There is this great human manthan going on all around all the time. And I don’t mean the feeling one gets when walking in the crowded corridors of CP in Delhi… nor do I necessarily mean the sort of pushes and pulls during election time in India. We know that business isn’t the only world where churning reigns as a process… nor are relationships, sensual or otherwise, depending on such tactics. We’re all pushing harder and pulling harder to churn richness.
I remember the time when as the captain of corporate communications I was constantly pushed harder to pull in clients harder as I watched the business churn dividends. The CEO then, in a discussion, said, ‘Push the limits of your catch lines and ad campaigns.’ I replied with equal gusto, ‘Yes sir, I’m pulling in all the words from the ether of creativity.’ Now, with all this pushing and pulling going on, we need to understand a few essentials because Lenin has famously said, ’Sometimes – history needs a push!’ And I know from personal experience that I need to pull up my trouser zipper up before I walk out of my home. All the men folk reading this will nod their head in agreement.
Two days back Specky, my wife, informed me with a twinkle in her eyes that the only result of excessive pulling in of my stomach muscles will be cramps and not the trim torso that I dream of. She added, ‘It’s time you pushed obesity out of your life. You need to walk daily.’ So I went to the Study, pulled out my smartphone, switched ON the RunKeeper, walked to her and said, ‘Well, that’s one task completed!’ All I got were looks that churned me into silence.
I sometimes feel I am besieged by these two simple and convenient words: push and pull. So I did what any intelligent person must do. I tried to google PUSH first and the prompts I got included push-ups, push-up bra, and push bullet. So I said, ‘Aha! Now I understand the enigma of a push.’ I concluded that that an intelligent push would need inner strength, outer charm, and a never-down communication ability. Now it doesn’t matter in what way anyone wants to apply this little nugget that google helped me decipher. I know corporate honchos don’t need an explanation because they never like to be taught… I mean, they’ve seen it all, man. So what if most of them strut around with sagging paunches and fudged figures disguised as mesmerizing charms! Most of them don’t ever go beyond that occasional sagacious Hmm or Mmm… because all the smooth talking is done by their fiddlers. But then, this is precisely why they need to read the sentence again and mull it over in the folds of their thought gadget and conclude for themselves… and then give a voice, not a signature, to their opinion. Let’s take another category now… the writer. It is the same with writers… they are again know-alls because they know that they know where they get all their ‘inspirations’ from. They know how they churn those inspirations into a yet shoddy avatar and they know how much they want to push all this verbose shoddiness into gullible readers. Let me just say to our dear writers that they do not necessarily have to pen a thriller based on cyber crime when what they can do better is write mushy M&Bs sort of lines. But if they are serious about writing thrillers, remember to push out all your mushy urges first. So whether you happen to be a potential movie star or a pilot, or you have that urge to be an engine driver or a belly dancer, just remember to push the right thing the right way.
Now the important thing is to understand that if you fall in this category (and we all know that you do), please push away the pretensions and get down to some serious SWOTting.
I had an almost similar experience when I tried to google PULL. I got bowled over by pull over and pull-up bar. Yes, ‘pull’ is all over me all the time. So from a traffic cop asking me to pull over for a challan there are pull-overs during winters… there are also the laggards and those who look for short-cuts all the time whether it is on the social media or in a real corporate in real life always whining to be pulled over.
‘Pull me over to the other side sir,’ one such whining soul wrote to me, ‘I need to be where I am noticed.’ I wrote back:
‘Build your bridge, my dear friend
And you’ll know what helps you trend.’
We really need to realise that what helps me trend cannot possibly be what will help you trend… not just as a person but also as a corporate, or maybe even an ad or a publicity blitz. For instance, blabbering on and on about honest funding does help one political party despite all the midnight hawala allegations on them by another… but this other political party cannot possibly pull over a similar response by jabbering about honest funding as defending 2000 crores vs a mere 2 crores would be quite a job!
Obviously then, to pull well we also need to consider the role of pull-up bars which evokes in me an image of bulging muscles and six pack abdomens. I remember when I was a Gentleman Cadet at the Indian Military Academy more than thirty years ago, my PT instructor always shouted: ‘Pull up karo saab, zindagi mein har cheez ke liye pull chahiye!’ (Pull up, my future weakling officers, we all need a pull to get the goodies that life offers!) I know my translation isn’t accurate but I think I have managed to convey the importance of a pull.
The truth is that this manthan or pushing and pulling is applicable as much to us as individuals as it is for the corporates… or the managers… or the political bosses… or even that clerk sitting in a dingy corner of a dark and damp office. Pushing and pulling news is done all the time by journalists… and I watch people like Arnab Goswami and Rajdeep Sardesai do it in their own style though I find people like Abhisar Sharma from ABP and Ravish Kumar of NDTV more palatable and saner to consume. TV ads and print ads define push and pull in their own inimitable way. Publicity can perform its trick even in a chullu bhar paani and so actually takes the cake in any pull-n-push debate.
What is vital is to know that managing whatever you are managing needs you to be a part of this great global manthan of pull and push and you need to begin by re-reading this article, commenting on it, and sharing it on your own social media platform.
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On the relevance of PUSH and PULL in the management of life and the life of management
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Arvind Passey
03 February 2015
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Article published in MarketingBuzzar:
marketingbuzzar_published_Feb 2015
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