Thursday, June 30, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Work

“The best preparation for good work tomorrow is to do good work today. ” by Elbert Hubbard


TOPIC OF THE DAY

"Automatic sales"

According to management guru Peter Drucker, “The objective of marketing is to make selling superfluous.” Well what does this mean?

Before we explain what the complete sentence means, it is necessary to understand what the word “superfluous” means? The dictionary meaning is “exceeding what is sufficient or necessary” or “extra.” It can also mean “redundant,” “something unnecessary” and “not required.” So what Peter Drucker is saying is that the objective of marketing should be to make sales “unnecessary,” “redundant” and “not required.” In other words, it implies that if marketing is effective, sales will be automatic.



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Negotiation Techniques (That Really Work!) by Stephan Schiffman

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Experience

“Experience is the teacher of all things. ” by Julius Caesar


TOPIC OF THE DAY

"Smart Tips PPC Management?"

It is important that you know how much can you bid for your keywords per click, as there are keywords that can cost you upto 5-6$ per click. To understand how much you should be bidding for a keyword you need to understand your conversion rate which s typically around 3% for an average website. Which means you will spend $220 dollars to close a sale.

So what is the solution is that we target a less expensive keywords in huge volumes to get you the volume of traffic that you need to run your business. So by targeting less popular keywords, one can manage the same amount of traffic by reducing the cost.


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Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project by General Leslie R. Groves

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Learn

“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn. ” by Benjamin Franklin


TOPIC OF THE DAY

"Teaching and Learning from Bagvadgita"

Bhagavad-Gita is the message `of Lord Krishna to Arjuna on the battle field just before the Kurukshetra war began. This forms part of the Mahabharata Epic and occurs there in Bhishma Parva. Arjuna came ready to fight, but seeing his guru, elders, and relatives ready to fight against the Pandavas felt disheartened, weak. And confused and refused to fight. Krishna delivers this message, made him strong and bold and ready to do his duty. A study of the Gita will develop depth plus breadth, broad attitude and deep conviction.

The Gita advises us to work to ensure the stability of human society. Now I want to inform that once Gandhi said, "I am here to wipe the tears from the last person who weeps in the society I work for the good of others." This is one of the inspiring truth. It must permeate our society. In our educational institutions we must highlight this concept of "Parasparam bhavayantha". All our problems we can solve when we become calm, silent, steady, strong, efficient workers. It is the silent man that does the best work. When we work efficiently everything is under our control. We should work without emotion, particularly without anger or fear. If anger takes control of us then some thing goes wrong with us. This is our important teaching in the Gita.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

Now It Can Be Told: The Story Of The Manhattan Project by General Leslie R. Groves

Monday, June 27, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Imagination

“You need imagination in order to imagine a future that doesn't exist.” by Azar Nafisi


TOPIC OF THE DAY

"Customer Value Management"

Customer Value Management is a proven methodology for addressing critical business issues. It is being used successfully by leading companies in a variety of industries around the world.

CVM is the combination of Customer Value Added techniques with economic value comparisons that allows targeted improvement of customer service where it will have the greatest business benefit. Customer Value Added analysis uses competitive market research techniques coupled with econometric modelling to establish direct links for ratings of product and service to market share.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure by Tim Harford by Tim Harford

Sunday, June 26, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Failure

“Failure is art of learning, and we have to enjoy that art.” by Abbas Pachmarhiwala

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Square, ATMs, and the Pace of Transformation

Remember how after Chemical Bank launched the first Automated Teller Machine in the 1960s, waves of bank branches shut down? And remember when banks went online, how waves of local bank branches shut down?

In both cases the new technology ended up augmenting, rather than replacing existing channels. This isn't unusual. Despite bold proclamations of industry transformation, legacy technologies often last for a very long time. For example, commercial telephony services emerged in the 1870s. Western Union, the day's leading telegraphy player, declined to invest in the new technology. Eventually telephone ended up being the cornerstone of AT&T*. But telegraphs were still viable commercial offerings as late as the 1960s. The last telegraph message was sent in...2005.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure by Tim Harford by Tim Harford

Saturday, June 25, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Criticism and Praise

“"Correction does much, but encouragement does more." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Praise as Much as You Criticize

Human performance is inconsistent—even world-class athletes have off days. Yet, most managers focus on their employees' shortcomings when coaching and providing feedback. Sure we all have "opportunities for improvement," but research shows that identifying and building strengths produces better results than focusing on faults. Next time you're evaluating someone, remember that your goal is to raise their average performance, not critique a particularly good or bad day. Don't hold back the praise because of a few missteps. It's just as important to recognize and reinforce strengths as it is to point out where people fall short.

Today's Thought is adapted from "Why Does Criticism Seem More Effective than Praise?" by Linda Hill and Kent Lineback cited in HBS - Management Tips.

Friday, June 24, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Change

“When you jump for joy, beware that no one moves the ground from beneath your feet. ” by Stanislaw Lec

TOPIC OF THE DAY

"Respondents View on Emotional Marketing"

Emotion is a psychological state, which arises spontaneously rather than through our conscious effort. It represents another form of language, universally spoken and understood and as being the human, who are a creature of emotions and our decisions/behaviors are driven by our emotions. Determine the shape of our behavior as a consumer, because it is the study of when, why, how, and where consumer do or do not buy a product.

Nowadays, emotional factors are important aspects of determining the customer Purchasing behavior and the most important aspect for purchasing of any products. This gave the birth of emotional marketing, which is being used as a strategy of Relational Marketing ensuring, both a deep and personal relationship with the customers acquired on emotional aspect and the retention of a competitive position in the market i.e. the relationship that the consumer establishes with the brand and the emotions that the product/service communicates.


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LATEST ARRIVALS

Adapt: Why Success Always Starts With Failure by Tim Harford by Tim Harford

Thursday, June 23, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Failure

“Fear of failure must never be a reason not to try something.” - Frederick Smith

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Responding to Failure

Everyone reacts differently to failure: some immediately accuse others while some take the heat themselves, even if undeserved. Next time you and your team fail, resist the temptation to place blame. Take these three steps instead:
1. Think before you act. Don't respond immediately or impulsively. Doing so can make matters worse. Take the time to consider several possible interpretations of the event and how you might react.
2. Listen and communicate. Never assume you know what others think. Gather feedback and then explain your own actions and intentions.
3. Search for a lesson. Mistakes happen. It may be that you're to blame, someone else is, or no one is. Create and test hypotheses about how and why the failure happened to prevent it from happening again.


Today's thought is adapted from "Managing Yourself: Can You Handle Failure?" by Ben Dattner and Robert Hogan cited in Harvard Management Tips

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Finance

“Literature was formerly an art and finance a trade; today it is the reverse”- Joseph Roux

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Managing Yourself

Bob Pozen does a lot. He’s been a top executive at two mutual fund giants, Fidelity and MFS Investment Management. He’s also been an attorney, a government official, a law school professor, a business school professor, and a prolific author. And he has often been several of those things at once. Yet Pozen never comes across as overwhelmed, frazzled, or even all that busy. We know this because he’s a frequent contributor to HBR and hbr.org—with a reputation around our offices for writing faster than we can edit. Our experiences with him led us to wonder if he might have something interesting to say about personal productivity. So we asked him about it. The result was a series of blog posts for hbr.org (http://s.hbr.org/eDJ4g4), which Pozen has here distilled into six principles for a more productive work life.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Chindia Rising by N Jagdish Sheth

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Experience

“The value of experience is not in seeing much, but in seeing wisely.” - William Osler

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Marketing Courage - Having What It Reality Takes

Sure you have a great product idea and the guts to build it, but do you really have a realistic picture of what it is going to take to bring it to market? Since we work with many startups (and also with larger companies that are trying to get breakthrough products off the ground) we'll oftentimes get to be in the thick of things when the tough go-to-market decisions get made. This article sums up a phenomenon that we see far too often.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Chindia Rising by N Jagdish Sheth

Monday, June 20, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Invention

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it. ” - Alan Kay

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Necessity, not Scarcity, is the Mother of Invention

Bravo for companies that are starting to focus on innovation again! It's about time. But even with this renewed attention to innovation, some managers keep projects resource-starved, in the belief that scarcity drives creative invention. Although ingenuity can sometimes spring up when means are scarce, managers beware: It is a dangerous miscalculation to think that starving innovators will feed innovation.

Consider the case of electronic ink. A hefty percentage of the people reading this post will have used an Amazon Kindle or some other e-ink-based reader within the past 24 hours. The story of e-ink's creation would have resonated with Plato, who said that necessity is the mother of invention. Here, the idea's spark came not from scarcity but from an unmet need striking a fertile mind. The inventor, physicist Joe Jacobson, was lounging on a beach one day, when he finished the book he was reading and realized he hadn't brought another.
Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Statistics for Business: Decision Making and Analysis Robert A. Stine

Sunday, June 19, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Happiness

“Happiness is when what you think,what you say, and what you do are in harmony. ” - Mahatma Gandhi

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Extended Enterprise

An Extended Enterprise is a loosely coupled, self-organizing network of firms that combine their economic output to provide products and services offerings to the market. Firms in the extended enterprise may operate independently, for example, through market mechanisms, or cooperatively through agreements and contracts.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and orienting new employees / Diane Arthur

Saturday, June 18, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Speech

“Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Preparing for Speech

Many people prepare for speeches by writing out the full text of their remarks and rehearsing to get the words exactly right. This often means you end up delivering a speech exactly as you wrote it, even if the audience isn't responsive. Speaking is different than writing. You need to connect with your listeners. Prepare for your next speaking engagement by jotting down a list of four or five brief, key points and a concluding paragraph. Then arrive early enough to talk with people before your speech. This allows you to grasp the mood of the audience and tailor your points to its state of mind.

Today's thought was adapted from "Managing Yourself: Extreme Productivity" by Robert C. Pozen. Cited at HBS Management Update

Friday, June 17, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Genius

“Genius is one per cent inspiration,ninety-nine per cent perspiration.” - Thomas Edison

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Create High-Impact Disruption In Management and Win a Prize

One of the driving principles of the Harvard Business Review/McKinsey M-Prize for Management Innovation is that everyone wins when everyone shares. We believe that people are experimenting with radical management practices all over the world in every kind of organization at every level and too many of them are wrestling with the system in isolation.

We launched the Management 2.0 Challenge to connect the efforts, energies, and insights of in-the-trenches management innovators, to inspire aspiring innovators to action, and to collectively make progress on the urgent challenge of creating organizations that are fit for the future and human beings.


Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and orienting new employees / Diane Arthur

Thursday, June 16, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Trust

“Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do. ” - Benjamin Spock

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Emerging trends in HR

Growth and development an organization depends upon the workforce it owns. It is very much said that growth and development of the organization depends upon the growth and development of the employees and vis-à-vis. But the scene of today was not in the yesteryears. The industrial revolution in eighteenth and nineteenth- century were in need to coordinate the efforts of large number of people in the production process. Britain provides more recent witness to the practice of management leaving written traces of concern for management. Those were the days when employees were considered as machines and were only to give maximum output. No facilities, no infrastructure, no relations, no group, no team. Only relations with the organization were to give maximum output. They were not trained; jobs were not specific and scientific. Charles Babbage, for example wrote about the need for the systematic study and standardization of work operations to improve productivity.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and orienting new employees / Diane Arthur

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Life

“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor. ” - Sholom Aleichem

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Effectiveness of TV Advertisements with Reference to Consumer Products

Abstract :The research is about the study on the effectiveness of TV ADs on consumer Commodities. The research is being conducted to find various views of consumers on various television ads. The main purpose of this research will help the ad agencies to correct themselves and come out with ads which attracts the customer more and this study will also give views of consumers regarding the awareness, satisfaction level and their expectations. This research will help to the Ad agencies as well as the consumers. The research will give an idea to the various brands about the reach of their products to the consumers. The survey is conducted only in Trichy and Thanjavur Town. In this research, 50 respondents are taken as a sample.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and orienting new employees / Diane Arthur

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Dream

“I'm a dreamer. I have to dream and reach for the stars, and if I miss a star then I grab a handful of clouds.” - Mike Tyson

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Tax Reforms in India

The philosophy of tax reform has undergone significant changes over the years. With the change in the development strategy in favor of market determined resource allocation, the traditional approach of raising revenues to finance a large public sector without much regard to economic effects has been given up. The recent approaches to reform lay emphasis on minimizing distortions in tax policy to keep the economy competitive. Minimizing distortions implies reducing the marginal rates of both direct and indirect taxes. To achieve this, the approach suggests broadening of the tax bases. Thus, over the years, emphasis has shifted from vertical equity in which both direct and indirect taxes are subject to high marginal rates with minute differentiation in rates, to horizontal equity in which, the taxes are broad-based, simple and transparent, and subject to low and less differentiated rates. Equity in general, is taken to mean improving the living conditions of the poor. This has to be achieved mainly through expenditure policy and human resource development rather than reducing the incomes of the rich as was envisaged in the 1950s and 1960s.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People

Monday, June 13, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Performance

“Life has no rehearsals, only performances.” - Anonymous

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Solving the Rubik's Cube of Organizational Structure

A recent post by fellow HBR blogger Gill Corkindale illustrates how dysfunctional or outdated organizational designs can make it difficult for managers to operate effectively. Judging by the spirited responses, her examples resonated with many readers.

As today's executives struggle with the fallout of a globalized economy, they are likely to make their organizational structures even more complex. It's like trying to solve a constantly moving Rubik's Cube. The colors will never line up, no matter how many times you spin it. What results are multi-dimensional matrix structures where decision-making is torturous and unclear; siloed functions that underleverage people's efforts; or serial reorganizations that create constant uncertainty.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People

Sunday, June 12, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Art

“Failure is art of learning, and we have to enjoy that art.” -Abbas Pachmarhiwala

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Microfinance Contagion Scenario

So far, the Andhra Pradesh (AP) microfinance crisis has largely been viewed as a local issue, with relatively little impact beyond AP or India's borders. Other microfinance crises, in Bolivia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, and Bosnia, have not spread beyond the borders of a particular country. But as information trickles out about how bad the repayment situation in AP is, a plausible global contagion scenario is emerging. That's not to say it's likely, but it is certainly possible and a threat that social investors of all stripes should be thinking about how to defuse.

Although the situation in AP remains fluid, one thing hasn't changed over the last few months: repayment rates have fallen to about 10%. While these low repayment rates currently are only being seen in AP, they are causing serious problems for the major MFIs in India. The reason is that AP accounts for a large chunk of the total portfolio of the major MFIs in India — the Economic Times of India estimates that AP accounts for 40% of all microfinance loans in the country.


Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People

Saturday, June 11, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Business

“Money is only a tool. It will take you wherever you wish, but it will not replace you as the driver.” -Ayn Rand

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Stop Mixing Business with Pleasure

It may come as news to some (young) people, but business and pleasure are not synonymous. With the Millenials' exodus to social media platforms from good old-fashioned email accounts, the lines between our business and personal lives are increasingly blurred. We live on our smart phones or blackberries and technology has enabled us to multi-task to such an extent that the once-clear delineations of personal life and work life have all but disappeared.

But with technological interchangeability comes risk — maintaining relationships with friends with whom you do business and keeping business out of the realm of your friendships. The fact remains, however: You should never send a business email disguised as a friendly "hey, how are you?" Conversely, if you're reaching out as a friend, don't talk shop. Just as there is separation between church and state, so too do those barriers exist in business and our personal lives.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People

Friday, June 10, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Success

“One secret of success in life is for a man to be ready for his opportunity when it comes.” -Benjamin Disraeli

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Job Satisfaction: A key to establishing a healthy Organizational Environment

Job satisfaction is an important thing an individual has in the works. Each individual worker has different characteristics, and then the level of work satisfaction was different also. High or low job satisfaction can have an impact that is not the same. High job satisfaction is very possible to promote the establishment of company goals. While the level of job satisfaction is a threat that will bring destruction and gradually the company promptly. Hence job satisfaction is important in providing to show a healthy organizational environment. This article therefore looks into the way of bringing a healthy organizational environment by means of a key called Job Satisfaction.

Feldman and Arnold define job satisfaction as the amount of overall positive affect that individuals have towards their jobs. Job seems to be an important one in determining the skill and mindset of workers. Most of the employees in manufacturing industries have the skill to ensure a surety of success for the organization. But satisfaction factor of the employee depends on the amount of stress and benefits he is getting from his top boss or manager. The satisfaction level has the matter of ensuring a better source of work environment to the employees. Recent scenario in Indian and other parts of the world show a better source of tradition is maintained to secure the employees skills and use of the advanced technology is ensuring a success in the productivity of the organization. In the sense it is showing the better quality of ethics is followed to secure the organization environment. However as far as an individual is concerned, he needs more benefits and positive source of work environment from the organization to carry out his work.


Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Finding & Keeping the Best People

Thursday, June 09, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Time

“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” - William Penn

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Better Time Management Is Not the Answer

Managers tell us all the time they have "a time management problem." Their days, they say, are often hijacked by unplanned events, interruptions, crises — matters that can't be ignored. They go to work planning to do certain things as a boss and at day's end they realize they've done none of it.

"How do I cope?" they want to know. "How do I do what I'm supposed to do in the middle of chaos? When do I do the work of being a boss — things like working toward goals, developing people, building a team, and creating and sustaining a network?"

Does this sound familiar? Do you have this kind of time problem?

The answer isn't what you probably expect or hope to hear. Even if you push off less important demands, delegate better, and are stingy in your expenditure of time — all good time management practices — you would still have a problem.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard business review on increasing customer loyalty

Wednesday, June 08, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Trust

“Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live. ” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Benefit of CRM - Market Research

Just responding to customer's needs is not enough for establishing one's competitive advantage. One has to anticipate and meet the needs of the customer on an on-going basis. eCRM with its online data mining and warehousing enables a company to take real time corrective action and maintain its competitive edge.



CRM tools help companies understand their customers from a multifaceted perspective, who they are, what they are like, and what they do. Once they have a close approximation of their prospective client, companies can shower them with desirable proposals.



Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard business review on increasing customer loyalty

Tuesday, June 07, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Leadership

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality. ” - Warren G. Bennis

TOPIC OF THE DAY

7 Interviewer Interview Questions for First-Timers

Do you find interviews intimidating? (As an interviewer, I mean). Most managers find their first few interviews scarier than being interviewed themselves. Here are seven interviewer interview questions to beat first time interviewer nerves and help find the right person for the job.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

What I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World by Jay Barney, Patricia Gorman Clifford

Monday, June 06, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Inspiration

“What you see depends on what you're looking for. ” - Source Unknown

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Corporate Governance: Lessons from the Past and Challenges Ahead

No research agency, consulting firm ever predicted the collapse of Banking system world-wide but it took place in such a vehement manner. Would the jury of Golden Peacock Award ever thought that after three months of handling the Award For Corporate Excellence to 'Satyam' they would have to deal with its bankruptcy and bail-out issues?. The answer to these questions is a clear no. why all the authorities raised the question of transparency and corporate governance as practiced by companies? This paper tries to explore the existing framework and code of corporate governance in India and what challenges lie ahead for the corporate world in India.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

What I Didn't Learn in Business School: How Strategy Works in the Real World by Jay Barney, Patricia Gorman Clifford

Saturday, June 04, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Criticism

“Don't pay any attention to the critics - don't even ignore them.” - Samuel Goldwyn

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Don't Be Nice; Be Helpful

Ron was up next. As a senior analyst in this investment firm — and a good one — he knew a lot about the company he was about to pitch to the management committee.

He paused for a minute as he sorted through the pages of numbers in front of him and then he began to present his case.

Even though Ron described himself as a numbers guy, he seemed to really enjoy this part of his job. He was meticulous in presenting his ideas and took pride in the depth of his analysis.

Twenty minutes later, as the meeting ended, Laurie, the head of the firm, thanked him for his work, specifically remarking on his exhaustive research. He smiled and thanked her.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Communicating Effectively

Friday, June 03, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

PUNCTUALITY

“PUNCTUALITY is being aware of other people's TIME. If others come on time, why not come EARLY?” - Joy H. Fernandez

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Mining Your Company's Talent

Have you ever worked with someone who made your own job difficult? Someone who forced you to pick up the slack, or who had "personality issues"? Such people make you feel like you're working two jobs — theirs and yours.

Such an experience makes you appreciate their rarer opposites — those who do their jobs really well. When you work with competent, caring people, you become more positive. The workplace isn't a grind. It positively hums.

Getting the right people on the bus, to use Jim Collins' phrase, is the single most important thing a manager can do. If you work for a large multinational organization, chances are that some of the right people are already on the bus. But how do you go about finding them? And once you do, how do you keep them?

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Money and Capital Markets: Financial Institutions and Instruments in a Global Marketplace By: Peter S. Rose, Milton H. Marquis

Thursday, June 02, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Life

“Life is too small for big grudges” - NK Grover

TOPIC OF THE DAY

When Managing Complexity, Less is More

How does one successfully manage a company with a dozen diverse, decentralized businesses of varying sizes that employ over 100,000 people in 130 countries, especially in an uncertain economic environment?

The answer is to make things simple, says Bill Allen, head of Group Human Resources at Copenhagen-based A.P. Moller-Maersk. He contends that activities at the group level — beyond public company requirements like reporting numbers to investors — should be restricted to a core set of five that enable and enhance business performance. Those five group-level activities are (1) portfolio management (deciding which businesses should be part of the group); (2) performance management (setting ambitious goals and holding business managers accountable for achieving them); (3) capital allocation (making investments in the businesses where they can produce the greatest returns); (4) executive talent management (making sure that the best people are working the mission-critical jobs); and (5) synergy capture (for very large opportunities that cross the businesses). Other than that, individual businesses are in charge of delivering their results as they see fit. Because of this simple operating system, Maersk was able to bounce back quickly from the effects of the global recession so that 2010 results were the best in company history.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Money and Capital Markets: Financial Institutions and Instruments in a Global Marketplace By: Peter S. Rose, Milton H. Marquis

Wednesday, June 01, 2011

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

courage

“courage doesn’t always roar.sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying,“i will try again tomorrow.” - mary anne radmacher

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Globalization in the World We Live in Now: World 3.0

So far, 2011 has been a remarkable year. With events like those that have changed the power dynamics throughout the Arab world, or the tsunami in Japan that disrupted many global supply chains, it's easy to think that the world is becoming ever more connected and interdependent.

So this year, as in years past, to get a sense of how people are thinking about globalization, I begin many of my speaking engagements with a brief test, a simple multiple-choice question.

The results invariably show that most people have grossly exaggerated intuitions about the extent of globalization and, so far, my talks this year have been no exception. To test your own beliefs about globalization, take the same quick test here:

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Money and Capital Markets: Financial Institutions and Instruments in a Global Marketplace By: Peter S. Rose, Milton H. Marquis