Quotes

These are some of the quotes that are different from the run-of-mill variety that we come across everyday. They are quotes on LOGIC/DATA ANALYSIS/KNOWLEDGE etc, quite relevant. Read it from many Sherlock Homes stories that i have read over a period of time. Excellent work by Sir Doyle.

• His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge.




• It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.
• You know a conjurer gets no credit when once he has explained his trick; and if I show you too much of my method of working, you will come to the conclusion that I am a very ordinary individual after all.
• What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence," returned my companion, bitterly. "The question is, what can you make people believe that you have done?
• I never guess. It is a shocking habit — destructive to the logical faculty.
• I never make exceptions. An exception disproves the rule.
• How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
• It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.
• Life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent.
• "Data! Data! Data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay."
• Education never ends Watson. It is a series of lessons with the greatest for the last.
• We must look for consistency. Where there is a want of it we must suspect deception.

The boiling frog

Slow change in organisations and even in personal life are more easily absorbed than sudden changes which are resisted. An interesting metaphor to explain.

If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
—Version of the story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of Boiling Frog

Myopia and Amnesia

Myopia and Amnesia are two problems that plague leaders worlwide.

Workers

This is dedicated for professionals who work their guts out to make sure that their bosses get hefty pay hikes and bonusses. I read it in class X and found it apt in professional set-ups.

जो पुल बनायेंगे वोह इतिहास में पीछे ही रह जायेंगे,
पार हो जाएँगी सेना, विजयी होंगे राम, मारे जायेंगे रावण,
जो पुल बनायेंगे वोह इतिहास में बन्दर कहलायेंगे.

Meetings

Questions and Answers

Just when i think i have answers to life's questions, the bloody questions change.

Performance Appraisals

In March every year comes that part of the financial year when everyone either gets appraised or is doing a performance appraisal. This is one time of the year when everyone from your boss to his boss has to conduct what they find least pleasing. Nevertheless, being a necessary evil, everyone has his or her own style of performance appraisals. I have myself been appraised by very good and pathetic bosses during the course of my banking career and have thought of some things that one must keep in mind while carrying out an appraisal.

Time-This is probably the only time of the year when someone reporting to you has a chance to voice his or her own opinion about various things in the organization/department. It is important that rather than your tongue doing overtime, the appraisee talks more. Listen to him/her; cajole him/her to speak out. If the appraisee agrees with what you are saying then either you or your department is perfect or they don’t have confidence in you to speak out. Since the former is an illusion, the latter is true in most cases. Ultimately, it is your failure as a boss.

Importance- It needs to be made very clear to each and everyone that the Performance appraisal is not a form filling exercise and that you mean business.


Direction- The performance appraisal is also a time when you give/get directions for the next year. It is important that the appraiser is very forthright and clear in what is required from the appraisee in the coming future. While change is certain, broad guidelines will remain the same. A performance appraisal is not a fault finding exercise and should not be treated as one.

Objectivity-Try and remove any element of subjectivity from the entire exercise, the more objective a performance appraisal is, more meaningful and less painful it becomes. While it may not be possible to remove all subjectivity from the process, it always helps if you are ready with numbers, both as an appraisee and as an appraiser. Even in case of soft skills, be ready with e-mails etc to make it clear of the guidelines given by you at times/alarms raised by you at times. Try and remove your likes and dislikes about the person as much as possible in the process. While this may sound clichéd, however the more it is adhered to, the better is the appraisal process.

Rating: In most of the cases in my professional career, the final word in the appraisal exercise is not the last one. Words like ‘moderation’ ‘bell-curve’ exist in every organization. While it may not be possible to give exact ratings for fear of embarrassment in front of the appraisee at a later date, you need to broadly tell and update the appraisee of where he or she stands. If you have reasonable amount of intellect, this is not a very difficult thing to do.

Finally, this is the time the poor guy after working his guts out throughout the year has been waiting for, it is important that he is reasonably satisfied at the outcome of the process. It is not humanly possible to satisfy everyone at the same time, if you are rational and objective; in most of the cases the objective is achieved. Finally a boss is only as good as his team; the converse is not true, if you need to run your business for the next year as well, try not to de-motivate the poor chap to death but to encourage him to do better.

The Financial Year-2008-2009 in retrospect

Today the financial year 2008-2009 comes to an end. This was the most difficult year at least in my banking career and resulted in a lot of changes both positive and not so positive both in personal and professional lives of bankers across. I try and recollect some of the things that happened in this financial year.

• Recession became the key word to be used in every party/meeting/discussion.
  Most of the professionals became experts in the macro economics of not just the country but globally.
• People reconciled to the fact that they will not get increments and bonus, no one cribbed when the banks/companies declared that they will not pay anything this year, owing to the recession. Everyone, on the contrary was happy that they are still on the company role.
  The hardest impact came when no mutual fund gave diaries/calendars on Diwali and New Year and no-one even asked them.
• Husbands and boyfriends saved a lot of money claiming to be victims of the global recession.
• The household savings increased as the fear of job-cuts loomed large.
• Men started spending more quality time at home, there was nothing to watch on CNBC and going out was expensive. Fights over the remote were less and women-folk were happy to watch their choices on TV.
• Ladies had to sharpen the culinary skills, not used for years now, as the family dinners at posh restaurants came down sharply.
• Suddenly every ‘sale’ mattered. Everyone wanted to buy things in one sale or the other. No one wanted to miss this great opportunity to save money. A weird example of company offers ‘buy one-get three free’ ‘buy two get 3 free’ etc.
• Even pubs and bars have been having strange schemes to encourage recession drinking.
• Business became even more difficult. Third party became zero and bottom lines were hit heavily.
• Good old banking that had Current and Savings accounts suddenly became popular. Something that made every seasoned banker happy. Bankers became less of equity brokers but unfortunately became more of Life Insurance sales guys since that was the only source of quick revenue.
• Everyone just started wondering who is next, more rumours circulated the market than even before.
• People who were working in the wrong industry were shown the way-out by their bosses. This will in turn help them in finding their calling in life.
• Indian banking system came out to be better and more robust than banking sytems of the so called advanced nations of the world.
• Business news channels and the technical and fundamental analysts who apparently were the only people other than god almighty to know how the stock market shall move made a fool of themselves and were last found looking for alternate professions.
• Suddenly loans and credit cards were out and usage of debit cards increased. Credit card companies that were reckless in issuance of cards to every Amar, Akbar and Anthony showed some restraint.
• Suddenly everyone was hit by recession, if you were not crying about it, people concluded that you definitely had a clandestine source of income. Even my presswala was hit by recession and started asking for advance more often.
• Real Estate prices saw a correction and what a correction it was, suddenly the broker turned builders were on the verge of collapse and the neighborhood broker who in wake of 5 years started traveling in Mercedes from Maruti was cut down to size. Properties in a godforsaken part of NCR that was selling at atrociously high prices was somewhat regularized. The great Indian real estate tamasha seemed to end.
  
  Thus ended this financial year that caused more pain and suffering in the financial world than any that we have seen in the recent past. It had its own gains and in the longer run will result in settling down of the economies of the world, made people more financially responsible and for an economy on the path of development, will be helpful in the longer run.
  
  Good bye 2008-2009

A salute to George W Bush

Like the entire planet i was watching the swearing-in ceremony of Barack Obama and couldnt help but notice one of my favorite global leaders Mr. George W Bush being escorted to the chopper that would take him to his ranch in Texas. The man who shaped the history of not just people from his own country but of many nations across the globe for the worse, was all smiles, sat in the chopper with his wife, smiled, waived and left leaving his imprints in the history of the modern world.
A truly great man as is explained from some great quotes and photographs below. I salute the great man.


"Tribal sovereignty means that; it's sovereign. I mean, you're a -- you've been given sovereignty, and you're viewed as a sovereign entity. And therefore the relationship between the federal government and tribes is one between sovereign entities." --Washington, D.C., Aug. 6, 2004

"You know, one of the hardest parts of my job is to connect Iraq to the war on terror." --interview with CBS News' Katie Couric, Sept. 6, 2006

"I'm the commander -- see, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being president." --as quoted in Bob Woodward's Bush at War

"I would say the best moment of all was when I caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in my lake." --on his best moment in office, interview with the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, May 7, 2006

"I wish you'd have given me this written question ahead of time so I could plan for it...I'm sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with answer, but it hadn't yet...I don't want to sound like I have made no mistakes. I'm confident I have. I just haven't -- you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I'm not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one." --after being asked to name the biggest mistake he had made, Washington, D.C., April 3, 2004

"The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." --Washington, D.C., Sept. 13, 2001

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority." --Washington, D.C., March 13, 2002

"We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories ... And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." --Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere!" --joking about his administration's failure to find WMDs in Iraq as he narrated a comic slideshow during the Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Washington, D.C., March 24, 2004

"And so, General, I want to thank you for your service. And I appreciate the fact that you really snatched defeat out of the jaws of those who are trying to defeat us in Iraq." --to Army Gen. Ray Odierno, Washington, D.C., March 3, 2008

"We're kicking ass." --President Bush, on the security situation in Iraq, to Australian Deputy Prime Minister Mark Vaile

And now some memorable photographs of the truly great man.