General Blog

Role of financial inclusion in achieving sustainable development goals…

Blog Catgeory, General Blog, IILM University, , , ,

What is financial inclusion?
According to world bank, Financial inclusion means that individuals and businesses have access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, savings, credit and insurance – delivered in a responsible and sustainable way.
Financial inclusion does not only include the access to and usage of financial services by individuals and businesses but also includes the dimension of quality of the products and the service delivery. It is also a key to prudent financial development and well being, both- at the individual level and for the economy as a whole. An all-inclusive approach which considers both demand side and supply side needs to be adopted to reach global goal of Universal Financial Access (UFA) by 2020, says World bank.

What are the key indicators of financial inclusion?
First and the foremost step towards broader financial inclusion is to have access to a transaction account allowing people to exchange and save money. Thus, ensuring that people have a transaction account is the most crucial dimension of financial inclusion (Universal Financial Access 2020 initiative). Financial access opens the doorway to various financial services such as managing daily monetary requirements, long term planning and even planning for future unforeseen circumstances. However, by merely having an account, the objective of financial inclusiveness cannot be achieved. It is therefore imperative that the focus should equally be levied on the usage of these financial services, which forms the second dimension of financial inclusion.
(https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/g20fidata/G20_Financial_Inclusion_Indicators.pdf)

The current status: According to Global Findex database, 2017; about 515 million adults worldwide opened an account at a financial institution or through a mobile money provider between 2014 and 2017.
• About 69 percent of adults now have an account, Up from 62 percent in 2014 and 51 percent in 2011.
• About 65% of the women adults now have an account.
• About 52% of adults either receive or make payments.
• About 87% of SME’S have an account with a formal financial institution.
• About 30% of people worldwide have Received wages or government transfer payments directly to an account.

(https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/basic-page-overview)

The above facts reveal that the economy’s worldwide are progressing towards the goal of financial inclusion by staying committed to G20 High-Level Principles for Digital Financial Inclusion, Universal Financial Access (UFA) by 2020, Sustainable Development Goals, National financial inclusion strategies, financial consumer protection and literacy and many more initiatives taken so far in this direction.

What are Sustainable Development Goals?
A new set of development goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in Sept 2015, are collectively called as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs),2030. After years of deliberation and negotiation, the agenda for these goals was put in place and has been endorsed by around 193 member nations of the General Assembly including booth developed and developing countries. The SDGs cover a set of 17 goals.(https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs)

How does financial inclusion help in achieving sustainable development goals?
Financial inclusion offers wide range of benefits such as Improving earning potential, enhanced women empowerment by encouraging women entrepreneurs, reduction in the costs of transactions, easy accumulation of funds, increased use of digital platforms etc. While financial inclusion does not explicitly targets achieving the SDG’s, greater access to financial services has paved the way for achieving a number of sustainable development goals. Financial inclusion has been identified as an enabler for 7 out of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, says World Bank.

The following SDG’s can be achieved via increased financial inclusion:
A better access to financial services enables the people even in the rural segments of any country to have better access to funds and other related financial services. This enables people to come out of poverty and thereby enabling the first SDG i.e Eliminating extreme poverty (SDG 1). Better and improved access to avenues for raising funds, access to crop agricultural insurance and improved credit facilities also enables the people working in the primary sector to mange their finances in the season for plantation and thereby generate higher yields. It not only improves food production in the country but also generates food security in the economy, which is the second SDG i.e. Reducing hunger and promoting food security (SDG 2).When people are able to come out of the poverty line, are ensured of their food security ,have access to various insurance facilities; achieving the third SDG i.e. Achieving good health and well-being (SDG 3), is bound to fall in place. Increased availability of funding options has removed the barrier of monetary constraints which stop people from getting educated. People are encouraged to invest in educating their children and this enables the achievement of the fourth SDG i.e. Fostering quality education (SDG 4). Financial inclusion has also encouraged women entrepreneurs to take up ventures which earlier were impossible for them. Enhanced women empowerment is the key to promoting gender equality (SDG 5), the fifth SDG. Financial exclusivity weakens up the thread between smaller goals and larger socio-economic goals. These five SDG’s acts as a strong base for achieving broader socio-economic goals such as Promoting shared economic growth (SDG 8) and Promoting innovation and sustainable industrialization (SDG 9).

Given the fact that there exists an association between Financial inclusion and overall economic development, it can be concluded that greater emphasis should be laid on financial inclusiveness.

References:
https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/financialinclusion/overview
https://databank.worldbank.org/data/download/g20fidata/G20_Financial_Inclusion_Indicators.pdf
https://globalfindex.worldbank.org/basic-page-overview
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdgs
https://www.microinsurancenetwork.org/sites/default/files/CGAP_Working-Paper-Achieving-Sustainable-Development-Goals.pdf

Classroom equity: Creating educational equality

Career Development (Placement), Faculty, General Blog, IILM University, , , , , , ,

Everything that happens in the society is a consequence of human actions. Even though it may seem like a roundabout route, any effort to build a brighter future must begin with a change within human beings themselves.

The way we distinguish our own lives is also the way we distinguish the lives of others. When we have a sense of our own dignity, we recognize the dignity of others and value their lives too. The most fundamental way to achieve peace and happiness is to help people around the world to the greatest extent to reveal the treasure of inherent dignity in their lives.

No epidemic or any other cause is worth depriving students of their right to education. Teachers should not be masters who offer themselves as paragons, but enablers who guide students towards achieving their goals.

It is important that we afford students the highest respect as individuals in their own right. Helping students grow requires total commitment on our part. There is a fine adult inside every child. We need to direct our voices to that inner adult. We must never treat children in a dismissive or condescending manner, assuming they won’t understand and thinking its okay not to fully explain things.

We must believe in students’ immense potential, and strive to develop their innate capacities as well as our own. The more we broaden our own minds, the more we can inspire and foster the students. That is why our growth is indispensable to our efforts to help others grow.

We, at IILM University, Gurugram believe in our students, trust them unconditionally and encourage them to grow and excel professionally as well as personally. We believe in providing immeasurable source of support and encouragement to them. Our effort to provide Liberal Education gives our students the flexibility, knowledge and wisdom to pursue their passion.

Fostering students contributes to our own growth. Teaching students makes us wiser. Learning together with our students and advancing together with them is a path of lifelong youthfulness, giving us fresh perspectives and vitality.

How Much Insurance Do You Need

General Blog, IILM University, Uncategorized

 

There is always a question as to how much of Life Insurance is enough. An amount which would take care of one’s loved ones. The concept of Human Life Value provides the answer to this question . How much Life insurance do I need?

Moment Of Truth
It was in cold winter of December in Delhi in the year 2017,I received a call from my very close friend .It was  to help the family of his close relative with insurance claim payment . Sadly, it was a Death Claim payment. The father aged 52 years had died after protracted illness at the hospital. The son was in front of me ,a lad of not more than 20 years.He was carrying all the documents related to the life insurance of his late father. Depressed and almost teary eyed, he pleaded to help him with the claim amount . An early payment would help him to settle certain loan and liabilities.I could make out that the family is under debt and certain liabilities. While leaving ,he did ask me about the likely amount of the claim payment!

I went through the papers and was curious to know how much insurance does the deceased had. I was shocked to find he almost had no insurance. Merely Rs. 5 lakh for a person who was making Rs.30 lakh a year. Also , he had no pension policy. I called the insurance consultant and asked him about the highly inadequate amount of insurance on the life of the deceased . He was defensive and told me that it was with lot of persuasion he could persuade the deceased to insure himself for even this paltry amount. He informed me that the deceased believed investing in real estate and stock market and considered insurance to be bad investment with no sizable returns. Even the wife of the deceased was not very open to insurance.

One fine evening while returning from my office I got a call from the son and during conversation at his own he revealed that the majority of the investment of his late father was in property and a good amount in stock market and presently both are under stress. Though equity would give them cash apart from taking hit on mark to market losses on a few securities, the paper work would delay the process. Further, investment in properties would take good amount of time to realize and would not serve the purpose . He requested that since the family needs immediate cash, the timely payment under life insurance policies would be quite helpful.

I went through the documents again. I found that in all there were 5 policies ,the earliest was of the year 1990 and the latest being 2004 with sum assured ranging from Rs.50,000 to 1 lakh. Finally , I told the son that at the best ,the total payment would be Rs. 7-10 lakh. His face fell and he murmured that it is highly insufficient even to settle the loans taken. Frankly, I do not come across such situation so often and that is very helpful. The son asked me how much insurance does one need. I told him that it is usually 10 to 20 times of the annual income. He was silent for a moment and I knew very well that he was doing some numbers in his mind!

Human Capital

May be 20 times can be treated something very much theoretical, but it does give a sense of how inadequately most of the people are insured. Now, the question is how does one determine the value of insurance cover to be taken.Life Insurance is about securing economic value only. No amount can compensate for the emotional and other losses the family undergoes.This economic value is rooted in the concept of Human capital.What it indicates is the innate production capacity within each individual and their earning potential.The core of the concept is that investments are made in oneself with the expectation of future benefits.Perhaps it is the reason why parents and even working adults invest money and time in good education in India to land up in good colleges and ultimately good companies with decent pay package.

How does life insurance figures out in all this? It was Peter L. Bernstein in his famous book on risk mentioned that despite the world’s enormous wealth, the human capital by far the largest income producing assets for the great majority of the people. Further,Bernstein connects life insurance with human capital by his refrain:”Why else would so many breadwinners spend their hard-earned money on life-insurance premiums?”

Human Life Value(HLV)

Historically, reference is found in Code of Hammurabi which gives semblance of determining the value-Human Life Value. This code was used to determine the compensation allowed to the relative of an individual killed by a third party. The semblance of the concept is also observed in Kautiliya Arthasastra, Manusmriti,Koran, Bible and early Anglo-Saxon law.

The first application of HLV concept to life insurance happened in the year 1880s.Human Life Value is a measure of the future earnings less self maintenance costs such as food, clothing and shelter. If one looks from the view point of one’s dependents, the breadwinner’s HLV is the value of the benefits that the dependent can expect.An organization would look at the value added by the employee to the enterprise as an employee’s Human Life Value to it. In other words, a person may have more than one HLV.

Five Percepts of Human Life Value

In the year 1927,Solomon S.Huebner published a volume titled The Economics of Life Insurance which dealt exclusively with the HLV concept.His five percepts or admonitions regarding HLV which are relevant even today after a century are reproduced as under:
1.The human life value should be carefully appraised and capitalized.The HLV is based on the fact that persons who earn more than is necessary for their self maintenance have a monetary value to those who are dependent upon them. Thus, it is the present value of that part of the earnings of individuals devoted to family dependents and others who benefit from these individual’s earning capacity. Whenever, continuance of a life is economically valuable to others, an economic basis for life and health insurance exists.
2.The human life value should be recognized as creator of property value. HLV is key to turning property into productive force.In other words, the HLV is the cause and property values are the effect.
3.The family is an economic unit organized around the human life values of its members. The family should be organized and managed, and its economic value finally liquidated, in the same manner that other enterprises are organized, operated , and liquidated.
4.The human life value and its protection should be regarded as constituting the principal link between the present and succeeding generations.The realization of the potential net earnings of the breadwinner constitutes the economic foundation for the proper education and development of the children in the event of the breadwinner’s premature death or incapacity and the protection of children against the burden of parent financial support.
5. In view of the significance of human life values relative to property values, principles of business management utilized in connection with property values should be applied to life values.Principles such as appraisal, conservation, indemnity, and depreciation should be applied to the organization, management , and liquidation of human life value. These principles are applied to property values for decades.

One’s HLV is subject to loss through (1) premature death;( 2) illness, injury ,or incapacity; (3) retirement; and (4) unemployment. Any event affecting an individual’s earning capacity has a corresponding impact on her HLV.The probability of loss from death and incapacity is significantly greater than from the other commonly insured perils. In contrast to the loss due to other perils, death peril results in a total loss to the potential estate.The same is true of some health events.
Life Insurance and health insurance make possible the preservation of an individual’s HLV in the face of an uncertain time. The HLV concept provides the philosophical basis for systemizing the insurance purchase decision.

 HUMAN LIFE VALUE COMPUTATION

Let us now calculate the economic value of an individual in a simple manner based upon the income of an individual devoted to the family step wise step as follows:
1.Make a good estimate of average annual earning

Determine the percentage of future raise expected.Based upon the percentage of raise expected .calculate the average salary for the working years.. One may also factor in income from investments as well.
2. Out of 1 deduct cost of self maintenance, life insurance premium, income tax and other expenses , etc.
3. Determine the working period of the individual
Deduct the retirement age from the present age..

4.Selection of discounting rate
This rate would determine the present value of the future earnings of the individual.

An individual aged 35 years devotes for an example Rs.6 lakh annually towards various expenses of his family. He wishes to retire by the age of 60 years . The discount rate in the case is 6 percent. The human life value in the case would be around Rs.77 lakh. Simply put, this is the amount of insurance the individual needs on his life. Make a Plan to meet the target amount over the years. Also review economic value  periodically and modify the plan.
The case I mentioned at the beginning, the amount of insurance was highly inadequate. It was not even sufficient to clear the debt.
Lastly, one must insure but fair enough so that it takes good care of loved ones in one’s absence .
In my next writing I would share with you another approach of determining the Human Life Value.

Our behavior shapes our economy – Stay calm amidst dire situations – COVID19

Blog Catgeory, Faculty, General Blog, IILM University

COVID19 has been termed as an unparalleled dire situation; though the world has experienced pandemic earlier, the one actual and big difference between this pandemic and the others in the past is the volume of information at the click of a button. We are being poured 24/7 by broadcast news around the globe and social media. Mass media is serving our qualms and inhibiting us to think rationally creating shared panic and forcing people to take emotional irrational decisions. In a historic period of excessive loss and distress, today is the necessity of more than ever discipline, civic sense, and calm attitude.

Stocking the mind with overpowering questions drains our energy leading to wastage of time as well. We ought to silence the mind, not letting it go on with opinions of criticism, feeling like a quarry, condemning or denying the situation.

  • Situation Proofing Yourself

Life without critical situations is similar to living a life in an imaginary unreal world, detached from reality. There are two kinds of people. One will see the situation as trivial by having positive insights or optimistic way of looking at it. The other will see the situation as severe by having negative perceptions. How much control do we have on our thought process, to what degree is this human mechanism and state of mind in our hands? A calm mind, according to some, working a full day at the office, with demanding deadlines and different people with their different ways of working and opinions and simultaneously looking after the household responsibilities is next to impossible. But then, a calm mind with a robust intellect can certainly face all these dire situations. Moreover, practices like meditation will assist us in doing that.

  • Constructive Use

We are constantly learning a lesson at each step of our survival. The real-life circumstances are our hidden learnings which in a way impart us something or the other during a short span of time. All of us ought to be wary but then there is no need to fear or get panic. Instead, let’s not have complacency either. Receive this challenging situation and comprehend how you can make use of it in a constructive manner.

  • List down and evaluate the pros and cons

 It is easier to let our emotive side form our choices however as an alternative, create an unbiased list of pros and cons once confronted with a demanding situation. Contemplate critically and stick with unprejudiced principles concerning the situation.

At any time a difficult state is trying to affect you or you feel that you are fairly distressed due to a negative occurrence, look for positivity within in order to upkeep yourself emotionally and mentally. Likewise, hunt for signs of goodness outer in everyone and the entire thing, which will help in keeping you calm, composed and powerful. Possibly, nature wants everyone to slow down a little from the haste and hurriedness they are in.

Stay stable, calm and gratified!

Dr. Rachna Madaan

 

Globalization at Peril?

Faculty, General Blog, IILM University

With buzz like ‘Just-in-Time’, ‘Comparative Advantage’, ‘Outsourcing’ disrupted the supply chain in the name of profits and efficiency. No doubt the effort taken paid back well for the last few decades. But in the wake the outbreak of the virus, the entire supply chain has crippled and all major industries and economies are facing the brunt of over-dependence. China a manufacturing hub of the world and it gets most of its machinery from Germany. As China is unable to set in the manufacturing cycle, demand for new machinery from Germany has reduced. Germany is the major player in the EU, the impact of slumber in trade is felt in all EU countries. Such a phenomenon is called a domino effect wherein the fragility of supply chains is exposed, a major concern of globalism. The worst-hit industries are automobiles, electronics and more importantly drugs and medical supplies a crucial element for fighting the pandemic.

Scholars cite that the current situation of over-dependence and interconnectedness has reached an inflection point. They predict that from now the process of globalization may change its course and multilateral organizations may have to restructure their bargain. Certainly, nations like India and its neighborhoods will be the worst hit as they have always accrued the benefit of globalization in terms of employment, investments, etc. Countries may have to revamp their strategies to adapt to new realities keeping in mind the stakes on the economy at large.

Though globalization is inevitable, going back to its business as usual form post-pandemic recovery is highly unlikely. However, a sudden exodus from multilateral cooperation will certainly have greater ramifications that need thoughtful consideration. On the contrary, instead of fallback, it will be pragmatic for economies to restructure and prioritize. Targeted restructuring can reduce over-dependence and push for better control in stabilizing economies. Globalization is no doubt a necessary evil however the question is are we playing the right cards with it? Our focus was only to channelize factors of production across borders which is proving very dangerous.

The Power of Poetry

General Blog, IILM Institute for Higher Education, IILM University, , , , ,

Poetry has survived and survived really well…It is one of the finest and powerful forms of writing. In short, poetry is creativity in disguise. It teaches us to communicate in a compelling way, thereby enhance learning. Poetry is about expressing those thoughts and emotions we keep the most suppressed. An integral part of writing poetry is to be honest with ourselves about what we feel in order to write anything worth reading. It’s about connecting our hearts and our minds to ourselves and our environs. It’s about finding peace.

Poetry is one of those skills that will remain in use for your entire life no matter what you end up doing professionally. It gives us a salubrious outlet for pouring our emotions. Reading original poetry aloud can foster trust and empathy in a community, while also accentuating speaking and listening skills. There are many of us  who don’t like writing essays but may like poetry, with its dearth of fixed rules and its kinship with rap. For such people, poetry can become a doorway to other forms of writing. All forms of writing benefits from the powerful and succinct phrases found in poems.

Additionally, poetry can help us to learn how to utilize grammar in our own writing by studying how poets do—and do not—abide by conventional writing rules in their work. Poetry can teach writing and grammar rules by showing what happens when poets strip them away or distort them for effect for example; Dickinson often capitalizes common nouns and uses dashes instead of commas to show sudden shifts in focus in his poetry, similarly, Agee uses colons to create dramatic, speech-like pauses. The more we read different poets, the more we can carve out our own style. The point of reading a poem is not to try to decipher it. Still, that quantifiable process of elucidation is precisely what needs to be encouraged often in lieu of curating a powerful experience through literature.

So, don’t wait…reach for the pen, and let go of those things that have been encumbering your freedom. Read poetry with your heart and let it affect you in one of the most defining ways.

 

 

 

Reinventing Pedagogy

Faculty, General Blog, IILM University, , , , ,

Reinventing  Pedagogy

Every challenge is an opportunity, they say. I cannot begin to imagine how a deadly virus could be a game-changer for the humanity at large. These are trying times for all of us, but we need to accept that what began as an alternative approach to ensure business continuity is most likely to become the new normal. COVID-19 has brought along a reality check – that education technology that delivers prodigious content and engages students and teachers has never been more vital.

Corporates have been using online video collaboration platforms to keep business going, but for an industry like Education, this is the time for upskilling in a way that we continue to provide learning opportunities and other critical services to our students. This is the time to reflect and think beyond the challenges of the next few weeks.

Today there is an application for just about anything in education. A lot of us are deploying the best in AI, VR and AR and they are demonstrating the power to serve as a teacher in cases where students need to be isolated. However, we should not need a crisis like COVID 19 to rethink how education can function; because students, no matter where they are and how old they are should be able to make their way through their education and work journeys with the benefit of superior technical innovations that can more seamlessly identify, respond, correct and expose them to deep learning.

Let’s hope that when COVID-19 is in our rear-view mirrors, the innovations and technology that is helping our students today, continue to offer adaptable, online formats to educate our bright young minds. We should focus on developing our online infrastructure and have everything available to us and also because it’s not complicated. We need to change the age-old structure of imparting high-quality education that requires a face-to-face format.

While we wait with a lot of uncertainty for now, but there is always light at the end of the tunnel. Let’s keep moving forward with all the resources that we, fortunately, have with us. Let’s together fight and emerge more stronger and consistent, because this too shall pass…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How to Mindfully Develop Your Self-Confidence

Career Development (Placement), General Blog, IILM University, , , ,

Why focus on self-confidence?

How many things in your life would you be doing differently if you were thinking and acting from a place of deep self-confidence? The capacity for authentic self-confidence offers many benefits, for example we become more creative and expressive, we find access to greater capacity for focus, mental stamina and energy, we experience greater peace of mind, and we experience life as fundamentally enjoyable and playful.

What is self-confidence?

We will all have our own ideas of what self-confidence is, but the definition I normally work with (following Nathaniel Branden’s definition of self-esteem) is that self -confidence consists of two distinct parts:

  • Self-worth – The belief that I am worthy of happiness, pleasure, enjoyment, well-being, success & so on and..
  • Self-efficacy – The sense that I have the capacity to be successful in the face of life’s challenges. Even if I currently lack the skills to be successful in a particular task, self-efficacy is a confidence in my ability to learn those skills as and when necessary.

If you lack a fundamental sense of your self-worth or of your capacity for self-efficacy, then your self-confidence is going to be built upon shaky ground!

Mindful methods for developing your self-confidence:

With the above definitions in mind, we can then start to adopt a multi-faceted approach to developing self-confidence, here are a few suggestions:

1. Connect and nourish your present self-confidence – No one completely lacks self-confidence, look for times and places in your life where you have felt and experienced self-confidence. Revisit them mentally, take an inventory of them, recall how it felt. Then look at how you can translate those experiences into feelings and attitudes of self-confidence in the face of your present life challenges.

2. Know what self-confidence feels like in the body – Practice holding your body and feeling it in a way that communicates confidence and self-assurance to your mind. Our posture is often communicating all sorts of messages to us psychologically, so we need to take advantage of this rather than being victimized by it!

3. Make friends with the parts of you that are not self-confident – As the famous Gestalt therapist Fritz Pearls said ‘As long as you fight a symptom it will get worse’ (I recommend meditating on that sentence for a long time!) Open to and get close with your fears, your vulnerabilities, the parts of you feeling fragmented. Care for them, experience them, open to them, allow them to become the basis of your self-confidence, rather than the things you are trying to escape from by developing your self-confidence. This needs careful thought, reflection and experience to understand, but it is super-important to get right!

4. Find role models for your self-confidence – Find real life examples of people who are appropriate and inspiring role models for the type of self-confidence you want to have. Study them carefully and draw conscious inspiration from them.

5. Do something each day to engage your self-confidence – Do something manageable each day to test and develop your self-confidence experientially and in real-time.

6. Practice mindful framing – ‘Last month I was depressed, and this month I’m still depressed’ sounds like a bit of a failure. ‘Last month I was very depressed and although this month I am still depressed I feel less depressed, and there have been days when I have actually felt good’ sounds like progress and a cause of boosting our self-confidence. How we frame what happens to us mentally is crucial in terms of whether we experience something as supporting our self-confidence or not!

Conclusion:

If you want to make this article a practical exploration, you could take one of the above six suggestions per day as a point of mindful focus for the next three weeks or so. See where it takes your own experience of Mindful Self-Confidence!

Dealing Mindfully with Anger and Conflict in your Relationships

General Blog, , ,

Dealing Mindfully with Anger and Conflict in your Relationships

How can you deal more effectively with anger and conflict in your life? Here I am referring specifically to the anger and conflict that you experience in your outer relationships with other people. Below are some pointers for becoming more mindful in this area. This in turn will then naturally start to suggest practical ways you can be more successful dealing with the challenges presented.

  • Observe the way in which you currently experience anger and conflict

Ask yourself the question: What is my current relationship with anger and conflict, both within myself and into relationships?
Bring to mind a time when you have been angry. What happens when you get angry? How does your body start to feel? Practice mindfully creating anger in your body and mind, and learn to relax into it, without being panicked by it or forced into a reaction. Get used to holding anger in your body comfortably, letting it flow.
Similarly, bring to mind a conflict you have in your outer relationships right now. Observe how you feel in the face of another person’s anger, disapproval or aggression. Practice mindful holding your own space and breathing with the experience of conflict, so that when it happens in real-time, you are not panicked or intimidated.

  • A working definition of anger

‘Anger is a powerful emotion centered around issues of justice and fairness’. In its negative expression it is incredibly destructive and dangerous. In its positive expression it can be a powerful cause for order, justice and good in the world. ‘Positive anger’ might be thought of as simply the benevolent expression of justice and fairness in the face of malevolence or aggression. There is a lot to be gained from working to transform your own negative anger into positive anger.

  • Working with conflict in your relationships                                                                                                 Once you have done a little contemplation around Point 1 above, here is a short exercise you can apply to any relationship you may have where there is anger and conflict. Firstly, consider the situation from three perspectives –
    1st person – I/mine/ours – What is happening in this situation from your personal point of view? What are you feeling?
    2nd person – the other(s) – What is the other person/people experiencing? What do you start to see if you mindfully take their perspective for a period of time?
    3rd person – It’s, objective – What do you start to see if you take a more objective/detached point of view, outside of all the personal stuff?

Based on your insights from these three perspectives then decide ‘Am I going to’:

  • Change myself/adapt to the other person/people, (maybe not worth the hassle to confront?) or
  • Try and change the other person, or take a stand for what I feel is right (genuine issue if justice, and or ‘worth it’)?

Finally, having made your decision, strategize! Use your natural intelligence to come up with a way of approaching the relationship conflict, communicating skillfully in a way that you think is going to give the best result!

Experiment with small conflicts
Small and relatively insignificant conflicts are great places to start working with the above methods. Finding ways to gently work with conflict, anger and confrontation in minor situations helps you build the skill and confidence so that when something big kicks off, you are able to hold your own and enjoy learning how to articulate your own power in relationship conflicts.

 

 

Romancing the Balance Sheet ‘For anyone who owns,runs or manages a business’.

General Blog, IILM University

Anil Lamba’s book, Romancing the Balance Sheet, shines like a laser beam for anyone who owns, runs or manages a business. It is a self help book for the new business tycoons.

Romancing the Balance Sheet is a book with latest edition of 2013  written by Anil Lamba who is a Chartered Accountant, International Corporate Trainer and Financial Literacy Activist. This book is a well refined version of various online training sessions covering diverse aspects of Finance Management for all those who have faced challenging situations while experiencing finance for the first time. Anil Lamba is also known as author of the bestselling books like Balance Sheet va Finance Samjun Ghetana.

This book is divided into fifteen chapters and is further subdivided into six sections. Each section has been well explained by the author covering all viewpoints of problem solving that may arise at present or in future.

Section 1 talks about getting your basics right which states that even if you are a non finance person even then you can easily deal with financial statements and also it gives us a glimpse about what really profit is and how inventory impacts profit.Section 2 deals with the concept of managing our finances better.It mentions about two golden financial management rules ,the first rule being “Never invest your money without ensuring that the assets you acquire can generate a return which is at-least equal to the cost of your capital” and the second rule being “Invest your money in such a way that the assets will generate an inflow of funds before the liabilities demand an outflow”. Thereby Anil Lamba suggests that if a person goes by these golden rules he will be able to manage his finances better. In further sections Mr. Lamba describes how an individual can maximize his profit as we can see that in today’s era it has become important to get profits and also to maintain assets and liabilities in a business. Similar to this, Break even analysis is also an important concept which is a point where there is no profit no loss and hence its analysis is very important to carefully understand about the business.

During my course at IILM, I have covered this book in elective “Corporate Restructuring” in 2nd year which is a very good book of around 200 pages. I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in managing or running a business. This book helps us not only to know about the balance sheet but also how to prepare the fund flow statement and maximize profits in our business.