Kumbhakarna Syndrome Explained

Most of you have heard about King "Rawana". King Rawana defines the prehistoric era of Sri Lanka with his kingdom still seen as the highest state a Sri Lankan king has ever been in. King Rawana had a brother named Kumbakarana. Kumbakarana is known for this very famous trait of his where he sleeps for days. Not a single person in this world is able to wake Kumbakarana up. Even today a person who sleeps too much in Sri Lanka is called a "Kumbaya" evolving from the Kumbakrana story. 

One fine sunny warm day Kumbakarana went to sleep. Since it was warm day he was not wearing the typical heavy King's clothes but was dressed in light clothes since he was going to sleep and he orderred his servants to keep the window open expecting that breeze flowing through the windows will suit the warm weather conditions. He went to sleep on this warm day and he went on sleep for days and days. One fine day he wakes up and starts shouting at the servants why they have kept the windows open? Kumbakarana has slept througout a season. It was the winter season the environment has changed and you can't keept he windows open in the winter season. 

This is an amazing example of how important it is for us to understand that the enviromment around us is changing. If you do not adapt to the environmental changes then you end up being just another kumbakarana.

Walt Disney any childs dream with 200 outlest across the globe with a theme "It's a small world after all" ventured in to France where 17 millino Europeans live less than a two hour drive and 310 million can fly  there in the same time or less. Everyting sounded perfect French Government granted $ 1 Billion worth incentives expecting 30000 jobs. Company made a blunder in understanding the French Culture.

1. Monday Vs. Friday - Friday and Fun both starts with "F". Friday is the Fun day in the calendar. Walt Disney went with the same assumption and capacity planning was done in away that they expected more people to come on Friday. Assumption was wrong majority came on Monday.

2. No Wine - In Sri Lanka serving wine on a Themes park would have been a crime but in France people have wine for their every meal its a part of their culture. Not having wine in restaurants was a disaster. 

3. Europeans don't eat breakfast - Again incorrect assumption, Americans eats the Lunch and Breakfast together. But French had breakfast, breakfast was very important to them. 

Walt Disney had made a blunder in analysing the evironment. Walt Disney being the giant it  failed to realize that the seasons change, envirnments change.

There are some companies that levrage heavily on changing environmental conditions. An example is Diet Coke, in 1981 Coke invested on Diet coke predicting that peopl'e life styles would chagne and be centric towards being healthy. Diet Coke is now ahead of Pepsi and second to Coke 2nd Best brand in the carbonated drinks market. In 2013 Sri Lankans are concerned about being healthy eating less sugar where as Coke predicted this trend way back in 1981. 

The envirnoment is changing everyday observing these changes will define how successful a comapny or how successful a person is. 

Finding your True Passion

Over the years we have seen many personal development gurus talking about how important it is to find what you like to do, what you are so passionate of doing. The reason is this passion will drive you to go beyond your capacity. These statements was misleading me and I was talking with few of my other friends with similar backgrounds, are you doing what you really like, and are you passionate about what you are doing. They were doing exceptionally well at their current positions and surprisingly the responses were not in line with what the famous personal development gurus were thinking.

Majority of us are not sure of what we really want out of life or what we are really passionate about. For most of us life is a mystery, which at times does not make much sense. But further analysis showed the success behind some of the young executives is not mainly due to their passion on what they do. They are challenge seekers. Generation Y unlike Generation X are driven with challenge and there is red ocean competition between young executives to prove that one is better than the other. 

Generation Y has built a lot of self-ego around them and continuous challenges has proven to become a critical motivator for these young executives representing the Generation Y. Time has come to revisit the traditional techniques and methods that were deemed to be the mantras of success.

One has to challenge himself to understand his boundaries; it may as well be limitless. Time is ripe for most of us who spend 9 hours working on the same old job, same old role to rethink and challenge our status quo. More comfortable you are in what you do, the opportunity to grow is hindered. Time has come to challenge ourselves to go beyond what we have already achieved. 

May be you could be wondering why your next promotion is not working, what to do to ensure that you get your next promotion. I was going through a motivational video and the advice was very simple. You need to “Work on  Your Work”. You need to continuously improve on the way you work, how you work, processes or tools used, invest on skill building or it could be investment on a professional qualification. Unless you are willing to challenge yourself, our horizons will always be limited.

Be Different - Be an Eagle

Eagles Fly above the Clouds when it Rains

Nature is amazing. The way nature adapts with impossible solutions to problems is amazing and there is lot to learn in all aspects. I was going through this video and the presenter was taking this amazing example to depict how different animals adapt different approaches to the same problem. 

If you look at the sky when it is raining all of you can see birds flying all around searching for shelters under trees and other shelters. But there is this special bird that adapts a different tactic to the same problem of avoiding the rain. This bird does not fly in search for shelters, this bird flies above the clouds to avoid the rain. By this simple change of approach in solving the same problem, Rain is never an obstacle for the eagle to go its destination.

Steve Jobs way

Similarly in life also we come up with so many problems but we continue with the same approach even knowing that for a fact that it is not the ultimate solution. One of the amazing innovators in our own time Steve Jobs the master mind, Master craftsmen, specialist designer had the same attitude from him it was never about trying the same solution for the same problem. For him it was always about looking for ways and means to innovate , find better and effective ways and means of doing it better. If not for Steve Jobs all of us would be carrying with us the difficult to carry walkman CD Player with less storage space for our mobile entertainment. Steve Jobs saw the world differently he came up with this amazing concept of     i-pod which has changed the mobile market like a storm.

In our lives we should also challenge our perception, we should challenge our attitudes and thinking differently think innovatively. What is innovation from a conceptual framework Innovation is having a conceptual idea, Technical knowhow to execute the idea and the ability to commercialize.  But starting point to become great innovators like Steve Jobs starts from the little changes that we do in our lives, the little things that we do to innovate and improve our normal lives.

You might Die Tomorrow

One of the greatest psychological philosophies that Steve Jobs had was he always thought what if I die tomorrow. He had that feeling everyday and wanted to ensure that he wants to live the life he did. Who knows we might die today, tomorrow or day after tomorrow. Are we living the life that we want to live.

Gamification - New Performance Management Mantra

Traditional Performance Management Systems

There are many reasons why the traditional performance management systems fail. One of the most common reasons for these performance management systems to fail is the in ability to objectively measure a person’s performance, because performance is measured by people and human subjectivity can play a significant role in the accuracy of performance predicaments.

There are many evolved concepts of performance management systems like 360 degree appraisals, Balance Score card which attempts to minimize the subjectivity towards a certain individual. These performance evaluation systems are further strengthened through concepts like performance normalization which eventually increases the number of people who evaluate a single person’s performance leading to lower levels of subjectivity.

But still with all these evolved performance management systems in place don’t we still hear conversations, “He got a better ranking due to this manager and not because of he is a great performer”. Still these performance management systems have not been able to accurately diminish the top down approach to performance evaluation and possible subjective appraisals.

Concept of Gamification

Gamification is the new buzz word in the field of performance evaluation. Gamification techniques strive to leverage people's natural desires for competition, achievement, status, self-expression, altruism, and closure. For example game players play to earn more points and get a  good rank amongst the other game players. They are concerned about a socially engineered brand. Likewise evolved version of this concept is used in performance management.

Gamification utilized for Performance Evaluation

This challenges the traditional performance measuring mechanisms and takes performance measurement to a next level optimizing social networking dynamics. Rather than a manager evaluating the performance, the whole society evaluates the performance. For example an employee helps another employee on finishing some task where the manager would not have the exposure of this. Hence aspects like team working may  not be taken into consideration. But what if the second employee who was helped by the first employee goes and thanks him on a social network for helping him with the task. The concept of like’s, raves, badges are utilized by the gamification performance management system.

Through concepts like gamification a person is socially evaluated and also this encourages organizational wide appreciation. This will eventually mould the workforce into social team workers constructively contributing towards company growth.

Pricing your Product Accurately

In few of the previous blogs, I discussed a number of theories around strategy, strategic directions of the company and competitive strategies. Whichever strategy a company adapts, Pricing plays a significant role in adapting a differentiation or a cost leader strategy.  (Porter, M.E., "Competitive Strategy: Techniques for analyzing industries and competitors" New York: The Free Press (1980))

Buying behavioral analysts affirms the point that majority of lower, middle and middle upper class market segments are highly concerned on the price tag, and price plays a significant role in purchase decision making. From a seller’s perspective having the right price on the product will ultimately determine the successful sale or the product

There are three main views on Pricing strategies,

Economist View on pricing

In understanding the economists’ view to pricing, please see the graph which highlights the movement in supply and demand with Price and Quantity as key variables. As it is inevitable when the price is low there will be a significant demand on the product and as the price increase the demand goes down with affordability.

When the price is low, supply will be low and as the price increases there will more suppliers with the possible margin improvements due to price increases. Thus the ultimate price will be defined by the equilibrium of supply and demand.

Marketers View

Pricing plays a significant role in the marketers view towards pricing. As you already may know marketing tactical strategies are built around four main pillars which are knows as the 4P’s in marketing. 4P’s include Product, Price, Place and Promotions.  Pricing is the second most important pillar in marketing and as per marketers view the pricing is defined by the customer. As per the marketers view a product should be priced at an amount which the customer is willing to pay.

This is also in line with the Japanese concept of target pricing. Where the pricing for the product is first defined and then manages the cost structure to have an acceptable margin for the product.

Accountants View

 Accountant’s view to pricing is does not work on a hypothetical framework as the economist or the marketer’s view. Accountants view to pricing considers the total expenditure (Both Variable and Fixed) for the product and adds a standard profit mark up to arrive at the pricing for the product.

Three main pricing views takes into account different dynamics, a company to leverage on pricing as a key market strategy should take into consideration all these three views in deciding the correct price for the product. 

Managing your Personal Finances 1

There are so many discussions around defining an optimum equation to manage personal finances. Managing personal finances has become so difficult nowadays and many are drowned in huge debts. This vicious debt cycle starts right at the point a person starts earning money.

Second day at Work

The very first day we start working in our first job, the next day we will be getting a call from a fancy reputed bank offering a credit card. We think that these banks love us so much and they perceive us as wealthy men and the next thing we know, we end up with multiple credit cards. Credit cards nowadays come with fancy credit limits and into the bargain they couple credit cards with very attractive credit card shopping offers. All of a sudden we start spending forgetting whether we can afford or not.  Spending money Vs. paying using a plastic card psychologically affects the spending patterns and credit card companies successfully leverage on this. And this continues, then they offer us car loans, then housing loans and by the time we are in mid age all we will be having would be huge debts and higher percentage of income is spent on interest.

Overcome the Vicious Credit Cycle

How to overcome this vicious cycle? What are the specialist views on this vicious cycle? Rich Dad Poor Dad defines the ultimate finance freedom is where your investments generate earnings similar to your investments. Warren Buffet advises, that we should never depend on a single source of income.

Majority after reading these statements will say it is easy said than done. The starting point is to know what an investment is. In very basic terms it is an asset which will generate an income. The common assets that can generate income are publicly traded shares, savings accounts, fixed deposit accounts.

Do we need huge capitals to start investing? It could be 5% of the monthly salary or even 1% of the monthly salary.  If we start investing the investment would accumulate monthly and grow monthly. 

Increasing your net wealth can be done in two ways. You can increase the income, through multiple sources of income, investments increasing your asset base. Or you can reduce your costs. Reduce credit card expenditure which will result in decreasing both interest and debt costs. 

Personal Branding as a Rocket Science

There are so many discussions over the concept of personal branding. I did some research on this concept of personal branding to understand the underlying principles over it. Well it does not sound rocket science at all if you have a goal and an action plan to achiever the goal. 

What is your Brand?

If you take a brand like Body Shop for an example. What is the first impression that you get. It is a brand with a social purpose. Body Shop never use animals to test their cosmetics products. For us to perceive Body Shop as a philanthropic brand with a social purpose every time we see or hear about it, is a result of years and years worth of work. They knew how they want to position themselves in the market and they did it over the years keeping to its key principal never to test cosmetics on animals. 

Personal branding process is also similar. Its about how you want yourself to be perceived others. What values you want to be represented by. It is simple, for example if "Being Macho" is how you want others to perceive you, you better start going to a gym and karate classes so that you build your physical appearance to suit how you want others to perceive your self.

Action Plan 

First step,  is that you have to know exactly how you want others to perceive you.  These are called brand values. The key messages your personal brand represents. Next step is you need to have an action plan. The time span will vary based on the deviation from the current brand positioning. The time span will be longer if there is a significant deviation from the current brand positioning.

Well congratulations, with the amount of social networking in the modern days life makes easy to launch a good communication plan for your personal brand. Each and every post, each every page you like, each and every status update that you put represents what you are. You can take control of this. You can purposely ensure that your posts are in line with your brand values.