In 100 Words: Perils of Blind Conformance
April 9th, 2013 // 7:40 am @ Tanmay // One Comment
In one of the TED talks, James Surowiecki shares: “If army ants are wandering around and they get lost, they start to follow a simple rule: Just do what the ant in front of you does. The ants eventually end up in a circle. There’s this famous example of one that was 1,200 feet long [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Improvement & Development &In 100 Words &Leadership &Managing Career &Self Growth
Understanding Quality: Duty Towards Self
April 2nd, 2013 // 7:14 am @ Tanmay // 2 Comments
Gross definition of quality is externally oriented – meeting and exceeding customer expectations, satisfying their implicit and explicit requirements, the degree of excellence, and conformance to specifications. They all refer to something outside of us. At a subtle level, quality stems from what is inside of us. More than deliverance to others, it is deliverance [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Leadership &Managing Career &Quality Improvement &Self Growth
In 100 Words: The Art of Seeing Possibilities
March 5th, 2013 // 6:03 am @ Tanmay // No Comments
Benjamin Zander’s book “The Art of Possibility” starts with this story: A shoe factory sends two marketing scouts to a region of Africa to study the prospects for expanding business. One sends back a telegram saying, SITUATION HOPELESS. STOP. NO ONE WEARS SHOES. The other writes back triumphantly, GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY. STOP. THEY HAVE NO [...]
Read More »Category : Being Creative &Great Quotes &In 100 Words &Leadership &Managing Career &Self Growth
Bite Sized Insights on Personal Branding #IndiaHRChat
February 28th, 2013 // 9:56 am @ Tanmay // 5 Comments
For the first time, I participated in a Twitter Chat (#IndiaHRChat) on the topic “Personal Branding for HR Professionals“. People from diverse backgrounds shared their views on personal branding in presence of special guest Mr. Anand Pillai, Chief Learning Officer of Reliance Industries. It was fun to share my insights on personal branding and they [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Improvement & Development &Leadership &Managing Career &Self Growth
Great Quotes: Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky
February 21st, 2013 // 7:23 am @ Tanmay // No Comments
I just completed reading Scott Belsky’s (Twitter: @scottbelsky) book “Making Ideas Happen – Overcoming the Obstacles Between Vision and Reality”. It is a fantastic book for those who have great ideas but struggle to give those ideas a life. This book bridges gap between the spark of an idea and all that goes into turning [...]
Read More »Category : Books/Reviews &Great Quotes &Improvement & Development &Self Growth
Great Quotes: Focus on Experience
February 1st, 2013 // 7:20 am @ Tanmay // One Comment
In a competitive world obsessed with goals, people recommend that we should periodically review our performance. Performance appraisals in organizations are almost a necessary evil. The problem with focusing excessively on our ‘performance’ is that performance is always judged by others, by some external entity. When you constantly try to align yourself to external expectations, [...]
Read More »Category : Being Creative &Great Quotes &Improvement & Development &Self Growth
Managing the Real
January 23rd, 2013 // 7:27 am @ Tanmay // No Comments
How often do we, as professionals and managers, get sucked into the whirlwind of status reports, new-initiatives-everyday, number crunching, endless meetings and presentations? Sometimes, the best management is to do simple and obvious things more effectively. In this context, I enjoyed reading an insightful post titled “Finding more time for real management” at Business Strategy [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Leadership &Leading Change &Leading People &Leading Projects
Great Quotes: On Expectations
January 11th, 2013 // 10:45 am @ Tanmay // No Comments
“Nobody rises to low expectations.” ~ Calvin Lloyd One of the most important qualities of a leader is to believe that they can do better. People respond to expectations and the only way to grow people is to consistently raise the bar of expectations. If a team is not doing great, it is either because [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Improvement & Development &Leadership &Leading People &Managing Communication &Quality Improvement
Great Quote: On System of Management by Deming
November 22nd, 2012 // 7:33 am @ Tanmay // 2 Comments
W. Edwards Deming, the pioneer and guru in quality revolution wrote the following paragraph when commenting on Peter Senge’s book “The Fifth Discipline” and it instantly struck the chord. Our prevailing system of management has destroyed our people. People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-respect, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning. The forces of [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Leadership &Leading People &Quality Improvement
Food For Thought – April 2012
May 2nd, 2012 // 7:10 pm @ // 2 Comments
From a number of GREAT bloggers and authors I read, here are a few snippets of thought provoking insights – straight from my feed reader. Note: Important take-aways marked in bold+italics. Michael Wade on “What Managers Can Learn from Novelists” “Recognize that life is not a novel. At least, not in most cases. The most [...]
Read More »Category : Great Quotes &Random Musings &Round Ups &Self Growth
