What do you look for in a job?

Rate the following factors in a scale of 1 to 10

1) Fixed pay
2) Performance based pay
3) Benefits
4) Flexibility (in timings, taking time off, weekends)
5) Challenging work
6) Opportunities to pick up new skills
7) Training
8) Leadership opportunities
9) Opportunities to travel
10) Boss
11) Colleagues
12) Office, infrastructure, and overall workplace environment


If there any other important factors, please contribute.

All people working for an organization should have a blueprint of their ideal job and work environment, and should work towards creating the same.

P/PC - Dynamic approach

"One type of balance, as described by Dr. Stephen Covey in his book ‘‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People,” is the balance of production with production capability, or the ‘‘P⁄PC” balance. This P⁄PC balance is essentially the right amount of
(a) getting ready to do something (that is, working on your ability to produce) with
(b) actually doing it (that is, actually producing something).
The story that Covey tells to illustrate this point is Aesop’s fable of the goose that laid the golden eggs. A man had the good fortune to possess a goose that laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though the man was, he soon began to think he was not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, he decided to kill it to secure the entire store of precious metal at once. But when he cut it open he found it was just like any other goose. Thus, he neither got rich all at once, as he had hoped, nor enjoyed any longer the daily addition to his wealth."

from http://www.dcmilitary.com/stories/090706/tester_20060907002.shtml



Most businesses focus on P while ignoring PC. This is why they grow quickly in the beginning by reaching the numbers in the plan, but once they reach a certain stage, saturate and are unable to grow further. This is because they produce golden eggs without taking care of the goose, which dies a premature death.

The value of a business is the sum of its P and its PC. P is easily measurable by parameters such as annual revenues, profits, number of employees on the rolls, number of branch offices etc.

PC involves value of intangibles such as brand identity, customer satisfaction and loyalty, goodwill, competitive advantage and barriers to entry, processes, knowledge and know-how, trade secrets and quality of people.

In the early stages, a startup should focus on building PC, even at the expense of short term P. Once the startup has a certain level of PC, P can be generated, maintained, and expanded with ease.

Scaling up

One of the biggest challenges for a startup, after surviving for a year or so is to scale up. The challenges associated with running a small business on your own are quite different from the challenges of scaling up. When we talk of scaling up in a services company, the following are to be considered

1) Increasing the number of clients - business development
2) Expanding the scope of services to existing clients and getting repeat business
3) Getting in place a strong management team
4) Recruiting the right people and training them
5) Delivering consistently while maintaining standards of quality and turnaround times
6) Upgrading infrastructure
7) Improving visibility and brand recognition
8) Developing a strategy for competitive advantage
9) Increasing reach and expanding to various geographical locations
10) Generating sufficient revenues and/or funds to fuel growth

These encompass sales & marketing, PR, HR, Finance, strategy and execution, hence 3) Getting in place a strong management team is very critical.

High Performance Entrepreneur

Yesterday i attended a TiE networking event with Subroto Bagchi, Co-Founder of MindTree Consulting. He showed a video featuring high performance entrepreneurs V.G. Siddhartha (Cafe Coffee Day), Captain Gopinath (Air Deccan), and Kiran Mazumdar Shaw (Biocon).A point Subroto was trying to make was that these people stood apart from others because they had a vision of a future that did not exist when they started out. They looked at a bigger picture rather than just one cool product or gizmo. Once they had their focus on the bigger picture, the pieces begin to fall in place. In the video Kiran says 'I've been lucky, but one thing that always helps is to be prepared." Gopinath says ' In hindsight, its easy for people to say that something will not work, but i never thought along those lines, i always focused on how to do it, how to help every Indian fly". Siddhartha says " Initially my friends said that why would Indians pay 25 bucks for a cup of coffee when they can get it for Rs 5 at a Darshinis", so his business model wasn't the most obvious at that time, though today we take it for granted that coffee is an experience (not just a drink) that we are willing to spend on. Kiran's message was 'if i can do it, everyone can'. I think that Kiran's story is one of determination. She wanted to make a mark in her career, and when she couldn't find a job as brewer, she didn't let her efforts end there due to temporary failure or setbacks. She went on to create a career for herself that she could not have through a job, because such a job did not exist at that time. She has created jobs for many, and she is a huge inspiration for entrepreneurs and woman entrepreneurs in particular.

In his presentation, Subroto talked about the attributes of a high-performance entrepreneur, of which he said that what was most important is "Love for money." This is a quality that Donald Trump calls 'Wealth motivation", which i will discuss in another post. Subroto says that unless you want to make lots and lots of money, you won't become a high performance entrepreneur. This concept doesn't contradict social entrepreneurship according to Rostow Ravanan (CFO MindTree), because even to contribute to society, you need to make money. With limited financial resources, it is difficult to even make a considerable impact on society through entrepreneurship.

Subroto says that while building a team, do not go by familiarity or personal comfort, but by proven competence. Friends rarely disagree (e.g., to drink beer or not, which movie to see) and when they do, they do not handle conflict well. It is important to understand that it is OK to disagree when you have complementary team. Also, he stresses on ability to multi-task, shared vision and transparency.

Other points Subroto makes are to focus on completing the business plan (once you have a strong business plan, raising funds will not be difficult), get a CFO who looks at finance as strategy (not just a bookkeeper), invest in an accounting package, get processes and systems in place early on, raise money ahead of time, and report accounts to investors on time.

Also, he spoke about choosing your customers wisely, not just on short term monetary gains, but to choose customers who will enrich you intellectually. Also to choose investors not just on 'non-interference' but choose those who will question and guide you. Finally, as an attitude, he says we should focus on feeding opportunities, not just on solving problems. The only way to combat problems is to stay ahead of them.

7 Habits of highly effective people

I've been reading Stephen Covey's book. The first habit is to be proactive. We just cannot stress how very important this habit is. Without this habit, the others cannot be cultivated. It is the most essential habit to be effective. Various issues that concern us are placed in the Circle of concern, and those of which we have some control over are placed in the Circle of Influence. By focusing on what we have control over and not on what we do not, we gradually expand our circle of influence. Proactivity leads to increased control and influence. Proactive people as a rule are much more effective than reactive people, who tend to worry and crib, while choosing to neglect what they can and should be doing.

Proactivity is an essential aspect my own personal values, as well as those of my organization, Meta Yage IP Strategy Consulting. We do whatever we can to add value to our clients to the best of our abilities. We do not focus on limitations and instead focus on our client's business objectives and how we can help achieve them. Where we reach a roadblock, we seek help and from a network of experts to get over limitations. By taking a proactive approach, we shall gradually be in a position of influence in the Intellectual Property space.