Consulting firm's websites - Alexa details

I know that Alexa is not the perfect system for measuring, however it is interesting to see how the websites compare








As you can see, McKinsey & Co.'s website is way ahead of its competitors. The new Booz.com brings in the rear.
BCG is marginally ahead of Bain however.

What's interesting is to note the sources of traffic to McKinsey.com - India contributes a quarter of the visitors. It's also amongst the top 5,000 websites visited in India.

Mckinsey.com users come from these countries:

United States35.2%

India23.9%

China9.0%

Germany9.0%

United Kingdom4.3%

Mckinsey.com traffic rank in other countries:

India344,575

United States1538,31628961615

China461739,2120720

United Kingdom822521,593

Germany22657,873

No HR Gyan

A good friend of mine, Jaya, who used to head the HR function at an MNC IT networking firm and is currently working on a freelance basis has started a blog called No HR Gyan (which I think is a comment on the egroup I run called HRGyan )

She's been writing some great stuff, like this post on the issues that working women face called No Women No Cry (a tribute to Marley I suppose!)

I think the mind set in most organizations to enable a women to work with flexibility to support her family needs is a tough one. I have read so many articles on this subject, but honestly it is a personal struggle each day.

I think what we need to appreciate is that women in general DO carry the guilt of missing out a large part of their children growing up. Often missing out on the first word the child spoke, the first fight in the park, the first run..... and so much more.

Since many of the women also have a strong achievement orientation, its hard to just give up a career you have build so painstakingly and sit at home.

With this inherent contradiction i live each day and each night.

I am also not sure of options that exist for HR professionals to work virtually. I did see a lot of my colleagues in my earlier company especially in US & Europe being able do my kind of work from home.. always wondered when the Indian industry would be able to enable that.

And then there's this post on Developing Employees .

When employees know they have a fair chance to prove themselves, they do everything possible to live up to that expectation. 

After all no one likes to 'feel' they are no good.

These vibes comes through.

If you observe any team meeting (as an outsider) - just by the way employee are being spoken to - can easily get you guessing on where they stand in the performance distribution graph.

You can experience 60 minutes of well scripted performance feedback discussion with no authenticity vs a 5 minute heart felt - honest review of where the employee really stands and what they can do to stir up things

You can guess which one would work

Managers need to focus on constantly discovering the employee's strengths and passion...

To leverage them to re create the magic.

A good question to ask an employee is - which is one past achievement you are proud off - what made it happen ! ! How do we re create that performance in this team ?

So I suggest you add her blog's feed to your aggregator/Google Reader. You won't regret it :-)

Welcoming Sanjay Singh to the blogosphere

The Indian HR blogosphere is getting more and more senior professionals who are starting to blog.

Sanjay Singh, VP HR at Whirlpool Asia just started a blog and in his first post he touchs on the the trouble with Leadership Forecasting and what can be done about it:

the biggest challenge lies in accepting the notion that we can predict the business needs (or even the sahpe & size of the business, in 2 years) - Wall street is surely smarting over this assumption.

So if we cannot predict the needs of business, it does severely handicap any ability to predict the Talent needs.

Short point - Talent Forecasting is dead !!

That is certainly bad news for all users & professionals around the Talent Space, including me ...

The answer, I guess, lies in seeking more versatile Leaders who have adaptability as certainly a key strength.

Abhijit Bhadhuri blogs about meeting hot shot headhunting firm Egon Zehnder partner and author of Great People Decisions Claudio Fernandez-Araoz (email:Claudio.Fernandez.Araoz@ezi.net) who is listed by Businessweekmagazine as one of the most influential headhunters.

he had asked the legendary Egon Zehnder himself, “… what makes a person successful?” Egon’s answer, “Luck!! Lucky to be born at a certain time, in a certain country, in a certain socio-economic group, lucky to get a certain education etc. Maybe I should have asked him what the SECOND most important reason for success was.”, Claudio adds wistfully.

I also asked him questions. How many people should interview a candidate? Claudio recommends no more than three people meet a potential candidate and spend two hours each. Beyond that you hit a Type II error ie you are likely to reject a good candidate if more than three people evaluate a candidate.

And Indraneel Roy looks at who should be blamed for the financial mess and why precious little is being done about it:

The fact that not a single human being has been held accountable ( not counting those "fired with a fat severance") for 1 trillion dollar debacle is simply astounding. In fact, Hank the saviour has come up with a brilliant plan to kill the 'toxic assets' and save the 'toxic banker'. What a stroke of genius!

The events unfolding around us are testimony to the fundamental problem that nobody is willing to address. The problem of not just a few bad apples, but an entire rotten orchard. I remember a comment made by an Indian politician several years ago ...

"The problem is not when one becomes corrupt, its when one starts believing that corruption is the new normal"

This is a case where several individuals, over time, came to the conclusion that collusion, non-disclosure, public lies (obfuscation taken to the extreme), in-group favor trading, flawed ratings, and complete lack of accountability ... had become the new normal. These individuals are now trying to quickly shift the blame on to anything other than them - helped, in part, by the growing panic that the common man will take the hit.

On Learning to Learn

Having been dabbling and trying to learn Instructional Design, and getting to know what the Walker Cycle and Bloom's Taxonomy is all about, a Tweet from Dina and her subsequent blog post triggered off a thought process.

We've all heard of the quote "the future belongs to those who learn to learn, unlearn and re-learn". But what does it mean?

Then it struck me.

Learning a higher level skill, specially at the analytical, synthesis and evaluation levels on the cognitive level - or any skill at the affective level - or the adaptation and origination category in psychomotor level - really calls for changing one's worldview.

While the word for all these might be learning - yet it does not justify the full import of the changes that are needed.

Let's take the developmental and learning need of managers who have to graduate to the next level and actually lead. As Marcus Buckingham points out what a great manager does and what a great leader does can seem contradictory.

To manage well requires that you recognize the subtle, but important, differences between people and that you know how to put those differences to work for your organization. Great managers thrive on helping people experience incremental growth. The dynamic creativity of figuring out how to move from the player to the plays is the real genius of a great manager.

Leadership isn’t about that at all. Leadership is about finding the words, stories, and images that bring great clarity to people. And that’s just different from being a good manager. You could have both talents, but good managers don’t necessarily make good leaders.

So when you actually "learn" leadership - you actually make a great shift in your worldview. You cannot build a new worldview on top of your existing ones. You have to let them go. These mindsets could be dependent on context of the role one is doing, too.

For example, specialist functions in HR focus on making a standard policy/process that can be applied uniformly across the business unit/organization. As a Training Manager/OD Specialist that was my role.

However, the mindset of the HR generalist is actually to manage exceptions and they face issues depending on how the specialist's policy/process is impacting their employees. When I did my stint as a HR Manager of a business unit that was clear to me.

So in a role, I couldn't really say which was correct and which was wrong. As both the roles are structured and the contexts are different.

Letting go of non-relevant mindsets is the first step of learning to learn.

That is the most difficult part than actually picking up the 'skills' IMHO. This is particularly true when learning interventions are given based on potential, rather than for people who are actually facing the situation. So when you tell a Manager that he/she needs a certain skill for being a General Manager/VP then they really don't know what would be actual shift required.

Consulting News

More news from the Consulting Industry

PwC gets rated as the top employer for graduates in the UK.
KPMG uses online fair to recruit top talent. Interesting!
E&Y to assist Kiva.org in increasing the transparency of its micro-lending process.
Big 4 dominate BusinessWeek's "Best Place to Launch a Career" List
Booz & Co. enters India again
Tom Stewart (I liked his book quite a lot!) joins Booz & Co. as Chief Marketing and Knowledge Officer . That's very interesting. Am sure this is the first time these two functions are merging under one person. 
The unpretentious BCG head.


Yeah, am being lazy. :-)

Payback for Outsourcing

According to this news item, apparently if the India-US Nuclear Deal comes through, it could support 250,000 hi-tech jobs in the US

The powerful US Chamber of Commerce has come out in strong support of the India-US civil nuclear deal, saying a modest share of the potential $150 billion business could support 250,000 high-tech American jobs.

Hmm, is it any surprise that this bill seems to be hurtling with Congress ? If it comes through at least W can claim to have reversed outsourcing's effects somewhat :-D

Deloitte's microsite to brand consulting

Deloitte Consulting in the US has come up with a fairly simple video based microsite Born 2 Consult to increase their attractiveness and to catch them young

Take a look.

What do you think? You think that such initiatives would attract today's youth to a career in consulting?

Considering the fact that investment banking as a career no longer exists - guess quant jocks can head towards consulting and Private Equity now.

Technorati on Blogging in 2008

Technorati the blog tracking service is doing a daily roundup of main topics under its State of the Blogosphere 2008 report.

Some highlights:

• In looking at the just over 5 million blogs tracked by Technorati who posted in June, 45% have a Technorati Authority number of 1 or more
  
• Hundreds of thousands of individual blogs, which make up the top 10% of blogs as measured by Technorati Authority, and more than 75,000 bloggers have an authority of 50 or more — meaning at least 50 other bloggers found their content worth linking to.
  
• Four out of five bloggers are personal bloggers who blog about topics of personal interest. About half of bloggers are professional bloggers — blogging is not necessarily their full-time job, but they blog about their industry or profession in an unofficial capacity. 12% of bloggers blog in an official capacity for their company.
  
• Of course, these groups are not mutually exclusive. More than half of professional and corporate bloggers are also personal bloggers. This could be on a separate blog, or they may blog about personal interests within their professional blog.
  

Some segregations based on gender and geography. Interestingly Asian bloggers are much better at monetizing their blogs!

• The majority of bloggers openly expose their identities on their blogs and recognize the positive impact that blogging has on their personal and professional lives. More than half are now better known in their industry and one in five have been on TV or the radio because of their blog. Blogging has brought many unique opportunities to these bloggers that would not have been available in the pre-blog era.
  
• Three-quarters of bloggers cover three or more topics. The average number of topics blogged about is five.
  
• There were some global differences. Music is more popular and politics is less popular in Asia, while personal, lifestyle, and religious topics are less popular in Europe.
  
• Asian bloggers tend to be more motivational and confessional, while European bloggers are more confrontational. Women tend to be more conversational in their blogging style, while men tend to be expert. Finally, those under 34 are more confessional in their blogging style, while those over 35 are more expert in their style.
  
• 82% look to more than one means to measure the success of their blog, with the average blogger looking at four distinct metrics. Personal satisfaction is by far the most popular measure of success
  
• The majority of corporate and professional bloggers have seen a positive impact as a result of their blog. Half are better known in their industry, and one in four have used their blog as a resume enhancement. Fewer than one in ten have seen a negative impact from blogging and one in three have yet to see an impact.
  
• Half of bloggers attend events (e.g., movies, conferences, sporting events) for their blog. Among those bloggers who attend events, one third do so for free. One third of bloggers have received free products.
  
• Top audience-building strategies include: listing their blog on Technorati and Google, commenting or linking to other blogs, and tagging blog posts so that they are more easily searchable. All of this hard work has paid off — half of active blogs attract more than 1000 monthly visitors.
  
• Blogs with higher authority are typically updated more frequently than blogs with lower authority. The Technorati Top 100 blogs had more than twice as many postings in June 2008 as the next 500, and more than 12 times as many postings as the next 5000.
  
• Among those with widgets, the majority of bloggers use at least four widgets on their site and two-thirds would include a widget with an ad on their blog.
  
• Among those blogs with RSS feeds, three in four support full-content feeds.
  
• In order to retain visitors to their blogs, sophisticated bloggers are creating readership events.
  
• The majority of these events are in person, with one in five personal bloggers hosting an in-person event and one-third of corporate bloggers hosting an in-person event.
  
• Google Analytics is the most common tracking tool (used by 2/3 of bloggers)
  
• Bloggers with advertising invest significantly more money in their blogs than bloggers who do not accept advertising. The mean investment in blogs is $1,000 over the past year. However, the median investment is only $50.
  

RecruitingBlogs.com to start a Job board for recruiters

Got an update from Jason Davis, the founder of RecruitingBlogs.com that they're starting a job board for people to post Recruiting and HR positions. I think mostly the posts would be US centric, however if enough Indian organizations/Recruiters post there - I guess Indian HR/Recruiting folks can also search for jobs there.

Essentially, the job board will be free for 90 days. Everyone on RecruitingBlogs.com will have 10 positions they can post for free for the next 90 days. after that it will change. Not sure yet to what but it will.

If you have recruiting or HR related positions you would like to post, please use the code rbcjobs and though I am officially launching tomorrow, you can go there now and start posting if you have positions and you want to post them there. again, the code is rbcjobs

If you know of anyone in the business who posts these kinds of positions, let them know that they can post for free if they are a member of this community for the next 90

The link to the new Job Board is http://www.jobtarget.com/home/index.cfm?site_id=6155

Turning search engines into your friend

Interesting example about how if a Google (or any other search engine) throws up negative information about you what are the options before you.

And this is true not just for job search but for any thing that people might need to check references. It becomes critical for Venture Capitalists as well as entrepreneurs approaching them. It is very critical for people in the advice business like auditors, lawyers and consultants.

Like it or not, the perception for a lot of people is formed by what they see and don't see about you on the internet. You might not even know who all check for you online. And what they see.

Language Leadership

Steve talks about how many confident professionals, who when addressing a group showcase their "under"confidence by using the wrong words.

I personally think that like our eyes and body language, words are the windows to our mind. It's not the content of the words themselves - you really don't have to use jargon or obscure words - but the message that they send out.

When we are unsure about ourselves our words and body language convey that diffidence to our audience. Whether that audience is of one or two hundred.

Making the Ads Go...

Maybe it's the slowdown and the lack of regular posting from my end... 

Whatever it is, there's been a steady fall in my AdSense revenue.

So to stop forcing myself to blog, I have realised that I will blog when I feel like conversing - and that means AdSense will not be a factor on my blog. So today I've taken out a big ad unit from the top of the page. 

Maybe slowly I'll take off all the Ad units. Haven't really planned anything definitely. 

The Delhi Twitter Meetup was a great event. Here's more on my other blog. 

And I'm looking forward to meeting Rashmi when she comes to Gurgaon for her book release function!

On entrepreneurship

Subroto Bagchi of MindTree writes about Mohinish Sinha (whom I've featured earlier) and his insight during the TiE conference:

In the beginning, every one pitches in. That is what built energy, camaraderie and the romantic concept of the garage! Things now must get systematic; people cannot just be doing heroic stuff all the time. People must build respect for groups and not just individuals. Quite often, as the transition happens, the original group feels disenchanted - people miss their childhood, so to speak, and cling on. Childhood days may be beautiful but imagine remaining growth-stunted!

Teams must collectively move on; in the process they must shed some old behavior and adopt new best practices.

While presenting the case to migrate from “everyone pitches in here” to  the “things get done here” state, Mohinish talked about what he calls the “Suri Effect”.

In one of Mohinish’s earlier start-up, there was the unmistakable joy-de-vibre that even had the neighbor excited. This Mr. Suri loved the smell of the start-up and would frequently pitch in - there was no way you could unload a cart or move furniture without Mr. Suri being involved. It led them to call it the “Suri Effect”.

But a time must come when the teenage stuff must be left behind.

“Build a culture that builds scale”, is Mohinish’s advice. Apart from cultures that build scale, Mohinish spoke about Vision.

Give and state the Vision - again and again. Many organizations tire out or think articulating the Vision is a “state once, live forever” idea. It is not.

It is a long journey and people want to hear about the Vision, they want to know why we are in it together? They need to hear it every now and then. Newcomers and the old alike. But why Vision?

Because two kinds of organizational decisions must always flow out of the Vision - people decisions and strategy decisions. Vision must drive each time you have to ”make a call” in matters of people and strategy.

While focusing on building the team for the next phase of your company’s life, look for hunger, common emotional glue and commitment.

Another person featured on this blog, Sanjeev Bikhchandani also had his own take on startups in his column, advising people that bootstrapping is better than getting funding 

If you aren’t willing to bootstrap, then question your entrepreneurial skills. VCs understand this and prefer to support good teams that are bootstrapping rather than professional managers who are still in secure jobs, but have a nifty PowerPoint presentation.

Bootstrapping helps you to validate your concept for yourself, your team and prospective investors. Validation would mean the start-up team is in place, the product is ready and there are paying customers who are happy with it and willing to buy again.

And Rashmi Bansal announced that her book on 25 entrepreneurs from IIM-A is to be released soon!

Will be at the Delhi Tweetup

I'll be at the Delhi Tweetup and Blogger meet this Saturday at Incube Business Centre, Nehru Place. And Priyanka has even managed to co-opt me to talk on my personal experiences in using Twitter.

So if you're going to be there, I would love to meet up and connect with you.

Check for details here

Who all should attend? If you are one of the following, then you can register online at Eventbrite, or sign up at the Facebook event also.

Experts/executives from social media related platforms, microblogging platforms or blog platforms, Journalists who know how blogs/microblogs have become an alternative to mainstream media, Professionals who have used social media/blogs to connect and build communities, Marketers (clients or agencies) who are using social media/blog strategies, Techies/application developers in these fields, Entrepreneurs who have ideas around social media and blogging platforms, PR professionals looking to develop/enhance their blogger relationship programs, Marketers who want to look at case studies on how others are using the same and of course Delhi Twitterati.

Technorati Tags: delhi, tweetup

How to relook at retention processes

Someone mailed

 

We are planning to initate a talent retention programme also frame policy guidelines for employee recognition

 

Can I get soem inputs on the saem please

 

Ideally a talent retention program would include both structures and processes to reward retention. However my opinion is that do not get stuck with retention with the sake of retention.

 

Do an in-depth analysis of reasons and then either frame a policy/re-look at processes. Ideally you should be able to get some fair data on reasons by  doing some focus group discussions and interview with current and ex-employees. You should also tie-in with the business benefits of retention and link that to results. This would enable you to have a better buy in from leadership.

 

 

Some thoughts on OD in India

A reader mailed me the following:

 

Hi Gautam

I am a final year student of MBA, specializing in HR from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies, Pune. I have been keenly following your crisp & precise write-ups on a gamut of HR Topics and find them a refreshing departure(much needed!!) from the tedious, never ending management "gyaan" sessions we students at B-schools are subjected to.
With reference to your thoughts on "What is OD?", could you pls further elaborate specifically on the following issues I've been trying to seek answers to, but for which I could not locate any one single relevant and updated source:

·         Where do you think "OD in India" stands today, i.e. what's the level or status of OD practice in Indian companies in general. Any noticeable patterns or trends wrt specific industries? Are certain interventions more widely used than the others? If so, why? Whats the level of maturity and expertise in India regarding OD?

·         With regards to hiring an external OD facilitator(which you have suggested as the preferred option), are Indian companies increasingly looking at the option of having a full time in-house OD Specialist or is it still largely need based external help?

·         Being one yourself, what according to you are the challenges OD practitioners in India face?

Its my first interaction with you, and I am hopeful of getting a thoughtful and enriching response, as I believe with your background and current positioning in the industry, you'll be able to give the right mix of "facts" and "perspective" for which no formally documented source may exist.
Have a lot many questions and unresolved issues storming my mind everyday, due to the very subjective nature of HR as a discipline. I sincerely hope I'll get timely guidance and answers to at least some of them through willing and accessible sources like you.

 

I replied:

 

Thanks for your mail. OD in India is interestingly poised – it differs according to the pedigree and the size and the industry of the organization one considers.

 

For example, large Indian MNCs that are emerging as global players are actually seeing the need for an internal OD person/group – handling things like Talent Management to Employee Surveys and research

 

MNC firms usually have a person too, however his/her role is merely to implement global tools in India.

 

Smaller firms and industries like media/PR/dotcoms are still struggling to grapple with basic HR processes – so OD is merely a name for Training.

 

My view is that OD practitioners in various organizations are learning on the job, and their own competence and exposure needs to improve to actually unleash the full power of OD for the business benefit of their organizations and people. There are fragmented groups doing their bit but they all use tools and technologies that have roots in 1970s and 1960s.

 

Hope that helps!

 

 

Moved cities

Hi, in case you were wondering what was happening to this blog, let me assure you that it is still operational. It's just that I have been busy with moving from Hyderabad to the National Capital Region, around Delhi.

Yes, professional and personal reasons have brought me here, and if you are at the NCR/Delhi region then give me a call at 9873141236 or mail me at gg@gautamghosh.net and I'll be happy to connect.

If you are wondering what I am doing at Delhi, we can chat about that too :-) More public updates will follow on this blog.

In the meantime here are some great blog posts I think you might find interesting:

SystemicHR on the singularity and how it links to innovation and knowledge (two topics that are close to my heart!)
Steve talks about real life vs The Guy Curve
Lance has the only bit of interview advice you would need!
Jim has a post on another of my pet areas Succession Planning
HRM Today merges with HR Bloggers as Lance posted.
Michael has 10 steps to build your network. What he doesn't mention is that you've got to maintain and nurture it too.