Qualifications or “Callification,” Selection and Retention Criterion

 

Endless Efforts

 

“Callification?” Your efforts to find out what it means in the dictionary shall go in vain. I just made it up.  Patiently read through it; you will know what it means.   

The three submersible pumps working continuously and in tandem could not fill the colony’s overhead tank. The employees kept the pump running. One pump ran dry far too long and burned itself out. The open well also ran dry. They told no one. Why should they? They had nothing to lose. I noticed the unusual activity and enquired. This had been going on for a few days. It should not have. 

I did a quick calculation of the flow rates of the pumps, the capacity of the community tank, and the tanks over the individual houses. Considering the endless efforts of the pumps, all the overhead tanks should have been filled and overflowing. It did not happen. I concluded that there must be a leak somewhere in the pipeline. The large amount of water that leaked out must have gone under the foundation of somebody's house. People seemed to be oblivious to the potential losses and damage. 

Stimulus 

“Let us check the pipeline to identify and plug the leak,” I suggested. “You have no qualifications to decide what is wrong with the water distribution system,” came the only response in the group. I was not surprised. I did not expect anything different from that individual. Did the crass response stem from deep-rooted prejudice germinated in ignorance? 

Ignorance? The individual had never bothered to ask me about my qualifications or experience. He could not have known about my academic or professional qualifications.  I did not have to revisit the lessons in fluid mechanics or applied engineering or fall back on my experiences in managing the civic amenities of one of the biggest cantonments to understand the elementary science problem. I also did not have to rack my brain to remember my lessons in missile technology. After all, determining why an overhead tank refuses to fill up is no rocket science.  

Prejudice? Prejudice is a platform internally constructed by an individual using preconceived notions about individuals, groups, or even things. The result of a “taught” or “thought” concept, it invariably becomes a subconscious driver. It influences, often negatively, everything an individual thinks, says, or does. We all carry prejudices of some sort and tend to use broad-brushed templates in our thoughts, and actions. Some amongst us make it obvious and take it to obnoxious levels. Prejudice is the result of our inability or unwillingness to reason out within ourselves. If we sit down and dispassionately analyse our conversations and the decisions we have taken over time, we should be able to spot the prejudices underpinning them. 

Many believe that the job of the Army is to only guard the country’s borders. They think that everybody in the army stands in rows along the borders preventing people from crossing over. Some feel the Army is all about marching and doing physical exercises in the morning to prepare themselves for a duel at the border and doing sentry duty. They ask, “What does the army do when there is no war?” They cannot fathom the extent to which officers of the Indian Army toil on various contemporary academic and professional subjects. Their mobility up the hierarchy ladder is largely linked to their performance in these tests. Unfortunately, such injurious ignorance is prevalent even amongst the “supposed to be” well-read.  

Response 

I was angry and instinctively wanted to respond in the same coin.  The wisdom that age, exposure, experiences, and knowledge bestowed on me forbade me from stooping down. I decided to deny traction to the foul mouth. His response, however, triggered a much deeper thought. I am, by nature, given to analyse the ‘why and how’ behind every ‘what’ I see or experience. Why did he say that? Nobody does anything once. There is always a pattern and they leave a trail. He did. 

Besides his prejudice, which I was aware of, there must be an underlying belief that prompted the response. In possession of a professional degree, he had given himself to the belief that formal qualifications define an individual’s competence and his place in society. It showed in his generally loud and contemptuous behaviour. Unfortunately, there are many like him, enslaved by similar beliefs. This misplaced belief has forced people to obtain fancy qualifications by whatever possible means. It is common knowledge that people adopt illegal means to secure academic degrees. Some go to the extent of even buying doctorate degrees. Esteem somehow seems tagged to the few letters that find a place after an individual’s name. Do formal qualifications denote competence?   

Understanding “Callification” 

The discussion does not in any manner advocate the thought that an educational degree is a waste of time. One needs to have the basic requisite educational qualification. Mere possession of the qualification, however, is no guarantee of the presence of expected skills or the aptitude to apply the acquired knowledge. If an educational degree defines comparable competence, two equally qualified professionals like chefs, doctors, economists, fashion designers, lawyers, or musicians, should all demonstrate comparable performance. This is not the case. 

Everyone gets the initial foothold into a profession using the few letters representing a mandated educational degree. It may also be the inescapable requisite for career progression. Degrees merely indicate that the person has cleared a qualifying examination, by whatever means. The marks obtained by the person do not in any manner indicate his proficiency. It merely shows how well he fared in recalling answers to the questions, which in turn was anyway a matter of probability. This gives the individual the required ‘qualification’ to secure entry to an organisation or a job. Once an entry has been obtained, they need to perform in the role assigned. In performance, the difference between grain and chaff lies in “callification.” Without callification, however, smart one may be, one cannot make lasting Impressions in the field one has chosen. 

“Callification,” is the calling from within. If a person has a calling from within to be in a profession, then the quality of the work, he or she gives the organisation and the impact the person makes easily stand out from the rest. They are normally so self-motivated that they only need to be told the end state, not the how. Team leaders can easily distinguish between those driven by qualification and fired by “callification.” 

Selection Criterion 

Recruitment is now mostly an outsourced activity. Recruiters and head hunters are guided by the selection criteria template provided by the client. They look only at the qualification and track record of the prospective resource because they have no means to determine the callification.  Team leaders at all levels would love to have those fired by “callification” because it makes achieving goals easy. Many “callified” people are considered mavericks and leaders unsure of themselves may be loath to have them around. 

One of the common responses I get to most of my articles is, “What is the remedy?” There is no panacea for HR problems. It must be tailored to suit each situation. I cannot help HR professionals or those involved in making policies on selection, career progression, attrition,
and retention, by prescribing any means to determine if someone has the “callification” that they are looking for. I certainly know of a CEO who goes to great lengths to look for it.  

The CEO 

The qualification required to get on to the organisational roll is just an engineering degree. The degree guarantees the prospective candidate only an opportunity to sit for an examination conducted by the firm.  The exam unlike entrance processes adopted by many other firms focuses mostly on the application of knowledge that the qualification was supposed to have provided the candidate with. It also evaluates the ingenuity and adaptability of the candidate. 

Once a candidate gets through the written gateway, he or she faces an interview. According to the CEO, they look for the “spark” in the candidate. Talking to the CEO, I understand that the candidate reveals the presence or absence of the “spark” they are looking for within the first five minutes of the interview. The candidates call it the “desire to do something special” and I now call it “callification.” The candidate’s lack of communication skills does not become a barrier in this determination process.  It is a vibe, a feel that the candidate sends across and one that can easily be picked up by the discerning. The firm attributes the almost 100% retention of the resources to that spark or callification. The firm has been growing, in size and business. 

With no malice to recruiting agencies and professional head hunters, third-party recruitment may always ensure qualified resources, not “callified” ones.  Organisations staffed by “callified” people can make even deserts bloom.

Beware! You Could be Cordyceped

 Mystery Of The Long Horned Ants

The forest hides a lot even from the most prying eyes. Most of what we get to see in it is fleeting; what is not fleeting may just be a snapshot and not the full picture. The truth of the forest, a mystery! Today, let us unravel one; the Mystery of the Long Horned Ants!

Each plant species has perfected the art of propagation. When it is season, flowering plants bloom and the forest becomes awash with pollen clouds, each grain in the cloud hoping to find a suitable recipient. Most, not reaching intended locations dry up and die.

A fungus called Ophiocordyceps also sends out spores. Ants are no strangers to the forest. They come out from their colonies to forage. In millions, they crawl all over. Spores of Ophiocordyceps fall on plants, animals and the forest floor. It could also land on ants or they while crawling around could come in contact with it.  

Harmless incident? No; because they are the intended recipient!

If a carpenter ant (camponotus) and a spore gets together, the game changes. As soon as contact is made, the spores drive roots into the hapless host and takes control over its behaviour. Enslaved by the fungus, the afflicted ant has to find a place that offers the right amount of sunlight, temperature and humidity to help the fungus grow; and then in a bizarre final act, gets into a death bite at that precise location ensuring life for its guest. The spore grows into a fungi from the dead ant’s body to spew out spores, infecting another set of ants. The cycle continues. Colonies of ants could get wiped out like this in one season.

Genus Specific

There are more than 400 different species of Cordyceps, each targeting specific species of ants, dragonflies, cockroach, aphids and beetles etc. The story is all similar; the guest enslaves the host and controls its behaviour and eventually kills it.

The process is characterized by the presence of a parasite or parasitoid, a host willingly or unwillingly promoting its growth and at its cost and peril. Often the infection is genus specific.

If you think that this macabre story is confined only to forests or to species other than human beings, you can’t be more wrong. It is played out in and around us, our homes, places of work and in societies we live in. There are many an agent, targeting individuals, groups, sects and other such identities. Don't believe it?

Afflicted Individuals

When it comes to Homo sapiens, individuals are prone to being afflicted by one or multiple agents. Such afflictions are not race or gender specific. Some could be severely debilitating, adversely affecting our personal behaviour and social skills. Few could be even life threatening.

Many amongst us are corrupt. Degree and type notwithstanding, corruption inflicts personal and social costs. Though corruption has almost become a norm, many remorselessly indulge in it. Yet, there still remains an innate fear of being caught. For a few, ‘fear of being caught’ drives its roots and modifies their behaviour. Like the dictated move and death bite of the carpenter ant, the individual is consumed by suspicion. They see shadows even in bright light. Many of them withdraw into shells to shield themselves from prying eyes and leading questions for fear of being exposed. Some become introverted and become conspicuous by their acts, others compulsive liars and few both.

Behaviour and response to situations of many amongst us are driven by mistrust or distrust[1]. Caution is an existential virtue, but when that is fuelled by distrust it can spiral out badly. Such people over time become social misfits, subjects of scorn and eventually force themselves into their own shells and turn recluses.

It is just not only about the corrupt, timid or compulsive liars. There are many others who are similarly afflicted. Fear, guilt, apprehension, anxiety, insecurity, suspicion, greed, melancholy and so many such others; are just names of different genus that have the potential of commanding our minds and modifying our behaviour once they find space with us to rest and root. The most dangerous of all is being infected with a corrosive ideology.

 

Parasitoid

Unlike the empire of the sub-sapiens, we actually could make our infection look wanted. It could even get us inducted into groups we want. Once infected these people actually go around actively seeking to infect others. They are even willing to consume themselves in the process. Anyone opposed to that ideology is considered a threat and is treated appropriately.   That is when it becomes dangerous to societies. Fanaticism emerge like wise. 

 

Infected groups

The holocaust was the culmination of such a spore, rooting in one individual, spreading into others and then infecting the group prompting them to collectively prey on another group. It was not an isolated incident and not one of the past. Every day, across the world there are clouds of such spores of exclusionism infecting localities and regions.

Like Cordyceps, they need hosts and find ingenious ways to create divisions within a population that was otherwise living peacefully. As intensity of affliction increases, lies and falsehood spread at astronomical speeds. Having reached threshold levels, law of the jungle prevails over civility.  Everything that happens, however detached, gets connected and viewed through the spore’s perspective. A narrative is born! Then it is propagated and allowed to gain momentum. Once it attains the momentum threshold, it then catapults on its own with authenticity that truth commands. Social media plays catalyst. Disaster unfolds, slowly first, surely later.

 

Escape?

Insects, cursed merely by coincidence of presence in the area, have no way of shaking the spore away. It is doomed as soon as it comes in contact with the spore! They just can’t reason it out. What about us?

We are not as helpless. We can prevent the spore form driving in roots. It all depends on how well and how ready we are, as individuals or groups to reason it out.

What happens when a people lose sense of rationality?

 

[1] Mistrust and distrust are often considered synonyms but mistrust is a general sense of unease toward someone or something while distrust is usually based on experiences or information. Unfortunately like egg and chicken which manifests first in an individual is hard to decide. Often a learnt behavior both compulsively add to each other

OVERSIGHT: ALL ABOUT CONTAINING OVERSIGHT

Contranym

Oversight is an interesting contranym! Too many incidents of oversight prove absence of oversight!

Contranym?

A contranym is a word with the same spelling but the opposite meaning. In other words, it’s a homonym that’s an antonym. A homonym is a word spelled like another with a different meaning while an antonym is a word with the opposite meaning, context in which it is used deciding the meaning.

Oversight, in the context of ‘overseeing’, is about supervision but in its contranym context, it’s about errors unintentional or otherwise. Frequent incidents of oversight indicate systemic rot in the system due to ineffective oversight; disastrous and fatal for organisations.

I can't help but narrate such a story I witnessed being scripted! 

Sun Like Nowhere Else

The story unfolds in the most unbelievably beautiful settings of the backwaters in God’s Own country. To believe, one has to experience the morning sun, reflecting itself in grandeur over the still waters of the Punnamada, an extension of Vembanad Lake. It is refreshing to the soul, like nowhere else. As the dusk cloaks the lake, flares of the refinery in the far distance, a stark reminder of the pollutants we spew, gives another side of life.

The Front Office

I arrived at the front office of the reputed resort after prior intimation and having provided the required documents online. I reached as per the schedule intimated. However, the front office was vacant. I had to look for the executives. Little while, not one but three of them emerged from the room behind.

Once they arrived, they asked me for my documents. I replied that I had already forwarded those except photo ids which I had refused to give online. While the executives busied themselves rummaging through a pile of documents, I went off to park my car as valet parking facilities had been discontinued due to covid. It took me a while to find space and park. Though I was the only guest to check in at that time, it still took them time to successfully ‘excavate’ my documents and complete the formalities of check-in. Clearly all that pre-check in calls and intimation of arrival time for fast smooth check-in remained on paper. 

Their inefficiency, cost us the customary reception and our welcome drink.

Was it an oversight; an inadvertent error of a few youngsters enjoying themselves at the cost of work or deeper malaise, deteriorating work ethics; lack of oversight? 

The Restaurant

The most important element of any vacation, after 'location', is dining experience. Thus, one of the key departments of any resort is the food and beverage Department, visible to all as the resort restaurant.

A good restaurant stands out from others with its range of spread, quality of food, hygiene, ambiance and the quality of service. Each good restaurant develops a consistent signature quality. Over time, this signature becomes its USP.

Punctuality is a key element of service. When the board outside clearly indicates that the restaurant will be open from 7:30 AM for breakfast, it requires the first batch of the mandated spread laid out and the staff to be at station, ready to receive the first guest latest by 7:30 AM. The room should have been aired well, lights and fans or air conditioners functional. Tables should have been laid with clean tablemats, cutlery and crockery and stewards of the morning shift at stations with welcome smiles.

Incomplete spread even at 8:15 AM and staff trickling in well after 8 o'clock, as a matter of practice, for breakfast engagement at 7:30 AM and no one to question is clear indication of deep-rooted rot. An order from the live kitchen counter when served dead cold and flies perched fearlessly on the platters say a lot about the management. Coffee in burnt milk clearly shows the quality controls in place. The extent to which the rot had already been internalised became evident when concerned individuals did nothing about the issues flagged. 

No attempt to correct it and not even an apology! Surely these just couldn’t be random instances of oversight. The rot was real. 

An Oasis

It is not that everything was bad. There were oases in the desert of insensitive incompetence.

The ‘activity department’ seemed to be purpose driven. They made sure anyone who came around was engaged.

Housekeeping did justice to the brand image. The efficiency with which issues brought to their notice was attended to is commendable. Once the issue was settled, feedback from the guest was taken by those higher in the chain of housekeeping. It clearly showed that the organisational system caters for oversight and redressal mechanisms. Some seemed to hold it dear, while others had no fear. 

Oversight Mechanisms

All organisations create oversight mechanisms to promote functional efficiency and organisational growth. Oversight structures are subsumed in organisational hierarchy and come with clear enunciations of authority, responsibility and accountability. When effective, it reduces the probability of instances of oversight, builds better controls and improves productivity. 

Process of oversight normally involves continuous evaluation and periodic reviews of performances against standards expected and well-defined parameters, by and through channels of reporting. It includes aspects of organisational feedbacks that finally result in differential growth amongst employees. Customer feedback, especially in hospitality and service organisations, is one tool that oversight mechanism heavily relies upon, but often distorted.  

Eliciting Feedback

It has become a practice to elicit favourable feedbacks at the time of check out. The process is so well ‘crafted’ that the guest checking out is ‘subtly managed’ into giving ratings better than what he or she would have given, if left free. This practice has become rampant amongst almost all service providers. 

This actually is the “most unkindest” cut that can be inflicted by employees on the organisation. It actually destroys from its very roots, any meaningful feedback from patrons. A managed feedback not only hides systemic flaws, it reinforces failure and accelerates disintegration. Unfortunately, when quality is blindly quantified and wilfully distorted at source, the soul of true feedback is dead; buried alive. 

Modern Don Quixote

Leader of an organisation who insulates himself or herself from flaws and problems, relying on manufactured feedback is like the foolish captain of a ship, happy seeing the bow rise, ignorant of the stern taking in water. Elicited feedbacks can bloat egos, but do little to stem the rot. Leaders, who create and perpetuate such an organisational culture and thrive on such make-believe spectacles are modern-day Don Quixotes busy transforming their organisation into ‘Rocinante’ the half-starved horse.

As incompetence becomes the norm, discontent ripples over and organisations disintegrate. Don Quixotes can feign gallop on the gasping Rocinante  till the ground gives way.

BUILDING BRAND FOR BETTER RETURNS

 Difference in Brand Construct

After a day-long drive, I checked in to a hotel beside Lake Rotorua, New Zealand. Staff on duty seemed happy, committed, behaved as if they owned the place and impressed me with impeccable their conduct. The experience was different from all other hotels I had ever checked in. 

Back home, I wanted to buy an equipment for my house. Influenced by advertisements and impressed by the proprietor’s publicised and principled stand on various socio-political issues, I decided on a brand. Machines, irrespective of make, do fail but services promised should not. Repeated calls to the service centre went unattended. It required persistence and contacts to get my work done!

Dr APR is a medical specialist in whom, my trust has grown each day over a decade. I refer my friends and seek long distance pro bono consultancy for many.

Three different brands and three different brand images. Hype and hoopla around brand promotion aside, brand image is all about how it connects and stays on with the consumer.

Responses

The hotel, on a faraway continent, responded to my review[1]. I refer the hotel to travellers and receive helpful votes on my page.

The response from the manufacturer located a few kilometres away from where I stay, was just a system generated acknowledgement to my mail. They neither returned my calls nor followed up on mail. In fact, many have expressed similar experiences. I strongly advice those whom I know against having anything to do with the unresponsive brand that is destined to wither away.

The doctor unassumingly continues serving humanity. I continue to refer the doctor and pester him for advice for any one whom I think needs help. Those referred refer others!

Spurred by my experiences, I end up unknowingly reinforcing multiple brand images, either favourably or unfavourably.

Promised Experience

Though defined as intangible, brand is an identity that promises a tangible experience. More favourable the experienceable and consistently closer to the promise, better perceived and accepted becomes the brand. Mega launches, opulent promotions, celebrity endorsements, and audacious allocations gather eyeballs till the glitz last. Image, loyalty and value of brands are made of greater stuff. It rests on something abstract seemingly promised by the brand. Invariably, it is the prevalent perception amongst the masses.

Though individual perception may vary, there is a commonly held belief associated with each brand. It could be as subjectively vague as quality – price combination or as objective as warranty services or as intangible as societal relevance or trust worthiness. It is this uniquely individual expectation that aggregates to what the population believes is the brand promise. It is the ability of a brand to meet individual and collective expectation which decides its reach. It is at this point brand loyalty is sown.

Seeding Loyalty

Enticing pricing schemes loaded with freebies can bait reach and generate initial volumes. It seldom seeds loyalty nor reaps retention. Advertisements and celebrity endorsements ensure brand visibility that can help move it, once off the shelf. However, real growth of a brand happens not by the first sale but through repeated buys by the same customer. Ability of the brand to repeatedly satiate customer’s expectations seeds brand loyalty. Consumer then accepts, adopts and owns the brand. Such brand loyalty dictates brand life expectancy.

Brand’s growth is driven by its performance aided by tentacles of the brand. A knowledgeable salesman at the counter representing the brand, a friendly service engineer on a house call, a helpful call centre executive taking a feedback or recording a complaint are tentacles of the brand, which nourishes and enriches its image. The combination, of performance and support systems, seeks and seeds loyalty, makes it addictive and ensures brand success.  

Brand, after all, is nothing more than a collection of pleasant or unpleasant memories about a product or service. Brand equity essentially is the outcome of brand loyalty.

Brand Equity

Equity is synonymous with ownership. A brand, whose ownership is confined only to its creators, promoters and on those who are stuck with it, is doomed. A brand must have the inherent wherewithal to influence and entice so as to spread, grow and thrive. The ability of a brand to meet and go beyond expectations, is what fuels its growth. It is this characteristic of the brand that enhances its equity. Brand equity is built on performance, reliability and durability. Brand equity is essentially the outcome of brand image and its societal reach. It is bound to suffer if those, dealing with it, act deviant.

Brand Image

A good brand embodies the core values integral to the parent organisation. Brand image is the reflection of organisational culture. Size notwithstanding, great brand images come from organisations with impeccable core values. Fly-by-night operators or get-rich-quick promoters resorting to sell-and-scoot techniques can never offer great brands.

While brand identity is a time-consuming creation, brand image is the considered affirmation or rejection of the identity marketed. The brand would eventually find its own niche in the market. That is why some carefully crafted, aggressively marketed, celebrity endorsed brands enjoy hoisted reputation only to suffer equity erosion.

Its when employees and employers alike internalise core values the brand represents, can they effectively promote the brand. Better the internalisation, integration and implementation, lesser the need to labour on marketing strategies and sculpting brand identity. That is why selection and induction of individual into organisations assumes importance.

Brand Value

In the market place everything finally has to be translated into numbers. Brands are no exception. Different agencies use different parameters and methods of evaluation to calculate brand value. Irrespective of the method used to assign objective value to a subjective aspect, two elements that immensely impact brand value are reach and loyalty, which in turn is dependent on consistency in performance. Both these aspects theoretically or statically calculatable, effectively dictate the movement of the brand, turnover of the company and therefore the profit margins. In turn, brand value impacts the price of equity shares. Thus, it becomes a key consideration in acquisitions and justifiably demands appropriate compensation.

ROI

Brand represents cumulative aggregation of all investments made in a specific product, service or endeavour and investments must yield returns.  Marketing strategies certainly increase visibility, recall and market penetration. However, the real yield comes from the inherent strength of the brand and the image it has created for itself rather than the identity projected. Better the image, higher the returns.

A lingering Thought

Isn’t every individual a living brand? Isn’t time for us to evaluate our own ‘brand net worth’ at least once?

 

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[1] Trip advisor and Google

IS CHEAP ACTUALLY CHEAP?

The Paradox

Real life paradoxes could be interesting and debilitating at the same time.

Calling someone cheap is derogatory but companies, products and services notwithstanding, leave no stone unturned to, boost sales, increase turnover and book profits going cheap. Governments by statute, do everything to make sure they take the least cost. Substantiated claims are commensurately rewarded. These rewards are so addictive and intoxicating that people become blind to costs of going cheap while managements choose to remain oblivious to long-term damages, short-term advantages bring home. It fuels institutionalised proliferation of short-lived products ignoring long term costs of maintenance, down time and replacements. While burgeoning short-lived inventory demand lesser ‘immediate’ fiscal outgo for consumers and set cash counters ringing for sellers, such short-sighted profiteering steadily inflicts long-term pecuniary penalties on us individuals and irrevocable environmental damages on the human kind. The society, smug in the misplaced belief of technological advances feigns sleep, oblivious to this paradoxical coexistence of profits and profit-triggered losses. 

Rugged Longevity or Fragile Technology

There were times, when one brought a product and it went on and on and on. When it went kaput, it would promptly be repaired and reused, re-re-repaired and re-reused. There were also people who could precisely detect causes for failures and knew exactly how to put it right back into service. Many such products saw and served few generations. Brand loyalty transcended generations. Those were yesteryear stories of  stuff repaired and reused.

Nowadays, most products pack up either before expiry of warranty or definitely shortly thereafter. To add insult to injury, the technical support wizard who attends to the complaint for a consideration called ‘service charge’ is often clueless. After inspection of the equipment, often a charade, promptly declares it ‘Beyond Economical Repairs’. Some of them even attempt to convince the customer how lucky it is to have the machine go kaput since it is the right time to grab a technologically superior replacement at an unbelievably benevolent price with an enticing buy-back scheme.

Comparisons between a rugged archaic refrigerator that refuses to give up despite an abusive existence and an elitist state-of-the-art double door intelligent convertible fridge that refuses to serve a day after warranty expires, sums up the prevailing situation. Deference to technological advances and miniaturization notwithstanding, longevity of many a new age product stands suspect. Whether the fragility is by design or not is a question that must trouble society, intensely now.

Bitter Yet Better?

Some products, especially white goods, marketed and sold as state-of-the-art are particularly notorious for failures immediately after expiry of warranty. Discussions, confidentiality assured, with managers up the chain give an impression that companies could be eyeing higher volumes through replacement sales. ‘More Bitter - The Better’ seems to be the underlying marketing philosophy. A consumer can be motivated, on some pretext or the other, to part with his money on a technologically better piece of the same brand as replacement for the defective piece. Zero interest financing and attractive buy-back clauses function well as enticing baits. Fortunately for the market, for every discerning customer opting out of the brand there are hundreds with more disposable incomes being added every day to the market, readily led up the garden path by glib talking sales executives.

Credibility a Non-issue?

While cost of servicing pre-warranty expiry failures might have been catered for by the company, there is little chance for incessant pecuniary bleeds inflicted upon consumers by post warranty failures to receive any consideration. On the contrary, unmindful of the compounding cost of credibility-loss, for some post-warranty service is bait, hook and revenue. Unfaithful and ill prepared staff at the contact edge aggravate loss of credibility through greed and lack of professionalism. After one or more incidents of living with an untrustworthy brand, clients tend to shun the entire range of products of the brand. Ignorant of the fact that longevity sustained by quality and affordability ensure brand immortality, smooth talking salesmen garner and fuel sales peddling ailing products amongst the gullible new. There is no dearth of poor products, gullible customers and glib talkers. It may serve brands well if they remind themselves of the potential informal adverse referrals, right or wrong, have in obliterating the brand itself from the market.

Unseen Costs

Unseen, unspoken about, yet not considered alarming but the most afflicting by-product of poor quality and cheap production is the burden environment has to bear for the huge inventory produced, warehoused, discarded, dumped and non-recycled. To make production profitable, volumes are required. To improve profits yet more volumes at even cheaper input costs are required. To move huge volumes of new inventory, more demand should be generated. High rate of failures repairs and replacement is required to fuel higher demand. Then greed kicks in. This destructive combination necessitates brutal invasions into nature’s belly across the globe. Environmental degradation thrive on such mindless, greed fuelled activities.

Junkyards have mushroomed over cities and towns all over the world. Often created at the periphery of settlements, they invade inwards, thrive within and overwhelm. Maximum discards are necessitated not due to products outliving life promised but because they are abandoned as ‘beyond-economical-repairs’. Concept of repairs have made way for replacement. With poor uptake for recycling, a large pool of material resources is wasted and left to pollute nature. The burden and impact of pollutants leaching out of these colossal dump yards have neither been fully documented nor recognised. While the world is busy buying and discarding, we tend to forget that the pace of discard is also pace of environmental pollution.

Not only individuals but even the society has to collectively bear the cost of poor-quality. It is in the interest of the society and its longevity that products manufactured, marketed and sold have life long enough to reduce burden of waste. Else we may  be racing to choke ourselves in plentiful refuse?

POWERING POINTS OF VIEW

The Inevitable Act

There would be no manager or executive of consequence, who would not have given a PowerPoint presentation or sat through a few. Presentations, frills attached, is now a way of life and inevitable to effective sharing of information, as bullets, charts, graphs and audio video visuals. Anything possible could be improvised and incorporated to make presentations impressive. Despite all that, most merely remain visuals and seldom achieve purposes intended.  When presentations are contests to win situations, where only one can win, success normally graces, not the most spectacular but the most influencing.

Winners

The Internet is teeming with experts and their recipes that guarantee great presentations.  Most of them offer techniques to make screens look better and more attractive. Blazing screens alone, unfortunately, don’t guarantee success in favourably influencing the audience. Without a clear understanding of the means to effectively influence decision-makers, presentations remain purposeless histrionics. Contrary to common belief, it is not the quality of slides, but the ‘power’ of the ‘point of logic’ and its ability to draw audience towards the ‘thought process’ advocated, that wins the day. The key lies in influencing decision makers individually and collectively to agree with the logic advocated or convincing the audience to accept the point of view presented. Skillfully used presentations can help logically reason out adoption of one amongst many viable alternatives and objectively compare parameters. It can help motivate and compel teams to accept, adopt and adhere to new ideas. Presentations are means to be exploited and not the end.

Common Practice

It’s common to hear senior executives say “I have an important presentation to make”. Importance of the event, notwithstanding, the misplaced focus is too obvious to be missed. Energy and efforts go into piling up of as much information as possible and converting them to a series of slides. More often than not, presenters flash these slides, read it out verbatim and state the obvious from graphs, charts or tables. Its common to see presenters running short of time, skipping slides and audience disengaging themselves from the presentation.

While it may be necessary to ‘read out’ slides for people who can't read, business meetings are normally attended by lettered people with basic sense of size and proportion. They can, without outside help, read slides, decipher charts and compare crests or troughs of a line graph.  Stating the obvious to such an audience relegates the presenter to being an announcer. Such presentations help collate and present information for attendees to reason out in the manner they want to, with no role for the presenter. Presentations devoid of a cogent thought process seldom influence decision makers.

The Technique

There cannot be a prescribed method of presentation.  Each one must be unique, the uniqueness characteristic of the presenter and his style of putting across the narrative.

Irrespective of the nature of presentation, the presenter must be aware of its aim. He must know the target audience, competitors, adversaries, influencers and decision makers. The decision of how the narrative must flow would be dependent on this knowledge.

Slides must be designed such that the presenter becomes the source of possible inferences. Such slides incite the audience to focus on what the speaker says rather than ignoring him as an appendage to colourful displays. Too many colours and fancy transitions fritter focus away from the subject and the presenter. Much like designing a conveyor belt, presenter must first decide the path of discourse he wants to lead the audience on. Counters likely, must be intelligently positioned and adequately addressed to liquidate opposing thoughts. Facts and figures must be sequenced such that it strengthens the logic presented. Presentation must be a narrative woven by the presenter compelling enough to, dispel doubts, quell opposition, shape opinions favourably and elicit decisions as desired.

Time, is an issue that most presenters tend to disrespect. Human brains can continuously be engaged only for a limited duration. It may be worthwhile to plan presentations to finish within 20 minutes. If the subject demands longer interaction, presentations must be interspersed with activities like ‘question-answer’ sessions to keep the audience interactively engaged. Most attendees mentally prepare themselves to accommodate presentations as per the time slots given. Exceeding time slots automatically erode effectiveness of the presentation. Thus, when an audience is told that the presentation is for 30 minutes, it will be worthwhile to conclude it in 30 minutes.  Every minute ahead of it, however, absorbing the presentation may be, generally works against it. 

Fundamentals

In order to ensure effective presentations, it is mandatory to answer the following: -

What is the presentation about?

What is expected out of it? (What do I want to achieve from it?)

Who are the attendees?

Who are the influencers?

Who is the decision maker?

Influencing decision maker(s)

What is the prevailing thought process?

Is it in line with or contrary to the line of thought being advanced?

What is the logic appropriate to address the differential?

How do I lead the audience in the direction I want?

How do I sequence the argument or information flow to get the maximum impact?

How do I pack all the punch in the time given?

How do I elicit the decision I want?

Conclusion

Most movies have a hero, a heroine and a plot that finally unites them. Some become super hit at the box office while others bomb miserably. The difference between the two lies not in the narrative but in the manner of narration. So is it, with PowerPoint presentations.