The McKinsey Way: Book Review

McKinsey is a very big brand in both the consulting and non-consulting world. If someone has heard of just one management consulting company, it would be McKinsey & Company. In fact I have heard people leaving a better paying job for McKinsey. Such is a brand of McKinsey. And when I came across The McKinsey Way by Ethan M. Rasiel, I couldn't help but read it. The McKinsey Way appeared to be a self-help book. I don't generally read self-help books (especially after reading The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma). But the buzz around this book like anything else related to McKinsey drove me towards reading it.

The book is divided into five parts. The first part talks about how to think about business problems. It mentions a few frameworks to represent the problem. These frameworks helps in looking at different aspects of the problem and attribute importance to each factor. The second part of the book talks about what actually goes into solving a problem - gathering a team, brainstorming, conducting interviews, researching and managing hierarchy - and how to do them effectively. The third part of the book deals with selling the solution while the fourth and the fifth part touches upon 'how to survive at McKinsey' and 'life after McKinsey'.

If there is one centralized theme of the book and one take-away from the book, both explicit and implicit, it's STRUCTURE. Right from the anecdotes mentioned in the book to the way in which the book is written - everything is structured. Rasiel describes the importance of structuring anything and everything - thoughts, email, presentation. Another theme that I found through out the book is 'putting yourself in other person's shoe'. He talks about elevator pitches where a consultant has very short time to sell his idea. If he has structured his solution and thinks form the client's perspective - chances are high that he would be able to sell his idea.

Leafing through the less-than-200 pages, one also forms an idea about the life of a McKinsey-ite. Rasiel reinforces that generally held notion that consultants put in real long hours. He also mentions about the crazy travel one has to undertake and its impact on the family life. Another thing that can be inferred from the book is that the consulting world has really high attrition so much so that it has become 'normal'. To quote from the book - "As one former McKinsey-ite told me (Rasiel), leaving McKinsey is never a question of whether - it's a question of when. We used to say that the half-life of a class of new associates is about two years - by the end of that time, half will have left the Firm." Attrition in the consulting world is one thing i want to write on, but in due time.

The book is an easy read. Rasiel has used McKinsey jargon profusely throughout the book. However he has explained them before using them. For people who have not used 'frameworks' in their work, it's a good introduction to the usefulness of frameworks. The book is designed such that one can start from any chapter and still make sense out of it. One needn't go cover-to-cover. However, I would recommend reading it from cover-to-cover.

Overall, the book makes a good read for a three hour flight or drive. It reinforces a lot of commonsensical yet very important things - especially structuring ones thoughts and communication. For people mulling a career in consulting - this book could be your yet another source of information about the consulting world.

Aruna Shanbaug: It's my life

I am now qualified as a senior citizen. I would have got tax exemption on 2.5 lakh of my salary and concession in the railways as well. But then, things don't always work as planned. Like a lot of senior citizens, I don't earn anything to get any tax exemption. And I don't go anywhere. Nowhere. I have seen people living in the slums of Dharavi where each person gets about 20 sq ft of space to live. I live in almost equal space - the only difference is that I don't move. In fact, I can't move and haven't moved by myself for last 37 years. Some people call me soul. Some call me life. Some call me sub-conscious. A few techies these days even call me the software. I am the 'real person' within the body of the most popular living nurse in India, Aruna Shanbaug. I am the 'red' of the Aruna. I am the 'shaan' of the Shanbaug. I am the the real Aruna Shanbaug.

I was always amazed at the hegemony of the mankind. Man decides which animals to rear and which to kill. Man decides which plants to grow. Man not only decides the fate of plants and animals but also of other people. Today, it was my turn. My fate was to be decided. Whether I would live or die was to be decided by a few people. I didn't commit any crime. On the contrary, I am a victim. But still. They would decide whether I would live or die.

Through all these last 37 years, Pinki has been my best friend. She really cares for me. But one thing that hurts me the most is the pain Pinki is going through. Pinki is in pain because she can't see me suffering through the agony. She can't see me bearing the pain for 37 years. And she fights for a very noble cause - of giving me freedom from my sufferings. These days, while the children send their parents to old-age homes, Pinki has been by my side. I'll be indebted to her throughout my 'life' and beyond - if there's anything after life.

But I am brave. I am full of life. I believe in miracles, science and the divine power. I believe that I will see the light of the day. I'll eat the best of fish and listen to Aamir Khan's 'O palan hare' composed by A R Rahman and written by Javed Akhtar. I believe that the medical science will make enough progress that I would be treated. If not tomorrow, next year. If not next year - after ten years. I want to live.

We consider committing suicide a crime. A person cannot even attempt to take his own life even though he is suffering from insurmountable mental stress. But when it comes to my case - no one even bothered to know what I want - whether I want to live or die. But I can't blame them. How would they know what I want? I have no way to communicate to them that I want to live, that i want to go through this pain and hope that someday I can move by myself. After all, it's the hope that keeps everyone alive and motivates people to persevere. Didn't the "mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in foolish dreams" boy who was expelled form school grow up to become Albert Einstein? It is hope. Hope - that made they kept going. I believe that medical science would make enough progress in the next few years that I'll recover. And despite what the doctors say - I have hope and faith that I shall be back. And my wish is that I want to live - live till I can possibly live.

Today a few supreme people on the bench decided my future. I shall live. I don't know if I need to thank them to give me something that is as much mine as anything can get - my life.  But, nevertheless, I'll thank them for not taking away what they could have. It's my life and let me and only me decide what's enough for me and how much I can bear. If I am not able to communicate it to you, please leave me to myself.

Please don't show mercy on me.

From pictures of pets and ousting Mubarak to ...?

In 2005, very few people knew social media. They then slowly started using it to share their lives with their friends. And by 2011, they have an integral role in ousting Ben Ali and Mubarak. The thought of where the social media would be in 2015 is overwhelming. I asked a few friends of mine for their views on the state of social media 5 years down the line and here's what they have to say:

"What do you think is the future of social media? Where do you see it 5 years down the line?"


Maliha Mariyam: Social media is a communication platform. As the world economy is changing the way ppl use it will change. It will revolutionize a few more industries - like it has already revolutionized - books, retail, travel. Banking is on the way. It's going to be interesting 5 years.

Olivia Mukhopadhyay: The social media is getting better everyday so 5 years down the line it is going to still remain a great mode of communication and it will play a bigger role in advertisement and brand building. We can see emergence of corporate networks for people to direct their questions and grievances and social media will form a bigger role in opinion formation. It will eventually affect politics and maybe open up better policy discussions the same thing normal media should do but cant because they have got to run a business social forum is more open less personal and hence provides a good platform for people to speak up.

Harshika Nahar: It's future still seems to be gloomy. Today the youth have the intelligence to judge,and react, comment but that's it. Given the impact social media may have, most governments would ban it - as is seen in China. Just commenting on a national issue would not matter unless there's someone who would really take action on it. it's just written, "liked", commented and forgotten.

Mithun Karmakar: FBI is going to use it to screw you. Keeping an eye on what you post or share. They might use that information to form your profile; A matter of privacy, I mean. Social media is making the world know about you more - a bit too much. Remember the blackberry case in US? Common people don't always care about what others might use this information for.

It might start voicing people's opinion in a structured manner. Like govt polls on important issues, election polls, etc.

We can already see blogs, mails etc are already integrated into one Google account. This integration is going to be even widespread in simpler words one networks for all your internet needs.

Facebook started with hot chicks pics but now has taken the shape of what we see it now.. if it had stuck to that i don't think it would have crossed the great oceans. While Twitter has become more of a shouting tool than social network.


Pallav Jhawar: Social media is replacing traditional advertising, replacing traditional ways of reading and sharing news, replacing traditional ways in which NGOs raise funds, putting something like RTI on the web. i can go on and on. Five years down the line, it would be possible to take a video of yourself saying something like had a great lunch pointing to your lunch and upload it as a status on Facebook.

I ask the same question to my readers - what do you think is the future of social network is? Where do you see it heading five years down the line? For a change, I'll reserve my comments for a later post

Disclaimer: The comments mentioned above are the sole responsibility of their writers. The accuracy, completeness, veracity, honesty, exactitude, factuality and politeness of comments are not guaranteed.

PS: The interviewees were not given any time to prepare for the interview. In fact they didn't have any clue that I would conduct an interview. The question was asked to them at 1:30 am and they are required to give answers off the top of their head. The answers published are uncensored and picked from chat window - so please pardon the grammatical errors!

The Revolt of 1857

[Disclaimer: All characters, places, institutes, organizations and incidents appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to any real persons (living or dead), places (not even India, Tunisia and Egypt), institutes, organizations and incidents is purely coincidental. ]


Flitter and Chasebook, two information sharing tools, were developed in the early 1850 in the USA. In no time they had become immensely popular throughout the world. By 1852, almost 3% of the Indian subcontinent had access to Flitter or Chasebook.

In 1854 Royal Small Arms Factory started producing a new, long rifle which would help the British Army in a bayonet fight. The rifle was extensively used in the Crimean war and was later introduced in the British colonies. Mangal, a soldier in the Bengal Native Infantry heard that the cartridges used in these rifles were greased with pork or beef fat. He started fleeting (messages updated through ‘Flitter’ are called ‘fleets’ and the act is called ‘fleeting’) against the East India Company on Flitter and created a page on Chasebook to protest against the introduction of such rifle. His messages were read by his fellow soldiers in Bengal and started getting agitated. His family and friends back home in Uttar Pradesh also joined the Chasebook page. Soon, the soldiers of all the regiments under the East India Company became aware of the insensitivity of the East India Company towards the Indian sensibilities. The soldiers in all the regiments started protesting against the use of the Enfield Rifles. Bakht Khan developed a training routine and videos for the sepoys in Meerut and shared it through Chasebook with the other regiments. The Madras Army and the Bombay army were also facing racism as the soldiers were not given higher ranks despite their qualifications.

In the civil society, Fleets and Chasebook feeds had been floating around about the Company’s attempt to convert the population of India which was then predominantly Hindu and Muslim into Christian. In fact, the few progressive measures taken by the Company – like abolishing Sati system and widow-remarriage – were looked upon with suspicion by the people.

The Company, in the name of ‘taxes’ started looting India of its gold, jewels, silk, cotton, etc. A Zamindari system was introduced which burdened the farmers with unprecedented taxes. A lot of them were forced to switch to farming commercial crops like indigo, jute, coffee and tea. This reduced the supply of food crops and hence there was a scarcity of food which led to price rise of the food crop. The poor could no longer afford food. Thousands of workers lost job when the handlooms closed down due to competition from the cheap factory made goods. Essentially, everyone in India was directly impacted by the oppression of the Company.

Let’s come back to the rebelling sepoys. Mangal was preparing to revolt against the Company and tried teaching a couple of Europeans a lesson. He was however arrested and sentence to death. Sohan in Kolkata got the fleet about Mangal’s death and re-fleeted it. Soon the incident became viral on the social media. Laxmi, the queen of Jhansi, who was ousted by the Company also created mass awareness through her Chasebook notes. Nana Sahib, Tantia Tope, Jwala Pershad organized protests in Cawnpore.

People in all parts of the country – in Lahore, in Madras, in Dhaka, in Oudh, in Jodhpur - took to the street. Hridayanath, a resident of Shyambazar, Bengal Presidency, created a Chasebook event to assemble at the Chandni Chauk to protest against the Company. All his friends and their friends and their friend’s friends joined the cause. Several other ‘squares’ were identified in the country where people would assemble for their ‘liberation’. There was a mass uprising. Ajmal, from Faridkot, took a rifle and open fired at the Company officials until he was arrested. Baanya, who stayed in Mizoram had his Chasebook wall flooded with updates form friends who were “showing off” by sharing the news of their heroic deeds in chasing the Company out. ‘Fleets’ of the news of Lakshmi’s, Tantia and others success started becoming viral and a Baanya, a Raghunathan, and an Ajmal started drawing motivation from them and joined the protest against the Company.

By the time the Company realized the intensity of the protest and blocked Chasebook and Flitter, the uprising had moved out of the hand and had spiral out. Mass protests in every nook and corner of the country eventually led to an end of Company’s close to 100 years of exploitation. India became one of the first few countries in the world to be free.

Getting live updates about the development in India, people from Sri Lanka, Hongkong and a host of other colonies started their protest movements. The freedom movement by India had a domino effect and by 1867, 10 years after Mangal's first ‘fleeted’ about the Enfield Rifles, all the colonies directly or indirectly under the Great Britain got freedom

Ms. Meena: After-thoughts

There are somethings that money can't buy. But is justice one of them? Or, can it be bought? What is the price of a person's life? of his lie? What all can credit/loan do?

These are some of the questions which the play, Ms. Meena, revolves around. Ms Meena, a play by Chennai based Perch group, written by Rashmi Ruth Devadasan and directed by Rajiv Krishnan, is inspired by Der Besuch der alten Dame (The Visit) by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. The play revolved around Ms Meena, the protagonist of the play.

Ms. Meena, is a very successful film star who has made a fortune in her 20 years career. The play starts with the news that Ms Meena is visiting Pichampuram, the village where she hails from. The village is under abject poverty. The villagers are hopeful that she would be able to bring in money to the village. The villagers are convincing Ravi, her Pichampuram day's lover, to talk Ms. Meena out into helping the village.

Ms. Meena, finally, arrives. The village is overwhelmed and hopeful. Ms. Meena announces that she would make a movie on her life and will shoot it at Pichampuram. This would bring in a lot of tourists to Pichampuram, thus, making it prosperous. However, she, has a condition. She wants Ravi to be dead in return.

The audience then discovers that Ravi had ditched Asha (who later one went on becoming the uber-successful Ms. Meena). He had refused to marry her even after finding that she was carrying his child. He went on to marry the daughter of a Kirana store as that would boost his career. So, Asha had come back to the village to take the revenge.

The whole village, initially, supports Ravi and says that he has nothing to worry about. However, the expectation of fortune led the villagers buy a lot of things on credit and they were soon under debts. Also, their personal ambition of working in a movie made them take Ms. Meena's side. Finally, the movie is made. The villagers kill Ravi and his life-size statue is put of at the entrance of the village.

The story of the play is not unusual. It has an expected ending and an expected flow. What made this play different is the way the artists created the sound and the landscapes. We get the first glimpse of this when the artists made sound of a helicopter heralding the arrival of Ms. Meena. The artists, throughout the play, seamlessly transforms from human characters to the elements of the surroundings - like waterfall, birds, trees, etc. The first time i had heard of artists becoming non-human characters was in the sitcom Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai. [This is one topic - review of Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai - which i have been thinking of writing on from a long time]. My second, and first-hand encounter was with the theatre workshop i attended conducted by "Yours Truly" Group, of which yours truly is a part. There we became basin, commode, wax in the ear, etc. I found it very funny and strange until later i figured how it fell in place. Anyway, The perch of the birds, the gushing of the wind, the sound of a moving bus, the sound of a moving train were all done by the artists. Their transformation from a bus to a train to normal villagers was something i saw as an audience for the first time.

The one thing that struck me the most about the play was the vulnerability of humans beings. The fact that Ms. Meena was successful in giving her own justice outside of the legal system is due to the gullibility of the villagers. This reminds of the recession and the sub-prime crises that started from Sept 2008. People had easy availability of loan. This made them buy things which they couldn't afford. But the math needs to be worked out. The money had to come form somewhere. Unfortunately, there was no such source. This eventually led to the recession*. Imagine, if some Ms. Meena would have offered to create wealth in the market in lieu of someone's life - i wonder how many people would have denied. Essentially, Ms. Meena took advantage of the poverty of the people (for which she was responsible) to serve her own purpose. I guess, a lot of politicians do this. Ms. Meena, in principle, bought justice - regardless of whether or not Ravi 'deserved' punishment.

If I were to remake this play, I would remake it from Ravi's perspective. I find Ravi's character very interesting. What would have gone through him when he ditched Asha for career advancement, when Ms. Meean enunciated 'her justice' and when the villagers were after his life? These are complex feelings and would be interesting to develop and portray.

Overall, it was a good play. I was hoping for a 'heavier' play and hence the light-hearted treatment of the play couldn't strike a chord with me. But the different style of presentation was good to watch.

Cheers!

*A very simplified/crude description

Bus Day - Bangalore

It's an era of publicity and creating awareness. There are thousands of awareness campaigns going on - from "save tigers" to "sev puri". One tool of creating awareness is commemorating a "Day" for that occasion. And so, we have the Earth day, the World Environment Day, etc to create awareness about environmental issues. The newest one in this series of "Days" is Bus Day.

Bus Day, is observed on the 4th of every month to get more people to use public transport - which not only reduces traffic but also reduces carbon emission. I think it's a very noble cause - and i am sure there must be some study done by someone to show how many more people used the public transport and how many liters of petrol/diesel got saved and by what degree the carbon footprint reduced. And I am sure that these numbers would be very encouraging.

But, on the 3rd and 5th of the month, the situations goes back to where it always were. It, essentially, implies that due to the awareness, publicity and hype created on the name of the Bus Day the pollution reduced. This indeed marks the success of the Bus Day as a campaign.

Let's look at the bigger picture. The reason for having the Bus Day is, to put in simple terms, reduce pollution and traffic And the act to achieve this is to create awareness among people to use public transport. It's like giving them a test-drive and telling them that it's not that bad to use buses.

I would like to take a step back and try to answer a more pertinent question - Why do people use private vehicles in the first place. There could be multiple factors - status symbol, convenience, hobby-ist riding/driving, etc. I think, a lot of people are buying entry level cars and bikes because there isn't a good public transit system in place.

The condition of buses are good. The fares are reasonable. But the problem is  that the buses are very infrequent. I thought that it is to do with the last mile problem. Maybe, the place where I stay is cut out from the city despite hosting an IT park. I later figured that there are a lot of places facing the "last mile" problem. Even the main roads - the one connecting Koramangala to Indiranagar - has very infrequent buses. Not only the buses are infrequent, there are high chances that you would need to change 2-3 buses if you want to go to a far off place which is not in line-of-sight. For example, from Cox town, if you want to go to most part of the city - you would need to take a bus to Shivajinagar and then take another bus. So, both the problem of infrequent buses and lack of adequate direct buses compel people to take private transport.

A stark contrast to this is Kolkata. Here, even people having private vehicle prefer metro railways as it is faster and doesn't have problems of parking. Most people in Kolkata uses public transport - a good indicator would be the percentage of college students using private transport. I am sure it would be way below that in Bangalore. Now, I understand, there could be multiple reasons to it - from cultural ones to historical ones. But the fact remains that the key driver to this is good public transport system. The buses may not be as comfortable as in Bangalore but they are frequent and connects different parts of the city well. I guess, from what i have read, that Mumbai is very similar. The local train network is very good and people prefer it to their private cars. I am, no way, saying that transport system in Kolkata/Mumbai is better/worse than Bangalore. transport system/traffic has many other factors which i have not considered.

We should have the basic facilities in place first. Creating awareness is very important but doesn't come before creating the core product. Get the buses on road. Make them frequent. And then, the public would start using the services.

With the current infrastructure, Bus Day campaign is akin to spreading awareness on how good pulses are for health in a famine affected area.

Raajneeti: After-thoughts

If you are an engineer, you would know what is meant by research paper. For the others, here are the steps to write a paper:

1. Select a subject. More often than not, this is a topic on which one has some past experience and, preferably, in which one has burn his finger.
2. Select a few pioneering papers and refer to some current industry work.
3. Take bits and pieces of information from all these sources and compile them

The above three steps are for writing ordinary papers which will help you get a good job or an admission to a US grad program. However, to get into a top rung university/job, you need to be a little creative and follow the below step.

4. Do some transformation on the information gathered from the research papers and then compile it. For example, if there are two variables in an equation, combine them and make it a third variable. Transpose a variable from one side of the equation to the other side. Add two or more independent equations and make a consolidated compiled equation which, in essence, doesn't carry any new information.

And woila! We have an Ivy League paper!

Prakash Jha's Rajneeti can be considered analogous to a research paper. It takes bits and pieces from Mahabharat, God Father, Shiv Sena, Congress, (Priyadarshan's movie) Virasat among other sources.





Mahabharat is a timeless epic and any political saga could somehow be seen as inspired from Mahabharat. Raajneeti, doesn't have this subtlety. It overtly draws-in from Mahabharat. So - there is a ruling family. Bharati Rai (Kunti) abandon's her son, Suraj (Karna/AjayDevgan). She get married to the ruling family - she has two children and her brother-in-law has one (as apposed to 100!) The ruling party's president is taken to bed and there is a war of succession. His son Veer Pratap (Duryodhan) wants to be the president while his cousin Prithviraj Pratap (ArjunRampal/Pandav) claims that post. Veer Pratap (Duryodhan) befriends Suraj (Karna), a complete outsider to politics. There is Mama Shakuni, played by Nana Patekar - who (as per step 4) is on the Pandav's side! The conversation between Bharati and Suraj where she tells Suraj that she is her biological mother and that he should leave the opposition and join their side is lifted up from the Kunti-Karna conversation directly. The terms used - like "jesht putra" - shouted out loud that this is lifted form Mahabharat.


If you thought this was neat, Prakash Jha, intricately weaves, the Mahabharat tale with God Father's. Hence enters Samar (RanbirKapoor/Pandav/Michael Corleone). Though he is dis-interested in politics and is doing his PhD in the US, stays back when his father is murdered. (A sequence similar to Anil Kapoor's staying back in Virasat). He then, like Michael Corleone, takes charge of the Family and chalks out strategies. The sequence of car-blasting while the driver goes for a leak, the blood flooded dead on the bed, the peace treaty between the Families are some of the sequences directly picked up from God Father.

Considering the movie in its face value alone, it was a good attempt. The pace of the movie was fast enough to keep you seated. The whole screenplay was brilliant. The dialogues were very ordinary - a few however were absurd. Like:

Bharati's Father: Tum us do takey ke aadmi se pyar karti ho? (or something like that)
Bharati: Aapke liye toh takey hi sub kuchh hai na.

Katrina Kaif overtakes Ranbir's car.

Ranbir: Tumhare paas license hai? (or something like that)
Katrina: Kiska, gadi chalene ka ya tumhe kiss karne ka

The music was apt. Especially, Mora Piya song is good. The "disco" song was not needed - however, not being a full-length bollywood song, it didn't hurt. All the actors gave great performances. Nana Patekar does a good job by not mimicking himself. Naseerudding Shah is brilliant in his less-than-4-minutes role. However, Ranbir Kapoor steals the show. Brilliant acting by the newest offerings from The Kapoor Family. A special acknowledgment to the dress-designer. The long dupatta/stole worn by the politicians was cool and a little different from the mundane white kurta pajama.

However, if there were one thing i could change in the movie - it would be the ending. A party's president is taken-to-bed. Its second in command is killed. A major part of the party spins off. Still, that spun off party wins. I would have made a third party winning. Dividing a party divides the vote base - and it's more "real" that a third party wins. We have seen this in case of MNS being spun off from Shiv Sena.

Overall, it was a good movie with a lot things happening in three hours - Mahabharat and God Father. Despite drawing heavily from the two, it keeps you seated till the end. Not a great movie or a movie you would want to watch again and again - but worth watching it once, preferably, in single-screen theater.