A Match Winning Combination in the Game of Life!

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"Politics is not my cup of tea, so I quit it." That's what one of the most successful actors from Bollywood said, accepting his failure in public.

I'm talking about Amitabh Bachchan, the actor who completely mesmerized a whole generation while achieving what very few can even dream of.

A hugely successful professional from Indian film industry but a miserable failure in the game of politics, he is. Why he failed to prove himself as a successful political leader is not what I'm interested in, but his ability to accept that fact is what I'm trying to highlight.

"Failure is the pillar of success," the proverb sounds highly inspirational but very few would realize how conditional is that message. What I mean is, not everything is everyone's cup of tea.

Putting in your best efforts, while fighting against unrelenting agonies from repeated failures, even for several years, may not fly you to the dreamland of success unless you are standing on the right platform.

Quitting wrong platforms as soon as possible and honestly accepting the failure, and Identifying the right platform and sticking onto it -- can make your success journey less painful, and rewarding as well.

Practically speaking, if you have a choice then it may sound realistic. However, even if you don't have a choice right now, why don't you create one? Who is preventing you from finding out the platform that suits you best?

I think, you yourself! Because you are afraid of the dangers from unexplored terrains of life. So you decide to continue fighting a battle that you can never win, and keep blaming destiny for your failure.

Better don't, rather, the moment you feel and also get convinced that you're fighting a battle that you don't deserve to win, don't feel shy to give up and start afresh in a different battleground.

Accepting your imperfections and nurturing your strengths that would match minimum requirements of a particular strategy, is undoubtedly a match-winning combination in the game of life.

Why Effective Talent Management Starts with Hiring the Right Talent Manager

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"Abhijit, we are in a hurry to fill up a few critical position. Please, take them on top most priority and send us a few CVs immediately." That was the instruction given to me by HR Head of a few billion dollar plus MNC when I met him yesterday morning.

At the same time, he instructed his 'Talent Management' Head to hand over the JDs to me. The gentleman in charge went to his seat and came back after a few minutes, saying he would mail them across immediately.

When I didn't receive any mail till evening, called him up to remind. He said, since it was a tough day he would do the needful tomorrow.

His tomorrow is almost over today, and I'm still waiting for his mail.

Logically, there has to be either of these two reasons for this delay: Either he doesn't want to associate with us, or he is terribly slow in taking action.

Whatever it may be, but my concern is: When the whole industry is facing an acute talent shortage in general - and his company in particular - can companies afford to keep such personality as the face of their organization -- for attracting the best available talent?

With the increasing trend of organizations appointing an exclusive hiring manager for facilitating  effective talent management programs, a wrong intake has the potential to bring the company down in the long run.

Leadership must look into this issue and take necessary action, before it is too late.

Update: With no other option available, I informed the HR - Head a few minutes ago and got an immediate reply from his Talent Manager. Thank God!

How to Create An Exclusive Space in A Overcrowded Market

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The idea of creating an exclusive space within overcrowded target market, much before making the service actually available, was indirectly floated by a friend of mine - a HR professional, running his own management consulting firm - with whom I've teamed up for entering into the business of Retained Executive Search.

His intention is to make our service comparatively better than the competitors by doing some exclusive value addition. And that comment of his made me think about the concept of making our service a hit by creating an exclusive space within an existing market even before launching it.

Retained Executive Search is a lucrative business, but mostly dominated by big players. Hence it hardly offers any space to the newcomers, unless there is an element of surprise in their package in terms of a unique set of value additions that would catch the attention of corporate leadership.

For implementing this concept of creating an exclusive space within a overcrowded market, through offering a ROI based talent management service, we have decided to go through the following 4 steps:

1. First find out, what are those benefits that our big brothers are offering to their clients.

2. Once done, the next step would be to identify what are those additions that our prospects may be willing to avail.

3. And then, we would focus on incorporating those benefits into our proposal, in such a way, that would convince the prospects about getting a higher 'Return on Investment' from our service as compared to others.

4. Finally, once the package is ready for sale, we shall launch a marketing campaign through impacting presentation to target audience, and go all out to make them understand how these additional services - that we are offering - are going to benefit their organization in terms of effective talent management.

Let's hope, we design it right and market it right too.

What could be some other ways of offering high ROI based talent management services? Please, share your opinion.

Keep Fighting Against Destiny's Terrorism, Never Give Up!

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I don't think anybody had ever gone through a situation, at least once in life, when he wouldn't have felt extremely dejected and helpless.

Some are fortunate to experience it once, but for a few it becomes a regular affair to keep fighting against the terrorists of destiny.

Let's not get into an argument, whether all the time they themselves created the problems or not. Because, in my personal opinion, more often than not, a series of compelling situations must have kept thundering their life with the rains of disaster.

A parallel can certainly be drawn between the fear unleashed by terrorism and the ruthless injustice inflicted upon us by destiny. Because, in both the cases, victims are innocent souls.

When the whole world is desperately fighting against an ever increasing menace of real-life terrorism, how do we, the individuals, prepare ourselves to thwart destiny's terrorism off the coast of life-accomplishments is what perhaps defines the course of our life events.

Despite not being from anti-terrorism squad, either in reality or on intellectual platform, the best solution that comes to my mind for successfully preventing destiny's bombing of our life -- is to gather sufficient intelligence information, in terms of making us both materialistically and emotionally impenetrable to its devastating consequences.

In simple words, what I mean is the ability to rise from the ashes: Never give up!

If we possess that unique psychological warfare of fighting against the might of destiny's terrorism, trust me, sooner or later, we would successfully emerge out of the mother of all destruction in our personal life: VICTORIOUS!

Inspiration: Down the Memory Lane!

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So vivid is the memory of getting up in the morning, everyday, just a year ago, thinking about who was going to be my next victim.

Don't misunderstand me, by victim I mean the target, and by target I mean someone known to me whom I could ask for some money.

Because, during that period, often I used have no money for even buying essentials for a family of four: Me, wife, and two daughters.

Asking someone, however close he or she may be, for money, is perhaps the most unwanted task in everyone's agenda and I too was no different. However, for me it was the question of survival for the entire family.

There was no choice. Sorry, there was a choice -- the choice of calling it day, and quit this world.

But I failed to embrace the word 'Quit' and, swallowing down a series of lethal strikes on self-esteem with a smiling face, kept on moving.

Many of my family members and friends came all out to help me, a few refused though, and I continued living in this world.

Now, after a gap of more than a year, I have made a turnaround and determined to make it happen in life in a big way.

I have repaid the loans and now, by the grace of God, embarking on a highly ambitious business expansion that I'm sure would completely change the landscape of my future very soon.

The purpose of this post is to inspire a  few, who might be going through a similar situation in life; the purpose of this post to convince them, that they should never give  up even if there is no visible sign of a turn-around; the purpose of this post is to confirm  a simple fact, that "Beyond Every Night, There is Always A Dawn!"

This post is a tribute to those family members and friends of mine, who helped me make both the ends meet during a crisis that I couldn't have survived without their support. May God bless them!

Success for the Fittest: Never Give up, Keep Fighting!

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Nothing can make you surrender to the negativity of life, if you believe in yourself.

Some of us begin the journey of life traveling on foot, some by vehicles, and a few by airplane -- as dictated by fate. Most stick to their original travel plan, but a few dare change the mode of travel and upgrade to the next level -- and make it happen in life!

You may not change your fate, but you certainly can change the course of your destiny if you believe in your abilities to do so.

When you initiate the right step towards a remarkable improvement, destiny gets inspired by your positivity and gradually start favoring you in everything that you do. That's what a popular proverb says: Fortune favors the Brave.

Success is more about sustaining a series of ruthless attacks by circumstances on our fundamental existence and coming out in flying colors. That's how, life filters out the best from the lot. If survival is for the fittest, success too follow the same principle!

Even in the most compelling situation, you must fight it out to the best of your capacity to prove yourself the fittest.

For God's sake, never give up in-between like cowards.

Always remember: Beyond Every Night, There is Always A Dawn!

How Passion Almost Killed My Entrepreneurial Dream!

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An entrepreneur, running a business which is based on what he loves to do, may have to decide at some point of time -- whether he would continue doing what he is passionate about, or focus more on business expansion.

It had happened with me a few years ago: Conflict between pursuing what I was passionate about and the possibility of a huge a business growth - where passion won over the urge to make more money - eventually brought me back to the point where I started my journey a decade ago.

Don't you like to know, what was that passion?

My passion was to deliver world class executive search service to a limited number of high profile corporate clients, investing more than justified man-hours to ensure customers' delight, for earning the reputation of being "different from the lot."

It wouldn't have been achieved without my deep involvement in every activities performed by team members.

I went mad after maintaining a quality of service that not was not at all proportionate to the fees paid by my clients, and failed to strike a balance between efforts and rewards: Basic ingredient of a successful business.

Focusing too much on continuously improving quality, I failed to capitalize on a already developed brand equity by expanding my business horizon. And when recession struck in 2008, being too small the business almost collapsed.

Good that I have realized my mistake of sticking to the passion at the cost of business growth - before it was too late - and now taking every step to reach an intersection of passion and financial independence.

I am sure, lot of entrepreneurs commit the same mistake of being too passionate about what they love to do, forgetting the fact that beyond a certain point, for ensuring and sustaining business growth, they have no option but to focus more on efficiently running their organization!

Never Apply Mathematics to Relationship Management

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Torn between your own interests and that of others' you love and care for, you live a life that's never worth it from any practical angle.

Still you work hard to justify your failure, because, more than your own victory what really matters to you is the success of your beloveds.

However, when they don't acknowledge your contributions you feel deserted.

But why?

Why don't you think that what you did was the best that you could have, and it really doesn't matter what you're getting in return?

Why don't you just give it away, without expecting anything in return?

Because, you're taught to be calculative even in the realm of relationship management.

But for living a life worth it, you must learn to unlearn everything that was pumped into your amygdala since childhood, and learn to just give everything away unconditionally!

You must learn not to apply mathematics in relationship management, where success is not about what you are getting from others but that you're giving to them.

The day you learn to ignore the receivables in life's balance sheet, believe me, life would start showering every uncountable benefits to your equation of existence.

Never ask for what you truly deserve; time would take a note of it to return you efforts -- multiplied, several times.

Beyond Every Night, There is Always A Dawn!

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Every dawn marks the arrival of a bright morning; every pitch-dark night of failure turns into a shining day of success -- nature's law!

While negotiating through a dark tunnel of frustrations and misery, what really matters - that differentiates between success and failure - is individual's ability to sustain those killing moments of absolute silence and lack of vision and survive a series of lethal attacks on self-esteem.

Not all but only a few can actually do it, I mean come out of the black cloud of continuous demotivation inflicted upon them by a ruthless world.

Because, for them, nothing is more challenging than the challenge itself.

The rest give up in-between!

However, I strongly believe that anyone with a right combination of self-esteem and self-confidence can easily surf through the Tsunami of failures, eventually reaching the dream island of success.

So, if, for any reason, you think that life has come to a grinding halt, please, never think of giving up on hope for a better tomorrow.

Always, remember, somewhere, someone, is testing your endurance limits, and if you fail to fail -- success is inevitable in due course of time.

The weapons that you need to defend yourself and win over the negativity of life are already there within you. Take them out, sharpen and use them to the best of your ability.

Keep fighting, and never get tired of moving forward.

Trust me, very soon you will the notice a disappearing darkness, signifying that you are about to each the end of this tunnel where a few angels of success are waiting for your grand arrival!

Why Grass Always Look Greener on the Other Side of the River?

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That's a question I don't think even God would be able answer to the best of anyone's satisfaction.

Who doesn't think: What I do, is the worst; what he does, is the best; I'm sure that I can do that, but situation doesn't permit.

What a dilemma?

Genuine Relationships are Precious, Don't Just Lose Them for Nothing

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Relationship break-up is as bad as losing a part of our body. We learn to live without it, but can never win over a sense of loss.

Similarly, losing trust, either way, is yet another blow to our existence. We never stop trusting people, but with an element of doubt hovering all the time.

Why Should Daughters be Deprived of Inheritance Benefits?

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When a daughter, along with her brother, shares father's happiness, sorrows, success and failures, why then, sharing fathers property with her brother is looked upon as a sign of greed by the society?

When I raised this issue with a few, most of them opined traditionally saying why should a daughter put her claim for a stake in father's property when her father has already married her off to the best of his capacity?

Start Ups: Never Compromise on Quality of Employees

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Choosing wrong people may cost you a few years of your entrepreneurship career, choosing the right ones would more than make it up; remember, life is all about learning from past mistakes and taking the right decision to avoid recurrence in future.

That's what I had experienced as an entrepreneur, and learned an unforgettable lesson too!

7 'Great Leadership' Symptoms!

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Everybody, consciously or subconsciously, aspires to be a leader: In professional life, or in personal life, and more often than not -- in both.

However, very few would work it out with a systematic approach to attaining that most desirable position.

Why People Betray Long Trusted Association?

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When you suddenly come to know that someone, who has been working for you for close to a decade, is intentionally damaging your professional reputation -- what would you do?

That he has been demotivating the newcomers to the company, projecting a host of wrong information about company's reputation and falsely projecting about a hostile work-environment, came as a rude shock to me because he used to be one of my most trust-worthy employees.

Talent Management: A True Story of Transformotive Recruitment

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Close to a decade ago, when Regional Sales Manager of a 200 Crore company approached me to help him building up a  senior level team for his organization, I was  a bit perplexed, unable to find out a link between his current responsibility and talent acquisition.

When he said that the MD of the company had entrusted him with the responsibility of identifying a recruiter who would not only dig-out the talents but also help building up brand equity of the company as an ideal employer for attracting the best professionals from target organization, I, sensing the challenge, immediately said yes to him.

The Brutal Killing of Professional Ethics!

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He joined a day before vanishing from our client's organization.

With no verbal or written communication to the concerned person in that company - except a text message saying that due to some unavoidable circumstances he had to leave - neither to us, the Search Firm that placed him there, he just disappeared.

Don't Misunderstand Recruiters, Planet's Most Stressed Species!

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The most uncertain business on planet Earth is 'Contingency Recruitment,' a model based on getting paid by the client only upon successful completion of the assignment - not even a rupee before!

Conventionally the same assignment would be shared with at least half a dozen agencies and, obviously, all but one - who finally pushes her candidate - would go back to square one having wasted their time and energy for earning absolutely nothing.

How to Make People Understand, What they Don't?

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What can make people understand, that they really don't, is a puzzle that most of us would be keen to know!

Because, we, sometime, face a frustrating situation of not able to convince the other person that whatever he or she is doing doesn't make sense.

Success is About Having Confidence in Self

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"If my mind can conceive it, my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it." # Jesse Jackson

Yesterday, in the evening, I, along with my family members: Wife, and two daughters, went to a cinema hall for watching the movie 'Spy Kids'

Being a 3D movie, we were respectfully handed over the goggles while taking seats. However, for almost 15 minutes since the movie commenced, I couldn't make the head and tail out of what this 3D all about as far as the movie was concerned: Because, despite wearing goggles, it appeared to be nothing more than a regular 2D movie.

What Happens, If Anna Hazare Fails to Deliver?

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There is no doubt about the legitimacy of Team Anna's "JIHAD" against rampant corruption and that of Anna's followers from all over the country, including me, because, being a patriotic citizen of India I'm also desperately looking for a long term solution for curbing this menace.

However, watching this movement swelling up - so fast - entirely on the basis of a huge expectation of the protesters from Anna Hazare, what's worrying me now, is: What happens, if Anna fails to deliver in toto?

Did I Really Save A Life?

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More than 5 years ago, during a week day at my office, around 2 PM in the afternoon, I received a call from my wife saying that her brother-in-law, husband of her only sister, based at Kolkata, had suffered a major brain-stroke and been hospitalized in a critical condition.

She also said that he, being a central government employee, had been shifted to an empanelled hospital and the doctors were carrying our detailed investigations.

Inspiration: Thought for the Day

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Not all are destined to be happy in life, something beyond our absolute control; but making them happy whom we love, is what should be our ultimate goal. #AK

Venting out frustrations, is not a sign of unhappiness; suppressing and hiding it, definitely is. #AK

Why the Hell Is Merit, So Merit-less?

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With tons of sympathy for those socially oppressed sections of the society, how a modern youth, from a tag-less class - despite having the merits to access what she truly deserves - can explain to herself the justifications for losing a golden opportunity that could perhaps have changed the landscape of her life -- just because, someone else, by virtue of a tag and not merits, is automatically allowed to race past her?

Ask me; I have been watching this killing but silent questions on the face of dozens of students for more than a few months. You know why, because my daughter has just cleared her 12th board exam and appeared in several competitive examinations.

Is Corruption A Mass Psychological Disorder?

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20 years ago, while protesting against an army-man for forcibly occupying my seat in Dadar Guwahai Express Train, I narrowly escaped death: Just before he could open fire at me, a few co-passengers intervened and he was neutralized.

Even, while traveling by Auto-Ricksaw, I have never paid a single rupee extra so far, always insisting on paying according to meter reading.

And while doing so, I must have handed over a dozen adamant drivers to traffic police in last 10 years. But for how long we can continue doing so?

I am sure, most of us must have raised voice against corruption quite a few times in life; however, while facing a never-ending shower of corrupt practices in everyday life, people, at some point of time, stop protesting and start accepting it, assuming that what the other person is doing now they would have to do the same in another situation in future for survival.

Sadly, with this acceptance, we become part and parcel of a mass psychological disorder: 'Uncontrolled Corruption.'

In a country of 1.2 billion plus people, to ensure corruption eradication at all levels, there must be hundreds of mass training programs being conducted across the length and breadth of the country, aiming at reminding and educating people about our heritage of self-respect and tolerance.

So corruption eradication process, in addition to introducing a drastic legislative reform, should also target a mass-refinement of the citizens' belief system, which is now greatly influenced by a deadly desire of achieving an over-night financial success -- by hook, or by crook.

According to me, Anna Hazare, who is currently spearheading a strong mass movement against corruption, instead of asking the Govt for 100% agreeing to his demand should have laid the foundation by not being so adamant on inclusion of the Prime Minister under the jurisdiction of Lokpal.

However, he deserves a huge appreciation for highlighting this grave issue at national level.

I think, Anna, being very naive, is grossly misguided by his own people who're much more intelligent and I suspect them supporting Anna with a hidden agenda.

Hence, more than the issue itself, the agitation against corruption has become a ladder for going up the power-tower.

While concluding, I wouldn't mind asking my readers a simple question: Do you think, corruption is a fully blown mass psychological disorder that spares none?

Update/8.8.11: While discussing about a rampant corruption clouding the horizon of India, I don't think it would be impertinent to highlight 3 amazing examples of corrupt practices unleashed by the largest countries in the world. I have just read it on the website of Forbes. Please, click on the following link to access it -- A Tale Of Three Thefts: China, Russia, And The U.S.

Image: angelbee_07 on Flickr