>>
>> Execution means getting things done. Straight and Simple. This skill is an important weapon in the armoury of a manager. Nothing can be accomplished in our world without execution. To understand its true implication, let's watch out on the frequent answers of poor execution,
>>
>> "But … I forgot.."
>> "I told Mr. X and he never called back…."
>> "I'll do it tomorrow…"
>> " Mr. Y refused to accept my instructions…"
>> "I'll surely do it tomorrow.."
>> "I phoned Mr Y and no one picked up the phone.."
>>
>> The list is endless and the implied meaning is of poverty in execution. This is no secret that Indians working on ships are technically and theoretically sound by rote acts on complex rules and regulations. But they are far too unwilling to roll up their sleeves when it comes to execution. This act of procrastination, avoidance, dodging, or even evasion is a manifest poverty of an indispensable soft skill for a manager. It has been observed that all star CEOs are fabulous in execution. And in day to day life we come across ordinary uneducated people who excel in the art of getting things done and highly qualified and trained people who display a manifest poverty of this skill. This may not be the only defining skill for a good manager, because you need many more other skills to excel as a manager in addition to having this skill of execution. But without it, you go no where. The question is why some people are good at it while others just cant get it right? Why some are naturals? The moment they walk in, they get things done effortlessly. And there are the others, who need rigorous training, workshops, motivations, bonuses, and change of responsibilities to just chug along.
>>
>> This skill is a matter of both nature and nurture, and more of the latter. It is a mindset. We are socially and evolutionarily wired to take more and give less. We want to take more salary and do less work. In individuals, where this belief is deeply ingrained, they just can not come up so easily to execute. As a second nature they resist action. They hone a sharp mind that churns out excuses instantly to procrastinate, avoid or evade action. Therefore, such individuals can be effective, if they think through and change their ingrained false belief system. And innate qualities are the strengths on which to build this capability of execution after vanquishing the demon of resistance to action.
>>
>> For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
>
Showing what's hidden. Forcing to think in new ways. Bring change on the Table.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Article -74 Week 34 SHUTTING OUT CORRUPTION WITH NO OPTION TO SSR:
Article -74 Week 34
SHUTTING OUT CORRUPTION WITH NO OPTION TO SSR:
What do we feel inside yourself, when you pay Rs 10,000/ bribe to amend an innocent typo in the IGM? To put a rubber stamp on the online print of a TP copy at Rs 50 per document? To chase the peon who moves around the tea stalls in the Customs Office with the rubber stamps in his pocket and pay him Rs 20/ to put the stamp on after the signature of the Inspector? To pay Rs 80,000/ to the Customs officer in Vizag to renew Steamer Agency License? To Pay a monthly fixed bribe of Rs 4000/ to the Customs officers in Vizag port when you have low volume of exports or import? To pay Rs 12000/ to CONCOR officers in Delhi ICD to release the cargo, because of an innocent typo in the Forwarding Note? To pay the Customs officials on every IGM copy? On every CMC permission? Every Bond cancellation? Every Shipping Bill submission? Every EGM ? On every inspection? When you bring to India your personal effects by containers on transfer from overseas, paying Rs 20,000 to Customs Officers? When you pay Rs 40,000/ for every back to town container from the Terminal to the CFS? Paying bribe of Rs 16,000/ for a permission to move a box from Pipava to Nhava Sheva via Colombo? To pay bribe to get your Passport in spite of the online system? Pay in lakhs to Income Tax raiders for the narrow interpretation in finding faults in your books or not cooking your books properly by experts? Paying lakhs to the Service Tax officers for assessment or centralization? To pay DG shipping for Multi Modal Transport license? For dispensation on crewing? To MMD officials for passing seaworthiness? SSR to NSICT by force? To the traffic cops in JNPT on the hapless trailer drivers on their serpentine queues? To the Municipality officials for Shops and Establishment certificates? To their occasional visits to your offices demanding and negotiating bribes? To pay to get a birth certificate? To again pay to get a Death certificate? To pay to get a Marriage certificate? The list is long and exhaustive.
Do you not get angry? Do you feel ashamed of being an Indian? Do you feel frustrated? Don't you feel that your soul has been soiled? A piece of you is rotting within your conscience? You may have the power to endure and swallow, but can you ever overcome these strong feelings that dents your freedom, choice, and opportunity?
The answer is on the streets of India. We are proud of being Indians, the way we have expressed our pent-up hurt with unanimous solidarity with Anna Hazare's movement. Let's be part of this large movement to clean our house. It is our house. We have to clean up. Let's not look at others to to do it for us.
Vande Mataram!
For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
____________________________________________________________________________
Rath
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Article - 71 Week 31 Our System Punishes The Innocent:
Article - 71 Week 31
Our System Punishes The Innocent:
India grows sustainably in spite of a third rated governance and third rated Laws and Policies. But we the people inside the industries, know the dirty little tricks and secrets of our growth. There are times, we run out of tricks. We take a beating and retreat, mauled and bleeding. We don't even expect the last vestiges of justice or humanity to save us. Only hope lies with the influence or connection to a dirty politician or a local goon to stop us from sure death. Let me tell you a true story:
It has been six months. 41 containers have been arrested by the Local Customs in Tuticorin. The containers belong to the shipping line. They came in empty, but were manifested as having full cargo inside. The shipper and consignee indulged in some scam in connivance to perpetuate a fraud. Both the shipper and the consignee are bonafide Indian nationals. The department does not have the gumption to catch them for reasons best known to them. The reasons could range from active connivance with the fraudsters, the fraudsters being too powerfully connected to politics or the underworld, simple lethargy and imbecility, ineptitude, or a sadistic pleasure of tormenting the innocent, as has been the habitual more of our system of bureaucracy. Wonder, why we call them (Government) servants, when they harass the innocents of this nation and do such an evil disservice and get paid by our taxes! They should rather be called (Government) terrorists. That's more apt.
The facts are fully presented to the department. The investigations have been conclusive about the innocence of the shipping line with substantiations from the load port's Customs. The consignee and shippers are still free birds. But the property of the shipping line continues to be under seizure. The shipping line has been warned that it is better not to take on the crocodile, if it wants to live in the same water.
It is time we feel ashamed of ourselves. We have lost any sense of justice, sensibility and dignity. We penalise the innocent and let the criminals go happily free. Let's hang our heads in shame for continuing with such a rotten bureaucracy!
For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
Brgds
Capt Rath
Article - 70 Week 30 The Rewards Of Criticism:
Article - 70 Week 30
The Rewards Of Criticism:
"We need very strong ears to hear ourselves judged frankly, and because there are few who can endure frank criticism without being stung by it, those who venture to criticize us perform a remarkable act of friendship, for to undertake to wound or offend." - Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher and Thinker)
We are far too used to a culture of flattery and a false sense self glorification. In olden days there used to be professional flatterers in the courts of aristocrats and kings. Every one with money and a social standing, lived on a over spiced diet of flattery. Even our gods indulged in this luxury. The remnants of this culture is suffocatingly dominant in our work places. The less privileged are tacitly coerced into demeaning themselves from saying 'multiple times of Sirs', to folding or wringing hands, to looking down at the floors etc, in order to keep the bloated ego of the privileged in its elevated pedestal, supported by the eluding legs of flattery. The best negotiator for paying lesser bribes are those who can flatter the Babu to no end, without any sense of logic or decency. Some times I have been bemused by the ingenious Babus who flatter back with a consummate skill to up their price. It's amazingly hilarious to be part of such negotiations. The parties pretend to be like blood brothers and offer to sacrifice their lives for the other, only to seal the deal at a suitable price.
Therefore, there is this chronic scorn to criticism & critics in our society, to the point of intolerance and violent retribution. People and organizations are blinded with rage, when criticized. This stems partly from our inherited history and also our propensity to hold on to what privileges we already have - no matter how unfairly we might have acquired them. Coupled with this is the stubbornness to avoid inevitable changes, dictated by time of openness and equity.
Had their been no critics, we would still be living in the stone ages. The aspersion that the critics only display their flair of painting in repulsive black, the softer belly of an issue, with quite a pompousness and audacity, while completely ignoring the brighter side, does not belittle their usefulness and gravity. The society needs to see the dark side of things from as many perspectives as possible in order to bring light and drive change. Pragmatically speaking, our systems have many evils. Many would agree that the evils outweigh the goodness we possess in our governance and society. Leaving the debate open to the degrees of goodness or badness, we would rather do good by articulating the painful parts. This awareness is the first pointer towards a positive change. And we need a change from this never ending cycle of vice. After all, wisdom of the crowd can only prevail through debates from all possible perspectives.
For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
Brgds
Capt Rath
Article - 69 Week 29 No Law vs Bad Law
Article - 69 Week 29
No Law vs Bad Law
"An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so." Mahatma Gandhi
India has Law and China has Order. Saw this in one of the twitter posts. We have so many laws. And sadly many of them are bad laws. China has a few laws; most are meaningful and purposeful. For an example, if you buy a vessel and get it registered in India, you will be slapped with 5% customs duty - applicable if you wish to bring her home. So long as you keep her outside India, there is no duty. If at all, you are compelled to bring her home, you need to prove that it is temporary in nature. Then, you may be exempted. I wonder if temporary has a qualifying meaning within the ambits of the law! If there is no qualification, then it is left to the discretion of some Babu. The Babu can define even 10 years as temporary, if he wishes to. Or if he does not like your face, he may not even consider one month as temporary. So the doors to corruption and connection is split wide open with this law. After all, we need a whole lot of cabotage vessels for our coast and people will find a way to meet this need, so long as it is commercially profitable.
This law, simply tells you to bribe and manage. Or else, use foreign flag vessels for the Coastal trade through dispensations, which is more damaging to Indian shipping. And remember that dispensation does not come free. You have to grease the wheels of bureaucracy generously with plenty of ego massaging and connections in the top. But all this great struggle to carry our own cargo on our own shores using foreign vessels and killing our own shipping industry? What a shame on this sham law!
No Lokpal Bill can touch this. We say yes to stricter and fairer laws and yes to quick redressals on the infringements. But along with them, we must demand to remove all bad laws. Simplify them. Make them congruent with the betterment of the industry and broader national interests. It is time, we the people, realize that "We are not party to this national graft mess by choice, but rather arm-twisted into them by bad Laws". These are the crafty laws, leaving us with no option to honesty and nation building.
Let's scream and shout at bad Laws! Let no one point his dirty finger at us with the accusation that we are guilty of breaking bad laws and therefore a party to the 'Corruption Cauldron' of our all-consuming bureaucracy & polity!
For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
Brgds
Capt Rath
Article - 68 Week 28 Anti-market Conferences:
Article - 68 Week 28
Anti-market Conferences:
Too big to be questioned upon. Container shipping lines are mostly giants in the industry. And when the titans take up their cudgels, there is a whole lot bleeding. This bleeding becomes pervasive and gory. The freights plummet to abysmal lows. Bottom lines are swept to the bottom of business rationale. All that matters is 'market share' and 'market turfs'. The smaller players simply drop mortally wounded or perish. The name of the game is brute 'size' and 'scale'. When bottom lines shriek for panic attention, the giants declare cessation. They huddle behind closed doors and direct their collective violence on the consumer of their services. PSS, CBR, FAF, CAF, and many such mysterious and strange sounding missiles are fired at the end customers at tandem. The consumers shake their heads and roll their eyes. The giants shake their legs all the way to their Banks.
If these unholy behind-the-door collusions and alliances are broken, the giants would no more dare to drop rates to desperate and impossible lows. And therefore, there would be no need for such unholy alliances to spike the general freight rates. There would be stability and semblance of it among the end users. This too will invite smaller competitors to wedge themselves in to the niches. The market would slowly be a true market - not a manipulated one in the hands of the giants. It is true that the consumers benefit immensely when the titans clash. But they too get their deadly 'freight and service shocks' when the giants join hands. This is especially bad for an emerging economy like India. It's export industries experience periodic shocks on both input costs and export competitiveness.
India is basically a consuming nation for this service and would continue to be so for a long period. With the kind of shipping and taxation policies on Indian shipping, it would be impossible for a pure Indian company to raise its head among the giants. SCI can thrive on mediocrity on tax payers' money. It would face the same dilemma like Air India in the hands of conniving politicians and never grow to be a giant among giants. Therefore, this is time to declare such conferences anti-competition and anti-market by the government of India, in line with EU.
____________________________________________________________________________
Brgds
Capt Rath
Article -67 Week 27 Rationalising Corrupt Practices:
Article -67 Week 27
Rationalising Corrupt Practices:
"But man is so addicted to systems and to abstract conclusions that he is prepared deliberately to distort the truth, to close his eyes and ears, but justify his logic at all cost. " — Fyodor Dostoyevsky
We live in an interesting time of paradigm shifts. Especially so in our shipping industry in India, where we have learnt to live with and consume dirt for so long that we no more care to pay attention, even when it hurts. Half a century of maladministration. Getting the basic things done for the common man had to be through bribes, corruption, nepotism, or stealing if all else failed. When the common man was desperate and angry, throw them some populist soups to invade his unsuspecting subconscious mind space with a 'brand of the political oligarchy'.
When the common man is aware enough to raise questions, show them the winding corridors of red-tape or the complex and almost esoteric volumes of legislations. Amazingly, this Indian man knows how to scramble through this maze of red-tapes - be it RTI, an almost moribund judiciary system, or screaming media to lay his hands on the perpetrators to shake from their comfort zones. Now the government almost shouts back at the common man with reprimands of constitutional breach for daring to ask.
We have been on the receiving end for far too long. Customs, Service Tax, Income Tax, Sales Tax, and many such departments have traditionally snuggled up with the rogue violators of the rules while the honest guy has been treated like a vermin in their corridors.
A few days back, I happened to be in one of these corridors. I was kept waiting for hours, because the Babu was busy. But I could see the through the glass partition. The Babu was sitting with a known local goon cum contractor. I could see the chemistry with those irrepressible smiles and gestures between them - just like long lost brothers. And those occasional smirks on his faces, when he saw me staring straight through, spoke of his blind hatred to the common man. What a shame! I know all officers and Babus are not like that. Most of them are friendly ordinary folks like us. But the undercurrent of this rotten culture is a clear manifest in the involuntary body languages and those notorious noting on the files.
Brgds
Capt Rath
Article - 66 Week 26 Detained or Seized Cargo and the Notoriety Behind :
Article - 66 Week 26
Detained or Seized Cargo and the Notoriety Behind :
The sheer number of exporters, importers, shipping agents, and shipping lines in our land stand bewildered into submission by brute & twisted laws and a flagrant violation of any vestige of fairness and justice in them. But the fact is, they have behaved patiently and sans protestations, in spite of many forums to vent their views and facilitate trade. Let's take the case of 'Customs Detained' cargo in containers in seaports and especially Nhava Sheva. It is but natural that with volumes and volumes of Customs Books and their ever increasing volumes of riders and annexes, written in ambiguous words and phrases and no system of pre-screening of documents, a whole lot of uncalled for cargo lands in our CFSs. Many times the cargo is brought in to dupe the system through prior settings with the department officials in select places to evade high duties and they are caught accidentally. Some times, the importers are unaware of the changes made through notifications and get stuck on. No matter how, the Customs Detained cargo in containers are destined to have years of seizure inside the CFSs and the menace would grow exponentially with time.
The importer has no easy way out. With passage of time he has to pay extremely high storage charges to the CFS and detention charges to the shipping line to release his cargo. There has been notifications of waiver of CFS charges under certain conditions of detention. But the shipping lines' detention charges fly exponentially and punitively high.
As a precondition to set up a CFS, 10% of the area is to be set aside for such customs detained cargo. The CFS needs to remove the detained cargo from the containers and preserve in this 10% designated area and release the containers to the shipping line. But no CFS in Nhava Sheva resorts to this process in connivance with the department. So you would notice piles of such shipping lines' containers in all these CFSs. The shipping lines and their agents just give in to this unfair system. Many times they just abandon the boxes out of desperation. The CFS takes undue advantage of this misery and extracts what they can from the shipping lines.
This has given India a very notorious reputation among the shipping lines doing business here. They ridicule our system, our people, our laws, and unfair practices. This happens only in India. You would be surprised that this gross violation of justice and fair practice is uncommon in many African countries or even blatant military establishments like Myanmar, while it is a regular thing in India. Let us clean up the system.
____________________________________________________________________________
Article - 71 Week 31 Our System Punishes The Innocent:
Article - 71 Week 31
Our System Punishes The Innocent:
India grows sustainably in spite of a third rated governance and third rated Laws and Policies. But we the people inside the industries, know the dirty little tricks and secrets of our growth. There are times, we run out of tricks. We take a beating and retreat, mauled and bleeding. We don't even expect the last vestiges of justice or humanity to save us. Only hope lies with the influence or connection to a dirty politician or a local goon to stop us from sure death. Let me tell you a true story:
It has been six months. 41 containers have been arrested by the Local Customs in Tuticorin. The containers belong to the shipping line. They came in empty, but were manifested as having full cargo inside. The shipper and consignee indulged in some scam in connivance to perpetuate a fraud. Both the shipper and the consignee are bonafide Indian nationals. The department does not have the gumption to catch them for reasons best known to them. The reasons could range from active connivance with the fraudsters, the fraudsters being too powerfully connected to politics or the underworld, simple lethargy and imbecility, ineptitude, or a sadistic pleasure of tormenting the innocent, as has been the habitual more of our system of bureaucracy. Wonder, why we call them (Government) servants, when they harass the innocents of this nation and do such an evil disservice and get paid by our taxes! They should rather be called (Government) terrorists. That's more apt.
The facts are fully presented to the department. The investigations have been conclusive about the innocence of the shipping line with substantiations from the load port's Customs. The consignee and shippers are still free birds. But the property of the shipping line continues to be under seizure. The shipping line has been warned that it is better not to take on the crocodile, if it wants to live in the same water.
It is time we feel ashamed of ourselves. We have lost any sense of justice, sensibility and dignity. We penalise the innocent and let the criminals go happily free. Let's hang our heads in shame for continuing with such a rotten bureaucracy!
For more & unedited versions, please visit & leave your opinions on, http://ourships.blogspot.com/
Brgds
Capt Rath
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