Pakistan's most critical issue

Ask a common Pakistani about the most critical issue of Pakistan, an astonishing 90% would give a single word answer, Zardari. A problem that alas has no end in sight, Zardari will be replaced by his likes from the dirty pool of Pakistani Politics, most hope for Imran Khan, a new face with new hope.

The most critical issue of Pakistan is not Zardari or our politicians in general, they are just a part of a bigger problem, that is fresh water. Fresh Water which produces Pakistan's 40% electricity, provides for agriculture which in turns provides 90%+ food & fiber, most raw materials for our industries (in the shape of cotton etc) and most essentially, the water we need to drink. In very accurate phrase, Pakistan won't survive without water.

Is something happening to water?

A lot is happening and a few times the media has also highlighted the issue but things get jumbled in between the many happenings in the country, from Veena Malik to Tahir-ul-Qadri, to the escalation on the borders. The armed forces are too busy protecting the borders and the politicians & bureaucrats busy playing "Zardari Zardari". The whole issue is the violation of the Indus water treaty.

The water from the Indus basin is distributed into two streams, western & eastern. The Western stream comprises of three rivers Indus, Jhelum & Chenab on which Pakistan has exclusive rights, while India has more or less exclusive rights over Eastern stream. As India need for water grew they built dams & diverted rivers on the western stream of Indus basin (violation of Indus Water treaty), which brings India in control of the Indus Basin waters, Pakistan’s primary source of freshwater source.

On top of it the supply from Indus has reduced considerably in the last decade, coupled with the use of water by India thins the supply of water to Pakistan.

What is Pakistan doing about it?

 

Chairman Pakistan Indus Water Commission, Jamat Ali Shah, the person responsible for not highlighting the issue when the dam was being constructed succeeded in escaping to Canada last year, despite his name being in the 'Exit control List'. The Government is in general not that interested to tackle the issue, they are too busy protecting their behinds. The armed forces are too focused on not getting them involved in politics.

That leaves Social societies & Individuals. A handful of people are protesting and highlighting the issue but nothing actionable is being done. On the positive side, Pakistan Business Council is taking action on the issue, what they can & cannot do is a question we all want answers for. Anatol Lieven in his book Pakistan: A hard Country highlighted water, as being the only issue that is threatening the existence of Pakistan. Majid Nizami Editor in Chief of The Nation daily newspaper advised Pakistanis to get themselves ready for war with India on water issue.

A war with India can be considered an extreme scenario but the questions we all should ask is

Can we survive without Indus?

Waiting Lines

Waiting lines seem to be the destiny of the common man these days. Just got my car refueled after waiting half an hour (good day indeed) in the gas line. Reaching home in a good mood, queried my wife about the Montessori admission form that she was supposed to pick up between 9 & 12 in the morning (according to the website and the call I made). The actual process was quite different, she learned. For the admission form to be collected, you first need to get a token that is available between 8 to 9am and there would be only 50 tokens issued each day for 3 days. Needless to say, people start forming a line early in the morning, I plan to go at 7am tomorrow.

Bit frustrated on the life we are living, my calendar reminded of the doctor's appointment I needed to make at LNH. The hospital's operator informed that the Doctor's OPD hours are between 9am & 12pm, though he will come around 10-10:30am and will only see the first 50 patients, on first come first served basis.

What is happening to Pakistan, are institutions so stupid that they don't know how to manage waiting lines, or do they believe that they themselves are the king of all heaven & earth. There is no value of a common man's time, we are just so worthless & minute in the eyes of institutions that they don't see this as a problem.There are thousand of ways to reduce long queues, but nobody is thinking on these lines. Or all this drama is actually a show of strength, an advertisement, to show how eager people are to get associated with us.

"How else would people know the value of the institution unless there is a long queue for it"

As for the nation to stand against this cruelty, as per a friend "our national animal should be a Buffalo, It keeps producing milk without objecting to the atrocities inflicted on it"

Rising to the top - the short way

If you are looking for a short way to rise on the corporate ladder, you won't find it here, go and do some actual work. What I am more interested is in shortest possible way that would put anyone close to the top management, from there on, it is all about hard work and luck to play its role.

The point came in a discussion with some marketing friends. As we all know the marketing folks are closest to top management! who better to dig out the influential tool. Yes it is a tool and its called 'Pricing'

How does pricing brings you closer to the top management.?

Well, for one, it is the thing in direct control of the top management, all other Ps (Product, Placement, & Promotion) are the result of extensive R&D, there is little that can be changed. Secondly it comes last in the four 'Ps', and we all know that we remember the closing argument/scene the most, that's what pricing offer, the last scene in a long play. On top of that, pricing translates into profit, pricing strategy sets mood for the profit to rise (or fall, in-case you are fired, don't say I didn't warn you) 

Speaking honestly, pricing is not that simple, it is actually quite difficult. It has to take under consideration all the factors, from the raw idea of the product till the consumer sees the product in the shelves, the whole supply chain has to be thoroughly studied and mastered. It means that to be a great pricing strategist, you must master the whole chain that it had followed. 

Optimism & Leadership

Seriously, In an environment like Pakistan, it is insane to be optimistic, where things usually go beyond your worst expectations. But for some people, it seems pessimism isn't an option. For example, Asad Umar (x-CEO Engro), the guy seriously went into expansion mode, bringing ENGRO, a company limited in its scope into entering a very competitive FOODS sector, which is heavily dominated by Multinationals. Though times were much better back then, but taking an organization into new waters and competing with the sharks, requires some seriously insane mindset.

But what do these people really gain, from being optimistic in a pessimistic environment?

No serious competition!!

There are not many insane people/organization out there, only resistance they get is from existing players, which are already playing it safe as they believe in the failure of the initiative without proper industry support. These leaders really make things go.

Dr. Ishrat Husain's initiative to revamp IBA & bringing it in the top 100 universities of the world seems to be ridiculously insane. But even if the initiative fails, it will surely bring the university in top 250, where none of the Pakistani universities have ever been before.

The outclass leadership of people like Asad Umar and Dr. Ishrat Husain is what this country actually needs, who can turn the tide in a high velocity storm.

Dilemma of Family Businesses in Pakistan

Family Businesses in Pakistan are the real success story, where most of the Businesses are run by Entrepreneurs' children & then their children and so on. There are very few cases where the torch has been handed over to Professionals. It seems that Entrepreneurs have little trust in professionals to run their businesses or there is something entirely different.

What this translates into?

The business growth is limited by the number and interest of Seth's children. 

I came across a story by Asad Umar speaking about the dilemma. He was traveling with a well known successful entrepreneur in Pakistan, during the discussion the Entrepreneur talked about the vast array of facilities offered by Bangladesh for the textile sectors in Pakistan and that many Pakistani Businesses are moving there.

That is where things get interesting, when Asad queried on the reason why he hadn't moved his Business there. The answer was

None of my children want to live in Bangladesh

 
If this is whats limiting the growth of businesses in Pakistan then there is an urgent need for the Business Schools to come up with research of those organization who have successfully handed over their business to professionals. Also, work should be done to change the mindset of the Seth's in Pakistan.

Putting your Ideas/Vision on Paper: Mind Mapping

How many times are we plagued with the problem of communicating our ideas to someone, the more time it takes to communicate, the blurry the idea becomes. In the end, what is really left in our minds are half-baked communications we made and even that information does not last long. The most innovative ideas are so complicated that even reworking through the earlier process does not help, often we use common sense to solve the issue and as they say, common sense is the biggest hurdle in the way of innovation.

One way to sort out this issue is mind-mapping, the technique is not new, some examples even date back to the 3rd Century. The technique is very much in use in today's world, in fact its usefulness has increased manifold due to increased complexity of personal & business life in the current world scenario, where deep thought is a luxury not everybody can afford.


The technique starts with a word or an idea, which is then associated with concepts and thoughts, which in the end is associate with a task to accomplish, there is no restriction on the length of the chain. The idea is to reflect the thought process ending up with small tasks to be accomplished. Words cannot justify the benefits of this technique. A Practical application of the techniques reveals its benefits


Mind mapping can be used for an array of tasks, from personal, family, business, career or any aspect you want. For example, see the mind map above, where a candidate is working on the thought process for his job interview, working on the questions that can be asked or even those questions which will not be asked but inferred from the resume.
 
Mind-mapping can also be used for brainstorming, visual thinking, problem solving (even to Game theory). There are many softwares for mind mapping, one popular one is 'Freemind' which is freely available for download at download.com.

Serial Enterpreneurs

There is a lot of buzz about serial entrepreneurs in the written media, who are these people. Just like serial killers they are continuous in what they do, one after another. They have a lust for starting new businesses, establishing them but not necessarily managing them in the long run and they are really good at it.

For a country's growth, these people are a light shining brighter than anything else, these people should be identified and be given all the facilities (financing etc.) to start businesses. A program like TEDx should specially focus on these people.

More profiling and research should be done to identify them from their early stages, not to waste their crucial time. Babson College (Bostan, USA) and its sister concern IBA-CED (Karachi, Pakistan)
are among the many universities involved in entrepreneurial research, their focus is building not business managers rather entrepreneurs. These establishments should be supported, nurtured and  facilitated with everything they need and in time they can be expected to yield extraordinary results.