THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Team

"To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart."- Donald Laird

TOPIC OF THE DAY

For Your Team's Success, Remember the How

You've been named head of a task force charged with determining how to respond to an emerging technological shift in your company's competitive landscape. At the end of roughly six months, you will have to answer for the joint efforts of fifteen people from across the organization whose work may determine the future success of your firm.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Negotiating Outcomes: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges (Pocket Mentor Series) (Paperback) By (author) Harvard Business School Press

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Customers

"There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.” - Sam Walton

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to get Past Your Customers' Lies

It's well established market research fact that customers lie. Business history offers innumerable stories of companies that launch whizz-bang new products on the basis of extensive quantitative customer research only to find that the customers didn't end up doing what they said they would.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Negotiating Outcomes: Expert Solutions to Everyday Challenges (Pocket Mentor Series) (Paperback) By (author) Harvard Business School Press

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Anxiety

“Love looks forward, hate looks back, anxiety has eyes all over its head.” - Mignon McLaughlin

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Three Ways to Overcome Career Anxiety

At a recent dinner party, I was speaking with a friend who had just been promoted to vice president at a well-known New York hedge fund. The promotion was unexpected, involved an immediate 50% pay raise, and came with broad new responsibilities. When he should have been feeling optimistic and excited about his new position, why did he look like the unhappiest person in the world?

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Performance appraisal = Pocket Mentor : expert solutions to everyday challenges

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Farewell

“Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine.” - Anthony J. D'Angelo

TOPIC OF THE DAY

5 Tips for Successful Management

Being a manager is not an easy job; it requires extra skills, effort and most of all a strategic vision. Unfortunately not all managers come equipped with the skills needed to ensure their success in their positions. Here is a look at the top 5 skills that Sean McPheat, a management and leadership trainer, discusses in his management course titled “Secrets to Successful Management”.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Performance appraisal = Pocket Mentor : expert solutions to everyday challenges

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Uniqueness

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Seuss

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Stop Competing to be the Best

With Cyber Monday, the tablet wars kicked into full swing. Which one is the best? Is it the iPad? The Kindle? Who has the best technology? The best distribution? Who's the best overall? For most people, "being the best" is what competition is all about. So General Motors CEO Dan Akerson was simply echoing popular sentiment when, on the day the new GM went public, he threw down the gauntlet: "May the best car win!" he told reporters. The phrase reflects an underlying belief about the nature of competition that feels so intuitively correct that it is almost never examined or questioned.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Time Management: Increase Your Personal Productivity And Effectiveness (Harvard Business Essentials) by Harvard Business School Press

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Assignment

"Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.” - Baltasar Gracian

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Get ready for your next Assignment

When Bruce Wilkinson, an executive in World Vision Inter­national’s Zambia operation, learned that he was going to be promoted to regional director for southern Africa, he immediately started reading performance reviews of key staff members and talking to his peers, other national officers in the $2.6 billion organization. In doing so he uncovered a serious weakness: A host of critical positions in the region had gone unfilled for as long as 16 months, leading to lost contracts and deterioration in the programs WVI undertakes to empower poor communities. Human resources needed to step up its game.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Harvard Business Review on Business Model Innovation (Harvard Business Review Paperback Series) by Harvard Business School Press

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Future

"The secret of your future is hidden in your daily routine.” - Mike Murdock

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Management as a Profession: A Business Lawyer’s Critique

As debates about the purpose of business and business schools continue apace, one recurrent theme is that business management should be a profession like law and medicine in order to promote responsible conduct and trustworthy business leadership.

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Surviving Change: A Manager's Guide: Essential Strategies for Managing in a Downturn By Harvard Business School Publishing

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Distraction

"Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today’s networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble by Debra E. Meyerson

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Success

"Fall seven times, stand up eight.” - Japanese Proverb

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Catastrophe of Success

Something odd and interesting happens to a lot of people who become very successful. Once the initial thrill wears off, they come to perceive their success as "a catastrophe" and even as "a kind of death," as the playwright Tennessee Williams famously put it, after The Glass Menagerie became a smash hit in 1944. Athletes, scientists, generals, entrepreneurs, executives, performers, and politicians have expressed this paradox in different words. Paul Samuelson, an economist who won the Nobel Prize in 1970, later concluded that, "After winners receive the award and adulation, they wither away into vainglorious sterility."

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble by Debra E. Meyerson

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Leadership

"Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority. ” - Tom Hopkins

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Unfair Trade Practices and its effects on Consumer

Introduction

Customers are the king and meaningful in marketing concept. Now a day's heavy integrated marketing Communications attract the customers by unfair promotion and communications because of high competition and easy sales leads.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble by Debra E. Meyerson

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Strength

"Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Five Steps to Assess Your Strengths

As discussed in my previous post, your personal value proposition (PVP) is why an employer should hire you or promote you over someone else. It's the foundation of your career strategy.

A product's value proposition only works if it's true, if the business has the organizational competencies needed to deliver the value proposition. Likewise, a PVP only works if it's true — if you have the strengths required. So the first step in developing a winning value proposition is self-appraisal to assess your strengths.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

The Complete Guide to Mentoring: How to Design, Implement and Evaluate Effective Mentoring Programmes by Hilarie Owen

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Internet

"The Internet is the world's largest library. It's just that all the books are on the floor." - John Allen Paulos

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Restore Yourself to Your Factory Default Settings

My wireless connection to the internet had suddenly stopped working. At first I was frustrated — I had been in the middle of browsing some books on Amazon. But I quickly took it as a blessing. I had an article to write and the Amazon browsing was a distraction. I resisted the temptation to distract myself further by trying to fix it and got to work. I finished the article in record time.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Give Your Speech, Change the World: How to Move Your Audience to Action by Nick Morgan

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Expenditure

"The gratification of wealth is not found in mere possession or in lavish expenditure, but in its wise application." - Miguel de Cervantes

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Spend management

Spend management is the way in which companies control and optimize the money they spend. It involves cutting operating and other costs associated with doing business. These costs typically show up as "operating costs" or SG&A (Selling, General and Administrative) costs, but can also be found in other areas and in other members of the supply chain.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Marketing of high-technology products and innovations / Jakki Mohr, Sanjit Sengupta, Stanley Slater

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

People skills

"As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do." - Andrew Carnegie

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today’s networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Why not? : how to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems big and small / Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Managers

"There are only two kinds of managers. Winning managers and ex-managers.” - Gil Hodges

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The No Whining Rule for Managers

One of my senior clients used to keep a "no whining" sign in her office. It seemed odd to have the sign so prominently displayed at a senior executive level. After all, the managers that walked into that office were not children, but mature adults with collective responsibility for thousands of employees. Why would they whine instead of just solving problems?

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Unlocking human capital to drive performance : a CEO's handbook / Sanjiv Anand

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Expecting and Accepting

"Expecting and Accepting are the two sides of life: Expecting can end in tears, but Accepting will bring you cheers!" - Mohammed

TOPIC OF THE DAY

The Most Important Question You Can Ask

Why are you here? It's arguably life's most important question, but is it one you ask yourself?

I recognize it's a question some people might view as self-indulgent, while others would see it primarily through a religious lens. But is there any part of an answer we could all agree on?

I've found a very simple one for myself, and it's provided me in recent years with an increasingly powerful sense of clarity, inspiration and even joy. It's this: I'm here to add more value to the world than I'm using up.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Why not? : how to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems big and small / Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Work

"Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work. " - Peter Drucker

TOPIC OF THE DAY

FDI in Retail - More Good than Bad

Indian industry's euphoria over the government's decision to throw open the country's retail trade to foreign companies gave way to despair after Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee announced suspension of the plans owing to political pressure from both within the ruling coalition and outside.

The issue of allowing FDI in the multi-brand retail is of immense importance because as much as 7.8% of India's total workforce is engaged in retail trade (NSSO 66th Round), which are mostly the small groceries, handlooms-textiles-garment shops, family stores etc. Now with FDI in this sector, multinational giants with multi-billion dollar enterprise like Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco etc. who sell from grocery-items to garments, furniture to fitness-equipments, are allowed to set up their stores in India. Notwithstanding the government's claim of 'revolutionizing' the retail sector in India, it needs to be asked that what will be its impact on the unorganized retail which consists of 95% of total retail sector in India while organized trade accounts only for the remaining 5%. Out of this organized and unorganized retail almost 60% of the household expense consists of food and grocery expense.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Why not? : how to use everyday ingenuity to solve problems big and small / Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Customer

"It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages." - Henry Ford

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Five Foursquare Tactics to Attract Customers

There are troubling signs for the country's retailers as Americans continue to slow down their spending and hunt for deep discounts. No one expects a blockbuster holiday season. Most retailers are just hoping to eek out a slight increase over the year before. Some retailers, however, are leveraging location-based mobile tools like Foursquare to outsmart the competition.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Steve Jobs way : iLeadership for a new generation / Jay Elliot with William L. Simon

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Talent

"Talent works, genius creates. " - Robert A. Schumann

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Talent Management

Talent management is a complex collection of connected HR processes that delivers a simple fundamental benefit for any organization:

Talent drives performance. We all know that teams with the best people perform at a higher level. Leading organizations know that exceptional business performance is driven by superior talent. People are the difference. Talent management is the strategy.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Steve Jobs way : iLeadership for a new generation / Jay Elliot with William L. Simon

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Relationship

"Relationships fail because of trust issues, commitment issues and communication issues." - Bob Goddard

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Get to Know Your Boss's Boss

Many people meet their boss's boss when they are hired, and then promptly forget about her. But does your manager's manager know what you've done recently? What does he think of you?

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LATEST ARRIVALS

Plunnge: Reinvention for the New Generation (Paperback) by Rakesh Godhwani

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Life

"Just remember -- when you think all is lost, the future remains." - Bob Goddard

TOPIC OF THE DAY

India: Organizing for Effectiveness in the Public Sector

By privatizing state-owned monopolies and deregulating whole industries,governments the world over have brought market forces to bear on electricity, telecommunications, and other economic activities formerly carried out in the public sector. This increased market pressure has in turn raised productivity as organizations in once-sleepy fields apply performance-enhancing tools long employed by private enterprise.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Plunnge: Reinvention for the New Generation (Paperback) by Rakesh Godhwani

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Character

"Character is like a tree and reputation like its shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing." - Abraham Lincoln

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Three Skills Every 21st-Century Manager Needs

The world of work has changed dramatically over the past decade. Companies are more global and employee groups more diverse than ever before. Organizational structures are less hierarchical and more collaborative. And today’s networked offices are full of technological distractions that would have been unimaginable to the 20th-century manager.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Imperial ambitions : conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post-9/11 world / Noam Chomsky

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Success

"Success is an oath that was taken at the altar of determination." - John Asiegbu

TOPIC OF THE DAY

Is "Command and Collaborate" the New Leadership Model?

The theme at Davos this year was "The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models." One of the models up for discussion was leadership. Panels with titles like "Leading Under Pressure" and "New Leadership Models from China" abounded. While speaking at a private dinner hosted by PwC on the topic of leadership and values in a volatile world, the questions put to me were, "What leadership traits will be paramount in the future?" and "What are the new expectations the public has for business leaders?"

On reflection, it struck me that the conversation this year was very different than in years past. We were no longer talking about reinventing leadership but about adding new elements to the old model. An additive operation in the algebra of change, as my colleague Stuart Albert would put it, not a subtractive or transformative process.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Imperial ambitions : conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post-9/11 world / Noam Chomsky

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Culture & Diversity

""Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul." - Edward Abbey

TOPIC OF THE DAY

When Working Globally, Master Cultural Norms

If you're thrust into an unfamiliar culture, as a manager, you have to modify your behavior to fit cultural norms. This can be tough, especially if it makes you feel inauthentic. If you face this discomfort, try these three things:

Identify the challenge. Pinpoint what's making you uneasy. For example, in a culture that values a top-down leadership style, are you struggling to provide clear directives?
Adjust your behavior. Make small but meaningful adjustments that both reflect the culture you're working in and stay true to your values. You don't have to yell at employees, but could you be more assertive?
Recognize the value. While you may need to behave in counter-intuitive ways, focus on the desired outcome.

Topic cited in Harvard Business Review “Management Tip of the Day” on Feb 3, 2012

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Innovation

"Innovation is not the product of logical thought, although the result is tied to logical structure." - Albert Einstein

TOPIC OF THE DAY

A Few Ideas for Beleaguered Innovators

Keep the faith. That's what I said to a client who is going through a crisis of confidence. Over the summer he had put together the underpinnings of what on paper looked like a promising growth business. But — as is usually the case — the more he analyzes, the more he doubts; the more he shows the results of his analysis to senior leaders, the more questions they ask, and the more they doubt.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Imperial ambitions : conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post-9/11 world / Noam Chomsky

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Wisdom

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest." - Confucius

TOPIC OF THE DAY

What Your Boss Needs to Know about Engagement

On October 28, Gallup posted an article with the sobering headline "Majority of American Workers Not Engaged in Their Jobs." This should disturb every American worker and business leader. In an earlier report, Gallup estimated that worker disengagement accounts for more than $300 billion annually in lost productivity in the U.S. alone.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Imperial ambitions : conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post-9/11 world / Noam Chomsky

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

Creativity

"To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong." - Joseph Chilton Pierce

TOPIC OF THE DAY

How to Think Creatively

I grew up hungry to do something creative, to set myself apart. I also believed creativity was magical and genetically encoded. As early as the age of 8, I began sampling the arts, one after another, to see if I'd inherited some gift.

Eventually, I became a journalist. For many years, I told other people's stories. I was successful, but I rarely felt truly creative.

Read on...

LATEST ARRIVALS

Imperial ambitions : conversations with Noam Chomsky on the post-9/11 world / Noam Chomsky