WAR LINGO IN CORPORATE WORLD

In the #corporate world, we love using the analogy of war in our presentations and conversations. This helps in bringing focus, attention and inspiration. 

So, terms like ‘attack’, ‘bombard’, ‘guerilla tactics’, ‘hostile’, ‘targets’, ‘bulls-eye’, ‘War Room’, ‘squad’, ‘surveillance’, ‘Ammunition’ are used abundantly in the meeting rooms and on the slides. 

While we love using military jargon in the corporate world, but we do not learn from them about standing up for your colleague the way the armed forces do. If you speak to a soldier or a military person, he or she is willing to die for their colleagues, even if they like them or not. 

Why? Because that is the only way they know. The readiness to give away your life does not come with conditions and bias. They have the same level of commitment for each and every colleague! 

On the other hand, in the corporate world, forget about life, we will even think twice in giving credit or a word of appreciation to our colleague because of the various emotions (dislike, jealousy, insecurity, ego) and feelings that will cloud our reaction.
So, the true spirit of military jargon will only come to life when we can walk the talk.

CELEBRATING 200 YEARS

Collins Stationery, a Scottish brand of stationery just achieved the milestone of celebrating 200 years of being in existence. 

To commemorate this occasion, the company came out with a commercial, walking people through its origins, its history and key achievements. It is a beautiful film, created through hand animation, using only #paper as a medium to tell the entire story. 

The work was done by the #advertising agency Superunion, Singapore, and it just goes to show the power of simplicity and powerful #storytelling.

                                      #communications #history #creativity #simplicity #brand

Open that Jam Bottle to enjoy its Sweet Taste

Have you ever been in a situation where you were keen to enjoy the taste of jam from a jam bottle that you were trying to open, but somehow you were not able to enjoy its sweet taste once the bottle was opened? 

Source: https://www.graphicsfuel.com/2016/01/jam-bottle-mockup-psd/

Now before you start imagining what I am trying to say, let me give you two scenarios: 

Scenario 1: You have guests over at your place and at the breakfast table, you decide to open a new bottle of jam. Imagine that you are using all your strength in twisting the lid of that jam bottle. You are huffing and puffing, your arm has started to pain and yet that lid does not open. You look around and hand over the bottle to the person sitting next to you, requesting her or him to open the bottle. She/he now applies a similar tactic like yours and Voila! Within a few seconds, the lid opens; there is a smug smile on the face of the person who opened the bottle. Everyone around applauds the effort of that person and looks at you sympathetically with a presumption that you do not have the strength that is needed to open a jam bottle. What you nor does anyone else know, is the fact that with all your efforts, the lid had started loosening from the neck and if you had persisted, you would have been able to open the lid within another a few seconds. 

Scenario 2: You are busy applying your strength to open the jam bottle and someone comes and offers help. You gladly hand over the bottle. As expected, the bottle opens soon. The person who helped you now starts telling the entire world that it was he or she who opened the bottle and not you, even though it was your job to open the bottle. They take the entire credit without bashing an eyelid. 

Does this sound familiar to you? Has it ever happened with you? 

In life as well as in organizations, this common situation happens to many people. Some people learn fast and avoid such situations while there are others who keep falling in the same situation repeatedly. 

Here are a few simple tips and suggestions that can help you to open that jam bottle and enjoy its benefits completely: 

1. Do not give up: This one is easier said than done. I do understand that there would be situations and times when you think that you have tried all possible solutions and yet you are not able to move forward. That is exactly the time when you need to draw your utmost inner strength and continue finding ways to achieve a task or overcome a problem. Remember, there are chances that the lid has started loosening from the neck. You do not want to miss the great tasting jam at this stage. 

2. Be careful of who you seek help from: If you have been a victim of your jam bottle credit being taken by someone else, then you should know who are the people who will happily open the botte and give it back to you without even mentioning it to anyone. These are the ones who deserve genuine thank you. You would also know the ones who would love to help in a situation, but would then let the entire world know. You should not be asking for help from them at all. 

3. Give enough visibility of your project milestones: If your project has high stakes which means, that if delivered it can help the company move forward in a significant way, then there are chances that people will come forward to help and soon they will be talking as if they are the ones leading the project. To avoid such situations, it is extremely important to share key milestone achievements of the project with various stakeholders at different stages of the project so everyone knows who the commander of the ship is and how you are steering the ship forward even though the other person might claim credit to the project. 

4. Confront the person: If a person is repeatedly doing this to your projects, it is best to sit down and confront the person. Understand the reason of their behavior, their concerns with you and let them know your discomfort. You will be surprised that sometimes they may not even realize what they are doing and how it is affecting you and just bringing it to their notice can work. 

What I have mentioned above is quite simple and obvious but sometimes it is the simple and the obvious that gets missed out in the chase of the complex and difficult. I hope that these suggestions help you to enjoy the sweet taste of your jam more often. This is not an exhaustive list, and depending on your circumstances, you would discover other ways and means of enjoying your jam and I would be happy to know some of the suggestions that you may want to offer.

Corporate Jargon Demystified

One of the prerequisites of joining the corporate world is to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

If you missed it, I just used a jargon in the sentence above, which is one of the unstated hobbies of people in the corporate world.

I have been a victim and a guilty party to it on numerous occasions. Funnily, when you are the one committing the crime, it all sounds fine, but in case you are the victim, the jargon can be like a painful pill you have to swallow, which the doctor has prescribed.

I have always found jargons to be nothing but diplomatic statements that corporate use, when they do not want to say something directly. These jargons have a hidden meaning behind them, which I have tried to decipher.

Here is the list of jargons that I have often heard being bandied around along with their true meanings and my special comments for each of them:

Corporate Jargon	What they mean to say	My special comments
Having said that	I am not sure of what is right and what is wrong. So at the cost of contradicting myself, let me put my point of view from both the sides. Who knows which of them maybe right?’	Once you use ‘having said that’, I ignore one of the two points and it is my prerogative whether I choose the point before your jargon or after!
At the end of the day	It does not matter what I say. What has to happen will happen ultimately.	When I hear this, I start thinking of the time that I can go out of office and party.
Back of the envelope calculations	I have not been able to do enough work on this project so I do not want to be held responsible for the numbers that I quote. Let me get away by saying that these are just back of the envelope calculations.	I just wonder who ever does calculations at the back of an envelope! Are there no calculators and excel sheets?
Let’s get everyone on the same page	I already know that lot of people do not agree to my proposal. Let us try to convince them.	Are we all reading a similar book that we can expect people to come to the same page?
Let’s take this offline	I do not have the gumption or courage to argue in an open forum.	We are not on Facebook or Twitter. We are already offline. Offline further than this would mean out of office and I am fine with anything that takes me out of office!
We need more granularity	I do not understand this very clearly. Please give me more details so that I can critique and thrash the idea.	I think a food godown can get you more granularity
Let us open one more bucket	The idea is interesting but I have no idea where to slot it. We will have to figure it out.	At this rate, plastic manufacturers will rejoice as we keep opening so many buckets on a daily basis!
These cells need to be populated	I just want to sound cool so I am using these words for a simple exercise.	So you mean you want me to fill the excel sheet and asking me to do such a mundane thing will make you feel cool?
Out of the box thinking	I want to impress the Board. Let us take something new and interesting.	Jack also pops out of the box and his head is out when he thinks!
Believe you me	Since everyone else uses this, let me also use it.	So who do I believe? You or me? Or maybe both eh?

In fact, when you look through these, most would not even qualify as jargon but unfortunately, since these are used sporadically by corporate, I have taken the liberty of classifying them as corporate jargon.

These are just some of the ones that I can recollect while putting this blog. There are many more floating around and I might just update this blog sometime in future, once I have got a handful to share once again.

Disclaimer: The above article is a work of fiction and any resemblance to anyone living is purely unintentional and coincidental. If you still feel offended, go back to my third paragraph, where I talk about being the victim and being guilty and you will understand.


Phew! That should be good to save the job!

Thank You Team India

Dear Team India,


I would like to take this opportunity to thank you not only for myself but on behalf of the entire nation. With such a sensational World Cup victory, you have brought joy and pride to each and every Indian living in every part of the world. You gave all of us a moment that has allowed us to forget our worries, our sadness, our struggles, our mundane lives for some time and given us the opportunity to be a part of this celebration.

Your World Cup victory was celebrated in every house, every street, every corner, and every intersection of the country with great chutzpah, zeal and energy. I was out on the streets of Delhi after the victory and I saw people in big cars and small cars, people on bikes, people on foot, people in autos and people on trucks with each one having a glow on their face, a smile on their lips and just one word to say ‘Indiaaaa… Indiaaa’. When I saw a guy standing on his cycle without a shirt dancing and waving to every car passing by and people stopping by to hug him and dance him, I knew then and there that victory is sweet without any ifs and buts. It also told us once again that victory has no caste, no colour, no creed and no regional bias. The sight of young guys and girls on the bonnets of their cars, standing out of their windows, holding the flag of India was a sight of a lifetime. Even the cops did not want to spoil the party and they let people just be. There were some joyous and amusing moments also when I noticed two guys standing out of the windows of a car, wearing the T-shirts of ‘Dhoni’ and ‘Tendulkar’ mentioned on it and the guy on the front holding a big trophy in his hand. It could not have got more symbolic than this.

What also amused me was the same people who were abusing the style of playing of the Indian team during the qualifying stages and criticizing Dhoni’s captaincy, his strategic decisions and his form on Facebook and Twitter after every inning, every session and every match had suddenly done a volte face and were now tom-tomming the same team and captain calling him a great leader and a true strategist. I remember telling my mother how quickly people change their stance and colour surprises me and she summed it up beautifully by saying ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. I always knew India is an emotional side when it comes to cricket but not only are we extremely emotional, we are also extremely impatient as we expect results instantly and cannot control the urge of lambasting you guys even when the match is not over as yet.

To further add to the drama, there was the Indian media playing its role of Narad-Muni to perfection, building full hype around every player and every match, with complete background music, interspersing movie dialogues with scenes from earlier matches of India and getting everyone from an ex-cricketer to an astrologer to come and give their two bit of what will happen in the next match and who will be the key. Some of the people giving all the tips had never every played cricket or picked up a bat in their lives but that is India, where every person, be it an auto-driver, a fashion designer, a corporate guy or a normal middle-class businessman with a paunch has his own expert comments on what you guys should be doing and what you should not.

Team India – you showed us all how it is done in style despite 2.4 billion eyes watching you like the eagle watching its prey, ready to swoop down on it when there is one wrong move. Achieving the victory through a six was a statement to the world that we have arrived and arrived in style and now we will dominate like never before. Each and every one of you - Sachin, Yuvraj, Virat, Gambhir, Raina, Zaheer and of course Dhoni showed why India is such a formidable opponent.

There was a lot to learn from you guys in terms of team work, handling pressure, delegation of responsibility, managing and leading from the front, never-say-die attitude and I already know that over the next few years, every corporate AV, every new launch, every team-building workshop and every leadership seminar will have pictures and videos of the quarters, semis and the finals telling each and every one of us how it is done.

While it is good to use all these visuals to motivate working people like us, I also feel that there was lot more that the corporate world can learn from you guys. They can learn that one does not have to be made to work for years and years before being given the command of a team. It is not always about experience. Sometimes it is also about the ability, capability, killer instinct and passion that an individual possesses that should decide who should lead from the front. Corporates should also learn from you guys that it is perfectly fine for even a 15 year old senior to work under his junior without the senior feeling any insecurity about it or the junior feeling a sense of over-achievement about it.

Dhoni, by staying behind a few paces and letting Sachin get all the limelight post the victory, you also told us that credit should be given where it is due and a leader should know when to step back and yet enjoy the success of his team. By shaving your head off immediately after the victory, you also taught us that staying true to your word is far important than looking good from the outside.

I can go on and on about what all was there for us to learn but I would leave that part to the HR people and motivational speakers at this point of time as this blog is really not about picking what I learnt but rather about what I saw during the entire duration of the tournament all around me.

One of the things that struck me during the course of the World Cup was that surprisingly China has not picked up this sport as yet. Could it be because cricket is still not included in the Olympics and so it does not hold the same charm to them? I am not ready to believe that China is not capable to play cricket as today they are playing each and every sport, including Volleyball and Basketball, which earlier was not the key sports of China. I would not be surprised if over the next few years, seeing what you guys have been able to achieve, they pick up this sport and we see them participating in the World Cup of 2019. I would surely be keen to see a battle between India and China on the cricket field. It would also allow us to avenge for the Indo-China War. Well I guess there is no point of talking about this as right now China is not a cricket playing nation so there is no point in discussing that further.

From a corporate stand point, being a marketer, I can vouch for the fact that this victory of yours has got a large number of people of my fraternity extremely excited and they have already started discussing new campaigns and new brands having one or lot of you in that. As I had said earlier ‘Ugte hue suraj ko sab salaam karte hain’. You guys deserve it as well and you should it enjoy it to the hilt. After all, a wait of 28 years has been brought to an end. You have brought rains to the land suffering from the drought of the World Cup victory and so once again, I would like to thank each and every one of you with utmost gratitude and with great pride.

Cheers Team India!