Why France should invoke NATO against Daesh

As per http://www.aco.nato.int/page12730109 and http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/nato_countries.htm

France remains a founder-member of NATO. It hosts several NATO agencies such as the NATO Helicopter Management Agency, the NATO Hawk Management Office, the Research and Technology Agency, and the Central Europe Pipelines Management Agency which is responsible for the movement, storage and delivery of fuel in Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. In 2009 France ended its 40 year break in participating within the NATO command structure, but France has been a faithful ally by committing its troops to NATO operations.

As per this France is invoking the rest of EU and Russia but not NATO

Article 42.7 of the Lisbon treaty, has never before been invoked. It is modeled on the Nato Article Five commitment, and says that if a country is “the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.”

With 129 dead, now is the not to time for France to drag feet. With 230 dead in airplane bomb, Russia is already hitting targets in Daesh held territory. NATO and Russia together hitting targets invokes memories of the Allies in World War 2.

The UN Security Council remains relevant, and indeed the Iraq war proved how much better multilateral action is to unilateralism.

If NATO was relevant for Afghanistan , it is much more relevant to Daesh. By using the name Daesh, they intend to play down the imagery of Islamic State (ISIS) to reduce the propaganda recruitment that it is the West against Islam (clash of civilizations).

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_110496.htm?

Highlights

  • Collective defence means that an attack against one Ally is considered as an attack against all Allies.
  • The principle of collective defence is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.
  • NATO invoked Article 5 for the first time in its history after the 9/11 terrorist attacks against the United States.
  • NATO has taken collective defence measures on several occasions, for instance in response to the situation in Syria and in the wake of the Ukraine crisis.
  • NATO has standing forces on active duty that contribute to the Alliance’s collective defence efforts on a permanent basis.

 

It is NATO that should commit ground troops in sectors away from Russia. It is Russia that should be okay to fight alongside NATO ( or be exposed)

The enemy of a friend is an enemy. The enemy of an enemy is a friend.

France needs to do the French thing and help bring back the Allies together ( which it did in both World Wars) .

Else we will have much more attacks on Western Soil.

 

 

Change the Mirror

Things I can change
Rate of Change
Things I can change slowly Things I can change quicker
Executing Change Training Build Buy
Need for Change Ambition Money Passion
Things I cant change
Things I need not change Things that are too expensive for me to change
Executing Non- Change Ignore the thing to be changed Outsource the task to be changed

Heaven is a place on Mars

A few years ago, on a flight, in a land far far away, I was asked by a another person, What do you think we should do. I said, lets go to Mars.Why is that? the man asked. Because, I paused and said, this planet is going to run out of resources.

Perhaps that is what we should tell the Russians and Chinese and the Anglo-Saxons to do. Kill ISIS together, stop fighting over the Arctic, and reignite the battle to make empires but on Mars.

One more thing, climate change is the 100 billion dollar opportunity. Any startups willing to hack climate change?

Think of the market opportunities, yall.

 

 

How to write a better email that makes you friends

  1. Don’t write when you are angry
  2. If you wrote something when angry, don’t hit send
  3. Keep angry email in drafts folder and see it every two hours. Edit a few lines
  4. Delete each and every word that you can delete and retain coherency in email. Delete each and every recipient in cc- till you come to bare minimum of people that should be informed
  5. A smiley usually lessons tensions
  6. Never give surprises in email. Call before.
  7. Don’t use copy all . Don’t use BCC. Dont use slang.
  8. Keep it professional. Everyone is doing their job. Everyone has issues that they are fighting.
  9. Revise and Edit. Revise and Edit
  10. People who write good emails have better career progress than people who write so so emails.

Communication makes the world go round more than job performance does.  Life in unfair but thats the way it is.

152599387

Understanding attrition in analytics sector in India

If you have worked with a software team based out of India, or know someone did, you would be aware that the technology sector in India has a high rate of employee attrition or churn. This is estimated to be as high as 30 %.

As someone who changed jobs a decade ago before I turned entrepreneur I try and understand what makes young people in this decade change jobs. Here are some of the few reasons I think they go through ( I am trying to think like the employee not the company)-

  1. Bad Leadership – No it’s not money, but the lack of a good working professional relationship with your manager that makes you quit job.  You can blame the young person for jumping for a 40% hike, but the only reason people stay on is they like their boss and like working under him. More investment in leadership training (and not just games /team building junkets /offsites) can be a solution
  2. Stagnation in Learning Opportunities– Young people realize they lack experience and are willing to take a hit to learn more. Their ambition is thwarted by situations that force them to do routine jobs (without proper explanation of why it is important) and lack of credible road map to guide their career expectations, and ambitions. More investment in digital training can be a solution.
  3. Unfair working times– If working conditions demand that you ask team members to stay in office more than 9 hours you need to explain properly why they cant work from home using remote desktop and internet. Employees that help their companies live their office actually sidestep this issue quite effectively.
  4. Lack of Stock Options– Salary is paid and consumed. Stock options make people hang on. Stock options are comparitevly less in India though Infosys has been an admirable company in it. More intelligent and fair to both sides agreeement on stock can be a solution
  5. Lack of penalties for attrition on manager– Managers get by with excuses on blaming attrition on employee, industry,salary but not themself. Surprise attrition is unforgivable. Linking vraiable compensation of team lead and manager will force them to develop a working relationship with team member.  Using analytics to predict attrition and using variable incentives to reward low attrition team managers can be a solution
  6. Cynicism on company processes– The failure of HR in India to stand up and confront line managers has prevented them from acting as a safety release for pent up steam in employees. Culture eats strategy for lunch and if your best people keep leaving at 30% your strategy goes for a toss. A segmented approach at attrition can help
  7. Delinking performance with attitude issues-  A company culture that obligates employees to ask and be responsible for issues in working conditions makes their manager link attitutde and perfromance unfairly.  BetterHR metrics and buddy/mentor arrangements can be a solution. This can also be reinforced by a matrix reporting structure.

Politics is the enemy of analytics. Indian culture is political per se, so making young people more professional and responsible in long term is the job of senior management nut just middle level team leads.