Image Consulting

Today I met with an image consultant in hopes of improving my image. Past managers and mentors have told me that I lack executive presence, diplomatic skills, sophistication, inter-personal skills, and energy to advance to the executive level. Today's meeting was my attempt to find out what I can do to address these concerns.

The coach and I first discussed the current situation and explored the internal and external factors that may be hindering my progress. The external factors we identified are micro-managing manager, the current organization structure, the organization culture, and newness of my role to the organization. My role is perhaps not well received by the organization because it is a new role in this organization. The functional leaders are not accustomed to having a project manager run projects. They are probably feeling threatened by my role. The way to address these external factors is to have one-on-one off-site meetings with functional leaders to understand how they perceive my role and how I could help them better in serving the organization. The key is to be sincere in these meetings and don't put them on-guard.

The internal factors we identified are lack of confidence and professional aloofness. The way to address these internal factors are to be more transparent, share personal stories with employees, employ self-deprecating humor, and allow people to connect with me. The time spent with people is not a waste of time, but it is an opportunity to connect with them. These are some of the self-limiting beliefs that I need to overcome.

To address the issue of low energy level, the coach recommended I practice speaking at one octave stronger and use mid-torso (the energy zone) when speaking. The coach recommended using hand gestures at the mid-torso level while communicating.

Then we talked about how to develop a professional image. The coach recommended using power color when choosing clothes. Black, grey, chocolate, olive, and burgundy are some of the power colors. When choosing clothes, I should choose shirts and pants that match tone on tone. The shoes should be leather, hard soled, and in great repair. This connotes success and confidence. The buttons on the shirt should match the color of the shirt. On Fridays, I can wear super dark jeans with good Italian shoes and good leather belt.

We also talked about sending 360 degree surveys to MBA cohorts, current colleagues, past colleagues, and friends to get more data on how people perceive me. This will provide us with rich data to identify patterns of behaviors that are helping and hindering my progress.

The coach also recommended the following books to help improve my likability and image.

1. Likability Factor by Tim Sanders
2. Everyone Communicates, Few Connect by John Maxwell
3. What go you hear won't get you there by Marsha Goldsmith
4. Primal Leadership by Daniel Goldman

Emotional intelligence is an art. It is such a crucial part of leading a happy and successful personal and professional life. I want to improve my emotional intelligence.

Spring 2011

Spring, 2011 at McCombs is over now. The semester went by too quickly. We started the semester the day after MLK Day. I'd broken my big toe at Barsana Dham on the morning of the first day of class and was in a lot of pain. What a way to start the semester!

Professor May set the stage on the first day of class by communicating how rigorous the Accounting class would be. He was true to his word. His class was challenging, exciting, and required a lot of hard work -- just the way I like it. While I found some of the Accounting concepts and lectures difficult to understand, I thoroughly enjoyed the class. I can now analyze a company's financial statements, better understand business news in the Wall Street Journal, and appreciate how and why executives manage inventory, capital leases, sales returns, allowance for bad debts, and COCI accounts to influence financial statements. I also got introduced to the concepts of valuations of a business -- book value, fair value (liquidation value), and going concern value of a business. When a company reports goodwill on its balance sheet, I now know that it is a going concern premium the company paid for acquiring another company! Professor May said I did well in his class, and he rewarded me with an appropriate grade.

The second class for the spring semester was Economics. It is perhaps my favorite class so far at McCombs. Professor Brandal made the class interesting with his high energy and his entertaining, yet, simple teaching style. He was an entertainer, a story teller, a bit whimsical, and unconventional professor. The class started with the concepts of micro economics. We studied supply and demand curves, how changes in price cause movements along supply and demand curves, how factors other than price shift supply and demand curves, concepts of substitutes and complements, elastic and inelastic demands, and how as a manager I should convince customers there are no substitutes (in their mind) for my products or services. We then studied concepts of utility and indifference curves and how as managers we should focus on maximizing our customers' utility. The micro-economics class continued with concepts of economic cost, which is made up of accounting cost and opportunity cost. As a manager, I need to consider fixed cost, variable cost, total cost, and average total cost. The big takeaway was to produce output at the level where marginal benefit is equal to marginal cost. The most interesting part of the micro class was the study of four different market structures -- perfect competition, monopoly, monopolistic, and oligopoly -- and what strategies managers should follow in competing in those markets. We studied the concept of game theory, in the context of oligopoly market, dominant strategy, nash equilibrium, and different strategies for one-shot and repeated simultaneous and sequential games.       

During the second half of the semester, we studied macro economic concepts. We learned the concepts of aggregate demand, aggregate supply, GDP and how to measure it, concept of inflation and how to measure it, Keynesian theories and modern theories on how to address unemployment, inflation, recession, and depression using monetary and fiscal policies. The macroeconomics concepts were complex and fascinating. I hope I get a chance to use these concepts as a manager in my career.

During the last part of the semester, we covered global economy using the concepts of foreign exchange rates, their impact on economy, the need to have stable exchange rates in the short run, and the dangers of trying to fix exchange rates in the long run.

Besides school, I also made progress on the job front during the semester. After nearly six months of unemployment, I started working at Thermo. I am very fortunate to be working again. The spring semester tested my time management skill to balance both school and work load. At times, I felt that I had no time to breathe! The semester was that hectic. The spring semester seemed shorter than the fall and seemed to go by quickly. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the semester.

Once the semester was over, I moved to Round Rock. After living in Austin for nearly 13 years, I found it little hard to leave the city. But, I am learning to be more flexible these days! I am slowly adjusting to my new life in Round Rock and can't wait to see what lies ahead.

swimming

My father introduced me to swimming when I was very young. He once took me and my sister to Vaghji bhaini khadi -- a local pool in our neighborhood in Bombay -- when we were about seven or eight years old. I have a vague memory of that visit -- green pool water, large crowd of people in the water, some with Dalda tin can tied to their waist, friendly screams and shouts of swimmers, my father pushing me and my sister into the water, and the terror we felt at being in the pool. How scared I was of water then! After that experience, I never visited that pool again or any other pool for a long time.

After not so successful first attempt at swimming, I mustered up enough courage in my late teens to give swimming another try. It must have been during a school break after the 10th grade or 12th grade exams that I went to a swim club in Andheri. I can't recall the name of the club anymore, but it was an Olympic size pool with two sections -- one for swimming laps and the other for platform diving. The swim club was offering lessons during summer break, so I signed up for it. I used to take the train in the morning and then walk from the railway station to the pool for lessons. Later, I used to ride my bicycle to the pool from home, but it was a long, excruciating ride. Like any other place in Bombay, the swimming pool was crowded, especially during summer break. There were so many people in the pool that you couldn't take two strokes without running into somebody. So the swim instructors had us place our feet behind a bar that ran across the pool length and practice stationary freestyle stroke! How innovative those instructors were! I didn't learn much about swimming at the Andheri club, but I still have fond memories of that pool. I think I developed interest in swimming at this place. Once I started college, I completely stopped swimming during the four years of college.

After moving to Arizona, I began swimming again. The university had such nice swim facilities -- one in the student recreation center and the other for the school varsity swim team. I took a swim class and learned a bit more about how to coordinate breathing while swimming. I really started to enjoy swimming. I also joined the US Masters Swim program at the university, but realized that I wasn't yet ready for an organized swim program. I left Arizona with an increased appreciation for swimming and hoped that one day soon I could learn to swim better.

After moving to Austin, I found a swim club in my neighborhood and, fortunately, a very fine coach. I consider Jimmy Bynum my first real coach. He taught me the basics of swimming. I sincerely appreciated his patience and willingness to coach me for the two years I swam at his club. He made me realize that I could swim in an organized swim program and develop my skills. I then swam at a few different places in town and learned from different coaches -- each one of them adding something of value to my skill set and increasing my appreciation for swimming.

I currently swim with the Longhorn Aquatics under the guidance of a former Olympian. I enjoy the early morning workouts, no matter how hard they can be on my body. As a matter of fact, my body is still recovering from a strenuous workout this morning. There is something about swimming with a group of fun loving, fitness oriented, disciplined, and hardworking swimmers, at a world class facility under a fine coach, that seems to push me harder in my practice. No matter how sleepy or lazy I may feel about going to the practice, I almost always feel great after the workout. I am always glad and grateful when I can start my day with an early morning swim. The water seems to take away my stress and worries and seems to rejuvenate me with its magical powers. I am definitely in love with swimming now.


I am grateful to my father for introducing me to swimming. I am also grateful to my coaches for helping me enjoy the sport of swimming over the years.

  
 


 

unending desires

Desire -- wanting something I don't have -- has been a major driving force in my life. Desire to advance and improve my standard of living is perhaps one of the main reasons behind the choices I have made. The choice of education, career, friends, and activities are all driven by a deep desire to get something better than what I currently have. Are desires bad? Can there be progress without desire? Can there be an end to desire? I believe many people before me asked similar questions and many of them, including the Buddha, Krishna, and other saints and philosophers have given their answers to these questions.

There is a beautiful verse in Hindu Upanishada about desire, which I quote below.

You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny.

Based on some of the experiences in my life, I do believe every word of the above verse to be true. I have realized that driven by my deep desire for something, I make a tremendous effort to achieve that thing, and sometimes succeed in the effort. Once the thing has been achieved, I get dissatisfied, and a new desire pops up, and the cycle continues on and on to no end! I have a few issues with this approach to life or what I may say the way of the universe. Firstly, ceaseless desire exhausts my energy. Secondly, I lose the balance of my mind in my blind quest at achieving something. This is perhaps one of the worst things I feel about life driven by desire. I feel angry, anxious, fearful, sad, hateful when my desire is not fulfilled immediately or is never fulfilled. And, after experiencing all those negative emotions and taking them out on my loved ones -- mother, father, sister, friends -- I feel so small.

I do think I need desire to progress in my life. However, I hope I can work to not get too attached to my desire -- to the outcome -- and enjoy the process of fulfilling a desire. I hope I can learn to accept whatever the outcome of my effort is -- success or failure -- and not get too elated or too sad by either one. This is where the Buddha's teaching of Vipassana comes in. The Buddha and Krishna and others did show the path. Why is it so difficult for me to follow the path? Perhaps, my desire to follow that path is not strong!     

school and a few other thoughts...

Education has been an important part of my life. We all learn in the school of life through our experiences, but today I want to talk about formal education -- the one you get at academic institutes. My parents have always emphasized the value of formal education. I still remember how my mother used to spend a lot of her energy and effort to ensure that my sister and I excelled at studies. She used to wake us up early in the morning and work with us on our school assignments. Those early years, with the discipline and strong work ethic that my mother instilled in us, have been a solid foundation for me in my future academic pursuits.

After finishing high school, I was happy to get into a good engineering school.  The new school meant a beginning of a new chapter in my life -- new environment, new medium of instruction, new classmates from different parts of Bombay, and new experiences. The four years of school went by quickly, and I graduated with a degree, an average quality of education, and no deep friendship or memorable experiences. I wish I had done more to get more out of those four years.

After finishing engineering college, I sought another opportunity to continue my formal education -- this time in the US. Almost every graduating student in my class was going to the US for further studies. So it seemed natural for me to pursue that path too, even though I did not have enough financial resources to pursue an education in the US. But I took a leap of faith and applied to a few schools. Then came the acceptance letter from Arizona State, and  through some good karma of my father, I got funding from one his friends, and that is how I came to the US.

The two years of graduate studies at Arizona State were fantastic. I met so many students from different parts of the world. I consider myself fortunate to have experienced a deep, genuine friendship with some of those international students, especially a few from Germany. The German friends gave me a taste of a European student life -- coffee shops, pubs, bars, parties, debates, and good conversations. I felt I finally blossomed into myself in Arizona -- a desert flower! I got an excellent education, both formal and informal, in Arizona.        

After two short but fulfilling years in Arizona, I came to Austin. After working in Austin for a few years, I started to get an itch to pursue a formal education again. I had been thinking about getting an MBA for a number of years at the prestigious University of Texas, but due to some reason or the other kept postponing the plan. I finally scratched that itch by joining the MBA program at the University of Texas.

I hope to write about my MBA experience in future posts... 

First post

Today, I met with a new friend at school. She is a doctoral student and encouraged me to start keeping a journal. Another friend had also encouraged me to keep a journal to develop writing skills. I first thought of keeping a journal in the classic hardbound notebook. But then I realized that in this day and age, when we are trying to go green and save the environment,  I might just use a digital journal instead. So, here is my first blog entry. And, with this entry, I am excited to be joining the blogging community! I hope to use this forum to share a few random thoughts that come to my mind.

Cheers!