I Bought The Monk's Ferrari

by Ravi Subramanian

  Ten

  * * *

  Value Time

  The erstwhile American President, John F Kennedy once narrated an interesting story about the French Marshal Lyautey:

  The great French Marshall Lyautey once asked his gardener to plant a tree. The gardener objected that the tree was slow growing and would not reach maturity for hundred years. The Marshall replied, "In that case, there is no time to lose; plant it this afternoon!"

  This brings us to the scarcest and the most wasted commodity in this world—TIME. Time is invaluable, be it yours or others. Most people care little about this precious resource, procrastinate and leave everything for the last minute. I read a very interesting statement somewhere, a few days back. It said, 'Had it not been for the eleventh hour, most of the things in the world would be left incomplete'. How true!

  To get all there is out of living, we must employ

  our time wisely, never being in too much of a

  hurry to stop and sip life, but never losing our

  sense of the enormous value of a minute.

  ANONYMOUS

  Think as to what would happen if the last minute disappeared from your schedule. Look back to all the activities you did last week and see for yourself. Knock off the final minute from the activities you did the last week. The result is, almost everything is left unfinished, because you left everything for the eleventh hour. The obvious consequence is that your effectiveness suffers.

  I remember a meeting I attended once. It was chaired by the new retail bank head of HSBC, Rajnish Bahl. The meeting was attended by all his direct reports. Rajnish had taken over, only a few weeks ago, and, therefore, there was a fair bit of suspense about the agenda for this meeting. We walked into the conference room, wondering what lay in store. HSBC's Indian business was to be hit by an audit in a fortnight, and everyone predicted that Rajnish would speak about it.

  The meeting began on time; in fact, all meetings at HSBC begin on time. Punctuality is one aspect of doing business which I learnt at HSBC. Rajnish walked in and spoke to the team for over thirty minutes on his vision for the business and the shape he would like it to assume. This was the first time he was addressing the team and everyone was listening intently. Everybody was curious. Why was this meeting called? And, the answer came within the next five minutes.

  'Friends, now that I've outlined my dream of the retail banking business for this bank; it's time to put some numbers on the table. We need to draw up a plan now which will become our bible for the next five years. All you business heads need to put your minds together and come up with the plan of your business for the next five years.' He then paused, partly for the effect and partly to gauge the reaction of the crowd. There was a flurry of activity in the room. Everyone looked at each other, a few papers crossed hands, and worried looks appeared on some faces. The confident ones looked at Rajnish and smiled. 'Yes, we should go for this exercise.'

  'Okay,' continued Rajnish, 'we need to draw up a strategic five-year plan for all our businesses. Once that's done, we need to agree on an action plan and follow it. We must ensure that whatever is put in the strategic plan is achieved. Do you think we should be doing this at all?'

  Everybody nodded.

  'Sanjay will work with all of you on this. When do you think we can complete this exercise?'

  There was a silence in the room.

  'How much time do you require?'

  Finally, someone spoke up, 'Rajnish, we have a group audit hitting us in the next two weeks. We all will be tied up with that. We can do this once the audit is over ... say, within a month.'

  'Audit starts in fifteen days, it'll go on for another fifteen days and a month post that... that makes it sixty days ... two months?'

  'Yes, Rajnish.'

  Rajnish shook his head in despair. 'Not good enough.'

  'We can possibly do it fifteen days post the audit, that's forty-five days from now. However, let's not distract ourselves from the audit preparation,' someone spoke up. Rajnish was still shaking his head. He looked at Sanjay and grinned. What did he want? None of them knew. All they knew was that he was their new boss and a demanding one, at that. 'How does five days sound?' Rajnish asked.

  'Rajnish, five days after audit is tough, but I guess we can finish it in about ten days after audit, if we do some preparatory work now and during the audit.' Another of his subordinates was out to please him. He looked at the others and smiled, his chest swelled up a few inches, thrilled that he was about to strike a deal.

  'I am referring to five days from today!' That was a bombshell. There was a pin-drop silence in the room. Everyone turned their eyes towards Rajnish. What the heck! Had he lost it? Five days for drawing up a strategic plan for the next five years. Five days ... ONLY!!

  'Rajnish ... audit ... we have to prepare ...'

  'Team, none of you'd be directly involved in the audit. Your teams will be working on it. But that's not the reason why I'm giving you five days to complete the plan. Even if I give you sixty days to complete this, work will happen only on the last five days, from the fifty-fifth day to the sixtieth day. If you're anyway going to work on the plan only for five days, why wait for fifty-five days to begin. Let's start today and be done with it in the next five days. Gentlemen, this is non-negotiable. I've intimated to Sanjay what my expectations are from each of your businesses and he will coordinate with you. We will meet again on Saturday morning at 8.30 a.m. in the same room ... with the five-year strategic plan.' And he walked out leaving no room for any discussion, leaving behind ten helpless souls wondering what had hit them. What happened after that was nothing short of a miracle. In the next five days the five-year strategic plan was delivered and even the audit preparations did not suffer. The organisation cleared the audit with flying colours.

  If work can be prioritised and time managed effectively, everything is bound to fall on schedule. People who realise this are the ones who climb the ladder of success, and they do this quite fast because they value their time.

  In the end, when Rajnish asked for prioritisation of the activity in question, despite people asking for sixty days, it got done in five days flat. Now, think of what you can achieve if you start doing this on your own.

  If Rajnish had not prioritised and let the plan take its own course, audit would have come and gone in thirty days. Work on putting the strategic plan documents together, would have begun after the audit and it would have stretched for another thirty days, during which everything else would have come to a standstill. By doing what he did, Rajnish not only hastened the audit preparation by cutting on the available time but also saved thirty days post audit which were put to use for other productive work. He saved time not only for himself, but also for his team.

  If you want to own the Ferrari, would you not want time to drive it around the town? What is the point in acquiring the Ferrari if it is parked in the garage all the time? You need to manage your time in such a manner that you get time to drive the Ferrari and show it to the world, as well.

  There is an age-old proverb: Work expands itself to completely fill in the available time.

  This speaks of poor time management by most people. And unfortunately, it is true. I read about a world class organisation which had over five thousand employees. It worked six days a week. A regular 'Voice of Employee' survey showed that employees believed that they were extremely stretched and had no time for themselves and their families—in other words, no 'work-life' balance. It was so serious that the management decided that they needed to shift to a five-day week. This would give the employees a two day break.

  As a result, the organisation lost a day every week. But the CEO took a very interesting call. He said that for the next three months, the organisation would not hire anyone to supplement capacity, but would do it after three months, if required. It was expected that people would work longer hours for five days to take care of the loss of one working day. The CEO then started keeping records of the 'in' and 'out' timings of e
veryone without them knowing that they were being timed. An interesting finding emerged. There was no change whatsoever, in the time that people came in or left for home. The ones who were used to leaving at 6.30 p.m., left at the same time as before, the ones who stayed till 8.30 p.m. every day, stayed till 8.30 p.m. even now. Surprisingly, there was no drop in productivity of employees in these three months. The performance of the organisation, too, remained the same as before.

  What does this indicate? The same employees, who cribbed about 'work-life' balance and work overload, now completed the same work that they took six days to finish, in five days. How could they, unless, earlier, they were wasting their time and not using it effectively, when they worked for six days? Alternately, if they could finish all their work in five days, why should they need to complain of excessive work when they were working for six days?

  There was only one difference. Everyone started managing their time productively when they had to finish their work in five days. In the six-day scenario, work expanded to fill in the available time.

  Managing time effectively can have a dramatic impact on your professional, social and personal lives. You would have definitely attended meetings with the senior management of your organisation? Have you ever been late for these meetings? Never, of course. Primarily, because you did not want your career and reputation to be at stake. Have you ever thought why this happens? Is this because senior management is extremely busy and does not have time to wait? The answer is a big NO. The correct answer to this question, however, is that people who are more successful and have risen up the career-graph and have achieved something in life, value their own time and even yours. They do not appreciate their schedules going haywire because of a delay by someone else. Have you seen successful people live their lives through their calendars? They manage their time and meetings and tasks efficiently. If it is important, they jot it down on their calendar. If it does not find a mention there, it implies it is not important enough.

  I am sure many of you have been to renowned doctors. They see fewer patients than their counterparts in government hospitals. However, the former category is very stringent about their clients keeping their appointments and coming in on time, whereas the latter does not care. Not only do they manage their time well, they also ensure that they meet you at the given time—remember the concept of valuing other's time as well. That is the reason why you begin to value and respect them, apart from competence, of course. That is how they become important, grow in their respective professions and become the rightful claimants of the Ferrari.

  COMMANDMENT FIVE

  Value your own time and that of the others, and be rest assured that the Ferrari will come to you.

  Eleven

  * * *

  Strive for Perfection

  Anusha, my daughter of seven, as any other girl of her age, loves to splash about in water and play in the pool with friends for hours. However, since she is yet to perfect her swimming skills, she remains within the baby pool. Whenever she feels like swimming in the larger pool, I pad up her arms with inflated floaters and she moves from one end of the pool to the other and back, beating furiously in the water, the floaters ensuring that she does not drown.

  A few months back, she was to go on an excursion to a farmhouse in Lonavala. When my wife went to drop her off to the school bus, she got to know from the other parents that the farmhouse had a large pool and the school was organising a game of water polo, too. Worried, Dharini turned towards Anusha, 'Promise me, you'll not jump into the water.'

  The fool doth think he is wise, but the

  wise man knows himself to be a fool.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  'Why amma?' Anusha returned an innocent question.

  'What do you mean ... why? What if the pool is deep?'

  'Don't worry, amma. I know how to swim, I'll manage,' and she ran away to play with her other friends leaving Dharini in a state of shock.

  What Dharini did after that was not at all surprising to me. She dragged Anusha away from there, put her in the car and returned home. Some of the teachers' phone numbers were retrieved and calls were made requesting Anusha to be excused from the trip. Anusha, as expected, was devastated. She cried the whole day. It took her four days to recover completely. Her friends at school kept telling her about all the fun they had and all that Anusha had missed, and this made her even more depressed.

  However, if you ask me, Dharini did the right thing by bundling her in the car and bringing her back home. This prompts me to ask the question—why did Dharini do what she did? The answer is pretty simple. Anusha was extremely confident that she could manage herself in the pool because she knew swimming. The truth was, however, completely different. Anusha did not know how to swim. She had never entered the deeper end of a pool without wearing floaters to keep her afloat. She was in a position worse than someone who did not know how to swim and was aware that he could not swim. At least that person would ensure that he stays away from water. But this little devil, would have happily jumped into the deeper end of the pool, without realising the consequences. Dharini did not want to take any chance and pulled her back home.

  The incident clearly shows that you take the first step towards doomsday if you think you are perfect, when you actually are not. Imagine, what would happen if Anusha had jumped into the deep end of the pool! The same thing will happen to you if you take on an activity or a task without enhancing your skills of delivering them. You will never be successful in what you set out to achieve. The worst you can probably do is to perceive the area of your weakness as your biggest strength. People often tend to make this mistake and falter in life. Visualise a scenario, where you think you know how to drive the Ferrari, (but actually you do not). You get into the Ferrari and try driving ... Vroooom ... Vroooom ... Crrrrassshhhhh ... that is what will eventually happen. Your hard-earned and treasured-Ferrari will be a mangled junkyard. Of course, you would not allow this to happen. Would you?

  If you want to continue driving your Ferrari on the road, you must keep pace with the changing traffic conditions. The world today is changing. What is 'in' today is 'out' tomorrow. People are changing, so are their needs and lifestyles. To be successful today, it is necessary to upgrade skills constantly, and also to make an effort at keeping abreast of the rapid changes around the world.

  Sam Pitroda says: Not only have the rules of the game changed, but the game itself has changed. While the rest of the world is playing baseball, developing nations cannot afford to play kabaddi. The statement is thought provoking. When the world has gone ahead, if you do not imbibe in yourself the skills required for being successful in a changing environment, you will soon be extinct.

  Take this simple example from the banking industry (I admit my bias for banking.) A bank branch is a place where the customer comes in to conduct normal banking transactions. A few years back, I was the branch manager of ANZ Grindlays Bank in Chennai. In those days banks were mainly deposit gatherers. The key responsibility of the branch manager was to get deposits from customers, to pursue them for more fixed deposit accounts. This was the scenario in the mid to late nineties.

  And then, the mutual fund wave hit the financial service industry. Banks moved from being deposit gatherers to the sellers of mutual funds and other investment products. Anyone who did not know about mutual funds suddenly found himself unfit to be in the branch environment. Employees were trained and equipped with the respective skill-sets to start the selling of mutual funds. Those who did not make an effort to learn were left behind. In no time, insurance made its presence felt. The branches started selling insurance products, and then came all the loan products. Over a period of time, bank branches were modified from being a deposit gathering unit to a supermarket for all financial products. This posed a challenge for the bank employees in the late nineties. The expectations from them changed. And, to deliver on the changed set of expectations, they had to either acquire new skill-sets, or move out of a branch.
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br />   What would have possibly happened to a branch manager of the late nineties, who refused to change and upgrade his skill-sets? From a 'star manager', he would have crashed down to the lowest rung of performers in the branch league tables.

  The message from this example, as well as from Sam Pitroda's quote, is that the only thing which is constant in this world is change. Either embrace change and prepare yourself for it or perish, the choice is yours. The only way out is to anticipate change and acquire the skill-sets necessary to deal with it.

  If you aspire for the Ferrari, you will have to get out of your comfort zones and learn the skill-sets necessary for this day and age. It is a constantly changing world and what is good today, may not be good tomorrow, what is 'perfect' today may be a gross misfit tomorrow. But, learning is not dealing with change alone. It is about equipping yourself with the edge which drives you so much ahead of your competitors that they will take a long time pacing up to you. Learning helps you deal with your aspirations, go after them and make them a reality.

  The secret key to the Ferrari lies in accepting that no one is perfect. But you can STRIVE TO BE PERFECT through an elaborate and logical learning process. The moment an individual believes that he or she is perfect, learning stops. And when learning stops, fall from grace is imminent. The secret of the Ferrari lies in accepting the fact that one is not perfect and keep working towards achieving it in this perpetually evolving world.

  Aim at perfection in everything, though in

  most things it is unattainable. However,

  they who aim at it, and persevere, will