Irrespective of who we are, or what we do, one thing is very important in our life for success: common sense. 

What is this common sense?  It is the single,focused ability to gather facts and ideas from every day experiences, from people who actually do work, from people who perform tasks and are experienced.

Aligned with this common sense, there is one thing which is equally vital for success: street-smartness.

What exactly is this street-smartness?  It refers to the ability to quickly understand the dynamics of any situation, and then act fast to satisfy any stake holder, who would be interested in doing any transaction with us, leading to commercial outcomes or meaningful relationships.

For example, for an employee who is the stakeholder, or the most important stake-holder?  Obviously, the boss is the most important stake holder, and the customer, who gets the product through the employee's efforts, would also be a stake-holder.  Yet, the boss is the most important stake-holder because the employee has to meet the boss day in and day out, and still get things done through the boss, or work alongside the boss, to get things done.

In reality, it is always seen that the employee has the most important and the most number of interactions with the boss who has absolute authority to make or break the person's career, irrespective of whether the employee likes it or not.

Hence, if the employee is shrewd enough to understand the situation, the moods of the boss, his strengths and weaknesses,and then play accordingly, he or she would be the most street-smart employee. 

There are some bosses, for example, who like to start talking about their loved ones, and when this is encouraged, would go on talking about his son's or daughter's achievements.  If any paper is then passed on for his or her signature, the boss would immediately respond.  Allowing the boss to do what he likes, and then getting things done, in this case, is a street-smart move.

There are bosses who do not like a single paper on the table.  They would be good decision makers. With these  kind of bosses, for example, it is wise to present all data pertinent to his opinion or decision, and then literally force him or clear of the paper.  So, it will be wise to prepare the paper with all the data and then put it right on the boss's table.  If this is done, the boss would be happy, and the employee would become or be street smart.

Playing according to the rules of the game, would really bring success, and any organization, more so, in the service sector, that acts in a street smart fashion, would really qualify to be street smart.  For instance, in a neighborhood where majority of the people are non-vegetarian, it is wise to have a non-vegetarian hotel, which is not very highly prized, but would offer a variety of dishes.

In the city of Chennai, for example, there are quite a few hotels, that serve the Chettinad type of food, in primarily residential localities.  This is more so, because the food is spicy, and the type of food is very much special, largely liked by non-vegetarians of all kinds, including the North Indians, who like it for its uniqueness.

On the other hand, a very famous hotel chain has put up a big chain of vegetarian restaurants in all business localities, where the business people assemble or the traders get to visit for some reason or the other.  Another very shrewd strategy is to attract the holiday crowd, particularly on the week-ends, when tens of hundreds of people like going for shopping in Chennai.  This street-smart chain is now South India's number one hotel chain,with no competition.

We need to always look for the big picture, the larger reality that surrounds the dynamics of any given situation, and then happily move on to greater success by effective use of any given opportunity.

When we look at another area of concern, say the MBA students who study in some college, affiliated to some State Government University, where the syllabus is not aligned to that of the Corporate expectations, where the student is left with absolutely no knowledge of the "real world", in a very detailed way, what will the street-smartness of any average MBA, of this kind?

Simple.  He or she has to enter into the real world, gather a huge amount of practical experience, knowledge and wisdom and move on.  Once he or she starts producing results, the background of the person, hardly matters.

Quality of experience, the nature of value-adding experience, the depth of competencies across an entire value chain, would obviously lead to success.  Students from the lesser known B schools of Coimbatore, for example, are very shrewd when it comes to understand the value of some job or the other.  They hold on to a Business Process Outsourcing job, gather the experience, jump to a customer service job in a three star hotel, then a five star hotel and so on.  Since the quality of experience matters so much, the students move on to senior positions within a short period of time.

This is exactly what I would call street smartness.  That is, do the maximum in any given situation.  Get the student to understand the larger picture, get him to understand that experience has its own value, and he or she will become street smart.

Similarly, many lorry drivers use their experience to understand what sells in one place, and also how to sell.  With their owner's permission, they buy small quantities of some item -- say the small onion -- that is available, only in South India, transport it to the North of India, and sell it, and happily make some small amounts of money.  Street smartness at its best.

It is high time that we all understand that our forefathers were also very street smart.  For example, how were they healthy, and lived for even ninety years, when today's generation, are simply out of control with anything and get heart attack, even when they are just forty five or even thirty five?

The answer is that they lived with nature, they never had fields that had urea and nitrogenous fertilizers.  They lived far better lives, since life was also less complicated.  Still, even today, when the urban life is becoming so busy, one can still strike a balance by having fiber-rich foods, green tea and so on, that help the body to gain what we call as resistance to diseases.

We need to develop street-smartness as a habit, for big success, in today's world, where only the fittest will survive.