fell in love with it. I spent few hours and most of the time, I am going back to her book. I liked the true experiences of Entrepreneurs.

Since I am on a very strict budget (I even forgot my atm card number time as taking money out of ATM is a rare occasion these days), I ended up buying one book (Old habits don’t die easily), book on insurance (I bought it as it was written by someone whom I trust).

So issues, I will be buying her book soon :). For the time being one should not miss this page http://www.sramanamitra.com/entrepreneurship-case-studies/. Thanks for all your hard work in providing so much information for all of us. Thanks again.

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How to fire employees? Firing employee? Firing employees? THE GUIDE

These days every now and then we hear about a friend/colleague getting fired or a company laying off its employees. Then the blame game phase, where the employer will blame the employees and the employees will blame the employer.

Firing employees is not easy

For any sane minded company (you should work with sane minded company only) firing is one of the most difficult part. I had interacted with some of the people for whom firing is just a way to improve his business. If somebody is not performing ask him to leave, thats all. Some people are good at firing, I am not. I have always struggled with firing employees and I have learned my lessons too. Firing is awful for the person doing the casting out and, surely, for the person being fired. Still it is important to let people go at times. I was a part of many discussions where we were passing the ball to each other for the firing announcement. I was also a part of the team that got fired. So I have been on both the sides of firing table and felt the heat exact same on both sides.

Why employees get fired

Just 4 reasons:

  1. For breaking laws.
  2. Non performance
  3. Economical problems
  4. Strategy changes by the company

Employees getting fired for breaking laws:

Now even this can be further divided into 2:

  • Being unethical: This is when people steal or cheat or sell off some proprietary things. This is highly unaccepted. In this case one doesn’t need to think twice. Hear the person, give a good and fast trial and call the fire alarm. In such firings it is important to announce the reason for firing really loudly. I remember a case with a very high profile US based company that started its operation in India. A senior person, very high performing person, was fired from the company for bribing the government officials for a contract. Company did get the contract. In any other company the person might have got appreciated with incentives as bribing is taken as a accepted practice in some part of the world. BUT this company wanted to make sure that its people understand the value behind its integrity, so fired the person loudly. Every person in the company got a mail with the reasons and was asked not to take this route ever. So in such cases do shout loud enough after firing. This will also settle the dust of confusion among the employees. Leave no place for gossips or misinterpretation after firing.
  • Breaking of other company rules: There can be other breaking of rules like coming late, or being arrogant to the seniors etc. In such cases I haven’t seen much of firing as most of the firing had non-performance as the real reason and breaking of company rules only as the surface reasons. In such cases before firing the person you need to give the person atleast 3 to 4 chances. Provide training to the person, assign a mentor and delegate the firing process to the mentor. After 3 to 4 chances do let go the person with proper explanations. Also it is advisable to clear this process with other employees. I will also suggest to drop a common mail to the company explaining the reasons and the process for such firing.

Firing employees for non performance

This is a much debatable topic when it comes to firing because of non performance. I have only seen few occasions when the person has accepted that he/she wasn’t performing. In most of the cases both the parties will disagree on the non-performance status. I recently interacted with a person who got fired from one of my known companies. I know their management really well. So he asked me, “Why did so and so fired me, I was one of the most performing person in the team and they fired me for non-performing”. I inquired and found many more reasons behind his firing including some level of politics (You know what I mean). But overall this guy wasn’t clear on “WHY I WAS FIRED FOR NON-PERFORMANCE”. There were instances were people were getting fired for non-performance and I advocated and mentored them. To the surprise of many they became the pillars to the company. Also there were instances when non-performers did not improve and did cost to the company because of my intervention.

With non-performance based firing one need to be very careful and make sure that their is no foul play involved. As in one of my previous post it mentioned that “People leave company because of their manager“, so can be the case with firing. There are many cases where the firing happened because the manager was not happy with certain thing (which can not be counted as non-performance at all), or the manager was feeling threatened because of the junis talent and so on. So in case of non-performance, let the HR department define the non-performance clearly. THE KEY IS CANDID. You need to be open to the employees as in what you mean by non-performance since performance is estimated based on results and results are depended on team work. At many times the job profile may not be well defined leading to non performance. Different people have different attitude towards work, some are task oriented or well-defined job description oriented, so you need to define their roles very preciously to avoid non-performance. A scrutiny of non-performance may also lead to improvement in work and work-flow processes.

In case of non-performance firing make sure that it doesn’t come to the person as a surprise. Let there be a complete open and candid process for such firing. (Also take it as lesson for your hiring, generally a lot of initial stage non-performance firing happens because of bad hiring)

Mass Employee firing due to economical problems

This can be really sad when all of a sudden the client flow dies off and the company find itself in a financial crisis. Company does try to fight back but at times nothing work out. In such cases, it is very important to involve the whole of the company to understand the problem and fight back. Recently I visited a CEO of a growing company, he explained me how his company went through financial crisis and how his employees helped him come out of it. In that conversation he did mention that he was very open to the employees about the financial crisis faced by the company. He attended few meetings with the whole team and explained them the issues faced by the company. Then everybody worked extra, analyzed the problems and brought the company out of financial crisis. In all possible cases one need to be very candid with the people in concern.

Even when the CEO explains the issues to the next level it sometimes doesn’t flow down to the core people group. CEO of the company need to ensure that the next level is passing on the information with the same intensity. I have access to some of the top companies in India and I have seen how their CEO sends regular group emails, be it a happy moment or a sad one (but most of these companies are tech companies and every employee has access to emails).

Point of the matter is that employer needs to involve the employee in these situations. Such layoffs should not come as a surprise to anyone.

Employee firing due to strategy changes by the company

This was another reason that I have personally witnessed where the company decided to stop a particular department as they felt it is not the right direction for the company. Such decisions can come out of management meetings and can hit the team as a surprise. But even in these cases company need to discuss with the team about such a move. After all success is all about fine tuning. It is easy to destroy but very difficult to create one. When the company shares its observations with the team then there can be a mutual discussion and sometimes it can come bring huge profit out of such departments and products. Even when the company need to take such decisions, it needs to make sure that the team members are given enough time to explore new opportunities in life.

Do not just delegate firing to the HR department

At many layouts and firing the top management is not at all seen, it is taken care by the HR department. Delegating layoffs or firing to the HR department is not very much advisable. I used to get involved in firing representing the management. Also CEOs and other senior members do jump in at serious firing cases. It is very important to involve the immediate managers and team members in the firing process. In some cases i will also advice the involvement of management including the CEO.

Overall summary on How to fire employees

  1. Make sure employees know the exact reason why they are getting fired.
  2. Make sure it doesn’t come to them as a surprise.
  3. Make sure you hear different version of the story before taking a decision. Allow fair trail.
  4. Make sure you don’t delegate firing to HR department alone.
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I poop therefore, I am

Guy’s always mentions about “Eat like a bird and poop like an elephant (Birds eat upto half of their size and Elephants poop 150 pounds a day)”. he also said “I poop therefore, I am”. He was the Evangelist at Apple and was into sharing a lot of things.

I poop therefore, I am

It is so important to give away for free. Many of us are too busy in “creating things like God” and “working like slaves” or even “demanding like Kings” but hardly have time to Poop (sharing it away for free).

I remember a Bible quotes (Ecc 11:1-3),

“Cast thy bread upon the running waters: for after a long time thou shalt find it again. Give a portion to seven, and also to eight: for thou knowest not what evil shall be upon the earth. If the clouds be full, they will pour out rain upon the earth. If the tree fall to the south, or to the north, in what place soever it shall fall, there shall it be.”

How true it is! People are not interested in free giving aways but are very interested in getting free give aways. Before giving we calculate the return whereas when we do what is needed the return does come. From my personal experience, Pooping is very useful for your career too (Long term).

Reasons why Pooping (Sharing for free) is useful

  1. Whom you know is more important than what you know: Pooping allowed me connect to a lot of like minded friends. Pooping allowed me to chat with industry experts. I got in touch with them when I pooped (sometimes free blog advices, sometimes free work etc) and we are still in touch.
  2. Pooping reflects what I ate: Only when I poop people will come to know what I am eating (or what I ate).
  3. It does bring gift too: Because of the free help that I provided I have got many many gifts. I got free memberships worth $150 per quarter, ppts of the latest seminars in US, great information and access to tools.
  4. It builds trust and customer: I got my first customer through a friend of mine who used to ask me questions on a web forum with different name. Because of your writing people can know more about you and trust you and your work.
  5. It makes you better: Only when you speak and share you are criticized and improved. There were many occasions when people have corrected my concepts. Even one of my earlier SEO mentor came in my life because of Pooping.
  6. Written pooping allows you to focus on new things: Blogs have saved me so much time. I write it once and then I forward the links for similar queries or trainings.
  7. Written pooping allows others to recommend you: A good blog of yourself do encourage others to recommend you to others.
  8. I poop there, I am: I pooped in an interview, took around 30 mins class so that the person can understand some important concepts. After few years the same person has brought me clients. He accompanies the person to our home.

So do poop freely and enjoy the best gift called LIFE.