The big honchos fret over every detail and in the process burnout. Some fun gyan to the boggled brains to unwind.

“We live in tough times”

“Business is bad”

“Are we heading towards stagflation?”

“Things will get worse before they get better”.

Sounds familiar? These are the sound bytes that one always hears from corporate India. Yes, corporate India’s “movers and shakers” seem more like mopers and sobbers. I have no clue as to how to solve corporate India’s problems, but being a consultant will offer some unasked advice on how to accept this situation or even lie back and enjoy it. The key as always will have to be innovation.

Come on corporate India, think differently! Like this:

1. Take a BTS bus to work leaving your car behind. Not only will you save petrol but you will also have the ride of your life which will enable you to forget your current travails. You would also have spent an hour commuting rather than going early to work and scowling at your secretary. Also this will improve your marketing skills, as you will know how your consumers actually live (or is the right word ‘exist’).

2. Organise an internal training programme for your staff. Call some of your jobless senior management colleagues to teach. At least, give your employees something to laugh about.

3. Go and speak at other companies’ training programmes. Companies don’t have money to pay qualified trainers and will welcome you.

4. Invite similar jobless senior executives to speak at your company. Give them your company’s T-shirts as mementos. They will be your brand ambassadors in early morning walks, so that your company will be at top of mind to milkmen, vegetable vendors and newspaper delivery boys.

5. Meet new business prospects for lunch at the club. Clubs are the cheapest and the best, particularly those in which you are not a member.

6. Recheck your frequent flyer mileage points and spend time calculating how much money your company could have saved if you had not travelled so much.

7. Call your suppliers and threaten to reduce their rates. Do unto others what your clients do to you.

8. Leave office early every day. You will save on electricity bills.

9. Take your most pessimistic revenue budget and divide it by two. You will feel good when you exceed it.

10. Go for a vacation. Your office (and furniture) will still be there when you return.

11. Don’t read the financial and business pages. Look at the cartoon strips instead.

12. Don’t worry unduly about people sitting on the bench otherwise you will be on the psychiatrist’s couch.

13. Do not attend parties. You won’t drink nor will you hear further stories of corporate gloom, which may actually induce you to drink more. This way you will save both your liver and your ears.

14. Talk to other industries, which are doing worse than yours. You will experience the “feel good” factor which management gurus espouse.

15. Bond with your family. Take them to a movie hall and experience what home theatre means in an empty hall with no air conditioning.

16. Take your children swimming. Maybe you will meet a bored housewife at the pool.

17. Try to improve your golf handicap. You will realise that it’s easier to improve your business.

18. Go to a Rotary meeting and hear a guest speaker. You will realise how the most serious things can sound comical.

19. Keep telling yourself that everyday, everyway, you are getting better as the economy is getting worse.

20. Keep cool even when it is 380C in the shade.

And finally, pray like mad.

The author is CEO brand-comm a Brand Consulting, Advertising and Public Relations firm. Feedback can be mailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Issue BG47 Feb05

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