The Global Brain - Network Centric Innovation

Satish Nambisan and Mohan Sawhney have come out with a new book on harnessing external sources of Innovation called The Global Brain.

In their search for innovative ideas and technologies, companies are realizing the importance of reaching out to a diverse set of external innovation partners. This includes customers, suppliers, amateur or independent inventors, academic researchers, scientists, as well as different types of innovation intermediaries who facilitate the innovation process (for example, idea scouts, invention capitalist, and innovation capitalist). The authors refer to this vast creative potential that lies beyond the boundaries of the firm as the Global Brain.

The term ‘Global Brain’ signifies two things. First, the external innovation partners are diverse in terms of not only their industry expertise or creative input but also in their geographical location. Second, the innovation partners form the nodes on a network – i.e. the innovation network – and it is through their continued interactions that the innovation would emerge. In sum, the global brain reflects both the global scope and the inter-connectedness of a company’s external innovation partners.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of the book, specially since I'm very interested in innovation driven by consumers and other partners and secondly because Nambisan is an alumnus from XLRI ;-). I wonder if he'll send me a copy to review?

I wonder how the principles are different from Prahalad's views on Co-Creating Value or John Seely Brown and John Hagel's views on innovation across enterprises.

At the Institute of Public Enterprises (IPE) tomorrow

I'll be at the HR Samathi 2007 management fest at IPE Hyderabad tomorrow (1st November), interacting with the students there on "Performance Management for Competitive Advantage"

If you are there too, just feel free to meet up :-)

50 free recruiting tools

Laura at Bootstrapper has a great post on free online job boards, to find freelancers, networking, research and news.

If you are a start-up with little or no funding and want to get the maximum bang for your buck, I suggest you take a look at the list. To compete with larger companies for talent you need all the help you can get.

HCI webcast

Yesterday night (or rather, today morning) I co-delivered a webcast with Mitzi Adwell of the Newman Group on Staying Ahead of Change: The Importance of the Employment Value Proposition.

It was a great experience for me, for this was the first time I was delivering a webcast :-) Well I have delivered and attended sessions on synchronous e-learning (or virtual classroom) specially when I was in Hewlett Packard, but doing so when I was at home through my laptop and cell-phone was a totally new experience.

My co-presenter, Mitzi Adwell, had a great method to demonstrate what are the components of of EVP and how organizations can get maximum ROI by focusing on what's important for them and what acts as a differentiator.

There was a couple of great questions and discussions post the webcast. In case you missed it, there would be a recast soon. Keep an eye on the HCI webcast page.

My thanks to Mitzi and her colleagues from The Newman Group as well as the team from HCI, Bill Craib, Keith Vencel, Amanda Craig and Sasha Thompson for their support and help.

update: A blog post by a participant on the webcast. Thanks Sevi !

Fortune Global Forum is on in New Delhi now

Received a mail from Rachelle Lacroix who sent me a Q&A with Fortune International Editor Robert Friedman about the The FORTUNE Global Forum 2007.

Friedman says about the choice of holding the Forum in New Delhi:

India was an obvious choice not only because many Indian companies are beginning to compete on the global stage but also because India's economy is finally opening up enough to attract multinational companies into the country to market products, engage in R&D, and take advantage of India's high-tech manufacturing sector.

Q. The theme of the 2007 Forum is "Mastering the Global Economy." Why was this theme selected?

Friedman: It serves the needs of both Indian companies learning how to compete globally and multinational companies learning how to do business in India. And what could be a better topic for all the "masters of the universe" who will be in attendance?

Q. In one Forum session, New York Times columnist and author Thomas Friedman will interview U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson about U.S. perspectives on the global economy. Can you provide any insight on why these thought leaders were paired? Also, what questions would you most want to hear answered by Secretary Paulson?

Friedman: It was a great accomplishment to get Hank Paulson to come to India on what will be his first visit as U.S. Treasury Secretary. As a former Goldman Sachs CEO and now the top economic official in Washington, Paulson brings with him a wealth of knowledge about the global economy.

As the foreign affairs columnist for the New York Times and author of the best-selling book The World is Flat, Tom Friedman brings with him a broad knowledge of India's role in the outsourcing revolution that has helped reshape the global economy. Who will flatten whom in this encounter? Should make for a most intelligent conversation--and is likely to be one of the highlights of the conference.

Q. Many of India's top leaders will be attending the Forum, including Honorable Minister for Commerce and Industry, Kamal Nath. Can you explain how these leaders will be integrated into the Forum program and what value their participation will provide to the chief executives in attendance?

Friedman: Finance Minister Chidambaram, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, Planning Commission Chairman Montek Ahluwalia, and other Indian officials will be spending considerable time at the conference in private meetings and mingling with delegates. This is one of the special things that the Global Forum offers to its guests: intimate contact with the decision-makers in the host country. And, speaking of hosts, Minister Nath will be hosting one of a dozen private home dinners at his residence in Delhi for a small group of FORTUNE Global Forum delegates.

Q. What sessions most interest you at the 2007 Forum?

Friedman: I'm looking forward to hearing many of the great speakers we have lined up, from Michael Dell and John Chambers to Nandan Nilekani. And, of course, to my own panels.

Q. Two FORTUNE Editors will be blogging live from the Forum: FORTUNE Asia Editor Clay Chandler on his Chasing the Dragon blog and South Asia Contributor John Elliott on his Riding the Elephant blog. For those who can't attend the Forum in person, are the blogs the best way for them to follow the action?

Friedman: Not only are Clay Chandler and John Elliott blogging, but all of the FORTUNE writers and editors attending the Forum in New Delhi--16 in all--will be contributing to the official Global Forum blog at http://globalforum.blogs.fortune.cnn.com. In addition, you can view video from select business sessions at http://money.cnn.com/video/globalforum. So, yes, if you can't be there, this is the best way to pretend you were.

Q. Lastly, what do you think will be the most valuable takeaways for participants after attending the 2007 program?

Friedman: I hope folks get out of the hotel and explore New Delhi. It's a memorable city. But even if they don't, they'll definitely get a taste of India. It's a chaotic, democratic, sometimes frustrating jumble of people and ideas--just like our program. It's a nation of contrasts and contradictions poised for economic takeoff. Who said elephants can't fly?

Interestingly an article on CNN describes India's challenge: Raising living standards for the masses and on a day when the BSE Sensex crossed the 20,000 mark and yet 27,000 landless farmers and displaced tribals people marched to India's capital to press for Land Reforms.

If the Forum comes out with concrete operational ideas for India to reduce the gap between India and Bharat, without breaking the law and increase the country's competitiveness and Human Development Index, I think it will be a great step forward.

The Forum would also be interesting for Indian bloggers as Rashmi Bansal along with Barkha Dutt, will moderate a panel discussion titled 'Our India: Reflections of Rising Stars' and is part of a Roundtable on India: Snapshots of an Evolving Culture.

And great initiative by Fortune to get their writers and editors blogging about the Forum. Now if only we saw Indian conferences incorporate the initiative :-) !

Young Managers too cynical

Consultant and author David Maister blogs about a presentation he was giving to a group of young managers:

As always, I was making what I thought were obvious points - that the best means to get productivity and quality from those you manage is to help them find the meaning, the purpose, the excitement in what they have to do.

The reactions were amazingly cynical. "Have you ever worked in a professional service firm?" asked one young man.

Obviously, these young people had not (yet) been managed in a style that elicited their enthusiasms. Even though their firm (like all others) had grand statements about its commitment to developing its people, they had already learned (or so they thought) that the world did not really work that way.

I said that I hoped they would not just pass on to the next generation the poor way they had been managed, but I didn't leave the room with much hope.

Here is the comment that I left at David's blog in response:

1. Expectations of Gen Y and the millenials are quite different from their bosses.

2. They don't have the respect for a long corporate life that earlier generations have had. They believe that it's easy to achieve success if you have a great idea and the "large firm" way of doing things is outdated.

3. Managing is tougher on their managers than before. Most managers have been "developed" based on yesterday's textbooks. They are ill-equipped to deal with today's workforce.

There has got to be systemic approach at stemming such lack of enthusiasm before it becomes an epidemic in the world of work.

Which is why, I am becoming more and more convinced that discovering one's true calling/vocation/creating meaning, whatever you choose to call it, is the most important work for all employees and the organization.

Here's a relevant earlier post. And an article Dr. Shukla wrote in 2000 called (Un)Learning about Jobs and Work.

Unconscious Bias still exists

Unfortunately, it seems like caste and religion based discrimination is still strong in India. Even with the "talent crunch" and "booming economy"

Prof. Shukla blogs on:

the findings of a recent study, which was done by the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (IIDS) and Princeton University:

"The researchers filed 4,808 applications for 548 jobs advertised in English newspapers over 66 weeks starting October 2005. Applications by equally-qualified males from higher upper castes, Dalits and Muslims were filed for each vacancy and the response from the corporate sector was shocking.

While all higher upper caste candidates were called for interviews for a particular job vacancy, only 67% Dalits and 33% Muslims were contacted."

The study, original paper published in The Economic & Political Weekly (Oct 13, 2007) mentions the methodology:

"The research staff prepared sets of three matched application letters and résumés (in English) for each type of job. These applications had identical educational qualifications and experience. All the résumés and cover letters presented strong applicants for the job opening: they had suitable degrees from reputable universities...

The only aspect of family background that was communicated in these applications was the applicant’s name, yet this was enough to generate a different pattern of responses to applications from Muslims and dalits, compared to high caste Hindu names. These were all highly-educated and appropriately qualified applicants attempting to enter the modern private sector, yet even in this sector, caste and religion proved influential in determining ones job chances...
These discriminatory outcomes occurred at the very first stage of the process that Indian university graduates go through to apply for a job...."

So what can be done? Do recruiters and sourcers need to be made aware of their deep seated biases, which maybe they don't even know exists? Because if they are aware of it and still do it, it means that they are actually depriving their organizations of talented employees. Indian organizations need to take a long hard look at their recruiting and selection processes and ensure that they actually are inclusive.

Why are HR people not networking?

That's what Frito Lay India's HR Head, Abhijit Bhaduri wants to know:

At a recent gathering, a hundred top HR professionals from around the world were asked if they were members of sites like Orkut or Facebook. Only three embarrassed hands went up. That was stuff for teeny boppers most of them said. Yet if you are fishing in a shrinking talent pool would you rather know what the buzz was about you or would you turn a blind eye (or ear) to it? If you did not know what people were saying about you wouldn't be in a position to impact that opinion. Banning blogging and social networking sites is not a solution. I hope the HR people embrace this change and actually begin to leverage the opportunity to turn their Employer Brand into a Lovemark.

So, what's your excuse? If you're a HR professional on Linkedin, Orkut, MySpace or Facebook, then feel free to connect with me :-)

Saikat Saha has an interesting perspective on Talent Branding, linking to the same issue:

Talent Branding is not new in bollywood, it was there in Sholay too. Don we all still remember the brand called 'Jai','Veeru',Basanti,'Gabbar','Thakur Baldev Singh' , Radha'.The brand 'Sholay' in itself had brands like them. And all these brands were as big if not bigger than the parent brand 'Sholay'.
If your company has the guts and I repeat the word 'GUTS' [I am completely in my senses while using the word] to create such talent brands then only the company's brand would be a long lasting flourishing success.But be careful you kick out the Gabbar Singhs[not literally] and tightly hug[literally] the super hero brands of your company.

HR's real role

On reading Scott's post, I have to agree. HR's role is not to attract, retain and motive talent. All the above will happen if HR sees its role as a facilitator for meaning making.

Unfortunately it's a tough job, and tasks activities and business processes are easier to understand and manage than "enabling people to connect their activities to things that matter to them". That's because weighed under the metrics that the tasks, activities and processes seek to achieve, spending time to actually know a person (rather than a "human resource") and looking at him/her as something more than "talent" or "hands" is a tough ask.

It calls for enormous emotional fortitude, as really engaging with people is a path that we don't really like to cross in organizational life. And yet, really successful leaders like Larry Bossidy and CEO coach and guru Ram Charan have written how emotional fortitude is the one aspect of leadership that helps in being honest with people and to get things done.

So for HR to be really making a difference at all levels (organizational, group and individual level) they need to act as the facilitators for people and groups to create meaning. Sometimes that meaning making will result in the A list player realising that her heart is actually yearning to do something else than meet quarterly targets. A mature organization will realise that letting her discover herself was perhaps the biggest developmental input they gave her.

According to Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning is the thing that makes us human. And if we need to have human workplaces, creating meaning is the most important thing that organizations can do. For their customers, stakeholders and employees.

Next after Speed

This would be an executive search consultant-cum-cricket aficionado's dream assignment, I guess ;-)) AK would really have loved it, I am sure :D

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has shortlisted the six recruiting companies to name the successor for Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Malcolm Speed, Cricket365 has learnt. The six shortlisted recruiting agencies are : Whitehead Man & Associates, United Media Entertainment Group, Corn Ferry International, Oddies Locum & Educating Services Limited, Russell Associates Ltd. and Erroldson company.

I guess they meant Korn/Ferry, but Corn Ferry sounds so quaint ;-)

Employees are not babies

Michelle Malay Carter takes strong exception to Karthik's post on HR and Respect and says:

I believe employees do know what they need and it is NOT to be rescued from the policies by HR. That’s scraping burned toast. Fix the toaster!!!! If HR wants to be taken seriously, they need to step up to the plate design integrated people-systems rooted in trust and fairness which function at the hands of the managers.

I agree with Michelle. Any condescending attitude will ensure that earning respect and trust is far away.

As Dave Ulrich had demonstrated, HR needs to strike a balance between Process and People, in addition to focusing on Strategic and Operational roles. So operationally HR needs to balance two seemingly paradoxical roles, Employee Champion (Can be broken down into Employee Advocate (EA) and Human Capital (HC) Developer roles: EA focuses on today's employee; HC developer focuses on how employees prepare for the future.) and the other is the Functional Expert role (Some HR practices are delivered through administrative efficiency (such as technology), and others through policies, menus, and interventions).

Focusing on people too much makes the process go for a toss, and focusing on processes too much makes people feel devalued and machine-like. Striking the balance, is in my view, is the toughest part in role for the HR professional. Employees can sense condescending attitude a mile away.

Maybe in the future as technology evolves and managing mindsets change, processes can be customised to people. Until that happens, the balance between the roles is the way to be.

HR and Respect

Another contribution from Karthik continuing the conversation earlier

It is interesting to note that Gautam's student contact has made the point about lack of respect for HR folks amidst IT employees. I would add it is much better in other industries which too are equally knowledge-intensive. But IT being a people-intensive business which is devoid of the manufacturing facility, the brands is all about only employees. Hence you end up attempting to appease them way too much because there is nothing else about the organization to celebrate or gratify-no leading brand or best-selling product. Add to it the huge profits that IT deals make-the resultant workforce is as empowered and as pampered as it can ever be.

So 'the employee concept' is the fulcrum around which anything and everything an IT organization does revolves. Though held so central and integral to the success of the organization, the employee is to be looked at sometimes as a baby that actually is not sure what it needs; often crying or quarrelling for things it cannot rightfully stake a claim to , expressing dissent at the organization's policies, questioning parity, fairness & consistency in administration of compensation & benefits practices. That it where the role of a Business HR professional comes in- being in that role, one has to strike the harmony between being the caretaker/benefactor of the pranky baby yet intervene and set expectations right when its tantrums get unacceptable. The balancing act actually is between being the employee advocate and corporate's/management's representative for policies/decisions.

I heard this phrase 'Employee Advocacy' from a senior HR manager in my organization while we were trying to evolve a role-definition for our team. The second time it echoed in my ears was when i heard Prateek (HR Head of Wipro) address the NHRDN gathering in Chennai 2 months ago. Employee Advocacy was Prateek's top answer to the audience's question-what qualitites or critical success factors in your opinion are desired in HR professionals in your organization?

Indeed true! Given the volume of decisions and policies that get rolled-out here, it is quite possible that sometimes some employees don't get their fair share. Inequities creep into the organization and the moment people get a sniff of it , their perceived parity and fairness about the organization gets contaminated. Therefore HR persons in such industries must be an employee advocate who will champion their cause.

As Gautam has rightly pointed out, some in their HR careers do not command much respect from their own bosses and peers because they do not take a stand on issues, lack personal credibility and pass the buck to others all the time-but the others too are not very popular among their employees because their job half-the-time is to say 'NO' and tame the knowledge worker.

Unlike others, most of the times in a HR career, one's work can only be felt and not seen.

Creativity and Respect in HR

This post was triggered by karthik's last post and a couple of messages people sent me. One was a question that a contact who is a HR student asked me on Facebook: "frankly speaking whenever i talk to my friends and ex-colleagues, i feel that HR department does not get due respect especially in IT industry. What do you think?"

Another person mailed me to ask: "in your opinion, what would be the most creative position you could get within HR? "

So let's deal with the first question... does HR not get due respect ? There are two aspects to the debate:

Firstly, if you take a poll, I am sure that there will be a overwhelming majority of folks in organizations who will say that they don't respect their HR department. However if you take the same poll for the internal IT group or the Finance group, or Audit group, or Quality group, you will get very similar responses. Any group that has a role that involves "questioning" or "checking" employee actions, is not well liked. So a part of the lack of HR's congeniality score can be blamed on the work we have to do. Rejecting people in interviews, Leave records, Payroll issues, Paperwork, Pay issues, Normalization of performance measurements. These all are things that employees resent us for, so there is a lot of blame that gets laid on HR's door. It comes with the territory.

Secondly, the lack of respect also is due to the fact that most leaders in HR are not respected by their peers and their bosses. This is due to various factors, like not taking a point of view, not thinking and planning strategically, not actually leading or setting the agenda. This lack of respect is sensed by the whole organization and impacts how the rest of the organization looks at the rest of the HR team. That's because a leader's team is in a large part a reflection of his personality.

Coming back to creativity in HR, there are some roles in HR that are oriented more towards design, like designing a new pay system, or a new performance management system, or a new career planning system, or new learning initiatives. These roles are highly creative, because they expect you to think innovatively while keeping in mind business context and budgetary constraints. So if you are creative and innovative there are ample opportunities in HR :-)

Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk lives up to my prediction

Well what did I tell ya ?

I got a press release today (normally I dutifully delete all such PR stuff) but since this was about Penelope I had to blog it :-)

Ninth House, Inc., the leadership solutions company, and nationally syndicated career columnist and Yahoo! Finance career expert, Penelope Trunk, have teamed up to offer the industry advice about employee recruitment and retention as it relates to an up-and-coming Generation Y.

Well, here's wishing Penelope best of luck in her consulting avatar ! More power to people like her !

Getting Outta-the-[HR] Box

Post from R Karthik:

CII, XLRI Jamshedpur & the NHRDN in conjunction are evolving a competency model for HR profesionals.

Now, that is an interesting endeavour these 3 bodies have embarked upon and the effort has been on for about more than half-an year now. I got an opportunity to be audience for a presentation, one of the steering commitee members on this project was making to a group at Chennai. Some of the best HR minds across the country, i understood, have been handpicked to drive this and we were also enlightened about the methodology they employed to evolve the model.

While the theme of the evening's talk, as pre-announced to us, would by itself keep me at the edge of my seat, I was particularly intrigued to know what competencies would actually constitute 'the mighty model'. As i waited anxiously for 'the slide' to unfold, i was drawing a mind-map of competencies that would be deemed sine qua non for the profession.

The project has just matured beyond a semi-nascent phase as yet and the committee has defined the scope of the competency model to be as follows;

Generic Competencies

-generic technical

-generic behavioral

Technical Competencies

-technical behavioral

(This is only a sincere attempt to recall from last month; excuse me if the above-mentioned scope has something amiss about what it actually is.)

Underneath each head there was quite a long list of individual competencies and this is where to my eyeballs met with dismay.

I have always believed Creativity/the ability to think outta-the-box is a competency desired of any professional not to discount the sharp-witted HR guy. Through my modest 2 & 1/2 years in the profession also, i have seen those professionals who've consciously cultivated that skill have come to be lauded as some of the best and brightest HR minds.

I was a wee bit piqued at this oblivion or should i call it negligence to an all-important skill-set. .

When the floor was thrown open for questions, i raised this point in a manner that would clue the speaker to think on this line and i could not restrain myself from raising it. I could do only as much.

Now with that said, i wish to sound out the readers of this blog (including Gautam) on "is this non-inclusion attributable to commoditization of competencies (or) will a scarcity or bounty in supply determine the inclusion or exclusion in such a model that will find a really wide applicability?".

Unlearning about careers

I was going through this article that Dr. Madhukar Shukla wrote on Knowledge Workers: Implications for HR practices some time ago when this final passage jumped out at me:

it is important to appreciate that in the contemporary dynamic and changing world, knowledge depreciates and becomes outdated quickly. Moreover, emergence of new business realities and technologies also provide both a threat to older skills as well as opportunities for acquiring new skills. For instance, many expertise areas have lost their lustre during last few years, just as many of the new knowledge-based jobs - e.g., forex expert, web designer, derivative analyst, patent manager, etc. - have become important within just last one decade.

The implications for the career of the knowledge worker are significant. Conventional careers were built on skills and competencies which evolved in a linear manner - career moves were essentially moving up the hierarchy - either within or across the organisations. But for the knowledge workers, careers progression can be only across new skill- and knowledge-base which routinely becomes outdated and irrelevant. The key agenda for managing the careers for knowledge workers would be to facilitate such discontinuous shifts across skill-sets.

So the most important skills for this new age would not be a 'skill' but rather a mindset - that one needs to cultivate, of being a person who can let go of the past and unlearn faster and faster. Of course, this took me back to the two kinds of people that Dr. Udai Pareek's instrument talked about... enfolders and enlargers. It looks like it currently is the age for enlargers, and will be so for a long time.

Challenges for HR consultants - US perspective

When I posted earlier on the booming HR consulting marketplace, ex-colleague Kaushik, who's now in the US gave some interesting perspective on the challenges that HR consultants face in the mature US market:

I thought the points were important enough to dedicate a full post :-)

While the human capital consulting market is growing, it is also equally difficult to sell. Some factors are :

1)Value propositions need to be flexible
2) Too many players
3)Boutique & specialized HC firms versus big ones
4) The client is an ex-consultant sometimes. Its so much more harder to negotiate with someone in the same profession ;)

What clients really need are the depth and breadth of expertise and solutions(rather than services). From my experience, Industry specializations play a key differentiator

One of the big market has been in technology and regulatory implementation & adoption. While most bigger human capital consulting firms leverage this opportunity, there is a blanket of opportunities for boutique firms in specialized advisory solutions and services space.

I hope I'll post some Indian perspective too in the coming month.... including mine :-)

Looming Leadership Crisis says IBM study

According to a major new IBM study of over 400 human resource executives from 40 countries released today, more than 75 percent of HR executives say that they are concerned with their ability to develop future leaders.

Companies in the Asia Pacific region are most concerned with their ability to develop future leaders (88 percent); followed by Latin America (74 percent); Europe, Middle East and Africa, (74 percent); Japan (73 percent) and North America (69 percent).

Rotating employees across divisions and geographies is also an important way to hone future leadership talent. Yet, according to the study, 36 percent of HR executives state rotating leadership talent is a significant challenge in developing future leaders. Another key challenge is the generation gap -- passing on knowledge from older to younger employees (28 percent).

52 percent of HR executives say a significant workforce-related challenge facing their organizations is the inability to rapidly develop skills to address current and/or future business needs. Furthermore, the study shows that more than one-third of study participants state their employee skills are not aligned with current organizational priorities.

Forty-seven percent of the organizations surveyed said that employee turnover has increased over the past two years, while only 16 percent said it has decreased.

Many believe their corporate reputations will allow them to attract and retain the people they need. While 52 percent indicate an inability to rapidly develop skills is a primary workforce challenge, only 27 percent state the inability to attract qualified candidates is a problem.

Retention also seems to be less of a concern; only 18 percent state this is a high priority workforce issue. However, changing trends in workforce demographics and mobility patterns suggest they may need to invest more resources in recruiting, selection and retention.

An underlying cause according to the study is that HR executives believe that despite the ongoing war for talent, they are more capable of attracting and retaining talent than their competitors. Almost 60 percent of HR executives surveyed feel they attract and retain talent better than their peers, while only 10 percent state they are less effective.

So, looks like some folks are deluding themselves :-)

Management Consulting Group buys KSA

MCG continues making acquisitions ! It had four specialist consultancies: Ineum Consulting, Proudfoot Consulting, Parson Consulting and Salzer Consulting.

Britain's Management Consulting Group Plc said on Wednesday it has agreed to buy Atlanta-based retail consulting firm Kurt Salmon Associates for $125 million.

Management Consulting said the deal, under which it is paying $75 million in cash, funded through a new debt facility, and the remainder through the issue of new shares, would be earnings enhancing by 2008.

It's a smart strategy by MCG to keep the brands separate and offer different services to the clients in different brands.

Religion and Consulting

This is unusual !!

"At the current time, our lives are very strongly influenced by our economic surroundings," said Joachim Drumm, a theologian who heads up the Department of Church and Society within the Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart, in southern Germany.

So it was a short step from peddling ethics within church walls to spreading the word in the business world, Drumm said.

"The leader of a bank that was undergoing tough consolidation changes came to me and said they were seeking a theologian who could advise them on making the right decisions," he said.

A series of similar requests got Drumm thinking that perhaps there was a market opportunity in the waiting. Along with a handful of other local church leaders, he created KIWI, which is short for Kirche und Wirtschaft, or "church and economy."

"Christians are a big part of the German economy," Drumm said, and noted that the Catholic Church itself -- with its schools, hospitals, daycare centers and old-age homes -- is one of the country's biggest employers overall.

Business leaders are increasingly interested in combining leadership and spirituality, Drumm said, adding that society as a whole is beginning to realize the limitations of pure consumerism when it comes to increasing their quality of life.

"So many people are looking for spiritual depth in their lives," he said. "Everything in our world is becoming faster and aimed at productivity -- but we are losing quality of life at the same time. What is money for if we don't know how to enjoy it?"

Hmm, so now will this catch on? Will we see Hindu-specific management consulting firms opening in India and Nepal, Islamic consulting firms in the Middle East and Buddhist consulting firms in China and Japan?

Employee Value Proposition webcast HCI

When the folks from the Human Capital Institute approached me to do a webcast for them on Talent Management, specially focussed on Employee Value Proposition I was more than glad to agree.

The session focuses on:

• The importance of EVP to business success
• The drivers that shape your EVP
• Aligning EVP with your attraction message and sourcing strategies
• Connecting the dots to create a focused EVP strategy

If you'd like to register for the webcast you can register here. This live event is free, on a first-come, first seated basis.

For those pursuing HRCI certifications, here's a little bit of incentive: Each HCI Webcast is approved for 1.5 hours recertification credit towards PHR, SPHR and GPHR recertification through the Human Resource Certification Institute (HRCI), and towards HCI's Human Capital Strategist (HCS) designation.

My co-presenter would be Mitzi Adwell, Talent Management Practice Leader for The Newman Group.

Hope to interact with you on the webcast :-)

Integrating Blogs and Social Networking

To me blogging is first and foremost, a way of expressing myself and to a lesser extent, connecting with others.

To connect with others, social networks like Orkut and Facebook are the preferred way (in the US , of course, MySpace would score over Orkut)

Which is why I think that of late social networks have been trying to integrate blogging into social networking. Orkut, being a Google product, has a better integration with RSS feeds to offer one's blogs posts in one's profile.

So if you go to my profile here, you would see this on the left hand navigation bar:


Once you click on these RSS feeds it leads you to a series of my blog posts within Orkut. And this is what it looks like:



Facebook on the other hand, has a couple of very easy applications that integrate your blogs onto your Facebook profile. I use the Flog Blog application which also helps you show off your blog posts on your blog profile.

If you have a Wordpress hosted blog then there's an application specifically for that.

Check out how both look by taking a look at my Facebook profile.


If one has a presence in all these networks and also uses a blog for building a brand and business opportunites, it is a good idea to link all of them together.

HR and Change

A question asked on Linkedin: What role do HR have and/or play in a business change initiative?

HR has an integral role to play in any business change that impacts people. HR should advise top management how to plan for change so that people with the right capability are skilled and motivated to champion the change as well as how to counsel the people whom the change will have a negative effect on.

The major roles of HR are

• plan, develop and execute the strategies for changes with no or minimal impact on the performance of individual employees;
• Identify and secure all the Key Players in the Organization;
• Develop and execute the communication and action plan to minimize the resistance of employees against the proposed change;
• Develop and implement Action Plans to get the performance at the level prior the change and to continuously increase the satisfaction and performance of employees.

Questions in Consulting

Terry asked on Linkedin: What sorts of questions should a technical consultant ask a client to get a good understanding of the client's needs, frustrations, and goals?

Hi Terry, Irrespective of whether the consulting is technical or not, the same rules apply. Build rapport and confidence. Contract. Collect Data. Report and Implement. Your question typically would get answered in the building rapport and contracting stage. Remember, the initial client may not have all the needs or frustrations.

The big question is, is your initial client the actual client?

During data collection some unexpressed needs might also come to the fore and contracting might be done again. As Peter Block says, it's a dance of engagement and rarely it is obtained at the first meeting. The questions have all been articulated by the other people who have answered.

On Personality Profiling

Someone asked on Linkedin: What's your opinion regarding personality tests (or profiles) such as Myers-Briggs or DiSC?

if one can restrict it to personal development and no let MBTI or DISC influence either work allocation, recruitment and promotions, then it's ok :-) For behavior and performance needs to be the basis of the above decisions. Not inherent factors, no matter if they are "scientific" or "occult"

On HR Consulting

What is HR consulting ? how different it is from the regular HR work and do we need any specific qualifications to be a HR consultant ?

HR consulting is basically consulting with organizations and working either in an advisory capacity or in an outsourcing capacity to help the HR groups in the client organization become more effective and efficient It is a little different from 'regular' HR work as it involves business development and projects can range from short to long. There are no qualifications necessary in India to be called a HR consultant

Three challenges for HR

Another question from Linkedin:

In this era of double digit attrition rates, higher wage bills, global talent mobility, what are the top three (or fewer) challenges before HR ?


My take is that the biggest challenge for HR is business leaders who appreciate that people really are critical source of competitiveness. The other biggest challenge is the competence and capability of HR groups themselves. If these two get addressed, then great things can happen

Recruiting mid career managers in developing countries

Another question from Linkedin that asked:

Recruiting of mid career managers in China is heavily influenced by the cultural revolution and the fact that the economy only began to open up in 1979. But what about the other countries in Asia?. What are the particular challenges that people face in recruiting mid career managers in India, Singapore, Japan, Korea etc.

My answer:

In India, the challenge is to find enough middle level managers, as the private sector really took off only after 1991 and there aren't enough middle managers and leaders who can manage the explosive growth we are seeing currently

Passion in employees

Thought I'd focus on some answers I've been writing on Linkedin Answers: Here is one that I posted on Sunday:

What can we do to enhance passion amongst employees?

To enhance passion, first and foremost, people have to be doing work that they love.

If a person is seeing his/her work as 'just a job' then you cannot anyway enhance passion. How do you do that? Well, first you have to help employees understand what their talents are. Everyone has a unique set of strengths that we may or may not be using.

There are psychometric tools available to determine that.

Once that clarity is achieved then you can train people on skills that suit their strengths and help them move towards that career path.

That's because a lot of people have landed in careers because of a 'default' mode - do this education and then do that post-graduation because everyone else does it too - and not because we actually chose it.

Sudhanshu Pant moves to Gurgaon

It's not just Indian business leaders who are relocating from the US and other western nations back to India, but now even an executive search consultant like my blog buddy Sudhanshu Pant who's decided to move from NY to Gurgaon !

India is a tough market for recruiters with many job offers chasing fewer talented candidates, and here's wishing Sudhanshu all the best for his new role ! Hope he blogs about his perspective and take on things in India. He already says how amazed he's about the change in the Indian mindset over the last one and half decades:

There is a positive feeling in the air, with a high level of confidence and a "can do" attitude. People I speak to believe that tomorrow will be better than today which already is better than yesterday. This attitude is infectious and a great morale booster when you are working with others in a team.

The new look Indian cricket team and the movie "Chak De" epitomise this new India and the change in culture. This is the reason why both have attracted such fanatical fan following for they seem to reflect people’s aspirations to succeed.

Find more on diversity in the workplace at DiversityJobs.com.

CEO blogging in India

The Times of India has an article on the "trend" of Indian CEOs blogging. It shows how for example Cognizant is using blogging inside the firewall to connect and communicate with employees.

It also quotes Sanjeev Bikhchandani of Naukri.com who started blogging some time ago. However, the CEO is always stressed for time, which is why Sanjeev has only done about 5 posts in the whole time so far.

External blogging and internal blogging are two very different things and I think having an external blog a CEO must start a "team blog" with 3-4 other top managers of the organization so that there's a healthy number of posts which focuses on the diversity of areas the blog can address.

Some other CEO bloggers in India who are not listed in the TOI article are Rajeev Karwal (Milagrow), Ajit Balakrishnan (Rediff.com), Basab Pradhan (Gridstone), Vineet Nayar (HCL), Hrush (Cleartrip) [list courtesy India Bloggers at Labnol.org]

The power of blogging has still not been tapped by Indian CEOs unlike what Mark Cuban and Jon Schwartz have done.

Find high quality Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.

XLRI Blog - XLers Unlimited

Have recently started concentrating more on the XLers Unlimited blog, a blog focussed on alumni news of XLRI Jamshedpur.

Of course there is a more "official" blog of the B School but XLers Unlimited is more by the alumni to share news about alumni and campus. It also includes a blogroll of XLRI students and alumni and what they are blogging about. :-) Of course there's the XLRI Alumni blog too.

So if you are interested to keep updated what the XLalumnosphere (heh!) is upto... you can subscribe here.

The Booming HR Consulting Market

Kennedy Research states that the market is booming. Hmm... I wonder why Learning and Development services is not listed as a part of the HR consulting market. Looks like the biggest beneficiaries of the strong market growth are going to be the big players with global reach. And seems like I should be focusing on talent management consulting ;-)

Coming off of a strong 2006, the HR consulting revenues will continue to expand through the remainder of 2007 and into 2008, with each HR consulting subsegment — benefits consulting, HR technology advisory, and talent management consulting — pulling its share and driven by continued client demand for many services. Kennedy has not seen a market environment like this for a long time, where each segment and each geographic region is experiencing strong growth. Kennedy forecasts annual growth for HR Consulting in the 7% range through 2009, with a slowdown expected in 2010 and 2011 and pegs the 2006 global HR consulting revenues at $18.62 billion.

Where should you work

In 2004 there were three different surveys to finding out the best employers in India. Now we can add a couple of more.

One of them is India's Employer of Choice awards which Watson Wyatt Worldwide and CNBC-TV18 has launched.

It'll be interesting to see if there are any overlaps in the different lists :-))

I wonder how HR folks get the time if they spend time filling up so many of them lengthy questionnaires ;-))

HR as a profit centre

An ex-colleague, Kaushik Srinivasan who has recently started to blog, posts an article he wrote on HR becoming a HR Organization and selling services to clients. The question this raises is, would internal HR services suffer if external services earn profits for the firm?

A number of benchmarking requests prompted Xerox to turn HR into a business. Xerox HR Solutions has turned the HR practices and expertise that it has developed over the past 25 years — much of which has earned quality and diversity awards — into a business. Its HR services now include consulting in such areas as employee empowerment, employee satisfaction, performance management, labor management, motivation, reward and recognition, work-force diversity and sexual harassment. And capitalizing on Xerox's core competency, document processing, it also sells document-management services and can recommend technical solutions to support HRMS technologies.

There are similar experiences by IBM, Levi Strauss and Walt Disney Co.,

HRO as a profit center is not entirely a new concept, but what definitely is new is the impact it will have on the HR’s reputations, both internally and externally.

The real business of organizations

Is to build leaders.

At least that's what this Fortune survey of the Top Companies for Leaders 2007 says:

Of the many powerful forces driving companies to develop leaders more effectively, the most important is the world economy's long-term shift from dependence on financial capital toward human capital.

Even given the credit crunch, money for investment is more abundant than ever. It isn't the scarce resource in business anymore; human ability is. Hewitt global-practice leader Robert Gandossy, who oversaw the Top Companies for Leaders study, says, "Organizations need talented people a lot more than talented people need organizations."

You don't build leaders on the cheap, and you don't just bolt a development program onto existing HR procedures. Indeed, the biggest investment involved may be the time of the CEO and other executives.

Lots of companies claim they're interested in developing leaders, but the University of Michigan's Noel Tichy, a top authority on the subject, says that checking their commitment is easy: "Just show me the CEO's calendar." Yet the CEO's time is only the beginning. As those who report directly to the boss see what the focus is, they also become devoted to developing talent, as do their subordinates. It's called the cascading effect. Not that these companies rely solely on the power of example. Virtually all of them evaluate executives partly on how well they're developing people.

Spotting leaders early means working on their development early. That's a big change at most companies, where programs were long reserved for an elite group several years into their careers.

Many of the companies on this list are trying to move past that. They believe that nurturing future leaders earlier than other companies creates a competitive advantage that lasts for decades, as their talent pipelines become bigger, better, and more reliable.

It's the most elementary principle of learning: If you don't know how you've performed, you don't learn and you soon stop caring. Yet at many companies, feedback is rare, candid feedback even rarer. The companies on our list combine frequent, honest assessment with plenty of mentoring and support. So when people are told what skills they need to improve, they're also offered programs or coaching for doing it.

Though executives at these companies talk about their leadership-development programs, they realize the term isn't quite right. Developing leaders isn't a program; it's a way of living. For example, honest feedback has to be culturally okay. At many companies it isn't. Devoting significant time to mentoring has to be accepted. Working for nonprofits has to be encouraged, not just tolerated.

Such cultural norms can't be dictated; they have to be in the air. That's a big reason GE tops this list. Charles Coffin (CEO, 1892-1912) realized that GE's real priorities weren't light bulbs or electric motors but business leaders; developing them has been the company's focus ever since. All these companies are working on that kind of culture.

If this interests you, you might want to check my article on developing leadership. Let me know what you think about that :-)

Amendment of Bonus

The Indian Central Govt. has decided to amend payment of bonus act which would make workers drawing upto 10,000 salary per month eligible for annual bonus. Till now only workers drawing upto 3500/- salary were eligible for bonus.

The Government is likely to issue the ordinance to amend section 12 of payment of wages act. The current celling of 3500/- for bonus was fixed in April 1995. The bonus celling had been fixed at 1600/- in 1965 which was raised to 2500/- in 1985 and 3500/- in 1995 by ameding section 2 (13) of the payment of bonus act.

Construction workers even if they have worked for a month with builder companies or contractors would also be eligible to get proportionate bonus from employer.

The Global Talent Index

The US under challenge from the UK and China.

The USA's status as the world's biggest talent hotspot is under threat from the UK and China, according to the first ever Global Talent Index (GTI).

The US will maintain its position as the world's leading country for nurturing and developing talent over the next five years, the Index developed by executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles and the Economist Intelligence Unit reveals. But it faces increasing competition from the UK, which rises to second place in by 2012, and China, which moves from eighth to sixth.

China is set to exploit its natural advantage as the world's most populous country by significantly improving its compulsory education system and developing a much better environment for producing and nurturing talent. This will enable the country to build on its manufacturing base and attract increasing numbers of foreign-owned businesses.

Despite the strong performance of the US overall, its labor market is set to become less open and flexible over the next five years amid fears of terrorism. It will rank 9th worldwide on this measure -only one place above China.

The GTI is the first survey of its kind to be undertaken. It is aimed at providing businesses with comprehensive evidence of where talent is located across the world. Thirty countries were chosen for the survey based on a representative geographical spread and the quality of available comparative data.

Kevin Kelly, CEO of Heidrick and Struggles, said: "Until now, companies may have sensed which countries attracted and developed talent most effectively, but objective data to support their impressions was simply unavailable.

"If talent is the oil of our future, we need to pinpoint the hotspots, identify the reserves and know how fast the pipelines can get up and running. The Global Talent Index will enable us to do this."

The GTI shows that the much fabled 'BRIC' (Brazil, Russia, India and China) phenomenon should more accurately be expressed as 'IC' when it comes to talent. While China and India rank among the top 10 talent hotspots worldwide, Russia will fall from sixth to 11th place by 2012, while Brazil will slip from 18th to 19th.

Overall, the survey confirms that talent follows where money leads. After the US and UK, the next best countries for attracting and developing talent are relatively small but open economies of Canada, the Netherlands and Sweden. Another noticeable trend is that several of the least promising performers do not yet boast fully functioning democracies.

Asia performs strongly overall, with Malaysia, South Korea and Japan accompanying China and India in the top 15 by 2012. Ukraine will overtake Russia and Argentina will fall dramatically over the next five years.