Recently, I had been reading this book called ‘The creative negotiator’. I picked it randomly at book store, where it was sitting quietly in a corner getting minimum attention from customer. The author Stephen Kozicki creatively uses the example of Christopher Columbus. He, at a time where world was believed to be flat convinced the Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand to finance his endeavour. Exploring the previously unknown root was not only dangerous but also very expensive. That is when the venture financing comes to my mind. The idea could be very good and profitable, but it only gets financed when the entrepreneurs are skilled enough to convince the VCs about curativeness of his/her business. I will not discuss much about persuasive strategies in this post (you may pick up the book), but I would rather discuss the examples where one can put his persuasive skill to the best use.

            Out of all skills, I think one’s persuasiveness got to be the most creative. There are number of strategy one can use to get the desired outcome from an interaction. Every successful negotiator has their own way of getting things done. I have noticed few people, who may be because of their genes or upbringing are natural negotiator. Some has personality which naturally commands respect and obedience. Each one with its distinct capability is able to influence in different settings or situation. One cannot simply artificially adapt other’s strategy.

            I believe one should rather develop his/her distinct style to persuade, influence and negotiate. Now the question is, how exactly one should go about doing it. Here I am listing few examples, which would get you to think about developing your own way.

Mukesh Ambani

Whenever you think of Indian entrepreneurship, the name of Dhirubhai Ambani comes in your mind. Mukesh Ambani according to me has got these skills from his late father in inheritance. Today, he sealed the deal with British Petroleum worth $7.2 billion, said to be the biggest ever in corporate India. The size and magnitude of deal required the approval of the government too, where the new Petroleum minister is known for his reputation of jeopardizing various Greenfield project when he was heading the Ministry of Environment. It is highly speculated that RIL was not able to extract enough gas from the KG basin to match what it was claiming to be extracting. This project needed money and the debt on RIL balance sheet was increasing and share prices were falling. The company was in dire in of fresh cash to be able to make money from this new discovery. Here, one can sense there would be lot of negotiation for:

1.       Convincing the government that the deal is good for the country

2.       Convincing BP about the existence of large amount of natural gas in KG basin

3.       Convincing shareholders for their confidence in the company

It was the difficult position to give sleepless night to any CEO, but finally they sealed the deal and got approval too

Narendra Modi

Remember Singur? Tata was made to evacuate the factory sight and in overnight Narendra Modi, the CM of Gujarat sealed the very appropriate deal the Tata Motors. One just cannot imaging it was that easy in India to acquire land to set up factory. It could easily be imagined Narendra Modi must have deployed an army of his negotiators to get all the necessary approval to invite Tata to set up factory in neighbourhood of Ahmedabad.  How could just one convince famers from few village to sell their land?

Neera Radia

Remember 3G? A relatively unknown woman who comes from London and works in India for a while to set up a corporate communication firm which would soon have India’s who is who from business and political circle to grace her client list. Wasn’t it tremendous that she was increasingly being looked as a power broker when UPA was forming government after the election? How could a woman rise to this level from the status of being not known? She after all was in business of influencing and communicating and she proved that she was very good at this.

Jodie Foster’s character in the movie ‘Inside Man’

This character comes in my mind whenever I think of Neera Radia. A woman in smart office in Manhattan with only one staff in his office was talking to Osama Bin Laden’s nephew for a possible property deal. Her skills were required by the founder of a Bank during the seizure of its main branch by bunch of people with unknown motives. She very skilfully (or connivingly or rather just use your own word to replace this) gets the district attorney to get her in touch with the detective who is handling operation to free hostages at the Bank. Then she gets the detective to agree to send her in for some chit-chat with the alleged terrorists. Even there, she was able to strike a good deal and got she wanted. Here, the business of the character was solely based on her negotiation skills.

The Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet with number of refugees and come to India. Indian, struggling with her own problem of over-population and poverty had to entertain his needs and interests. Tibetan refugees are taken very good care of, if they are compared with any ghetto of refugees anywhere in the world. They are settled in Himachal Pradesh and Coorg, with kind of amenities they require to realise their aspiration.

Ramalinga Raju

Ramalinga Raju’s contribution to India’s software development industry is forgotten because of his infamous financial fraud. However, he was the first one in 1987 who convinced the bunch of software firms in United States to shift part of their process to India. He was able to convince them that they can perform the part of software development in India as efficiently but with considerably lower costs.

There are plenty of more examples where people negotiated impossible deals. There must have been great deal of efforts and planning behind their successes. Negotiation is very sophisticated and useful skill for everyone; if one is just looking for good bargain at high street shops or sealing the multimillion dollar deal. Seeing the above example, I am sure you must be inspired to brush up your skill. 

I prefer the Lord Sugar’s aggression any day than the perennial bad-hair-day of Donal Trump. The British version of The Apprentice series is far better than its American counterpart. Just in my humble opinion the American version is nothing better than Big Boss rubbish in India.  However, even the UK version has its own share of rubbish. Like for example, the really dodgy looking selection process. I was surprised in the end that none of its contestants could come up with the killer business plan and Idea. Almost all had flawed business plan. Even the winner, Tom Pellereau had a dodgy business plan with weird looking costing and the financial statements where numbers don’t add up. Poor MS Excell skills would be the least of the problem there for a trained Engineer with 1^st class MS degree.

                The main reason why I wanted to share this with you was the learning aspects from this series. If you just let go the sheer lack of general knowledge from its contestants, their street smartness would get you to think about your negotiation skills. There is surely one or two take away for some negotiation lessons. The other reason why I am writing about this is the beauty of immigration. The most driven contestant and the most talented contestant in the series were the Asian born immigrant young women (or just girls if you regard their age). Both of these ladies born in Asia arrived in UK after been living abroad for quite a while. One of them could speak 5 languages and other was a natural entrepreneur.

                Let me start with Jim Eastwood, one of the final four in the series. I had followed the series from the beginning and liked him for his super salesmanship. But, unfortunately there weren’t anything beyond that. The best thing he could do was to talk. He walked in for an interview with just over 40 hour old business plan to seek funding of quarter of million GBP. For some funny reason this was stupid and highly expected of him. He was thrashed quiet heavily by interviewers. The reason why I admired him in the series was I always wished I could talk and charm people like him. It appeared that he could sell anything anywhere. There I believed that his skills could make up for other places where one lacks. Then there was the Achilles hill in form of interview by one of the smartest at Lord Sugar’s company. The lesson one learns here was obvious. You may get through most of the places where you don’t require backing your claims with evidence. The moment one seeks the evidence to verify your claims; they do not stand the scrutiny. Thus, you crumble into pieces.  One of the interviewer asked Jim ‘You have pretty heavy resume where you claim you have all sorts of achievements but, I don’t see the rise in your pay in proportion to your achievements.’ There, Mr. Eastwood had little to say but reiterate ‘but, it is above average than the industrial standards.’

                The quiet an opposite of him was the winner Tom Pellereau. Lord Allen Sugar does not make any secret about his dislike for engineers for the partnership in business, although, Tom who has MS degree in mechanical engineering wins. The catch here was, he likes to call himself an ‘inventor’ rather than anything else. I suppose by just calling him that one realises what he does for living – he invents things. But, he was sort of the boardroom disappointment. He only nodded and claimed to be learning whenever he was on the fire line sitting across the Lord Sugar.  In episode eight, he happily let Melody Hossaini to keep all the appointment she made to herself even though he was the project manager and thus in authority to say otherwise.  Even in the last task, he succumbed to Helen’s aggression and let her be the project manager. I could see that as his weakness against his strength to come up with creative and innovative products. I really could see him winning in last episode when Karen (one of the advisor to Lord Sugar) said, ‘Tom needs you more than anyone in this competition’ to Lord Sugar. The case she was making was that the Lord Sugar’s organisation had capability to help Tom in exchange for his creativity. Apart from that he was the kind of person people would like to work with.  Here was an opportunity to make lots of money from Tom’s innovations. The financials can be reworked and business plan can be tweaked. Thus, Tom emerged as a clear winner.

                Susan Ma who ran the cosmetic business came to UK when she was 12. She was born in China and stayed in Australia for two years.  Iran born Melody Hossaini lived in many countries before she and her family settled in UK. Melody was aggressive and a boardroom tiger. She spoke five different languages. Anyone would like to hire her because of her profile. She was the only one in the competition who could speak fluent French (she also speaks Farsi and Swedish). She would have been an asset to any organisation. Susan Ma learned that she could make more money by selling on her own doing the same thing, while working at store – just like a true entrepreneur. She helped her mother pay her mortgage and her college fees by selling cosmetics from natural ingredients. She also had degree in Economics and Philosophy. These two fantastic immigrant Asian women surely could stand out among the born British. I really don’t think they would ever make mistake of thinking Christopher Columbus was British (like Helen Milligan and Tom made). It also reflects on the fact that immigrants on their virtue of have been living in multi cultural environment have certainly a unique competitive advantage. They have special ability to see things differently and are able to bring out of the box ideas.

                Helen Milligan stood out throughout the competition by looking only one task. She came across as the one of the most hard working and intelligent candidate. She also appeared to be incredibly organised (yes, I borrowed this word from Karen). But only problem with her was she had been working as administrative help for all her life. She was currently the PA of the CEO of a nationwide bakery chain. I am sure her business plan was better than everybody else but her idea was flowed. This came across to me as she wasn’t creative enough. I read in college a case study about the chaos theory, where it said fresh ideas comes from chaos.  I think, she had lost in touch with her creative side in order to be incredibly organised. Lord Sugar’s organisation could teach her be profession but not creative.

                Here is an interesting lesson to be learned. Tom was the boardroom frequent with less business acumen, aggression, and multi-cultural exposure and lacked the sales skills of Jim. Whereas, her close competitor Helen had incredible track record and appeared far more professional than him. But, these are the things one can teach but no one can teach anyone to be creative – that one got to learn on his/her own. 

I also really like the concept of funding the business venture, rather than hiring to do a job. It is more suitable for the current economic trend where jobs are decreasing day by day and colleges are churning out graduates each year in large numbers. Especially in countries like India we need more entrepreneurs than any other country to create jobs and a world class economy. 

I don’t really like to write a movie review or take movies much seriously. Before you read the review, be sure that I don’t have any proven expertise to critique movies. What compels me to write a review is the irritation quotient involved in viewing this movie.

            Just about two months ago, when I saw the first teaser – I sort of liked this movie. I posted the youtube video on facebook with the status ‘must watch’. However, as the time went along, I saw its other teasers and lost interest in the movie. It sounded so much like an extended trip to Goa from the Akhter’s directorial debut Dil Chahta Hay from 2001.

            I had absolutely no intention of watching this movie, despite a friend being so persuasive in convincing me ‘if you liked DCH you would like ZNMD too’- only till I got across the illegal broadcast of this movie 11 p.m. on cable.

            The movie was ultimately a lads-flick, and I agree with the movie critique of HT Mint who called it ‘bromance’. Three childhood friends, now in totally different occupation decide to get together for holiday before one of them gets married. Strangely, they have been together in same course in college too. Now, I wonder which course equips a person with skills to write poetry, build buildings, and work for an investment banking firm. Now, that is not much of an issue with any movies for an audience. Besides this blooper, there wasn’t much of the meaty performance in the movie.

            Hritik Roshan’s character of single parent kid who grew up in tight financial situation grows up to be a banker and holds a high regard of accumulating wealth. The weird part of his character is, it doesn’t convince about the degree of work-life imbalance. Few of the below the belt remarks are in regards with his long hair of weird colour, more than needed facial and eye make-up.

Farhan Akhter plays the role of a copy writer who earns great deal of money to afford an adventure holiday abroad. He is irritating enough to give good run for any movie which has both Asin and Kangana together. The weird and unnecessary angle of Deepti Naval and Nassruddin Shah takes another 10 to 15 minutes of your life just to witness crap.

Only good part was the part of Abhay Deol. He fits into his character with such an ease that it convinces one of him being the real person rather than actor playing a role. Although, there mustn’t have been much effort because his smile and his speech were perfect for the character he played. But, I really don’t see why they have to dub the Kalki Koechlin in ‘chudail’.

Now, I would like to call Katrina Kaif the Anandmurty Guru Maa of the movie. She teaches the work obsessed investment banker how to live the life. She is the bloody Dalai Lama of the movie who occasionally kisses her bhakts. Why the hell you want to be told by the deep see diving lady how to live the life.

Anyways, you may not agree with me, but every single twists and turns of the movies had been decided at the focus group discussion. That Zoya Akhter discussed in one of her interview on CNBC TV 18.

I could have liked the movie if it was a low budget movie, with low profile actors. The movie was an average. But, it was packaged and marketed with its high-profile star-cast it raises the bar for expectation. The most irritating part now on will be the random people taking break for exotic holidays (and yeah you will see their photos on Facebook in swim wear and smug faces) and quote the nonsense lines from the movie.

The winter may have been gone to make way for spring. New York’s central park might be seeing the first bloom of the season. However, those who are present at Manhatter Federal Court may feel some chills at they see one of the richest South-Asian presented before the judge and jury with handcuffs. Mr. Raja Rajarathnam is being tried before the court for alleged insider trading. The names of the accused and co-operating witnesses are some heavy names from the Wall Street. Anil Kumar and Rajat Gupta, both who contributed for the foundation of the Indian School of Business are also being questioned for their loose sense of ethics. 

Mr. Rajarathnam who, relatively lived the modest life with his fortune, was regarded as a family man. It is also been noted that, there weren’t much of unusual amount of money made from the tradings which were based on insiders’ tips. The procecutors are using the tape of phone conversations between the Galleon chief and his old boys network tipping them. However, both Anil Kumar (who toghather with Mr Rajarathnam attended Wharton School of Business’s 1983 class) and Rajat Gupta denies of passing material information to him. On other hand, few former Galleon executives who are also co-accused have become the co-operating witnesses in this case. A convicted Galleon executive Danielle Chiesi was also believed to be sexually luring technology company executives for sales and profit numbers. However, Rajarathnam lawyer dismisses Chiesi as liar. Now, all these has mixed up to be very difficult for a layman to understand the extent of the crime, when his lawyers claim that those information used were public. 

Investment bankers follow strict standards of ethics (or, they ought to follow the strict standards of ethics). A small piece of information can get one unusual amount of profit. For example, shares of a company X are trading at $50 now, and a company Y is negotiating for a take over with $60 a share. Neigther of the companies have disclosed the details, as it still is on negotiation level. If a fund manager gets an inside information that the company X whoes shares are now $50 but just in months time he will manage to get $60 by selling it to Y and he purchases number of X’s share, than it is called the use of ‘material none public information’. Such information are material in nature as one can financially benefit from it. Most of the speculative figures in news papers may not be as reliable as from insiders. ‘Insiders’ are the ones who have access to a company’s information, they are generally at senior management level. 

Bankers across the world seeks extra information in order to make profit. Each bank spends great deal of money on research in order to speculate prices and profit. Generally, the information one seeks should be in public domain. Seeing the extent of corruption in public sectors in India, one should be prepared to face such sort of tipping off in industry and make sure not to indulge. India has seen such scams of their own and the debacle of Satyam. 

The other focal point of discussion is the involvement of number of accused with South-Asian heritage. All this names may also raise question of the ethical standards of South Asians in general. I do not know how is it seen on Wall Street, but has it really disgraced the community? Well, that will also to an extent depends on the verdict of this case.