A Feast of Vultures - Josy Joseph
At Manthan 2016
Interview in Malayalam
Showing posts with label aviation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label aviation. Show all posts
Tuesday 27 December 2016
Sunday 19 June 2016
Why failure is the key to flying high
If at first you don’t succeed: Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Photograph: Miramax/Everett/Rex/Shutterstock
Matthew Syed in The Guardian
We want our children to succeed, in school and, perhaps even more importantly, in life. But the paradox is that our children can only truly succeed if they first learn how to fail. Consider the finding that world-class figure skaters fall over more often in practice than low-level figure skaters. At first sight this seems contradictory. Why are the really good skaters falling over the most?
The reason is actually quite simple. Top skaters are constantly challenging themselves in practice, attempting jumps that stretch their limitations. This is why they fall over so often, but it is precisely why they learn so fast. Shizuka Arakawa of Japan estimates that she endured some 20,000 falls as she progressed from a beginner to an Olympic champion.
Lower-level skaters have a quite different approach. They are always attempting jumps they can already do very easily, remaining within their comfort zone. This is why they don’t fall over. In a superficial sense, they look successful, because they are always on their feet. The truth, however, is that by never failing, they never progress.
What is true of skating is also true of life. James Dyson worked through 5,126 failed prototypes for his dual cyclone vacuum before coming up with the design that made his fortune. These failures were essential to the pathway of learning. As Dyson put it: “You can’t develop new technology unless you test new ideas and learn when things go wrong. Failure is essential to invention.”
Even in areas of life where failure is potentially catastrophic, it is still vital to respond positively. In aviation, for example, every aircraft is equipped with two almost-indestructible black boxes: one records the electronic information from the on-board computers and the other records sounds in the cockpit. When there is a crash, these boxes are recovered and analysed so that enlightened changes can be enacted. This means that the same mistake never happens again. It is this constant willingness to learn from failure that means aviation has become one of the world’s safest forms of transportation. Last year the accident rate for major airlines was just one crash for every 8.3 million take-offs.
In healthcare, however, things are very different. Clinicians don’t like to admit to failure, partly because they have healthy egos (particularly the senior doctors) and partly because they fear litigation. The consequence is that instead of learning from failure, healthcare often covers up failure. The direct consequence is that the same mistakes are repeated. According to the Journal of Patient Safety, 400,000 people die every year in American hospitals alone due to preventable error. That is like two jumbo jets crashing every day or 9/11 happening every few days. In the UK, too, the numbers are shocking. Until healthcare learns to respond positively to failure, things will not improve.
But let us return to children. One of the seminal mistakes in education in the 1970s was the attempt to equip children with confidence by giving them lots of successes (setting the bar very low). The consequence was that the self-esteem of kids became bound up with success, and they became unable to take risks and crumpled as soon as they hit a proper challenge.
We need to flip this approach. In a complex world, failure is inevitable. It is those individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and adapt which ultimately excel.
Matthew Syed in The Guardian
We want our children to succeed, in school and, perhaps even more importantly, in life. But the paradox is that our children can only truly succeed if they first learn how to fail. Consider the finding that world-class figure skaters fall over more often in practice than low-level figure skaters. At first sight this seems contradictory. Why are the really good skaters falling over the most?
The reason is actually quite simple. Top skaters are constantly challenging themselves in practice, attempting jumps that stretch their limitations. This is why they fall over so often, but it is precisely why they learn so fast. Shizuka Arakawa of Japan estimates that she endured some 20,000 falls as she progressed from a beginner to an Olympic champion.
Lower-level skaters have a quite different approach. They are always attempting jumps they can already do very easily, remaining within their comfort zone. This is why they don’t fall over. In a superficial sense, they look successful, because they are always on their feet. The truth, however, is that by never failing, they never progress.
What is true of skating is also true of life. James Dyson worked through 5,126 failed prototypes for his dual cyclone vacuum before coming up with the design that made his fortune. These failures were essential to the pathway of learning. As Dyson put it: “You can’t develop new technology unless you test new ideas and learn when things go wrong. Failure is essential to invention.”
Even in areas of life where failure is potentially catastrophic, it is still vital to respond positively. In aviation, for example, every aircraft is equipped with two almost-indestructible black boxes: one records the electronic information from the on-board computers and the other records sounds in the cockpit. When there is a crash, these boxes are recovered and analysed so that enlightened changes can be enacted. This means that the same mistake never happens again. It is this constant willingness to learn from failure that means aviation has become one of the world’s safest forms of transportation. Last year the accident rate for major airlines was just one crash for every 8.3 million take-offs.
In healthcare, however, things are very different. Clinicians don’t like to admit to failure, partly because they have healthy egos (particularly the senior doctors) and partly because they fear litigation. The consequence is that instead of learning from failure, healthcare often covers up failure. The direct consequence is that the same mistakes are repeated. According to the Journal of Patient Safety, 400,000 people die every year in American hospitals alone due to preventable error. That is like two jumbo jets crashing every day or 9/11 happening every few days. In the UK, too, the numbers are shocking. Until healthcare learns to respond positively to failure, things will not improve.
But let us return to children. One of the seminal mistakes in education in the 1970s was the attempt to equip children with confidence by giving them lots of successes (setting the bar very low). The consequence was that the self-esteem of kids became bound up with success, and they became unable to take risks and crumpled as soon as they hit a proper challenge.
We need to flip this approach. In a complex world, failure is inevitable. It is those individuals and institutions that have the resilience and flexibility to face up to failure, learn the lessons and adapt which ultimately excel.
Wednesday 23 October 2013
Vaastu shastra to oil massages: Bhargava reveals what killed Air India
Sindhu Bhattacharya in First Post.Business
Who killed Air India? Jitender Bhargava, who spent more than two decades with the airline in several executive positions, has spared no one in his book ‘Descent of Air India’. The ministry of civil aviation, successive Air India chairmen, employees and of course the various ministers who have held sway over the airline – everyone has been in the line of Bhargava’s fire. He has leveled serious charges against at least one Chairman of the airline and one minister who held charge of the Ministry of Civil Aviation for long years. But in this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes.
The one about former Chairman V Thulasidas resorting to vaastu shastra when the airline’s financial health was fast declining shows how instead of tackling the situation, Thulasidas allegedly waited for divine intervention. This is the same chairman who allegedly doubled the aircraft order for Air India which subsequently pushed the airline into deep losses. Bhargava says vaastu expert Raj Shekhar Chawla from Hyderabad was appointed to guide the chairman on “where to place his desk, where to conduct his meetings with colleagues and which doors to the conference room to keep shut or open”. He also narrates Thulasidas’ alleged penchant for having an AI employee accompany him from his house to work and back every day, with a peon being instructed to keep the lift doors open when the chairman’s car was nearing the office!
In this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes.
What is ‘shortfall allowance’? It’s the money that senior pilots were paid even if they did not fly as many hours and junior pilots flew by 1994. Because earnings of a senior pilot cannot be below those of a junior one, never mind how many hours of flying the senior did. This scheme, which replaced fixed daily allowances for pilots till then, led to an increase in expenditure of Rs 307.2 crore during 1995-1999 says Bhargava. It also meant that often, senior pilots were indeed being paid for not flying. Ludicrous, isn’t it?
Even Naresh Goyal and his legendary powers of persuasion find a mention in the book. Bhargava has alleged that since 1970s, Jordan’s ALIA group wanted air traffic rights to India despite there not being enough air traffic between the two countries. This request was refused once, then a second time in 1979. But in 1981, ALIA was granted full traffic rights. “The local manager of the airline representing ALIA was none other than the current chairman of Jet Airways – Naresh Goyal”.
But the most unctuous reference is made to Kerala oil massages which the then minister Shahnawaz Hussain wanted on board Air India flights. Bhargava says the minister announced this decision to the media first and then asked the airline to implement it. Never mind if some passengers object to the smell of the oil, if the aircraft’s upholstery would get spoiled, even if there is no space really to accord anyone having a massage some privacy. “The minister suggested that we provide some curtained enclosure within the aircraft.” The author says though the massage was feasible in a separate enclosure, it would also warrant a bath on board! This is when the proposal was finally buried. To assuage the minister’s wish however, a Delhi-based company was persuaded to introduce the Kerala massage at Delhi airport and the service continued till Shahnawaz was minister.
The author speaks of new uniforms for cabin crew and ground staff and how Ritu Beri went one up on designers such as J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani in 2007, when new aircraft induction meant new uniforms. Bharagava alleges that Beri was rejected in the first round of approvals for uniform designing but she offered to waive the designing fee and the tendering process was shelved mid way. “How Ms Beri was compensated for her efforts makes for an even more interesting story. Thulasidas deputed a team of Air India officials to her farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi. …….Initially she offered to supply the sarees at Rs 4000 each but that was way more than the amount we were paying the existing vendor – Rs 1600 per saree. When the team brought that to her notice, she agreed to drop the price to Rs 3600. She sourced the uniforms from one of our existing vendors and we ended up paying an additional amount Rs 2000 per saree…… J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani took AI to court for wasting their time and effort and were reimbursed all costs in an out-of-court settlement”.
Did you know that earlier, officials from the Air India’s Commercial Department would visit large corporate houses with a flight timetable and a small gift – a clay model of the Maharajah or grey overnight bag – to promote airline’s sales? Bhargava says he suggested that this practice be restarted sometime in 2002 and that airline’s senior managers should personally meet Ratan Tata, Ambanis, Birlas, Mahindras and the Godrej family members to hardsell Air India’s First and Business Class offerings. Of course, the airline never took up this suggestion.
Who killed Air India? Jitender Bhargava, who spent more than two decades with the airline in several executive positions, has spared no one in his book ‘Descent of Air India’. The ministry of civil aviation, successive Air India chairmen, employees and of course the various ministers who have held sway over the airline – everyone has been in the line of Bhargava’s fire. He has leveled serious charges against at least one Chairman of the airline and one minister who held charge of the Ministry of Civil Aviation for long years. But in this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes.
The one about former Chairman V Thulasidas resorting to vaastu shastra when the airline’s financial health was fast declining shows how instead of tackling the situation, Thulasidas allegedly waited for divine intervention. This is the same chairman who allegedly doubled the aircraft order for Air India which subsequently pushed the airline into deep losses. Bhargava says vaastu expert Raj Shekhar Chawla from Hyderabad was appointed to guide the chairman on “where to place his desk, where to conduct his meetings with colleagues and which doors to the conference room to keep shut or open”. He also narrates Thulasidas’ alleged penchant for having an AI employee accompany him from his house to work and back every day, with a peon being instructed to keep the lift doors open when the chairman’s car was nearing the office!
In this long narrative of what ails the airline, what led to its decline and what should be done to improve its fortunes, Bhargava has also managed to regale his readers with some rather interesting anecdotes.
What is ‘shortfall allowance’? It’s the money that senior pilots were paid even if they did not fly as many hours and junior pilots flew by 1994. Because earnings of a senior pilot cannot be below those of a junior one, never mind how many hours of flying the senior did. This scheme, which replaced fixed daily allowances for pilots till then, led to an increase in expenditure of Rs 307.2 crore during 1995-1999 says Bhargava. It also meant that often, senior pilots were indeed being paid for not flying. Ludicrous, isn’t it?
Even Naresh Goyal and his legendary powers of persuasion find a mention in the book. Bhargava has alleged that since 1970s, Jordan’s ALIA group wanted air traffic rights to India despite there not being enough air traffic between the two countries. This request was refused once, then a second time in 1979. But in 1981, ALIA was granted full traffic rights. “The local manager of the airline representing ALIA was none other than the current chairman of Jet Airways – Naresh Goyal”.
But the most unctuous reference is made to Kerala oil massages which the then minister Shahnawaz Hussain wanted on board Air India flights. Bhargava says the minister announced this decision to the media first and then asked the airline to implement it. Never mind if some passengers object to the smell of the oil, if the aircraft’s upholstery would get spoiled, even if there is no space really to accord anyone having a massage some privacy. “The minister suggested that we provide some curtained enclosure within the aircraft.” The author says though the massage was feasible in a separate enclosure, it would also warrant a bath on board! This is when the proposal was finally buried. To assuage the minister’s wish however, a Delhi-based company was persuaded to introduce the Kerala massage at Delhi airport and the service continued till Shahnawaz was minister.
The author speaks of new uniforms for cabin crew and ground staff and how Ritu Beri went one up on designers such as J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani in 2007, when new aircraft induction meant new uniforms. Bharagava alleges that Beri was rejected in the first round of approvals for uniform designing but she offered to waive the designing fee and the tendering process was shelved mid way. “How Ms Beri was compensated for her efforts makes for an even more interesting story. Thulasidas deputed a team of Air India officials to her farmhouse on the outskirts of Delhi. …….Initially she offered to supply the sarees at Rs 4000 each but that was way more than the amount we were paying the existing vendor – Rs 1600 per saree. When the team brought that to her notice, she agreed to drop the price to Rs 3600. She sourced the uniforms from one of our existing vendors and we ended up paying an additional amount Rs 2000 per saree…… J J Valaya and Tarun Tahiliani took AI to court for wasting their time and effort and were reimbursed all costs in an out-of-court settlement”.
Did you know that earlier, officials from the Air India’s Commercial Department would visit large corporate houses with a flight timetable and a small gift – a clay model of the Maharajah or grey overnight bag – to promote airline’s sales? Bhargava says he suggested that this practice be restarted sometime in 2002 and that airline’s senior managers should personally meet Ratan Tata, Ambanis, Birlas, Mahindras and the Godrej family members to hardsell Air India’s First and Business Class offerings. Of course, the airline never took up this suggestion.
Monday 5 March 2012
Kingfisher and India's Crony Capitalism
Mallya is not only expecting more money from banks to fund his eternally cash-guzzling business, but also a policy change that will help him get a partner with deep pockets. No, of course, that would not mean giving up control—no matter that accumulated losses at Kingfisher by the end of this year would be Rs 7,000 crore. He is a big businessman, he is a Rajya Sabha member, he plays hard. He cannot lose. That’s capitalism, Indian style.
About a decade ago, Raghuram Rajan wrote the path-breaking Saving Capitalism From the Capitalists. The book’s theme was simple: what we label as capitalism is often a distorted version; the true spirit of capitalism is undermined by capitalists themselves—by getting an unfair advantage, as in crony capitalism. India’s airline business is a great example. Interestingly, Rajan is quite comfortable being an advisor to PM Manmohan Singh, whose government has set new standards for crony capitalism. (Rajan prefers to rail against India’s education system, but that’s another story.)
As part of a perverse policy followed by successive governments, Indian private sector entrepreneurs with no experience in the airline business were licensed. This led to the quick entry and exit of many players (some with questionable reputations) like East West Airlines, ModiLuft, Damania Airways, Air Deccan, Air Sahara, Paramount, among others. This was not normal business mortality. While the Indian air carriers were experimenting with business models, the “open skies” policy remained closed to deep-pocketed foreign investors who had real expertise in running airlines unlike chicken kings, liquor lords and sundry egomaniacs.
This policy of admitting the undeserving, while keeping out the deserving, has created a sick industry and harassment for Indian air travellers. Indeed, Kingfisher was not only allowed entry, it could also easily lean on government-owned financial institutions to fund a business that never had any real hope of making money. Later, when the loans turned bad, it could get part of the bank loans converted to equity.
As part of the same kind of capitalism, the aviation ministry wreaked havoc on the national carrier, Air India. Canadian research firm Veritas calls the civil aviation ministry’s attitude to Air India “duplicitous” and observes, “It could be on the diktat of the regulatory authorities involving various ministries of the Government of India that an unviable airline, Kingfisher, which is competing against the incumbent state carrier and siphoning away its passengers on both the domestic and international routes, is being supported via taxpayer-funded financial institutions.” Entry for dubious parties, barring foreign investors who have run airlines, suffocating the state-owned carrier, getting state-owned banks to lend, getting the banks to convert debt to equity—this is copybook crony capitalism.
Since Manmohan Singh’s government will do nothing, redress may come by other, natural means. About three years ago, I was chatting with a foreign institutional investor who has put quite a bit of money into United Breweries. He asked me what I thought of UB. The “story” was great: Indians were getting prosperous and drinking more beer, per capita consumption was low and UB was the biggest player. How could you go wrong? Having seen Indian businessmen from close quarters for 28 years now, I told him UB will go bankrupt before making him rich because that would be Mallya’s only source of funds for the eternally loss-making Kingfisher. He smiled and said: “We are betting on that.”
Mallya had already given up a part of the UB’s spirits and beer business to foreign partners and was running down the rest of the value by using it to fuel his flying adventure. Competitors like Kishore Chhabria and Mallya’s own partners and investors have been biding their time. Has the time come for the tale to play out rapidly to its obvious conclusion, now that respected activists like Aruna Roy or Nikhil Dey have voiced their well-reasoned protest? Or will capitalism continue to be undermined by capitalists, netas and babus?
by Debasis Basu in Outlook India
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