My Cousin Vinny

Yes, I am from the Home Entertainment business.
But no, this post is not about the popular movie starring Danni De Vito!
It's neither about the striking behavioural similarities between the mafia & corporate big-shots. Wink wink!
How're they similar, you'd ask.

Well, IF you have worked or are working for an enterprise (any size), frankly answer the follwoing questions first:

1. Have you ever found some or many senior managers "related" to each other?

2. How many "management-trainees" have been siblings / sons-daughters / nephews / cousins of other employees?

3. Did you find many fresh appointments done via internal-referrals (ex-colleagues / friends / acquaintances etc.)?

4. Have you noticed any bias on "regionality" of appointees (for example mostly from South India or North India or Assam for example)?

IF even ONE answer to the above questions generate YES as your response, start thinking.

Hang on, hang on hang on!
One last qualifying question....Did you get the job by being one of the above?
IF so, check-out now....it's not for you buddy!

Otherwise, just think on the following lines:

How does it help to recruit people we know / are related to?

Can we ever be as "professional" with someone "close" to us, as with an outsider?

Is it easier to have "comfortable" people around us, more as we climb up the ladder? Why?

Do the same people keep hitching on with us, in sync?

Have any such people ever "blown the whistle" on our "greedy" manipulations or manouevres? Why not?

Do we keep favouring such people over performing outsiders?

Do we, at the same time, ease-out outsiders who may outperform & outshine our own insiders?

Are we endangering the organisational goals by tilting the cart in "our" favour?

Is professionalism getting marginalised simply because "we" have a responsibility to "look after our insiders"?

Have I by now, answered your first question, on the 4th sentence?


Does this economic mess make much more "sense" now?

Spot the Cousin Vinnies.
The world will be a safer place - without the mafias.
Hope you realise that :)

Are you cutting enough FLAB? NO?

Day before, a CEO+MD was bludgeoned to death by a group of “retrenched” employees.

Yesterday, Mrinal Pande, on her Mint column, “THE OTHER SIDE”, made some wonderful observations, about women in general & trends in particular.

There were a few very enlightening articles, yesterday, by Ricahrd Beales, Paul Krugman (NYT),
TOI / TNN, V A Nageswaran & Pramath R Sinha.

Wondering where is the link? Hang on…

Richard has asked a few pointed questions, which ideally should be asked by the US Congress,
Who will watch out for Taxpayer’s interest?
Would the same taxpayers soon find themselves (unwillingly) bailing out some of their richest fellow citizens like highly qualified but equally harmful bank execs?
How will the new asset managers be chosen (competitively?)and paid?
Should we start a new rating BBB- for Bankers’ Benefit Bill minus Accountability?

Krugman has similar views on (Brown and) Paulson’s latest custard recipe.
He’s also worried that the fed might end up giving fallen financial execs & stakeholders “a giant windfall at the taxpayers’ expense"!
He may be bang on when he’s apprehensive about Paulson "making it up, as he goes along, just like the rest of us".
He has, quite understandably, cautioned us that "this railroading may make all of us very sorry in the not-too-distant future".

On page 23 on 23rd’s Mint, VAN has dug up two tiny but very significant changes "incorporated by the SEC in 2004, helping Merrill, Lehman, Goldman, Stearns & Morgan".
These five raked in Ark-full of money before 3 of them sinking under the load, recently.
The rest (2) have changed course, full-steam, to find North (pole)!

Finally, TOI reports that at least 1200 listed companies forged their corporate accounts (ICS Study) to “Exceed Expectations of the Stock Market, avoid taxes, attract foreign investments & mobilize funds”. PwC confirms that the frauds are on a steady rise!

I especially like the closing statement on this article –
"Accounting fraud is the most dangerous because it goes against the basic concept of investor confidence in financial statements”.

Do you see it now?
There are millions of Beemers & Audis driving in through high gates of professionally managed corporations!
The much qualified passengers at the back, perennially on their latest Berries have just managed to “cut flab” from their business ops, by drastically reducing cost-heads on manpower. And they are thrilled at the idea of how the improved bottom-lines would shore their “commission” lined HNI accounts.

Unfortunately, right next to the golden-gates, gathered are the freshly cut “flabs”, who never ever managed to eat enough, to add fat.
These “flab fellows” also burnt much of their minuscule energy inputs, possibly commuting for hours in stinky public vehicles or their rickety bicycles.

Ms. Pande wonders in her column, if we can ever stop from being competitive and move to much more real fitness,
beyond measuring tapes & weighing scales? How relevant!
I find this applicable even to this financial mess we have been forced into.

Fat burns fast…..