Management Musings

I often felt how time seemed to slow down when I visited my grandparents' house. The pace of life seemed so much more relaxed in the smaller towns. Of course it helps when we are the out of town visitors once in a year, pampered to a fault. We would often visit the "native" town during the summer holidays. My grandparents lived on the seaside so the weather would invariably be hot and humid during the months of April and May. The freedom of the mind as kids would tell on us as we would be completely impervious to the heat, power cuts and even a supposed shortage of water supply! Those were the days of endless cricket matches - played with a rubber ball and a make-do bat. The wooden planks lying around the yard, the dried coconut tree leaf would serve as cricket bats good enough for us to re-live the latest exploits of Mohammad Azharuddin and Venkatapathy Raju. Throw in a good ol' six from Navjot Singh Sidhu for good measure and we would be in Nirvana! Summers would...

  Checking into a hotel, I look around the lobby area. I notice there are neat bonsai trees on the counter top, a few pots around the region, plush sofa sets. Minimalistic, modern and clean. Not many people mulling around, all looks good. We walk up to the room and the corridor is clean, the room is impeccably maintained, well aired, the A/C, TV work and importantly, the bathroom is neat, dry and clean. We walk down to the restaurant and once again, the ambience is neat and well kept. It all looks very impressive.   The next morning, the story continues - the cleanliness is maintained. I notice janitors and cleaning staff only once in three days of my stay at the hotel. I have moved in and out of the room fairly frequently and uniformly, there is a sense of cleanliness right through. The cutlery at the restaurant is always clean, the plants always look impeccable, the newspapers in the paper stand are always neatly arranged. In a well run organization, discipline is essenti...

Sebastian Vettel has won the 9th Grand Prix in a row this year. A feat that has been accomplished for the first time in the history of Formula 1. He also won 13 races over the course of the season - what a driver! When Michael Schumacher was winning all his championships not more than 15 years ago, it was thought unlikely that anyone could ever match those feats. Vettel has now won 3 World Championships in 3 consecutive years, the youngest ever triple World Champion. Of course, it is not just his accomplishment - it would be pre-mature to assume that were the case. The real story is that of the team - Red Bull Racing. Christian Horner is the Team Principal and to him must go the lion's share of the credit for creating a winning environment in the team. Anyone in the sport, in any sport, will vouch for the difficulty involved in creating and sustaining a winning culture. Sports makes it somewhat easier to define a winning culture since the results are there for anyone to see. A s...