Your poll results are bleak. Seventy per cent of Indians are struggling or suffering.
It is bleak; it could be very high expectations that are making this happen.
But why has Gallup said times are hard?
It’s about what you do in hard times. When we say something won’t work, we are always right. When we say it will, we’re usually right.
India is complicated. Change is hard.
You wouldn’t expect countries to make a big jump and I don’t know how much India can do. But a corporation can make a big leap even with small steps; it can set an example.
Things go wrong in firms. Whose head rolls?
The manager’s. If you have the wrong manager, you can’t fix it, whatever the problem.
In India, we blame the rank and file.
Really? That’s the first I’m hearing of it. Maybe that’s how they see it here; but it’s still always the manager’s fault.
Thousands hope to, but won’t, be managers. Will unmet aspirations sink India’s score?
The problem in India is that there’s still cronyism here. Comfortable monopolies and cronyism—unlike competition in the US..
Are our big companies doomed to middling success under the wrong managers?
It’s really difficult to find the right people at the top. Testing will help figure out who isn’t right.
Won’t competition fuel fear and depression?
No good idea comes out of misery. Big companies are like cities that nurture competition. If you have a bright idea in an unsupportive city, you take it to another city.
What about hard times and revolutions?
I was saying I think it could happen. You need a matchstick event, like in Tunisia. We damned near burned Los Angeles over ‘just one guy’, Rodney King. He was the trigger.
Could it happen in India?
The trigger and matchstick vary by place. You may think London would never have seen riots, or assume the opposite in Sudan. Much depends on what people are accustomed to.
