Is Digital still a buzz word ?

‘Digital’ continues to be a buzz word for both IT and non IT companies for more than 5-6 decades. In fact when the first semi conductor chip was invented ( in 1958), we had also transitioned from analog to digital in every sphere of our life – in appliances, electronic instruments, computers, space vehicles, automobiles ( remember your first Casio digital watch?) etc.

We still talk about digital revolution in business and in our day to day life and haven’t yet found an alternate word. Frankly speaking, Digital experience has seemlessly merged with our life long ago and it is not a differentiator today. It is no longer fancy to brag that we do digital transformations.

It is good to note AI and ChatGPT are taking the world by storm but these are not new either. They are surely huge improvements of previous inventions that are already in use.

Today the challenge lies in how we integrate different technologies and platforms and what new use cases we could develop that will make our lives much easier. As we make our lives easier we get more time to invent newer technologies and that’s how the cycle of inventions and deployment goes on.

Human intelligence makes Artificial Intelligence more powerful. Our responsibility lies in limiting its use and not harm humans and the mother nature.

#digitalbusinesstransformation #artificial-intelligence #human-intelligence

Transforming a team …

We read a lot of posts about effective leadership, transformational leadership, autocratic leadership, participative leadership etc but they all focus only on a leader.

The men and the women they lead are never discussed about by any leadership guru and we know how they need to transform themselves to be a part of the team that is successful.

A successful leader is partly made by his or her team members too and we forget this fact and gives credit to only the leader.

A team needs to be participative, creative and undergo a transformation process to orient towards a leader and his or her vision. Success may be a result but the process to achieve it, is equally important. That process is not a one person’s effort.

An individual can be a successful person – a doctor, a sportsperson, a writer, a musician etc – but they are so because others have helped or motivated them to bring out their individual brilliance to the world. Their followers or admirers push them to secure that status for a long time to be remembered by all.

Let us spend some time how do we create such people in a team. Change in attitude of individuals bring about change in willingness to work for a cause or objective. Skills do matter but it is again a change in attitude to learn newer skills is essential.

A man creates his own destiny by his willingness or unwillingness to accept change that determines the course towards a successful outcome. That’s mindset every individual should ideally possess.

Let us debate 😊

leadership #teamculture #successmindset

It’s all about me…

We want to be loved, valued or appreciated. That’s a common nature of a human.

We always expect appreciations or likes for what we do or say. Because they keep us happy. The more we expect such accolades, the more we tend to be egoistic and there is a haughtiness that sets in us leading to total disregard of how we want to see others around us. We feel angry when those surrounding us don’t appreciate us.

We feel elated to be surrounded by people, who believe that as long as they keep praising our actions and words, they will get our favours. This sycophancy over a period, assumes a larger proportion to make us feel arrogant and disrespectful.

Good and long time friends leave us the moment we fail to recognise their value and appreciate them. When we always think about us, we don’t notice the good things in people around us. Relationships are built on mutual trust, love and appreciation. They are broken when we fail to see these virtues in other people. An egoist breaks the relationships due to his selfish attitude and soon he becomes s lonely person.

In every conversation we have with others, we talk about us, our family or what we have achieved. We never enquire about them or their family or their problems. People stay glued to each other through ups and downs only when they share their joys and sorrows.

Care, compassion and empathy towards others go a long way to nurture relationships that will stay rock solid for many years.

So, it’s not all about me but everyone around us. That will keep us and others happy and smiling.

It is not the destination that is important but the journey is.

What a fascinating statement by Gaur Gopal Das, the International Life Coach!

A journey is full of learnings that goes through rough paths, some tough people, some nice people, some failures, nice opportunities and is a long one towards a goal. If the destination is reaching that goal, then what one would do after reaching there? Rest up and stay contended?

On the other side, a journey throws up many challenges and one gets the will power and determination to overcome the challenges as he moves along. Challenges are not show stoppers but makes one tougher and seasoned. The journey also presents you with some beautiful moments that make you enjoy with the people that are also part of those moments. There are by-standers or co-travellers in a journey that may not add value to the journey but they help you to see a different perspective of people, their attitudes , their preferences and views.

A journey helps us to chisel our views on how we think about others, how we care for others and how we take responsibility for our actions. We define our own journey, the pace, the paths and the stops and no one can change it.

Do compliments make people weak?

We have seen people expecting compliments ( including some of those who post here) at the work place or in the family. A post or a share on social media page garners huge likes for some and not so for many. For the latter, they think that friends, buddies, siblings and parents are there to profusely offer you compliments to a level that spoil them and to feel crest fallen when they don’t regularly get them. They remain sullen and remorse and don’t attempt anything new and shy away from even doing their normal routine.

Some managers, mentors, teachers, professors or even parents consciously desist from complimenting team members, mentees, students or children when they perform their tasks that are well within their capabilities. They feel that compliments do make performers not to aim bigger in work or life and they keep expecting appreciations all the time . But the same mentors and teachers do pat people on the back when jobs that needed efforts and skills beyond what they possess.

In short, leaders appreciate people when they excellently perform more than what is expected of them but not when they perform within their ability.

A debate on this topic will be an interesting one. What is your view? Feel free to share it.

#compliments #capabilitydevelopment

Do friends make good business partners?

When people want to be entrepreneurs, they look at friends or buddies to be their business partners. They think that they could hit off well in business too. All is hunky dory in the initial months but the relationship over time breaks and the start-up turns into a big failure. Many of them fail in the first year itself.

Have we ever wondered the friendship that was nurtured over many years suddenly becomes acrimonious?

Let us look at a few reasons that we commonly observe in partnership business failures:

1. The aspiring entrepreneurs never ask these questions – what value my friend brings in? How it is going to help achieve my vision? If the value the friend brings in is substantial, then the focus needs to be on how the inter-personal relations are to be dealt as they move forward so that the close friends become successful business partners too? Never assume that they will not be any issues between friends.

2. The role clarity is never defined for the friends turned into business partners. A start-up needs to have people who are good at matters related to technology, finance and marketing. It so happens that either all of them are good at only one aspect or on all the the aspects. But a clear responsibility matrix has to be in place at the very start of the business. An overlap of responsibilities hinders the decision making process. The team that is working under them gets confused with more than one direction to execute tasks.

3. Vision setting, policy formation and issue resolution must have alternate views to choose the right one for the start-up. Friends tend to carry the personal differences deep into the venture that ultimately become a huge issue to be resolved. They start questioning their loyalty to each other due to their alternate views on matters.

4. The ownership pattern determines the hierarchy of the enterprise for the regulators and the employees. They don’t see it as a major issue in the beginning but over the years it becomes a thorn in their relationship and it becomes a question of who is No.1 or No.2 etc. Cracks start to develop at this stage and that’s the beginning of the slide of the business.

5. Every partner has a need for a remuneration that befits the experience, social status, family size and life style. If they are to be factored in a start-up then the business is on the wrong footing. These are never considered in an equally funded partnership that is founded solely on expertise of each one of them and the remuneration has to be the same, at least in the initial years.

6. The involvement other family members is strictly a No-Go, unless that family member is being hired as a paid employee based on the job skills. A family member having no ownership and also is not an employee should not be allowed to run or help the business. There needs to be a formal arrangement that gets respect from everyone in the organisation.

We have seen some start-ups turning into a huge successes in the last few decades and they are the shining examples of entrepreneurship to every aspiring entrepreneur.

A Good Business Plan gets the investors

Entrepreneurs have brilliant ideas that need to translate into successful ventures. but not all of them turn into successful businessmen. Many of them fail to get the required funds even to kick start their businesses for the simple reason that the business plans don’t speak for them. The depth of the plans don’t convince the investors as they think the plans are not unique or they do not take care of market corrections. They don’t detail the risks to the business due to shift in technology, local laws, regulations, macro – micro environmental factors and how to mitigate them.

A Business Plan is an internal document of an enterprise and it does undergo changes to reflect the change in strategy to achieve the top / bottom lines and customer acquisition. It is not to be shared with the larger entrepreneurial community but the founders of successful organisations have articulated their success formula in public. These have immensely benefited budding entrepreneurs to help redefining their business plans.

The purpose of a business plan is not only to raise funds but the essence of it is focussed on attracting customers, partners and key people to the organisation. The investors know that plans do change but they are more interested in how the founders have thought through and foreseen the risks and included the mitigating measures. Their unstinted commitment to that plan would comfort them to stay invested in the ventures.

There are many components in a business plan. Some of the important aspects are: – the mission and vision of the organisation – details of the product or service on offer. – the competitors and their offerings. – the differentiators of the product or service when compared with that of competitors. – the customer segments that is going to buy the product or service. – How do we reach the market? – what is the structure of the marketing organisation? – what is the pricing and cost structure of the product? – what would be the cash flow for the first 3 years? – what is the capital required – Own investments Vs external investments? – the break even point – year & month? – the staffing plan – the anticipated Organisational risks, how to mitigate them, work around plan ……….

Every point has to be written with details and the business plan needs to be a word document that runs into pages depending on how elaborate the promoters are able to articulate. A power point presentation will never work for a Business plan. Anybody who joins the leadership team should be able to get a complete understanding of the business by reading that document. Over the first few quarters or years, the business may run into rough weathers due to unforeseen road blocks and the plan would need further iterations for course correction and execution.

In short, a good business plan not only gets the funds but a good document to review at periodical intervals to ascertain how the business stays focussed on the growth of the enterprise.

What bananas can tell us about supply chains | MIT Sloan

How complex it is to move the bananas to the stores in the least possible time and least cost ?

A seemingly inconsequential logistics problem is indeed a complex supply chain example.

Interesting read 👏

In a new book, MIT professor Yossi Sheffi examines supply chain complexity, artificial intelligence, and the future of work.
— Read on mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/what-bananas-can-tell-us-about-supply-chains

Continuos Learning for a professional

The need for continuous learning in an on-going job or career stems out of the fact that additional degrees or diplomas would stand good in job promotions. A working Executive MBA is today considered a must for those aspiring to be a VP or GM or Head of a business unit.

If you were a CEO or MD, would you hire a person who had done a similar MBA as a full time student and had experience using that knowledge to good use in a previous company or promote a team member who did an Executive MBA? Mostly the first option would be the choice. An outside candidate is expected to bring in some fresh ideas that resulted in success as compared to an insider who is constrained by organization’s operational limitations and hierarchy. It is a challenge for the insider to wriggle out of them and prove himself or herself.

An on-premise management degree is a serious business ( if done in a good university) with exposure to a no.of real time case analyses and mock decision making exercises alongwith stiff competition from peer students, make a candidate better suited for a top job than an insider.

Additional degrees or qualifications do help the insider to go up a notch or two in hierarchy but not right upto the top. Some organisations want the insiders to be made ready for a top role and gets them to be guided / trained by an experienced coach rather than hiring an outsider at high cost. It is somewhat ok to groom a person in this method to encourage inside talent,but the art of right decision making cannot be coached by an expert as he or she cannot be privy to the organisation’s ground realities and tactics. A coach at best can outline the options that lead to the right decision and it is upto the promising leader to make that call. Also the coach offers insights in management decision making process or leadership grooming based on his or her own experience ( either in the same industry or in a different industry) and that is done over a 4-6 month conversational exchange. There is no doubt this coaching exercise makes the insider open the eyes to the realms management methods and improved personal attributes.

If you intend staying in the same job, augmenting your skills is vital to keep your mind engaged with new information. But hoping that it will leap frog you in the corporate ladder of your organisation in the short time then you may have to face disappointment. If getting an additional degree helps you to land on a better job, then go for it.

What is your experience? Feel free to share your views and thoughts 😊

#management #learning #coaching

Are you a leader or a coach or a mentor?

A Leader sets up a vision and leads a team to achieve it. Not everyone matches his / her speed.

A Coach understands a person’s strength and channels it to deliver the objective. He lets you perform on the stage by not being with you.

A Mentor provides valuable inputs at intervals in a person’s journey to realise his or her true potential. He never travels with you but is a lifelong companion.

Choose one or all the three based on your purpose of engagement. If you follow a Guru, don’t bother about choosing one, for he leads you on the right path, helps you if you are struck at a place, he hones your skills and he is a life time companion.