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| Sunday, April 25, 2004 |
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| Sunday, April 25, 2004 |
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Winning Legal Wars
While knowledge of law is advisable, one need not be an expert in it. All one requires is a handbook that would simplify the understanding of technicalities, especially when deciding on law, litigation and legal strategy. Dubey’s tome does this quite thoroughly and effectively. This book is designed by the author to enable business executives to decide upon corporate strategies, contractual relationships and litigation related issues. The book is certainly a trailblazer as far as demystification of commerce related legalese is concerned.
These traits existed in various armies in the subcontinent even before the British arrived. However, the latter institutionalised them through convention and codification. Mason rightly says, "`85there was born a most unusual relationship between British officers and Indian men. Their confidence in each other conquered an empire; they established in India a centre of power that extended its influence far over Asia and into the Mediterranean." When this confidence broke down a century later, it resulted in what the British refer to as the Sepoy Mutiny and we as the First War of Independence. However, it is true that Indian soldiers were in the vanguard of that rising. Yet, the British were able to regain their loyalty, building in the process one of the most enduringly magnificent military machines in the world. This book is more than a mere history of Indian Army, its officers and men. It, in fact, analyses the various factors that go into the building of mutual confidence among various strata of the armed forces. An absorbing read.
Selling Skills
This slim volume begins with the history of selling while defining the term and its scope. Chapters like Career in sales, Develop your image, Six stages of sales, Territory management etc can be of interest to the readers.
Grose quotes from Frank Sulloway’s research work Born to Rebel published in 1996 to underscore the proposition that different birth positions impart specific characteristics to individuals. Thus: * First borns are more conforming, traditional and more likely to identify with their parents. * First borns are more achievement oriented, organised and responsible than later-borns. * Later-borns are more gregarious, cooperative and easy-going. * First-borns are more jealous, neurotic, intense, upset by defeat and more prone to stress. * First-borns are more assertive and extroverted than later-borns. One may or may not agree with the well-crafted arguments advanced by Grose, but one would like to know why and how the last-borns want to change the world. And, for that, you’ll have to read this enjoyable book. |
ONE often gets confused while listening to jargon,
any jargon. More so, legalese is so confusing that one is convinced that
one has to be supremely intelligent to decipher, let alone gainfully
use, the technical terms related to our court proceedings and other
aspects of law. Therefore, in the commercial world a manager may feel
daunted by the "unique vocabulary, the unusual syntax, the very way
in which lawyers use words and sentences." So, is it impossible to
take crucial decisions for one not fully conversant with the complex
subtleties of law?
Trust is the bedrock of all relationships. This is
all the more true of armed forces where the entire organisational
superstructure is based on critical human interdependence. Right from
the jawans fighting on the ground to the Generals directing from the
headquarters, trust remains vital, even when all sorts of laws, rules
and regulations are in place for enforcing discipline. This trust takes
various forms in the Indian Army, viz., loyalty to comrades, fidelity to
an oath and unflinching courage.
The dawn of market economy has changed the way
products are sold in India. During our pseudo-socialist days sellers
could get away with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude while palming off
shoddily produced merchandise to customers. This is no longer so. With
the opening up of the economy to competition there is now a wide range
of choice for consumers. Now, salesmanship has become a vital function
of all commercial activities. Therefore, there are specialised
departments in every organisation worth its salt. Salesmen have
graduated from the status of merely being errand boys of
sahibs-in-cabins to high-profile breadwinners for the commercial set-up.
It is often said that second sons of British
aristocracy built the British Empire. As only the eldest son could
inherit the family’s assets, the younger siblings were left with no
choice but to either become adventurers, mercenaries or military men.
Even though all siblings share a common gene pool, domestic and
socio-economic environment and upbringing etc, their worldview could be
strikingly divergent. In other words, the sequence of birth matters in
the shaping of one’s destiny. This book takes the argument further.
