Teach your sons to respect Women!

How much is too much? Sexual violence against women goes unabated. The recent Mumbai rape of a photo journalist, gang-rape of a ladyconstable at the hands of dacoits in Jharkhand are stark reminders that nothing has changed since the Nirbhaya’s case in Delhi. And rape is not the only kind of sexual violence that women face in our country. Another growing menace is acid attacks. The BBC documentary below is nerve-racking as it shows the acid attack victims and their unimaginable sufferings. Most of such attacks have happened against young women who refuse the advances of unsolicited males.

Why had India seen a spurt in cases of sexual violence in India? What’s behind this growing brutality? Is there anything wrong with the men and boys in our country? There is everything wrong in the way they are brought-up in our society. We seldom teach our sons to be respectful of girls and women. And most of them see how mothers and sisters are treated in the household. There is scant respect for them and they are subject to humiliation, many a times physical violence and treated as second-class citizens in the same household. These boys grow-up and do the same to their girlfriends and wives.

In an average Indian household that has a son and a daughter; differential treatments are meted to both of them. Although it is the men who institutionalize these differential treatments at home, surprisingly many a times such treatments are meted out by the women themselves. A friend of mine narrated to me of an incident that he witnessed while travelling in a train. A family of four - husband, wife and their two kids (one son and one daughter), almost of the same age, were his co-passengers. The mother was after the son to make him eat his lunch while the boy did his tantrums. She begged her son to eat, affectionately fed him and it took a long time for her to make her son eat. All this while, the daughter quietly sat in a corner of a berth, finished her meals on her own and then kept reading a book. After the lunch was over, the lady made her son to lay on one of the berths, put him to sleep and then wrapped a blanked on him to keep him warm. After the mother went off to sleep, the daughter got up and wrapped a blanket around her mother and then quietly retired in her berth. This is the reality of how daughters are treated in most Indian households, although outliers are there but in extreme minority.

Till we teach our sons how to treat women, to respect women, our society will keep producing scoundrels who will treat women as objects of desire and as foot mats, and then lecture them that they should wear better clothes or should beg respectful treatment from men if they want lesser subjugation.

Organizations are also mini-societies that draw its elements from the larger society. Respectful treatment of women is first and most basic pre-requisite of creating an equal opportunity place in terms of gender parity. Everything else like women friendly policies, considering women for leadership roles etc. comes later. Because if one is not taught how to treat women with respect then everything else will remain just dried ink on the paper that will have no flow or relevance.

Kudos!!

Blog mentioned on the website of a Lausanne, (Switzerland) based content-curation firm on their website.

Link: http://paper.li/KudosNow/1327957289

Can a Daughter make your CEO more Generous?

In a scintillating new research done by Michael Dahl, Cristian Dezso and David Gaddis Rose, it has been revealed that male CEOs who have baby daughters are more likely to become more generous towards their employees than those who have sons.

The study was done on more than 10000 male CEOs in Danish companies over the course of a decade. Prof. Dahl and his research team found that the changes in the pay of the employees depended upon the gender of the child. If the child was male, then the CEOs paid upto $100 less in compensation to their employees annually, whilst if the CEOs fathered a baby daughter then they tended to become more generous. A possible explanation has been provided by the researchers for this behaviour. Daughters apparently soften fathers and evoke more care-taking tendencies. Bringing-up a daughter makes men gentler, more empathetic and more other-oriented.

Wharton Professor Adam Grant, author of the book ‘Give and Take – A Revolutionary Approach to Success’ says that – ‘I have experienced this myself as a Dad, you know, when you have a daughter, you start to think about the world being a humane place, and you really want to make sure that you can sort of create the best place possible’.

It will be interesting to see whether same findings hold true in Indian context. In India daughters have unfortunately been generally seen as a liability and sons as secured investments. In fact in 2010 in an unusual disclosure, a sitting judge of the Supreme Court had reportedly listed her unmarried daughters as 'liabilities'.

The dowry system still widely prevalent means that fathers of daughters have to save a hefty sum to marry-off their daughters. This is true even when the daughters are educated. This in a way doubles the cost for the fathers of daughters. On the other hand the fathers of sons are beneficiaries of the same system and look at recovering the expenses on their son’s upbringing and education at the time of their marriage. Dowry related deaths of brides are not uncommon in India.  In an eventuality where father of the daughter is unable to pay hefty sum of dowry, burning of bride is not uncommon at all. A shocking recent statistics shows that in India one bride is burnt in India every hour!!!

In addition to this the prevalent class system has traditionally placed the son’s father on a 'pedestal' and daughter’s father on the 'platform'. Even in marriages, the boy’s side calls the shots and the father of the boy almost makes it appear that they are doing a favour to the girl’s father and their family by marrying his son with their daughter.

Even today in many parts of India the birth of boy child is seen as a blessing and is celebrated, whereas the birth of daughter is mourned. The utter neglect of girls in this country and large number of cases of female infanticide and sex-selective abortions are evidence to the same. A BBC report states that –“India's 2011 census shows a serious decline in the number of girls under the age of seven - activists fear eight million female foetuses may have been aborted in the past decade.”

This may not be true for 100 per cent of the Indian households, but a large majority of Indian parents still crave for boys. It is not unlikely to find families with 4-5 elder daughters and a young son, since parents kept on ‘trying’ till they had a boy.

What is amazing is that such trends are true across economic segments and urban-rural areas, and higher incomes also do not make much of a difference in mindsets. A recent research report has indicated that as income and literacy levels have risen in Indian households, so have sex-selective abortions.

India’s record on gender equality is very poor. When India's Human Development Index is adjusted for gender inequality, it becomes south Asia's worst performing country after Afghanistan, new numbers in the UNDP's Human Development Report 2013 show. The UNDP report ranks India 136th out of 186 countries, five ranks below post-war Iraq, on the HDI. Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh, which are poorer than India and have lower HDIs, all do comparatively better than India when it comes to gender equality.

In contrast, Denmark  boasts of an impressive record on genderequality, ranking 7th in the 2008 Global Gender Gap Report conducted by the World Economic Forum. Denmark has a separate Minister and Department for Gender Equality that is responsible for promoting and coordinating public policy on gender equality. The Danish Constitutional Act and the acts on gender equality are binding on both the public and the private sectors to ensure that gender equality is respected. The four main acts focusing on gender equality in Denmark are - Act on Equal Pay (2006, first introduced in 1973); Equal Treatment Act (2006); Act on Gender Equality (2002)); Act on Equal Treatment of Women and Men in the Occupational Social Security Schemes (1998). 

In general girls are better educated than boys in Denmark: the 2006 rates for tertiary graduation show that 53 % of the girls get a higher education compared to 37 % of the boys (OECD, 2008). Danish women also have one of the highest employment rates among women in Europe and OECD countries at 70.8% per cent.

In such a scenario, can similar results be expected in India as have been found in Denmark?

Can a Daughter make an Indian Male CEO more generous? The jury is still out on this issue.

Actress-in, Hostess-out

Reportedly Air India pilots allowed an Indian actress inside the cockpit of the aircraft during a recent flight. The actress had occupied the observer's seat during the flight, which is reserved for examiners and observers authorized by DGCA. Post 9/11, no passenger is allowed inside the cockpit. In a "flagrant violation of passenger safety norms", the pilots allowed the actress inside the cockpit.

But this is not the first time that Air India pilots have taken such flights of fantasy leaving the passengers in a tizzy.

In April, two stewardesses were inside the cockpit for nearly 45 minutes as one of the two pilots had taken a long break. 

In May, the Air India flight was travelling from Bangkok to New Delhi when both the co-pilot and the pilot left the cockpit after having spent some time instructing two flight attendants how to fly. They blissfully napped in the business class. But the pair had to rush back and seize the controls of the A-320 after one of them accidentally turned off the autopilot setting.

Another report brings to the fore that about 400 air hostesses of its cabin crew strength of 3,600 who had taken a two-year leave without pay as per company policy have simply not returned to work although their leave got over a long time back. The funny part is that the airline stumbled on the absconders while asking all of its cabin crew to appear for medical test from January.

Can you imagine the state of affairs at Air India! While on one hand, the pilots are having least concern for passenger (customer) safety, on the other hand the airline is not only losing people but not even aware that it is losing them.

Air India has been long limping on crutches. The precious taxpayer’s money has been pushing it on the 'runway'. Salary payments are uncertain, future is bleak, yet government spends Rs. 50000 Crores in buying new aircrafts.

Disengagement seems all around. Pilots are disengaged from their organization and from their primary external stakeholders, the passengers and hence have little respect for the safety norms; the Air Hostesses are clearly disengaged, evident from their attrition; the public at large in India are disengaged with Air India, with majority of them sour at the way Air India is functioning and the fact that their precious tax money is being used for bailing-out a grossly inefficient ‘Maharaja’ who shows no promise or no intention to change. The external disengagement is naturally growing at an increasing rate, with the airline losing its passengers to its competitors.

Air India is suspending pilots, sacking the absconding air hostesses and conducting obesity testing of the remaining cabin crew. However a serious health-check-up of the ‘Maharaja’ is long due, not to test fitness but to confirm again that it is no more animate.

Time to bury the ‘deadwood’!

'Say Yo Ho Ho'

'Jake and the Never Land Pirates' an animated series on one of the cartoon channels, is a must watch for my son. Many times Jake will ask his animated and animate friends to repeat after him something like - 'Say Yo Ho Ho'. And pat my son would also repeat after Jake and his animated friends, - 'Yo Ho Ho'. 

It just works right! It works like magic! The engagement is so much better.

However when the same trick is tried in business organizations with grown-up adults and it works, it works in a way that is antonymous to right, magic and engagement.

It is amazing that when your 'people' always say what you want to hear, you never hear the right things!

'Sounding Board' is any day better than an 'Echo'!

'Auto' on a 'Manual' Mode

A radio jockey has started a new segment in the one of the morning breakfast shows on FM Radio in Bangalore City where he claims to solve problems of people. Without missing the comic intention behind the segment, problems at times could be genuine and passing it over as a humor may be inappropriate.

Like today, a morning caller on the show shared a problem when prompted by the RJ. She told the RJ that she had completed her graduation and was interested in pursuing M.B.A. and specialize in Human Resources. She was even currently working in a HR profile in a company. She is really passionate about a career in HR but her parents were opposing the same. This has led to misunderstanding between her and her parents.

The RJ took a comic flight and told her that the reason for misunderstanding was that she was still a ‘Miss’ (spinster). He recommended her to get married, after which her parents would lose control over her and she will wield greater control over her husband and then she can have her way. I perfectly understand that the RJ was trying his best to be humorous but what a crappie response from the RJ, didn’t even sound comic. Besides the caller had a genuine problem that most children, especially girls, face in this country. Parents do not seem to have enough of the control that they wish to exert over the lives and careers of their children, often pushing them to limits of frustration. They just can’t let them ‘go’.


Real problems need real solutions, else they have far-reaching consequences. Take for instance the recent firing of about 500 temporary workers by Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) one of India’ leading automotive manufacturers. Should you blame them for that?

The car sales have been worst ever in the history of Indian automotive sector. In fact the entire automotive industry seems be having a free-fall when it comes to sales, whether it is cars, two wheelers, three-wheelers or commercial vehicles.

(Image Source: Business Line)

The demand has dropped drastically and car manufacturer are forced to shut-down operations for days together to prevent inventory pile-up.

But experts blame the policy-paralysis on part of the government, subdued economy and falling rupee behind such a dramatic downturn in the auto industry’s fortunes. Despite the industry experiencing a record fall in sales, the government has increased import duties on luxury cars (from 75% to 100%) and increased excise duties on SUVs (from 27% to 30%). Besides, there is confusion over the definition of sports utility vehicles or SUVs. Hence many companies are forced to cut-down on ground clearance etc. to avoid such duties. The rising fuel prices haven’t helped either. When due to widening gap between petrol and diesel prices, the demand for diesel cars started to go up and industry saw a glimmer of hope, the government decision to drastically revise the diesel prices has stolen that ray of hope as well from the automotive manufacturers. In the end it became a zero-sum game.

The subdued economy, falling GDP and falling disposable incomes of the Indian customer has magnified this problem. The high interest rates maintained by India’s central bank RBI to check inflation has hardly been able to check what it intended to; however it has definitely succeeded in checking the auto sales, as EMI on bank loans continue to be high, making the Indian customer even more reluctant.

The Indian rupee's gain of gravity is likely to make the problem even more acute, as the operational cost for the car manufacturers are likely to go up. Again, thanks to government’s economic policies.

The heat is finally passing-on to the people employed in the automotive sector in India. Temporary workers are the first hit in M&M and more companies are likely to follow the suit. The auto manufacturer cannot be blamed as business viability has to be maintained at any cost and for that layoffs may be inevitable.

Economy is finally taking a toll on the engagement as well. Buyers are disengaged (from the auto manufacturers), manufacturers are disengaged (from the government). Internal disengagement is then inevitable.

Much like majority of the Indian parent, the government doesn’t seem to be letting ‘go’ the control over the economy. The result is a growing stress that is impacting major cracks in the economy and across industry sectors.

Hope someone wakes-up before it is too late.

Till then, it is "lose-lose" situation.

Let the Free Marketplace Principles Rule!

If you buy research information at a cost and then want to trade it others, who in turn would also make money or secure advantage out of the same and you wish to attach a premium for those who want to get that information earlier than others, then what’s wrong? But the NY Attorney-General does not think so.

Eric Schneiderman, the New York Attorney-General's overtures against Thomson Reuters defies market logic.

Thomson Reuters pays a hefty sum to the University of Michigan every year to secure the distribution rights for the University’s closely followed Consumer Confidence Survey. Thomson Reuters in turn has a three-tiered system for distributing the same data.  The top level of high-frequency traders pay a reported $6,000 per month to get the information at 9:54:58 am. The next level of Thomson Reuters subscribers, paying substantially less, get the data two seconds later, from a conference call which takes place at 9:55 am. Finally, at 10:00 am, the report is made freely available on the Web.

Considering that the University of Michigan’s data has the ability to move the markets and that super-fast computer programmed trading means that even two seconds have the potential of millions, the two second advantage has naturally a premium attached to it. In other words, the high-frequency traders can trade millions of dollars of stocks, bonds or other investments, once they are privy to this data.

Eric Schneiderman has problems with these two seconds or better that why should high-frequency traders get this information two seconds earlier than the other subscribers of Thomson Reuters and he is wielding the Martin Act to oppose the two-second window.

Eric Schneiderman supposedly altruistic 'rock and roll' fails on many counts -

1. Why should anyone have a problem with giving traders, who pay more, early access to financial information?
2. Considering that those who secure this data from Thomson Reuters also want to make hay, and then what’s wrong in charging those more who wish to make most of it?
3. Has anyone prevented other subscribers from moving to the high-frequency trader’s category? 
4. Consequently if a subscriber wants to pay less (and may be can pay less) and get the same data 2 seconds later then what is anyone’s problem?
5. Since Thomson Reuters made no secret of this three-tiered distribution, then there is no secret preferential distribution. Then what’s the hullabaloo about?
6. Then, why just oppose the 2-second window, why not the next 5-minute window as well? Might as well ask Thomson Reuters to give this information to everyone for FREE! 

A Russian revolutionary leader was once quoted saying that “Liberty is so precious that it must be carefully rationed.” Eric Schneiderman seems to be on a similar trail.

Life, Liberty and pursuit of happiness has been always punctuated by people like Schneiderman who think they are the apostles who can save this pursuit of the mankind. In reality they end-up rationing liberty.

Organizational Leaders and HR professionals who are at the helm of protecting life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness of their employees may take a leaf out of the same and believe that the best way to protect the same is not to adopt the 'rationing' approach. They need to create a culture of performance and not dictate similar outcomes for everyone, since that would be unfair to those who ’invest’ more.  And more importantly not to assume themselves to be the saviour of their most important ‘assets’ and instead let the ‘free marketplace principles’ rule.