Tajurbey ka nichodd - for “aspiring” Indians wanting to become Global Trail Blazers- experiential learning on a lighter note:)

Hints for becoming a Global Corporate Trail Blazer - Tajurbey ka nichodd - for “aspiring” Hindustanis wanting to make it big in MNCs :. what they don’t teach you at B Schools – experiential learning & a formula for success - on a lighter note! – revised edition.

Quite akin to a success formula for Bollywood films there seems to be - or at least many seem to believe there is - one for climbing up the corporate ladder particularly in the MNCs when you work with the goras. Yes, neither is it the only one nor the best one - if at all it works that is.

Let me get down to the point and start with basics. You can enjoy your kadak adrak chai with lots of milk and sugar but leave it to be done at home or with close friends. In the office, graduate to black coffee. That’s a good starting point for someone like me who has a rural Himachal upbringing!

We know meetings are important. If you do not know too much don’t worry much but make sure you do find a way of dropping in killer phrases like "deep dive" and "granularity".

Maybe you got into a discussion, and you realize you are in a thick soup and will not only lose the debate but risk getting embarrassed or exposed. There is a solution. Convert the situation into an opportunity, by suggesting taking that discussion “offline” – whatever that means. You will appear sensible, very sensible and are sure to get many nods in the room. Enjoy the frustration on the face of the person who was about to put you on the mat in the next 30 seconds. That’s defensive offense!

?Maybe you don’t know how to go about approaching the problem in the meeting. Don’t feel embarrassed. Just ask the group “How do we skin the cat”. So, people will now be in awe of you and obviously someone else needs to now worry about the problem and you will have scored your points. All have forgotten that it is you who was supposed to talk about "how to skin". If you think that is kind of cruel to the cat but do not care so much about a vegetable, you may talk about “peeling the onion”. Vegetarian options are available here too you see if you just look for.

?Talk about Growth Hacking and Moving the Needle. So far, animal rights activists have not objected to using the phrase “Eating Your Own Dog Food” and neither have feminists objected to using “Putting Lipstick on a Pig”. So, consider using them but stay contemporary because today’s humor or jargon may be tomorrow’s insult. EQ is the most important they say, so you may like to avoid the Lipstick on Pig phrase if there are people in the room with a lot of make up on! Note, I said people and cannot make it gender specific! It is not as if men don’t have their makeup – their beard, their tie, their pen, their bag, their power dressing, their diary, their power perfume, their cuff links and pocket square, their hair gel, and books behind their cabin are all symbols too. I suddenly realized they only have more!

Make sure you stay selective and contemporary with jargon and remember that using cliched phrases needs more confidence and skill. Genius is not about knowing all the jargon, it is about mastering the art of using a few, selectively, with clinical precision at the right place. Timing is of utmost importance too. You need to understand the sensitivities around the room and group too. As Daniel Goleman said, 80% of the success factor is EQ, IQ is only 20%. He is spot on, and it applies here as well.

Its easiest to work on your desktop and laptops and to write on a paper notebook. But make sure you graduate to scribbling something on your large expensive i-pad in the meetings.

Of course, do not forget that Mont Blanc logo peeping out of your shirt pocket. You can also do with just the cap, or a good copy made in Ulhasnagar. The small Ferrari logo on your bag – note I said small, subtle is powerful you see. You are a well-paid MNC employee, so no one is going to doubt you have an original. Act like you are on the fast track - if you can’t make it, fake it - to boost your confidence.

A lot of careers, they say, are made over winning and dining. So, a few tips there may be in order too. Enjoy your Old Monk Rum & Cola at home before the “dinner” or after you are back.

Gin & tonic sounds good to start with before you order some starters. Before the main course, ask for sparkling water -say "sparkling water" not "soda" that u r used to with Royal Challenge! During the main course ask for “a” glass of red as you are midcourse in the main course. Ask for "a" glass of red but that doesn’t mean you have to stop at "a" glass. And you are not wrong, you asked for one glass, it's the waiter who kept pouring in that wine glass. Do not forget to mention that you have a driver and how seriously you take safety particularly on Indian roads – it’s just that you are happy to give him/her company.

You can ask the gora to choose the wine but remember the waiter will love to chipkao him with one that costs 40,000 rupees a bottle. So, see whether you can take the risk. Maybe you can ask him about trying an Indian wine. If he says “why not” with a dirty face looking left and right, don’t take the risk again. Spend some time reading the wine label rotating it slowly clockwise and then anti-clockwise. Then make sure you have a look at two or three brands. There is a good chance that you may come across as a connoisseur, but the real reason is that you don’t get chipkaoed with a bottle you can’t afford! Order the one that you can afford and say it goes well with the cuisine you have in mind. Don’t worry, it often doesn’t matter much because it’s all curry for them and all of it is usually miles better than what they usually manage to get there ordering all by themselves. If you can ensure good Quantity of Gin & tonic you'll have to worry less about Quality of wine.

If they get excited and then start going on and on about wines and it’s going all beyond you, you can nicely shift to talking about 600 varieties of mangoes in India- I have done this, successfully. You may remember four or five, they don’t even know one. You can create as many names as you like. Or maybe just take nick names of your kids' friends.

If you are a meat eater don’t ask for mutton, talk about steak and leg of lamb etc. Don’t worry it means the same here. You don’t get beef in India anyway

You can call yourself a vegetarian – if you are one- but don’t call him a non-vegetarian. It sounds abnormal! Also don’t make faces when someone talks about exotic cuisines, they some people may relish. This includes stuff like live monkey brain, shark fin soup, birds nest soup (these birds made their nests in deep caves using their saliva), ox’s penis, cow’s udder, snake bile for a drink are ones I have personally heard of. I even once bought the worlds most expensive Kopi Luwaak coffee from Jakarta. It is vegetarian, it is made from coffee beans which are partially digested and excreted by the Asia palm civets. The cherries are fermented as they pass through the civet’s intestines and after being defecated with other fecal matter, they are collected. What is strange to you may not be strange to someone else and vice versa.

If you are a vegetarian, then you can leapfrog many points if you state "vegan" instead. But then remember not to end up hogging on paneer, raita and kulfi. Tough hai par marks bahut mileingey. If they ask you why you are a vegetarian, you don’t have to reply with the honest "religious reasons" of "Hindu family traditions" type of replies.?Instead get a bow by saying your daughter is an animal rights activist and that you have been thinking of the environment. Then you may add "aadhyaatmic diet" which they won’t understand for sure. If they seek to know further, say it’s difficult for them to understand but the closest word you can think of is "yogic diet". At least the Brits will pretend they understand that. They consider India a part of the “commonwealth” after all, a nation they like to show they know better than other westerners.

Do talk about your love for some exotic Gouda cheese. Don’t order because you are not sure whether you'd be able to eat it at all.

Even if you do have an Indian dessert, do not forget complaining about how Indians eat so many sweets which are basically just sugar with a million calories.?

Now you may be dying to have a paan after a few drinks but resist the temptation. Tell him all about the art, science, history and geography of paan and its immense benefits but for God’s sake don’t take him for the paan. Its the civics thats the issue.?If the paanwala is seen digging his nose or scratching his anatomy in between making paans - of which there is a good chance - it is bound to be career limiting hospitality.

Do not forget to end it with a double espresso. By now you should already be starting to appear a good cultural fit and one they can hang around with.

Go home and puke it all out if required but do it!

I am sure Modi Sarkar will come up for a discussion. Don’t say Bhartiya Janata Party. Refer to them as the Right-Wing Hindu Nationalist Party. In one shot you'll appear progressive, liberal and global.

They like to hear about Modi taking great steps for economy GST, Demonetization, Infrastructure, Make in India, Digital India, Ease of Doing Business, anti-corruption measures and push for solar and electric vehicles etc. which help weave a good story. They like to feel their strategy of investing in India is a great one and who doesn’t like to feel optimistic with their money.

However, do remember to say BUT and drop a “sprinkling” of some concerns around secularism and liberal values. You don’t have become a woke and go overboard in talking like leftist politicians. They are past their due date and most see through their fake outdated narratives. It needs to be nuanced you see, just a sprinkling as I said.

They'll like to talk about Cricket to you because they have heard Cricket is a religion here – Cricketam Paramo Dharamam it seems- whatever it means. With the English and Australians do talk about how great their teams are and what you know about the Ashes. But quickly get to impressing with your knowledge on Football, Tennis, Grand Prix and Golf (that’s in ascending order of impression quotient)

With the Brits, do not talk about Brexit unless you can navigate a very nuanced discussion lest it you take them down an uncomfortable path. Make sure you face read and shift your nuances accordingly. I must add, as word of caution, that more people support Trump than you may realize, and more people support Brexit than you may realize. So, remember to keep it dynamically nuanced. Who said that the “formula for success” is going to be a cake walk. Honestly, I don’t have a clear position or knowledge on many such issues. Express your support or concern over gun laws in the US based on who you are talking to.

Music can be an interesting topic too. Dil mein kya gun-gunatey ho, bathroom mein kya gaatey ho maeney nahi rakhta. Like most, your heart may beat for Ghulam Ali, Jagjit Singh, Kishore or Mukesh key dard bharey nagmey. It could also be the more sophisticated music by Bhimsen Joshi, Pandit Jasraj, Bismillah Khan or Bade Ghulam Ali. You can talk a little bit about those, but what you must talk about is how you grew up grooving to Springsteen, Bob Marley, George Michael, Eagles, Simon & Garfunkel, Doors, Billy Joel, Dire Straits and Elvis Presley.

You must be wondering why I need to write so many names to make my point. Well, I thought it would help give a bit of a starting point to the uninitiated on where to begin. In my earlier days in Mumbai, knowing my rural Himachali upbringing and years spent at Banaras, a good friend, Deep Banerjee, once gave me some sincere advice. Standing in front of Café Mondegar, I was a little nervous since I was going with them to a Bombay pub for the first time. It was called The Tavern at Fariyaz, I remember. He suggested that I start to mug up few lines from lyrics of a few popular numbers like Hotel California so that I can sing along a few lines when those played and that would do a lot to my confidence!

Social media is important these days and people form opinions there after all! Go to a seminar even if you are an assistant to the main speaker, get on to the dais with a collar mic and have a picture with your hands gesticulating. That must be your LinkedIn picture.

Art aficionado, for example is a good hobby to write about. Don’t worry if you don’t understand a shit, google it up! We Indians can mug it all up, become very knowledgeable and pass with flying colours.

Get some pictures on to social media. Go to wine tasting festivals to Napa Valley or some exotic vineyards in France. Do talk about your game of golf. More importantly make sure you have a picture of yourself with your arm & shoulder getting stretched towards heaven by the swinging club. Don’t worry about where the ball goes, that never comes in the photo anyway.

Finally find a way of getting some of the following next to your name- Keynote Speaker, TEDx Speaker, Mentor, Angel Investor, Philanthropist, Social Entrepreneur, Author. Don’t put everything, just a couple is enough to make a statement that now you have kind of arrived.

Add a dab of panache to how you describe what you do. Learn from the creativity of people in how they now describe themselves. Let me give you a hint. It is possible you position yourself as a good marketing guy or you may be a glib trainer. It is possible in the corridor talk people refer to you as “bullshitter”. Convert that into a real strength by putting “Story Telling Magician” In your profile.

You may be in HR, and it doesn’t matter even if, in reality, you spend 90% of time in managing politics and being the sutradhaar – roughly translates to facilitator, power behind - of politics and fixing people and ensuring people remain insecure and subservient. The in thing is to call yourself “Chief Happiness Officer.” You are working for someone’s happiness after all. In one shot it changes the way people look at you as opposed to when you write the boring and antique “Head - Personnel” which is now a euphemism for Corporate Daroga.

?You may consider yourself a very good marketing manager. At best you could write “Outstanding Marketing Professional”. The risk is it may appear kind of an exaggerated self-assessment rating from your self-appraisal. Go for “Marketing Maestro” to say in short what you do. Might as well catapult yourself straight into the league of Hariprasad Chaurasia, Zakir Hussain or Beethoven of Vivaldi, the Music Maestros.

?Sustainability is in vogue, and you may have been on the fast track, risen high, not having given two hoots to it. Address the issue now quickly, rebrand yourself so that you are now called “Eco-conscious Trail Balzer” when they introduce you, the jet setter, as a speaker at a conference. After, all you only give the lines they speak about you when they introduce you, unless of course you are a Barack Obama Narendra Modi, Ratan Tala, Bill Gates or Narayan Murthy.

?We blame politicians for appearing what they are not. In fact, Netas have a long way to go before they learn and catch up with the fads and facades of the corporate world. Sometimes they fade in comparison. Plenty of “champions” of “democratic values” and “liberal values”, “free speech” and “social causes” sit around us, having their profound and visionary conversations on the subjects over expensive wines and exotic cuisines that they have tried. I have at times wondered, now if democratic values are so good, which they are, and that they must be the foundation of any society, country, and world, then how come not an iota of those principles can be seen to be applied or even merely smelt in this corporate world. I know I am being silly in drawing these false comparisons, but the question does arise in our minds, doesn’t it??My ridiculing for fun apart, the main thing is the lesson for trail blazers. It is to learn how to learn to be comfortable with being seen to preach something completely different from what applies in your own house or the world that you create, run, and manage.

?On a more honest note, it is a different matter that life is not as good as it looks on Facebook and career not as good as it looks on LinkedIn. And those you spend your life trying to impress by becoming someone you are not wouldn’t have a minute to call your family if you pop off. Most realize, eventually, I hope, that from Gandhi to Dhoni to Kalam to Premji to Mandela to many great leaders, great people have never needed the above formula either to make a statement or to become examples of great success, respect, and confidence. It has probably been quite to the contrary!

Important Note: This is just satire on my own kinds - written to make you smile and not to demean any of the wonderful people in India or Globally. I am no trail blazer but have been privileged to work with some of the best Indian and Global colleagues who make great contributions, who work with passion and purpose and who I continue to learn from and get inspired by.