Unfeigned
The history of our race, and each individual's experience, are sown thick with evidence that a truth is not hard to kill and that a lie told well is immortal. Like you know, I write only when something bothers me, something changes the way I think, changes the way I live, changes me. And recently something has. It’s something to do with the truth. The way things are said and projected. The truth is often a amalgam of two half truths, but it’s never really the entire truth because there’s always something remaining that hasn’t been said.
The reason I’m thinking about all of this is the fact that I’ve been opening up new companies, starting new ventures, and expanding current businesses. The markets are good, and opportunities are plenty. Every single person that I hire, every organization that I do business with, every person that I decide to enter into a partnership with, I trust in full. Without trust, there is no business. I often tell people that a man’s word is more important that any piece of paper that he signs on. I hire, invest and dedicate time based on trust. Yes, different people hold a different amount of trust with me, and trust is often based on respect. How much you respect a person decided how much you trust him and vice versa. But when the scale is big, how much can you really trust people? Yes, they are good people now, all of them, but will they be forever? Will they not falter to greed sometime or the other? They maybe great human being today, practicing members of their respective religions, and brought up with good ethics and values. But greed; its something that ive seen even the best of men falter too. I can provide every person that works with me, his needs. But his greed? Is it my duty to provide for peoples greed? Is any one capable of providing for peoples greed? I doubt it.
I looked for answers, above me and below me. I asked how other people did business, I looked at the way small retailers, mid level marketing companies and big organizations did their business and help their staff and partners accountable. There were a plethora of answers I received, and they all put me into a great uncertainty. My short term goal is to take one of my firms, Connection Point, to a hundred employ strength. And the more I think of it, the more it worries me. This firm is a realty firm, and nothing can stop my employees from doing a deal on the side, but their conscience. But I am not God or a messiah, I can’t make them remain honest forever, I can’t discipline them if they falter. I cant see and hear everything that they do and say, I don’t know the whole truth. Never have and never will. But there was one answer that I got. SAP. Like they say, the best run business’s run on SAP. Their solutions for small business is just fabulous. As an employer, my entire staff have to report all of their actions, every client interaction and every financial transaction onto the system. And I can access it anywhere in the world. It is real time, therefore all of my finances, my client details, pending bills, deals in progress et al can be monitored in real time from anywhere. And this makes works so much more easier. I don’t have to follow up with all my staff directly. I don’t need to rely on managers for inputs on their subordinates. I know what is happening, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing. Plus, I get a lot of free time for networking, which is very crucial to my business. In short, I don’t need to spend sixteen hours at the office any more; I don’t need to cut short my visits to my other business out of madras city. I can also get real time financial reports and occupancy reports from my service apartment complex in Bangalore. I will have details accounts of where my field officers have been when it comes to my sales agency of a TATA group company. I could optimize purchases of material for my construction business. I will know what’s happening where and when, and that would be a big change from the current way of doing business for us as an organization.
But for everything good, there’s got to be a catch somewhere. And for SAP, it’s the cost involved. It will cost me twice as much as my annual salary outgo. And I will have to initially spend a lot of time and money on training my staff as well. But apart from all of that, I am yet undecided if I want to execute SAP in my business because of compliance. Like I said before, I only have people I can trust and implementing such software may seem to my staff and partners that I don’t trust them any more. I will start appearing like a hard hearted employer, a ruthless boss ruling with an iron wrist. And that is something that I don’t want, I’ve always done business based on trust, and change is something that I difficult to accept. I don’t lie, at least I try not to, and I try not to associate with people that lie. But sometimes it’s difficult. With all this technology around, the only way to call a bluff is when a human falters. Like the other day, I called a client of mine on his office land line, yet he told me he wasn’t in the office. I didn’t confront him on the same. A staff of mine kept telling me for days that he’s been late to work because he had gone to inspect a property .I’m going to buy him digital camera and ask him to show me pictures of the place. One staff of mine told me that she couldn’t come to work because her street was flooded. I went to pick her up, and the street was dry with not a single drop of water to be seen. A partner of mine told me he sold every single piece of land that I had invested in jointly with him. I know he won’t cheat me of my money, but I’m not sure if he’s really sold the land because I don’t see any money. I call an executive who works for me and he doesn’t answer the phone. He calls me back thirty minutes later and tells me he was in a meeting. I’m certain he was watching a movie and called me back during the interval. But there’s nothing I or technology can do about it. I am still confused; should I be forcing honesty on people that I already trust? Can I do without it? Can I grow and expand without it. These are questions that only time can answer. I don’t know, I can only wish I did.
The reason I’m thinking about all of this is the fact that I’ve been opening up new companies, starting new ventures, and expanding current businesses. The markets are good, and opportunities are plenty. Every single person that I hire, every organization that I do business with, every person that I decide to enter into a partnership with, I trust in full. Without trust, there is no business. I often tell people that a man’s word is more important that any piece of paper that he signs on. I hire, invest and dedicate time based on trust. Yes, different people hold a different amount of trust with me, and trust is often based on respect. How much you respect a person decided how much you trust him and vice versa. But when the scale is big, how much can you really trust people? Yes, they are good people now, all of them, but will they be forever? Will they not falter to greed sometime or the other? They maybe great human being today, practicing members of their respective religions, and brought up with good ethics and values. But greed; its something that ive seen even the best of men falter too. I can provide every person that works with me, his needs. But his greed? Is it my duty to provide for peoples greed? Is any one capable of providing for peoples greed? I doubt it.
I looked for answers, above me and below me. I asked how other people did business, I looked at the way small retailers, mid level marketing companies and big organizations did their business and help their staff and partners accountable. There were a plethora of answers I received, and they all put me into a great uncertainty. My short term goal is to take one of my firms, Connection Point, to a hundred employ strength. And the more I think of it, the more it worries me. This firm is a realty firm, and nothing can stop my employees from doing a deal on the side, but their conscience. But I am not God or a messiah, I can’t make them remain honest forever, I can’t discipline them if they falter. I cant see and hear everything that they do and say, I don’t know the whole truth. Never have and never will. But there was one answer that I got. SAP. Like they say, the best run business’s run on SAP. Their solutions for small business is just fabulous. As an employer, my entire staff have to report all of their actions, every client interaction and every financial transaction onto the system. And I can access it anywhere in the world. It is real time, therefore all of my finances, my client details, pending bills, deals in progress et al can be monitored in real time from anywhere. And this makes works so much more easier. I don’t have to follow up with all my staff directly. I don’t need to rely on managers for inputs on their subordinates. I know what is happening, wherever I am, whatever I’m doing. Plus, I get a lot of free time for networking, which is very crucial to my business. In short, I don’t need to spend sixteen hours at the office any more; I don’t need to cut short my visits to my other business out of madras city. I can also get real time financial reports and occupancy reports from my service apartment complex in Bangalore. I will have details accounts of where my field officers have been when it comes to my sales agency of a TATA group company. I could optimize purchases of material for my construction business. I will know what’s happening where and when, and that would be a big change from the current way of doing business for us as an organization.
But for everything good, there’s got to be a catch somewhere. And for SAP, it’s the cost involved. It will cost me twice as much as my annual salary outgo. And I will have to initially spend a lot of time and money on training my staff as well. But apart from all of that, I am yet undecided if I want to execute SAP in my business because of compliance. Like I said before, I only have people I can trust and implementing such software may seem to my staff and partners that I don’t trust them any more. I will start appearing like a hard hearted employer, a ruthless boss ruling with an iron wrist. And that is something that I don’t want, I’ve always done business based on trust, and change is something that I difficult to accept. I don’t lie, at least I try not to, and I try not to associate with people that lie. But sometimes it’s difficult. With all this technology around, the only way to call a bluff is when a human falters. Like the other day, I called a client of mine on his office land line, yet he told me he wasn’t in the office. I didn’t confront him on the same. A staff of mine kept telling me for days that he’s been late to work because he had gone to inspect a property .I’m going to buy him digital camera and ask him to show me pictures of the place. One staff of mine told me that she couldn’t come to work because her street was flooded. I went to pick her up, and the street was dry with not a single drop of water to be seen. A partner of mine told me he sold every single piece of land that I had invested in jointly with him. I know he won’t cheat me of my money, but I’m not sure if he’s really sold the land because I don’t see any money. I call an executive who works for me and he doesn’t answer the phone. He calls me back thirty minutes later and tells me he was in a meeting. I’m certain he was watching a movie and called me back during the interval. But there’s nothing I or technology can do about it. I am still confused; should I be forcing honesty on people that I already trust? Can I do without it? Can I grow and expand without it. These are questions that only time can answer. I don’t know, I can only wish I did.
The best measure of a man's honesty isn't his income tax return. It's the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
posted by Yasser Rahman at Sunday, November 11, 2007
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