Leadership Principles

Customer Obsession

Leaders start with the customer and work backwards. They work vigorously to earn and keep customer trust. Although leaders pay attention to competitors, they obsess over customers.

Ownership

Leaders are owners. They think long term and don’t sacrifice long-term value for short-term results. They act on behalf of the entire company, beyond just their own team. They never say “that’s not my job.”

Invent and Simplify

Leaders expect and require innovation and invention from their teams and always find ways to simplify. They are externally aware, look for new ideas from everywhere, and are not limited by “not invented here.” As we do new things, we accept that we may be misunderstood for long periods of time.

Are Right, A Lot

Leaders are right a lot. They have strong business judgment and good instincts.

Learn and Be Curious

Learn and Be Curious

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Leaders are never done learning and always seek to improve themselves. They are curious about new possibilities and act to explore them.

Hire and Develop the Best

Leaders raise the performance bar with every hire and promotion. They recognize exceptional talent, and willingly move them throughout the organization. Leaders develop leaders and take seriously their role in coaching others.

Insist on the Highest Standards

Leaders have relentlessly high standards—many people may think these standards are unreasonably high. Leaders are continually raising the bar and drive their teams to deliver high quality products, services and processes. Leaders ensure that defects do not get sent down the line and that problems are fixed so they stay fixed.

Think Big

Thinking small is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Leaders create and communicate a bold direction that inspires results. They think differently and look around corners for ways to serve customers.

Bias for Action

Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking.

Frugality

We try not to spend money on things that don’t matter to customers. Frugality breeds resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and invention. There are no extra points for headcount, budget size, or fixed expense.

Earn Trust of Others

Leaders are sincerely open-minded, genuinely listen, and are willing to examine their strongest convictions with humility.

Dive Deep

Leaders operate at all levels, stay connected to the details, and audit frequently. No task is beneath them.

Have Backbone; Disagree and Commit

Leaders are obligated to respectfully challenge decisions when they disagree, even when doing so is uncomfortable or exhausting. Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly.

Deliver Results

Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business and deliver them with the right quality and in a timely fashion. Despite setbacks, they rise to the occasion and never settle.

10,000 steps a day

Walking 10,000 steps a day has become a popular fitness goal thanks to wearable devices. Research has shown that the more steps you take in a day, the better it is for your overall physical and mental wellbeing. Movement gets your blood flowing, improves muscle tone, reduces stress and burns calories, so why is it so hard to find the time to go for a walk? Here are easy ways to put more activity into your work day:  

• Walk at least part of the way to work. Consider extending your walk by getting off the bus one stop early or parking further away. 
• Change position at your workstation every 15-30 minutes. A simple, frequent change in body position (e.g., stand up if you are sitting) is actually more effective than taking a walk. It's how many times a day you change position that makes the difference.
• Take 'mini' stretch breaks every hour. Take five minutes to stretch out your neck, back, chest, arms and legs to help reduce muscle strain and increase your energy. I have included a stretch tips sheet below with some quick and easy exercises.
• Put things out of reach. Organize your work space so you have to move in order to reach files, the telephone or other office equipment.
• Pretend it's the 90's! Walk down the hall to talk to a co-worker in person instead of instant messaging or sending an email.
• Stand during meetings or conference calls. Aside from getting you out of your chair, standing can also help make discussions more focused, and increase meeting efficiency!
• Walk during your lunch break. After you eat, take a short walk and enjoy a change of scenery to get the blood flowing and to break up your day.
• Do your own coffee run. Go out and get your coffee or tea instead of letting someone else pick one up for you.
• Take the stairs at least once a day. Taking the stairs at the same time each day will make it a natural part of your routine.
• Turn waiting time into moving time. Take a stroll or do some stretches when waiting for the copier, microwave, or for a meeting room to vacate.
• Start an office fitness challenge. Get your co-workers involved and make it a challenge to track your steps and see who can walk the most in a day. It's easier to be active when you have a motivating network.
• Time it and/or track it. Use alarms on your computer, phone or activity tracker to remind you to move, stretch or take a short walk. Using an activity tracker can also help you assess how much you are actually moving.

Increase your personal resilience

Change and stress are inevitable, but they are not always bad things. Small doses actually support our health and stimulate our lives. It's when tensions start to weigh us down that we need to reduce the pressure. Strong personal resilience can make the difference between handling challenges effectively and losing your cool. While some people are naturally resilient, most of us have to work at it! Here are some ways to build your resilience:

• Think positively. Remind yourself of your strengths and achievements. Visualize what you want to accomplish, and believe that good things will happen in your life.
• Develop a strong social network. Having caring and supportive people around you allows you to share feelings, release stress, receive positive feedback and think of possible solutions to problems.
• Learn from situations. Use the events around you as opportunities to develop new knowledge or problem-solving skills. More often than not, you may learn something about yourself, and you'll see how you can positively influence future circumstances.
• Don't blow things out of proportion. Don't treat everything like a catastrophe. You can't change stressful events, but you can change how you interpret and respond to them. Look beyond the present, and stay focused on achieving the best possible outcomes.
• Take action. While there may not be a fast or simple solution, you can usually take small steps to make a problem better or less stressful. Sit back, brainstorm possible actions, set realistic goals, and then take the first step. Ask yourself, "What's one thing I can do today that moves me in the right direction?"
• Accept what you cannot change. Certain goals may not be attainable. Accepting circumstances that cannot be changed can help you focus on the things that you can alter.
• Don't sweat the small stuff. While easier said than done, you should try and let go of things that don't really matter in the long run. This way you'll have more time to focus on the things that do matter. Let go of minor disagreements that really don't matter to improve your stress and your quality of life!
• Take good care of yourself. Focus on exercising regularly, eating healthy and doing activities you enjoy. The goal is to keep your mind and body in top shape to deal with life's challenges.
• Seek quiet moments. When you feel tense, go to a peaceful space and take deep, slow breaths - even five minutes can help you relax.
• Slow down and learn to say no. Don't schedule every minute of every day. Take time for breaks and appreciate the good things in your life. Respectfully say 'no' to activities that are optional or take away from your priorities.
• Know when to ask for professional help. Common signs of too much stress include irritability, loss of concentration, anxious thoughts, frequent headaches, insomnia and indigestion. If pressures become overwhelming, talk to your physician or call CIBC's Employee & Family Assistance Program (see sidebar) for support.

What is node.js

Node is
1. A set of bindingisg to v8 for non browser work: sockets, files,

etc
2. Only exposes non-blocking, ashnychrous interfaces.
3. Only one thread, one call stack ( like the browser)
4. Low level features : E.G half closed TCP connection, TCP

throttling, UDP.
5. Has killer HTTP support.

Because the interface is purely non-blocking, users tend to achieve

decent concurrency without knowing what they are doing.
Non-blocking jail.

. No Mutex locks
. only one thing at a time
. no thread safety issue.
. Almost no side effects once event is emitted.

Node architect:
Node Standered liberary -- java script
node bindingis           -- c++ -- non blocking process calls
v8|thread pool|event loop -- c

Examples:

Node is command line tool. you have to download it and install it.

No dependencies other than python for the build system. V8 is

included in the distribution.
1. setTimeout(function(){
  console.log('wprld');
},2000);

console.log('hello');

A programs which prints "hello", wait 2 sec , ouputs "worlds" and

then exist.
SO node always exist after there is no other callbacks to be

completed.When the event loop has no timeouts or file descriptors

on it, it exists automatically.

example 2.
Every 500ms print "hello"
on SIGINT print "buy"
Using the special process object.
--> In node, you have this process global variable. it's kind of

the node is very process oriented.

setInterval(function() {

console.log('hello');
},500);

Process.on('SIGINT' function() {
    console.log('bye');
process.exit(0);   --> setting a callback, we are listening for the

SIGINT event on the process object.

Like process, many other objects in Node emit events.
A TCP server emits a "connection" event each time someone conects.
A HTTP upload emits a "data" event on each packet.

Event emitting is the kind of the fundamental in the node.

Example3.
A program which:
Starts a TCP server on port 8000
Send the peer a message
Colse the connection

--> This requires a module. Require is how you load a module in

node, this is the common JS module specification. So, you load the

net module, which is how u create a TCP server and do

net.createServer, it gives you a server and then you listen to the

connection event on that object. That connection event gives you a

call back with a socket which we call c here. And all you do is you

- on that callback, you do c.end, which send the argument to the

connection and cloases the connection.

net = require("net");

s=net.createServer();

net.on('connection', function(c){
c.end('hello');
});

s.listen(8000);

Seeking Wisdom on Dalal Street: 9 Money Lessons That You Can Learn

Once Charlie Munger, Vice-Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway famously said,"Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It's not something you do just to advance in life. As a corollary to that proposition which is very important, it means that you are hooked for lifetime learning. And without lifetime learning, you people are not going to do very well. You are not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You're going to advance in life by what you learn after you leave here." There are tons of wisdom in the world of investing too. Over the last several years, I have met many of the best market minds in the country. While conversing with them I have come across many pearls of wisdom shared by them.

1. Rome wasn't built in a day and so aren't great companies. It seems very logical however not many people follow the same in equity markets. To reap the benefits of good management, good economic moat one has to stay invested for long with the company. It reiterates the fact that buying a stock is essentially buying a business as opposed to buying pieces of paper.

2. You either get good equity prices or good news; you rarely get both of them together. This can simply be illustrated by what has been happening over the last few months in India with the formation of the new government. Last year, there was gloomy news however there were great companies available at cheap valuations. However, everyone was waiting for good news to pour in before investing in the equity markets - but when the good news started pouring in; the equity prices shot up and the same crowd became reluctant to buy the securities since they thought it was fairly valued. Warren Buffett has summarized this long time back - "Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful".

3. We pay money to education institutions to learn; likewise we have to pay our fees to the market in order to learn. We have often heard that our near and dear ones have lost money in the stock markets; hence we should stay clear of the financial markets. However, the wisdom says that it is fair enough to lose money in the stock market in one's early days - it should be treated as tuition fees for learning, nothing more!

4. An investor is like a bottle of wine; one gets better with time. It might sound cliche at first. However, we as human beings are always evolving and the same applies to investing as well. With experience, like in most fields, one becomes more confident to make decisions with relative ease. One should never try to leap frog the process of evolution as an investor. Over time, it pays off very handsomely.

5. Investing is like swimming; no matter how many books you read on the subject, you got to jump into the pool - likewise you got to invest with hard earned money. It is definitely good to read books on investing however at the same time it is important to start investing as opposed to creating a dummy portfolio. Practical experience is the greatest teacher, more so in financial markets. It is prudent to invest with hard earned money because of the rationale of mental accounting that goes behind it. Mental accounting teaches us that we treat money differently - inherited money as opposed to hard-earned money. Hence, we tend to invest inherited money frivolously. Therefore, it is wise to put in hard-earned money in the equity markets - we will be more careful about it.

6. Power of compounding consists of two things: conviction and patience. One needs to have conviction about a company in order to stay invested. Likewise, one should be patient in order to hold the security for long periods of time. If one has patience but no conviction then the investor will most likely sell the security at the slightest sign of trouble. Similarly, one might have conviction about the company but if one is not patient enough to hold it for long, he will not benefit from the magic of compounding. The two ingredients go hand-in-hand! Unfortunately, not many B-schools teach this.

7. It is always risky to catch a falling knife. To buy more of a stock just because the price has fallen compared to one's purchase can be a very risky proposition. There have been instances in the past where in a bear market; the price has fallen 50% and again 50% from there and thereafter 50% once again. Plethora of companies fit into this category.

8. It is the learning followed by the earnings, never the other way round. The youngsters taking admission in B-schools are overwhelmed with the so called "package" that they expect to earn once they graduate. There seems to be a flaw in the framework of thinking. Wisdom teaches us that we should focus on the learning part first. This is applicable not only to financial markets but in life too! We should strive to learn more about the companies before we invest in them and consequently reap the benefits.

9. There are no mistakes in life, only lessons learnt. We often hear in the financial markets, "I made a mistake of buying shares of ...". Contrary to that, we should ask ourselves what went wrong or what did not work out as anticipated. We can learn about the promoters or a CEO who did not make the right capital allocation etc. It is of utmost importance to recognize the error of judgement made as an investor and take care not to repeat them in the future!

We would all benefit tremendously from some of the wisdom listed above only if we care to understand them. Like any big project, implementation is the key!