New year brings with it new predictions, agendas, resolutions and trends. New business models, new ways of working, cooler tools and technologies. One thing that remains constant (and has remained constant) is “Excellence” – which is at the core of the success of any organization, product, service or an individual. If I were to select […]
I have always enjoyed reading thoughts of Subroto Bagchi, one of India’s most well known and respected leaders from the IT industry who operates as a “Gardener” and Vice Chairman at MindTree. I have read both his books, “The High Performance Entrepreneur” and “Go, Kiss the World” with great interest. (Read the reviews here and […]
Conversations are at the core of good leadership and how/what a leader communicates reveals the personality of the leader. A few years back, I was facilitating a discussion between the project leaders. The goal was to identify the opportunities for improvement in processes. Within first few minutes I knew that the conversation there was not […]
Last few months, I have been playing Table Tennis regularly. From a complete novice to a reasonably comfortable player has been a wonderful road so far. With each game, I am getting more confident because I learn some new tricks, understand the nuances and find better ways to handle different situations. For example, when I […]
Did you ever think that an “audit” exercise can be a learning experience? Well, if you really ‘want to’ learn, you can find lessons almost everywhere. You just have to keep doors of your mind open! While discussing a problem, the audit consultant, with many years of experience, said the following: If we have a […]
In my career so far, I have seen number of confrontations arising out of a negative feedback that is shared honestly. Some people disagree (or take it personally) when a negative feedback is shared in performance appraisal. Others don’t like it when client points out areas of improvement. As humans, we crave for validation and […]
I wrote earlier about Nine I’s and Great Leadership. The post received a very good response (on twitter, in blogosphere and in comments) and that led me to further think about Nine I’s that leaders should be careful and conscious about. These are personal traits of a leader that have a direct impact on a […]
Here is a simple idea: Whenever you have a new manager (project manager/departmental leader) joining in your organization, put him/her through a simple training program on how to manage people. Train existing managers as well. The premise: Most project managers/team leaders get work done through team. I have also seen that a lot of people […]
Building quality involves cost. You spend efforts and energy on preventing the errors (prevention cost) and then checking your work (appraisal cost). These are positive costs, or rather investments that ensure that you get it right the first time. The cost of rework when you or customer identifies a LOT of defects(internal/external failure costs) is […]