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By:

Rahul Kulkarni

30 March 2025 at 3:32:54 pm

Reputation Is the Real Asset

Your reputation is the only KPI everyone tracks without data In a legacy MSME, people don’t follow strategy. They follow evidence of who you are, especially when things get messy. And the evidence doesn’t come from your PowerPoint. It comes from your pattern . Inherited seat:  People will give you initial respect. They’ll still test whether you’re consistent or emotional. Hired seat:  People will judge you faster. Your reputation starts at zero, and every week adds or subtracts. Promoted...

Reputation Is the Real Asset

Your reputation is the only KPI everyone tracks without data In a legacy MSME, people don’t follow strategy. They follow evidence of who you are, especially when things get messy. And the evidence doesn’t come from your PowerPoint. It comes from your pattern . Inherited seat:  People will give you initial respect. They’ll still test whether you’re consistent or emotional. Hired seat:  People will judge you faster. Your reputation starts at zero, and every week adds or subtracts. Promoted seat:  People already know you. Your challenge is different: will you become fair, or will you become “selective”? Different seats. Same truth: your reputation becomes your currency. Credit Test Let me explain this using something everyone understands. In every industrial area, there’s that one supplier who gives credit. Not because he is a charity. Because he knows who pays, who delays, and who creates drama. Two businesses can buy the same material at the same rate. But their terms will be different. One gets 30 days credit with a smile. The other gets “cash only”. Why? Reputation. And reputation is not a speech. It is a track record of small actions: paid on time, even when inconvenient didn’t play games didn’t shout when there was an issue escalated only when needed respected the supplier’s reality That’s how your team sees you too. Why this matters? Here is the war most incoming leaders lose: They think they need one big intervention, one big restructuring, one big system rollout, one big “strictness moment”. But legacy MSMEs don’t change because of one big moment. They change because people decide, over time, that you are predictable enough to follow. In game theory language, your leadership is not a one-time deal. It’s a “repeated game”. Meaning: you meet the same people again and again, and they adjust based on your last move. You don’t need to use the term. Just notice the reality: The same sales head will meet you 30 times. The same factory supervisor will face you in 20 small crises. The same old-guard person will test your tone repeatedly. The same vendor will watch if you stand by your word. In a repeated setting, people aren’t asking, “Is this decision logical?” They’re asking, “What kind of person is this leader? What happens if I trust them?” Robert Axelrod studied this through famous experiments on cooperation. His simple finding – again, in plain language – was: in repeated interactions, cooperation wins when it is backed by consistent, proportionate enforcement. Not softness. Not aggression. Consistency. Leadership Mistake Most incoming leaders swing between two bad extremes: Extreme 1: The nice leader avoids confrontation adjusts every rule for every person “lets it go” to maintain harmony Result: people like you, but don’t follow you. Extreme 2: The strict leader overreacts to first failure makes examples publicly escalates fast Result: compliance for a week, and then smarter avoidance, politics, and silence. Both extremes destroy reputation. Because reputation is built on one thing: people can predict your response. Think of it like a supplier again: If a customer delays once, he doesn’t ban them for life. But he also doesn’t keep giving full credit like nothing happened. He adjusts terms. Calmly. That calm adjustment is the whole point. In an MSME, the leader who wins is not the one who “wins arguments”. It’s the one who builds a reputation for: fairness consistency low drama clear consequences quick forgiveness when behavior improves This is what makes people cooperate without fear. Field Test For the next 30 days, try this rule: Cooperate first + proportional response. Meaning: Start with trust. Give people a clean first chance. When someone breaks the deal, respond but don’t explode. Make the response proportional and visible. Not humiliating. Just clear. If they correct behavior, reset. Don’t keep punishing forever. (The author is a co-founder at PPS Consulting. He is a business transformation consultant. He could be reached at rahul@ppsconsulting.biz.)

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Updated: Oct 21, 2024

Why is Mamata Seeing Ghost of Bangladesh?

Mamata is seeing a ghost of Bangladesh behind the massive outrage and waves of protest over rape and murder of the trainee doctor. And the reasons are many.

It’s been over a fortnight. Yet with each passing day the voice of protest is getting louder and stronger. From the streets of Kolkata it’s pouring into roads of hinterland. The cry for justice for a rape victim has consolidated into a wail of demands to set a lot of wrongdoings right. Here in lies the fear and trepidation. Wasn’t the issue that brought the youth of Bangladesh out on the thoroughfares a simple, innocent one of quota reform?

The chief minister of Bengal, known for understanding the pulse of people better than many, was quick to read the signages floating in the political horizon.

The most obvious reason for her to be tensed is that both the regime change in Bangladesh and the mass protest in Bengal, were student-driven to begin with. The two incidents---end of 15 year old Sheikh Hasina government and turbulence in West Bengal, over the heinous crime, falling back to back, the first on August 5th and the latter from August 9th onwards, give natural scope for comparisons. More so, because in both the cases the movement strayed beyond an affected constituency to include aggrieved people at large, cutting across socio-economic demography. If the quota reform protest started by students in Bangladesh became a mass uprising against an autocratic regime, the campaign demanding justice for the rape victim and overall safety and security of women in Mamata Banerjee’s Bengal soon snowballed into a movement of no-confidence against the government. Slogans--”Mamata must resign” also got floated in social media much in line with the call for ouster of Sheikh Hasina. In fact “Resignation of Hasina” became the single point agenda into which all other fringe demands coalesced.

Incidentally, even before people started drawing parallels, that there could be a thread of commonality in the way the upheaval in Bangladesh and Bengal played out, Mamata was quick to point out that the Opposition were trying to pull off a Bangladesh by politicizing the tragic incident: “A coordinated approach has been executed by the BJP and the CPIM with support from the Centre to defame Bengal and exploit the situation....They want to make a Bangladesh here. They are taking cues from student unrest in Bangladesh and are attempting to capture similarly. I have no longing for the chair. I came here to serve people.”

Not only Mamata, her political lieutenants are consistently equating the turmoil in Bengal with the mayhem in Bangladesh. Cabinet minister for North Bengal development Udayan Guha threatened to take stern action against those, who would be trying to exploit the situation by emulating a Bangladesh like movement. “ Even after the hospital was vandalised, the police did not open fire on anyone. The police will not allow a Bangladesh type situation. We will not allow Bengal to turn into Bangladesh, Guha thundered.

Is the government’s fear unfounded?

Apart from the similarities on ground zero, as to how and where the future course of events are heading to, there are ample reasons for Bengal to mull on-- as to what led to a Bangladesh like boiling point. To begin with, it’ll be appropriate to talk of Bangladesh and the prevailing situation, that made the students’ protest become big in magnitude. The students were out on the streets because of a high reservation in public jobs. Unemployment and stagnant job market in private sector coupled with a high rate of inflation drove the educated youth to rebel against the government.

But soon the students found enormous number of sympathisers, who were equally at the receiving end. According to Bangladesh citizens, the last two terms of the Sheikh Hasina government were a mockery of democracy. Even elections would be compromised. As Hasina grew from strength to strength, she politicized institutions. The rank and file of police owed allegiance to the ruling dispensation. Extortion, harrassment and raids by police and people in power became rampant. An atmosphere of fear and repression reigned and people got restless to overthrow the government.

Politicization of institutions has been happening in Mamata government too. Allegations are quite strong that police in Bengal functions at the beck and call of political bosses. The lapses and alleged loopholes on the part of police in handling the rape and murder of the young doctor have yet again revealed a sense of confused or misplaced loyalty.

But above everything else both Hasina and Mamata governments allegedly seem to have twined in accepting corruption as a way of life. In Bangladesh jobs of primary and secondary teachers got sold at premium, Rs 10-12 lakh in the Hasina regime. Even police had to pay up for prized postings and transfers. In Bengal busting of the teacher’s recruitment scam has revealed how unsuccessful and ineligible candidates got government jobs in schools in exchange of bribes.

Similarities are multiple and inescapable. Mamata has good reasons to be apprehensive. It’s not only she, who can see and connect the dots. People, out on the streets, clamoring for justice, can see a providential pattern somewhere in the unfolding of future events in these two places-- Bangladesh and Bengal. True, they share more than 2,217 odd km of border. They share the same umbilical cord, other than language, culture, ethos, icons. Even emotions are the same. So she cannot take any risk.

(The writer is a senior jounalist based in Kolkata. Views personal)

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