Management Wisdom

'What can be seen gets sold', this is the general belief that is going around in the world. The media and internet are not helping the case either. Consider this case: An engineering looking is for a job. While he lacks good solid subject knowledge he is very good in grooming ,appearance and body language. Now this is probably not his fault only . Emphasis might be given more on developing him that way Another case; A team of professionals presents a fantastic presentation in front of the board, but the business is not developing. Probably their focus on showing the work is much more than doing it actually. We live in a  Showcase  world today. The focus has widely shifted from doing the work to showing that the work is done. We are often not concerned about the outcome in terms of actual quality and value of the work but just about the external appearance of it. The environment has to play a big role in this. We live in a world of instant gratification where things

Its Sunday morning;Johnny is going to a German language class. Jonny is an engineering student who wants to pursue Masters in Automobile engineering in Germany. But wait; why is Johnny giving the civil services exam and also CAT, GATE, MBA-CET............the list goes on.There are a lot of choices for making a career today. Unfortunately there are a lot of counselors available today. Some are paid, some are free. In a country like India you get a lot of personal and professional advisers.Right from the watchman to the principal, to your music teacher. People will give advice on anything and everything. Johnny is one of those confused souls who is going with the wind.Taking suggestions from all, with an increasingly mounting parental pressure he is trying to fight his way through the eve increasing scope of career options that life throws in front of him each passing day. There is a debate whether the Indian society has changed over the years, where it is assumed that earlier

Organizations are becoming boundary less and the world is coming together to form one global community.But the question to ask here is whether we are losing our human touch.In the age of smart phone and smart gadgets are we losing our smartness. As technology advancements and innovations are increasing is there a threat to our civilization.We hear a lot about IQ,EQ and SQ, but do we really care about the HQ(Human Quotient). In this selfish world where we are trying to be independent and ignorant to the level of not helping the needy. I remember a few years ago the relationships were different. There was more time which people had for each other.People used to come together ,celebrate and enjoy occasions. Festivals were more than DJ parties and competitions. Money was not the center of the universe. Things have changed thick and fast. Today charity has become a marketing activity and CSR a promotion. Unfortunately religion is also used as a tool to exploit people , both emotio

We are all surprised and amazed at the PMs decision to ban Rs.500 and Rs. 1000 notes. Good or bad I dont know, but there is certainly a panic situation. Actually people are just rushing to get money from the bank even if they dont need it. This creates chaos and shortage of money for those who need it. Its time we come together, create awareness and educate people to optimise their expenses and unnecessarily hoard unwanted excess money

Being young especially in a country like India is a challenge.Youth from tier 2 cities and rural areas, on getting a job in the metros are often directionless and confused of how their personal and social life would be, leave alone their professional life. Today's corporate world is highly demanding.There is no breathing space and one mistake can be very costly. At such instances , I believe the senior management is responsible to nurture the youth. Effective mentoring and motivation should be given in order to get the best out of the young managers. On the other hand the youth also should be ready to align themselves to the culture and work sincerely. There have been many instances when people just waste their time during working hours and then show off that they are working late.Hence they sometimes find themselves under tremendous pressure when a lot of work comes in. The management should also give a serious consideration to various factors that can create a stressful w

Education is of high importance to the development of any nation.The nations education system determines its knowledge and the skill level. In India education is given high priority and value.Unfortunately the system development is lacking both at macro and micro level. Emphasis is given to a lot of bookish knowledge rather than practical application based knowledge. This is generally the gap which is exposed when the person moves from education field to the job field. The curriculum of the secondary and junior college makes it compulsory for students to learn everything.This way most of them become Jack of all trades but master of none.Students are clueless of what field they should opt and get totally confused. They end up choosing the wrong field many a times,sometimes due to trend following or due to parental or peer pressure.Instead, if the aptitude of the child is identified at secondary school level and the skills are honed, there is a higher chance that the person would

Organization culture comprises of a set of unwritten rules which give a unique personality to the organization. It is the system of shared assumption values that dictates the behaviour of the members in the organization. It displays various characteristics which may presume different weightages in different organizations. Members judge their values and try to match these perceived set of characteristics. These include innovation, attention to detail, emphasis on outcome, emphasis on people, teamwork and stability. The process oriented characteristics are easy to adapt for the companies. However the real challenge lies in adapting to the characteristics related to people. This is where diversity and inclusion play a very crucial role. It becomes imperative on the companies part to adapt to the cross cultural challenges, particularly when there is globalization taking place. Things are changing at a very rapid pace and culture is no exception to it; the company which tries to keep up it

1 Now that Diwali is around the corner, the whole country is in a festive mood.A country where there is an abundance of almost everything,including festivals the economy is very much driven by them.With a festival or two featuring almost every couple of months there is always a rise in demand for goods and services.People are willing to spend even if the prices are high then whether its dal or a car, it doesn't matter.The fact that almost all religions generally celebrate all the festivals is in itself a boost for traders who are eager to sell their products thick and fast.The outcome is that it activates a process of the flow of money which may otherwise remain stagnant.Thus there is a stability in terms of the money flowing in the economy.Also most of these transactions happen in cash which can be termed as black money but I would rather call it liquid money.There is a less chance of the economy suffering from a recession since its still predominantly dri

Globalization is becoming a common phenomenon.Every company wants to have a tag of being a global entity.Hence companies are expanding rapidly spreading their wings across the nation and beyond.So in India there are offices of the company in all zones north, east, west and south. In many companies, the workforce is migrated. To state an example a company having an office in Mumbai and Chennai will many times prefer to send an employee having hometown in Mumbai to work in Chennai and vice versa. The company feels that the employee being alone in a new place will work for longer hours as s/he has nothing to do after going home,which in a short term is right. Let us consider the employee's perspective....S/he is a fresher out of college wanting desperately to take up a job.So s/he takes up a job even if it means relocation.Initially s/he feels nice about the new place, staying with room mates or alone and enjoying a new lifestyle.But as the age grows the needs change.By that tim

The first thing that comes to mind when we hear training is a classroom type of environment where one white haired person (assumed to be very experienced) is delivering a lecture to teach the people present how to develop some skills. But this was some years ago,not any more.Of late training has transformed leaps and bounds.The word itself has undergone change from 'Training' to 'Learning'. Now a days people don't want to be constrained by sitting in the class and listening to lectures which may be very dry. Action oriented stuff is in demand and people are preferring a  boundary less environment where they can experience knowledge flow and still have the fun and excitement which is not available in the four closed walls of the office environment. Experiential learning is picking up and is the current trend for companies seriously looking in training and development of their employees.Age barriers are being broken and cross functional trends are settin

How many of us feel that we should travel more. Man by nature is a traveler. Ever since the prehistoric time man has been a nomad, traveling the length and breadth of the planet, making beautiful discoveries. The potential of travel becoming an industry was seen quiet early. Tourism today is one of the most important businesses in the service industry. However more than that it is a way of living, its a way of life. Today people are travelling freely across countries and propagating and promoting the most important thing....Humanity. Let me tell you this through a story. There was a girl named Stella . A British girl,she was on a trip to India, in the beautiful region in Himalayas. She met a few local Indian travelers there. They were on a local sightseeing tour of the city when they saw some garbage lying on the slopes of the hill to the beautiful shrine . So she quickly sprung into action and initiated the cleanup drive.The gang joined her in the same. Now tell me what was her co