Dear Reader,
Amongst many thoughts put out by many a speaker , philosopher , saint , godman and others, different views exist.
Here is one such one on,'Make your anger expensive', by, H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.
The mere appearance of it hardly in any way reflects my being an advocate of the line of thoughts as expounded by them in an article which appeared in the ,'Deccan Herald' of 19th of April.
Happy Reading,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
Deccan Herald, 19th April, 2010
H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Every sincere seeker wants to get rid of anger and reach a state of perfection, but is often swept by his or her emotions. What can you do when anger rises in you? You may remind yourself a hundred times that you shouldn't get angry, but when it comes, you are unable to control it. Emotions are much more powerful than your thoughts and the promises you make.
Anger is a distortion of our true nature. We call it a distortion because it doesn't allow the self to shine forth fully. And this is what sin is. Anger is a sin because when you are angry, you lose your centeredness; your focus is not on the infinite. You are limiting yourself to the small mind to an action which has happened. Sin is just the wrinkle in the cloth. It needs proper ironing.
Anger is a sign of weakness. It takes a while to raise the temper of a bodybuilder while a weak person can get angry very fast.
Often anger comes because you don't accept the present moment and get stuck in the past. Have you ever observed that all your anger is about something which has already happened. Is it of any use getting angry about something which has passed and you cannot alter? No, it is meaningless.
Anger comes when one seeks too much of perfection; that is why you are angry at imperfections. Keep a space of imperfections in your life. If you leave some holes of imperfection, then you will see that your ability to hold anger becomes much greater.
The cause of anger is the lack of total knowledge of what is happening inside that person. Even when someone commits a mistake, know that he or she is not the culprit; the stress inside is causing him or her to make that mistake.
Showing anger itself is not wrong, but being unaware of your anger hurts you. There is a place for showing anger, but when you get angry without awareness, what happens to you? You are shaken completely. Look at the consequences of getting angry.
Spiritual practices help you maintain your centeredness and not be shaken by small events. This is where a little knowledge about us, about our mind, our consciousness, and the root of distortion in our nature will help. Our breath has a great lesson to teach us, which we have forgotten. Breathing techniques and meditation are very effective in calming the mind.
Usually, you give your anger freely and your smile rarely as though a smile is expensive. In ignorance, anger is cheap and a smile is costly. In knowledge, a smile is free - like the sun shine and air - and anger is extremely expensive, like a diamond. Make your smile cheaper and anger expensive.
(H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar is the founder of the Art of Living)
LULU PAGE
Saturday, April 24, 2010
The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan
Dear Reader ,
In a lucid article on, The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan, has very well laid out her thoughts on the topic .
Happy Reading,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan,
Since the term was first coined more than 10 years ago, talent management has become the call to action for a more consultative, knowledge-based role by human resources in overall business management. The premise was simple: Talent management enabled companies to focus not only on attracting the best people, which they had always done in a competitive marketplace, but also on retaining them as well as developing existing staff.
In other words, talent management from a technological perspective provides companies the opportunity to have the best staff on hand to respond to business needs. But two of the variables are always in flux and result in a constant re-evaluation of the talent management premise. First, technology: The capabilities we have today and those we can expect in the next few years have dramatically expanded the range of possibilities.
Secondly, and more importantly, the past 10 years have seen dramatic change in business circumstances and a corresponding evolution in the roles of business managers and talent managers.
Today, talent management is enabled by more than an administrative point solution. In its best incarnation, it positively impacts and influences all aspects of an organization's operations. Companies have much to gain from shifting talent management away from core human resource functions and empowering business roles to design more capable and efficient workforces that meet tomorrow's needs. But a review of the technological evolution, and the business changes happening in tandem, is important to guide our choices today.
Founding Talent Management
Part of the challenge of understanding the evolution of talent management lies in defining the term. "Talent management" has become a blanket term that applies to a broad range of capabilities, but not one of those capabilities, taken alone, defines it entirely.
Talent management involves a variety of strategic functions: engagement, on-boarding, performance and compensation management, among other administrative workforce management functions. On a daily basis, talent leaders respond to an enormous volume of demand, and technology companies helped manage it with talent management solutions. That variety of tasks defined the technology approach, and the result was best-of-breed point solutions for these capabilities, which talent leaders adopted in response to each specific need.
As a result, talent managers found themselves at the center of a tangle, a broad range of disparate, occasionally integrated systems serving niche talent purposes. "Talent management" had become an umbrella term for solutions that addressed a specific need, without necessarily enabling comprehensive talent processes. This technological challenge coincided with a business challenge of epic proportions. The economic downturn and subsequent workforce reductions have made identifying and leveraging the best talent within an organization - rather than securing it from outside - the key to organizational performance. With that challenge came opportunity: What had traditionally been perceived as a talent requirement now began to migrate toward a more central business planning function.
This perceived migration has impacted how talent management systems are defined and what functions they are expected to perform. First, where previously point solutions managed by talent leaders were an acceptable option, companies now recognize the need for systems integrated with an overall technology infrastructure overseen by talent managers. Second, to effectively manage an organization's workforce, a core system of record is needed to enable not only administration tasks, but the holistic views that identify an individual's talent attributes. Companies are beginning to recognize the value of integrated core systems that can manage the entire talent management cycle - from talent engagement to performance management through succession planning.
An Evolutionary Environment
The migration of talent management from essentially a human resources function to a key centerpiece of overall business management is under way and brings a series of changes to people and their roles as well as the systems that support them.
Talent management used to be performance management focused. It was about bringing in the right people and measuring them against job requirements. During a strong economy, this was acceptable. In a down or slow economy, however, it is critical to not only have the right talent in the right positions, but also to identify performance gaps within the organization and to retain top-performing individuals while broadening the abilities of the whole workforce.
Companies recognize that without formal development processes supported by strategic talent management processes, growth opportunities are limited and skill at the managerial and leadership levels becomes ineffective. Therefore, this shift away from strictly a human resource function to a more integrated, organization wide talent management function requires talent leaders to assume a more consultative, strategic adviser role in which they help business leaders assess talent and identify where skills and ability gaps exist. As a result, learning and development has emerged as an essential talent management element, and business leaders now rely on talent managers to provide critical resource development.
This environment of change - where talent management is a key concern for senior business leaders - also shifts the initiation and the execution of purchasing decisions to those leaders and favors more integrated talent management solutions that support overall strategic directions over disparate, incremental system purchases.
A core challenge of the integrated system, though, is that while it enables talent management to be handled well at the business level, business managers and executives can't recognize its value if they're unable to share critical commonalities, such as organization or supervisory structure, or benefit from industrywide best practices.
The evolution of talent management from a point solution to an integrated and strategic management role won't stop here. Because these capabilities - talent engagement, goal and compensation management, and learning and development - build upon and reinforce one another, talent leaders, line managers and executives alike view the integrated suite as a valuable provider of a single source of reference for workforce planning. However, more mature and integrated talent management operations will help companies reach higher potential. And as such, the future of talent management will continue to use talent leaders as strategic business consultants, and purchasing decisions will continue to migrate further up in the business organization.
A Cloudy Yet Bright Future
As far as talent management technology is concerned, the popular view is that the future is cloudy. Although not in full deployment yet, the potential of cloud computing will provide talent management and many other technologies with tremendous capability. Interestingly, what is seen as the primary effect will align nicely with what's been described thus far: the progression of talent management systems from specialized human resource tools to user-focused business tools.
Where building the kind of integrated systems that modern talent management requires used to involve time-consuming back-end data and application integration, the promise of the cloud is that much data integration can move to the user interaction level - where it really matters. Thus, the cloud has the potential to accelerate a shift away from the back end toward the user - so the line managers, individual employees and other organizational functions become responsible for maintaining profiles, updating experiences, reporting and playing an integral role in talent management.
New innovations that rapidly can be deployed in the cloud may encourage a deeper focus on how users interact with the solutions. Adoption is hindered by poor usability, so when users are enabled to develop workspaces that meet their individual needs - such as graphical versus spreadsheet views - the intersection between their roles and the overall corporate goal is clearer.
That increased focus on the user and business goals will usher in a new era of talent management, one where technology enables the function to address elements that are not only knowledge, skill or ability based, but also cultural and psychological. It also allows managers to evaluate performance based on captured experiences, which is more predictive of an employee's flexibility and adaptability.
Perhaps most important, cloud-based talent management can offer users cost-effective and flexible ways to deploy their now-richer view of talent within an operational area and across a company. Time-bound "rental" of a working environment frees organizations from costly infrastructure investments as they emerge from a period of economic recovery. These cloud options may even change the landscape of solution purchasing. Time will tell.
[About the Author: Larry Dunivan is general manager of global human capital management products for Lawson.]
The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan
In a lucid article on, The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan, has very well laid out her thoughts on the topic .
Happy Reading,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan,
Since the term was first coined more than 10 years ago, talent management has become the call to action for a more consultative, knowledge-based role by human resources in overall business management. The premise was simple: Talent management enabled companies to focus not only on attracting the best people, which they had always done in a competitive marketplace, but also on retaining them as well as developing existing staff.
In other words, talent management from a technological perspective provides companies the opportunity to have the best staff on hand to respond to business needs. But two of the variables are always in flux and result in a constant re-evaluation of the talent management premise. First, technology: The capabilities we have today and those we can expect in the next few years have dramatically expanded the range of possibilities.
Secondly, and more importantly, the past 10 years have seen dramatic change in business circumstances and a corresponding evolution in the roles of business managers and talent managers.
Today, talent management is enabled by more than an administrative point solution. In its best incarnation, it positively impacts and influences all aspects of an organization's operations. Companies have much to gain from shifting talent management away from core human resource functions and empowering business roles to design more capable and efficient workforces that meet tomorrow's needs. But a review of the technological evolution, and the business changes happening in tandem, is important to guide our choices today.
Founding Talent Management
Part of the challenge of understanding the evolution of talent management lies in defining the term. "Talent management" has become a blanket term that applies to a broad range of capabilities, but not one of those capabilities, taken alone, defines it entirely.
Talent management involves a variety of strategic functions: engagement, on-boarding, performance and compensation management, among other administrative workforce management functions. On a daily basis, talent leaders respond to an enormous volume of demand, and technology companies helped manage it with talent management solutions. That variety of tasks defined the technology approach, and the result was best-of-breed point solutions for these capabilities, which talent leaders adopted in response to each specific need.
As a result, talent managers found themselves at the center of a tangle, a broad range of disparate, occasionally integrated systems serving niche talent purposes. "Talent management" had become an umbrella term for solutions that addressed a specific need, without necessarily enabling comprehensive talent processes. This technological challenge coincided with a business challenge of epic proportions. The economic downturn and subsequent workforce reductions have made identifying and leveraging the best talent within an organization - rather than securing it from outside - the key to organizational performance. With that challenge came opportunity: What had traditionally been perceived as a talent requirement now began to migrate toward a more central business planning function.
This perceived migration has impacted how talent management systems are defined and what functions they are expected to perform. First, where previously point solutions managed by talent leaders were an acceptable option, companies now recognize the need for systems integrated with an overall technology infrastructure overseen by talent managers. Second, to effectively manage an organization's workforce, a core system of record is needed to enable not only administration tasks, but the holistic views that identify an individual's talent attributes. Companies are beginning to recognize the value of integrated core systems that can manage the entire talent management cycle - from talent engagement to performance management through succession planning.
An Evolutionary Environment
The migration of talent management from essentially a human resources function to a key centerpiece of overall business management is under way and brings a series of changes to people and their roles as well as the systems that support them.
Talent management used to be performance management focused. It was about bringing in the right people and measuring them against job requirements. During a strong economy, this was acceptable. In a down or slow economy, however, it is critical to not only have the right talent in the right positions, but also to identify performance gaps within the organization and to retain top-performing individuals while broadening the abilities of the whole workforce.
Companies recognize that without formal development processes supported by strategic talent management processes, growth opportunities are limited and skill at the managerial and leadership levels becomes ineffective. Therefore, this shift away from strictly a human resource function to a more integrated, organization wide talent management function requires talent leaders to assume a more consultative, strategic adviser role in which they help business leaders assess talent and identify where skills and ability gaps exist. As a result, learning and development has emerged as an essential talent management element, and business leaders now rely on talent managers to provide critical resource development.
This environment of change - where talent management is a key concern for senior business leaders - also shifts the initiation and the execution of purchasing decisions to those leaders and favors more integrated talent management solutions that support overall strategic directions over disparate, incremental system purchases.
A core challenge of the integrated system, though, is that while it enables talent management to be handled well at the business level, business managers and executives can't recognize its value if they're unable to share critical commonalities, such as organization or supervisory structure, or benefit from industrywide best practices.
The evolution of talent management from a point solution to an integrated and strategic management role won't stop here. Because these capabilities - talent engagement, goal and compensation management, and learning and development - build upon and reinforce one another, talent leaders, line managers and executives alike view the integrated suite as a valuable provider of a single source of reference for workforce planning. However, more mature and integrated talent management operations will help companies reach higher potential. And as such, the future of talent management will continue to use talent leaders as strategic business consultants, and purchasing decisions will continue to migrate further up in the business organization.
A Cloudy Yet Bright Future
As far as talent management technology is concerned, the popular view is that the future is cloudy. Although not in full deployment yet, the potential of cloud computing will provide talent management and many other technologies with tremendous capability. Interestingly, what is seen as the primary effect will align nicely with what's been described thus far: the progression of talent management systems from specialized human resource tools to user-focused business tools.
Where building the kind of integrated systems that modern talent management requires used to involve time-consuming back-end data and application integration, the promise of the cloud is that much data integration can move to the user interaction level - where it really matters. Thus, the cloud has the potential to accelerate a shift away from the back end toward the user - so the line managers, individual employees and other organizational functions become responsible for maintaining profiles, updating experiences, reporting and playing an integral role in talent management.
New innovations that rapidly can be deployed in the cloud may encourage a deeper focus on how users interact with the solutions. Adoption is hindered by poor usability, so when users are enabled to develop workspaces that meet their individual needs - such as graphical versus spreadsheet views - the intersection between their roles and the overall corporate goal is clearer.
That increased focus on the user and business goals will usher in a new era of talent management, one where technology enables the function to address elements that are not only knowledge, skill or ability based, but also cultural and psychological. It also allows managers to evaluate performance based on captured experiences, which is more predictive of an employee's flexibility and adaptability.
Perhaps most important, cloud-based talent management can offer users cost-effective and flexible ways to deploy their now-richer view of talent within an operational area and across a company. Time-bound "rental" of a working environment frees organizations from costly infrastructure investments as they emerge from a period of economic recovery. These cloud options may even change the landscape of solution purchasing. Time will tell.
[About the Author: Larry Dunivan is general manager of global human capital management products for Lawson.]
The Evolution of Talent Management by Larry Dunivan
The Verdict on Learning Portals by Mohana Radhakrishnan
Dear Reader ,
We have all been net savvy - grown to being now thirsty for e- learning.
Now comes a tiem when debates and decisons are taking place in the virtual world on what's best- in terms of ,'Learning Portals"-
Well here today Mohana Radhakrishnan expounds her verdict on, "Learning Portals"
Happy Reading,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
The Verdict on Learning Portals
by Mohana Radhakrishnan
Learning portals tackle some of today's top learning challenges - with varying results.
The buzz surrounding informal learning technologies is getting louder, specifically about learning portals - Web sites that offer learners consolidated access to resources from multiple sources. But it may be time to quiet the noise and think critically about how this technology is playing a role within the learning community. Do learning leaders have a standard definition of a learning portal? Do they know what a learning portal actually can do? And do learning portals truly address all the challenges they propose to solve?
Recent research indicates that there are some discrepancies surrounding these questions. In 2009, Training Industry Inc. and Expertus partnered to conduct a study on learning portals and informal learning technologies. In the study, "Learning Portals and Informal Learning Technologies," they asked training professionals whether they have a learning portal, what benefits they've experienced, how they're using the portal and how they track and enable informal learning.
For the purpose of the research, portals were defined as Web sites where learners find, buy or simply get access to training. This broad definition helped to conduct the research across different industries and business sizes, but it also garnered an interesting response. While almost all businesses think they have a portal, its uses and benefits vary drastically.
Ninety-three percent of respondents reported that they have a learning portal. Meanwhile, 45 percent of respondents say they will upgrade their existing learning portal within the next two years, and 14 percent plan to launch a new learning portal. Eighty-nine percent of respondents thought it was either critically important or somewhat important to include informal learning technologies in their training programs.
Because so many businesses are using and investigating learning portals, it's beneficial to outline some of the learning and development challenges that executives face and consult with both researchers and practitioners to determine whether this technology assists in meeting those challenges.
Do Learning Portals Integrate Informal, Social and Collaborative Learning?
According to a report by research firm Aberdeen Group on learning and development for front-line and midlevel managers, corporate online learning portals are one of the top technologies currently in use by best-in-class organizations, with 56 percent of these top companies using a learning portal for manager development.
"Portals or other resources that bring together all of these learning channels in a way that makes learners more aware of the options available to them will become increasingly necessary as organizations adopt new modalities," said Mollie Lombardi, research analyst in human capital management at Aberdeen Group.
According to research firm Bersin & Associates' research studies "Learning Management Systems 2009" and "High-Impact Learning Practices: An Operating Guide for the Modern Training Function," learning portals can be a platform for both formal and informal learning. They also can provide a single point of access to the LMS and many other applications, and they give the company one place to publish new information quickly.
Tom Kelly has more than 25 years of experience in the education and training industry and has held positions at organizations such as NetApp, Cisco and Oracle Corp. He said portals can offer a solution for a variety of learning initiatives only if "the learning group is committed to doing more than our industry has done in the past; if they are willing to acknowledge that training is only one small part of learning and [that] an individual needs information, communication, collaboration and training."
Do Learning Portals Make It Easy for Learners to Find and Access On-Demand Learning?
According to David Mallon, senior analyst with Bersin & Associates, this ease of use has been proven. "A well-designed portal connects the user to information - quickly, efficiently and in context," Mallon said.
Portals give people the specific information they need within the context of their jobs. Rather than leave the work environment to learn a new process, procedure or technique, they can retrieve useful information from wherever they are working.
While formal training programs are still required to develop basic skills, the portal environment lets the learner decide when a problem warrants formal education, information or a small module of instructional content. More advanced portals can provide highly personalized content and information as well as enable collaboration among peers and experts to help with job performance.
"While learning portals can sometimes intelligently push information to the user, based on what the system knows about the user's role, interests and demographics, they are - by nature - on-demand solutions," Mallon said. "A good learning portal is architected to best facilitate learner self-service, providing access to many learning sources and using a variety of modalities."
Do Learning Portals Increase Partner and Customer Training Purchases and Employee Training Consumption?
This is a key question for someone who works with partners and customers on a daily basis. Tom Clancy, vice president of education services and productivity for EMC, a provider of information infrastructure systems, software and services, has to make sure his learning organization runs as a business to support EMC's product sales growth. To accomplish this, he has to provide his external learners - 30,000 active EMC customers, channel partners and guests from a variety of industries - an easy-to-navigate learning portal that is a one-stop shop for all their needs.
In 2007, Clancy began to research how to provide a more user-friendly interface that increased learner satisfaction and use and leveraged more sales. He knew that if training could have a powerful impact on customers and channel partners, he would increase product sales and improve customer retention.
Clancy and his team found the answer in the form of Web 2.0 learning portal technology. Their current learning portal allows them to bring the core functionality of their LMS to customers rather than requiring customers to navigate their way through the LMS.
In fact, during the first quarter of implementation, EMC witnessed significant improvements, including a 51 percent increase in visitor traffic, 15 percent higher training revenue and a 54 percent reduction in help desk calls.
"A learning portal channels the educational resources that customers, partners and employees tap to acquire skills and remain productive," Clancy said. "Condensing all of this information so that the appropriate content can be accessed in a timely fashion is key to creating and maintaining a positive user experience. Streamlining search tasks and enabling the system, over time, to become intuitive and tailor responses based on historical use will make the learning portals easier to use, resulting in more visits, greater consumption and improved satisfaction."
Sixty-eight percent of respondents to the Training Industry Inc. and Expertus study reported they felt that the top benefit of learning portals is improving learner or customer satisfaction. Other important benefits include help in integrating learning technology, selected by 54 percent of respondents; tracking and enabling learning technology at 48 percent; and increasing training adoption at 40 percent. Interestingly, only 9 percent of respondents thought that increasing training sales was a top benefit.
Do Learning Portals Improve the Learner Experience?
In a recent survey of roughly 300 CLOs, analysts at research firm IDC found that about 60 percent of CLOs believed learning portals had a positive impact on their organizations, compared with 4 percent who believed they had a negative impact. The remaining 35 percent felt they had no impact.
According to Kelly, learning portals allow for greater success during searches and provide a more accurate way to find relevant content. Being able to shorten the time and increase success during the search process is inevitably better for the learner and the enterprise.
"Positive experiences mean people use the system more often," Kelly said. "More use creates better results and experiences."
Do Learning Portals Lower the Cost of Training?
In the Training Industry Inc. and Expertus study, when asked, "What was the primary factor supporting funding for the launch of your learning portal(s)?" respondents listed several factors that played a role in the approval process.
Anticipated cost reduction was among the most frequent responses. Other responses included:
a) Centralized and consistent training repository.
b) Customer or learner demand.
c) Easy access to self-paced e-learning.
d) On-demand and just-in-time training.
e) Ability to reach a large global workforce and partners.
f) Ability to track learning usage and the status of compliance training.
Respondents to the survey also indicated that informal learning technologies save money versus formal learning. Learning portals reduce costs by delivering more e-learning to global audiences and the larger marketplace, thus reducing the need for expensive instructor-led training.
Are Learning Portals Ready For Prime Time?
Yes and no. A portal that truly makes an impact in an organization is more than just a training Web site. It requires thoughtful structure and commitment to results. It's unlikely that the 93 percent of learning organizations that say they utilize a learning portal have achieved one that addresses all of the challenges outlined above.
However, if built and maintained properly, research and expert testimony indicate that portal technology will have a welcome home in many organizations. In an age when informal, social and collaborative learning are critical to success; training adoption and accessibility are always of utmost importance; costs continue to be an issue; and a less disruptive learning experience is demanded by learners, portals just may deliver.
[About the Author: Mohana Radhakrishnan is Expertus' chief consulting strategist and vice president of client services.]
We have all been net savvy - grown to being now thirsty for e- learning.
Now comes a tiem when debates and decisons are taking place in the virtual world on what's best- in terms of ,'Learning Portals"-
Well here today Mohana Radhakrishnan expounds her verdict on, "Learning Portals"
Happy Reading,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
The Verdict on Learning Portals
by Mohana Radhakrishnan
Learning portals tackle some of today's top learning challenges - with varying results.
The buzz surrounding informal learning technologies is getting louder, specifically about learning portals - Web sites that offer learners consolidated access to resources from multiple sources. But it may be time to quiet the noise and think critically about how this technology is playing a role within the learning community. Do learning leaders have a standard definition of a learning portal? Do they know what a learning portal actually can do? And do learning portals truly address all the challenges they propose to solve?
Recent research indicates that there are some discrepancies surrounding these questions. In 2009, Training Industry Inc. and Expertus partnered to conduct a study on learning portals and informal learning technologies. In the study, "Learning Portals and Informal Learning Technologies," they asked training professionals whether they have a learning portal, what benefits they've experienced, how they're using the portal and how they track and enable informal learning.
For the purpose of the research, portals were defined as Web sites where learners find, buy or simply get access to training. This broad definition helped to conduct the research across different industries and business sizes, but it also garnered an interesting response. While almost all businesses think they have a portal, its uses and benefits vary drastically.
Ninety-three percent of respondents reported that they have a learning portal. Meanwhile, 45 percent of respondents say they will upgrade their existing learning portal within the next two years, and 14 percent plan to launch a new learning portal. Eighty-nine percent of respondents thought it was either critically important or somewhat important to include informal learning technologies in their training programs.
Because so many businesses are using and investigating learning portals, it's beneficial to outline some of the learning and development challenges that executives face and consult with both researchers and practitioners to determine whether this technology assists in meeting those challenges.
Do Learning Portals Integrate Informal, Social and Collaborative Learning?
According to a report by research firm Aberdeen Group on learning and development for front-line and midlevel managers, corporate online learning portals are one of the top technologies currently in use by best-in-class organizations, with 56 percent of these top companies using a learning portal for manager development.
"Portals or other resources that bring together all of these learning channels in a way that makes learners more aware of the options available to them will become increasingly necessary as organizations adopt new modalities," said Mollie Lombardi, research analyst in human capital management at Aberdeen Group.
According to research firm Bersin & Associates' research studies "Learning Management Systems 2009" and "High-Impact Learning Practices: An Operating Guide for the Modern Training Function," learning portals can be a platform for both formal and informal learning. They also can provide a single point of access to the LMS and many other applications, and they give the company one place to publish new information quickly.
Tom Kelly has more than 25 years of experience in the education and training industry and has held positions at organizations such as NetApp, Cisco and Oracle Corp. He said portals can offer a solution for a variety of learning initiatives only if "the learning group is committed to doing more than our industry has done in the past; if they are willing to acknowledge that training is only one small part of learning and [that] an individual needs information, communication, collaboration and training."
Do Learning Portals Make It Easy for Learners to Find and Access On-Demand Learning?
According to David Mallon, senior analyst with Bersin & Associates, this ease of use has been proven. "A well-designed portal connects the user to information - quickly, efficiently and in context," Mallon said.
Portals give people the specific information they need within the context of their jobs. Rather than leave the work environment to learn a new process, procedure or technique, they can retrieve useful information from wherever they are working.
While formal training programs are still required to develop basic skills, the portal environment lets the learner decide when a problem warrants formal education, information or a small module of instructional content. More advanced portals can provide highly personalized content and information as well as enable collaboration among peers and experts to help with job performance.
"While learning portals can sometimes intelligently push information to the user, based on what the system knows about the user's role, interests and demographics, they are - by nature - on-demand solutions," Mallon said. "A good learning portal is architected to best facilitate learner self-service, providing access to many learning sources and using a variety of modalities."
Do Learning Portals Increase Partner and Customer Training Purchases and Employee Training Consumption?
This is a key question for someone who works with partners and customers on a daily basis. Tom Clancy, vice president of education services and productivity for EMC, a provider of information infrastructure systems, software and services, has to make sure his learning organization runs as a business to support EMC's product sales growth. To accomplish this, he has to provide his external learners - 30,000 active EMC customers, channel partners and guests from a variety of industries - an easy-to-navigate learning portal that is a one-stop shop for all their needs.
In 2007, Clancy began to research how to provide a more user-friendly interface that increased learner satisfaction and use and leveraged more sales. He knew that if training could have a powerful impact on customers and channel partners, he would increase product sales and improve customer retention.
Clancy and his team found the answer in the form of Web 2.0 learning portal technology. Their current learning portal allows them to bring the core functionality of their LMS to customers rather than requiring customers to navigate their way through the LMS.
In fact, during the first quarter of implementation, EMC witnessed significant improvements, including a 51 percent increase in visitor traffic, 15 percent higher training revenue and a 54 percent reduction in help desk calls.
"A learning portal channels the educational resources that customers, partners and employees tap to acquire skills and remain productive," Clancy said. "Condensing all of this information so that the appropriate content can be accessed in a timely fashion is key to creating and maintaining a positive user experience. Streamlining search tasks and enabling the system, over time, to become intuitive and tailor responses based on historical use will make the learning portals easier to use, resulting in more visits, greater consumption and improved satisfaction."
Sixty-eight percent of respondents to the Training Industry Inc. and Expertus study reported they felt that the top benefit of learning portals is improving learner or customer satisfaction. Other important benefits include help in integrating learning technology, selected by 54 percent of respondents; tracking and enabling learning technology at 48 percent; and increasing training adoption at 40 percent. Interestingly, only 9 percent of respondents thought that increasing training sales was a top benefit.
Do Learning Portals Improve the Learner Experience?
In a recent survey of roughly 300 CLOs, analysts at research firm IDC found that about 60 percent of CLOs believed learning portals had a positive impact on their organizations, compared with 4 percent who believed they had a negative impact. The remaining 35 percent felt they had no impact.
According to Kelly, learning portals allow for greater success during searches and provide a more accurate way to find relevant content. Being able to shorten the time and increase success during the search process is inevitably better for the learner and the enterprise.
"Positive experiences mean people use the system more often," Kelly said. "More use creates better results and experiences."
Do Learning Portals Lower the Cost of Training?
In the Training Industry Inc. and Expertus study, when asked, "What was the primary factor supporting funding for the launch of your learning portal(s)?" respondents listed several factors that played a role in the approval process.
Anticipated cost reduction was among the most frequent responses. Other responses included:
a) Centralized and consistent training repository.
b) Customer or learner demand.
c) Easy access to self-paced e-learning.
d) On-demand and just-in-time training.
e) Ability to reach a large global workforce and partners.
f) Ability to track learning usage and the status of compliance training.
Respondents to the survey also indicated that informal learning technologies save money versus formal learning. Learning portals reduce costs by delivering more e-learning to global audiences and the larger marketplace, thus reducing the need for expensive instructor-led training.
Are Learning Portals Ready For Prime Time?
Yes and no. A portal that truly makes an impact in an organization is more than just a training Web site. It requires thoughtful structure and commitment to results. It's unlikely that the 93 percent of learning organizations that say they utilize a learning portal have achieved one that addresses all of the challenges outlined above.
However, if built and maintained properly, research and expert testimony indicate that portal technology will have a welcome home in many organizations. In an age when informal, social and collaborative learning are critical to success; training adoption and accessibility are always of utmost importance; costs continue to be an issue; and a less disruptive learning experience is demanded by learners, portals just may deliver.
[About the Author: Mohana Radhakrishnan is Expertus' chief consulting strategist and vice president of client services.]
Communication Innovation History Lesson
Dear Reader,
we have been all along talking on communication - so much so that almost everyone thinks they are good if not experts at / in it.
Well here's something to chew on;
Happy Chewing,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
"Long before digital tools enabled us to easily broadcast messages, photocopies were the most efficient way to distribute information to groups of all sizes. Community letters, inter-office bulletins, fliers for events and even Christmas letters inside holiday cards were all made possible by the automated copying machine.
The office copier turned 50 recently which provides us the opportunity to take a look back and see how one large company lost revenue due to this innovation while a little firm grew into a FORTUNE 500 company and prospered.
In the 1950s, Kodak owned the paper copy business using a photo sensitive paper and monobath solution to create an extra copy of a document. When Chester Carlson, a physicist and patent attorney who obtained the xerography patent and looked for companies who could commercialize the technology, came calling on Eastman Kodak leadership, he was turned down. Kodak's assessment was building such a copier would be very expensive, require continuous service support and their marketing management had seldom heard of a customer who needed more than one copy at a time. Kodak's leadership, unwilling to obsolete its photographic copy machine's revenue stream, concluded that the xerography process had no future in the office copying market.
Carlson then went over to the Haloid Company, also located in Rochester, NY (the company later changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958) with his new technology where he was welcomed. Haloid Xerox then formed a joint venture with Battelle Development Corporation (BDC) in Columbus, OH, for 55% of the patient rights, to invest and develop the xerography technology resulting in three technical improvements.
In 1962, Xerox Corporation (the new name for the Haloid Xerox with Battelle owning $350 million of Xerox stock) introduced the Xerox 914 (so named because it could copy a 9-by-14 inch document), a revolutionary new copier that cost $15,000 each.
Of course, people could make print copies before the introduction of the 914. There were printing presses for books and newspapers, carbon copies and Kodak's device that used photo sensitive paper and a monobath solution. However, the xerography process used photoconductivity and light to produce copies on plain, untreated paper.
Prior to the product introduction, Joe Wilson, Haloid Company president, had come up with an innovative marketing approach for this new expensive copier that led to the success of xerography: Lease the 914 copier for only $100 per month and charge the customer an additional $.01 for each copy made on the machine. The result was Xerox sold more than 200,000 of the 914 machines before retiring the model while Kodak's paper copier business quickly vanished.
"It was a democratizing technology," says Stephen P. Hoover, vice president of global software solutions for Xerox, because it "gave people access to information and capabilities they just didn't have. It really changed how work was done."
What leadership lesson did you take away from reading this story?
Sources:- [Battelle, Columbus, OH and FORTUNE, February 8, 2010]
we have been all along talking on communication - so much so that almost everyone thinks they are good if not experts at / in it.
Well here's something to chew on;
Happy Chewing,
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
"Long before digital tools enabled us to easily broadcast messages, photocopies were the most efficient way to distribute information to groups of all sizes. Community letters, inter-office bulletins, fliers for events and even Christmas letters inside holiday cards were all made possible by the automated copying machine.
The office copier turned 50 recently which provides us the opportunity to take a look back and see how one large company lost revenue due to this innovation while a little firm grew into a FORTUNE 500 company and prospered.
In the 1950s, Kodak owned the paper copy business using a photo sensitive paper and monobath solution to create an extra copy of a document. When Chester Carlson, a physicist and patent attorney who obtained the xerography patent and looked for companies who could commercialize the technology, came calling on Eastman Kodak leadership, he was turned down. Kodak's assessment was building such a copier would be very expensive, require continuous service support and their marketing management had seldom heard of a customer who needed more than one copy at a time. Kodak's leadership, unwilling to obsolete its photographic copy machine's revenue stream, concluded that the xerography process had no future in the office copying market.
Carlson then went over to the Haloid Company, also located in Rochester, NY (the company later changed its name to Haloid Xerox in 1958) with his new technology where he was welcomed. Haloid Xerox then formed a joint venture with Battelle Development Corporation (BDC) in Columbus, OH, for 55% of the patient rights, to invest and develop the xerography technology resulting in three technical improvements.
In 1962, Xerox Corporation (the new name for the Haloid Xerox with Battelle owning $350 million of Xerox stock) introduced the Xerox 914 (so named because it could copy a 9-by-14 inch document), a revolutionary new copier that cost $15,000 each.
Of course, people could make print copies before the introduction of the 914. There were printing presses for books and newspapers, carbon copies and Kodak's device that used photo sensitive paper and a monobath solution. However, the xerography process used photoconductivity and light to produce copies on plain, untreated paper.
Prior to the product introduction, Joe Wilson, Haloid Company president, had come up with an innovative marketing approach for this new expensive copier that led to the success of xerography: Lease the 914 copier for only $100 per month and charge the customer an additional $.01 for each copy made on the machine. The result was Xerox sold more than 200,000 of the 914 machines before retiring the model while Kodak's paper copier business quickly vanished.
"It was a democratizing technology," says Stephen P. Hoover, vice president of global software solutions for Xerox, because it "gave people access to information and capabilities they just didn't have. It really changed how work was done."
What leadership lesson did you take away from reading this story?
Sources:- [Battelle, Columbus, OH and FORTUNE, February 8, 2010]
How Do We Keep People Motivated Following Layoffs?
Dear Reader,
AAAAHHHH!!!!, it's been quiet sometime that i have been blogging - well anyways here goes .
My reading on; How Do We Keep People Motivated Following Layoffs? by Dr. John Sullivan is a good find .
Go on have a good read and enjoy yourself later in thinking about it.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
How Do We Keep People Motivated Following Layoffs?
Your primary goal should be to get the workforce focused and united behind the premise that their productivity and innovation are the key drivers of organizational stability. This requires lots of work and targeted discussions with remaining employees.
Q: We just had mass layoffs. What is my greatest challenge in keeping the surviving employees engaged? And how do I effectively do it?
- Gloom and Doom, services, Waltham, Massachusetts
A: The most significant challenges faced by an organization following layoffs are managing a distracted workforce, coping with increased stress caused by expanding workloads, and turnover among top talent, who have options regardless of economic conditions.
Your primary goal should be to get the workforce focused and united behind the premise that their productivity and innovation are the key drivers of organizational stability. Do some quick interviews or a survey of workers to identify their issues and concerns.
Next, focus on improving communications and transparency. If they don't get fast, frequent and accurate information from management, employees will rely on rumors or assume the worst.
Third, solicit their help in prioritizing the work. If you don't identify low-priority things that employees can stop doing, your remaining workers will likely be overburdened.
Next, ask each worker and team to help you make a list of the "barriers to increasing productivity," and then commit your time and resources to eliminating those barriers.
Finally, talk individually to top performers and key employees and work with their managers to minimize any issues that may cause them to consider leaving during this critical time.
[Source: Dr. John Sullivan, San Francisco State University, March 10, 2010]
AAAAHHHH!!!!, it's been quiet sometime that i have been blogging - well anyways here goes .
My reading on; How Do We Keep People Motivated Following Layoffs? by Dr. John Sullivan is a good find .
Go on have a good read and enjoy yourself later in thinking about it.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
How Do We Keep People Motivated Following Layoffs?
Your primary goal should be to get the workforce focused and united behind the premise that their productivity and innovation are the key drivers of organizational stability. This requires lots of work and targeted discussions with remaining employees.
Q: We just had mass layoffs. What is my greatest challenge in keeping the surviving employees engaged? And how do I effectively do it?
- Gloom and Doom, services, Waltham, Massachusetts
A: The most significant challenges faced by an organization following layoffs are managing a distracted workforce, coping with increased stress caused by expanding workloads, and turnover among top talent, who have options regardless of economic conditions.
Your primary goal should be to get the workforce focused and united behind the premise that their productivity and innovation are the key drivers of organizational stability. Do some quick interviews or a survey of workers to identify their issues and concerns.
Next, focus on improving communications and transparency. If they don't get fast, frequent and accurate information from management, employees will rely on rumors or assume the worst.
Third, solicit their help in prioritizing the work. If you don't identify low-priority things that employees can stop doing, your remaining workers will likely be overburdened.
Next, ask each worker and team to help you make a list of the "barriers to increasing productivity," and then commit your time and resources to eliminating those barriers.
Finally, talk individually to top performers and key employees and work with their managers to minimize any issues that may cause them to consider leaving during this critical time.
[Source: Dr. John Sullivan, San Francisco State University, March 10, 2010]
Friday, April 16, 2010
How to climb down the Advertising Tiger!
Dear Reader,
In tough times tough decisions pave the path.
In, How to climb down the Advertising Tiger! at "GEMS OF MANAGING", it is different as you woudl read in the article;
In a world where there is too much to do and too little to earn the ad spends have come to assume a form of notoriety and even vulgarity in some instances.
The only way around is- try touching base with basics of business.
Peter Drucker once said: There are only two things a company should be doing, Innovation and Marketing. While Innovation involves R & D orientation and commitment, Marketing automatically emerges a subject worthy of top management's attention. And through top management may also provide direction to R & D efforts with the organization
For the detailed article read on at;
http://nsos-gems.blogspot.com/
Happy Reading ,
Regards,
Prasad.
In tough times tough decisions pave the path.
In, How to climb down the Advertising Tiger! at "GEMS OF MANAGING", it is different as you woudl read in the article;
In a world where there is too much to do and too little to earn the ad spends have come to assume a form of notoriety and even vulgarity in some instances.
The only way around is- try touching base with basics of business.
Peter Drucker once said: There are only two things a company should be doing, Innovation and Marketing. While Innovation involves R & D orientation and commitment, Marketing automatically emerges a subject worthy of top management's attention. And through top management may also provide direction to R & D efforts with the organization
For the detailed article read on at;
http://nsos-gems.blogspot.com/
Happy Reading ,
Regards,
Prasad.
How Best Buy Won Over Women
Dear Reader,
Women world over love shopping whether window-shopping or actual real shopping.
However in yet another stimulating article of the evening titled,
"How Best Buy Won Over Women
By Sean Silverthorne,
it needs to be read to be understood.
“Solutions” is one of those mushy business-speak words that can set our teeth on edge, but when Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati uses it, it suddenly makes perfect sense.
In essence, Gulati preaches that our job as creators and sellers of products and services is to understand our customers in terms of what problems they need solving, not what products they should buy.
This understanding was crucial to a revival at Best Buy, which had learned that although 55 percent of its customers were women, they “loathed” shopping at the consumer electronics giant.
When buying electronics stuff, women want a solution, not a product, Gulati writes.
“Men look for a specific product at a discount price. Women want not just a digital camera, but a printer, cable, and other accessories — and they care far more about these things than price. Equally important, they want help with installation, while most men prefer to try to put things together themselves.”
With this understanding, Best Buy:
Bundled related products together.
Added play areas for kids to allow moms to browse.
Acquired Geek Squad to help with customer support and installation.
Most companies believe they are customer-centric, but are not, Gulati says. When they do surveys with customers the questions are often about satisfaction with products, and desired improvements.
But had Best Buy just followed the “what do you like or don’t like about our products?” road, it would not have learned what it needed about its customers, especially women, for a revitalization.
What about your company? Are you truly customer-centric? Are you in the business of selling solutions or selling products?
Gulati’s post, Inside Best Buy’s Customer-Centric Strategy, is the first in a series of blogs from HBS faculty.
Related reading:
Think You’re Customer-Centric? Think Again (BNET).
Hope you enjoyed it ,
regards,
Prasad.
Women world over love shopping whether window-shopping or actual real shopping.
However in yet another stimulating article of the evening titled,
"How Best Buy Won Over Women
By Sean Silverthorne,
it needs to be read to be understood.
“Solutions” is one of those mushy business-speak words that can set our teeth on edge, but when Harvard Business School professor Ranjay Gulati uses it, it suddenly makes perfect sense.
In essence, Gulati preaches that our job as creators and sellers of products and services is to understand our customers in terms of what problems they need solving, not what products they should buy.
This understanding was crucial to a revival at Best Buy, which had learned that although 55 percent of its customers were women, they “loathed” shopping at the consumer electronics giant.
When buying electronics stuff, women want a solution, not a product, Gulati writes.
“Men look for a specific product at a discount price. Women want not just a digital camera, but a printer, cable, and other accessories — and they care far more about these things than price. Equally important, they want help with installation, while most men prefer to try to put things together themselves.”
With this understanding, Best Buy:
Bundled related products together.
Added play areas for kids to allow moms to browse.
Acquired Geek Squad to help with customer support and installation.
Most companies believe they are customer-centric, but are not, Gulati says. When they do surveys with customers the questions are often about satisfaction with products, and desired improvements.
But had Best Buy just followed the “what do you like or don’t like about our products?” road, it would not have learned what it needed about its customers, especially women, for a revitalization.
What about your company? Are you truly customer-centric? Are you in the business of selling solutions or selling products?
Gulati’s post, Inside Best Buy’s Customer-Centric Strategy, is the first in a series of blogs from HBS faculty.
Related reading:
Think You’re Customer-Centric? Think Again (BNET).
Hope you enjoyed it ,
regards,
Prasad.
Do the Right Thing: Stanford Conference Discusses Encouraging Good Behavior
Dear Reader,
B-schools and their progress - card have been the lead stories of many a business magazine.
Today at BNET i came across a wonderful yet different article ,"Do the Right Thing: Stanford Conference Discusses Encouraging Good Behavior By Stacy Blackman".
The article being brief, i would like to encourage you to read it at ,http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2130&tag=nl.rSINGLE.
Happy reading.
Regards,
Prasad.
B-schools and their progress - card have been the lead stories of many a business magazine.
Today at BNET i came across a wonderful yet different article ,"Do the Right Thing: Stanford Conference Discusses Encouraging Good Behavior By Stacy Blackman".
The article being brief, i would like to encourage you to read it at ,http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2130&tag=nl.rSINGLE.
Happy reading.
Regards,
Prasad.
Wharton management gurus sing success mantra: Khaleej Times
Dear Reader,
Here is something that would gladden the heart of any indian moreso a businessman.
Ah! to know more please do read the post below which appeared in the kahleej tiemss and was lateer reproduced at,'Trainers forum'.
Regards,
Prasad.
Wharton management gurus sing success mantra:
Washington:-
A uniquely 'India way of doing business', which has fuelled an economy that even in perilous global times remains a dynamo, is essentially based on a simple philosophy - "think in English and act in Indian", say four US professors.
The professors of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have made the suggestion after a two-year study of some of India's largest firms, of businesses that have played a leading role in the country's rapid development.essence of the India way is best expressed by those business leaders themselves, say Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh and Michael Useem, co-authors of "The India Way: How India's Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management".
"We 'think in English and act in Indian'," R. Gopalakrishnan, the executive director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, is quoted as saying in an article drawn from the book by Forbes.com.
"For the Indian manager," Gopalakrishnan explained, "his intellectual tradition, his y-axis is Anglo-American, and his action vector, his x-axis, is in the Indian ethos.
"Many foreigners come to India, they talk to Indian managers and they find them very articulate, very analytical, very smart, very intelligent - and they can't for the life of them figure out why the Indian manager can't do what is prescribed by the analysis," he told the four.
The Wharton professors say they found from their study of Indian business leaders that their "x-axis" is defined by four distinctive elements of managing:
1. Holistic engagement with employees. Indian business leaders see their firms as organic enterprises, where sustaining employee morale and building company culture are critical obligations and the very foundations of their success. People are viewed as assets to be developed, not costs to be reduced.
2. Improvization and adaptability are also at the heart of the India way. In a complex often volatile environment with few resources and maddening red tape, business leaders learn to rely on their wits to circumvent the innumerable hurdles they recurrently confront.
3. Creative value propositions. Given the enormous and intensely competitive domestic market and the country's discerning customers, most of them of modest means, Indian business leaders have of necessity learned to be highly creative in developing their value propositions, delivering entirely new products and services with extreme efficiency.
4. Broad mission and purpose. Indian business leaders place special emphasis on personal values and on having a vision of growth and strategic thinking. In addition to serving the needs of their stockholders, like CEOs everywhere, they also stress broader purpose.
They take pride in enterprise success but also in family prosperity, regional advancement and national renaissance.
Bundled together, these principles constitute a distinctly Indian way of conducting business, one very different from other countries, especially the US, where the blend centers more on delivering shareholder value, the professsors say.
Company managers in the West can usefully learn from India's example, the professors concluded.
Here is something that would gladden the heart of any indian moreso a businessman.
Ah! to know more please do read the post below which appeared in the kahleej tiemss and was lateer reproduced at,'Trainers forum'.
Regards,
Prasad.
Wharton management gurus sing success mantra:
Washington:-
A uniquely 'India way of doing business', which has fuelled an economy that even in perilous global times remains a dynamo, is essentially based on a simple philosophy - "think in English and act in Indian", say four US professors.
The professors of management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania have made the suggestion after a two-year study of some of India's largest firms, of businesses that have played a leading role in the country's rapid development.essence of the India way is best expressed by those business leaders themselves, say Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh and Michael Useem, co-authors of "The India Way: How India's Top Business Leaders Are Revolutionizing Management".
"We 'think in English and act in Indian'," R. Gopalakrishnan, the executive director of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, is quoted as saying in an article drawn from the book by Forbes.com.
"For the Indian manager," Gopalakrishnan explained, "his intellectual tradition, his y-axis is Anglo-American, and his action vector, his x-axis, is in the Indian ethos.
"Many foreigners come to India, they talk to Indian managers and they find them very articulate, very analytical, very smart, very intelligent - and they can't for the life of them figure out why the Indian manager can't do what is prescribed by the analysis," he told the four.
The Wharton professors say they found from their study of Indian business leaders that their "x-axis" is defined by four distinctive elements of managing:
1. Holistic engagement with employees. Indian business leaders see their firms as organic enterprises, where sustaining employee morale and building company culture are critical obligations and the very foundations of their success. People are viewed as assets to be developed, not costs to be reduced.
2. Improvization and adaptability are also at the heart of the India way. In a complex often volatile environment with few resources and maddening red tape, business leaders learn to rely on their wits to circumvent the innumerable hurdles they recurrently confront.
3. Creative value propositions. Given the enormous and intensely competitive domestic market and the country's discerning customers, most of them of modest means, Indian business leaders have of necessity learned to be highly creative in developing their value propositions, delivering entirely new products and services with extreme efficiency.
4. Broad mission and purpose. Indian business leaders place special emphasis on personal values and on having a vision of growth and strategic thinking. In addition to serving the needs of their stockholders, like CEOs everywhere, they also stress broader purpose.
They take pride in enterprise success but also in family prosperity, regional advancement and national renaissance.
Bundled together, these principles constitute a distinctly Indian way of conducting business, one very different from other countries, especially the US, where the blend centers more on delivering shareholder value, the professsors say.
Company managers in the West can usefully learn from India's example, the professors concluded.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Emotional Intelligence: The Next Step in a Business's Survival Strategy
Dear Reader,
Now having got your attention , let us pause for a moment to look at, "Emotional Intelligence The Next Step in a Business's Survival Strategy".
In an article by Thomas Bonney, the article goes on to look at even Charles Darwin's theory where in the corporate world, the process of natural selection is becoming very evident within the business community over the past two years.
Employers of today are operating within a challenging new business climate and must now determine what strain of "corporate DNA" will render their organizations fittest for long-term survival.
Read on to know more;
Regards,
Prasad.
Charles Darwin may have presented his theory of biological evolution more than 150 years ago in The Origin of Species, but it could be argued that the process of natural selection has become particularly evident within the business community over the past two years. Employers are operating within a challenging new business climate and must now determine what strain of "corporate DNA" will render their organizations fittest for long-term survival.
Some companies have developed a tougher exterior of core competencies, composed of functional adaptability and flexibility - both within the company and with suppliers, customers and service partners - to weather ongoing competitive threats from an increasingly harsher global external environment. However, a more critical contributor to an organization's enduring success actually lies internally, in the emotional intelligence of its people, starting with the leadership team.
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to intuitively manage emotions, both those experienced personally and by other individuals and groups. Historically, this term has been most visible within psychology circles and in HR departments at larger organizations. However, it is expected to gain broader corporate favor as more companies realize that typical organizational defense mechanisms no longer ensure survival.
Examples of these fading mechanisms include intellectual property, which is increasingly leapfrogged or stolen; long-term contracts, which are increasingly renegotiated; and access to distribution channel and end customers, which is increasingly disintermediated by the Internet. Alternatively, we project more organizations will recognize the powerful operational cohesiveness that can result from a companywide migration of emotional intelligence "messenger RNA."
Company leadership is the platform of an emotionally healthy organization. Leadership behavior and the tone it sets in the daily operation of a business may be the single largest contributing factor to success or failure.
Managing stress, recovering quickly from setbacks and dealing with adversity are all daily realities in the life of today's business leader. How well or poorly leaders understand and manage their emotions - and understand the impact of their emotions on others - will either motivate or potentially derail employees. In addition, a leadership team with a high degree of emotional self-awareness can be a powerful competitive advantage.
To build upon an organizational platform of emotional health, leaders must foster confidence and trust in employees in terms of their ability to succeed in today's highly competitive business environment.
A core strategy for creating a culture of trust is a consistent interpersonal communications methodology centered on building and maintaining social harmony among teams. In essence, employees must observe and learn how appropriately chosen words and actions hold the power to move organizations forward by harnessing the necessary emotion to achieve the desired goals.
One primary emotional intelligence skill set is the ability to apply word choice, voice tone and facial expression to optimize the clear meaning and productive outcome of a dialogue. For example, in a conflict management situation, a pivotal consideration would be the selection of "I think you should reconsider" vs. "You're wrong."
Another principal skill set is the ability to pick up on subtle verbal and nonverbal cues, including what is not said. Companies on the vanguard of leveraging emotional intelligence's value have the courage to invest heavily in related interpersonal communication training as well as initiatives to ingrain these communication tenets across internal functions and within business partner relationships.
Darwin's closing of The Origin of Species includes the following statement: "From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."
In a similar vein, emotional intelligence offers organizations a powerful operational platform for emerging from the economic turmoil in a stringer position to survive.
The key to achieving this higher-order foundation for longevity is business leaders' commitment to demonstrating and instilling emotional self-awareness and management as well as interpersonal sensitivity that fosters more productive internal and external communication.
[About the Author: Thomas Bonney is managing director at CMF Associates.]
Now having got your attention , let us pause for a moment to look at, "Emotional Intelligence The Next Step in a Business's Survival Strategy".
In an article by Thomas Bonney, the article goes on to look at even Charles Darwin's theory where in the corporate world, the process of natural selection is becoming very evident within the business community over the past two years.
Employers of today are operating within a challenging new business climate and must now determine what strain of "corporate DNA" will render their organizations fittest for long-term survival.
Read on to know more;
Regards,
Prasad.
Charles Darwin may have presented his theory of biological evolution more than 150 years ago in The Origin of Species, but it could be argued that the process of natural selection has become particularly evident within the business community over the past two years. Employers are operating within a challenging new business climate and must now determine what strain of "corporate DNA" will render their organizations fittest for long-term survival.
Some companies have developed a tougher exterior of core competencies, composed of functional adaptability and flexibility - both within the company and with suppliers, customers and service partners - to weather ongoing competitive threats from an increasingly harsher global external environment. However, a more critical contributor to an organization's enduring success actually lies internally, in the emotional intelligence of its people, starting with the leadership team.
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to intuitively manage emotions, both those experienced personally and by other individuals and groups. Historically, this term has been most visible within psychology circles and in HR departments at larger organizations. However, it is expected to gain broader corporate favor as more companies realize that typical organizational defense mechanisms no longer ensure survival.
Examples of these fading mechanisms include intellectual property, which is increasingly leapfrogged or stolen; long-term contracts, which are increasingly renegotiated; and access to distribution channel and end customers, which is increasingly disintermediated by the Internet. Alternatively, we project more organizations will recognize the powerful operational cohesiveness that can result from a companywide migration of emotional intelligence "messenger RNA."
Company leadership is the platform of an emotionally healthy organization. Leadership behavior and the tone it sets in the daily operation of a business may be the single largest contributing factor to success or failure.
Managing stress, recovering quickly from setbacks and dealing with adversity are all daily realities in the life of today's business leader. How well or poorly leaders understand and manage their emotions - and understand the impact of their emotions on others - will either motivate or potentially derail employees. In addition, a leadership team with a high degree of emotional self-awareness can be a powerful competitive advantage.
To build upon an organizational platform of emotional health, leaders must foster confidence and trust in employees in terms of their ability to succeed in today's highly competitive business environment.
A core strategy for creating a culture of trust is a consistent interpersonal communications methodology centered on building and maintaining social harmony among teams. In essence, employees must observe and learn how appropriately chosen words and actions hold the power to move organizations forward by harnessing the necessary emotion to achieve the desired goals.
One primary emotional intelligence skill set is the ability to apply word choice, voice tone and facial expression to optimize the clear meaning and productive outcome of a dialogue. For example, in a conflict management situation, a pivotal consideration would be the selection of "I think you should reconsider" vs. "You're wrong."
Another principal skill set is the ability to pick up on subtle verbal and nonverbal cues, including what is not said. Companies on the vanguard of leveraging emotional intelligence's value have the courage to invest heavily in related interpersonal communication training as well as initiatives to ingrain these communication tenets across internal functions and within business partner relationships.
Darwin's closing of The Origin of Species includes the following statement: "From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows."
In a similar vein, emotional intelligence offers organizations a powerful operational platform for emerging from the economic turmoil in a stringer position to survive.
The key to achieving this higher-order foundation for longevity is business leaders' commitment to demonstrating and instilling emotional self-awareness and management as well as interpersonal sensitivity that fosters more productive internal and external communication.
[About the Author: Thomas Bonney is managing director at CMF Associates.]
Dear Reader,
Here is something that caught my eye.
In my thinking, "Strategy is nothing but the business decisions of tommorow taken today".
However when one looks at organizations across the world one finds that they are far from the delivery aspect.
They have the best of managers, best resources to reach out to , and the wherewithall to plan , implement and drive their strategies [atleast all supposedly so].
However when push comes to shove what happens and what results is that these very organizations remain far away from attaining their goals and objectives .
Targets are just about met, promises mostly half baked and half delivered upon , worst is the case of the internal and external customer being left a very dissatisfied person at the end of the transaction.
However in the post below where, Josh Leibner and Gershon Mader discuss the,"Four Myths of Strategy",it is clear that,Companies must abandon several common assumptions about planning and execution for a strategy to succeed.
So read on;
Regards,
Prasad.
Every year, executives at American corporations dutifully gather together their top brass, lock themselves in a room and go through the time-honored tradition known as strategic planning. After a few hours - or a few days - they emerge with a sacred document that will increase their sales, make their services shine, engage their staff and secure their futures.
Well, at least that's the story they tell us in business school. In reality, most companies craft a half-baked strategic plan that is only partially implemented and has sketchy buy-in at best.
Based on their research, Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and David Norton of the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative estimate that as many as 90 percent of all corporate strategies are not executed successfully. Beyond not being properly implemented, the strategies themselves are often problematic.
Henry Mintzberg, in his seminal 1993 book The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, refers to strategic planning as an "oxymoron," claiming that "the process can straitjacket an organization by stifling innovation and commitment."
So what's a well-meaning executive to do if he or she wants to make the most of the strategic planning process while avoiding the pitfalls of poor design and implementation? To start, he or she must understand the four myths that lead to wishful, wasteful or less-than-worthwhile strategic planning efforts.
Myth No. 1: Content Is King
Most executives believe that if you get the content of your strategy right, the success of that strategy is a foregone conclusion. They assume that the substance of the strategy must be composed of realistic objectives and the most accurate and valid information.
In their quest to create a strategy that can credibly stand up to the scrutiny of these criteria - and senior management approval - companies often employ outside experts, such as consulting and marketing firms, to analyze, research and benchmark their industry, competitors and markets. In addition, they use tools such as a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to help create objectives that address both the past performance and current circumstances of the company. Sounds reasonable. And therein lies the problem.
What goes unrecognized and unaddressed is that no strategy can ever be right or reasonable enough to account for all the events that might emerge on the road to its fulfillment. Not to mention the amount of buy-in required from all levels to deal with those events as they arise. Therefore, perfect content is an illusion that leads to an increasing investment of resources in the pursuit of the one true strategy that will win the day.
In reality, any strategy is only as good as the degree to which the people within the organization are committed to it. Even the most accurate and well-crafted plan will fail if people don't take accountability for delivering it.
Picture the following scenario: A large national service company spent $2 million to hire a top-tier consulting firm to figure out what direction it should take the company. By conducting a standard SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, the consultants came up with a well-thought-out, several-hundred-page strategy document housed in a beautiful binder - that no one on the management team believed would work. Even though the company had just spent millions coming up with the "right" content for the strategy, it did not have the environment of trust, partnership and open communication necessary for it to be executed.
Leaders who are looking to generate alignment and commitment behind a strategy cannot rely solely on the content of the strategy itself, but must address the context - the organizational culture - in which that strategy is to be executed. For any strategy to succeed, authentic, courageous communication and ownership is essential.
Myth No. 2: Consensus Equals Success
In the eyes of many leaders, the ultimate level of buy-in for a strategic plan is simply consensus. The belief behind this myth is that if everyone feels pretty good about the plan and has no strong objections, it's about the best that can be hoped for.
But the problem with taking a consensus-building approach is that it requires settling for the lowest common denominator that everyone can agree with, rather than striving for solutions that challenge current thinking.
Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England, once said: "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects - the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead."
Ultimately, consensus can lead to cynicism and resignation that, when difficulties in execution are encountered, manifest in a chorus of "I told you so," "If only they had listened to me," and "I didn't really believe it was the right course of action."
In reality, consensus is way too low a bar for the fulfillment of any strategic plan that requires substantial organizational change. There is, in fact, something about engaging in the process of developing the strategy itself that is fundamental to people feeling ownership over it. Input into the strategy but a lack of involvement in developing it may create compliance, but being actively involved in its generation creates commitment.
To generate this commitment, executives need to set the bar to the higher goal of alignment. Reaching this alignment requires putting people's concerns, doubts, uncertainties and water-cooler conversations on the table so they can be dealt with out in the open. Alignment is achieved when people leave the strategy discussions fully on board with whatever decision the group has reached, with no plan B, no pocket vetoes and no reservations about fully investing themselves in pursuing the agreed-upon direction.
Myth No. 3: Exclusion Is Efficient
The typical strategic planning process is an exclusive affair. Executives often believe that the fewer people involved in the process, the easier it will be. As such, they often limit participation to a small group of business unit heads or the strategy development group. But putting together the strategic planning team is not a matter of finding the perfect group size - it's about gathering together the right people. You must include both those individuals who have the best sense about where the organization needs to go and those who are going to implement the agreed-upon direction and objectives.
Unfortunately, it is often an elite group of people who are removed from the day-to-day issues of the business who do the strategy development. While the objective view that these individuals provide can be useful, those who are then tasked with the implementation of the strategy frequently respond to it with skepticism, cynicism, outright disbelief and even resentment. Beyond the emotional cost, the lack of listening to input from those closest to the issues can be an expensive proposition.
While some impatient executives might see this broader inclusion as slowing things down, slower in this case is faster - since doing things right from the start saves times and money and prevents having to do everything all over again.
Myth No. 4: Communication Creates Commitment
Town halls, road shows, all-hands meetings and webinars are all popular vehicles for spreading the word and gaining buy-in once the strategic plan has been crafted. Most senior executives will tout these communication efforts as a critical step in helping the organization understand what the strategy means and what role each person plays in bringing it to fruition.
But while these types of events can generate a significant amount of energy and excitement, they also contain serious pitfalls that can lead to cynicism rather than commitment.
One of these pitfalls is the mistaken belief that employees are empty vessels, just waiting for the word from above about where the company is headed and what they should be doing to help it get there.
Far from being empty, people are already full. They're full of frustrations and disappointments about what executives have said they were going to do in the past and what they actually did. They're full from promises made and not kept and from accepting requests to get involved in a company strategy and then being ignored when times got tough.
Employees have little time - or need - for fanfare and hype. What they want to know is that their bosses understand and are committed to addressing the challenges they face in putting a strategy in place.
For example: If staff communicate that a certain supervisor is a tyrant, will management listen and hold that person accountable for demonstrating the values they are promoting? If systems are broken or inadequate, will management hear the impact that this has on staff and make the proper investment to set things right? If staff members are caught in the crossfire of feuding bosses, will the leaders of the company leave them to their warring factions or let them know political gamesmanship won't be tolerated?
Only by listening to what workers are saying - through both their words and their behavior - will leaders become aware of an able to address the issues that are preventing them from embracing the company's strategic objectives. When this type of listening happens and action is taken, commitment to the strategic plan follows suit.
Strategic planning is not an accounting and forecasting exercise. It's not a weekend off-site spent in a room, hashing out who's willing to go along with what. And it's not a bunch of words put to paper and placed in a binder. It is a living, breathing, organic leadership action. It requires not a calculator, but the courage and conviction to inspire everyone to be their best and get on the same page. As Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola once said: "The first step in making a good movie is getting everyone involved to be making the same movie."
[About the Authors: Josh Leibner and Gershon Mader are co-founders of Quantum Performance Inc. and authors of The Power of Strategic Commitment: Achieving Extraordinary Results Through TOTAL Alignment and Engagement.]
Here is something that caught my eye.
In my thinking, "Strategy is nothing but the business decisions of tommorow taken today".
However when one looks at organizations across the world one finds that they are far from the delivery aspect.
They have the best of managers, best resources to reach out to , and the wherewithall to plan , implement and drive their strategies [atleast all supposedly so].
However when push comes to shove what happens and what results is that these very organizations remain far away from attaining their goals and objectives .
Targets are just about met, promises mostly half baked and half delivered upon , worst is the case of the internal and external customer being left a very dissatisfied person at the end of the transaction.
However in the post below where, Josh Leibner and Gershon Mader discuss the,"Four Myths of Strategy",it is clear that,Companies must abandon several common assumptions about planning and execution for a strategy to succeed.
So read on;
Regards,
Prasad.
Every year, executives at American corporations dutifully gather together their top brass, lock themselves in a room and go through the time-honored tradition known as strategic planning. After a few hours - or a few days - they emerge with a sacred document that will increase their sales, make their services shine, engage their staff and secure their futures.
Well, at least that's the story they tell us in business school. In reality, most companies craft a half-baked strategic plan that is only partially implemented and has sketchy buy-in at best.
Based on their research, Robert Kaplan of Harvard Business School and David Norton of the Balanced Scorecard Collaborative estimate that as many as 90 percent of all corporate strategies are not executed successfully. Beyond not being properly implemented, the strategies themselves are often problematic.
Henry Mintzberg, in his seminal 1993 book The Rise and Fall of Strategic Planning, refers to strategic planning as an "oxymoron," claiming that "the process can straitjacket an organization by stifling innovation and commitment."
So what's a well-meaning executive to do if he or she wants to make the most of the strategic planning process while avoiding the pitfalls of poor design and implementation? To start, he or she must understand the four myths that lead to wishful, wasteful or less-than-worthwhile strategic planning efforts.
Myth No. 1: Content Is King
Most executives believe that if you get the content of your strategy right, the success of that strategy is a foregone conclusion. They assume that the substance of the strategy must be composed of realistic objectives and the most accurate and valid information.
In their quest to create a strategy that can credibly stand up to the scrutiny of these criteria - and senior management approval - companies often employ outside experts, such as consulting and marketing firms, to analyze, research and benchmark their industry, competitors and markets. In addition, they use tools such as a SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis to help create objectives that address both the past performance and current circumstances of the company. Sounds reasonable. And therein lies the problem.
What goes unrecognized and unaddressed is that no strategy can ever be right or reasonable enough to account for all the events that might emerge on the road to its fulfillment. Not to mention the amount of buy-in required from all levels to deal with those events as they arise. Therefore, perfect content is an illusion that leads to an increasing investment of resources in the pursuit of the one true strategy that will win the day.
In reality, any strategy is only as good as the degree to which the people within the organization are committed to it. Even the most accurate and well-crafted plan will fail if people don't take accountability for delivering it.
Picture the following scenario: A large national service company spent $2 million to hire a top-tier consulting firm to figure out what direction it should take the company. By conducting a standard SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) analysis, the consultants came up with a well-thought-out, several-hundred-page strategy document housed in a beautiful binder - that no one on the management team believed would work. Even though the company had just spent millions coming up with the "right" content for the strategy, it did not have the environment of trust, partnership and open communication necessary for it to be executed.
Leaders who are looking to generate alignment and commitment behind a strategy cannot rely solely on the content of the strategy itself, but must address the context - the organizational culture - in which that strategy is to be executed. For any strategy to succeed, authentic, courageous communication and ownership is essential.
Myth No. 2: Consensus Equals Success
In the eyes of many leaders, the ultimate level of buy-in for a strategic plan is simply consensus. The belief behind this myth is that if everyone feels pretty good about the plan and has no strong objections, it's about the best that can be hoped for.
But the problem with taking a consensus-building approach is that it requires settling for the lowest common denominator that everyone can agree with, rather than striving for solutions that challenge current thinking.
Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England, once said: "To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects - the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead."
Ultimately, consensus can lead to cynicism and resignation that, when difficulties in execution are encountered, manifest in a chorus of "I told you so," "If only they had listened to me," and "I didn't really believe it was the right course of action."
In reality, consensus is way too low a bar for the fulfillment of any strategic plan that requires substantial organizational change. There is, in fact, something about engaging in the process of developing the strategy itself that is fundamental to people feeling ownership over it. Input into the strategy but a lack of involvement in developing it may create compliance, but being actively involved in its generation creates commitment.
To generate this commitment, executives need to set the bar to the higher goal of alignment. Reaching this alignment requires putting people's concerns, doubts, uncertainties and water-cooler conversations on the table so they can be dealt with out in the open. Alignment is achieved when people leave the strategy discussions fully on board with whatever decision the group has reached, with no plan B, no pocket vetoes and no reservations about fully investing themselves in pursuing the agreed-upon direction.
Myth No. 3: Exclusion Is Efficient
The typical strategic planning process is an exclusive affair. Executives often believe that the fewer people involved in the process, the easier it will be. As such, they often limit participation to a small group of business unit heads or the strategy development group. But putting together the strategic planning team is not a matter of finding the perfect group size - it's about gathering together the right people. You must include both those individuals who have the best sense about where the organization needs to go and those who are going to implement the agreed-upon direction and objectives.
Unfortunately, it is often an elite group of people who are removed from the day-to-day issues of the business who do the strategy development. While the objective view that these individuals provide can be useful, those who are then tasked with the implementation of the strategy frequently respond to it with skepticism, cynicism, outright disbelief and even resentment. Beyond the emotional cost, the lack of listening to input from those closest to the issues can be an expensive proposition.
While some impatient executives might see this broader inclusion as slowing things down, slower in this case is faster - since doing things right from the start saves times and money and prevents having to do everything all over again.
Myth No. 4: Communication Creates Commitment
Town halls, road shows, all-hands meetings and webinars are all popular vehicles for spreading the word and gaining buy-in once the strategic plan has been crafted. Most senior executives will tout these communication efforts as a critical step in helping the organization understand what the strategy means and what role each person plays in bringing it to fruition.
But while these types of events can generate a significant amount of energy and excitement, they also contain serious pitfalls that can lead to cynicism rather than commitment.
One of these pitfalls is the mistaken belief that employees are empty vessels, just waiting for the word from above about where the company is headed and what they should be doing to help it get there.
Far from being empty, people are already full. They're full of frustrations and disappointments about what executives have said they were going to do in the past and what they actually did. They're full from promises made and not kept and from accepting requests to get involved in a company strategy and then being ignored when times got tough.
Employees have little time - or need - for fanfare and hype. What they want to know is that their bosses understand and are committed to addressing the challenges they face in putting a strategy in place.
For example: If staff communicate that a certain supervisor is a tyrant, will management listen and hold that person accountable for demonstrating the values they are promoting? If systems are broken or inadequate, will management hear the impact that this has on staff and make the proper investment to set things right? If staff members are caught in the crossfire of feuding bosses, will the leaders of the company leave them to their warring factions or let them know political gamesmanship won't be tolerated?
Only by listening to what workers are saying - through both their words and their behavior - will leaders become aware of an able to address the issues that are preventing them from embracing the company's strategic objectives. When this type of listening happens and action is taken, commitment to the strategic plan follows suit.
Strategic planning is not an accounting and forecasting exercise. It's not a weekend off-site spent in a room, hashing out who's willing to go along with what. And it's not a bunch of words put to paper and placed in a binder. It is a living, breathing, organic leadership action. It requires not a calculator, but the courage and conviction to inspire everyone to be their best and get on the same page. As Academy Award-winning director Francis Ford Coppola once said: "The first step in making a good movie is getting everyone involved to be making the same movie."
[About the Authors: Josh Leibner and Gershon Mader are co-founders of Quantum Performance Inc. and authors of The Power of Strategic Commitment: Achieving Extraordinary Results Through TOTAL Alignment and Engagement.]
THE HEART OF A TEACHER
Dear Reader,
Here below is a poem that appeared in,'Simple Truths'a site i am subscribed to.
The poem written from a parent to a teacher has good simple words and carry a lot of depth.
Rendered straight from the heart before the oncoming , Teacher Appreciation Day',on the 4th of May, it tells about the desire of honouring and saying thanks to the teachers who made a difference in the author's life.
The Poem is ;
"A PARENT'S NOTE TO A TEACHER"
by Anonymous
I'm the voice of a grateful parent
whose child was in your class...
the one who needed help to find his way
You've been a special blessing
as you helped my child succeed
and I'm thankful for the part you had to play
You gave him so much more
than just the lessons in the books
you gave him wings...so he could learn to fly
You ignited a flame within his soul
a passion to learn and grow...
to never give up and always be willing to try
Your encouragement inspired him
and your kindness was so real
but the thing that thrills my heart the most is this...
By building his self-confidence
you changed his life this year
he believes in himself...and a brighter future is his!
Equally wonderful and appreciative is the response given by a teacher to the parent and the student which is and i quoute;
" IT'S UP TO ME by Haim Ginott
I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized."
Regards,
Prasad.
Here below is a poem that appeared in,'Simple Truths'a site i am subscribed to.
The poem written from a parent to a teacher has good simple words and carry a lot of depth.
Rendered straight from the heart before the oncoming , Teacher Appreciation Day',on the 4th of May, it tells about the desire of honouring and saying thanks to the teachers who made a difference in the author's life.
The Poem is ;
"A PARENT'S NOTE TO A TEACHER"
by Anonymous
I'm the voice of a grateful parent
whose child was in your class...
the one who needed help to find his way
You've been a special blessing
as you helped my child succeed
and I'm thankful for the part you had to play
You gave him so much more
than just the lessons in the books
you gave him wings...so he could learn to fly
You ignited a flame within his soul
a passion to learn and grow...
to never give up and always be willing to try
Your encouragement inspired him
and your kindness was so real
but the thing that thrills my heart the most is this...
By building his self-confidence
you changed his life this year
he believes in himself...and a brighter future is his!
Equally wonderful and appreciative is the response given by a teacher to the parent and the student which is and i quoute;
" IT'S UP TO ME by Haim Ginott
I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather.
As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized."
Regards,
Prasad.
Mountains of Business Wisdom: Six Months of Conversations with Top B-School Profs
Dear Reader,
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to share with you a dream article which everyone would love to read.
This article whose title is given below appeared in BNET's post of today.
Mountains of Business Wisdom: Six Months of Conversations with Top B-School Profs.
The review of the last six months of Wednesday interviews with top business school professors from around the world by Jeremy Dann is given at the link below.
Read the Full Story at;
http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2175&tag=nl.rSINGLE
Happy Reading,
Regards,
Prasad.
It is indeed a great pleasure for me to share with you a dream article which everyone would love to read.
This article whose title is given below appeared in BNET's post of today.
Mountains of Business Wisdom: Six Months of Conversations with Top B-School Profs.
The review of the last six months of Wednesday interviews with top business school professors from around the world by Jeremy Dann is given at the link below.
Read the Full Story at;
http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2175&tag=nl.rSINGLE
Happy Reading,
Regards,
Prasad.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Social Networking: An Engagement and Communication Tool
Dear Reader ,
Now-a-days social networking suddenly seems to be one of the hot topics around.
Here below is a brief article that is or could be useful to you somewhere.
Enjoy your read.
Regards,
Prasad.
Social Networking: An Engagement and Communication Tool
by Elaine Varelas
Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools give CEOs and senior leaders the power to communicate instantly and with great regularity and consistency with large, globally diverse teams, including employees, contractors and vendors. This helps foster open communication, clarity of direction and goals and direct connection between individual team members and the leaders of the business.
1. Social networking as a communication tool:
If leaders want their employees to use social networks as means of cross-team communication, it is critical that they be given access to such sites. In addition, if a company is using social networks to promote the organization, products or brand, it does not send a good message to then suggest to employees that they should not be checking their social networking sites during the workday. The employer may, however, ask that employees hold off on making or responding to personal postings during work hours. Social networking can provide a great opportunity for managers to build trust with their team by encouraging them to use the sites for professional communications and for personal communications outside of work. They need to ascertain whether social networking has a negative impact on productivity before unduly restricting or limiting usage.
In some cases, social networking has been found to increase productivity, particularly for teams that are in geographically disparate locations. Furthermore, social networks can be a company's most powerful marketing and lead generation tool - not to mention, they are free to use.
Managers who struggle with staff members who waste time on social networks will often find that productivity issues will remain whether the employees have access to the social networking sites or not.
The risk of overuse or misuse can be ameliorated by putting a thoughtful launch plan in place and providing employees clear and concise parameters for using social networks in the workplace.
2. Social networking as an engagement tool:
Using social networks as an internal tool can dramatically increase the ability for companies to communicate with employees and, if done effectively, can positively impact engagement.
Managers can use social networks to have an ongoing dialogue with staff in real time - whether it's through real-time chat, polling employees on various topics, recognizing exceptional work, etc. Social networks offer a variety of technologies that can be used as a means of keeping employees engaged.
However, managers who want to have an honest dialogue with employees through social networking mediums must be aware that they do run the risk of hearing from unhappy staffers in addition to the happy, engaged ones.
[About the Author: Elaine Varelas is a managing partner at Camden Consulting Group, a division of Keystone Partners and a provider of integrated talent management solutions for organizational and leadership development.]
Now-a-days social networking suddenly seems to be one of the hot topics around.
Here below is a brief article that is or could be useful to you somewhere.
Enjoy your read.
Regards,
Prasad.
Social Networking: An Engagement and Communication Tool
by Elaine Varelas
Twitter, Facebook and other social networking tools give CEOs and senior leaders the power to communicate instantly and with great regularity and consistency with large, globally diverse teams, including employees, contractors and vendors. This helps foster open communication, clarity of direction and goals and direct connection between individual team members and the leaders of the business.
1. Social networking as a communication tool:
If leaders want their employees to use social networks as means of cross-team communication, it is critical that they be given access to such sites. In addition, if a company is using social networks to promote the organization, products or brand, it does not send a good message to then suggest to employees that they should not be checking their social networking sites during the workday. The employer may, however, ask that employees hold off on making or responding to personal postings during work hours. Social networking can provide a great opportunity for managers to build trust with their team by encouraging them to use the sites for professional communications and for personal communications outside of work. They need to ascertain whether social networking has a negative impact on productivity before unduly restricting or limiting usage.
In some cases, social networking has been found to increase productivity, particularly for teams that are in geographically disparate locations. Furthermore, social networks can be a company's most powerful marketing and lead generation tool - not to mention, they are free to use.
Managers who struggle with staff members who waste time on social networks will often find that productivity issues will remain whether the employees have access to the social networking sites or not.
The risk of overuse or misuse can be ameliorated by putting a thoughtful launch plan in place and providing employees clear and concise parameters for using social networks in the workplace.
2. Social networking as an engagement tool:
Using social networks as an internal tool can dramatically increase the ability for companies to communicate with employees and, if done effectively, can positively impact engagement.
Managers can use social networks to have an ongoing dialogue with staff in real time - whether it's through real-time chat, polling employees on various topics, recognizing exceptional work, etc. Social networks offer a variety of technologies that can be used as a means of keeping employees engaged.
However, managers who want to have an honest dialogue with employees through social networking mediums must be aware that they do run the risk of hearing from unhappy staffers in addition to the happy, engaged ones.
[About the Author: Elaine Varelas is a managing partner at Camden Consulting Group, a division of Keystone Partners and a provider of integrated talent management solutions for organizational and leadership development.]
Rethinking the MBA.
Dear Reader,
It was perhaps coincidence that my cognitive brian was full of,MBA of Today Wherefore???? when the interview reproduced below appeared on BNET.
To continue in my vein would be like stealing the thunder from its rightful owner - so dear please go ahead and enjoy the read -
Young brains of today you have miles to go - perhaps this would put you into a more cognitive mode that might spur better solutions to many.
Rethinking the MBA: Status Quo Schools Will "Fall by Wayside"
By Stacy Blackman
Last week, I spoke with Harvard Business School’s Srikant Datar and David A. Garvin, co-authors of the new book Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, about some of the problems b-schools face. This week, we discuss ways for MBA programs to move forward.
Please do read the article further at the link given below;
http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2136&tag=nl.rSINGLE
Regards,
Prasad,
It was perhaps coincidence that my cognitive brian was full of,MBA of Today Wherefore???? when the interview reproduced below appeared on BNET.
To continue in my vein would be like stealing the thunder from its rightful owner - so dear please go ahead and enjoy the read -
Young brains of today you have miles to go - perhaps this would put you into a more cognitive mode that might spur better solutions to many.
Rethinking the MBA: Status Quo Schools Will "Fall by Wayside"
By Stacy Blackman
Last week, I spoke with Harvard Business School’s Srikant Datar and David A. Garvin, co-authors of the new book Rethinking the MBA: Business Education at a Crossroads, about some of the problems b-schools face. This week, we discuss ways for MBA programs to move forward.
Please do read the article further at the link given below;
http://blogs.bnet.com/mba/?p=2136&tag=nl.rSINGLE
Regards,
Prasad,
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Why Learning Is Never Enough ?
Dear Reader,
We all talk of learning at some time or the other - as in how much is there to learn.
Some have even stated that there is no end to learning.
Well reproduced below is an article that lays it s points out on,
Why Learning Is Never Enough?
Enjoy your read.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
Why Learning Is Never Enough ?
by Kerry Patterson
Ensuring that learning and development initiatives facilitate real change in a workforce requires deliberate follow-up and follow-through.
The foremost challenge in designing learning and development initiatives is effecting real change in a workforce. This is difficult but absolutely necessary for training to achieve solid ROI.
After all, any training program likely not only cost money, but it also took time to design and attend, and therefore spent productivity. If a learning and development program didn't change employees' behavior, then it was a waste - even if they liked the course.
But the ability to transfer knowledge and skills learned in training back to the office is never easy. The training finishes, participants return to work, and they're immediately pulled in a dozen different directions - none of which are designed to help them transfer what they've just learned into part of their daily routine.
Without skill transference, training is merely an expensive vacation that employees take from their daily responsibilities. So what can learning and development professionals do to ensure learning translates into action?
Better still, how can they manipulate the forces that draw people away from adopting new skills to both motivate and enable a genuine change in behavior?
Successful learning officers know that learning is not enough and find ways to ensure their training graduates implement new ideas and skills soon after the training ends.
They supplement their learning experience with a host of strategies that both motivate and enable graduates to adopt the skills taught in training. Skill transference is acquired by combining multiple sources of influence into a cohesive change strategy.
The following tactics can be used to create a well-rounded change strategy.
Co-Opt the Performance System
It's surprising how many training programs aren't supported by an organization's formal performance review system. While few, if any, performance review systems directly contradict what's being covered in training, rare is the program where the skills and ideas taught in training are purposefully reinforced in the formal review process.
For instance, when training people how to hold others accountable, the specific skills taught in the course need to be contained in the formal review paperwork. If they're not, it's unlikely that supervisors will include training graduates' recently acquired skills in their review.
Supervisors may not even know about the new skills, let alone think to include them. So, learning and development professionals should always seek to hardwire into the review process skills that came about as a result of new training.
Enlist Informal Support
While it's essential to build the skills from new learning and development initiatives into a formal review system, it's equally important to take steps to ensure that informal rewards are also aimed at the target behaviors. This is best done by gathering supervisors and ensuring they play a role in getting their direct report's training to stick.
Supervisors will need to talk about the new behaviors, discuss them in meetings, watch to see that the training graduates do what they've been taught and then praise graduates for their progress. For example, they might say, "I couldn't help but notice that you're using the new project software you studied last month. It's good to see you using the new processes. Thanks.!"
People often underestimate how important delivering praise is to encouraging new behavior. For those receiving praise, it's clear that a good word from a colleague or authority figure goes a long way to ensure the appreciated behavior continues. A simple thank you is often viewed as more meaningful and sincere than more formal means of approbation.
In working with supervisors and managers to bring informal praise into a culture, remember that givers of praise tend to forget the power of informal encouragement. Make sure to talk with supervisors about the importance of providing the occasional "Way to go!" and discuss with them what it will take to remember to do so.
What cues can be placed around them? How can managers remind supervisors? A best practice is to hold a meeting one week after participants return from an education experience and discuss the role of leadership in coaching, measuring and encouraging the new behaviors. Take five minutes and brainstorm different informal ways to say thank you.
Connect to Core Values
Much of what is taught in today's leadership and other soft-skill courses is value-based. In addition to informing people what they should do under certain conditions, the courses explain the "why" behind the targeted behaviors. These almost always connect to the company's core values - or at least they should.
For instance, organizations don't ask people to be involved in decision making simply because it's the new training trend. Rather, they ask people for their ideas because they value creative and innovative thinking or constructive feedback and criticism. They also believe that it helps people like they are part of the decision and aligns teams.
Involving others may also lie at the heart of diversity. Organizations seek to rely on the varying views of diverse specialists and realize that doing so leads to the best choices. These may be just some of the values underpinning a training course on teamwork or decision making.
Unfortunately, the idea of talking about values is often far from the minds of leaders, whose jobs require them to focus on numbers and charts. As a result, these leaders miss an important opportunity to connect with what their people really care about.
People don't connect strongly to charts, facts, figures and logic. Rather, they connect to direct and vicarious experiences, personal stories and deeply held values. In explaining how the skills and concepts that participants have learned in corporate training link to the company's core values, learning professionals breathe excitement and life into vanilla behaviors. Leaders should never be afraid to talk about theories, skills and values.
Link Coaching to Training
When it comes to interpersonal skills, training participants need more than knowledge. They need to turn knowledge into action. This requires them to take ideas, shape them in their own words and behaviors and then try them out. This calls for deliberate practice. As the old adage says, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
How does one experience perfect practice? Not alone. In determining how well they are enacting new skills, individuals need feedback from others. They need someone else to watch them, stop them when they go awry and then give them specific behavioral advice on how to improve.
In short, they need a coach. A coach doesn't simply look at the scoreboard and tell the team to hunker down. A good coach watches the team members in action and then advises them on what they need to change to affect the result.
Build in Reminders
To help people remember what to do at the right place and time, make use of cues. Put up charts that summarize training skills in meeting rooms. Ask people to carry summary cards with them at work. Put electronic devices to work.
Build in reminders that pop up every morning. Send participants video clips that remind them of what they've learned or even teach a subtle variation on the theme. Ask your IT folks and video specialists to build tools and reminders that are tailored specifically to the skills covered in training.
Training courses work best when combined with a variety of other sources of influence that both motivate and enable training participants to practice what they have learned at work.
This calls for a multifaceted rollout plan that supplements classroom training with both formal and informal rewards, coaching, value links and the use of cuing and reminders. These strategies are the sources of influence that inspire employees to change their behavior for good.
[About the Author: Kerry Patterson is a published author and co-founder of consultancy VitalSmarts.]
We all talk of learning at some time or the other - as in how much is there to learn.
Some have even stated that there is no end to learning.
Well reproduced below is an article that lays it s points out on,
Why Learning Is Never Enough?
Enjoy your read.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
Why Learning Is Never Enough ?
by Kerry Patterson
Ensuring that learning and development initiatives facilitate real change in a workforce requires deliberate follow-up and follow-through.
The foremost challenge in designing learning and development initiatives is effecting real change in a workforce. This is difficult but absolutely necessary for training to achieve solid ROI.
After all, any training program likely not only cost money, but it also took time to design and attend, and therefore spent productivity. If a learning and development program didn't change employees' behavior, then it was a waste - even if they liked the course.
But the ability to transfer knowledge and skills learned in training back to the office is never easy. The training finishes, participants return to work, and they're immediately pulled in a dozen different directions - none of which are designed to help them transfer what they've just learned into part of their daily routine.
Without skill transference, training is merely an expensive vacation that employees take from their daily responsibilities. So what can learning and development professionals do to ensure learning translates into action?
Better still, how can they manipulate the forces that draw people away from adopting new skills to both motivate and enable a genuine change in behavior?
Successful learning officers know that learning is not enough and find ways to ensure their training graduates implement new ideas and skills soon after the training ends.
They supplement their learning experience with a host of strategies that both motivate and enable graduates to adopt the skills taught in training. Skill transference is acquired by combining multiple sources of influence into a cohesive change strategy.
The following tactics can be used to create a well-rounded change strategy.
Co-Opt the Performance System
It's surprising how many training programs aren't supported by an organization's formal performance review system. While few, if any, performance review systems directly contradict what's being covered in training, rare is the program where the skills and ideas taught in training are purposefully reinforced in the formal review process.
For instance, when training people how to hold others accountable, the specific skills taught in the course need to be contained in the formal review paperwork. If they're not, it's unlikely that supervisors will include training graduates' recently acquired skills in their review.
Supervisors may not even know about the new skills, let alone think to include them. So, learning and development professionals should always seek to hardwire into the review process skills that came about as a result of new training.
Enlist Informal Support
While it's essential to build the skills from new learning and development initiatives into a formal review system, it's equally important to take steps to ensure that informal rewards are also aimed at the target behaviors. This is best done by gathering supervisors and ensuring they play a role in getting their direct report's training to stick.
Supervisors will need to talk about the new behaviors, discuss them in meetings, watch to see that the training graduates do what they've been taught and then praise graduates for their progress. For example, they might say, "I couldn't help but notice that you're using the new project software you studied last month. It's good to see you using the new processes. Thanks.!"
People often underestimate how important delivering praise is to encouraging new behavior. For those receiving praise, it's clear that a good word from a colleague or authority figure goes a long way to ensure the appreciated behavior continues. A simple thank you is often viewed as more meaningful and sincere than more formal means of approbation.
In working with supervisors and managers to bring informal praise into a culture, remember that givers of praise tend to forget the power of informal encouragement. Make sure to talk with supervisors about the importance of providing the occasional "Way to go!" and discuss with them what it will take to remember to do so.
What cues can be placed around them? How can managers remind supervisors? A best practice is to hold a meeting one week after participants return from an education experience and discuss the role of leadership in coaching, measuring and encouraging the new behaviors. Take five minutes and brainstorm different informal ways to say thank you.
Connect to Core Values
Much of what is taught in today's leadership and other soft-skill courses is value-based. In addition to informing people what they should do under certain conditions, the courses explain the "why" behind the targeted behaviors. These almost always connect to the company's core values - or at least they should.
For instance, organizations don't ask people to be involved in decision making simply because it's the new training trend. Rather, they ask people for their ideas because they value creative and innovative thinking or constructive feedback and criticism. They also believe that it helps people like they are part of the decision and aligns teams.
Involving others may also lie at the heart of diversity. Organizations seek to rely on the varying views of diverse specialists and realize that doing so leads to the best choices. These may be just some of the values underpinning a training course on teamwork or decision making.
Unfortunately, the idea of talking about values is often far from the minds of leaders, whose jobs require them to focus on numbers and charts. As a result, these leaders miss an important opportunity to connect with what their people really care about.
People don't connect strongly to charts, facts, figures and logic. Rather, they connect to direct and vicarious experiences, personal stories and deeply held values. In explaining how the skills and concepts that participants have learned in corporate training link to the company's core values, learning professionals breathe excitement and life into vanilla behaviors. Leaders should never be afraid to talk about theories, skills and values.
Link Coaching to Training
When it comes to interpersonal skills, training participants need more than knowledge. They need to turn knowledge into action. This requires them to take ideas, shape them in their own words and behaviors and then try them out. This calls for deliberate practice. As the old adage says, practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.
How does one experience perfect practice? Not alone. In determining how well they are enacting new skills, individuals need feedback from others. They need someone else to watch them, stop them when they go awry and then give them specific behavioral advice on how to improve.
In short, they need a coach. A coach doesn't simply look at the scoreboard and tell the team to hunker down. A good coach watches the team members in action and then advises them on what they need to change to affect the result.
Build in Reminders
To help people remember what to do at the right place and time, make use of cues. Put up charts that summarize training skills in meeting rooms. Ask people to carry summary cards with them at work. Put electronic devices to work.
Build in reminders that pop up every morning. Send participants video clips that remind them of what they've learned or even teach a subtle variation on the theme. Ask your IT folks and video specialists to build tools and reminders that are tailored specifically to the skills covered in training.
Training courses work best when combined with a variety of other sources of influence that both motivate and enable training participants to practice what they have learned at work.
This calls for a multifaceted rollout plan that supplements classroom training with both formal and informal rewards, coaching, value links and the use of cuing and reminders. These strategies are the sources of influence that inspire employees to change their behavior for good.
[About the Author: Kerry Patterson is a published author and co-founder of consultancy VitalSmarts.]
Monday, April 12, 2010
Cohort Based Learning at Skansa
Dear Reader ,
Here's a very interesting article on , "Cohort Based Learning".
Enjoy the dynamics that flows from it as in lessons of learning.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
Cohort-Based Learning at Skanska
by Scott Blanchard and David Witt
In 2007, the leadership development team at Skanska faced a challenge: How could the construction and project development company create a mini-MBA experience for an initial group of 35 executives from various business units around the world?
The answer was to use a cohort group approach, split into five separate sub-teams, and design a curriculum that includes action learning projects.
Now about to graduate its fifth cohort group, Skanska's executive development program has trained more than 150 of the company's highest-potential executives.
One of the key success factors for the program has been making sure executive development training matches the organization's key needs.
For Skanska's leadership development team this means matching program objectives with the company's goals to build strategic business leaders and people managers who: Lead change, seek new ways to approach business challenges and lead the changes needed within Skanska USA.
a) Develop people to think innovatively about business.
b) Through innovation, approach projects and their work with fresh ideas on how to accomplish them profitably.
c) Understand the business landscape and market conditions.
d) Network within and across business units for business opportunities and creative solutions.
e) Want to be great bosses.
Using a five-month training design featuring two intensive one-week classroom sessions with a six-week break for an at-home assignment, the Skanska learning team created an in-depth classroom experience combined with an action learning component to allow participants to reflect on and apply what they learned.
One of the keys to the program has been splitting the 35 participants into five diverse teams that work on individual projects as well as a larger overall research assignment.
The individual assignments include identifying which aspects of company culture support - or present barriers to - leadership development, as well as writing case studies about personal dilemmas they face. Both of these are then presented to the team.
"It's another opportunity for the team to work together providing perspective and feedback so participants take the education and apply it to themselves immediately and personally," said John Benson, Skanska's senior director of leadership development.
"It is taking what you've learned and applying it to a personal situation, which is a great way to cement the learning."
On the last day of the program, teams are given a large, final action learning project.
Using business issues identified by senior leadership, with support from a C-level team sponsor, each group has two months to work on the issue and provide recommendations in a presentation to the top 24 members of U.S. senior management.
"It's a high-risk, high-reward scenario," Benson explained. "Every team presents to their boss and their boss' boss. Senior management listens to each presentation, makes decisions on the five proposals and decides which to move forward on.
"In some cases, the company moves forward with the team's proposal in its entirety. In other cases, certain parts of a team's proposal are accepted and moved forward or none of the proposals or recommendations are approved."
Using real-life business issues has helped the Skanska learning team build an executive development program that creates connections and solves business issues.
Action learning also has helped Skanska meet its goal to provide leaders with skills they perceive as valuable for future success.
In a 2008 study conducted by The Learning Alliance, 83 percent of executive respondents said they learned new skills that were not only relevant to their work but also produced results.
[About the Authors: Scott Blanchard is executive vice president and David Witt is program director for The Ken Blanchard Companies, a provider of training and organizational development services.]
Here's a very interesting article on , "Cohort Based Learning".
Enjoy the dynamics that flows from it as in lessons of learning.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
Cohort-Based Learning at Skanska
by Scott Blanchard and David Witt
In 2007, the leadership development team at Skanska faced a challenge: How could the construction and project development company create a mini-MBA experience for an initial group of 35 executives from various business units around the world?
The answer was to use a cohort group approach, split into five separate sub-teams, and design a curriculum that includes action learning projects.
Now about to graduate its fifth cohort group, Skanska's executive development program has trained more than 150 of the company's highest-potential executives.
One of the key success factors for the program has been making sure executive development training matches the organization's key needs.
For Skanska's leadership development team this means matching program objectives with the company's goals to build strategic business leaders and people managers who: Lead change, seek new ways to approach business challenges and lead the changes needed within Skanska USA.
a) Develop people to think innovatively about business.
b) Through innovation, approach projects and their work with fresh ideas on how to accomplish them profitably.
c) Understand the business landscape and market conditions.
d) Network within and across business units for business opportunities and creative solutions.
e) Want to be great bosses.
Using a five-month training design featuring two intensive one-week classroom sessions with a six-week break for an at-home assignment, the Skanska learning team created an in-depth classroom experience combined with an action learning component to allow participants to reflect on and apply what they learned.
One of the keys to the program has been splitting the 35 participants into five diverse teams that work on individual projects as well as a larger overall research assignment.
The individual assignments include identifying which aspects of company culture support - or present barriers to - leadership development, as well as writing case studies about personal dilemmas they face. Both of these are then presented to the team.
"It's another opportunity for the team to work together providing perspective and feedback so participants take the education and apply it to themselves immediately and personally," said John Benson, Skanska's senior director of leadership development.
"It is taking what you've learned and applying it to a personal situation, which is a great way to cement the learning."
On the last day of the program, teams are given a large, final action learning project.
Using business issues identified by senior leadership, with support from a C-level team sponsor, each group has two months to work on the issue and provide recommendations in a presentation to the top 24 members of U.S. senior management.
"It's a high-risk, high-reward scenario," Benson explained. "Every team presents to their boss and their boss' boss. Senior management listens to each presentation, makes decisions on the five proposals and decides which to move forward on.
"In some cases, the company moves forward with the team's proposal in its entirety. In other cases, certain parts of a team's proposal are accepted and moved forward or none of the proposals or recommendations are approved."
Using real-life business issues has helped the Skanska learning team build an executive development program that creates connections and solves business issues.
Action learning also has helped Skanska meet its goal to provide leaders with skills they perceive as valuable for future success.
In a 2008 study conducted by The Learning Alliance, 83 percent of executive respondents said they learned new skills that were not only relevant to their work but also produced results.
[About the Authors: Scott Blanchard is executive vice president and David Witt is program director for The Ken Blanchard Companies, a provider of training and organizational development services.]
Don't Mandate Accountability, Demonstrate It
Dear Reader,
Here is an article on where the buck stops?
Enjoy the read and see for yourself where you stand in relation to the same????
Don't Mandate Accountability, Demonstrate It
by Linda Galindo
Without leadership accountability, or an understanding of how to hold others accountable, implementing good ideas and best practices can stop cold.
Senior talent leaders understand this challenge if, around their organization, they hear declarations such as, "We're great at innovating and planning, but our follow-through stinks!"
Ask Andy Manzer.
Today, Manzer is thriving as vice president of operations at OhioHealth's Riverside Methodist Hospital. However, in Manzer's prior leadership role at another organization, he watched even the best plans and practices fail to be implemented.
There, leadership was frustrated with the lack of organizational accountability. In executive team meetings, the group focused on putting out fires. High-level strategy was rarely discussed. When business and financial goals weren't met, finger-pointing ensued.
All eyes were on the CEO to do something. He didn't hold others accountable. The accountability belonged to him, period.
Working with the organization's talent leaders, the CEO made concerted efforts, from executive retreats to personality testing, to get leadership to come together and lead. But nothing seemed to change.
Then, the lights turned on - at least for Manzer. Through his personal work with talent leaders and an executive coach, he was able to see that he did not hold himself or his colleagues accountable.
"It wasn't that I didn't know how to hold myself accountable," Manzer said. "I had to confront why I wouldn't."
Manzer said he came to realize that he confused accountability with authority. He wasn't in control, the CEO was, which meant he wasn't accountable. In other words, Manzer viewed accountability as a zero-sum game; if one person was accountable for a situation or result, then everyone else wasn't. He also admitted that personal accountability - answering for the outcomes of his own choices, actions and behaviors - required courage.
Manzer took several steps to shift his understanding. He stopped employing an "accountability as a hammer" approach and started engaging himself and his colleagues in owning the results of their leadership - good or bad.
Manzer said he also ceased pointing fingers and assigning blame. Instead, when troubles arose, he looked to himself first.
Consistently, he asked four specific questions: What is the problem? What am I doing - or not doing - to contribute to the problem? What will I do differently to help solve the problem? How will I be accountable for the result?
Further, in leadership meetings, he stopped making excuses and took the fall when his choices caused difficulties.
The changes didn't stop with Manzer. The CEO, along with Manzer's peers and direct reports, caught on quickly. As a result, everyone worked smarter, faster and better, and the bottom line revealed a newfound success.
Talent leaders can achieve results similar to Manzer's by taking the following steps:-
1. Acknowledge that one can't mandate accountability, only demonstrate it.
2. Determine what a lack of accountability is costing the organization.
3. Address barriers to accountability within leadership such as in-fighting and power struggles, and set expectations.
4. Get educated on accountability and develop a common understanding, vocabulary and set of tools and techniques.
5. Make clear agreements for accountability and discuss consequences upfront.
6. Commit to "calling out" a lack of accountability.
7. Communicate a top-down accountability message to the organization - and live it.
"It's in my bones now," Manzer said of his commitment to accountability. These days at Riverside Memorial, he said he sees tangible business results, including delivering more than $14 million over expectations to the bottom line.
"I work to demonstrate accountability every day to myself, the leadership team and our organization's talent."
[About the Author: Linda Galindo is a consultant and the author of The 85% Solution: How Personal Accountability Guarantees Success - No Nonsense, No Excuses.]
Here is an article on where the buck stops?
Enjoy the read and see for yourself where you stand in relation to the same????
Don't Mandate Accountability, Demonstrate It
by Linda Galindo
Without leadership accountability, or an understanding of how to hold others accountable, implementing good ideas and best practices can stop cold.
Senior talent leaders understand this challenge if, around their organization, they hear declarations such as, "We're great at innovating and planning, but our follow-through stinks!"
Ask Andy Manzer.
Today, Manzer is thriving as vice president of operations at OhioHealth's Riverside Methodist Hospital. However, in Manzer's prior leadership role at another organization, he watched even the best plans and practices fail to be implemented.
There, leadership was frustrated with the lack of organizational accountability. In executive team meetings, the group focused on putting out fires. High-level strategy was rarely discussed. When business and financial goals weren't met, finger-pointing ensued.
All eyes were on the CEO to do something. He didn't hold others accountable. The accountability belonged to him, period.
Working with the organization's talent leaders, the CEO made concerted efforts, from executive retreats to personality testing, to get leadership to come together and lead. But nothing seemed to change.
Then, the lights turned on - at least for Manzer. Through his personal work with talent leaders and an executive coach, he was able to see that he did not hold himself or his colleagues accountable.
"It wasn't that I didn't know how to hold myself accountable," Manzer said. "I had to confront why I wouldn't."
Manzer said he came to realize that he confused accountability with authority. He wasn't in control, the CEO was, which meant he wasn't accountable. In other words, Manzer viewed accountability as a zero-sum game; if one person was accountable for a situation or result, then everyone else wasn't. He also admitted that personal accountability - answering for the outcomes of his own choices, actions and behaviors - required courage.
Manzer took several steps to shift his understanding. He stopped employing an "accountability as a hammer" approach and started engaging himself and his colleagues in owning the results of their leadership - good or bad.
Manzer said he also ceased pointing fingers and assigning blame. Instead, when troubles arose, he looked to himself first.
Consistently, he asked four specific questions: What is the problem? What am I doing - or not doing - to contribute to the problem? What will I do differently to help solve the problem? How will I be accountable for the result?
Further, in leadership meetings, he stopped making excuses and took the fall when his choices caused difficulties.
The changes didn't stop with Manzer. The CEO, along with Manzer's peers and direct reports, caught on quickly. As a result, everyone worked smarter, faster and better, and the bottom line revealed a newfound success.
Talent leaders can achieve results similar to Manzer's by taking the following steps:-
1. Acknowledge that one can't mandate accountability, only demonstrate it.
2. Determine what a lack of accountability is costing the organization.
3. Address barriers to accountability within leadership such as in-fighting and power struggles, and set expectations.
4. Get educated on accountability and develop a common understanding, vocabulary and set of tools and techniques.
5. Make clear agreements for accountability and discuss consequences upfront.
6. Commit to "calling out" a lack of accountability.
7. Communicate a top-down accountability message to the organization - and live it.
"It's in my bones now," Manzer said of his commitment to accountability. These days at Riverside Memorial, he said he sees tangible business results, including delivering more than $14 million over expectations to the bottom line.
"I work to demonstrate accountability every day to myself, the leadership team and our organization's talent."
[About the Author: Linda Galindo is a consultant and the author of The 85% Solution: How Personal Accountability Guarantees Success - No Nonsense, No Excuses.]
An Open Letter to Toyota President Akio Toyoda
Dear Reader,
Here is an ad -verbatim reproduction of a letter that appeared at B.Net.
The link is given below.
It is reproduce emrely to share , stimulate you enough to visit and subscribe directly to B.Net so that you get the best of the best.
To: Akio Toyoda, President, Toyota Motor Co.
From: Steve Tobak, The Corner Office blog, BNET
Re: Your upcoming visit to the U.S. Congress
Dear Mr. Toyoda,
You’ve been Toyota’s chief for all of eight months and already you’re facing the biggest crisis in the company’s history.
I guess what they say is true: timing really is everything.
Anyway, you’re stepping up to the plate and confronting U.S. congressional leaders this coming Wednesday.
A loaded situation if there ever was one.
Say the right stuff that resonates with the American people, and you can stop worrying about “perception” and focus on Toyota’s internal issues. Everyone wins.
Say the wrong stuff, and you could conceivably make matters worse … if that’s even possible.
While I’m sure you have an army of capable advisors and crisis management people, I wonder if any of them are willing to hit you right between the eyes with the truth, unfiltered and unrefined.
That’s one of the problems with leadership — it’s sometimes hard to get the straight story out of people who are always trying to impress you.
Well, you don’t have that problem with me. I’m not out to impress anybody.
Speaking of which, I realize you don’t know beans about me. I’m a management consultant who sometimes advises companies on matters concerning strategy and crises.
I’m also a former senior executive of the technology industry who’s done a lot of business in Japan.
My motivation is simple. I’m a fan of great business stories.
And Toyota is a great business story, having risen to the top of a large, brutally competitive market. Personally, I don’t want to see it fall. And certainly not like this.
Now let’s get down to business. I liked your letter in the Washington Post. It was a bit late for a crisis of this magnitude, but better late than never.
Also, instead of “Toyota’s plan to repair its public image,” I would have called it “Toyota’s plan to repair Toyota.” It’s more accurate.
In any case, you talked about launching a top-to-bottom review of global operations to ensure this kind of thing never happens again; convening a blue-ribbon safety advisory group; and the need to more aggressively investigate complaints and move more quickly to address safety issues.
You covered what Toyota has to do going forward rather nicely, I think. But you missed something.
Indeed, you apologized, but you never really explained what you were apologizing for.
You sort of put the cart before the horse, because you still haven’t told American consumers what actually happened.
And the sooner you do that — tell folks the truth about what happened — the sooner we can all move on. That’s just how this sort of thing works.
Specifically, there are three things about the “acceleration problem” that American consumers need to know, and they need to hear it from you:
1. Your company’s complete and total understanding of the problem. First it was the floor mat, then it was the accelerator pedal, then a software problem. You need to clear all that up. What really was the problem — or problems?
2. The chain of events. Who (among Toyota’s executives) knew what (about the problem)? When exactly did they know it? How did they come to know it (internally, from customers, from a U.S. agency, for example)? And why did they choose to do nothing for so long?
3. What action you’ve taken at the top. We need to hear that you’ve identified and terminated the executives responsible — not for the problem’s occurrence but, much more importantly, for not addressing it aggressively and immediately, especially if there was a cover up. Not that I’m implying there was.
It’s a lot, I know. But you know what? The customers who made Toyota the top-selling brand in America, not to mention billions in profits, have also been through a lot lately. All things considered, this doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Best of luck on Wednesday.
Sincerely,
Steve Tobak
The Corner Office blog, BNET
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=3873&tag=content;col2
Here is an ad -verbatim reproduction of a letter that appeared at B.Net.
The link is given below.
It is reproduce emrely to share , stimulate you enough to visit and subscribe directly to B.Net so that you get the best of the best.
To: Akio Toyoda, President, Toyota Motor Co.
From: Steve Tobak, The Corner Office blog, BNET
Re: Your upcoming visit to the U.S. Congress
Dear Mr. Toyoda,
You’ve been Toyota’s chief for all of eight months and already you’re facing the biggest crisis in the company’s history.
I guess what they say is true: timing really is everything.
Anyway, you’re stepping up to the plate and confronting U.S. congressional leaders this coming Wednesday.
A loaded situation if there ever was one.
Say the right stuff that resonates with the American people, and you can stop worrying about “perception” and focus on Toyota’s internal issues. Everyone wins.
Say the wrong stuff, and you could conceivably make matters worse … if that’s even possible.
While I’m sure you have an army of capable advisors and crisis management people, I wonder if any of them are willing to hit you right between the eyes with the truth, unfiltered and unrefined.
That’s one of the problems with leadership — it’s sometimes hard to get the straight story out of people who are always trying to impress you.
Well, you don’t have that problem with me. I’m not out to impress anybody.
Speaking of which, I realize you don’t know beans about me. I’m a management consultant who sometimes advises companies on matters concerning strategy and crises.
I’m also a former senior executive of the technology industry who’s done a lot of business in Japan.
My motivation is simple. I’m a fan of great business stories.
And Toyota is a great business story, having risen to the top of a large, brutally competitive market. Personally, I don’t want to see it fall. And certainly not like this.
Now let’s get down to business. I liked your letter in the Washington Post. It was a bit late for a crisis of this magnitude, but better late than never.
Also, instead of “Toyota’s plan to repair its public image,” I would have called it “Toyota’s plan to repair Toyota.” It’s more accurate.
In any case, you talked about launching a top-to-bottom review of global operations to ensure this kind of thing never happens again; convening a blue-ribbon safety advisory group; and the need to more aggressively investigate complaints and move more quickly to address safety issues.
You covered what Toyota has to do going forward rather nicely, I think. But you missed something.
Indeed, you apologized, but you never really explained what you were apologizing for.
You sort of put the cart before the horse, because you still haven’t told American consumers what actually happened.
And the sooner you do that — tell folks the truth about what happened — the sooner we can all move on. That’s just how this sort of thing works.
Specifically, there are three things about the “acceleration problem” that American consumers need to know, and they need to hear it from you:
1. Your company’s complete and total understanding of the problem. First it was the floor mat, then it was the accelerator pedal, then a software problem. You need to clear all that up. What really was the problem — or problems?
2. The chain of events. Who (among Toyota’s executives) knew what (about the problem)? When exactly did they know it? How did they come to know it (internally, from customers, from a U.S. agency, for example)? And why did they choose to do nothing for so long?
3. What action you’ve taken at the top. We need to hear that you’ve identified and terminated the executives responsible — not for the problem’s occurrence but, much more importantly, for not addressing it aggressively and immediately, especially if there was a cover up. Not that I’m implying there was.
It’s a lot, I know. But you know what? The customers who made Toyota the top-selling brand in America, not to mention billions in profits, have also been through a lot lately. All things considered, this doesn’t seem like too much to ask.
Best of luck on Wednesday.
Sincerely,
Steve Tobak
The Corner Office blog, BNET
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?p=3873&tag=content;col2
Undercover Boss: 1-800-Flowers Chris McCann Interview
Dear Reader ,
Here is an interview that should leave you thinking.
The link has been given at the end of this article.
Happy Reading.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
When social worker Jim McCann opened his first flower shop, his youngest brother Chris was still a teenager. Now, as CEO and president of 1-800-Flowers, respectively, the two have accomplished what few can claim.
They grew a florist business into nearly a billion dollar company.
And they did it by listening to customers, taking care of employees, and learning the ropes from a few sharp mentors along the way.
Here’s an insightful interview with Chris McCann (pictured), this week’s Undercover Boss and President of 1-800-Flowers.com.
Tobak: How did 1-800-Flowers.com come to be?
McCann: My brother Jim opened up his first flower shop in 1976. We were the oldest and youngest of five siblings, so it wasn’t until 1984 that I graduated college and joined him in the family business.
We were 10 years apart in age so I hardly knew the guy. But we figured let’s try it for 6 months and see how it works out.
This week, I think I just signed my 52nd six month contract.
Our styles are complimentary. Jim’s a big picture guy, a visionary, and his forte is marketing. I consider him a marketing genius. I focus on the operational side of the business. And I learned technology along the way, leading our move online in 1991.
Tobak: Who came up with the naming strategy for 1-800-Flowers and 1-800-Flowers.com?
McCann: It was really our customers who told us that. The company used to be called Flora Plenty, but once we realized our business was migrating more and more to the 800 service instead of our shops, we got hold of the 1-800-Flowers number and renamed the company.
Over time we tried CDROM catalogs, a website, and we were actually the first company to sell product on AOL in 1994.
New technology was emerging and we wanted to make sure we were well positioned so, when customers chose the winning technology, the Web, we were there with a website. Then everyone started calling us 1-800-Flowers.com, so we added .com to the name.
While Jim and I would like to take credit for many things, the thing we take most credit for is listening to customers.
Tobak: You must have had some mentors along the way
McCann: We didn’t go to business school, but we often say we got our business degrees from our mentors over the years.
We first met Jerre Stead when he was with AT&T, then he became CEO of their NCR subsidiary. We were small clients but he spent quality time with us. His focus was always on managing company culture.
The concept I mostly took away from Jerre was VMV - Vision, Mission, and Values. The responsibility of the business leader is to over-communicate that and to drive it into the culture. We’ve implemented a lot of what we learned from Jerre over the years.
Another gentleman we were fortunate to spend a lot of time with and pick his brain is Jamie Dimon [current CEO of JPMorgan Chase]. Jim knew him from growing up in Queens, but we first started spending a lot of time with Jamie when he was at Smith Barney.
Jamie used to say you spend way too much time trying to get everyone in your company to “get it.” He said everyone doesn’t need to get the full picture, but people do need to get their particular job and have an understanding of how it connects to the big picture.
If employees need to leave work knowing they accomplished and contributed something. If not, they’re not engaged.
One of the things that Jim and I have both learned is that you build relationships first, business second.
We do that with our customers, our vendors, and our employees. People don’t work for a company; they work for people.
I used to think that Jerre’s and Jamie’s viewpoints were opposed, but I guess you have to find a balance.
Also Ed Miller [former CEO] of Equitable taught us the meaning of loyalty to your employees. Loyalty is making sure that people are in a position to succeed.
But keeping people in a job that has outgrown them or moving them around to other jobs just because you don’t want to deal with the reality of the situation is not loyalty. You’re actually doing them a great disservice.
Tobak: What’s your focus, going forward?
McCann: In addition to learning more about our customers through analytics and maintaining financial strength and flexibility, we’re continuing to invest in technology innovation to make sure we’re well positioned for the future.
We’re investing heavily in mobile commerce and social media. Some people have suggested we cut back on those investments because of the economy, but I remind them, had we done that in the 90s, with the Internet and AOL, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?tag=main;content
By Steve Tobak.
Steve Tobak is a marketing and strategy consultant based in Silicon Valley. He's a 20-plus year high-tech industry veteran and former senior executive of a number of public and private companies. He also wrote the popular blog Train Wreck for CNET. When he's not airing corporate America's dirty laundry and helping companies solve their problems, Steve likes to play with gadgets and animals and drive his wife crazy. Find out more at Invisor.net. more »
Here is an interview that should leave you thinking.
The link has been given at the end of this article.
Happy Reading.
Regards,
A.S.Prasad.
When social worker Jim McCann opened his first flower shop, his youngest brother Chris was still a teenager. Now, as CEO and president of 1-800-Flowers, respectively, the two have accomplished what few can claim.
They grew a florist business into nearly a billion dollar company.
And they did it by listening to customers, taking care of employees, and learning the ropes from a few sharp mentors along the way.
Here’s an insightful interview with Chris McCann (pictured), this week’s Undercover Boss and President of 1-800-Flowers.com.
Tobak: How did 1-800-Flowers.com come to be?
McCann: My brother Jim opened up his first flower shop in 1976. We were the oldest and youngest of five siblings, so it wasn’t until 1984 that I graduated college and joined him in the family business.
We were 10 years apart in age so I hardly knew the guy. But we figured let’s try it for 6 months and see how it works out.
This week, I think I just signed my 52nd six month contract.
Our styles are complimentary. Jim’s a big picture guy, a visionary, and his forte is marketing. I consider him a marketing genius. I focus on the operational side of the business. And I learned technology along the way, leading our move online in 1991.
Tobak: Who came up with the naming strategy for 1-800-Flowers and 1-800-Flowers.com?
McCann: It was really our customers who told us that. The company used to be called Flora Plenty, but once we realized our business was migrating more and more to the 800 service instead of our shops, we got hold of the 1-800-Flowers number and renamed the company.
Over time we tried CDROM catalogs, a website, and we were actually the first company to sell product on AOL in 1994.
New technology was emerging and we wanted to make sure we were well positioned so, when customers chose the winning technology, the Web, we were there with a website. Then everyone started calling us 1-800-Flowers.com, so we added .com to the name.
While Jim and I would like to take credit for many things, the thing we take most credit for is listening to customers.
Tobak: You must have had some mentors along the way
McCann: We didn’t go to business school, but we often say we got our business degrees from our mentors over the years.
We first met Jerre Stead when he was with AT&T, then he became CEO of their NCR subsidiary. We were small clients but he spent quality time with us. His focus was always on managing company culture.
The concept I mostly took away from Jerre was VMV - Vision, Mission, and Values. The responsibility of the business leader is to over-communicate that and to drive it into the culture. We’ve implemented a lot of what we learned from Jerre over the years.
Another gentleman we were fortunate to spend a lot of time with and pick his brain is Jamie Dimon [current CEO of JPMorgan Chase]. Jim knew him from growing up in Queens, but we first started spending a lot of time with Jamie when he was at Smith Barney.
Jamie used to say you spend way too much time trying to get everyone in your company to “get it.” He said everyone doesn’t need to get the full picture, but people do need to get their particular job and have an understanding of how it connects to the big picture.
If employees need to leave work knowing they accomplished and contributed something. If not, they’re not engaged.
One of the things that Jim and I have both learned is that you build relationships first, business second.
We do that with our customers, our vendors, and our employees. People don’t work for a company; they work for people.
I used to think that Jerre’s and Jamie’s viewpoints were opposed, but I guess you have to find a balance.
Also Ed Miller [former CEO] of Equitable taught us the meaning of loyalty to your employees. Loyalty is making sure that people are in a position to succeed.
But keeping people in a job that has outgrown them or moving them around to other jobs just because you don’t want to deal with the reality of the situation is not loyalty. You’re actually doing them a great disservice.
Tobak: What’s your focus, going forward?
McCann: In addition to learning more about our customers through analytics and maintaining financial strength and flexibility, we’re continuing to invest in technology innovation to make sure we’re well positioned for the future.
We’re investing heavily in mobile commerce and social media. Some people have suggested we cut back on those investments because of the economy, but I remind them, had we done that in the 90s, with the Internet and AOL, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
http://blogs.bnet.com/ceo/?tag=main;content
By Steve Tobak.
Steve Tobak is a marketing and strategy consultant based in Silicon Valley. He's a 20-plus year high-tech industry veteran and former senior executive of a number of public and private companies. He also wrote the popular blog Train Wreck for CNET. When he's not airing corporate America's dirty laundry and helping companies solve their problems, Steve likes to play with gadgets and animals and drive his wife crazy. Find out more at Invisor.net. more »
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