Get Cracking-Start Now!
August 2, 2012 10 Comments
Go Get A Life – You’ll Make More Money
August 2, 2012 2 Comments
Here is one more small piece from Alok Kejriwal:
“If you go for a live music concert or a dance performance at the NCPA (National Center of Performing Arts) in Mumbai or listen to an Opera at the Jamshed Bhabha auditorium next door, you will marvel at the massive contribution the Tatas have made to the Art scene in India.
Given this background, if I were an Austrian CEO who can run a steel plant as efficiently as I can play the Oboe, I will be far more motivated to join the Tatas as the CEO of TISCO rather than become the CEO of some Industrial House in India whose CEO cannot understand if the Oboe is a wind instrument or a Shoe.
Life and business is being cultivated way beyond the dusty corridors of factories and sheds. I wish that all wannabe entrepreneurs and inheritors of family businesses understand this early on!”
Bonding and networking often takes place outside of business hours and business places.It is good if business and/or investing is your major interest but allow other parts of your personality a chance to develop.Cultivate your interests in the arts,sports,hobbies & leisure activities,government and politics,social service,philanthropy etc.Aside from helping you meet other like minded people you are bound to become a lot more creative because of these diverse influences.
Remember all work and no play makes Jack/Jill a very dull person indeed!
The Dangers Of Ossification
August 1, 2012 4 Comments
In the story below Alok Kejriwal narrates what happens to a family business when it is ruled with an iron fist by the older generation which gives younger family members and outside professionals no opportunity to air new ideas.
Experience is good.And everything new is not necessarily good.Professional managers are not automatically better than family talent.It doesn’t pay to cast aside the old tried and tested methods without thought.However,nothing good comes out of eschewing new ways altogether.Taking a risk on something new,when the older way has been very successful,is hard.But regularly experimenting with new ways in a controlled manner and adopting them if they are good, is a must to stay competitive. Read more of this post
Alok Kejriwal On The Different Shades Of Money.
August 1, 2012 2 Comments
Some interesting observations from Alok Kejriwal :
“After my first round of VC funding, I ran into my uncle at a dinner. He had read about the financing in media and cornered me. ‘So you’re rich! Why are you looking so gloomy?’ he said. ‘Huh’ I asked? ‘My Company’s the one that got funded, not me! No one got rich. The VCs got poorer and a long arduous road lies ahead of me to return the money to the VCs many times over’. He chuckled and said’ ‘What nonsense! The first rule of the funding game is to siphon out 25% of the funds and make yourself-rich. Investors can be dealt with later’. Shucks… hadn’t I heard that story before? Many of my relatives have floated public issues that were nothing short of scams and they still boast about it!
This ‘get rich, siphon out’ philosophy left so many old industrial houses bankrupt. They were never capitalized to take advantage of acquisition opportunities and punished their shareholders so harshly that they could never raise capital again. Think Mafatlal, Dalmia and many more. Even today I meet embarrassed professional managers working in ‘family’ firms who get paid salaries in ‘half white and half black’ to avoid taxes! Read more of this post
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