How did Sridevi Raghavan catch the success train?

On the 8th of March CBS celebrated women’s day with Sridevi Raghavan, a young entrepreneur, the co-founder and CEO of Amelio Chid Care who shared with us her inspiring life story of how she got to where she is today. Sridevi came across as a young, confident woman who was highly knowledgeable. Her effortless way of addressing an audience was truly commendable. What she spoke was very relevant to our current situation. With the placement seasons going-on in full swing and all of us looking at different career options, Sridevi’s session was timed so perfect that it blew our minds.

Often we all face situations where we find it difficult to convince others of the dreams that we have. And it is even more difficult to make others see things from our perspective. Sridevi too faced a similar situation when after few years of marriage she decided to pursue her MBA, and not just any MBA… but an MBA from Harvard. Although her family and friends did not react too positively to this, she went on to pursue her dream. She went on to explain how important the MBA was to her and why she decided to do what she did. She says “you cannot expect anyone to empathize with you 100% not even your parents, lover, your partner why... not even your pet. But what you can do is ask for their support.” How very true! The knowledge that you have the support of the people that you love is so comforting and with this support we get the strength to face even the worst of our nightmares.

It’s very natural that we dream big and many a times land up bursting the bubble. So many questions come to our mind...like…how? when ? where? We immediately start planning things and we get unnecessarily worked up about the execution that we fail to convince ourselves about it. And it was at this point Sridevi’s husband told her not to get bogged down by all the unknowns and to start taking things as it comes. And today Sridevi says “if you have a dream... pursue it. Don’t worry about how you are going to do it… Plans keep changing but dreams do not. So be a dreamer.” Those were some powerful words of wisdom.

Sridevi’s experience at Harvard was truly an eye opener for many of us. Never again are we going to frown at our professors for giving us another HSB case to crack…not after we heard how it happens at Harvard. Some important take aways from her time at Harvard were

• Listen to your gut feel. It is important to give as much importance to intuition as we give to logically finding “The Right thing to do”

• Fear of making a mistake. One has to get over the fear of looking foolish. In the context of a Business school, Sridevi encouraged us to look at the school as a place where we can sound our ideas and experiment with our thoughts. Once out of B School, in a real time scenario one does not have the luxury to keep experimenting. A B-School gives you the right platform, support and guidance to share your thoughts. So one should make the best use of it.

Sridevi gave us first hand information on how to make our first move into the corporate world. Her speech gave us a feel as to what to expect in the real world. It left us with the feeling that each one of us could also achieve something by tapping the hidden potential in us. The pointers she left behind were those that no books teach you. A truly inspiring speech!

Contributed by Varsha Vasudevan, Marketing & Communications Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)

Slice out of life!

The occasion was spot on for one such electrifying guest lecture- Women’s day. And what’s more, we had one of the most energetic ladies sharing her lifetime experiences on how to dream big and achieve through sustained focus. Sridevi Ragavan, a graduate from HBS kept us captivated with insights into her path to entrepreneurial success. She is the founder of ‘Amelio’ child care centre, India’s first on-site childcare service provider.

“Never mix dreams and plans, the moment you confuse both, you tend to doubt your dreams”- how true! Plans keep changing but dreams don’t. Sounds simple, yet has a powerful realization. She spoke on how people muddle up plans and dreams, making it difficult to realize one’s dreams.

To recognize and enhance one’s uniqueness is the need of the hour. This is furthermore important considering the cut throat competition around. “Never expect others to empathize with your dream- ask for support though…” Yet again these words made a lot of sense to our entrepreneurial minds. “To be faced with problems early on is to be lucky,” she said. Simple liners though, but the message penetrated deep within.

She took us through her own planning exercises during the ‘Amelio’ set up times, also bringing out the challenges that came across then. She stressed on understanding the fact that different people come from different background and respecting the same will ensure a healthy win-win scenario. After all what’s fun in everyone doing the same work with similar thought processes? She looked at her own competition as a means to bring out innovation and called the competitor ‘A free consultant’ to trigger her to better ideas!

Passion for one’s work is as critical as one’s life. Draw energy from your work…Remove the ‘HOW’ element from your dream…all well communicated take aways, worth a million!

‘Women are far superior when it comes to work as they are more committed’ … “All the men out here are because of women, hence at least change one woman’s life and empower her” ….She was indeed a true representation of our country’s contemporary working woman. The 80 odd minutes of interaction with her was content rich and highly reinforcing. Bravo...hail her achievement!

Signing off with warm Women’s Day wishes!

Contributed by Balaji MS, HR Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)

Workshop on Creativity and Cross Culture

Red Green Blue color model (RGB) has connotation for an artist and people at large who use their sketches and brushes. But for strategies, meetings and organizations- RGB at work? Ah now…that’s got to be deciphered. Just as they say life is all about different hues, planning also involves tinges of shades. If creativity is considered a niche and a gifted paradigm, one may well need to self introspect. Ms Mrinalini from ‘Paper Clip’ termed it as a ‘Skill’ that can be honed. In fact we learnt ‘Six-Thinking Hats’, ‘Random Word’ and ‘Po’ tools among many to build on the ‘creative skill’ of an individual.

The basic purpose behind hats is to maintain discipline in thinking during meetings, and to bring every participant in page with one another. The facet of every individual hat was brought out with live case analysis. White symbolized facts while green stood for solution. Black provided the negative aspect, yellow the benefits and finally red for emotions. Blue hat manages the remaining five hats and ensures that discussions stay focused and the agenda is maintained.

The discussion then shifted to random word techniques where we were tested by relating to focus elements through any randomly chosen word. The whole exercise brought out the importance of staying focused to put one’s creative ideas to practice. Creativity as such does not fail; neither do the ideas behind it. But focus is one large piece of connection that needs to be intact for implementing creativity.

‘Po’ revolved on thinking beyond the obvious. It helped us realize how best a particular business can thrive under extreme conditions, if innovative solutions are sought dropping the ‘taken for granted’ element.

Cross cultural insights were provided through audio visuals and case discussions. In a world of global workforce, cultural diversity and ways of handling it tends to be the crucial part of any business. This was emphasized and shared through examples and specific scenarios posed to the HR students.

We enjoyed every exercise done to test the creativity tools. Scope of implementation is huge and almost present in every sphere of professional and personal life. HR folks have been tuned well to coherently think and use creativity tools to coordinate and facilitate discussions better. The session has left us with positive verve, much disciplined and focused than ever before!

Contributed by Balaji MS, HR Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)

‘Man Engagement Time’ (MET) – The Ashok Leyland Way

Employees need to be utilized cent percent. But what does this mean? Should he/she put down 8 hours of continuous work? In such a case who decides the man effort hours? Are the efforts sealed upfront or can they be revised? These were a few among many questions addressed by Mr. Akbar Khan, General Manager, Ashok Leyland.

It was one such thought provoking session that brought out the core area of manpower engagement which by books is minimum efforts (hours) that needs to be put in by every employee, agreeable by both management and the employee. For instance Ashok Leyland has an MET of 410 minutes a day jointly approved by the management and the union.

Mr. Akbar enunciated the importance of man engagement as a value addition, which when implemented aids in - gauging individual productivity, uniformity in work distribution, improved engagement with no idle time and no future bargaining on timings. He emphasized on needs for an objective and a transparent MET system. Though the system per se is negotiated and signed off between the management and the union, yet provisions for revisiting are included on legitimate grounds. This could be due to missed effort elements during MET computation.

The discussion also involved challenges around implementing such a system. A critical piece of any implementation would be change management, and Mr. Akbar highlighted the nitty-gritty of handling employees in such a cultural change. He stressed on the need for collective understanding while inducing such changes.

“HR among others will need to be the harbinger during such critical times”....A tremendous knowledge gain and indeed a fantastic experience and privilege for us to learn such useful HR techniques.

Special thanks to Mr. Akbar Khan!

Contributed by Balaji MS, HR Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)

An inspiring afternoon with Dr. Alo Ghosh

As we eagerly awaited the guest speaker for the day, our Chairman Mr. Mohan Menon walked-in with Dr. Alo Ghosh and his friend Mr. Bobby, an expert in the IT industry. Dr. Ghosh, a seasoned entrepreneurial CEO-CFO-COO, a private equity principal and business educationist has been a professor of finance at the Wharton Business School. He was full of enthusiasm to address us even after a jet lag, as he had reached India just the night before.

After a brief introduction about himself, Dr. Ghosh went on to explain the financial crisis that was the cause of the US recession. It was informative to have the narration of the events from someone who had a firsthand experience of the crisis. He explained the sub-prime crisis that triggered the financial crisis and the subsequent events which led to the down fall of Lehmann Brothers. He then went on to tell us how overleveraging, excessive derivatisation and securitization worsened the scenario for the mortgages and the sub-prime loans. Dr. Ghosh, who has diverse experience in international strategy, finance and technology, emphasised the importance of having a diversified portfolio. There were no stones left unturned- every aspect of the crisis was explained crisply and with clarity.

He then went on to enlighten us about the importance of communication, especially as managers. This according to him was a major factor that has put us Indians in the back seat. Even though we had the technical expertise, when it came to communicate the expertise to a client, Indians lagged behind. Our employability is also much lower than the international standards. A manager should possess excellent soft skills. This made him compliment finishing schools like Chennai Business School; he was quite impressed with our curriculum. Mr. Bobby, who has vast experience in the IT industry, emphasised on the same. He went on to give us some live examples which he had faced in his office due to lack of communication with his employees.

Students posed a pile of questions during the Q&A session- right from the status of the Dollar being the reserve currency, the debt crisis that is looming around on the Indian banks, the current investment scenario in India, to the renewable energy segment were discussed. As time was against us, our Chairman had to intervene and pose the last question. On behalf of the ladies in the class, he wanted Dr. Gosh to advice them whether investing in Gold would be a good idea. This made him share with us some lighter moments he had with his wife on the topic of gold and diamonds. Although the gold prices were rallying, one really needs to look at the fundamental factor of demand and supply. The current price levels have to correct themselves, but the prices are there to stay at high levels. His pick was platinum though.

Dr. Ghosh proved that even a complex situation as the US financial crisis could be well explained without complicated phrases and jargon. Simplicity was his hallmark, both in speech and looks. His speech was informative and enlightening. We are indeed lucky to have had him sharing his vast and in-depth experiences in the international markets.

Contributed by Benoy Paul, BFS Varsity, CBS Batch IV (2009-10)

The Hinduja Foundries visit- A HR perspective

Cylinder blocks, cases, metallurgical processes brought back memories of good old thermo and fluid mechanic days spent within engineering premises. This visit was a different ball game though, trying to understand humans rather than machines, and to manage ‘living’ assets of an organization, which by and large is a challenge in itself. The HR varsity’s visit to the Hinduja foundries could not have been timed better, considering the fact that we had just completed courses on Performance Management and Employee Relations. Retention of individuals was the most critical HR factor at the Hindujas, especially the shop floor employees. This factor hinged around recruitment options in the nearby vicinity, predominantly in and around a 30 km radius of the plant. Also, HR’s roles in employee benefits and welfare activities were emphasized upon. ‘Skill Matrix’ was a tool followed at the R&D department, and the engineers with the department shared vital inputs on mapping and bridging the gap by training. Training was either closed or open, based on requirements. HR training was imparted to both managers and executives. The concept of ‘Time Office’ was also discussed. Importance of safety among workmen was reiterated with HR’s critical role in creating awareness among workers. CSR and training camps outside the premises were some of the other initiatives of the HR department. The accident rate at the Hinduja foundries had come down from 20/month to 6/month- a testimony to increased safety emphasis within the plant. Appraisals were monthly, quarterly, half yearly or yearly depending on the role of the employee. Though there was no union as such at the Hinduja plant at Sriperumbudur, the other two plants at Ennore and Hyderabad had strong unions. Labor union interaction and negotiation patterns were discussed at length reiterating the importance of the ‘Factory Act’ for every IR professional. The importance of formulating new processes than continuing with outdated operations was highlighted. The plant visit from an Operations management perspective coupled with timely HR insights were indeed a huge take-away. At the end of it we certainly realized the nuances of the HR function in an industrial set up!

Contributed by Balaji MS, HR Varsity, CBS Batch-4 (2009-10)