My Last post of 2007

2007 was an unforgettable year for me. Maybe, when I am an old man, playing with my grandchildren, I'll tell them about this year. I did say, maybe.

It was the year when the actual meaning of being an independent consultant actually hit me, and my own shortcomings were exposed. Cash was running out and I was staring closely at bankruptcy. It was then that I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and decided to join a firm. In June a large technology and management consulting firm made me an offer to be part of their Leadership Development group, but it would have meant uprooting the family and moving cities, and while the offer was interesting I was forced to say no to it.

Then finally in October I decided to join Tvarita Consulting, and the best part of being here is that it combines the best things of both life as an independent person as well as being part of a larger organization. For me the most fulfilling thing is the ability to convert business leads due to the capability of a larger and experienced team. The ability to join a co-worker for a coffee and brainstorm over ideas is something that an independent consultant often misses.

On the blog front, it has been a great year. I've had more traffic in this year than all previous years combined. And yes, my AdSense earnings went up considerably too ;-)

The highlight of the year was that thanks to the blog, a lot of media folks discovered me and I got a fair share of exposure in the news. Thanks folks, you know who you are :)

One of the most interesting things about blogging is meeting folks you follow virtually, in person. This year I met Rashmi Bansal and Jim Stroud in person during their visits to Hyderabad :-) It's amazing how known a person feels when you have been following their blog posts over a period of time. Unfortunately missed meeting Dina Mehta during her visit. And one jobsite CEO actually took to blogging after our conversation when we met in Hyderabad. Sanjeev, I hope you get back to blogging more regularly :)

Some other friends started to blog too. Prasad Kurian, my senior from XLRI, for example, has some of the most insightful takes on OD and HR. His take on issues in organizations is a must read for HR and non-HR folks. Ishita Bardhan, a junior from XLRI, on the other hand posted only four times and this post by her got quoted verbatim in Paulo Coelho's newsletter.

I also started Facebooking and Twittering this year and thanks to them know a lot more about my friends, like how Australian blogger Michael Specht was watching Australia whallop India at the MCG test match today (ouch!). I also added my blogger rss feed to feedburner and got a good idea of my total subscribers now :) Also created a community on MyBlogLog and you can join if you want to connect with other readers of the blog. My daily links through del.icio.us are available on my personal blog. You can also follow the blog posts I find interesting through my Google Reader shared items page.

It never ceases to amaze me how blogging can help one connect with people whom you might have never met. I mean, how else can one describe my connecting with Ford Harding, the professional services rainmaking guru?

As the year ends, I received some good news. HRWorld thinks this blog is amongst the top 25 HR blogs worldwide.

Thanks for giving me your attention through the whole of 2007 and I hope I keep coming up with stuff to deserve your attention in 2008 too.

Wish you a very prosperous and hope-fulfilling new year !

Getting your performance appraisal right

As the year draws to a close here are some pointers for those of you who might be heading for a performance appraisal:

1. If you haven't had clear goals to start your assessment cycle, you are in big trouble. Most managers can't set "SMART" (ask me what it means if you don't know) goals, which is the biggest reason for the heartburn during appraisal times. Would a carpenter cut a door without knowing how big is the door frame? Yet, that's what happens regularly in the corporate world.
2. If you have some goals, great. However, if the number of your goals (or KRAs, or KPIs) is more than 6-7 then you are in trouble again. Well, not as big a trouble as folks in bullet one, but a significant level anyway. If you have 12 goals (or KPAs...blah, blah) how do you know which ones to focus on? What are the weightages for each of them? So you could have done 10 goals but if your manager tells you, number 11 and 12 are the really important ones to consider for your role, then you are in deep deep trouble.
3. If points 1 and 2 are great, but your performance is subjective and lacks a measurement process, then you might be doing what we do in Indian markets, haggling !
4. Depending on the performance appraisal process, you might have a self appraisal step. Be sure to make it count by giving realistic estimate of your key skills, achievements and (if your company focuses on it) competencies as it relates to your current role as well as future roles.
5. During the performance discussion, ask your manager to be frank and list out your strengths and also weaknesses vis-a-vis your current role as well as your next targeted role. If you don't know what role you can move into next, ask your manager. If your firm has a mentoring process before a promotion is given, ask when will you be eligible for it.
6. If you've had more than one manager in the performance assessment period, be sure that the past manager has passed on the full feedback of your performance to the new one. Specially if you had done great work then :)
   
7. Don't use the performance appraisal process to blackmail the organization, using threats of resignation/offer letters from other firms to get a good performance rating. Even if your manager falls for it, during the normalization process it would not work and you might lose more than you would gain.
8. If you need help with headcount/other resources to be successful in your goals mention that clearly and ensure it is put down in the form.
   

Remember, performance appraisal time is for focussing on an honest look back on your performance.

All the best !

Of the outliers

One Japanese saying goes "The nail that sticks out, will be hammered in". Was reminded of that saying when I saw the new Aamir Khan movie Taare Zameen Par (detailed review on my personal blog)

However in this post, I won't be talking about the movie except for the thought that Aamir's character articulates that the world has always been changed by people who have been different and thought against the grain, because they have seen the obvious through other perspectives.

So as this year draws to a close, here's my wish for all of us. May we never forget the ability that we all had as children- of viewing this world with different views, different eyes, every single day.

That is what will help us be more innovative.

Remember, innovation consists of two steps, divergence (idea generation) and convergence (analysis and coming to a conclusion). Education and everyday living teach and reiterate the second step all the time. It is up to us to keep renewing the ability to generate different ideas.

The movie is about a boy suffering from dyslexia and here's an interesting research that says more dyslexics become entrepreneurs in the US compared to the UK (Hat tip: Businesspundit)

many of the coping skills dyslexics learn in their formative years become best practices for the successful entrepreneur. A child who chronically fails standardized tests must become comfortable with failure. Being a slow reader forces you to extract only vital information, so that you're constantly getting right to the point. Dyslexics are also forced to trust and rely on others to get things done-an essential skill for anyone working to build a business.

Sometimes our so-called weaknesses really are our strengths.

It's all a matter of perspective, you see (or you don't ;-) !

On Entreprenuership

On Linkedin Answers someone asked:

Experience talent always has the option of going the entrepreneurial way. Have you felt the lure as yet? If you have, what's stopping you?

This is what I answered:

yes, have felt the lure, tried it and moved back to industry, albeit not a 'large corporate' one. 

There are many reasons why all experienced talent cannot make the transition to entrepreneurship. 

Most of the times entrepreneurship needs more skills than most "corporate" people realise. Figuring out a business model, focusing on certain services/products and then marketing them is not easy. For high corporate achievers it can result in confronting failure which most might tend to take personally. 

The critical thing is that organizations encourage one to specialise and your work is supported and sold (either internally or externally) with the help of others. When you turn an entrepreneur you effectively are saying goodbye to that safety net. 

How successful then you are will lie in adapting to the lack of the safety net and learning to do multiple roles.

Insightory gets featured on TechCrunch

It's not everyday that I can say that I blogged about a startup before they got featured by TechCrunch, but that has happened with Insightory.com (my earlier post on them, and TechCrunch's post on them) Congrats to Avneet and the rest of the team there.

Great to see that they've also started a blog to keep users informed about how they plan to develop the site. Check this post where Avneet talks about the TC effect on Insightory.com

My additional features "dream features" from insightory would be:

• Ability to add to documents either by commenting or annotating
  
• Building the "community" aspect of the site by giving the ability to add more details to the user's profile page
  
• Ability to vote on usefulness, applicability and readability of a document.

Oh by the way, Avneet informs me that my article "How to get promoted" is one of the most popular articles by views (I'd love to know how many people have downloaded it and what they think of it)

Indian Recruiting firm starts a blog

When it comes to recruiters in India very few (that I know) have started blogging. There's of course my friend, Achyut Menon of Options, even Harinarayan flirted with blogging a little. Then there's Vinay Talwar and Sudhanshu Pant (who technically was in the US when he started blogging, before relocating back to India)

So it was exciting for me to discover that the team at Spearhead Intersearch had started a group blog.

My suggestion to any corporate group who wants to get blogging is:

1. Before becoming a blogger concentrate on being a good reader of blogging
2. Leave comments, discover a community and link posts
3. Don't be shy of mailing bloggers when you think you have a great post that would benefit their readers
4. There's a lot more competition for attention so building an audience will be slow.
5. Don't expect immediate returns.

Oh, by the way, I have been nominated for ZoomInfo and Recruitingblogs.com in the Best HR Blog category.

Click Here to take the survey

NDTV Blogging story on YouTube

Thanks to Daksh for alerting me that the video of the blogging story has been uploaded on Youtube by NDTV.

So you can check it out right here.

Development or Ops?

A reader of the blog sent me this query. What would be your suggestion to her? Am specially interested in knowing what HR folks think :-)

Dear Sir,

 

 I am a HR Person and I would like to know in Human Resource Which is important Operations or Development? There is a big conflict in my organisation  and I have  to decide to which umbralla to choose. Pls Help with your valuable suggestion.

 

Thank you

Leadership - India's new export

With Vikram Pandit's elevation to the Citigroup top job, I guess we'll see lots of these sort of articles:

The change is visible on the board of the U.S.-India Business Council, once comprised only of executives from U.S. companies doing business in India. Now, the board includes executives from global companies with business in India, Indian-Americans heading global businesses and Indian companies with interest in the U.S.

Board members include Arun Kumar, head partner at KPMG International, Indra Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo Inc. and Lakshmi Narayanan, vice chairman of Cognizant Technology Solutions, an outsourcing company that bills itself as "the best of both worlds."

At the same time, Indians who came to the U.S. to study 30 years ago have worked their way up the ranks of American companies. The latest round of promotions includes Shantanu Narayen, who joined Adobe Systems Inc. in 1998 and was appointed CEO this month.

Others have been in their jobs far longer, such as Ramani Ayer, chairman and CEO of Hartford Financial Services Group Inc., who has led the company since 1997.

Some of the rising stars:

_K.S. (Sonny) Kalsi, managing director and global head of Morgan Stanley's real estate investing business, which has $88.3 billion in assets under management

_Meena Mutyala, vice president of engineering and product management for Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s nuclear fuel business worldwide.

_ Sheila Hooda, senior managing director, strategy at $437 billion investment company TIAA-CREF, who was previously a managing director in the investment banking division at Credit Suisse.

The rise of Indian-born executives such as Pandit, who on Monday was named CEO of Citigroup, the world's largest bank, follows by more than a decade the advances of Indian business consultants.

A handful of Indian-born academics, especially Ram Charan and C.K. Prahalad, long-ago established themselves at the upper echelons of business consulting; consultant and author Charan was reportedly the first outsider Jeffrey Immelt turned to for advice when he became CEO of General Electric Co.

Rajat Gupta, who joined McKinsey & Co. in 1973, was elected managing director of the management consulting firm in 1994, then re-elected to two more three-year terms in 1997 and 2000. Gupta is leaving McKinsey at the end of this year to concentrate on his board positions.

One of Gupta's latest gigs: Special adviser on management reform to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

Manager and the Consultant

The lines are blurring says Clavert Markham in Top-Consultant.com:

"Management and consultancy used to be distinguishable by the fact that one dealt with continuity and the other with discontinuity. Now managers look back on the management of continuity with the sort of nostalgia reserved for bowler hats, typing pools and final salary pension schemes. 'A lot of continuity is now embodied in systems,' says Markham. 'Managers increasingly have to manage discontinuity through the medium of projects which they cannot execute through power alone -- they have to do it through consensus, by influence rather than mandate.' This change is creating a new set of issues for both consultants and clients -- with an overlap of skills, the make-or-decision is not so clear cut. 'Is consultancy leading edge or are consultants merely the transmitters of best practice?' asks Markham. 'The question of when one should use consultants becomes more one of knowledge capital and the appreciation of that asset, because part of that goes to the consultancy and not your own people.' This doesn't imply a diminution of the role of the consultant. On the contrary, the more people focus on what is 'core' the more they seem to outsource. And Markham asserts that there will always be a role for the 'outsider focus' that a consultant brings, even if they are an internal consultant from another part of the organisation. But adding value to that perspective -- to bring us neatly back to Markham's book -- will always requires practical consultancy skills, not just knowing what needs to be done but how to do it. "

NDTV.com: Blogging buzzword among fresh grads

NDTV.com: Blogging buzzword among fresh grads:

"''I make a small amount of money out of primarily two things - contextual advertising served by Google's programme. Then there are people who bid their ads to be displayed on my site, so through those Text ad links,'' said Gautam Ghosh, Blogger."

Yeah, you can read the whole segment with quotes by bloggers Amit and Daksh also on the site.

I didn't understand why the story is called "blogging buzzword among fresh grads" None of the three bloggers they interviewed were any way close to "fresh grads" ;-)

Sapphire HR Newscast

From XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business and Human Resources

Recruitment

Staggered hiring on the rise

In addition to on-campus recruitment, lot of firms in the IT/BPO, banking & finance and other major sectors are following the trend of ‘Staggered hiring’, which is off-campus recruitment strategy. This type of hiring happens throughout the year and across regions largely depending on the place the company is based in and the kind of manpower it requires.
To find out more click on the title

Hiring plans: India is world's No.3

India has emerged as the third most optimistic nation in terms of employment, with 42 per cent of employers having robust hiring plans for the first quarter of 2008, a latest survey says. Globally, Peru topped the list followed by Singapore in the second place and India grabbed the third spot with strongest hiring prospects for the first quarter of 2008, the Manpower Employment Outlook Survey said.

To find out more click on the title

Indian IT companies tapping foreign resumes

Supplemental hiring, or hiring employees in and from America to do jobs offshored to India from the US, is becoming an option for a lot of Indian companies. While some companies choose to let these foreign employees work from their respective home base and pay them more than their counterparts to compensate for the cost of living, others relocate them to India with hefty packages.

To find out more click on the title


Labor Laws

LS passes bonus Bill

The Lok Sabha approved a Bill that would replace an Ordinance issued in October this year for raising the eligibility limit for bonus payment to industrial workers from Rs 3,500 to Rs 10,000 per month. The Ordinance had also extended the bonus benefits to all construction worker employees, employed by builders or contractors, even if they have worked for a month.
To find out more click on the title


IT/BPO

Smaller IT-BPO cos. bank on best HR practices to remain competitive

Small and medium-sized IT and business outsourcing companies are constantly looking at adopting best practices such as innovative performance appraisal system, individual career development programmes and recreational activities, to make themselves more attractive to employees in a fiercely competitive market, says a survey on exciting emerging companies in India.

To find out more click on the title


Trends

IT firms increase academia interaction

Fearing a massive shortage of skilled manpower in the next few years, the country's top IT firms are enhancing their interaction with colleges and universities to ensure that the graduates who pass out from these institutions match the industry's requirements. For instance, the country's second biggest software services firm Infosys has developed several learning aids and tools that will help meet specific college requirements and bring about uniformity in training.

To find out more click on the title



Compensation

Indian wages rise 14.8 percent in 2007

Wages in India are expected to rise by 14.4 percent in 2008, a fifth year of double-digit growth as companies fight for talent in a booming economy, says human resource consulting firm Hewitt Associates. The firm's annual 14-country survey showed salaries in India rose 14.8 percent rise this year.
To find out more click on the title


Policy

Centre may retain tax sop only for BPOs

The central government is likely to extend the Software Technology Parks of India (STPI) scheme beyond 2009 only to Indian information technology-enabled services/business process outsourcing (ITeS/BPO) firms. The Centre is simultaneously planning to request the IT industry to shift from dollar to rupee-denominated contracts to benefit from the rising rupee.
To find out more click on the title


Trends

Design industry faces talent crunch

The fledgling design industry in the country is experiencing the egg-and-chicken syndrome. While there are just 500 designers actively contributing to the industry (though the current talent pool is around 3,000), the country needs about 8,000-10,000 designers per year.

To find out more click on the title


International

European high-tech sector needs Indian talent

There are roughly 43,000 jobs going begging in new technology sectors and "losses can be calculated in billions," according to August-Wilhelm Scheer of Germany. But owing to an unfavourable demographic trend and growing disinterest among German students for scientific studies, the labour pool for programmers, telecommunications engineers and computer security specialists is emptying out. A near-term solution would be to allow, even stimulate immigration of highly qualified people from India and China.
To find out more click on the title


Letters to the Editor

Surakshit Khullar surakshit.khullar@astra.xlri.ac.in
Nikhil Chadha nikhil.chadha@astra.xlri.ac.in

P.S. - Please send your feedback and suggestions for improvement to the editors on the above mentioned email IDs.

Talent Management is a fad?

So says Professor and Organizational Psychologist Rob Briner from the University of London in an interview in People Management this month called "Tried and Attested."

(link via Bob Sutton's blog)

"Management fads are attractive, as they promise to deliver a lot and do it fast. The alternative approach of a careful, sober, systematic consideration of the problem, potential solutions and the evidence can seem, in contrast, both boring and too slow. From the snake-oil salesman or quack to sub-prime loans and fad diets, we show a strong preference for the quick fix. On the other hand, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. Empowerment, TQM, excellence, downsizing, emotional intelligence, business process re-engineering and, my current personal favourite, talent management, are just some of the fads that have been rapidly adopted and, as many observers have argued, probably done more harm than good. Fads and fashions are also confusing to managers because they offer completely contradictory advice."

And Prof. Sutton adds

The comment from March (plus my unfortunate experience in academia and business where mediocre scholars and business gurus are constantly claiming that they deserve credit for ideas that have been around for decades) led me to propose Sutton’s Law: “If you think that you have a new idea, you are wrong. Someone probably already had it. This idea isn’t original either; I stole it from someone else.”

That makes me feel better about my ignorance about Talent Management !

Revamping is more about cost-cutting

In not such an encouraging bit of news for HR globally

More than 84 percent of 150 global companies surveyed in a new Deloitte Consulting LLP study say they are revamping their HR functions, but many are missing an opportunity to build long-term value and make HR an integral part of the company's business strategy.

In fact, the survey results found that revamping HR is still mostly about savings, systems and processes, despite rising demands from the C-suite for HR function to support overall business objectives to meet the challenges of an increasingly competitive business environment.

Key drivers behind HR improvements continue to be cost savings or efficiency (85 percent) and effectiveness of service (75 percent). Only one-third of respondents cite building HR capability as a driver for the overhaul, and even fewer (30 percent) responded that they were making improvements to free HR to undertake a more strategic role.

More promising, the survey results show that some respondents are moving toward business-HR alignment and are identifying key business issues that are driving future HR improvements -- training the next generation of leaders (40 percent); building and managing a global workforce (33 percent); mergers and acquisitions (31 percent); and an aging workforce (27 percent). However, only 40 percent of respondents have structured processes for future HR planning. This is clearly an area that needs improvement, as HR will likely find it difficult to support business strategy without a formal mechanism to solidify this alignment.

Expectations and HR

Business leaders have different expectations of HR and usually when HR professionals go ahead doing their job they conveniently forget to have any sort of "expectation alignment" discussion with their clients.

If you are a HR professional have you had an explicit discussion about what your client expects of you? Incidentally, have you thought about who exactly is your client? Is it the CEO? The business unit leaders? The middle managers (cranky or otherwise ;-) ? Or all employees?

What happens when you decide you have more than one client? Do you make your priority list explicit?

And what are your expectations of yourself as a HR professional? Where and at what level would you like to contribute to your organization and to your profession? How does that sync or clash with your business's expectations from you?

For some people having the big expectations explicit is important, but for others it can even be distracting when a context does not exist for it in the immediate time frame. For a person like me, the large expectations are important to know. However, I know of people who say "Damn, don't give me the philosophy, just tell me what you want from me this week and next week"

These are different modes of engagement between two parties, specially when one is providing professional services to the other. Someone like Peter Block, calls it the "engagement dance" in the "contracting" phase.

What professionals (whether "internal" or "external") often forget is that when the contracting is for a specific activity, you have to keep going back to the client and re-engaging again in subsequent contracting phases. However, when you have "contracted" on overall expectations, the smaller activities do not need constant renegotiations.

So my advice to HR professionals and business leaders is to make as much of the expectations explicit as possible. Some expectations might be embarrassing to share ("I want you to give me great service, so that I can showcase it and get a promotion") but putting as much as possible on the table makes the relationship easier.

NDTV story on Blogging

Remember the NDTV interview I blogged about earlier?

It's going to be telecast on 11th Dec, 2007) on the 7pm - 7.30pm show Urban Planet.

It would get repeated tomorrow morning at 11.30am on Wednesday (12th December)

So if you want to see me on screen (no earthly reason why you should ;-) since you already know my views!) you can tune into NDTV 24x7 at the given times :-)

Updated : Times and dates

Posted the videos on Youtube here and here. The resolution is quite bad because I recorded it on my cell phone and I am too embarassed to post them directly on the blog

A very personnel touch

That's the name of the article that appears in today's Economic Times newspaper and has quotes from my CEO, Padma Kiran Rao and myself too :-)

Padma Kiran Rao, 41, who founded Tvarita Consulting in 2004, sensed this opportunity after a long career working with large corporates like Deloitte, ilabs and Cognizant. According to Rao, small companies face a classic chicken-or-egg situation when it comes to HR. Since they cannot attract senior HR talent, they have to settle for less-experienced professionals who are at best able to provide administrative support. "They don't have the objectivity and stature to tell a CEO the right thing," she says. And because of weak HR practices, these companies in turn find it tough to attract talent. Ergo, small HR firms, which guide them on such people management issues, are just what the doctor ordered. What makes this new breed of HR services firms successful is that they understand the needs of small businesses—from the economics to the approach taken, the game here is very different. First, keeping costs down is key.

At Tvarita, the senior team brings in a pan industry experience in HR and Finance, and is involved with most of the key strategic HR work. Gautam Ghosh, 35, an HR professional with career spanning organisations such as ITC Hotels, Dell and Satyam, had been running his independent management consulting business and a popular blog before joining Tvarita recently as a senior consultant. Ghosh says this role is unlike any other he's done in the past: "I hadn't made policy for an organisation until now," he says. "And that's what makes it more rewarding and challenging." But the success or otherwise of an HR change initiative ultimately depends on the owner/promoter's readiness for change. And the problems start at the top, says Rao: "Their organisations have a strong influence of their personalities, which takes time to overcome."

Says Tvarita's Rao, "You can't act as consultants; you have to operationalise your recommendations—that's part of the deal. Small business owners are cynical about consultants who walk away after giving advice." She adds that a significant part of Tvarita's fees is structured as a bonus component based on successful implementation. "We have to connect to the business ROI in some sense. For these companies, every moment and every penny counts."

It's, however, the fit with small businesses that makes small HR firms a perfect partner in progress, says Ghosh, "As small organisations ourselves, we completely understand their pains and issues."

My sincere thanks to journalist Vikas Kumar who reached out to me and sought to understand what we were doing to help small and medium enterprises ramp up their HR competencies.

As the article says: If you can't afford an HR department for your small business, help is at hand. A new breed of HR firms will set up one and run it for you

The others quoted in the article are Husys (also based in Hyderabad) and Vyaktitva (based in Delhi), and I am sure there are lots of other such HR firms. It's been my pleasure to meet with the people behind both the firms and I am sure this article will help all of us get visibility for the work we are doing.

The career 100

RiseSmart, subscription based site for helping senior executives search for their jobs, has compiled a list of the top 100 career related blogs and (wonder of wonders!) this blog has been included in that esteemed list, that is led by such awesome bloggers like Penelope Trunk (Brazen Careerist ), Tom Peters Company (tompeters! ) and Heather Hamilton (One Louder )

A lot of my other favourite bloggers are also on the list like Business Pundit , David Maister , Cheezhead , Bob Sutton Work Matters , Evil HR Lady , Exceler8ion , WirelessJobs.com and the Recruiting Animal 

Blog Council formed, now what?

Some of the biggest organizations who are also blogging have come together to form a blog council. Shel Israel blogged and probably broke the story first here. It includes organizations like Coca-Cola Company, Dell Computer, General Motors, Kaiser Permanente, Microsoft, Nokia, SAP and Wells Fargo 

The interesting thing would be to see how this evolves. Large organizations really don't like to publicly fail at something. And yet, blogging is not something that can be planned and done meticulously and project managed. You cannot for example, conduct a focus group and market estimation for your blogging project. At the most you can stick to a few basic rules and hope it succeeds.

Bloggers like Dave Taylor have already written them off. And the way the initial two posts are written, it does not bode well for the Blog Council (isn't the name also reeking of pompousness?)

Accenture's Consulting focus for India

Accenture's byline is "Consulting. Technology. Outsourcing" after those famous Tiger Woods commercials.

So it was quite evident that the next phase of their India story would be consulting after their initial growth was driven by offshoring Technology and Outsourcing.

As this news item says:

''We are very focused on innovative talents management and recruitment in India, and we are on track to meet our global goal of having as many as 2,000 consultants in our centres across India by the end of our fiscal year next August,'' said company Group Chief Executive (Management Consulting & Integrated Markets) Mark Foster.

Accenture currently has a headcount of 15,000 people across the globe involved in management consulting and the India plans are a significant part of its strategy to scale up its workforce in the space by 5,000 people in the next three years.

''India has a significant number of business school graduates and experienced professionals who can fill a major need for consultants with strong analytical, operational, industry and strategic skills,'' said Accenture Managing Director (Management Consulting India) Sanjay Jain.

Interestingly this seems like Consulting outsourcing, and I guess it follows the model of Infosys Consulting, where front end consultants do a major part of the client interface and then send data over to the offshore consultants for analysis and possible suggestions. Thereby, saving clients fees for the onsite resources' time.

Had blogged about a related story here.

My TV Interview with NDTV

Am just sitting here and getting interviewed for NDTV's program "Urban Planet". The focus of the interview is whether people can earn a living via blogging, and the questions were more about how long I have been blogging, and whether in India people can give up a full day job to take up blogging full time.

My response to these questions was that it would depend on the content and audience for each blog on how they would be targetted, so while a blog focused on Indian content might be popular in India, it would not get in readership from people from other parts of the world.

The other point is that the audience is evolving too, and that they would click on an ad, only when it makes most sense for them.

Hence what is critical is the content and the uniqueness of that blog's take on that content.

In India, with broadband penetrating, hopefully audio and video blogging would take off soon, reaching audience much wider than only urban India. Maybe then would be the time in 3-4 years when people can actually make a living by blogging.

Many thanks to NDTV's V. Satish and cameraman SM Akram and Santhosh for being patient with me and coaching me for my first time in front of the camera !

Randstad takes over Vedior

Human resources company Randstad takes over competitor:

"The Dutch temporary employment company Randstad announced Monday that it would take over competitor Vedior to become the second largest human resources company worldwide. Randstad will pay a 3.51 billion euros (5.14 billion dollars) for Vedior in a mixed deal of cash and shares. Randstad is proposing 0.32759 Randstad shares and 9.50 euros per Vedior share, which values each Vedior share at 20.19 euros, the companies announced. The takeover, which Randstad chairman Ben Noteboom characterized as 'more of a merger,' will create the world's second largest temp company with combined revenues of 17.3 billion euros."

Hmm... I wonder what the reality would be in India. Randstad has recruiting firm Emmay HR Services while Vedior has a stake in the much larger Ma Foi Management Consultants

Developmental Needs Analysis

Training Needs Assessment would be the start point for any intervention, and one TNA exercise might give you inputs for many training and non-training interventions.

You can do the needs assessment at various levels: 

1. Individual Level – You would get data about the developmental needs of an individual by feedback from the reporting manager and other stakeholders who interact with that person. The developmental needs might be classified as different, either skill-based, attitude based or knowledge based
2. Team Level – A team might have a specific need that is due to a business or organizational need
3. Role Level – For organizations that have a specific competency level defined for each level of the organizations, there would be role based needs depending on how managers in that level are currently.
4. Organizational Level – Organizations might come up with certain needs that need to be driven across levels and locations and these need to be built for each person

 

Some more thoughts on this topic on my blog Training & Organizational Development: Needs Assessments

Why Innovation Sucks

I think this is a must read post by Bob Sutton, for people who think innovation is always a great thing...

But before you rush ahead to build or join an innovative company, I feel obliged to warn you about the hazards. Working in an innovative place can be annoying and frustrating, or worse. Renowned authors including Stanford’s James Adams and The University of California’s Barry Staw assert that many people say they want a creative workplace, but few would be happy if they actually worked in one. 

I don’t want to leave you with the impression that innovative companies are horrible places or you are destined to lose all your money if you work in one. Many people love the mess and confusion. It is more satisfying to come with up new ideas than to repeat the same actions – and the same thoughts – again and again. It is exciting to work with people who are thrilled about some new idea. Even though many new ideas fail, these setbacks often occur where failure is tolerated, even rewarded. And there are large numbers of people who have become rich working in such places, even if the percentage is small. But you should know the hazards of innovation before devoting your days to it.

As the old saying goes, "Be careful about what you wish for, it might actually come true!" :D

Disdain for Dogma

Post by regular contributor R Karthik:

One gets to hear it quite often when in college or b-school- "what you are going to be doing as part of your jobs is not very directly related to your course curriculum", a nd some tend to swallow this perspective. Especially if they are MBA programme entrants who have not any kind of prior work experience,   so do they hook, line and sinker. Senior students who have had their summer stint in industry say "theory is altogether different from practice-concepts which we live with out here do not apply all that directly in practice in organizations" (If that only sounds like some sort of solace to the student who is scared of scores (CGPA)-unfortunately it doesn't!). Alumni interactions also drive the same point home and why, even some of the teaching faculty members hold this opinion. Out from campus, into the first job as a fresh hire your induction programme features some superb speakers (notably top managers from the organization) with whom this disregard for theory resonates so readily. So all of their sessions are not completely devoid of the "theory-oh!-it's all crap" refrain! Note that there is an increase in the degree of disdain for theory over the time-period (campus-to-corporate).

 

I would appreciate if the same disregard were indeed directed against academic excellence being considered as a CSA/KSF for on-the-job performance. But pitiably, some professional managers and the organizations they represent subscribe to this sacrilegious school of thought. Yes is it not somewhat blasphemous to disparage theory which feeds almost every sphere of management practice in business organizations? Proponents of theory or theory by itself does not claim superiority over practice and as a quid pro quo professionals must acknowledge that practice owes its allegiance to theory and ongoing research in different streams. While it is universally accepted that all of management theory is not practicable or applicable to real-time business scenarios, let us be thankful to what researchers and theorists have offered. Only those can be professionals in the true sense of the term, who are capable of appreciating the theoretical foundations behind every practice. I somehow can't get away without saying that I tend to look down upon those who say they don't believe in theory. It is not even fashionable to make such statements! Theory without practice has not fruit and practice without theory has no root- indeed true; isn't it?

 

Dell and WPP Group Form Ad Agency

Now, isn't this an interesting piece of news?

Dell Inc. announced Sunday that it would team up with the WPP Group, the advertising giant, to create a marketing agency to handle $4.5 billion in Dell accounts over three years.

Dell’s advertising and marketing business had been spread among 800 companies worldwide.

“We are making a mutual investment in people, processes and technology to provide greater continuity of the Dell brand globally,” said Casey Jones, vice president for global brand marketing at Dell. “And we will operate together as one marketing and communications team.”

The interesting point about this news is that it shows that after hiving off different pieces of work to different agencies a large firm is seeing benefits in having a centralised provider. As a friend of mine says, this is the "one neck to choke" strategy. Any idea how that would impact other service businesses ? Like consulting?

Conducting needs assessment

I’ve been ruminating on the approach that organizations take to taking out pieces of the training process and looking at consulting support for the same. The typical approach to training support that organizations look for is during the delivery process.

Related posts:
Making Learning Strategic
The problem with Leadership Development
Needs Assessments
OD and Peformance Consulting
Transfer of Learning

Some organizations (including a former client of mine) also involve training consultants in the content design process. However, I haven’t really heard of any consultant doing the needs analysis piece before getting into learning design and intervention. By needs identification, I mean a comprehensive assessment of capability development, including which needs are actually related to skill building and learning and which needs might be addressed by either changing organizational structure or moving people around.

The problem is when external consultants/trainers are brought in without real assessment of needs being done. The root of the issue is that Organizational Effectiveness/Developmental work is often divorced from training design and delivery. Had written more on this topic here

What I would like to know is why organizations do not involve external help in actually conducting the needs assessment which is as important, if not more, than training design and delivery.

Any answers?

From Blogging to Microblogging

Apologise for the lack of posts. However, you can now get my twitter updates on the blog itself on the right hand navigation pane.

Regular blogging will resume shortly :-)