Q&A Arindam Chaudhuri, Management Guru

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ECONOMIST, professor, writer Arindam Chaudhuri, 40, has concluded his selfhelp series on management. Sitting cosily in a brilliant blue office smacking of success, Prof. Chaudhuri talks to Janani Ganesan about his latest book Cult that he has co-authored with A Sandeep, strategic management professor at IIPM

Excerpts From An Interview

What is Cult about?
It is for the CEOs. Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch was the first book on management. Thorns to Competition was the second one for mid-level managers. Cult completes the tool kit. I call it leadership and business strategy ruthlessly redefined. At this level, goody-goody things don’t work.

So if one reads all the three books, are they likely to become successful leaders?
I wrote believing that people will benefit. Not to fool them.

The cover page of Cult reads: “Fire the guy who suggests CSR, don’t have a woman CEO, and don’t invest in R&D”. Could you explain this?
We have redefined 36 key issues that CEOs have to face. Women can be good CEOs, but research shows that announ cing a woman CEO has led to 664 percent more stock market price erosion than announcing a male CEO. This book is from a shareholder’s wealth maximisation perspective. It has nothing to do with what I personally think. Women do better in targetled roles. But at a CEO level, it is open-ended. It is not a nine-to-five job and women have many other responsibilities. As for CSR, many companies worldwide have started dumping it. It erodes profits and shareholders’ wealth. Do CSR only for publicity. It is the government’s job to do good for the society. What a businessman can do is create more jobs. As for R&D, companies that invest the most in R&D get the least returns.

So why do management books sell like hot cakes?
Because there are a lot of individuals who feel like they haven’t achieved much.

People don’t like to be preached to. What is the tone that you adopt in your books?
I use a lot of examples. I don’t say anything directly.

Is there any Indian author that you like?
Indians don’t write. Only semi-successful people write books. A multibillionaire never does, nor does he allow anybody else to write on him.

Have you read Suhel Seth’s Get To The Top?
No.

How did you manage to write at this pace? Thorns to Competition came out just three months ago.
I have been writing these books for a few years now. I write books simultaneously.

What is your take on India’s FDI policy?
It is inevitable. India chose the FDI route. There are countries which did not go this route, like South Korea. Twenty years ago, we had a choice. We could have decided to make Indian products world class and then open up the market. But now, let’s capture the Indian market first and beat Wal-Mart at their game. Once someone pointed out that in the Forbes list of billionaires, there are many Indians, but in the Fortune list of 100 top brands, there is not one Indian brand. He asked me, “How do you guys become billionaires without making brands?” Nincompoops have become billionaires here, and if Wal- Mart beats them, I will be happy. Indian companies don’t understand marketing or branding. They only understand bribing.

You are a fan of Ernesto Che Guevara, but you still embrace the corporate life and promote it. Isn’t there a clash?
Corporations are ruling our lives, and I am a part of that. While my previous book explains how to survive in the corporate jungle, it also says that we need to be aware that we are forced to function as irrational beings.

Janani Ganesan is a Trainee Correspondent with Tehelka.
janani@tehelka.com

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Fashion or nudity?

A new fashion trend ends up offending Chavakkad elderly

The youth perceive it as a new trend in fashion, the oldies find it to be offensive and vulgar. Sometimes this happens with certain new fashion trends. And it happens all across the world and not only in India. But it's also true that sometimes some people's perception– which forms the basis of their appreciation or opposition to a certain trend– verges on the ludicrous.

Some elderly people in Chavakkad in Thrissur district of Kerala are objecting to youngsters wearing low-rise jeans that exposes their undergarments. This, they think, is obscenity.

As anyone would know, low-rise jeans is a rage worldwide these days and youngsters are wearing them as the latest fashion statement. But for conservative people of Chavakkad this fashion trend is tantamount to obscenity.

Even the local police think so. So they took the complaints very seriously and started hunting for the 'crazy' adolescents. It should be kept in mind that Thrissur is often hailed as Kerala’s cultural capital. And the famous Guruvayoor Srikrishna temple is just stone’s throw away from Chavakkad. Although the low-rise jeans trend has been around for a few years now, youngsters in Chavakkad have only adopted it recently. When the trend spread, the public, especially women and school authorities, declared it a public nuisance and complained to the police.

“Women, school authorities and general public have filed so many complaints against this trend. Youths wear ultra low-rise jeans and do not tuck-in their shirts, which are usually short. So while boarding a bus or holding on to the overhead railing, their inner wear is exposed. This amounts to indecency,” says Chavakkad SI Abdul Muneer.

Having received many such complaints, the police swung into action and started looking for boys and girls wearing low-rise jeans. Although most of the boys were let off lightly after a warning, the police detained a few and imposed a fine of Rs100 on each of them. On the first day, more than 50 persons were fined while they were hanging around bus stops.

Police say that most of the “fanatically fashionable” youth are not very well educated and most of them come from low-income families.

Shylan, famous young poet and author of three books has different views on the issue though. “Fashion is youth’s right. It changes from time to time. Low-rise jeans is not a Chavakkad fashion only. It is an international trend which is followed in most parts of Kerala. Youths of northern Kerala are fashionable too irrespective of their income or social status. We see more men’s shops in Malappuram and Kozhikode districts than in other parts of the state.

“Although these districts are backward in education and economy in comparisons with certain other districts like Ernakulam, they spend more money on fashion. It is desirable to see these trends as mere fashion. So, we should refrain from taking it as an anti-social or immoral gesture,” he puts forth.

Paradigm Shifts Gay Rights: Happy and Gay days ahead…

"Thorns to Competition" amongst the top 10 best sellers of the week.

The Delhi High Court’s revision of Section 377 was one of the strongest portents of progressive India. Deepak Kashyap, Masters in Psychology from Bristol University and practicing counselor for homosexuals in Mumbai, explains how the law has helped to make the world a better place to live in.

Being a psychologist by profession, I’ve seen how the new ruling changed the lives of homosexuals. Now, many gays come out and seek help. Previously, there weren’t very many who would do so despite facing various forms of hostility. Besides, we as counselors or psychologists could not reach out to them either, because the law did not permit us to do so. So, the High Court’s decision has unquestionably been beneficial to this community.

On the question whether or not the law has helped change the mindset of people, I would say not, since I have been involved with gay rights for years, and I still don’t see much change there. However, this is not to deny the fact that our society is beginning to accept homosexuals. Taking my personal experience into account, I had always been open about the fact that I’m gay; years ago, gays were only seen as fancy items where people would give us that unusual stare, but now I see that it’s much more easy and comfortable to be a part of this society. I’d also add that it takes a long, long while for an existing culture to change. Complete acceptance of homosexuality would require a culture change, which will take time.

The level of acceptance also varies from city to city. For example, in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, and Pune etc people are a lot more open minded and have a higher level of acceptance. The other cities would take roughly 10-15 more years to accept the law and accept homosexuals as normal beings.

On the future of gay rights, the legal issues are still pending at the Supreme Court. I wouldn’t be able to tell exactly why it’s taking so long, but here are some leads. The last time this case was brought forth, there were 16 organisations challenging the High Court’s decision. And out of those sixteen, 99 per cent were religious organisations. It’s very strange actually; before the government came in, there was religion owning our bodies and before that there were the kings owning our bodies. The question is whether my body belongs to the state, to the religious heads or to myself. My body belongs to me and I have the right to express my bodily desires the way I want to unless I’m hurting someone. I’m pretty sure that the Supreme Court will decide in favour of legalising homosexuality. We have a constitution which guarantees dignity to every citizen and the same must be our right too. There will very soon be a time when homosexuals will stay comfortably along with everyone in the society, not only in some cities but in all parts of our country.

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De-Educate the Children: How countries distort facts in their school textbooks

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Recently, a leading media house reported that even after four long decades since the 1971 Indo-Pak war, schools in Pakistan (for grades 9 and 10) still continue to teach their students conspiracy theories involving India, Russia and US, misrepresenting their role in creating Bangladesh, at the same time ignoring the issues related to Pakistan Army's violence (rapes and murder against the Mukti Bahini and the genocide of Bengalis) on people in the erstwhile East Pakistan. Apparently, the topic of "role of Hindu teachers" in the fall of East Pakistan is also covered.

This practice of using controversial and politically motivated syllabi is not only confined to Pakistan, but is rampant across the globe. As recent as in May 2010, students of Texas schools were being taught “how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.” Those schools also were deliberately ensuring that icons like Thomas Jefferson and their contributions were not included in the teachings. For the uninitiated, Jefferson was the first one to talk about the separation of church from the State. Even Japan draws up a similar tale. Government approved Japanese history secondary school textbooks do not mention anything about the deeds of the Empire of Japan during WWII. As per a Japanese textbook, “Japan liberated South East Asia from its western colonists when invaded during Second World War.” South Koreans have protested such statements in the past.
Likewise, four years back, the Texas based Vedic Foundation and the American 'Hindu Education Foundation' filed a complaint to California's Curriculum Commission about sixth grade history textbooks alleging that the portrayal of Indian history and Hinduism in the books was biased against Hinduism itself. The foundation demanded that the portrayal be revised according to the views of Hinduism and Indian history shared by most Hindus and Indians.

On the contrary, the action taken by a Saudi-funded Islamic school is an example for other nations to replicate. Three years back, a Saudi-funded Islamic school removed controversial passages from school textbooks, which allegedly branded other faiths as being "worthless".
History text books have been the most sought-after battleground. From distorting facts in order to give a better image of their nation and sidelining their brutality over people to tweaking the history for either degrading or upgrading a special class of society, education in modern era is being used as a tool for inducing customised perception among pupils.
However, with Internet, social networking sites and other knowledge portals, it’s really tough for these curriculum designers to hide the truth for long. Distortion of historical facts, done either deliberately or out of ignorance, results in adverse effects on society. If Germans were not to teach happenings in the Nazi era, Americans the Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Brits their atrocities in India, their own populace would not attain the intellectual maturity required for global interactions and leadership.

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