WHO’S YOUR PRINCIPAL CUSTOMER? THINK ABOUT IT!
Most organizations claim customer-focus and pride themselves on being customer-driven. Interestingly though, customers include any number of players in a company’s value chain – consumers, purchasing departments, wholesalers, retailers, and so on. Loosely defined, customers are people or entities that supply an organization’s revenue by buying its service or product. Yet there are companies that […]
When Experience Takes Us For A Ride
We ride on our experience to make the right decisions. What if experience takes us for a ride? Secure in the wisdom and insights gleaned from past experiences, we chart a course for the future. While that is common knowledge, what also emerges is that our trusted guide, experience, can mislead us too. We tend to […]
Nobody Likes Performance Reviews
Nobody likes performance reviews. Do you? Well, you aren’t an oddball if you fret when the time comes to take stock of how you have been doing and if your contribution at the workplace is being appreciated. Strangely, the apprehension is on both sides – subordinates are edgy about asking their managers fearing criticism from them, and bosses on their part also avoid […]
Man and Machine
Man faces a unique challenge in the era of smart machines. The threat, in the form of artificial intelligence, is even more acute for knowledge workers. Knowledge work accounts for a large proportion of jobs in mature economies, and requires college education, is more mental than manual, and involves consequential decision-making. The fears aren’t unfounded […]
The Visibly Invisibles
In 2004, a skunkworks project called Lab126 was initiated to develop a product that would revolutionize the world. A year into the project, the tech firm behind Lab16 engaged an outside company to christen the product being birthed. The head of the appointed firm, Michael Cronan, selected for its name a word that means ‘to start a fire, to arouse’. The organization, as some may have rightly guessed, was none other than […]
Why Strategy Stumbles
We turn to Michael Porter’s seminal work for a definition and clear understanding of strategy. But do we really know enough about execution that infuses life and meaning into strategy? Translating strategy into results tends to imply and focus, narrowly and ineffectually perhaps, on tactics. While two-thirds to three-quarters of large organizations find strategy execution […]
7 COMMANDMENTS CHANGE AGENTS MUST LIVE BY
A change initiative in any organization is fraught with uncertainties, may bring forth unforeseen crises, engender periods of turbulence and setbacks, or even manifest changed behaviors in people. However, the universal messages in the quotes below can comfort, provide direction, and inspire change agents to ride out any tortuous transformation journey. 1. “Change is a threat when done to me but an opportunity when done by me.”Even in the best of corporate cultures, […]
Questions Change Agents – Must Ask Themselves
Hard times best test and bring out the mettle of a leader. While true leaders rise to the task, conviction of the ‘lesser’ leaders wobble as organizational performance fluctuates and they find themselves inadequate in dealing with crises. It’s not unusual to feel the jitters when there is little control over industry behavior and market growth. However, distinguished leaders identify opportunities and […]
Tours of Duty
In the good old days of doing business, employer – employee relationships pivoted around the principles of stability and loyalty. In financially sound organizations, careers progressed systematically along determined paths as long as employees delivered the goods, diligently and consistently. The sand has shifted considerably in today’s complex business environment, ushering in a laissez-faire arrangement as it were. In a restless […]
In Search of Insight
The word ‘innovation’ in the context of the business world is likely to bring to mind R&D labs, start-up ventures, among others. Innovators though are pretty much everywhere –factory floor, HR department, even the C-suite. Innovation is less of a department, more a mindset that must permeate an entire enterprise. What really drives innovation is […]
Story of Mishra
The reason we regard life as a roller-coaster is because it has its twists and turns, ups and downs and the best part is that we have no clue as to what’s in store for us next. Story of Mishra is of that genre. In the 90s a typical office hour was drizzling away all day in Kolkata. Yet there […]
When no or limited communication wins…!!
Since time immemorial, we have always learned that one must have a clear idea and knowledge about data points, facts and background even limitations before facing an opponent especially, in legal matters. This can help one strategize the best way to nail them. But how about using least communication or no information technique as a […]
