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Tag: Mainak Dhar

  • It’s Day 3 of the National Lockdown and while there are some who are getting bored and feeling restless there are some others who are looking at using this opportunity to do stuff that they never really got the time to do. Our all-new all-new series called ‘Stay@Home’ that we introduced yesterday received tremendous response. We were overwhelmed. On Day 3, we have with Mainak Dhar, Region Vice President, Asia, Middle East, Africa (AMEA); Member, Global Marketing Council at General Mills and bestselling author, telling us about how to stay positive. Read on…

    Lockdown Day 3: Stay@Home with Mainak Dhar: 5 Ways to Stay Positive During the Lockdown

    It’s Day 3 of the National Lockdown and while there are some who are getting bored and feeling restless there are some others who are looking at using this opportunity to do stuff that they never really got the time to do. Our all-new all-new series called ‘Stay@Home’ that we introduced yesterday received tremendous response. On Day 3, we have with Mainak Dhar, Region Vice President, Asia, Middle East, Africa (AMEA); Member, Global Marketing Council at General Mills, telling us about how to stay positive.

     

    5 Things to Ask Yourself

    We are living through unprecedented times, the likes of which most of us have never seen in our lifetimes. To put it bluntly, we are at war, a war against an unseen and deadly enemy, a war that affects every nation. A war being fought on the frontlines by healthcare workers, law enforcement personnel, and others providing essential services like transportation, sanitation and retail. For the rest of us, the ‘civilians’ in this war, our lives have been changed in dramatic ways. A large part of the world’s population is living in conditions of restricted movement and in India we have entered a phase of total lockdown. In such a situation, anxiety is to be expected –  anxiety about our health, about the safety of our loved ones, and about what the future holds. As with any crisis we face in our professional or personal lives, I believe the best way to deal with whatever curveball life throws our way is to focus not on what we cannot control, but on what we can-  how we feel and the energy we give off. Here are five thoughts on how we can all try and stay positive and keep those around us positive during the lockdown.

     

    1. Plan, don’t panic: 

    Don’t be the guy lugging a suitcase to the grocery store to hoard essentials that others need. The first step in avoiding panic is to take a level-headed, objective assessment of things. So do the maths- how much do you actually need of what? What do you really need and what is just nice to have? You may be surprised by how many things we hoarded or bought are actually not essential at all, and how little we can get by with. Second, plan your days. Yes, I’m not going to office and I have a lot more time at home, but I use my calendar to plan what I’ll do (including paying bills, household chores, writing etc). Planning makes your actions more thoughtful, gives you small bite-sized chunks you can be in control of versus giving into blind panic about what is happening around us.

     

    2. Keep fit:

    One of the best ways of getting positive energy is to get regular exercise. Don’t let the lockdown be an excuse not to exercise. My regular routine is to wake up very early and jog for two hours every morning, and I’m still doing that even though I’m in the house (hint- put on music you love, plug in earphones and run around the dining table!). The dojo is closed but my son and I are practising Karate every alternate day so we don’t get rusty. Whatever form of exercise you enjoy – skipping, jogging, yoga – do it, and do it everyday. It’s the best start you can give your day in uncertain and anxious times. It helps not just keep you fit but helps calm your mind.

     

    3. Keep busy:

    They say an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, and it’s never truer than at a time like this. If all you do is watch the news on TV or scroll social media, you’re going to amplify anxieties, and the various rumours and quackery that seem to proliferate on social media only make things worse. So get off your backside and get busy. Some of us are working from home, but that still leaves a lot more time at home than we’d normally have (eg. Time we’d use for commutes). Pick up a hobby you wanted to, and spend some time on the things you’d say you never get around to because you’re ‘too busy’. I’m working on a new novel and writing about triple the amount each day than I’d do in ‘normal times’. Gain renewed appreciation for how much hard work goes into running a home, and help out at home by dividing chores. I’m the designated laundryman, dishwasher and while my cooking skills are not a patch on my wife’s, I’m cutting vegetables, helping prepare meals and also brushing up my own cooking skills (I made a veg biryani which seemed to have passed the ‘wife test’). Doing things together not just keeps you busy but brings the family closer (see point 5).

     

    4. Support and seek support:

    We are all human and it’s natural to feel stressed at a time like this. If you see someone among your family or friends stressed or anxious, offer words of comfort or a hug (a virtual one if it’s a friend in the age of lockdowns!). Importantly, be vulnerable. Ask for help when you need it, let family and friends know when you’re troubled by something. We’re all in this together, literally every single person on this planet- so don’t let your fears gnaw away at you alone.

     

    5. Strengthen connections:

    Spending more time at home with family should give us an opportunity to reconnect and strengthen bonds, and at a time of anxiety and uncertainty, take comfort from the one thing that is certain – our love of our families. As a family, we are spending more time having longer conversations, playing board games together which we hadn’t touched for months, and playing our own indoor Cricket league. Whatever you and your family like doing together, use this as an opportunity to reconnect with each other. None of us can control what happens tomorrow, but we can ensure we make the most of today with the ones we love. Also, connect with those around you in the community and strengthen those bonds and support each other. If you have staff working for you, ensure they’re paid in full even if they can’t work, so their families are taken care of. See how you can help support those who are serving at the frontlines of this struggle- donate or just share your appreciation. Help those around you in your community and seek help. In our apartment complex, with our typical fast-paced lifestyles, we’d barely get to know our neighbours, but now I’m amazed at how our WhatsApp group is buzzing with people offering advice to those who need it, sharing ideas and encouraging each other.

     

    We will prevail, and when we do, I hope that these days teach us something. In the days before this crisis, it was fashionable to talk of a ‘connected world’. I hope we now realise that being connected transcends how many Facebook ‘friends’ or Insta ‘likes’ we have. Being connected means that in the face of a worldwide crisis of the sort we face, we realise that we all share more in common than we might have thought. We are very good at dividing ourselves- on the basis of religion, colour, nationality or political affiliation, but this crisis should teach us that we are all more alike than we may have believed. We are all on the same side- against a common enemy. When it comes down to it, all of us are united by our love of life, of our families, of wanting to create a better tomorrow for ourselves and those in the community around us. I hope the legacy of this crisis will not be the memories of anxiety, tragedy and loss that are inevitable, but a putting aside of many of our differences and a renewed appreciation for our shared values, dreams and humanity.

     

    Stay safe, stay healthy and stay positive.

     

    Mainak Dhar is a husband, a father, a bestselling writer, a Black Belt in Karate and also leads the Asia, Middle East & Africa business for General Mills.

     

     

  • General Mills MD Mainak Dhar on his 15th book and his second on brands, called Brand Shastra, and how he hopes to achieve writing a book a year!

    Marketing is all about the moments of truth

     

    Mainak Dhar wears many hats. The Managing Director of General Mills India Private Limited is also a much-published author. An alumnus of IIM Ahmedabad, he has set himself a goal of writing one book every year. Brand Shastra, his latest, is on the stands though an official launch event is scheduled to happen soon. Also being released virtually simultaneously is his new novel 03:02. Pradyuman Maheshwari talks to Mainak Dhar about his books, balancing personal with a busy professional life and most importantly, finding the time for writing,

     

    You are on to your 14th and 15th book, and you have a pressing day job at General Mills. How do you manage both?

    Writing is something I have been passionate about ever since I was a child. My father was in a government job, so we moved around a lot. By the time I finished my education, I had gone through nine different schools. When you are moving constantly, you are alive in your own imagination. Ever since I was very young, I wanted to write. When you are passionate about something, and you decide that it is going to be a part of your life, you make time for it.

     

    And it’s your ambition to write a book a year. That is a huge ask, alongside the demands of the top job at a  company like General Mills…

    The passion to sustain anything has to be coupled with discipline and deliberate choices. Passion can get you through one book. But if you want to make anything sustainable — whether it is writing, exercise or a hobby — that needs to be coupled with discipline and clear choices. My priorities are very clear. Number One is my family; Number Two are the people at work whom I am accountable to because ultimately that is where all the things in business helps people succeed; and Number Three is how I make time for health, fitness and what I want to do. My writing is in those spaces in my routine when I am not with my family or with people at work. Every morning I run for an hour, and that is when I am thinking about writing. Every day, I keep half an hour aside for writing, and it all adds up. My target is 500 words a day. If I can sustain that for nine months, you have a reasonably-sized novel. I also get a lot of writing done when I am travelling on work. When I am on a flight, at a hotel, sitting in the lounge at the airport, I write.

     

    This is your second book on brands…

    Yes. My first was Brand Management 101, which was about the real-world application of marketing. That book was written nine years ago, so at that stage of my life and career, what struck me was that there was a certain kind of marketing you learn in schools and case studies, and there is a whole different side to it in the real world. So Brand Management 101 is really focused on how you would deal with the ‘P’s of marketing, and taking all that into account.

     

    Was this when you returned to India?

    No, I was still in Singapore. I was abroad for 15 years and came back in 2014. Brandshastra is about moving nine years on, at a different life-stage, when I am married with a kid and dealing with larger organisations. A lot of energy, passion and thinking is put behind building brands [today]. I have an eight-year-old son, and so much of our effort as parents goes into how you teach kids the right habits, how do you encourage them to repeat desired patterns of behaviour and such. [The marketing equivalent of that are] loyalty programmes and hotels and airlines do that. And how do brands do it? Through positive reinforcement. Also, a lot of us make resolutions which we don’t stick to. All those resolutions involve changing our habits. You have a certain pattern of behavior, and there are habits you want to break. Marketers have been doing it for years by convincing someone using a bar soap to use a detergent, and someone who has not used a disposable diaper to use one etc. That is the genesis for this book.

     

    Several captains of industry have written books which are either memoirs or about case studies. Yours is a totally different and original take on the subject.

    Fundamentally, marketing is about understanding people, their motivations and about influencing their behavior. And we have doing it for thousands of years. The framework of marketing gives us a way of thinking about it in a structured way, which is then used to impact various parts of our lives. The first chapter, which is called ‘Adam’s Apple to Acche Din- A brief history of Marketing’, basically says that what we accept as a marketing tool, is the basic of influencing, understanding and shaping perceptions, which people have been doing since time immemorial. That is what inspired me. I think we can unlock a lot of power in our everyday lives if we make those connections. People build billion-dollar brands on the basis of understanding perceptions, motivation and behaviour. So how can we take something from that to impact people around us, and our lives and our behaviours?

     

    Often, when people from industry write books, they talk about how successful they have been in doing things themselves. Have you looked at some of your own successes in this book?

    No, I have not focused on things which I have done personally. But I have built on learnings and experiences, and observations. But there is a lot that I still have to learn. I think the book is more about somebody who has walked several miles in the shoes of people who build brands, run businesses and make connections to everyday life, and that is how I would like to pitch the book. It is more of an expedition — what are the possible ways of thinking about our choices differently. I have [adopted a tone] which is more conversational, exploratory and certainly [offers] no definite answers. If there were definite answers to all these questions, we would all be leading very different lives.

     

    What according to you, in the facets of everyday life, is perhaps the best use of a textbook marketing strategy?

    One thing which has wide applicability is, in the Indian context, the concept of moments of truth. In the industry they say there is a zero moment of truth, there is a first moment of truth, a second (which is the actual results) and a third moment of truth which is what people say about you. I think the way we grow up, our educational system is the single point moment of truth, which is the percentage you get, rank, did you get in to the job- that is how we train our kids. Now that I see kids growing, that is the context a lot of us have grown up. And, then people bring that attitude to the workplace, to their relationships which is have I met my target? Target is the second moment of truth. The perceptions that people are forming about you from what you have done in the past is your zero moment of truth. How you communicate, motivate and influence people is your first moment of truth. The stories that people tell about you when you are no longer in the room, is the third moment of truth. That is a work example, but the same thing holds in terms of how people interact with each other. A lot of the focus is on ‘let’s get the results’.

     

    Lastly, what would you ask marketers to learn from everyday life?

    In everyday life our strongest relationships, whether it is a friendship or marriage or any other relationship, are the ones we build by engaging with people without necessarily any end in mind. Our best friends are people we met over random conversations and we saw that there was a match of values, outlook, beliefs and fear. And that is how our deepest relationships get built. In today’s day of social media, it is a wonderful opportunity for marketers to think how to engage in conversations without saying ‘I have something to sell you’ or ‘I want you to think in a certain way about a brand’. In everyday life, our strongest relationships are the ones which do not start with a transaction.

     

    This interview first appeared in dna of brands on June 20, 2016