'OUTLIERS: The Story of Success' by MALCOLM GLADWELL

'Outliers' - truly an outlier among scores of books on successful people. Success is the output of a complex web of social, cultural factors and personal characteristics coming together at a desirable time. That is the message of the book. It is not a discouragement for those working day in day out to acheive something big, rather it is an eye opener for them to look at things other than hard-work. It gives an idea on who among the lot is going to make it to the end and why so, through candid elucidation of real life examples.

We have heard of stories of talented players in a game failing to make it big, while it has been a dream come true for many others from a similar background. Hardly we would have thought that something like a player's date of birth would decide if he will be a champ or an underdog. Date of birth is no magic, it has nothing to do with talent neither it has anything to do in sports at a national or international level. However, how old are you in comparison with your fellow team-mates when you played the game for the first time matters a lot. Surprising? Read on...

Its common to see age categorizations among younger people in sports. Like we have under-18, under-16, under-14 teams playing against each other. These classifications are done based on specific cut off dates for date of birth. Players who fall behind the cut off date for a particular age group level in a sport, fall into the next lower level. Among kids, being older by 10 to 12 months makes quite a difference. Say for example, in a match among boys under-14, the boys with age closest to 14 have relatively better physical and mental maturity than boys 13 year old.Those older boys who failed to make it to the next higher level by a matter of days are more likely to perform better than their younger counterparts and hence, more likely favoured to move forward in their careers. This goes on and on like a snow ball until the day comes when the advantaged guys make it to the national league while their younger team mates from the under-14 group sit on the arena watching them play. The above example has been supported in the book with data on date of birth of Canada National Hockey League players with reference to the cut off date adopted by the league to promote talent from a young age.

A famous Indian media personality, was once asked how he made it big in a very short time. He said that he has been preparing himself for so long and when an opportunity came by, he just had to grab it. It never asked if he is prepared. 'The Outliers' narrates the story of several successful men who had almost similar experiences. Like, Bill Gates who had more than 10000 hours of computer programming under his belt already even when the personal computer revolution was beginning to happen. All he had to do is to make use of the opoortunity. He was one among the few who were ready for a ride and the flight just came in time. The book also talks about the culture and society in which one is brought up.

The social and cultural factors discussed are inherent in their own sense in everyone of us, but have been ignored or looked upon all the time. Like the characteristics of shepherds in the early American settlements, rice growing farmers in China among several others. The author goes on to explain how traces of such factors are evident in people even today in the way they work and react in the soceity. The existence of a power-distance factor in societies is also discussed. Power-distance is a typical cultural factor that gives an idea about rigidness of hierarchy, respect for seniors etc. For instance, its not uncommon to see American kids address their teachers by name. While in Asia, elders are addressed with a sense of fear and respect. Its not uncommon to find the usage of 'sir' on any elder person in India, let alone teachers and professors. It might not be right to judge the power-distance factor as good or bad. However, it becomes important to be taken into account while choosing people from different cultures for specific jobs. Some jobs, like the first officers in air planes assisting the captain have to be assertive at times when the captain seems to be wrong. The knowledge of social and cultural factors that are embedded in people will facilitate differential training as the job necessiates.

I have always had a good feeling when I read books that threw light on things that were always there but ignored all the time. Outliers was no exception.

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay

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An excellent piece of work that descends on you as a shower of enlightenment. When this book was recommended to me, I felt a bit offended. I dont have a problem with my life, I believed. Still, I started reading it as it talked about something that I dont agree with. Chapter after chapter as I progressed, a sense of realization transcended upon me. Never before, a book felt so relevant to myself.

Primarily the books creats an impression that you are the power that created you. Everything that happens to you is chosen by you yourselves. Quite a theory it is. I have made sense out of it considering life as an co-existence of oneself and everything else that constitutes the universe. For things to work out in a better way, either or both of the constituents of your life must change. The easier it is to bring about changes in yourself than expecting the universe to change. The author however, takes her stand to the point that says you choose your parents before birth. It makes very little sense literally but a lot of sense otherwise. It gives one a strong reason to move on from all resentments over parents. This is just one little aspect of the content. Having also authored "Heal Your Body", Louise goes in detail on the power of mind to heal ailments and disorders with examples from her own life. A lot of light has been thrown on self approval, self denial, power of the mind to attract money and love.

To train the mind in a desired way, making affirmations to oneself everyday is suggested. Some parts of the book feel so real that I felt as if it was being narrated from my own life. It was a good exercise in itself to go through the book as I got a chance to retrospect my behaviour towards others and vice versa. It worked wonders for me when I followed the book to forgive past and let go a lot of hard feelings. I also realised the importance of loving myself and being thankful to all that made me. Its a must read if you wish to move forward in live and improve on your people skills, love life, finances.

The book is published in India by Full Circle, New Delhi at a MRP of Rs. 295/-.

State Vs Market

The famous 'State Vs Market' debate continues to haunt me. The for and against arguments have been doing rounds from times unknown to us. An admirer of theoretical communism, I believe that state must not take its hands completely off business any day. The argument had tilted in favor of free-market from the 90s with the collapse of Soviet Union and its inspired followers. However, current global recession has exposed the failure of market economy to effectively balance economic development with sustainable growth. Free-market at its best suggests short-term gains are inevitable for long-term growth. But, repeated market failures keep reminding us that ideal economic well-being cannot be built on greed and competition.

State ownership, on the other hand has rusted most of the economies that adopted it. A classy example is India. I had been to a branch of the State Bank of India to make payment for an exam. I was in time, it was just the last day to pay the fee. After an hour and half in the queue, the cashier refused to accept the payment. He told me he 'does not want' to accept it because he beleived that last minute work is wrong and he had already turned back a dozen people like me the same day. Shocked was I, as you are. He had the guts to say that on a day following a 2-day work strike by bank employees demanding pay-hike. I went to the manager just to be pointed back to the cashier. It took me another 45 mins to convince him to accept payment. Rust as I said are these people with no accountability whatsoever to anybody. I did not really know how to react to the above incident. Banks were nationalised to make credit available to everybody and it seemed I had to pay the price for it.

We are living witnesses to the immense growth our nation is seeing post LPG. Still, I keep asking myselves if this growth is sustainable. Sometimes it feels that we are effectively creating a whole nation of people with questionable values and identities. Serious is the issue as is my allegation. Leadership elected on promises of freebies shall not be interested in building an ideal nation with rational values. In the same way, market economy cannot deliver in the long-term when its objectives are set on clear motives of short-term profits.

Businesses must operate within a broader frame of regulations set by the state. The frame work for a regulated economy must be weaved carefully. Checks and balances must be in place to make sure the market operates freely and fairly. Advocates of Laissez-faire must be guaranteed action against state through a system of accountability if unwarranted intervention happens. We were a nation that did not do away with capitalists even while embracing socialist ideals for growth in 1947. We also ought to show the world a new economic system with a free-market working toward a welfare state.

Private B-school Business: Better Returns than Gambling and Dacoity

[Also see 'The United Nations - Quick facts']

I came across an interesting report titled "Jobless graduate sues college" on 'The Hindu' today. The very moment, I knew its gonna be in the USA. Well, wishing all the very best to the gutful girl who did that, its high time that we do something for us here as well. The HRD minister seems to have progressive ideas. The spirit with which the Right to Education bill was passed is commendable. But, its surprising that the plight of thousands of students affected badly by the unregulated private b-schools has not caught his attention yet. These institutes typically offering PG diplomas in management on the lines of the IIMs enjoy autonomy in framing their own curriculum. On the first face it seems that autonomy is good and it is going to be used to keep management education up-to-date. But the idea has grossly mis-fired. It has been used for nothing but only to create more and more useless courses with slightly different names. It has also given the institutes a free hand to employ anybody to teach the students, without any regard to qualifications.

Every year, at least a few lakh students take the CAT, XAT, MAT and other exams. Well, thanks to the media hysteria about the pay packages that a couple of IIM grads get every year. As a matter of fact, there are only 7 IIMs and around two thousand seats in them. The plight of all others wanting to mint up millions by just completing a PGDM is very sad indeed. Here comes to play scores of private institutions, many of them run by reputed business houses and political bigwigs. With least concern to quality whatsoever, most of these institutes also manage to get an AICTE approval. And thats the end of it. The fees they charge is whopping, thanks to the Govt. of India's initiatives to provide security-free education loans for higher education. They donot offer a masters degree, so there is no UGC in the picture, infact there is no existing authority that could question their practices or the fees charged. Students join them in the only hope that the lakhs they pay could be taken back through gainful placements, while the b-schools run on the only hope that "There is no legal resort if placements are not done or if not satisfactory".

The mill keeps running, the business of management education runs freely and grows steadily generating thousands of PGDM pass outs every year mostly under-employed in sales jobs. Many of these institutes have also the support of rankings published by business magazines by their side and it just makes things worse. Thousands of pass outs of the institutes that figured in the "top-10 private B-schools" in magazines, earn a meagre Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 15,000 per month selling Insurance policies to strangers. Being bitten by this venemous snake, the few who can afford further doctoral studies are unable to proceed with it since, PGDM does not qualify as a masters degree in reputed universities. I wish, like all other victims of B-school syndrome that the govt. realise its role of being responsible for the plight of its citizens and come for our rescue.