Applause is a powerful drug. It is euphoric. It is addictive. It is deceiving.

Applause gave us “Balloon Boy”.

Our quest for applause often leads us down murky paths. We follow a career ladder based on prestige rather than passion. We spend our money on things, resulting in less time to spend on living. Like helpless addicts, once we have tasted the fleeting rush of applause, we chase after it, forever seeking that next “hit”.

Even if we know the applause wasn’t really earned. Even if the success is not of our own definition. Even if the echo is empty.

Accomplishment is something altogether different. Accomplishment is personal. It is diving into a difficult task, and following it through. It is crossing something off of your life list. It is helping out someone less powerful and less fortunate than yourself, without any expectation that they could ever pay you back.

Accomplishment is trying. And failing. And learning.

The problem with personal accomplishment is that it is rarely followed by applause. The outwardly visible benefits of accomplishment, if they occur at all, often show up months or even years down the road.

But the inner benefits from authentic accomplishment are immediate, and they stay with you forever.

Source: HERE

It’s so funny when I hear people being so protective of ideas. (People who want me to sign an nda to tell me the simplest idea.)
To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions.

Explanation:

Ideas
Awful idea = -1
Weak idea = 1
So-so idea = 5
Good idea = 10
Great idea = 15
Brilliant idea = 20

Execution
No execution = $1
Weak execution = $1000
So-so execution = $10,000
Good execution = $100,000
Great execution = $1,000,000
Brilliant execution = $10,000,000

To make a business, you need to multiply the two. The most brilliant idea, with no execution, is worth $20. The most brilliant idea takes great execution to be worth $20,000,000. That’s why I don’t want to hear people’s ideas. I’m not interested until I see their execution.

Source: Getting Real

Likely usersof the LLP
India has witnessed considerable growth in services sector and the quality of our professionals is acknowledged internationally. It is necessary that entrepreneurship knowledge and risk capital combine to provide a further impetus to our impressive economic growth. Equally the services sector promises an economic opportunity similar to that provided by information technology over the past few years. It is likely that in the years to come Indian professionals would be providing accountancy, legal and various other professional/technical services to a large number of entities across the globe. Such services would require multidisciplinary combinations that would offer a menu of solutions to international clients. In view of all this, the LLP framework could be used for many enterprises, such as:

• Persons providing services of any kind
• Enterprises in new knowledge and technology based fields where the corporate form is not suited.
• For
  professionals such as Chartered Accountants (CAs), Cost and Works Accountants (CWAs), Company Secretaries (CSs) and Advocates, etc.
• Venture capital funds where risk capital combines with knowledge and expertise.
• 
  Professionals and enterprises engaged in any scientific, technical or artistic discipline, for any activity relating to research production, design and provision of services.
• Small Sector Enterprises (including Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises)
• Producer Companies in Handloom, Handicrafts sector.

Difference between LLP & “traditional partnership firm”

• Under “traditional partnership firm”, every partner is liable, jointly with all the other partners and also severally for all acts of the firm done while he is a partner.
• Under LLP structure, liability of the partner is limited to his agreed contribution. Further,no partner is liable on account of the independent or un-authorized acts of other partners,thus allowing individual partners to be shielded from joint liability created by another partner’s wrongful acts or misconduct.

Difference between LLP & a Company

• A basic difference between an LLP and a joint stock company lies in that the internal
• governance structure of a company is regulated by statute (i.e. Companies Act, 1956)
• whereas for an LLP it would be by a contractual agreement between partners.
• The management-ownership divide inherent in a company is not there in a limited
• liability partnership.
• LLP will have more flexibility as compared to a company.
• LLP will have lesser compliance requirements as compared to a company.

Conclusion of LLP India

• LLP is an alternative corporate
  business form that gives the benefits of limited liability of a company and the flexibility of a partnership.
• The LLP can continue its existence irrespective of changes in partners. It is capable of entering into contracts and holding property in its own name.
• The LLP is a separate legal entity, is liable to the full extent of its assets but liability of
  the partners is limited to their agreed contribution in the LLP.
• Further, no partner is liable on account of the independent or un-authorized actions of other partners, thus individual partners are shielded from joint liability created by another artner’s wrongful
  business decisions or misconduct.
• Mutual rights and duties of
  the partners within a LLP are governed by an agreement between
  the partners or between
  the partners and the LLP as the case may be. The LLP, however, is not relieved of the liability for its other obligations as a separate entity.
• Since LLP contains elements of both ‘a corporate structure’ as well as ‘a partnership firm structure’ LLP is called a hybrid between a company and a partnership

Opening a Limited Liability Partnership in India (LLP)

Is LLP better than private limited company ?

is llp better than private limited company the choice is yours when you are starting a new business..

however there are so many advantages of starting a limited liability partnership than a private limited company in india.

below you can find a small check-list which shows the comparison of the two forms of companies. if you need any help please do call us : ONLINE LLP – +91-9900512394

Which is best for you LLP or LTD ?
Requirements	LLP	LTD
Use partner’s tax allowances
Employ non-professional staff
Run a large PAYE scheme
Be taxed as self-employed
Limit the liability of professional partners
Hold shares in another business
Maintain a steady business for a small or fixed number of partners
Expand the business and employ many people
Manufacturing/distribution business
Profession *
Sell shares in the business
*Many professions allow and use the LTD format. Either is possible, but the LLP format was originally intended to meet the needs of the professions.

What are LLPs for?

The ‘Limited Liability Partnership” (LLP) format of registered company was originally created to enable the professions to take advantage of limited liability, but its popularity is growing among a much wider range of business.

What officers does an LLP have?

A limited liability partnership does not have Directors or a Company Secretary, but it must have at least two designated members who stand as the company’s primary representatives in much the same way as Directors.

What rules are there for LLPs?

The LLP is subject to many of the same rules as a traditional “private company limited by shares”, for instance the LLP must report changes to its registered details (including members names and addresses), it must complete an Annual Return and it must file Accounts each year.

An LLP must have at least 2 Members (Partners).

What are the trading rules for LLPs?

LLPs must be formed for active trading – they cannot be registered as dormant. A statement on the Companies House forms for LLP registration confirms that the registrants are joining in business for the purpose of making a profit. That excludes non-profit enterprises (such as clubs or charities) and it also excludes non-trading companies (”dormant companies”).

Are there tax related benefits to having either an LLP or and LTD?

The key difference that affects the view of many start-up businesses is the tax treatment of the owners (members). In a traditional LTD the Directors (who are also usually the sole shareholders in a start-up company) are treated as employees of their own company. This means that their salary is subject to personal Income Tax and National Insurance and employers’ NI contributions. Profits left in the company (not withdrawn as salary) are subject to the (lower) Corporation Tax rate.

The members of an LLP pay Income Tax as self-employed persons, so there is no employers’ NI to pay. On the other hand, ALL the profits of the company are regarded as the members’ income and are subject to Income Tax.
So the balance of tax advantage depends on how much profit the company might make and how much the owners pay themselves.

Will the number of employees we expect to have affect my choice of LLP or LTD?

If the company expects to employ people and the employee’s payroll is likely to be higher than the owners’ salary, a “private company limited by shares” may well be more tax efficient that an “limited liability partnership”.
If the business is likely to remain as just two or three members who are each making a similar contribution and each draw similar salaries then the LLP option will probably be more tax efficient.
It is wise to discuss the options with your tax accountant.

Will there be any problems if I plan to sell the business at some stage?

One other important factor should be weighed in the balance: how likely is it that the business will be sold as a going concern? A “private company limited by shares” (LTD) is more anonymous and easier to separate from the owners by means of transferring the shares. A partnership is more personal and therefore less straght-forward to separate from the owners.

Which is better – an LLP or an LTD?

There is no absolute rule that makes one format better than the other. In any case, if your business changes over the years so that the alternative format becomes more appropriate, it is possible to form a new company of the other type – then transfer the business over to the new company.

Procedure for converting partnership firm or private limited company to LLP

PARTNERSHIP firms to LLP

the precondition for conversion for your partnership firm are:

* Partnership should be a registered under Indian partnership Act 1932
* All the partners of existing firm should compulsorily become the partners of LLP
* Minimum 2 partners as Designated Partners and one of them should be Resident in India
* Digital Signature Certificate for one of the Designated Partners
* LLP (Limited Liability Parnership) Name
* LLP (Limited Liability Parnership) Agreement
* Registered Office for the existing partnership firm

Procedure for conversion

* Obtain name approval for LLP (Limited Liability Parnership)
* Application for conversion of firm to LLP in Form 17
* File the following forms along with a statement by all partners with registration number and date of registration of the firm.
Form 2 : Details of partners, registered office etc
Form 4 : Consent of Partners – Consent of each partner to become a partner of Liability Partnership
Form 3 : LLP agreement – this can be filed with in 30 days from the date of registration
* After verification, registrar will register all documents and issue Certificate of registration
* Upon registration of LLP, file an intimation to the Registrar of Firms stating the fact that firm is converted into LLP

PRIVATE LIMITED COMPANY to LLP
Preconditions for conversion

* The company should be registered under Companies Act, 1956
* There should not be any security interest subsisting on the assets of the company at the time of application
* Partners of LLP should comprise all the shareholders of the company and no one else.
* Minimum 2 partners as Designated Partners and one of them should be resident in India
* Digital Signature Certificate for one of the Designated Partners
* LLP (Limited Liability Parnership) Name
* LLP (Limited Liability Parnership) Agreement
* Registered Office

Procedure

* Obtain name approval for LLP (Limited Liability Parnership)
* Application for conversion of firm to LLP in Form 18
* File the following forms along with a statement by all partners with registration
* number and date of registration of the firm.
Form 2 : Details of partners, registered office etc
Form 4 : Consent of Partners – Consent of each partner to become a partner of Liability Partnership
Form 3 : LLP agreement – this can be filed with in 30 days from the date of registration
* After verification, registrar will register all documents and issue Certificate of registration
* Up on registration of LLP, file an intimation to the Registrar of Companies in Form 14 stating the fact that the company is converted into LLP

Check Company Name availability in India

CLICK HERE

Source: HERE

In a moment of nonchalance, Patzer, who spoke at the Juice Pitcher event, hosted by TheFunded.com and Vator.tv, admitted to Adeo Ressi, the founding member of The Funded, that he sold Mint for cash to Intuit, so it didn’t matter to him what happened to Intuit’s shares.

Here are some of the highlights of the presentation, in which Patzer used Mint’s actual numbers to suggest a model for startup-building:

Raising Money:

• Phase 1: Once you have a mature idea, raise $100,000 from friends and family to build a prototype
• Phase 2: Prototype complete, raise $1 million and launch an alpha into the market.
• Phase 3: Once you have some traction, raise $5 to $10 million to scale up.

Phase 1 Expenses (1st $100,000):

• Founders: $30,000/year
• Engineering 1st hires: $30,000-50,000/year
• Office: $400/cube/month
• Tech: $10,000
• Legal: Deferred payments for 0.50 – 0.75% of company

Phase 2 Expenses (seed round):

• Salaries: $50,000 – $90,000/year ($450,000/year for 5 people)
• Overhead: +20% ($100,000/year)
• Legal: $25,000 + $2,000/month ($50,000/year)

Phase 3 Expenses (Series A)

• Salaries + Overhead: $200,000/year/person
• COGS: many one-time expenses add up to about $150,000/month
• Legal: $10,000-$50,000/month

Transcript:

This is really a two hour presentation I give to high school students, cut down to three minutes. And it all started one day on a plane, on my way to TED, seven years ago. And in the seat next to me was a high school student, a teenager, and she came from a really poor family. And she wanted to make something of her life, and she asked me a simple little question. She said, “What leads to success?” And I felt really badly, because I couldn’t give her a good answer. So I get off the plane, and I come to TED. And I think, jeez, I’m in the middle of a room of successful people! So why don’t I ask them what helped them succeed, and pass it on to kids? So here we are, seven years, 500 interviews later, and I’m gonna tell you what really leads to success and makes TED-sters tick. And the first thing is passion. Freeman Thomas says, “I’m driven by my passion.” TED-sters do it for love, they don’t do it for money. Carol Coletta says, “I would pay someone to do what I do.” And the interesting thing is, if you do it for love, the money comes anyway. Work! Rupert Murdoch said to me, “It’s all hard work. Nothing comes easily. But I have a lot of fun.” Did he say fun? Rupert? Yes! TED-sters do have fun working. And they work hard. I figured, they’re not workaholics. They’re workafrolics. Good! Alex Garden says, “To be successful put your nose down in something and get damn good at it.” There’s no magic, it’s practice, practice, practice. And it’s focus. Norman Jewison said to me, “I think it all has to do with focusing yourself on one thing” And push! David Gallo says, “Push yourself. Physically, mentally, you’ve gotta push, push, push.” You gotta push through shyness and self-doubt. Goldie Hawn says, “I always had self-doubts. I wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t smart enough. I didn’t think I’d make it.” Now it’s not always easy to push yourself, and that’s why they invented mothers. (Laughter) Frank Gehry — Frank Gehry said to me, “My mother pushed me.” Serve! Sherwin Nuland says, “It was a privilege to serve as a doctor.” Now a lot of kids tell me they want to be millionaires. And the first thing I say to them is, “OK, well you can’t serve yourself, you gotta serve others something of value. Because that’s the way people really get rich.” Ideas. TED-ster Bill Gates says, “I had an idea — founding the first micro-computer software company.” I’d say it was a pretty good idea. And there’s no magic to creativity in coming up with ideas, it’s just doing some very simple things. And I give lots of evidence. Persist. Joe Kraus says, “Persistence is the number one reason for our success.” You gotta persist through failure. You gotta persist through crap! Which of course means “Criticism, Rejection, Assholes and Pressure.” (Laughter) So, the big — the answer to this question is simple: Pay 4,000 bucks and come to TED. Or failing that, do the eight things — and trust me, these are the big eight things that lead to success. Thank you TED-sters for all your interviews!

Transcript:

I need to make a confession at the outset here. A little over 20 years ago I did something that I regret, something that I’m not particularly proud of, something that, in many ways, I wish no one would ever know, but here I feel kind of obliged to reveal. (Laughter) Late 1980s, in a moment of youthful indiscretion, I went to law school. (Laughter)

Now, in America law is a professional degree. You get your university degree. Then you go on to law school. And when I got to law school, I didn’t do very well. To put it mildly, I didn’t do very well. I, in fact, graduated in the part of my law school class that made the top 90 percent possible. (Laughter) Thank you. I never practiced law a day in my life. I pretty much wasn’t allowed to. (Laughter)

But today, against my better judgement, against the advice of my own wife, I want to try to dust off some of those legal skills, what’s left of those legal skills. I don’t want to tell you a story. I want to make a case. I want to make a hard-headed, evidence-based, dare I say lawyerly case, for rethinking how we run our businesses.

So, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, take a look at this. This is called the candle problem. Some of you might have seen this before. It’s created in 1945 by a psychologist named Karl Duncker. Karl Duncker created this experiment that is used in a whole variety of experiments in behavioral science. And here’s how it works. Suppose I’m the experimenter. I bring you into a room. I give you a candle, some thumbtacks and some matches. And I say to you, “Your job is to attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn’t drip onto the table.” Now what would you do?

Now many people begin trying to thumbtack the candle to the wall. Doesn’t work. Somebody, some people, and I saw somebody kind of make the motion over here. Some people have a great idea where they light the match, melt the side of the candle, try to adhere it to the wall. It’s an awesome idea. Doesn’t work. And eventually, after five or 10 minutes, Most people figure out the solution, Which you can see here. The key to to overcome what’s called functional fixedness. You look at that box and you see it only as a receptacle for the tacks. But it can also have this other function, as a platform for the candle. The candle problem.

Now I want to tell you about an experiment using the candle problem, done by a scientist named Sam Glucksberg, who is now at Princeton University in the U.S. This shows the power of incentives. Here’s what he did. He gathered his participants. And he said, “I’m going to time you. How quickly you can solve this problem?” To one group he said, I’m going to time you to establish norms, averages for how long it typically takes someone to solve this sort of problem.

To the second group he offered rewards. He said, “If you’re in the top 25 percent of the fastest times you get five dollars. If you’re the fastest of everyone we’re testing here today you get 20 dollars.” Now this is several years ago, adjusted for inflation. It’s a decent sum of money for a few minutes of work. It’s a nice motivator.

Question: How much faster did this group solve the problem? Answer: It took them, on average, three and a half minutes longer. Three and a half minutes longer. Now this makes no sense right? I mean, I’m an American. I believe in free markets. That’s not how it’s supposed to work. Right? (Laughter) If you want people to perform better, you reward them. Right? Bonuses, commissions, their own reality show. Incentivize them. That’s how business works. But that’s not happening here. You’ve got an incentive designed to sharpen thinking and accelerate creativity. And it does just the opposite. It dulls thinking and blocks creativity.

And what’s interesting about this experiment is that it’s not an aberration. This has been replicated over and over and over again, for nearly 40 years. These contingent motivators, if you do this, then you get that, work in some circumstances. But for a lot of tasks, they actually either don’t work or, often, they do harm. This is one of the most robust findings in social science. And also one of the most ignored.

I spent the last couple of years looking at the science of human motivation. Particularly the dynamics of extrinsic motivators and intrinsic motivators. And I’m telling you, it’s not even close. If you look at the science, there is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And what’s alarming here is that our business operating system — think of the set of assumptions and protocols beneath our businesses, how we motivate people, how we apply our human resources — it’s built entirely around these extrinsic motivators, around carrots and sticks. That’s actually fine for many kinds of 20th century tasks. But for 21st century tasks, that mechanistic, reward-and-punishment approach doesn’t work, often doesn’t work, and often does harm. Let me show you what I mean.

So Glucksberg did another experiment similar to this where he presented the problem in a slightly different way, like this up here. Okay? Attach the candle to the wall so the wax doesn’t drip onto the table. Same deal. You: we’re timing for norms. You: we’re incentivizing. What happened this time? This time, the incentivized group kicked the other group’s butt. Why? Because when the tacks are out of the box it’s pretty easy isn’t it? (Laughter)

If-then rewards work really well for those sorts of tasks, where there is a simple set of rules and a clear destination to go to. Rewards, by their very nature, narrow our focus, concentrate the mind. That’s why they work in so many cases. And so, for tasks like this, a narrow focus, where you just see the goal right there, zoom straight ahead to it, they work really well. But for the real candle problem, you don’t want to be looking like this. The solution is not over here. The solution is on the periphery. You want to be looking around. That reward actually narrows our focus and restricts our possibility.

Let me tell you why this is so important. In western Europe, in many parts of Asia, in North America, in Australia, white collar workers are doing less of this kind of work, and more of this kind of work. That routine, rule-based, left brain work, certain kinds of accounting, certain kinds of financial analysis, certain kinds of computer programing, has become fairly easy to outsource, fairly easy to automate. Software can do it faster. Low-cost providers around the world can do it cheaper. So what really matters are the more right-brained creative, conceptual kinds of abilities.

Think about your own work. Think about your own work. Are the problems that you face, or even the problems we’ve been talking about here, are those kinds of problems — do they have a clear set of rules, and a single solution? No. The rules are mystifying. The solution, if it exists at all, is surprising and not obvious. Everybody in this room is dealing with their own version of the candle problem. And for candle problems of any kind, in any field, those if-then rewards, the things around which we’ve built so many of our businesses, don’t work.

Now, I mean it makes me crazy. And this is not — here’s the thing. This is not a feeling. Okay? I’m a lawyer. I don’t believe in feelings. This is not a philosophy. I’m an American. I don’t believe in philosophy. (Laughter) This is a fact. Or, as we say in my hometown of Washington D.C., a true fact. (Laughter) (Applause) Let me give you an example of what I mean. Let me marshal the evidence here. Because I’m not telling you a story. I’m making a case.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, some evidence: Dan Ariely, one of the great economists of our time, he and three colleagues, did a study of some MIT students. They gave these MIT students a bunch of games. Games that involved creativity, and motor skills, and concentration. And the offered them, for performance, three levels of rewards. Small reward, medium reward, large reward. Okay? If you do really well you get the large reward, on down. What happened? As long as the task involved only mechanical skill bonuses worked as they would be expected: the higher the pay, the better the performance. Okay? But one the task called for even rudimentary cognitive skill, a larger reward led to poorer performance.

Then they said, “Okay let’s see if there’s any cultural bias here. Lets go to Madurai, India and test this.” Standard of living is lower. In Madurai, a reward that is modest in North American standards, is more meaningful there. Same deal. A bunch of games, three levels of rewards. What happens? People offered the medium level of rewards did no better than people offered the small rewards. But this time, people offered the highest rewards, they did the worst of all. In eight of the nine tasks we examined across three experiments, higher incentives led to worse performance.

Is this some kind of touchy feely socialist conspiracy going on here? No. These are economists from MIT, from Carnegie Mellon, from the University of Chicago. And do you know who sponsored this research? The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States. That’s the American experience.

Let’s go across the pond to the London School of Economics. LSE, London School of Economics. Alma mater of 11 Nobel Laureates in economics. Training ground for great economic thinkers like George Soros, and Friedrich Hayek, and Mick Jagger. (Laughter) Last month, just last month, economists at LSE looked at 51 studies of paid for performance plans, inside of companies. Here’s what the economists there said, “We find that financial incentives can result in a negative impact on overall performance.”

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And what worries me, as we stand here in the rubble of the economic collapse, is that too many organizations are making their decisions, their policies about talent and people, based on assumptions that are outdated, unexamined, and rooted more in folklore than in science. And if we really want to get out of this economic mess, and if we really want high performance on those definitional tasks of the 21st century, the solution is not to do more of the wrong things. To entice people with a sweeter carrot, or threaten them with a sharper stick. We need a whole new approach.

And the good news about all of this is that the scientists who’ve been studying motivation have given us this new approach. It’s an approach built much more around intrinsic motivation. Around the desire to do things because they matter, because we like it, because they’re interesting, because they are part of something important. And to my mind, that new operating system for our businesses revolves around three elements: autonomy, mastery and purpose. Autonomy, the urge to direct our own lives. Mastery, the desire to get better and better at something that matters. Purpose, the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. These are the building blocks of an entirely new operating system for our businesses.

I want to talk today only about autonomy. The 20th century came up with this idea of management. Management did not emanate from nature. Management is like — it’s not a tree. It’s a television set. Okay? Somebody invented it. And it doesn’t mean it’s going to work forever. Management is great. Traditional notions of management are great if you want compliance. But if you want engagement, self-direction works better.

Let me give you some examples of some kind of radical notions of self direction. What this means — you don’t see a lot of it, but you see the first stirrings of something really interesting going on. Because what it means is paying people adequately and fairly, absolutely. Getting the issue of money off the table. And then giving people lots of autonomy. Let me give you some examples.

How many of you have heard of the company Atlassian? It looks like less than half. (Laughter) Atlassian is an Australian software company. And they do something incredibly cool. A few times a year they tell their engineers, “Go for the next 24 hours and work on anything you want, as long as it’s not part of your regular job. Work on anything you want.” So that engineers use this time to come up with a cool patchwork of code, come up with an elegant hack. Then they present all of the stuff that they’ve developed to their teammates, to the rest of the company, in this wild and wooly all hands meeting at the end of the day. And then, being Australians, everybody has a beer.

They call them FedEx Days. Why? Because you have to deliver something overnight. It’s pretty. It’s not bad. It’s a huge trademark violation. But it’s pretty clever. (Laughter) That one day of intense autonomy has produced a whole array of software fixes that might never have existed.

And it’s worked so well that Atlassian has taken it to the next level with 20 Percent Time. Done, famously, at Google. Where engineers can work, spend 20 percent of their time working on anything they want. They have autonomy over their time, their task, their team, their technique. Okay? Radical amounts of autonomy, And at Google, as many of you know, about half of the new products in a typical year are birthed during that 20 Percent Time. Things like Gmail, Orkut, Google News.

Let me give you an even more radical example of it. Something called the Results Only Work Environment. The ROWE. Created by two American consultants, in place in place at about a dozen companies around North America. In a ROWE people don’t have schedules. They show up when they want. They don’t have to be in the office at a certain time, or any time. They just have to get their work done. How they do it, when they do it, where they do it, is totally up to them. Meetings in these kinds of environments are optional.

What happens? Almost across the board, productivity goes up, worker engagement goes up, worker satisfaction goes up, turnover goes down. Autonomy, mastery and purpose, These are the building blocks of a new way of doing things. Now some of you might look at this and say, “Hmm, that sounds nice. But it’s Utopian.” And I say, “Nope. I have proof.”

The mid 1990s, Microsoft started an encyclopedia called Encarta. They had deployed all the right incentives. All the right incentives. They paid professionals to write and edit thousands of articles. Well compensated managers oversaw the whole thing to make sure it came in on budget and on time. A few years later another encyclopedia got started. Different model, right? Do it for fun. No one gets paid a cent, or a Euro or a Yen. Do it because you like to do it.

Now if you had, just 10 years ago, if you had gone to an economist, anywhere, And said, “Hey, I’ve got these two different models for creating an encyclopedia. If they went head to head, who would win?” 10 years ago you could not have found a single sober economist anywhere on planet Earth, who would have predicted the Wikipedia model.

This is the titanic battle between these two approaches. This is the Ali-Frazier of motivation. Right? This is the Thrilla’ in Manila. Alright? Intrinsic motivators versus extrinsic motivators. Autonomy, mastery and purpose, versus carrot and sticks. And who wins? Intrinsic motivation, autonomy, mastery and purpose, in a knockout. Let me wrap up.

There is a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And here is what science knows. One: Those 20th century rewards, those motivators we think are the natural part of business, do work, but only in a surprisingly narrow band of circumstances. Two: Those if-then rewards often destroy creativity. Three: The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive. The drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things cause they matter.

And here’s the best part. Here’s the best part. We already know this. The science confirms what we know in our hearts. So, if we repair this mismatch between what science knows and what business does, If we bring our motivation, notions of motivation into the 21st century, if we get past this lazy, dangerous, ideology of carrots and sticks, we can strengthen our businesses, we can solve a lot of those candle problems, and maybe, maybe, maybe we can change the world. I rest my case. (Applause)

1. Simplicity and Focus: Though widely acknowledged as providing the best search results, there is another important reason why people choose to continue using Google. If you look at the site’s homepage, the company doesn’t focus on the other services it provides as emphatically as other search engines. While other companies decided that while they would provide search, they were more interested in becoming portals and would generate revenue from a mix of these other more important services, Google has kept it simple from the beginning. They provide other services but the focus is on search.
2. Foresight: Historically, search had always been considered a commodity and an ancillary service that would help customers but not bring any substantial revenue to the search engine. Credit goes to Sergey and Larry for recognizing the importance of search on its own and working to build the best search engine in the world in a market that hadn’t been realized at that time. Though it wasn’t clear how they would monetize their product in the beginning, this did not prevent them from furthering their goal.
3. Word of Mouth: Google is famous for being one the largest and one of the most successful companies that has relied on word of mouth for marketing itself. While other companies pour in millions of dollars to advertise their product, Google has always believed that the search engine’s superiority will result in word of mouth advertising which they rely on to sustain growth, giving credence to the belief that if you build a good product, the audience will come.
4. The Product: The results of the emphasis on simply building the best product in the marketplace is evident throughout Google’s history. Even though these companies were and continue to be its rivals, Google has at one point or another worked with and provided services to Yahoo for search technology and Ask.com for advertising technology simply because the search engine built a better product that the other companies realized they could benefit from.

Abraham Lincoln received no more than 5 years of formal education throughout his lifetime. When he grew up, he joined politics and had 12 major failures before he was elected the 16th President of the United States of America.

Isaac Newton was the greatest English mathematician of his generation. His work on optics and gravitation made him one of the greatest scientists the world has even known. Many thought that Isaac was born a genius, but he wasn’t! When he was young, he did very poorly in grade school, so poor that his teachers became clueless in improving his grades.

Ludwig van Beethoven, a German composer of classical music, is widely regarded as one of history’s supreme composers. His reputation has inspired ? and in many cases intimidated ? composers, musicians and audiences who were to come after him. Before the start of his career, Beethoven’s music teacher once said of him “as a composer, he is hopeless”. And during his career, he lost his hearing yet he managed to produce great music ? a deaf man composing music, ironic isn’t!

Thomas Edison who developed many devices that greatly influenced life in the 20th century. Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1,093 U.S patents to his name. When he was a boy his teacher told him he was too stupid to learn anything. When he set out on his own, he tried more than 9,000 experiments before he created the first successful light bulb.

The Woolworth Company was a retail company that was one of the original five-and-ten- cent stores. The first Woolworth’s store was founded in 1878 by Frank Winfield Woolworth and soon grew to become one of the largest retail chains in the world in the 20th century. Before starting his own business, Woolworth got a job in a dry goods store when he was 21. But his employer would not let him serve any customer because he concluded that Frank “didn’t have enough common sense to serve the customers”.

By acclamation, Michael Jordon is the greatest basketball player of all time. A phenomenal athlete with a unique combination of grace, speed, power, artistry, improvisational ability and an unquenchable competitive desire. Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar. Before joining NBA, Jordan was just an ordinary person, so ordinary that was he was removed from the high school basketball team because of his “lack of skill”.

Walter Disney was American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor and animator. One of the most well-known motion picture producers in the world, Disney founded a production company. The corporation, now known as The Walt Disney Company, makes average revenue of US $30 billion annually. Disney started his own business from his home garage and his very first cartoon production went bankrupt. During his first press conference, a newspaper editor ridiculed Walt Disney because he had no good ideas in film production.

Winston Churchill failed the 6th grade. However, that never stopped him to work harder! He strived and eventually became the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. Churchill is generally regarded as one of the most important leaders in Britain and world history. In a poll conducted by the BBC in 2002 to identify the “100 Greatest Britons”, participants voted Churchill as the most important of all.

Steven Spielberg is an American film director. He has won 3 Academy Awards and ranks among the most successful filmmakers in history. Most of all, Steven was recognized as the financially most successful motion picture director of all time. During his childhood, Spielberg dropped out of junior high school. He was persuaded to come back and was placed in a learning-disabled class. He only lasted a month and then dropped out of school forever.

Albert Einstein was a theoretical physicist widely regarded as the most important scientist of the 20th century. He was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics for his explanation of the photoelectric effect in 1905 and “for his services to Theoretical Physics”. However, when Einstein was young, his parents thought he was mentally retarded. His grades in school were so poor that a teacher asked him to quit, saying, “Einstein, you will never amount to anything!”

In 1947, one year into her contract, Marilyn Monroe was dropped by 20th Century-Fox because her producer thought she was unattractive and could not act. That didn’t deter her at all! She kept on going and eventually she was recognized by the public as the 20th century’s most famous movie star, sex symbol and pop icon.

John Grisham’s first novel was rejected by sixteen agents and twelve publishing houses. He went on writing and writing until he became best known as a novelist and author for his works of modern legal drama. The media has coined him as one of the best novel authors even alive in the 21st century.

Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed. That did not stop him from incorporating Ford Motor Company and being the first to apply assembly line manufacturing to the production of affordable automobiles in the world. He not only revolutionized industrial production in the United States and Europe, but also had such influence over the 20th century economy and society. His combination of mass production, high wages and low prices to consumers has initiated a management school known as “Fordism”. He became one of the three most famous and richest men in the world during his time.

Soichiro Honda was turned down by Toyota Motor Corporation during a job interview as “engineer” after World War 2. He continued to be jobless until his neighbours starting buying his “home-made scooters”. Subsequently, he set out on his own to start his own company. Honda. Today, the Company has grown to become the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer and one of the most profitable automakers – beating giant automaker such as GM and Chrysler. With a global network of 437 subsidiaries, Honda develops, manufactures and markets a wide variety of products ranging from small general-purpose engines and scooters to specialty sports cars.

Akio Morita, founder of giant electric household products, Sony Corporation, first product was an electric rice cooker, only sold 100 cookers (because it burned rice rather than cooking). Today, Sony generates US$66 billion in revenue and ranked as the world’s 6th largest electronic and electrical company.

As we grow we start learning more and more complex skills in order to survive in this competitive world. Once we reach our late teens, we lookout for role models who have set an example and aspire to emulate them. As young professionals, we seek out for mentors.

Mentoring – Aspects and Objectives

A good mentor can make a world of difference. He can advice you on something, encourage you into doing something that you like, listen to you, help you in advancing your education and career or even help you in networking and getting you the necessary connections. Most importantly a mentor can save you the trouble they have already faced.

A mentor does not even have to realize that he is a mentoring you. Mentoring can be of various types. Mentoring is not necessarily a face to face activity. It can be through email, telephone.

Choosing the right person

It is very important to understand the basic aspects and objective of mentoring before choosing a mentor. A person you may have not thought of originally may turn out to be the best mentor you could possibly dream of. Be open when choosing a mentor. A good place to start looking for a mentor usually is your social circle of family and friends. From there you can extend your search to your high school teachers, leaders of certain groups of your interest, any other significant people in your life; He could even be your next door grandpa.

If you want to be a successful business man and if you approach Bono (Rock Star, U2), it is of no use to you. He can only teach you how to be a rock start and not a business man. Choose the right person with the right experience and knowledge that will help you fulfil your goals.

Identify someone from who you can learn – one who knows or has done something that you want to know and be able to do it. A mentor you choose need not have to be rich, famous or be known to the world. He should be a person who has had past experience and should be willing to transfer that knowledge to you.

Once you identify your mentor, it is recommended to explain why you selected him as a potential mentor and how you would possibly want him to help you. You will need to do thorough research, study about what he has done the kind of experiences he has had, the way he thinks and put forth his view points and beliefs.

Approaching a Mentor

It will not be as easy as approaching a person and telling him “Please be my mentor”. You will need to persuade your mentor by telling him why he would want to trade his family time to spend time with you. You may have to give them a proposition that would compel to make them say yes which will eventually make him satisfied and happy that he helped you and develop some kind of affinity towards you.

Here is an example for approaching a mentor – “I would like you to mentor me. All I need is just 10 minutes a month. Would you be kind enough to give me that time? If you give me that much time, I will promise you that I will return this favour to someone else somewhere in the future.

In case he likes you he will give you his 10 min the first few months. If there is some kind of mutual understanding he would not mind if you call him twice a month. May be in the future you both may become close buddies.

Being Prepared

Most people would not agree to be your mentor just because you’re willing to pay money, or to get rich or some other similar motive. Money should always be a by-product of what you plan to do even though that is what you finally want.

During the process of identifying and approaching, always be prepared for your prospect person to turn you down. If this happens, do not take it personally. May be the person has other responsibilities that would stand in the way of being a good mentor.

Mentor Myth Buster

Contrary to common perception of a mentor, the below mentioned points bust the associated myths.

A Mentor

1. need not be greatly successful.
2. does not have to be impressed by your achievements.
3. is not there forever.
4. is not a Baby sitter.