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Archive for the ‘Wits and Speech’ Category

Guy Kawasaki presents "The Art of the Start"

Monday, September 8th, 2008

“The Art of of Start” is an excellent presentation on what you should do when are a start-up business. The presentation has tips and is with humour. Highly recommended video to watch.

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Regards,

Santosh Puthran

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  1. I beg to differ - How to make fool of yourself
  2. Requirement Analysis - Humour
  3. A lesson for every salaried employee
  4. Job Rotation - A donkey Story 15-June-08
  5. A Leader should know how to manage failure 15-May-07
  6. Parables for our time 24-Jan-07
  7. What an Awesome Reply 11-Mar-08
  8. Steve Jobs’ Speech in Stanford Ceremony 14-Jan-07
  9. Illogical Thinking 28-Dec-06
  10. Goal Setting About Your Career 17-Jun-07
  11. Magic Mantra of Warren Buffet 08-Dec-06
  12. How to Share Blog posts with friends 25-May-08
  13. Management Accountant Blog Home

Requirement Analysis - Humour

Monday, August 11th, 2008

This is a forward from the Internet. This is a management lesson, you may quote it in your presentations.

A new vacuum cleaner salesman knocked on the door on the first house of the street. A tall lady answered the door.

Before she could speak, the enthusiastic salesman barged into the living room and opened a big black plastic bag and poured all the cow droppings onto the carpet.

“Madam, if I could not clean this up with the use of this new powerful Vacuum cleaner, I will EAT all this dung!” exclaimed the eager salesman.

“Do you need chilly sauce or ketchup with that” asked the lady.

The bewildered salesman asked, “Why, madam?”

“There’s no electricity in the house…” said the lady


MORAL: Gather all requirements and resources before working on any project and committing to the client…!!!


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Regards,

Santosh Puthran

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  1. I beg to differ - How to make fool of yourself
  2. A lesson for every salaried employee
  3. Job Rotation - A donkey Story 15-June-08
  4. A Leader should know how to manage failure 15-May-07
  5. Parables for our time 24-Jan-07
  6. What an Awesome Reply 11-Mar-08
  7. Steve Jobs’ Speech in Stanford Ceremony 14-Jan-07
  8. Illogical Thinking 28-Dec-06
  9. Goal Setting About Your Career 17-Jun-07
  10. Magic Mantra of Warren Buffet 08-Dec-06
  11. How to Share Blog posts with friends 25-May-08
  12. Management Accountant Blog Home

I beg to differ

Sunday, July 27th, 2008

According to Wikipedia

Communication is the process of transferring information from a sender to a receiver with the use of a medium in which the communicated information is understood by both sender and receiver. Communication requires that all parties understand a common language that is exchanged.

I participate in virtual discussion forums and some of the members communicate using following sentences (they are grammatically correct).

  • I beg to differ …. or I beg to disagree
  • If you have queries, please contact the undersigned
  • I hereby give my consent
  • The undersigned does not carry any intentions to hurt you at all
  • I beg you will consider the business well tonight and let me…

Source: ExtremeInstability

William Wordsworth’s (1770 - 1850) poem “Daffodils” is a very popular poem and often taught in schools. Most of us must have studied during the school days. It has following paragraph

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

The third line means happy. In today’s communication, you will be in trouble if you use it.

The point that I would like to make is one cannot use old English in today’s business communication as it may not be appropriate. The key is that your communication should be persuasive and should be to the point. (No ambiguity and without lawyer’s language).

The communication should be in active voice.

Eg.

  • I am enclosing instead of …….. Please find enclosed
  • Please contact me instead of …. If you have queries, please contact the undersigned ….
  • I accept instead of ….. I hereby give my consent
  • I am sorry instead of …. I beg your pardon
  • Please apply .. instead of ….The interested may thereafter apply in a prescribed format with stamp and seal from appropriate authority. ….. The application form should have instructions how to fill it.

I have found few tips that should of interest to you.

Your comments please… I would be happy to read it on my blog.

Regards,

Santosh Puthran

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  1. Cultural Web - A big challenge 22-June-08
  2. Emerging role of Management Accountants
  3. Porter’s Daimond
  4. Knowledge Process Outsourcing
  5. A lesson for every salaried employee
  6. A Leader should know how to manage failure
  7. Parables for our time
  8. What an Awesome Reply
  9. Steve Jobs’ Speech in Stanford Ceremony
  10. Illogical Thinking
  11. Goal Setting About Your Career
  12. Magic Mantra of Warren Buffet
  13. How to Share Blog posts with friends
  14. Management Accountant Blog Home

A lesson for Every Salaried Employee

Saturday, July 12th, 2008

This is an email forward, a good management lesson . This will keep on forwarding by the readers who have sympathy to the dog.

A lesson for Every Salaried Employee

A shopkeeper watching over his shop is really surprised when he sees a dog coming inside the shop, He shoos him away. But later, the dog is back inside again. So he goes over to the dog and notices that it has a note in its mouth. He takes the note and it reads “Can I have 12 soaps and a shampoo bottle, please. The money is with the dog.” The shopkeeper looks inside the dogs mouth and to his surprise there is a 100 rupees note in his mouth. So he takes the money and puts the soap, shampoo and change in a bag, and then places it in the dogs mouth.

The shopkeeper is so impressed, and since it is the closing time, he decides to follow the dog. The dog is walking down the street, when it comes to the zebra crossing, he waits till the signal turns green. He walks across the road till the bus stop. He waits on the stop and looks up the timetable for the bus. The shopkeeper is totally out of his mind as the dog gets into the bus and sits on a vacant seat. The shopkeeper follow the dog. The dog waits for the conductor to come to his seat. He gives the change to the conductor and shows him the neck belt to keep the ticket. The shopkeeper is almost fainting at this sight and so are the other people in the bus.

Source: Brisbane

The dog then moves to the front exit of the door and waits for the bus stop to arrive, looking outside. As soon as the stop is in sight he wags his tail to inform the driver to stop. Then not even waiting for the bus stop to arrive the dog jumps out and runs to the house nearby. It opens an big iron gate and rushes towards the door. As it approaches the door, he changes his mind and walks towards the garden. The dog walks up to the window and beats his head several times on the window. It then walks back to the door and waits. The shopkeeper maintaining his senses walks up to the door and watched a big guy open the door.

The guy starts beating, kicking and abusing the dog. The shopkeeper is surprised and runs to stop the guy. the shopkeeper questions the guy “What in the heaven are you doing? The dog is a genius he could be famous in life.”

The guy responds “You call this clever? This is the 3rd time in this week that the dog has forgotten the door keys.”

The moral of the story: You may continue to exceed onlookers expectations… But will always fall short of the bosses expectation…

The salary Axiom: The pay raise is just large enough to increase your taxes and just small enough to have no effect on your take-home pay.

Isaac’s Strange rule of staleness: Any food that starts out hard will soften when stale. And food that starts out soft will harden when stale.

Lampner’s Law of Employment: When leaving work late, you will go unnoticed. When you leave work early, you will meet the boss in the parking lot.

Indeed a humorous forwarded mail, but some points make you think.

Cheers,

Santosh Puthran

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Who will be a better Accountant - Shahrukh Khan or Aamir Khan ?

Wednesday, June 25th, 2008

Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan are two famous personalities in Bollywood. Both are equally successful and have a huge fan following. It depends upon what you consider success? Is it female fan following or fame or money. Never mind !!!

I am looking at the traits each one has. Then let you decide who will be a better accountant. Please use your imagination which one is more suitable to be a successful management accountant.

Shahrukh Khan

  • Mostly acts in movies that have contemporary themes.
  • Mostly works with a same set of people and makes movies with them and repeats the success.
  • He has a good PR and he tours around the world. All the tours are well publicized giving the details of what he eats, whom he meets and when he goes to sleep. This makes him known and people are interested in his next movie release.
  • He is approachable and gives frequent interview on TVs.
  • He started as a TV star. Sometimes he host TV quiz shows.
  • People know him very well since he acts in TV commercials. He makes good use of TV as a medium to maintain his popularity.
  • Sometimes experiments with movies with a different story and that gets him noticed.
  • Dances very well and challenges anyone to dance with him.

Aamir Khan

  • Some say he is a tough guy and he goes into minute details during movie making.
  • His movies are innovative, different, story oriented and at the same time convey social theme. More focused on reality.
  • He does not socialize and hates interviews.
  • He prefers that his work talks for himself rather than him.
  • He does not believe in awards like Filmfare but attempts for Oscars.
  • He can dance very well in movies but he does not tour or dance in shows. So general public do not know whether he is interesting or boring.
  • He makes few movies but they are blockbusters.
  • He always gives opportunities to new people in his movies and repeats his success with new set of people.

Aamir and Sharukh Khan are successful personalities in Bollywood. To summarise the traits above are leadership style, team management, self promotion, work and standards/ethics. Both the actors are successful using these traits to a different degree.

Please vote on who will be a successful accountant in a corporate environment depending on the traits they display.

I would like you to use your own imagination in making your choices and also add comments on the blog post. Looking forward to see your vote and comments.

Don’t forget Rate this Blog post.

Regards,

Santosh Puthran

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  3. Successful Cost & Management Accountants 10-Feb-08
  4. Resistance to Change 26-Apr-08
  5. Business, Customer Value & Management Accounting 19-June-08
  6. Activity Based Management - Dispelling the myths Par I - 13-June-08
  7. How to Share Blog posts with friends 25-May-08
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    Job Rotation - A Donkey Story

    Monday, June 16th, 2008

    Have you heard the story of "The Washer man and the Foolish Donkey"?

    To refresh your memory, and for the benefit of those who have not grown up listening to this moral story, it goes like this…

    There was once a washer man who had a donkey and a dog. One night when the whole world was sleeping, a thief broke into the house, the washer man was fast    asleep but the donkey and the dog were awake. The dog decided not to bark since the master did not take good care of him and wanted to teach him a lesson. The donkey got worried and said to the dog that if he doesn’t bark, the donkey will have to do something himself. The dog did not change his mind     and the donkey started braying loudly. Hearing the donkey bray, the thief ran away, the master woke up and started beating the donkey for braying in the middle of the night for no reason.

    Moral of the story "One must not engage in duties other than his own"

    Source: Dog Newton

    Now take a new look at the same story…

    The washer man (J) was a well educated man from a premier management institute. He had the fundas of looking at the bigger picture and thinking out of the box. He was convinced that there must be some reason for the donkey to bray in the night. He walked outside a little and did some fact finding, applied a bottom up approach, figured out from the ground realities that there was a thief who broke in and the donkey only wanted to alert him about it. Looking at the donkey’s extra initiative and going beyond the call of the duty, he rewarded him with lot of hay and other perks and became his favorite pet. The dog’s life didn’t change much, except that now the donkey was more motivated in doing the dogs duties as well. In the annual appraisal the dog managed a "meets requirement" …

     

    Soon the dog realized that the donkey is taking care of his duties and he can enjoy his life sleeping and lazing around. The donkey was rated as "star performer". The donkey had to live up to his already high performance standards. Soon he was over burdened with work and always under pressure and now is looking for a job rotation…

    Regards,

     

    Santosh Puthran

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    1. A Leader should know how to manage failure 15-May-07
    2. Parables for our time 24-Jan-07
    3. What an Awesome Reply 11-Mar-08
    4. Steve Jobs’ Speech in Stanford Ceremony 14-Jan-07
    5. Illogical Thinking 28-Dec-06
    6. Goal Setting About Your Career 17-Jun-07
    7. Magic Mantra of Warren Buffet 08-Dec-06
    8. How to Share Blog posts with friends 25-May-08
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    A Leader Should Know How to Manage Failure

    Thursday, May 15th, 2008
    India Knowledge@Wharton:


    Could you give an example, from your own experience, of how leaders should manage failure ?

    Kalam: Let me tell you about my experience. In 1973 I became the project director of India’s satellite launch vehicle program, commonly called the SLV-3. Our goal was to put India’s “Rohini” satellite into orbit by1980. I was given funds and human resources — but was told clearly that by 1980 we had to launch the satellite into space. Thousands of people worked together in scientific and technical teams towards that goal.

    By 1979 — I think the month was August — we thought we were ready. As the project director, I went to the control center for the launch. At four minutes before the satellite launch, the computer began to go through the checklist of items that needed to be checked. One minute later, the computer program put the launch on hold; the display showed that some control components were not in order. My experts — I had four or five of them with me — told me not to worry; they had done their calculations and there was enough reserve fuel. So I bypassed the computer, switched to manual mode, and launched the rocket. In the first stage, everything worked fine. In the second stage, a problem developed. Instead of the satellite going into orbit, the whole rocket system plunged into the Bay of Bengal. It was a big failure.

    That day, the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organization, Prof. Satish Dhawan, had called a press conference. The launch was at 7:00 am, and the press conference — where journalists from around the world were present — was at 7:45 am at ISRO’s satellite launch range in Sriharikota [in Andhra Pradesh in southern India]. Prof. Dhawan, the leader of the organization, conducted the press conference himself. He took responsibility for the failure — he said that the team had worked very hard, but that it needed more technological support. He assured the media that in another year, the team would definitely succeed.

    Now, I was the project director, and it was my failure, but instead, he took responsibility for the failure as chairman of the organization. The next year, in July 1980, we tried again to launch the satellite — and this time we succeeded. The whole nation was jubilant.

    Again, there was a press conference. Prof. Dhawan called me aside and told me, “You conduct the press conference today.”

    I learned a very important lesson that day. When failure occurred, the leader of the organization owned that failure. When success came, he gave it to his team. The best management lesson I have learned did not come to me from reading a book; it came from that experience.

    Regards,

    Santosh Puthran
    AICWA
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    Combined Code on Corporate Governance, UK

    Sunday, April 20th, 2008

    The Combined Code on Corporate Governance sets out standards of good practice in relation to issues such as board composition and development, remuneration, accountability and audit and relations with shareholders.

    All companies incorporated in the UK and listed on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange are required under the Listing Rules to report on how they have applied the Combined Code in their annual report and accounts. Overseas companies listed on the Main Market are required to disclose the significant ways in which their corporate governance practices differ from those set out in the Code.

    The Combined Code contains broad principles and more specific provisions. Listed companies are required to report on how they have applied the principles of the Code, and either to confirm that they have complied with the Code’s provisions or - where they have not - to provide an explanation.

    Source: Financial Reporting Council

    The rule is principle based (voluntary) to encourage the companies to follow the best practises.

    Path of Glory

    Source: Path of Glory

    As a finance professional do you any best practise for yourself. I feel the best practices for Finance Professionals would be:

    1. Follow the Ethics and Standards of your Accounting Body and IFAC.
    2. Participate in Workplace and Forum (both physical and virtual), question intelligently, debates constructively and challenge rigorously.
    3. Support Executives in their leadership of the business.
    4. Listen sensitively to the views of others
    5. Continually develop and refresh knowledge and skills. Share knowledge with others.
    6. Plan your work and deliver as per schedule.
    7. Actively Network with Accounting Fraternity and with the business.
    8. Set career goals and work towards achieving it.
    9. Promote myself as a professional so that people around and the world know that I exists. Volunteer for tasks that are challenging.
    10. Take 25 holidays every year and go places to see something new places. This is a good way not to get burn out by following the above 9 points. More important…. Have Fun.

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    Europe English - Humour

    Wednesday, December 26th, 2007
    Europe English - Humour on the internet

    The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the EU rather than German which was the other possibility.

    As part of the negotiations, Her Majesty’s Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a five year phase-in plan that would be known as “Euro-English”.

    In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of the “k”. This should klear up konfusion and keyboards kan have 1 less letter.

    There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year, when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like “fotograf” 20% shorter.

    In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be ekspekted to reach the stage where more komplikated changes are possible. Governments will enkorage the removal of double letters, which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling. Also, al wil agre that the horible mes of the silent “e”s in the language is disgraseful, and they should go away.

    By the fourth year, peopl wil be reseptiv to steps such as replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”. During ze fifz year, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and similar changes vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters.

    After zis fifz yer, ve vil hav a reli sensibl riten styl. Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi to understand ech ozer. Ze drem vil finali kum tru! And zen world!

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    Tax Cuts - A Simple Lesson In Economics

    Tuesday, December 25th, 2007
    Tax Cuts - A Simple Lesson In Economics

    This is how the cookie crumbles. Please read it carefully.

    Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100.

    If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

    The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
    The fifth would pay $1.
    The sixth would pay $3.
    The seventh $7.
    The eighth $12.
    The ninth $18.
    The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
    So, that’s what they decided to do.
    The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. “Since you are all such good customers,” he said, “I’m going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20.”

    So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
    So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his ‘fair share’?

    The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being ‘PAID’ to eat their meal. So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man’s bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

    And so:

    The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
    The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
    The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
    The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
    The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
    The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).
    Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.

    “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man “but he got $10!” “Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man. “I only saved a dollar, too.

    It’s unfair that he got ten times more than me!” “That’s true!!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!” “Wait a minute,” yelled the first four men in unison. “We didn’t get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!” The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up. The next night the tenth man didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn’t have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

    And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore……….and there are lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean ……… !! ( The author is based in US)………

    Source : Internet

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