According to this story, according to a survey only 37% of urban India was employed. The article states that this is of the 'employable' population which I assume is between the ages of 18-60.
If that is the case, then it is quite a long way we have to go.
For urban males the hotel, restaurant and travel sector hired 28% of the people, while for women the services sector hired the majority at 36%.
The problem with these figures are that they often fail to factor in the unorganized sector reliably. And clubbing a sector like services together fails to distinguish 'business services' from 'consumer services' like haircutting or tailoring or dress designing !
As Indians take to domestic travel a lot more and eat out more frequently, the hotel restaurant and travel industry will end up employing a lot more people.
Skills are linked intricately to earning capacity of people, so industry bodies will have to look at helping their employees gain skills that would result in value added revenues for member organizations.
As manufacturing becomes more world class and automated specially in the auto component industry for example, how will they hold on to their CAD CAM designers who are being poached by IT services firms?
Only skill upgradation at an individal level will lead to products and services that customers will pay a premium for, that would raise the per capita income of the country.
Sep 30, 2006
Sep 29, 2006
McKinsey most preferred in Indian B Schools
Seems like the McKinsey mystique refuses to fade away. According to the ACNielsen Campustrack survey, the firm ranks number one in the most desired firm on Indian B School campuses. Google's sheen seems to be rubbing off, dropping to number 7 and Microsoft also has the going tough on Indian B Schools.
Even on the technology campuses, consulting firms are giving the likes of Google and Microsoft a tough time (as I had noted earlier too).
Back to the news about the Campus track survey, according to Himanshu's blog:
Even on the technology campuses, consulting firms are giving the likes of Google and Microsoft a tough time (as I had noted earlier too).
Back to the news about the Campus track survey, according to Himanshu's blog:
In fact, consultancy firms dominate the list - barring Lehman Brothers and TCS, three out of top five are consultancy firms. Tata Group’s TAS has for the first time figured in the top five list, a sharp jump from No 24 rank which it occupied last year.
Campustrack Survey ’06 is an annual survey conducted by AC Nielsen among 1,200 students across top 20 business schools of India.
It has been a big come down for the IT majors Microsoft, TCS, Oracle - who have fallen off the top ten list this year. Microsoft was the most preferred employer on the B-school campus last year. Even Google, which was the second most preferred recruiter last year has dropped to No 7. Banks seemed to have bounced back in thse top 10 list with Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Citigroup figuring in the top 10.
Sep 28, 2006
Competencies or Strengths
Ever since I took Gallup's Clifton strength finder survey and got a list of my strengths (the top 5 being ideation, maximizer, input, futuristic and connectedness, if you do know about it) the difference between the Gallup philosophy and dominant HR thinking has been bothering me.
Simply put, Gallup believes that focussing on our individual strengths will help us develop better.
However, the conventional HR thinking about competencies puts the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes required for a job and tries to assess a person against it. With the result that the focus shifts to "What's missing?".
No wonder that competency development is often such a de-energising reality when actually it should be full of positive growth. It often reminds people of what they are "weak" in (even if it is euphemistically called "Development Areas") rather than what they are good at !
Why should it be so?
Then it struck me sometime today. For organizations, it's the task that's important and hence the "role" takes prominence over the "people". It's the old dichotomy of the Blake and Mouton managerial grid all over again!
Only recently have organizations actually started placing people in the centre of tasks and started to craft special roles for special people, like "Specialist career ladders". That has to be developed much more than what is currently followed.
That's probably the reason why in an unstructured work environment, when one is free to choose one's role (like in a start-up) people follow their instinctive talents and do whatever they can do best, and are engaged much better. As time passes, however, the roles get formalized, and competencies are defined and numbers increase and the mission is not real for a lot of people. That leads to lack of employee engagement.
Simply put, Gallup believes that focussing on our individual strengths will help us develop better.
However, the conventional HR thinking about competencies puts the Knowledge, Skills and Attitudes required for a job and tries to assess a person against it. With the result that the focus shifts to "What's missing?".
No wonder that competency development is often such a de-energising reality when actually it should be full of positive growth. It often reminds people of what they are "weak" in (even if it is euphemistically called "Development Areas") rather than what they are good at !
Why should it be so?
Then it struck me sometime today. For organizations, it's the task that's important and hence the "role" takes prominence over the "people". It's the old dichotomy of the Blake and Mouton managerial grid all over again!
Only recently have organizations actually started placing people in the centre of tasks and started to craft special roles for special people, like "Specialist career ladders". That has to be developed much more than what is currently followed.
That's probably the reason why in an unstructured work environment, when one is free to choose one's role (like in a start-up) people follow their instinctive talents and do whatever they can do best, and are engaged much better. As time passes, however, the roles get formalized, and competencies are defined and numbers increase and the mission is not real for a lot of people. That leads to lack of employee engagement.
Sep 27, 2006
presenting The Imagence Partners
When I decided on turning freelance, I asked you for a name of my firm. I got tonnes of suggestions, and while I liked quite a few of them, I finally decided on a name today.
Before that there were some names we considered, like Zeitgiest (German for "Spirit of the Times"), but folks told us it would be too difficult for people to remember. We also considered Aspen, the name of a tree that senses the slightest breeze, but there already exists an Aspen Institute.
We also wanted a name that captures our philosophy behind the OD, HR and Blog consulting work we aspire to do: and that is that it is not possible for us as external consultants to have the answers that the clients may no know, but that as external people, we have less of their blind spots and can see more possibilities. If these are identified then they would evolve and develop into strengths for the future.
Thus emerged (an appropriate word) the words - Image/Imagine and Emergence - that coalesce to form Imagence.
Partners - because that's what we are, of each other, and that's what we aspire to be for our clients :-)
Here's the first draft of the (temp) website of The Imagence Partners. Hopefully it will emerge (!) better as the days go by. Your thoughts are welcome.
Before that there were some names we considered, like Zeitgiest (German for "Spirit of the Times"), but folks told us it would be too difficult for people to remember. We also considered Aspen, the name of a tree that senses the slightest breeze, but there already exists an Aspen Institute.
We also wanted a name that captures our philosophy behind the OD, HR and Blog consulting work we aspire to do: and that is that it is not possible for us as external consultants to have the answers that the clients may no know, but that as external people, we have less of their blind spots and can see more possibilities. If these are identified then they would evolve and develop into strengths for the future.
Thus emerged (an appropriate word) the words - Image/Imagine and Emergence - that coalesce to form Imagence.
Partners - because that's what we are, of each other, and that's what we aspire to be for our clients :-)
Here's the first draft of the (temp) website of The Imagence Partners. Hopefully it will emerge (!) better as the days go by. Your thoughts are welcome.
Sep 26, 2006
Thoughts on Leadership Development
Business Leadership can be developed along three axes:
1. Business
2. Functional
3. Technical
It would depend what kind of career ladders are available for future leaders. If there is only one way to grow, then leadership development would need to incorporate the following skills:
a. Business management skills (Incorporates Marketing, Finance skills)
b. Strategic and systems thinking
c. People management skills
Most of these skills are difficult to be taught by classroom method to working executives so need to be imparted by an experiential method.
However if people are allowed to develop expertise in only one of the axes and still rise up the career ladder then the learning opportunities should be driven by them. What is more refreshing about this system is that it builds a larger ownership. However, people might be very reluctant to try and opt for a specialised career track since it limits growth when moving organizations.
1. Business
2. Functional
3. Technical
It would depend what kind of career ladders are available for future leaders. If there is only one way to grow, then leadership development would need to incorporate the following skills:
a. Business management skills (Incorporates Marketing, Finance skills)
b. Strategic and systems thinking
c. People management skills
Most of these skills are difficult to be taught by classroom method to working executives so need to be imparted by an experiential method.
However if people are allowed to develop expertise in only one of the axes and still rise up the career ladder then the learning opportunities should be driven by them. What is more refreshing about this system is that it builds a larger ownership. However, people might be very reluctant to try and opt for a specialised career track since it limits growth when moving organizations.
Yale overhauls its MBA curriculum
Seems like Yale is overhauling its MBA curriculum (Hat tip: Business Innovation Insider).
The challenge for B-Schools has always been teaching functional areas and hope that the students are smart enough to synhesise it together. You see, a brand manager needs to worry about her budgets also, and think about the motivaion of her team members, and also look at how to inerface with the Sales group to implement her branding strategies and finally to calculate the ROI of those strategies.
Unfortunately, when Branding is taught in a B School, it is taught devoid of these other facts, and so a fairly smart MBA when in a branding job gets totally flummoxed.
It must have been Mintzberg's book and his criticism of the traditional MBA curriculum that is making Yale blend in a lot of 'context' into it's course.
Related previous posts:
B-School Rants
management literacy
Management - A profession or a discipline?
A relook at MBA in HR
The challenge for B-Schools has always been teaching functional areas and hope that the students are smart enough to synhesise it together. You see, a brand manager needs to worry about her budgets also, and think about the motivaion of her team members, and also look at how to inerface with the Sales group to implement her branding strategies and finally to calculate the ROI of those strategies.
Unfortunately, when Branding is taught in a B School, it is taught devoid of these other facts, and so a fairly smart MBA when in a branding job gets totally flummoxed.
It must have been Mintzberg's book and his criticism of the traditional MBA curriculum that is making Yale blend in a lot of 'context' into it's course.
Related previous posts:
B-School Rants
management literacy
Management - A profession or a discipline?
A relook at MBA in HR
Sep 25, 2006
The benefits of blogging
Blogging makes you noticeable to search engines much better.
I noticed a Google search for organizational consultants show this blog in the first ten results.
Whew !
For more dope click here for an article by Priya Shah.
Even a profile on jobster might boost your ranking on Google. I guess the secret is about having a fresh page and updated content regularly, lots of in-bound links and RSS feeds. It also helps if you have an uncommon name !
I noticed a Google search for organizational consultants show this blog in the first ten results.
Whew !
For more dope click here for an article by Priya Shah.
Even a profile on jobster might boost your ranking on Google. I guess the secret is about having a fresh page and updated content regularly, lots of in-bound links and RSS feeds. It also helps if you have an uncommon name !
Sep 24, 2006
HR more suitable for women?
I got this email recently:
Sorry to bust the myth, ladies and gentlemen. Gender and predisposition to HR jobs are not related.
Whether you are male or female, HR jobs are are about adding value to the organization.
If the answers to all this is "yes" then you'll make a good HR professional.
It don't matter if you're male or female!
I think the flawed thinking about HR being more suited for ladies is the feeling about men that HR is all about administrivia and "taking care" of employees. Check Jeff's post here on Administrative Helper Therapy Victims
My concern is i wanna do mba in HR but i m been discouraged by all the person around me. i hv been told tht this feild is dominated by fairer sex n the job itself suits more to them.
Sorry to bust the myth, ladies and gentlemen. Gender and predisposition to HR jobs are not related.
Whether you are male or female, HR jobs are are about adding value to the organization.
- Can you get the best people to work for your organization?
- Can you motivate and reward them better than your competitors?
- Can you develop people so that they grow and take more responsibilities faster?
- Can you counsel and coach employees?
- Can you work with business so that they understand how having the best people is better for them?
- Can you design and implement policies and practices that tie up all these together?
If the answers to all this is "yes" then you'll make a good HR professional.
It don't matter if you're male or female!
I think the flawed thinking about HR being more suited for ladies is the feeling about men that HR is all about administrivia and "taking care" of employees. Check Jeff's post here on Administrative Helper Therapy Victims
More jobs coming into India
Interesting news.
What needs to be done urgently is a private-public partnership to make educating India's billions so that they can take advantage of this growth. It's not going to be simple and easy, however. Rapid growth always puts huge strain on the weak links - and India's weak links happen to be a smaller pool of employable talent, and infrastructure.
Aviva announces India jobs move
IBM Adds 3,000 More Software, Services Jobs In India
Resolution To Switch Hundreds Of Jobs To India
Freescale's new India center to focus on software R&D
Australia's Westpac bank considering moving jobs offshore to India
Boeing set to fly more jobs to India
Smaller IT cos moving jobs to India
Indian students studying abroad head back home
What needs to be done urgently is a private-public partnership to make educating India's billions so that they can take advantage of this growth. It's not going to be simple and easy, however. Rapid growth always puts huge strain on the weak links - and India's weak links happen to be a smaller pool of employable talent, and infrastructure.
Aviva announces India jobs move
IBM Adds 3,000 More Software, Services Jobs In India
Resolution To Switch Hundreds Of Jobs To India
Freescale's new India center to focus on software R&D
Australia's Westpac bank considering moving jobs offshore to India
Boeing set to fly more jobs to India
Smaller IT cos moving jobs to India
Indian students studying abroad head back home
Sep 23, 2006
Experts or not
Rob has some thoughts (and seems mad at people who think experts are useless)
Dave Pollard writes about when crowds are better used than management or experts.
The truth is (as usual) that the truth lies in between. Pollard shows the ways in which we don't need experts. And yet, Rob is correct too...for some things we do need experts. Thank heavens for that ! Otherwise I won't be able to find any work ;-) !
Dave Pollard writes about when crowds are better used than management or experts.
The truth is (as usual) that the truth lies in between. Pollard shows the ways in which we don't need experts. And yet, Rob is correct too...for some things we do need experts. Thank heavens for that ! Otherwise I won't be able to find any work ;-) !
Sep 22, 2006
Want to work in Core HR?
It must be some new jargon that has caught on.
Over the last few months, have been hearing it quite regularly. People come up and ask (or email) "I am stuck in a admin/recruiting job, I have done an MBA. So how do I get into "Core HR"?"
The first time I heard that, my reply was "What utter rubbish!" (and I was tempted to say it with the full Yorkshire accent ;-). As far as I am concerned there are HR jobs, and there are jobs that fall within the cusp of HR and other functions (like HRMS groups, or Internal Communications), but there are no "core jobs" in HR or any "peripheral jobs".
Then I actually thought what these people were saying about their jobs.
Most of them had an MBA with a specialization in HR, and when they joined an organization, they expected to start doing a HR manager's job almost immediately. When they were however given a target of X headcount to hire with Y and Z skills, with experience of 5-6 years in organizations like L,M and N, they fugured that this wasn't what they thought was HR.
Or when they sit in front of a computer screen and enter data into the HRMS system, they can be forgiven to believe that they don't have a HR job. Or when they compile and report training metrics or attend a pointless meeting with the cafeteria chaps.
The fault lies between the industry and the academia. A true image of the role is never built up when a student in the MBA program specializes with the choice of electives. A single summer internship is not a window ino how various organizations function.
The definition of what is core and non-core is a dynamic one.
Payroll no longer is considered part of HR.
Operationalizing recruiting is done mostly by third party vendors. Same holds true for training specially for skills that are not context-dependent on the organization.
What outside vendors cannot do, is being done by the Shared Services model and technology. In an IT company, employees can call up a helpdesk number for any employment related query that gets answered by the HR call centre located at Kuala Lumpur. This work could as well be done by third party BPO providers.
Forget the low-end, even high end work tends to get outsourced, like change management often is designed by an external consultant who works directly with the CEO or business leader.
Core HR is a mirage, my advice would be to not chase it!
Over the last few months, have been hearing it quite regularly. People come up and ask (or email) "I am stuck in a admin/recruiting job, I have done an MBA. So how do I get into "Core HR"?"
The first time I heard that, my reply was "What utter rubbish!" (and I was tempted to say it with the full Yorkshire accent ;-). As far as I am concerned there are HR jobs, and there are jobs that fall within the cusp of HR and other functions (like HRMS groups, or Internal Communications), but there are no "core jobs" in HR or any "peripheral jobs".
Then I actually thought what these people were saying about their jobs.
Most of them had an MBA with a specialization in HR, and when they joined an organization, they expected to start doing a HR manager's job almost immediately. When they were however given a target of X headcount to hire with Y and Z skills, with experience of 5-6 years in organizations like L,M and N, they fugured that this wasn't what they thought was HR.
Or when they sit in front of a computer screen and enter data into the HRMS system, they can be forgiven to believe that they don't have a HR job. Or when they compile and report training metrics or attend a pointless meeting with the cafeteria chaps.
The fault lies between the industry and the academia. A true image of the role is never built up when a student in the MBA program specializes with the choice of electives. A single summer internship is not a window ino how various organizations function.
The definition of what is core and non-core is a dynamic one.
Payroll no longer is considered part of HR.
Operationalizing recruiting is done mostly by third party vendors. Same holds true for training specially for skills that are not context-dependent on the organization.
What outside vendors cannot do, is being done by the Shared Services model and technology. In an IT company, employees can call up a helpdesk number for any employment related query that gets answered by the HR call centre located at Kuala Lumpur. This work could as well be done by third party BPO providers.
Forget the low-end, even high end work tends to get outsourced, like change management often is designed by an external consultant who works directly with the CEO or business leader.
Core HR is a mirage, my advice would be to not chase it!
Sep 20, 2006
The new new internet and Indians
This post by the Cheif Jobster shows that like the dot com era people of Indian origin are active in the Web 2.0 world as well !
aneesh chopra from the state of virginia called on web 2.0 companies to help bring high tech workers back to virginia. he's put up a site to help make this happen, but wants folks like us to web 2.0 it.rajen sheth from google said, "keep it simple, stupid." make it as easy as possible for users to embrace new technologies.
The dilemma of blog Consulting fees
Today I had my first meeting with a client who wants me to be a blogging consultant for his small service firm.
I've agreed and have taken some time to get back to him with a pricing model for my services.
That's the biggest challenge I am facing these days. How do you bill for a service that is so different, and which is a hobby for most people (me included) ? In fact Hugh nails it in this cartoon.
Current thoughts are to bill a certain amout for time spent over the next six months and to ask for a share of additional business they will get as a a result of the blog being there.
Anyone has a better idea?
I've agreed and have taken some time to get back to him with a pricing model for my services.
That's the biggest challenge I am facing these days. How do you bill for a service that is so different, and which is a hobby for most people (me included) ? In fact Hugh nails it in this cartoon.
Current thoughts are to bill a certain amout for time spent over the next six months and to ask for a share of additional business they will get as a a result of the blog being there.
Anyone has a better idea?
Execution by Ram Charan and Larry Bossidy
Overall thought: If you have only enough money saved to buy only one book on business, whether you are a CEO or middle manager or even a management trainee selling soap, then buy this book.
It's one of the best business books that I have read in a long long time !
The book is targeted mainly at CEOs and divisional business leaders of large organizations that are global in nature, yet has enough learnings for everyone connected to organizations, so there are a lot of "a-ha!" moments.
The central premise of the book is that it is the CEOs job to make things happen in an organization and that only vision is useless without execution. Bossidy and Charan take you through what are the reasons why companies cannot execute and what they need to do.
Answer: The CEO has to link up the three functional areas and plans of strategy, people and operations.
The book also talks about the cultural aspects of a business that will help the above to happen. As the authors call it "robust dialogue" must take place without fear for the truth to emerge in each of these areas.
They also talk of the attibutes of a leader, and link "emotional fortitude" on the part of the leader to actually confront reality and take decisions that might be unpopular or heartbreaking.
So if you aspire to rise up the corporate ladder, go get yourself a copy of "Execution"
The TOC is available on this blog post
It's one of the best business books that I have read in a long long time !
The book is targeted mainly at CEOs and divisional business leaders of large organizations that are global in nature, yet has enough learnings for everyone connected to organizations, so there are a lot of "a-ha!" moments.
The central premise of the book is that it is the CEOs job to make things happen in an organization and that only vision is useless without execution. Bossidy and Charan take you through what are the reasons why companies cannot execute and what they need to do.
Answer: The CEO has to link up the three functional areas and plans of strategy, people and operations.
The book also talks about the cultural aspects of a business that will help the above to happen. As the authors call it "robust dialogue" must take place without fear for the truth to emerge in each of these areas.
They also talk of the attibutes of a leader, and link "emotional fortitude" on the part of the leader to actually confront reality and take decisions that might be unpopular or heartbreaking.
So if you aspire to rise up the corporate ladder, go get yourself a copy of "Execution"
The TOC is available on this blog post
Sep 19, 2006
My first gig as a freelancer
It came sooner than I expected. I was wishing I got some time to put my feet up after 12 years of combined work and studies, but it hadn't been even 2 weeks after my last working date at Deloitte, that Satyam called me if I could repeat the presentation I did in April (here and here)
This time the venue was different (the Satyam office in HiTec city, Madhapur) and I would be addressing some 30 people virtually who had logged in using a virtual class room software from Satyam offices in Chennai, Bangalore, Chennai and Bhubaneshwar.
The first thing about addressing a mixed audience of some people face to face and online is that is pretty unnerving. Now, I am a presenter who likes to be as unstructured as possible, but a distributed audience made it necessary for me to stick to the presentation as much as possible.
There were a couple of interesting questions on legal issues and copyright of ideas expressed on blogs (my response: Stick to the creative commons approach). There were also questions whether there was any Satyam blogging policy (Ans: there is. However, even if any organization does not have a specific blogging policy for employees, the policy on email communication and digital information sharing would hold common for blogging too)
Krishna Koneru (who is a colleague I had worked with when I was employed in Satyam 5 years ago) asked if VoIP could be integrated into blogs. I guess it should not be difficult for enterprise level systems to build that in. Even Google should be able to integrate Gtalk voice mail systems into blogger.com if the blogger so desires in the future, IMHO!
This time the venue was different (the Satyam office in HiTec city, Madhapur) and I would be addressing some 30 people virtually who had logged in using a virtual class room software from Satyam offices in Chennai, Bangalore, Chennai and Bhubaneshwar.
The first thing about addressing a mixed audience of some people face to face and online is that is pretty unnerving. Now, I am a presenter who likes to be as unstructured as possible, but a distributed audience made it necessary for me to stick to the presentation as much as possible.
There were a couple of interesting questions on legal issues and copyright of ideas expressed on blogs (my response: Stick to the creative commons approach). There were also questions whether there was any Satyam blogging policy (Ans: there is. However, even if any organization does not have a specific blogging policy for employees, the policy on email communication and digital information sharing would hold common for blogging too)
Krishna Koneru (who is a colleague I had worked with when I was employed in Satyam 5 years ago) asked if VoIP could be integrated into blogs. I guess it should not be difficult for enterprise level systems to build that in. Even Google should be able to integrate Gtalk voice mail systems into blogger.com if the blogger so desires in the future, IMHO!
Yahoo's brickhouse
Apparently Yahoo is following the Google model in letting employees spend 20% of their time in spending time in a project of their choosing. (hattip: Max)
Max concludes that creativity can be a powerful incentive for retaining talent.
Well, that might be true for certain kinds of firms like Yahoo and Google, (as it is true for 3M) but may not be true for all kinds of organizations.
In a very execution oriented organization where the competitive nature of the business is imperative to strategy, operations and people processes tying up tightly letting people off for 2 days in a week to do their own thing will not make sense.
Max concludes that creativity can be a powerful incentive for retaining talent.
Well, that might be true for certain kinds of firms like Yahoo and Google, (as it is true for 3M) but may not be true for all kinds of organizations.
In a very execution oriented organization where the competitive nature of the business is imperative to strategy, operations and people processes tying up tightly letting people off for 2 days in a week to do their own thing will not make sense.
Sep 18, 2006
Business networking sites
I wrote the following text for a friend who asked what the various business networking sites are and what is special to each one of them. I thought I would share it with you too.
1. Linkedin.com - Primarily business focused. Connects you to ex-colleagues and classmates. Your page is primarily a version of your CV along with endorsements of your colleagues and people you have worked with, like vendors, partners and consultants. With a paid membership you can reach out to most people on linkedin. You can see my profile there too.
2. Jobster.com - A job seeker networking site along with vertical job search features, that enables you to find out about organizations and vacancies there. Only a US focused site till now.
3. Orkut.com - Is owned by google and is primarily a social networking site that focuses on making 'friends' and communities. Lots of Portuguese and Indian presence there. You have to be invited by someone within Orkut to get in there. Lots of communities thatfocus on functional areas, colleges and organizations.
4. Ryze.com - Focused on business neworking with some social neworking features like a guestbook on your page and the ability to upload a single photo. My page is here
5. OpenBC - Business networking site, focused on Europe, good UI and you can set automated search agents that email you on a weekly basis with results.
6. Ecademy - Focussed on UK and has facilities for blogs, newsletters and lots of communication.
1. Linkedin.com - Primarily business focused. Connects you to ex-colleagues and classmates. Your page is primarily a version of your CV along with endorsements of your colleagues and people you have worked with, like vendors, partners and consultants. With a paid membership you can reach out to most people on linkedin. You can see my profile there too.
2. Jobster.com - A job seeker networking site along with vertical job search features, that enables you to find out about organizations and vacancies there. Only a US focused site till now.
3. Orkut.com - Is owned by google and is primarily a social networking site that focuses on making 'friends' and communities. Lots of Portuguese and Indian presence there. You have to be invited by someone within Orkut to get in there. Lots of communities thatfocus on functional areas, colleges and organizations.
4. Ryze.com - Focused on business neworking with some social neworking features like a guestbook on your page and the ability to upload a single photo. My page is here
5. OpenBC - Business networking site, focused on Europe, good UI and you can set automated search agents that email you on a weekly basis with results.
6. Ecademy - Focussed on UK and has facilities for blogs, newsletters and lots of communication.
Infosys blog on Managing Offshoring
An anonymous blogger tipped me off on Infosys' second blog "Managing Offshore IT".
It's written by a Mohan Babu who's written a book on Offshore IT.
He's actually linked to a business competitor who also blogs, S Sadagopan's post on Sandhill.com.
Notch one up for blogging and Indian IT camaraderie between Infosys and Satyam bloggers.
The question I am left with is, why has Infosys started these blogs? They don't seem to be adding any conversation so far. Mohan's blog hasn't got a single comment so far. The content seems to be focussed at Infosys' clients and their language. Do they think this blog will show their thought leadership in this area and sway their clients from going back to Accenture and IBM now that theyhave Indian delivery centres too?
There are some conversations for which blogs are suited and some for which they are not. Infy needs to get that right, in my opinion.
update: More commentary on Infosys blogs here
It's written by a Mohan Babu who's written a book on Offshore IT.
He's actually linked to a business competitor who also blogs, S Sadagopan's post on Sandhill.com.
Notch one up for blogging and Indian IT camaraderie between Infosys and Satyam bloggers.
The question I am left with is, why has Infosys started these blogs? They don't seem to be adding any conversation so far. Mohan's blog hasn't got a single comment so far. The content seems to be focussed at Infosys' clients and their language. Do they think this blog will show their thought leadership in this area and sway their clients from going back to Accenture and IBM now that theyhave Indian delivery centres too?
There are some conversations for which blogs are suited and some for which they are not. Infy needs to get that right, in my opinion.
update: More commentary on Infosys blogs here
Sep 16, 2006
I got myself a laptop an Acer TravelMate 2424
While I've worked in HP and Dell, and have used a ThinkPad in another job, price was the most important criteria in my current avatar.
So I went for a good brand which is considerably cheaper. An Acer TravelMate 2424, it comes with 40 GB hard disk, 256 MB RAM, Celeron M, DVD/CD-RW combo, 14.1 inch wide screen and wireless LAN.
So I went for a good brand which is considerably cheaper. An Acer TravelMate 2424, it comes with 40 GB hard disk, 256 MB RAM, Celeron M, DVD/CD-RW combo, 14.1 inch wide screen and wireless LAN.
Recruiting.com gets a facelift
Some really cool stuff is happening at the Recruiting.com site. It's becoming more community drien, more Digg like, and now anyone can contribute an article !
You know that an organization is a leader when it creates blue oceans, and pushes the envelop of innovation. Recruiting.com is surely an innovator. Jay Dee and Jay Go, congrats !
Go check it out, if you are interested to know what's happening in the Talentosphere !
You know that an organization is a leader when it creates blue oceans, and pushes the envelop of innovation. Recruiting.com is surely an innovator. Jay Dee and Jay Go, congrats !
Go check it out, if you are interested to know what's happening in the Talentosphere !
ERA convention - some reflections
Yesterday I attended the ERA convention on the Emerging Economies and implications for recruiters and employers. The countries covered were Brazil, Russia, China and Eastern Europe.
The keynote speaker was Prashant Srivastava of Gallup India who gave a macro perspective on how the major economic movements have been happening over the last three decades and what are the opportunities and actions for India. One interesting area that stuck in my head is the scope for temping firms to enter into the housekeeping and related areas. The only question was is there scope for large players to consolidate a fragmented area of work which is now only the unorganized sector. He also dwelled on the needs to improve infrastructure and education and the opportunities for NIIT and APTECH like institutions to fill the gap between universities and academia in other industries too.
An interesting related presentation was by the Institute of e-Governance, government of AP where the IT secretary of the Andhra Pradesh , Dr. Subba Rao recounted what they have done to take the lesser universities from the rural areas and train girl students from the rural areas. The focus is on hands-on IT projects, metoring by industry people and the results are that this year they have made around 3000 people employed by IT services giants. With the focus of lots of numbers looks like the 22,000 remaining students would also get lapped up !
TCS's exec-VP, global HR Mr. Padmanabhan spoke of the struggles and changes they have gone through to be able to have 8% non-Indian workforce. The biggest change he said was the mental one to have non-Indian peers working with Indian project leaders and managers. An interesting observation he made was that "indians can wrk with foreigners as bosses and clients, but to hav them as team members is another thing". Another challenge he spoke from the HR aspect was to customise HR policies and communications for each nation.
The sessions on Brazil focussed on the IT sector and the interesting point was that Brazil has more retained than contingency seaches so the focus for smaller organizations is to hire using free websites and industry newsletters.
Russia focussed on the pharma industry and the point that was stressed was the high difficulty in doing business there because of law and order issues, the complex accounting processes and the language issues.
China was represented by Mr. Lee Lieu , Head of Talent for Motorola Asia Pacific. Lee presented his 10 commandments to doing business in China, which began with
1. Everything is possible in China
2. Nothing is easy ...
The keynote speaker was Prashant Srivastava of Gallup India who gave a macro perspective on how the major economic movements have been happening over the last three decades and what are the opportunities and actions for India. One interesting area that stuck in my head is the scope for temping firms to enter into the housekeeping and related areas. The only question was is there scope for large players to consolidate a fragmented area of work which is now only the unorganized sector. He also dwelled on the needs to improve infrastructure and education and the opportunities for NIIT and APTECH like institutions to fill the gap between universities and academia in other industries too.
An interesting related presentation was by the Institute of e-Governance, government of AP where the IT secretary of the Andhra Pradesh , Dr. Subba Rao recounted what they have done to take the lesser universities from the rural areas and train girl students from the rural areas. The focus is on hands-on IT projects, metoring by industry people and the results are that this year they have made around 3000 people employed by IT services giants. With the focus of lots of numbers looks like the 22,000 remaining students would also get lapped up !
TCS's exec-VP, global HR Mr. Padmanabhan spoke of the struggles and changes they have gone through to be able to have 8% non-Indian workforce. The biggest change he said was the mental one to have non-Indian peers working with Indian project leaders and managers. An interesting observation he made was that "indians can wrk with foreigners as bosses and clients, but to hav them as team members is another thing". Another challenge he spoke from the HR aspect was to customise HR policies and communications for each nation.
The sessions on Brazil focussed on the IT sector and the interesting point was that Brazil has more retained than contingency seaches so the focus for smaller organizations is to hire using free websites and industry newsletters.
Russia focussed on the pharma industry and the point that was stressed was the high difficulty in doing business there because of law and order issues, the complex accounting processes and the language issues.
China was represented by Mr. Lee Lieu , Head of Talent for Motorola Asia Pacific. Lee presented his 10 commandments to doing business in China, which began with
1. Everything is possible in China
2. Nothing is easy ...
Blogs as tools to target prospective employees
Have been quoted in the Economic Times on how Indian companies plan to use corporate blogs to hire talent.
Apart from two of my prospective clients JWT and Motorola India also seem to be on a similar path !
Hmm, interesting times ahead.
Update: from the Cheezhead:
Apart from two of my prospective clients JWT and Motorola India also seem to be on a similar path !
Hmm, interesting times ahead.
Update: from the Cheezhead:
A new study by Forrester Research, via Charlene Li may help support the adoption of blogs as a recruiting tool for employers.
One key data point that stood out for me: 24% of Gen Yers read blogs, which is twice as often as the 12% of Gen Xers (ages 27-40) and three times the 7% of Young Boomers (ages 41-50) that read blogs. So skeptics of blogs should suspend their disbelief and look to at least one bellweather demographic to get an idea of how widespread blog readership can potentially grow in the future.
Sure the figures are for the US, but even if the Indian figures are 1% of those numbers, look at India's age spread and corresponding numbers. Once Indic-language blogging takes off we'll be entering another wave of complexity and huge opportunity !
Search for jobs and careers at JobCentral.
Sep 14, 2006
ERA convention at Hyderabad
Will be at the ERA convention at Hyderabad tomorrow. If you are there, just holler !
Sep 12, 2006
The corporate blogosphere
Sep 11, 2006
China's need for innovation
Even the manufacturer for the world needs some innovation dose to sort out it's problems !
Article from the Hindu : Innovation the key, says China (more on its efforts)
I believe that the Chinese have innovation in their genes, and while we haven't seen much evidence over the last century, Lenovo (earlier Legend Computers) is driving the next generation Chinese innovation story. So from the country that invented fireworks, paper, tea and noodles, what more can we expect ?
If China can innovate a solution for their environmental problems they would have a killer app (no pun intended!) for the rest of the world too !
Article from the Hindu : Innovation the key, says China (more on its efforts)
I believe that the Chinese have innovation in their genes, and while we haven't seen much evidence over the last century, Lenovo (earlier Legend Computers) is driving the next generation Chinese innovation story. So from the country that invented fireworks, paper, tea and noodles, what more can we expect ?
If China can innovate a solution for their environmental problems they would have a killer app (no pun intended!) for the rest of the world too !
Sep 10, 2006
The pipeline so far
Many people have been asking what's up with our new consulting firm so I thought I'd blog what's happening. Specially some good friends have been blogging aloud about it ;-)
Actually this is my first weekend after going independent. My last day at Deloitte was on 7th September.
No, we still haven't finalised on a name for the firm. A few suggestions we recieved from the community were really good, so we are in the process of selecting a name.
Next week I start off business development in earnest.
Two blogging related gigs are in the offing, one with a FMCG company (who want to use blogging as a tool for promoting and nurturing the talent pool - you could call it Employer Brand Management !) in New Delhi and another Recruitment Consultancy in Hyderabad.
A dot com in Delhi also had expressed a desire to understand how Web 2.0 and user generated content could help them (Rashmi has a great post on the perils of user generated content, specially in India!).
An IT services company in India is looking for help in employer branding management and internal communication issues (yes, they have blogging in mind as one of the tools)
An IT product company and another Consulting company have also expressed desire in utilizing our expertise in diagnosis, development and design of learning intervention. These are in the areas of behavioral training.
There have been a few enquiries for us from a HR consulting firm and from a HRO firm to be functional experts for some large engagements that might come up. None of these have progressed from the initial contact they made, so we really don't know if something will come out of them.
One of the large IT companies in the ERP space also approached us for some KM consulting, but again no follow up after the initial first phone conversation.
We were even approached by a VC for some funding. Our response was that what we envisage a fairly low investment business and currently we have the wherewithal to set up without heavy monetary investments. However, when we do scale up, we'll be very happy to connect with them :-) [by the way, Rob has an awesome post on understanding what VCs and Angel Investors look for in entrepreneurs]
So that's the update as of now folks. In addition, there are quite a few 1-4 hour talks on social networking/web 2.0/blogging that organizations of various kinds want to hold for awareness of the middle management layer.
Quite a lot to keep us busy for the next few months.
Actually this is my first weekend after going independent. My last day at Deloitte was on 7th September.
No, we still haven't finalised on a name for the firm. A few suggestions we recieved from the community were really good, so we are in the process of selecting a name.
Next week I start off business development in earnest.
Two blogging related gigs are in the offing, one with a FMCG company (who want to use blogging as a tool for promoting and nurturing the talent pool - you could call it Employer Brand Management !) in New Delhi and another Recruitment Consultancy in Hyderabad.
A dot com in Delhi also had expressed a desire to understand how Web 2.0 and user generated content could help them (Rashmi has a great post on the perils of user generated content, specially in India!).
An IT services company in India is looking for help in employer branding management and internal communication issues (yes, they have blogging in mind as one of the tools)
An IT product company and another Consulting company have also expressed desire in utilizing our expertise in diagnosis, development and design of learning intervention. These are in the areas of behavioral training.
There have been a few enquiries for us from a HR consulting firm and from a HRO firm to be functional experts for some large engagements that might come up. None of these have progressed from the initial contact they made, so we really don't know if something will come out of them.
One of the large IT companies in the ERP space also approached us for some KM consulting, but again no follow up after the initial first phone conversation.
We were even approached by a VC for some funding. Our response was that what we envisage a fairly low investment business and currently we have the wherewithal to set up without heavy monetary investments. However, when we do scale up, we'll be very happy to connect with them :-) [by the way, Rob has an awesome post on understanding what VCs and Angel Investors look for in entrepreneurs]
So that's the update as of now folks. In addition, there are quite a few 1-4 hour talks on social networking/web 2.0/blogging that organizations of various kinds want to hold for awareness of the middle management layer.
Quite a lot to keep us busy for the next few months.
Politicians and Management
Sometimes it's the politicians learning from the gurus and sometimes it's the politicians teaching managment.
Maybe there is a lot of commonality between politics and business management than is obvious !
Maybe there is a lot of commonality between politics and business management than is obvious !
Sep 7, 2006
Will a no-poach agreement be useful?
Some of my posts on HRgyan on Call centre companies having a non-poaching agreement:
Interesting debate. In fact IMHO, call centres first need to have some kind of agreement on their billing rates before going for such a measure. The more they commoditify their business offerings the more they will find retaining good people an issue.
I was reading some data that said that 40% of people who leave call centres/BPOs actually LEAVE the industry! That is something the ITES/BPO/Call centre industry needs to be worried about much more than poaching.
They also need to go for innovative solutions for the recruitment puzzle, instead of the usual undergraduate and graduates. I remember seeing an advertisement by MsourcE which explicitly targets the above 35 age bracket to get them into the industry.
Another interesting initiative that a call centre in Delhi tried was housewives working 4 hrs a day !
Instead of trying to chain employees companies should be looking at innovative solutions to bring down their attrition rate.
A no-poach is morally wrong as it infringes on an individual's rights for no fault of theirs.
Interesting debate. In fact IMHO, call centres first need to have some kind of agreement on their billing rates before going for such a measure. The more they commoditify their business offerings the more they will find retaining good people an issue.
I was reading some data that said that 40% of people who leave call centres/BPOs actually LEAVE the industry! That is something the ITES/BPO/Call centre industry needs to be worried about much more than poaching.
They also need to go for innovative solutions for the recruitment puzzle, instead of the usual undergraduate and graduates. I remember seeing an advertisement by MsourcE which explicitly targets the above 35 age bracket to get them into the industry.
Another interesting initiative that a call centre in Delhi tried was housewives working 4 hrs a day !
Instead of trying to chain employees companies should be looking at innovative solutions to bring down their attrition rate.
A no-poach is morally wrong as it infringes on an individual's rights for no fault of theirs.
Some ideas for SimplyHired
So Gautam Godhwani of SimplyHired is finally blogging :-)
Here is his first post. It talks about how their mission is to make things easier for the job seeker.
And here are some ideas I got reading his post. have posted them as comments there, but I thought I'll post them here anyway.
We know life for a job seeker may not be great sometimes. For people with "hot" or "in-demand" skills it's a great place to be in. But job seekers are not a homogenous group. And the reason why they search for a new job would not be the same.
So I'm wondering, if SimplyHired really wants to help ALL job seekers, should it not also get into associated businesses that help job seekers be ready for tomorrow's market. Hmm, SimplyLearning or SimplySkilled, perhaps, as a precursor to being SimplyHired ?
Here is his first post. It talks about how their mission is to make things easier for the job seeker.
And here are some ideas I got reading his post. have posted them as comments there, but I thought I'll post them here anyway.
We know life for a job seeker may not be great sometimes. For people with "hot" or "in-demand" skills it's a great place to be in. But job seekers are not a homogenous group. And the reason why they search for a new job would not be the same.
So I'm wondering, if SimplyHired really wants to help ALL job seekers, should it not also get into associated businesses that help job seekers be ready for tomorrow's market. Hmm, SimplyLearning or SimplySkilled, perhaps, as a precursor to being SimplyHired ?
If posters could...
A spam email I recieved said the following:
Hmm, only if all this were true, we could dispel with the need for managers, leaders and other 'support staff'. People would come to office in time, set their own goals, use maturity and judgement, continue being motivated under pressure from customers and make money for the company !
Our Motivational Posters will transform your walls from inanimate obstructions, into windows into your corporate persona that show off your values and your way of life.
Each captivating poster delivers a compelling message to its readers. Daily reminders that enter the subconscious and coach their readers with messages of timeless wisdom, these small objects will have a great impact.
This growing collection of exclusive posters is crafted by our team of highly talented graphics designers. They address all aspects of organizational life. They have been designed to creatively convey vital messages.
Our motivational posters can
Uplift and motivate anybody who reads them
Help keep your team spirit high and keep members focused and excited.
Facilitate essential insights, while dispelling apathy and bad attitudes.
Hmm, only if all this were true, we could dispel with the need for managers, leaders and other 'support staff'. People would come to office in time, set their own goals, use maturity and judgement, continue being motivated under pressure from customers and make money for the company !
On Leadership
quoting a report on Leadership by Towers Perrin about "Leadership in Asia":
In my personal view the most important job of a leader is to articulate a vision...therefore a leader has to be a great story-teller! This story and the promise of success is what a leader has to constantly keep going back to his people and partners with. And only if the story is powerful and moving enough with his people finally make it happen.
So apart from the deep understanding of markets, industries, operations and people the job of establishing a two way communication is critical to a leader's job. That is why (in my opinion!) a lot of very good COOs never become half as successful CEOs :-(
But that does not mean all CEOs need to be charismatic personalities like Richard Branson :-) A leaders job is often a paradoxical mix of the hard and soft, the distasteful and the elevating and therefore a leader needs to be paradoxical himself...think of great business (and social leaders) and therefore this very paradoxical nature of theirs ignites so much debate !
"Leaders in Asia need a sound grasp of the three C's: context, content, and creativity. Thus far the first C has been emphasized, to the almost complete exclusion of the other two. A couple of decades ago, when markets were unsophisticated and relatively closed, the availability of products from foreign multinational companies was a novelty, and foreign executives with even a perfunctory contextual understanding of the market and the business and cultural
moorings of the country in which they operated could make the grade.
That is no longer the case. As markets have opened and consumers have grown more sophisticated, they have come to demand more in terms of the value delivered to them. Understanding context is no longer enough; now, leaders and their organizations need to excel at content and creativity to be successful.
By content we mean a sound understanding of the foreign country's infrastructure and value chain, from product conception to delivery to the client. For example, most multinational companies with a presence in India envision the profit potential presented by a middle-class consumer population of 250 million. But many of these companies fail to take into account that only one-fifth of that number can be reached through existing distribution channels. Companies that have succeeded in India have built deep marketing and support networks in rural areas. The best-laid plans of many consumer goods companies have gone awry because of a lack of understanding of the infrastructure and support mechanisms that allow products to be moved from the manufacturer to customers.
To make an impact in markets around the world, leaders of global companies also need to come up with creative, innovative ways to reach out to customers. Companies with operations in foreign countries often face stiff local competition. Fast-food chains, for example, find themselves going up against local cuisines that are entrenched through age-old tradition. The best approach is not to resist or go against the grain of tradition but to find creative ways to package products so they suit local tastes.
McDonald's, for example, has introduced a vegetarian burger in India, with considerable success.
In essence, leaders of organizations that have global operations need to concentrate not just on external factors such as branding and securing customers but also on internal factors such as building organizational capacities and capabilities. The big challenge in Asia is for leaders to fill the needs of various targeted populations through mass customization without escalating costs unduly. Only through a thorough understanding of not only context but also content and creativity can they make that happen."
In my personal view the most important job of a leader is to articulate a vision...therefore a leader has to be a great story-teller! This story and the promise of success is what a leader has to constantly keep going back to his people and partners with. And only if the story is powerful and moving enough with his people finally make it happen.
So apart from the deep understanding of markets, industries, operations and people the job of establishing a two way communication is critical to a leader's job. That is why (in my opinion!) a lot of very good COOs never become half as successful CEOs :-(
But that does not mean all CEOs need to be charismatic personalities like Richard Branson :-) A leaders job is often a paradoxical mix of the hard and soft, the distasteful and the elevating and therefore a leader needs to be paradoxical himself...think of great business (and social leaders) and therefore this very paradoxical nature of theirs ignites so much debate !
Skills for HR people in India
On a HR egroup I made the following points when someone said , HR people need to have an education in HR !
I don't agree that a HR diploma is crucial to being a great HR person.
I remember that in 1997 I heard Dr. Udai Pareek (ex-prof IIMA andfounder of ISABS) adressing the first National Conference in HR at XLRI and he made a point which disturbed me then.
He said :"HR departments would truly succeed when they have successfully madethemselves redundant"
I realised what he meant when I started working in 1999 in HR. Essentially what Dr. Pareek was trying to say was that the REAL Human Resources managers were the line managers, we as HR people are only responsible for drafting policies and people strategies, and educating and guiding them.
The onus of making these successful are squarely in the hands of the ops/line managers. Our focus should be to enable them with the skills of managing people, motivating and developing them, and act as a facilitator. Eventually, there would come an ideal day, when all line managers would know and act as better people managers than HR people.
1. An HR person needs a minimum amount of skills to be an effectiveHR person !
2. HR is not "easy" unless you are merely printing offer letters or churning out reports. HR is not just "common sense"
3. The way out is not to put filters at the entry level into HR, but to work in setting up professional bodies to help HR people to develop their skills, like the ASTD and SHRM do in the US.
4. I think the most skills HR people need are rarely ever taught in B-Schools.
They are:
I don't agree that a HR diploma is crucial to being a great HR person.
I remember that in 1997 I heard Dr. Udai Pareek (ex-prof IIMA andfounder of ISABS) adressing the first National Conference in HR at XLRI and he made a point which disturbed me then.
He said :"HR departments would truly succeed when they have successfully madethemselves redundant"
I realised what he meant when I started working in 1999 in HR. Essentially what Dr. Pareek was trying to say was that the REAL Human Resources managers were the line managers, we as HR people are only responsible for drafting policies and people strategies, and educating and guiding them.
The onus of making these successful are squarely in the hands of the ops/line managers. Our focus should be to enable them with the skills of managing people, motivating and developing them, and act as a facilitator. Eventually, there would come an ideal day, when all line managers would know and act as better people managers than HR people.
1. An HR person needs a minimum amount of skills to be an effectiveHR person !
2. HR is not "easy" unless you are merely printing offer letters or churning out reports. HR is not just "common sense"
3. The way out is not to put filters at the entry level into HR, but to work in setting up professional bodies to help HR people to develop their skills, like the ASTD and SHRM do in the US.
4. I think the most skills HR people need are rarely ever taught in B-Schools.
They are:
- a. Facilitation skills
- b. Diagnosis skills
- c. Influencing skills
- d. Consulting skills
Sep 6, 2006
SimplyHired blog comes alive
After four months the SimplyHired blog returns back to life.
Is the good doctor responsible already? It'll be interesting to see how the blog can make job search fun for the job seeker. Jeff should be getting people like my namesake to blog at the SH blog. The voice of any organization gets defined by the CEO. So Gautam should be blogging at least once in while to give readers a sense that they are seeing the bigger picture and glimpses of what the future has in store for them.
Is the good doctor responsible already? It'll be interesting to see how the blog can make job search fun for the job seeker. Jeff should be getting people like my namesake to blog at the SH blog. The voice of any organization gets defined by the CEO. So Gautam should be blogging at least once in while to give readers a sense that they are seeing the bigger picture and glimpses of what the future has in store for them.
TOI messes up
Mohit Kishore points to a flaw in a TOI article that equates salary costs to salaries. Readers need to be aware in the details of an article instead of taking the headlines at face value. Sometimes journalistic accuracy takes a backseat to commercial interests.
Thus TOI would have us believe that a 262% increase in staff costs, corresponds to a 262% increase in salary, thereby making Indiabulls the highest payer in the financial sector. Wow.
Now, if Indiabulls doesn't hire you, I suggest you head to Balaji Telefilms , where again the staff costs went up by 251%. Needless to say, TOI would like us to believe that this means that salaries went up by 251%. Do we need to point out that staff costs go up when you hire more people (both Indiabulls and Balaji being growing companies), and not necessarily because you are paying your people more.
Not going to the Blogcamp
Chennai is very close to Hyderabad.
Which is why I'm all the more depressed that I can't make it to the Blogcamp there.
Unfortunately, prior commitments beckon. A friend's marriage is on 9th evening, so will wait for the next Blogcamp, specially to attend sessions like Professional Blogging, Why do we blog? (some thoughts here), Intranet Blogging.
Hopefully by the next blogcamp I would have some actual live cases to discuss :-)
Which is why I'm all the more depressed that I can't make it to the Blogcamp there.
Unfortunately, prior commitments beckon. A friend's marriage is on 9th evening, so will wait for the next Blogcamp, specially to attend sessions like Professional Blogging, Why do we blog? (some thoughts here), Intranet Blogging.
Hopefully by the next blogcamp I would have some actual live cases to discuss :-)
Sep 5, 2006
India's most successful blogger
....is unarguably Amit Agarwal who was recently featured on CNN IBN for earning lakhs of rupees per month through his blog, Digital Inspiration.
So if technology interests you hop over to Amit's blog :-). You won't be disappointed. He's not rank 645 on Technorati for nothing :-))
[hat tip: Juno]
So if technology interests you hop over to Amit's blog :-). You won't be disappointed. He's not rank 645 on Technorati for nothing :-))
[hat tip: Juno]
B School Recruitment Blues
Rashmi's comment to this post got me thinking that the "Blink" way of making judgements about organizations in the part of the B School student as well as the about the students about the organizatiton is very true.
The blame can be laid squarely on the processes the B Schools follow in India, with their emphasis on days and slots. Here's a first hand account
Organizations even when they are not fighting for talent, want to be known as day zero or one recruiters on campus and a weird bidding war ensures for artificially created talent shortage. There is intellectually hardly any difference between a student who gets placed on day zero (mostly the people with a high CGPA) versus those who get placed on day three or four. The success factor is usually linked to EQ, which the process does not give any space or time to check.
What organizations need to do is create more spaces for student organization interaction that gives them time to see students up close. Summer internships are of course one way to do that. But bear in mind that the process for Summer selection also mirrors the final placements.
Now organizations are creating other avenues, like live projects in campus , and sending people down to take lectures and special classes, which could be specified for an industry. It helps in demystifying the jargon and also build the brand of the employer.
Of course, I hope the pendulum does not swing to the other extreme like how it happens in the US :-)
The blame can be laid squarely on the processes the B Schools follow in India, with their emphasis on days and slots. Here's a first hand account
Organizations even when they are not fighting for talent, want to be known as day zero or one recruiters on campus and a weird bidding war ensures for artificially created talent shortage. There is intellectually hardly any difference between a student who gets placed on day zero (mostly the people with a high CGPA) versus those who get placed on day three or four. The success factor is usually linked to EQ, which the process does not give any space or time to check.
What organizations need to do is create more spaces for student organization interaction that gives them time to see students up close. Summer internships are of course one way to do that. But bear in mind that the process for Summer selection also mirrors the final placements.
Now organizations are creating other avenues, like live projects in campus , and sending people down to take lectures and special classes, which could be specified for an industry. It helps in demystifying the jargon and also build the brand of the employer.
Of course, I hope the pendulum does not swing to the other extreme like how it happens in the US :-)
Why should sales and marketing be interested in people also
From TribalKnowledge:
And read this also from Brand Autopsy: The Employee Experience Matters
Many marketers view employee relations as a job solely for human resources—they see employees as tools. But employees—happy, rewarded employees—can work wonders for the company’s marketing efforts.
The death of the interview
Seth Godin has some thoughts on why interviews are useless to hire people, and he has a better idea.
I think it's similar to something that Lefkow called Observational interviewing.
I think it's similar to something that Lefkow called Observational interviewing.
Sep 4, 2006
OD and PC
Sandeep asks how Performance Consulting is different from OD.
Performance Consulting focusses on a learner's performance goals rather than learning needs and helps in achieving that goal.
Yes there are overlaps with OD.
However, OD [academically at least] focusses on the efficacy when two human systems interact (during cross-functional teams, or mergers and acquisitions) or when human systems face a change with non-human systems (new processes and systems). OD's scope is therefore the team, groups and organization and it looks at underlying causes a lot deeper than PC.
As I said, that difference is academic. I have seen training groups rechristen themselves as OD and continue doing what they were doing :-)
Performance Consulting focusses on a learner's performance goals rather than learning needs and helps in achieving that goal.
Yes there are overlaps with OD.
However, OD [academically at least] focusses on the efficacy when two human systems interact (during cross-functional teams, or mergers and acquisitions) or when human systems face a change with non-human systems (new processes and systems). OD's scope is therefore the team, groups and organization and it looks at underlying causes a lot deeper than PC.
As I said, that difference is academic. I have seen training groups rechristen themselves as OD and continue doing what they were doing :-)
Yet another post on Strategic HR
Mayank asks Are Typical HR Guys Ready For Strategic Roles ?
Alas, no !
Typical guys (or gals, for that matter) whether they are from Sales, Finance, Marketing or HR are rarely ready for strategic roles.
They need to be groomed, developed and mentored.
Each of them gets a unique perspective for the organization. Each of those perspectives are important and need to be honed for crafting strategic choices.
Earlier posts on Strategic HR:
Alas, no !
Typical guys (or gals, for that matter) whether they are from Sales, Finance, Marketing or HR are rarely ready for strategic roles.
They need to be groomed, developed and mentored.
Each of them gets a unique perspective for the organization. Each of those perspectives are important and need to be honed for crafting strategic choices.
Earlier posts on Strategic HR:
A manager is not a professional
So feels Madhukar:
A doctor, for instance, still retains his/her professional identity as a doctor even when outside the hospital or his/her chamber. The same is true for a lawyer or a chartered accountant. This is because their professional knowledge and skills remain relevant to the society even outside their place of work. In contrast, a manager becomes just another ordinary citizen as soon as s/he steps out of the corporate boundary; his/her professional knowledge/skills have little relevance to perform a social/public role.
Sep 3, 2006
B School Recuiter?
Then you should be very aware of the smaller things that can sway candidates away or towards your firm. Lessons to be kept in mind, if your brand is not too well known as a MBA recruiter, then who you send to campus matters a lot. Surya's post demonstrates how she felt about a company:
And what made her choose another:
The first company did choose me for the final interview. However, small things -
how the ppt presentation was made, how the man talked proudly about not having
time for his family.. it all came out in the interview. I walked out knowing
that I did not make it, and I was happy that I did not.
And what made her choose another:
The last one. No seniors here, no batchmates so far. Nobody knows anything
about them. I have not attended their ppt. My friends who are going for the
interview have not pegged it high.
I liked the lady, the way she talked, and the fact that her hair was
streaked. I made a mental note to streak likewise as soon as the process gets
over. It was more like talking to an elder cousin, discussing life and work. And
I discovered to my mortification that even though they deal with technology,
they are very much an FMCG.
Evalution of customer service training
Originally posted @ HRgyan in 2002
The time tested method of evaluating any type of training has been Kirkpatrick's 4 levels of evaluation.
It is always helpful to keep in mind the learning objectives in mind when deciding on measuring something like 'customer service'. This is because 'customer service' can have different connotations for different people.
It would therefore help that before the training the shared understanding between the trainer and participants is clarified on such fundamental assumptions. So, is 'service' giving the menu over and smiling ? Is it to make the customer feel comfortable? Is it to suggest him the food in keeping with his mood and personality?
Once these fundamental assumptions are clarified before the training , then it makes sense to measure these measures post the training in keeping with 3 levels of Kirkpatrick's model:
Reaction : How did the participants like the training vis a vis the learning objectives?
Knowledge: Did the participants get to know what good customer service is and can he/she explain the same to other people?
Behaviour: Are the participants behaving in the way the training programme asked them to behave (3-6 months post the programme also?)
If these are in the 'no' region then further diagnostics will need to be probed like ...is the block due to skill and knowledge level or is some more fundamental block like low motivation and negative attitude is coming in the way ?
If that is the case then it would be better that an OD workshop is conducted rather than relying on training as these would be more structural and process issues that need to be confronted.
The time tested method of evaluating any type of training has been Kirkpatrick's 4 levels of evaluation.
It is always helpful to keep in mind the learning objectives in mind when deciding on measuring something like 'customer service'. This is because 'customer service' can have different connotations for different people.
It would therefore help that before the training the shared understanding between the trainer and participants is clarified on such fundamental assumptions. So, is 'service' giving the menu over and smiling ? Is it to make the customer feel comfortable? Is it to suggest him the food in keeping with his mood and personality?
Once these fundamental assumptions are clarified before the training , then it makes sense to measure these measures post the training in keeping with 3 levels of Kirkpatrick's model:
Reaction : How did the participants like the training vis a vis the learning objectives?
Knowledge: Did the participants get to know what good customer service is and can he/she explain the same to other people?
Behaviour: Are the participants behaving in the way the training programme asked them to behave (3-6 months post the programme also?)
If these are in the 'no' region then further diagnostics will need to be probed like ...is the block due to skill and knowledge level or is some more fundamental block like low motivation and negative attitude is coming in the way ?
If that is the case then it would be better that an OD workshop is conducted rather than relying on training as these would be more structural and process issues that need to be confronted.
Sep 2, 2006
Geoge Zacharias hits my blog
On Thursday I noticed my page views almost doubling and was wondering why that was so.
Then I realised that people probably read a news item on George Zacharias' pay crossing Rs 4 crore (around US $ 900,000) and then got on to a search engine to discover more about George and landed on my blog on this page!
Then I realised that people probably read a news item on George Zacharias' pay crossing Rs 4 crore (around US $ 900,000) and then got on to a search engine to discover more about George and landed on my blog on this page!
Symbols Lab by Sumedhas
I had earlier posted about process work. If you have had exposure to a week long personal growth lab earlier, you might find this lab on Symbols useful.
V Kartikeyan will be co-facilitating the lab along with Janaki Venkat.
Context, details, fees are here. (thanks Kartik for the email)
V Kartikeyan will be co-facilitating the lab along with Janaki Venkat.
Context, details, fees are here. (thanks Kartik for the email)
Executive Recruiters' Association convention at Hyderabad
That's on 15th Sept.
This year, the theme is an international theme.
The Conference will present Economic and Employment Scenarios of Brazil, Russia, India, China and Europe. It will throw light on collaboration issues; that is Labor Mobility - drivers and barriers.
Hope to facilitate learning some HR practices in other Geographies.
For details go visit their website
This year, the theme is an international theme.
The Conference will present Economic and Employment Scenarios of Brazil, Russia, India, China and Europe. It will throw light on collaboration issues; that is Labor Mobility - drivers and barriers.
Hope to facilitate learning some HR practices in other Geographies.
For details go visit their website
Expectations Mismatch
I've been quoted in the supplementary to the Times Of India, Pune called "Top Career Destination".
The article is about "expectations mismatch" between employers and employees.
My thoughts are captured in a gist:
Just Added: What do you think? Why does this happen? What can be done to prevent this?
The article is about "expectations mismatch" between employers and employees.
My thoughts are captured in a gist:
Gautam Ghosh, an organizational consultant opines: “ Often the applicant isn’t fully aware of his own needs, which are external and internal.
He may make a switch for higher salary, but later realize he misses the autonomy
of his previous organization more.” Ghosh advocates investing time in ‘behavioral interview’ too, as such interviews can prove to be more useful in ensuring a ‘cultural match’ of the organization and the employee.
Just Added: What do you think? Why does this happen? What can be done to prevent this?
Sep 1, 2006
On a new collaborative blog
I hadn't visited Curt's blog in a long time, so I didn't know about his latest blog, Collective genius.
Anuradha's post led me to it and I volunteered to Curt that I would be interested too.
So here is my first post on Collective Genius.
Do you want to contribute too?
Go here and read how you can.
Anuradha's post led me to it and I volunteered to Curt that I would be interested too.
So here is my first post on Collective Genius.
Do you want to contribute too?
Go here and read how you can.
Types of Consultants
Consulting Seminar: Types of Consultants,
This page succintly classifies the types of consultants that there are and therefore the various types of consulting approaches. But, hey, you don't have to be only one ! One could shift gears depending on the the type of client and the engagement. Yes, it would be expected that a person is comfortable in one of the types.
Hmm, now which one would I be, I wonder?
This page succintly classifies the types of consultants that there are and therefore the various types of consulting approaches. But, hey, you don't have to be only one ! One could shift gears depending on the the type of client and the engagement. Yes, it would be expected that a person is comfortable in one of the types.
Hmm, now which one would I be, I wonder?
"Generalist vs. Specialist -- A generalist educational consultant, for example, might work with the superintendent in a school district to help develop strategies for cutting costs or redirecting money to individual schools. A specialist, however, will focus work on a specific area of expertise. A specialist might consult with a school district to make a CD-ROM to help special education teachers learn new laws and regulations pertaining to students.
Custom vs. package -- Custom consultants believe that each client is unique and spend time designing interventions and solutions for every organization even though she might have worked with 10 others in the same area. Package consultants develop generic approaches that will meet general client needs and deliver these solutions to clients. An example of package consulting would be mediation training that would be delivered the same way to a state agency as it would to a high-tech company.
Diagnostic vs. implementation -- A diagnostic consultant will try to find the sources of problems. She may offer solutions, but her relationship with the client will end with a clear description of the problem and possibly some suggested solutions. An implementation consultant focuses on helping organizations change. This person calls attention to the problems and helps the organization focus on the processes that need to be revised, deleted or implemented to bring about change. "
Training & Organizational Development: Needs Assessments
On the Workforce Management Community Center:
Training Needs Assessments
There is no one correct way to do a training needs assessment .
Using the language of systems-thinking one would say that delay or time lag during TNA gives rise to a vicious cycle of spiralling learning gaps and loss of credibility for the training function.
Most training professionals are ignorant of adult learning theories and even basic educational theories like Bloom's taxonomy. So if the business unit was a training on operational level of a certain skill and if the training manager organizes an awareness level programme only then the training function again loses credibility.
Most professionals feel that being 'business outsiders' they do not have the expertise of the subject matter. I believe that subject matter expertise is not needed for a training professional but a 'process expertise' in the domain of learning theories.
The other problem is of training and business professionals who believe that training is the solution of all their ills, the panacea to their problems. Typically, these are similar to the workman who has a hammer, and to whom all problems look like nails.
Most form of classroom training has limited impact unless followed up with other changes on the workspace, especially for soft skills and behavioural issues. The more intense the issue the more useless is training as a standalone intervention. It has to be sustained by structural and process changes in the work place.
Training should not be carried out at an activity level but be immersed in business to deliver business results.
I think the approach for training professionals is taking the Human Performance Technology approach!
Also Check the training competency model here
Training Needs Assessments
There is no one correct way to do a training needs assessment .
Using the language of systems-thinking one would say that delay or time lag during TNA gives rise to a vicious cycle of spiralling learning gaps and loss of credibility for the training function.
Most training professionals are ignorant of adult learning theories and even basic educational theories like Bloom's taxonomy. So if the business unit was a training on operational level of a certain skill and if the training manager organizes an awareness level programme only then the training function again loses credibility.
Most professionals feel that being 'business outsiders' they do not have the expertise of the subject matter. I believe that subject matter expertise is not needed for a training professional but a 'process expertise' in the domain of learning theories.
The other problem is of training and business professionals who believe that training is the solution of all their ills, the panacea to their problems. Typically, these are similar to the workman who has a hammer, and to whom all problems look like nails.
Most form of classroom training has limited impact unless followed up with other changes on the workspace, especially for soft skills and behavioural issues. The more intense the issue the more useless is training as a standalone intervention. It has to be sustained by structural and process changes in the work place.
Training should not be carried out at an activity level but be immersed in business to deliver business results.
I think the approach for training professionals is taking the Human Performance Technology approach!
Also Check the training competency model here
Who shuffled da Cheez?
You gotta hand it over to the Cheezman !
Not content with innovating and helping us poor talent bloggers earn some moolah with Cheezads (like the one below this post) he's gone ahead and made uCheez, which he calls the Employment Site Shuffle (modelled on the iPod shuffle? ;-)
What's uCheez about? Very simple, if you have a employment related website, like a job board or blog, for some dollars you can get listed on the uCheez site so when folks click they randomly get taken to one of the sites. (Joel explains it here)
If you want to know how it works, click on the big red button on the left !
It might be useful for new job sites to get visibility, but in the end it boils to relevance and content on the site's part to convert these visitors into readers. It's a long tail...but there are lots of smaller long tails emerging from this long tail. How will Joel help his clients get better visibility?
As my prof used to say, most times the trade off is between Reach and Richness. More and more bloggers are getting into the job game, check this great roundup post with some great ideas by Shannon.
Update: After I posted this, even Cheezhead has gone down the Jobs route. However you can post jobs there for free. Not like Om or Crunch which charge you $200 per job posted !
Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.
Not content with innovating and helping us poor talent bloggers earn some moolah with Cheezads (like the one below this post) he's gone ahead and made uCheez, which he calls the Employment Site Shuffle (modelled on the iPod shuffle? ;-)
What's uCheez about? Very simple, if you have a employment related website, like a job board or blog, for some dollars you can get listed on the uCheez site so when folks click they randomly get taken to one of the sites. (Joel explains it here)
If you want to know how it works, click on the big red button on the left !
It might be useful for new job sites to get visibility, but in the end it boils to relevance and content on the site's part to convert these visitors into readers. It's a long tail...but there are lots of smaller long tails emerging from this long tail. How will Joel help his clients get better visibility?
As my prof used to say, most times the trade off is between Reach and Richness. More and more bloggers are getting into the job game, check this great roundup post with some great ideas by Shannon.
Update: After I posted this, even Cheezhead has gone down the Jobs route. However you can post jobs there for free. Not like Om or Crunch which charge you $200 per job posted !
Visit Recruit.net to find Australia jobs.
The demand for KM
I made the point on Brint.com's KM message board
and am making the point again.
"Let's go back to the mid and late 90s, when the words "KM" started becoming
buzzwords from academic discussions, and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of
the pie.
What drove this demand?
I believe it was the belief propelled by the mental model of "plough back".
Let me extrapolate.
Earlier, when human knowledge and expertise was driving the growth of organizations, there was a system a work that was knocking down typical organizational structures and power systems. People who had knowledge and expertise could and did demand price based on the value they could add to the organization. And if one firm did not, they walked out of the door
carrying their experience and expertise between their ears.
Then suddenly came this mantra called "Knowledge Management" which the CEOs saw as an opportunity to hark back to the older system. They said "Ah! This is what we want. Let the people go..but we can keep their disembodied knowledge" And the consultants saw this opportunity and propelled this grand misconception.
However, now the consultants turn to him and say "Sorry , to do KM, you got to keep investing in and developing people" and the CEO is stunned...isn't that the job of his Training Manager ? But doesn't that means "giving" his people more knowledge? But,wasn't the promise of KM that it would "take" the knowledge from his people and be free from their whimsical demands...?
And so, the mental model of a "taker" that drives the CEO keeps him very suspicious of fads like Knowledge Management that promised (in his understanding) one thing and now are delivering another...
Thoughts welcome.
Well, that was then...after those days, have ruminated on it and come to the conclusion that KM will not do.
The road has to lead to Knowledge Creation, and systems that evoke the human imagination, not exploit them....and to do so, KM will need to drop the mental model of management and take on the role of creation and facilitation.
In effect, it will no longer be enough to ask :
1. Where does this Knowledge reside?
or even,
2. Who knows that?
(these are the questions that IT and Knowledge Repositories had an answer to)
Increasingly we will move to answering questions that are on the lines of:
1. How do we leverage what we know to create bigger, better, faster.....?
2. How do we work with each other across boundaries, breaking out of our silos, learning from each other, confronting each other openly and adding value to ourselves as people and to the organizations we work with?
So here are my mantras for the death of KM ....long live KC (read the outline of the book
by Nonaka, Ichijo and Von Krogh Enabling Knowledge Creation )
1. The mental models will move from "KM Structures and Processes" to "Knowledge Ecologies"
2. From contribution we'll move to collaboration
3. From repositories and databases we'll move to 'places' or 'contexts'
4. From internal to organizations, knowledge sharing will become more inter-organizational
5. From teams we'll move to communities
6. From the IT department knowledge will take its place amongst people who run the business, and learning process owners will lose another opportunity to influence at a strategic level.
7. Benefits of knowledge sharing will start to move from "cost savings" to "value additions" and "new value"
8. A synergy will emerge between strategic thought that looks at knowledge creation , complexity theory that views knowledge as a complex human process, sensemaking that looks at what humans create in their mind and why and creation of something out of seemingly nothing. :-)
On that note, I'll sign off...
Some great sites to visit are : KM (a compilation of great links!!)
KM Thoughts (maintained by, Denham Grey, a person whose thoughts almost mirror mine :-) and the fact that he adds his humongous perspective from IT and education to it, makes the whole thing a great deal richer !!)
and am making the point again.
"Let's go back to the mid and late 90s, when the words "KM" started becoming
buzzwords from academic discussions, and suddenly everyone wanted a piece of
the pie.
What drove this demand?
I believe it was the belief propelled by the mental model of "plough back".
Let me extrapolate.
Earlier, when human knowledge and expertise was driving the growth of organizations, there was a system a work that was knocking down typical organizational structures and power systems. People who had knowledge and expertise could and did demand price based on the value they could add to the organization. And if one firm did not, they walked out of the door
carrying their experience and expertise between their ears.
Then suddenly came this mantra called "Knowledge Management" which the CEOs saw as an opportunity to hark back to the older system. They said "Ah! This is what we want. Let the people go..but we can keep their disembodied knowledge" And the consultants saw this opportunity and propelled this grand misconception.
However, now the consultants turn to him and say "Sorry , to do KM, you got to keep investing in and developing people" and the CEO is stunned...isn't that the job of his Training Manager ? But doesn't that means "giving" his people more knowledge? But,wasn't the promise of KM that it would "take" the knowledge from his people and be free from their whimsical demands...?
And so, the mental model of a "taker" that drives the CEO keeps him very suspicious of fads like Knowledge Management that promised (in his understanding) one thing and now are delivering another...
Thoughts welcome.
Well, that was then...after those days, have ruminated on it and come to the conclusion that KM will not do.
The road has to lead to Knowledge Creation, and systems that evoke the human imagination, not exploit them....and to do so, KM will need to drop the mental model of management and take on the role of creation and facilitation.
In effect, it will no longer be enough to ask :
1. Where does this Knowledge reside?
or even,
2. Who knows that?
(these are the questions that IT and Knowledge Repositories had an answer to)
Increasingly we will move to answering questions that are on the lines of:
1. How do we leverage what we know to create bigger, better, faster.....?
2. How do we work with each other across boundaries, breaking out of our silos, learning from each other, confronting each other openly and adding value to ourselves as people and to the organizations we work with?
So here are my mantras for the death of KM ....long live KC (read the outline of the book
by Nonaka, Ichijo and Von Krogh Enabling Knowledge Creation )
1. The mental models will move from "KM Structures and Processes" to "Knowledge Ecologies"
2. From contribution we'll move to collaboration
3. From repositories and databases we'll move to 'places' or 'contexts'
4. From internal to organizations, knowledge sharing will become more inter-organizational
5. From teams we'll move to communities
6. From the IT department knowledge will take its place amongst people who run the business, and learning process owners will lose another opportunity to influence at a strategic level.
7. Benefits of knowledge sharing will start to move from "cost savings" to "value additions" and "new value"
8. A synergy will emerge between strategic thought that looks at knowledge creation , complexity theory that views knowledge as a complex human process, sensemaking that looks at what humans create in their mind and why and creation of something out of seemingly nothing. :-)
On that note, I'll sign off...
Some great sites to visit are : KM (a compilation of great links!!)
KM Thoughts (maintained by, Denham Grey, a person whose thoughts almost mirror mine :-) and the fact that he adds his humongous perspective from IT and education to it, makes the whole thing a great deal richer !!)
Gurus of Management
Hidden away in the Learning English for work section of the BBC World Service website is a gem of a guide to Management Gurus written and delivered by Charles Handy, the celebrated management thinker, writer and broadcaster. You can listen on demand to each of the fifteen minute broadcasts and download the scripts.
On the right of this page you will see a list of all the featured gurus, with links to each broadcast and the miniature biographies accompanying the series, together with a link to the featured books.
The people featured are the likes of Handy himself, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis (the leadersip guru), the late Sumantra Ghoshal (on transnational management), Kenichi Ohmae, Gary Hamel ( on Business Innovation), Rosabeth Moss Kanter(the change thinker), Bill Gates, Ricardo Semler, Michael Porter(the strategy thinker), Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner.
On the right of this page you will see a list of all the featured gurus, with links to each broadcast and the miniature biographies accompanying the series, together with a link to the featured books.
The people featured are the likes of Handy himself, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters, Warren Bennis (the leadersip guru), the late Sumantra Ghoshal (on transnational management), Kenichi Ohmae, Gary Hamel ( on Business Innovation), Rosabeth Moss Kanter(the change thinker), Bill Gates, Ricardo Semler, Michael Porter(the strategy thinker), Fons Trompenaars and Charles Hampden-Turner.
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