Bill & Dave by Michael S. Malone - Book Review

This is probably the best business log that i have read till date. It made me laugh, cry and inspire all in one go. I could not put the book down before completing it. And in the end, I was enlightened in what could be the famous and cherished HP Way.

I learnt, 

1. Bill overcame Dyslexia by memorising whatever he heard in class. That made a great entrepreneur - one who listens to his customers and employees.

2. Dave Packard developed the management style "Managing By Walking Around". MBWA.

3. The first product was not named product code number 1 but was 200A. The famous calculate HP-35 was named so since it had 35 keys. And interestingly the HP01 as a product was not successful at all - a Digital Watch. And the first product pricing at $54.40 was as a result of the fact that it reminded amusingly of te historic phrase "54'40" or Fight!" that was used in the 1844 camapign to set the US-Canadian border in the Northwest.

4. Friday Dressing, Beer after work on Fridays, Flex timing, telecommuting, Open Door Policy were all pioneered in HP.

5. Strong Financials of HP owe their fundamentals to "Internal Financing of Growth".

6. Trust was the biggest fundamental of HP Way. And Dave Packard learnt it through his apprenticeship at GE in Schenectady. The perceived security crisis of tools and instruments disappearing from workshop at GE was treated with clampdown on security. This criminalised employee dedication to greater productivity by stopping employees from taking the tools and instruments home to keep working on unfinished projects from their jobs.

7. Treatment for Employees - being fair: Employee Evaluations and Termination

The guiding principles were:

• The indivdual affected had had advance warning through written evaluation and has been advised constructively on how he/she should improve.
• Wherever practical assure the employee is given an opportunity for other placement where he/she might make a greater contribution. Employee placement is a functino of supervisors and personnel and not a function of the emplyee to be turned loose to find a his own job someplace in HP.
• If termination is the only alternative, personnel must be fully advised and believe the fase is satisfactorily documented and the decision has the approval of the general manager concerned.
• Before any adverse action is taken, it should be well thought out. We must recongise that each of our people represents an individual with problems, families etc.

8. The Nine Day Fortnight - It is only fair that, during hard times everyone in the company share in the pain and make comparable sacrifices.

9. G Time: Take advantage of slow periods to give back to employees time that wouldnt be used anyways - and let them use their imagination to fill it productively.

and finally ... 

The HP Way - Corporate Objectives:
1. Profit: profit is the best single measure of our contribution to society and te ultimate source of our corporate strength. aimt to achieve maximum possible profit consistent with our other objectives.
2. Customers: to strive for continuous improvement in the quality, usefulness, and value fo the products, and services we offer our customers.
3. Field of Interest: to concentrate our efforts continually seeking new opportunities for growth but limiting our involvement to fields in which we have capability and can make contributions
4. Growth: To emphasize graoth as a measure of strength and a requirement for survival.
5. Employees: To provide employment opportunities for HP people that include the opportunity to share in the company's success which they help make possible. To provide for them job security based in perforamnce and to provide the opportunity for personal satisfaction that comes from a sense of accomplishment in their work.
6. Organisation: To maintain an organisational environment that fosters individual motivation, intiative, creativity, and wide latitude of freedom in working towards established objectives and goals.
7. Citizenship: To meet obligations of good citizenship by making contributions to the community and to the institutions in our society whcih generate the environment in which we operate.

Creative Thinking - Enablers and Disablers

Often at work, we come across situations that need creative solutions. Frequently we face situations where resource constraints lead us to decision paralysis. 

Yesterday, I stumbled upon this excellent article on mind traps.

1. Anchoring Trap: Over-Relying on First Thoughts

2. The Status Quo Trap

3. The Sunk Cost Trap: Protecting Earlier Choices

4. The Confirmation Trap: Seeing What You Want to See

5. The Incomplete Information Trap

In my corporate experience I have seen many such instances. The most frequent decision trap that I have come across is about The Sunk Cost Trap. Usually to protect our decisions that may have been taken based on information available at a point in time, which does change significantly in a fast changing world, and yet people drive / support these prior decisions, mostly because they do not revisit their assumptions.

I have seen the Anchoring Trap often happen when the first thoughts are those of the Top Boss. If the Boss makes the initial Kickoff thoughts, the rest of the discussion then just goes into implementation of the idea rather than creative constructive approaches.

On personal front, the Confirmation Trap is probably the most common trap that we come across. We like conformance, we love selective hearing, and staying in the comfort zone comes naturally to us. Thus its only natural human behaviour to align with the Confirmation Trap.

The article made me think !

Don’t be emotional with money

Many of my friends are very concerned these days. They form two basic categories of people.

One are those who are reaching the other side of middle age who are worried that they may not have enough when they retire. Inflation is eating all their savings. 

And then there are those on this side of middle age who think they don’t have many avenues these days to invest. Almost all kinds of investments are giving negative returns.

My advice to most people has been to 
1. Realise yourself – be sure of what kind of financial profile you fall in
2. Act according to your profile
3. Set your expectations correct and stop being emotional about it

Today, I will discuss only the first part, Realise yourself. How does that come about?

I have seen the following category of people in my life:

CATEGORY: AGGRESSIVE
These are typically the folks who can do the following well:
1. Take risks with money and not flinch if they fail
2. They are the mavericks and early adopters of investment patterns, they bet big on aspects of investments that they research “enough” but decide using their “guts”
3. Generally understand the laws of demand and supply

CATEGORY: MODERATE
These are typically the folks who can do the following things well:
1. Take calculated risks and sometimes mourn their loss but never get disheartned, maybe become averse to some forms of investments but in general they take the tested path of investment returns
2. They are the mainstream investors with moderate funding sources, and try only the tested formulae in life
3. Generally understand the laws of leverage

CATEGORY: PASSIVE
These are typically the folks who can do the following things well:
1. Take low to minimum risks when it is about money.
2. They are the laggards, not given to losing money at all.
3. Generally border between paranoia or lethargy. Paranoia of risking the money. Lethargy to do the research to invest properly. It may also come from lack of information, knowledge, education or simply pessimism.

CATEGORY: FRIVOLOUS
These are the folks who:
1. Take “unnecessary” risks – some pay off but most don’t.
2. They are the hearsay guys, and their money follows their heart and ears.
3. They are emotional about their money.

If you know which kind of personality profile you are, next time I will talk to you about what kind of actions you should take to make some money.

In the meantime if you have read or interested in reading check this book out, absolutely fantastic in teaching you the basics of investment.

How to create your own career?

I have been asked by many of my colleagues and juniors on how to build and manage career. As I stand at an interesting crossroad on my career, and I don’t know if I am successful yet in what I am trying to do now, I have been considered successful till now and therefore I believe I have some words of suggestion, that you as a reader may find interesting.

Here are some pointers on how to build your career?

1. Setting GOALS is a very important aspect of life.
   a. GOALS must be S.M.A.R.T (Specific-Measurable-Actionable-Result Oriented-TimeBound)
   b. Life can have many aspects. Decide what are most important aspects for you. Some examples of life aspects for which you can decide goals could be: Job, Finance, Personal, Professional.
2. Roadmap – you need to have a roadmap / a plan, on what you want to do with your life. 
   a. Those who are at the start of their career need to create a roadmap of 25 years / 10 years / 5 years / 2 years timeframe.
   b. Those who are in the middle of their career need to look at the 15/10/5 year timeframe or any chunk that they feel comfortable to manage.
   c. Those in their late years can only plan on a 5 year horizon at most.
3. Network – ability to leverage networks is very important. Build networks that can:
   a. Give you advice on how to shape your career
   b. Provide you with opportunities
   c. Help you have fun 
   

These three are essential the building blocks of your career. They form the strategy. 

Next time on this topic, I will discuss how to operationalise this strategy.