Notes on Management 010222

 By VR Ferose

Innovations happen when different kinds of people come together and do fundamentally different things. We can get inspired by social entrepreneurs who are at the forefront of innovation and they do so under extreme conditions for a cause.

Surround yourself with people who are better than you in at least one aspect, create a team, not a coterie. A misfit in a certain role could be a perfect fit in a different role.

The best innovations always happen under constraints of resources, time, and money. Challenge people to find radically different solutions and speed up processes.

Sometimes the best decision you can make is to not make one, wait to get more clarity before deciding. Good leaders can look at data and analyze it in novel ways. The role of great advisors is vital.

Look at failure as feedback. If you want to improve, you will have to do things differently and also do different things. The ability to take risks without excessive worry about failures is important. Start-ups don’t always do well but people who do start-ups always do well.

The best learnings come from looking at completely different and unconventional sources. So keep challenging the traditional way of viewing things. The most innovative companies are going to be those which have people who are good at different things.

The future workplace will have more managers on contract, and employees will be able to decide what they work on and who they work for. People will play a key role in running organizations, so it would be a more top-down structure.

Notes on Management 310122

 By Carol J Loomis, Lessons from Warren Buffett

You should make decisions based on objective data, thinking, and analyzing logically. These decisions generally turn out to be the right ones.

Definitely seek and take advice. However, at the end of the day, your own conviction and assessment of the situation is the best guide for action.

Keep a firm eye on metrics and numbers. As long as the numbers are looking good, you are on the right track. Also, trust your team to run the business.

Consider how leaving a vast fortune to your children could prove harmful. It can make them complacent. Instead, consider leaving money for social causes to build a better world.

If you already know an investment is good, why take risks with something new. Invest in it consistently since you already know you will get good returns.


By Ramesh Iyer
When you start understanding the customer experience, you start living their necessities. Empowering someone means completely trusting them, providing them solutions to problems, getting them to be transparent, and start reporting what is not working to help design a change.

If an asset can last for three years, give a loan for only two and half years so that the collateral protects the principal outstanding. Price the customer for the entire forecasted risk and the cost. You can control the risk by making the customer a partner in the asset which helps them earn and service the loan.

You must be willing to live the difficulty of the customer even though it is a non-productive loan. Making the female of the house either the co-borrower or guarantor of the loan builds pressure on the family to repay while reducing the chances of default. Differentiate between intentional and circumstantial failures.

Notes on Management 280122

 BY Neeraj Garg

To build an entrepreneurial team within an organization, rather than focusing on experienced professionals, it is important to attract and nurture people who are willing to take risks, are quick learners, are willing to fail, and are excited by the long-term vision.

When handling a large field team, it is important to automate processes like performance management, ensure clarity and frequency of communication, and manage turnover well.

When connecting with top leadership in an organization, bear in mind that they have very short attention spans, and it is key to get an understanding of their pulse through their formal and informal network before you approach them.

As the world shifts its focus towards emerging markets, India offers some useful lessons on unpredictability and uncertainty to multinationals, while Indian businesses can get some lessons in higher expectations and higher focus.

By K Ramkumar

A truly empowered organizational culture is one where its people walk the talk on building engagement and trust and allowing employees to speak the truth without fearing the outcome.

True leadership is not about slave driving people or seeking guarantees of personal success. It is about taking charge of a situation and taking personal risks by holding yourself personally accountable, irrespective of your title or position.

True mentors do not offer solutions on a platter or try to change people through training. They converse with you and help you build trust in your own capabilities by encouraging you to search and find solutions on your own.

If you truly want to nurture talent, foster a person’s belief in themselves by showing them your trust and confidence in their capabilities.

Do not always dismiss a person who is bragging. They already show ambition. Help them reach their true potential by fostering their belief in themselves.

Don't allow success to get to your head. Ensure you have one trustworthy person by your side who will ground you and warn you to change before it is too late.

Notes on Management 270122

 By Sujaya Banerjee

Indian employees need professional maturity to accept that not all roles warrant a move to the senior-most band. It is unrealistic to expect promotion before 2-3 years on the job, so understand the role and prepare for the next transition.

Bring in a few experts, hire others with less experience who can then be trained and mentored by them. Practice coaching and mentoring so that knowledge transfer becomes a way of life and business. Every leader has to provide clarity on what is expected from teams, enabling their performance before judging it.

Gen Y myths vs facts: 1. Are money-minded. Fact: Hold the employer accountable for the value offered. 2. Are all about life, less about work. Fact: View careers with lesser insecurity than others. 3. Are very social media savvy. Fact: Nearly at par with other generations. 4. You need to be cool to attract them. Fact: They seek the same things from employers as others.

Invest resources in providing clarity to people, work with a contingency plan as you ready for continuity. Two kinds of recognition: 1. Recognition the team requires on achieving milestones. 2. Recognize people who bring innovation. There is great emphasis on getting things done in a particular way which kills initiative and creativity. Encourage the voice of dissent.

Long tenures are not indicators of performance or excellence. Hold career dialogues with underperforming employees even if they have served long tenures and help them put their potential to full use. It is key not to lower the standard of performance in the organization.

Talent within an organization is not homogenous. Segregate in terms of quality when attrition and retention are weighed in. Look at talent in the 3X3 matrix with performance and potential on two axes. Organizations need to create centers of excellence or alternate structures to accommodate people who don’t necessarily have leadership capabilities but are subject matter experts.

Develop political savviness by reading the political landscape, be able to understand who the influencers are, identify networks within an organization, strengthen those networks for yourself, and create alliances to reach ideas to the right forum. There are two kinds of politics: of ideas and people. Develop the first and avoid the latter.

Notes on Management 250122

 By SV Nathan

Create your presence with clarity and confidence in communication. Be aware of the identity you project. Learn to listen, seek feedback, and own your space.

Separating the act from the person makes negative feedback a learning experience. Feedback has to outline what went well and what could be improved upon.

Characteristics to look for when you hire: people who are good listeners, are logical, thoughtful, and emotionally intelligent. Change mindsets. Seek those who have worked in unstructured environments and faced tough times.

A lot of unlearning happens while training and retraining existing staff. Give confidence to team members to seek help without judgment. Realize benefits of reverse mentoring for experienced staff.

You need to break a few rules, create some, and make it easier for women to continue in the workforce. A support system, progressive minds, self-assurance from the organization, and men who champion them can further women's presence in the boardroom.

By Arvind Singhal
Classic tools are insufficient to give insights on the opportunity in the market. Rethink models to look at the latent aspirations of Indian consumers and lifestyle changes brought about due to increased exposure.

Some skills of successful managers are similar to the requisites for an entrepreneur. Solutions don’t have to be for the product only. Look for new ways to conduct business, reach out to customers and suppliers, and manage people through motivation and training. In an uncertain world, process-driven systems render you obsolete and unable to adapt to changes.

Dramatic transformation is taking place in a very short period in the Digital Age. Foremost is digital access to information and connectivity. Engineered materials are rewriting the future of engineering and are the second transformational change.

The third most transformational is additive manufacturing in the form of 3D printing. As a result, many industries will completely get eliminated, that’s the fourth transformation. Consumers and producers are coming together directly. Some technologies are about to go mainstream and can create opportunities and challenges for everybody.

Make your reading as diverse as possible. Today’s requirement is not to be a master. The call of the hour is a multidisciplinary approach.

Motes on Management 240122

 BY KR Sekhar

To effect cultural change in a traditional, owner-driven organization towards decentralized decision-making, it is key to be patient, build trust, and remove any apprehensions in the mind of your people.

True sustainability is about combining your economic goals with your environmental and social goals and achieving them ethically and responsibly for the benefit of the community at large.

Strong organizations need to get the right people in key roles, sometimes from outside. Have honest, transparent and candid conversations with your employees to explain the rationale behind the hires for effective cultural integration.

It is good to keep your door open to competent rehires, but make sure they understand that while the organizational culture is not vindictive, the way to secure promotions is not via leaving and returning for a senior post.

True sustainability is about combining your organization’s economic goals with its environmental and social goals and achieving them ethically and responsibly for the benefit of the community at large.

By Subroto Bagchi
A true professional shows high integrity by following set laws and rules, even when inconvenient. Protest the laws, if they seem unfair, and seek counsel for any action that you think you may later regret.

It is important to cultivate the right ethics and develop self-awareness to understand the difference between friendship and professional ethics to prevent the misuse of information or identity in the Internet age.

As a company grows, so do its inherent complexities. Instead of wasting your time reminiscing about the good old garage days, spend time investing in the right level of expertise through each phase of scaling.

Scaling is a game of intellect. The first step in scaling is to get the mindset right and be comfortable with the idea of scaling. A strong reputation plays an important role in scaling as it makes for the new capital.

Create a culture in your organization where there is a harvesting methodology around failure, so it is seen as an ally to learn and grow from and people feel safe taking risks.

Notes on Management 210122

Sometimes you need to show the change, rather than tell it. This will get the emotional brain of the decision-maker to act.

Find out how to make small tweaks to the environment to facilitate change. Also, disallow bad behavior and drive the desirable one.

BY Mukul Deoras
Delegation and empowerment lead to trust. Transparency in relationships and freedom of expression without fear of reprisal are the outcomes. Humility encourages and generates trust.

Trust enables businesses to build strong relationships with stakeholders. Empathy, understanding, and giving value for money are key to building trust.
To get into somebody else's shoes, we have to first take off our own shoes.

A simple vision statement, shared with all in the organization, repeated often, and aligned with performance indicators creates the most impact. A leader needs to check if this mission statement is simple enough.

Today a width of experience is more important than depth of experience. The present generation likes to collect different experiences to create a whole new world. Gen Y is like butterfly, previous generations are like bee.

Instability takes you out of your comfort zones and fuels change. Your ability to unlearn old patterns and learn new things are vital.

To stay on top of the game, do these more often: 1. Keep challenging yourself, 2. Constantly renew yourself, 3. Keep someone in the team who views things from a different perspective, 4. Never think defensively, push the boundaries instead, 5. Be consistent.

Sometimes it is important to set aside old habits and egos and be adaptable to learning from fresh talent who can offer a fresh, objective perspective on things and foster collaborative growth.

A partnership will be successful only when it is founded on complete trust and there is absolute clarity on roles. These can be achieved with open and transparent communication that helps leverage the strengths of both parties.

Use multiple sources of information to make an unbiased assessment about talent and create a development plan based on their core and strengths to nurture them into future leaders.

Some skills are not taught in business schools. It is sometimes important to trust your gut, always communicate clearly and collaborate and always be open to learning in order to be an effective leader.

Intuitive innovations work, if it is not simple enough, it is bound to fail. It also has to be economically lucrative.

Notes on Branding 200122

 A baby boomer who calls a TV advertisement sick would not have liked it. A millennial calling it sick may actually be a compliment.

Brand is about generating demand among customers. Reputation is about approval among stakeholders.

Howard Schultz explains: “The most powerful and enduring brands are built from the heart … not an ad campaign. Customers choose to come to us for our coffee, our people and the experience in our stores. Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last.”

"Brain is subtle form and body is gross form. Just like that, Brand is subtle form and product is gross form. The two cannot be separated." (Rajiv Bajaj)

Personal branding by Jamie Turner

Your personal brand is made up of the unspoken and spoken messages that someone receives about you. Make sure you establish a credible personal brand by first spelling out who you are and what you want to be.

Write your aspiration statement clearly: who you are and where you'd like to end up in 10 years. It is going to be the foundation of your personal brand.

To make your personal brand shine, understand the mindset of your audience. This will help you tailor your communication for maximum impact.

Creating a brand involves creating content: a book, podcast, blog, articles, and more. Remember to make the content solve a pain point for your audience.

Engage in public speaking as a way to build awareness for your personal brand. To get started, develop a marketing package and approach business networking groups.

Take time to create a content centerpiece that acts as a magnet for your personal brand. Repurpose your content across a variety of channels and use paid media to build your audience.

Notes on Management 190122

By Deep Kalra

Finding someone willing to bet on you is tricky. When you talk to the investor, understand if they are decision-makers who will also sit on your board. Earn their goodwill with honesty and over time, their friendship and support.

Making the interview process multilayered by getting the aspirant to meet as many people as possible allows for a wide-ranging opinion on finding the right fit. Try to meet them more than once but in different settings to assess their true character.
There are several cues to understand if a candidate is a team player: reference checks outside the list given by the aspirant, and checking the language on the resume to see if it is dominated by "I" and not "we" are just some of them.

Entrepreneurs should never count on promised outcomes and investments. Know when to pull the plug. Assess by metrics such as the health of the business, ability to sustain, and how valuable is your offering to customers.


By Rajan Anandan

Consumer-focused innovation for India is different because a majority of Indians have low incomes. To innovate for India, companies need to reimagine business models, products, and services, while designing products to meet the needs of a very distinct market.

Artificial Intelligence will dominate and shape the future of the workplace. Man and machine will collaborate and supplement. Prepare for a tomorrow where learning to be relevant, irrespective of industry or role, will be the norm.

An entrepreneur and a manager have similar mindsets yet are different. One focuses on creating and the other has maintenance and growth on their minds. Every start-up of worth faces at least five near-death moments, it is a rite of passage. Not enough managers take up tough assignments where one is likely to fail but learn exponentially too.

Having audacious goals for your business and team forces you to reimagine the approach you are going to take. Google calls it moonshot thinking which is 10X as opposed to 10 percent. Think of new approaches to get things done. Learn how to come up with these ideas and have the courage to execute them.

Big skills required for success today: curiosity, creativity, adaptability, and agility. Since what you are doing today will not be relevant in five years, invest more in training in the next generation of technologies. Companies and employees need to make a concerted effort to learn new skills to be relevant.

Internet is democratizing and enabling people to access resources that used to be the purview of a privileged few. Learn what technology can do for you and your company.

Understand how to keep millennials engaged at the workplace by providing: Inspiring mission, empowerment, and flexibility while creating internal mobility.

Notes on Management 180122

 By Abhijit Bhaduri

Success and happiness are two different things. There are two elements to achieve the first: skills for the job and the right personality. One has to fit in with company culture to succeed. You can be successful but not happy or vice versa, sometimes organizational culture can help achieve either or both.

A resume cannot assess the depth of competence and the personality of a candidate. A four-stage filter can be a rounded process of hiring: CV shows need versus skill fit, it lists domain knowledge and competencies, and the last aspect is personality, which includes traits such as resilience, leadership qualities, and confidence.

Success requires Skill and Will. Skill is qualifier, will is differentiator.

Learning agility and willingness would be hallmarks in the future. Acquire the four aspects of agility: mental, people, adaptability to change, and results.

More millennials will enter the workforce soon. They are more tech-savvy but lack people and soft skills. The informal way can work with peers but how will clients react? Both the workplace as well as those in it have to adapt to fit in. Also, more women will enter the workforce. Perception of time and job loyalty is undergoing a shift with a new generation of workers.

A global mindset thinks beyond the boundaries of the familiar. The lack of it means comparing everything with the familiar. Being constantly curious and non-judgmental are excellent ways to open up to global culture.

Getting the most done effectively in the least amount of time allows for work-life balance. Start small, identify your passion, and find the window to practice it. Train and develop your team to take over some of your work.

Notes on Management 170122

 By Sandip Das

It is possible to make the consumer a partner in your campaign if your advertising focuses on making an emotional connection with the client, rather than on making tall claims.

Empowering your customer service employees will inspire them to come up with magical solutions by going beyond the call of duty, which will go a long way towards enhancing the reputation of your brand.

To be authentic, it is important for managers to lead by example and walk the talk on the cultures and values they want to infuse in their organization.

Technology, speed, and agility are forcing us to rethink the way we approach innovation today. We cannot afford overly long development times or slow decision-making if we want to create a culture of innovation.

The best way to nurture and motivate young managers is to allow interaction with senior management to understand the strategic vision of the company, such that they hear the message directly and can contribute with fresh, innovative ideas.

To penetrate into a strong, competitive market, sometimes you need to challenge all conventional thinking in order to reimagine your brand.

Companies must understand that technology is just a means to enable the needs of human beings and they can anticipate challenges before making decisions by asking human-centric questions to drive the future of innovation.

When pioneering something new that customers do not know they want, and where you probably do not have a blueprint to work with, you must build the right environment by creating a need for your offering and expounding on its benefits.

Companies must understand what they stand for, and what they strive for and then deliberate on every aspect of the brand--from aesthetics to service--and embody it in the brand to achieve the highest level of customer satisfaction.

It is key for businesses to embrace age-, gender-, and rank-agnostic digital transformation in order to survive and maintain their competitive advantage in a fast-changing world.

Observing your potential customers and picking up on their likes and dislikes, even before they become actual customers, is a smart marketing move by brands, as it allows them time to plan meticulously years ahead, getting the edge over competition.

An effective way to inspire and train people is by inviting speakers from outside of your industry to speak about their experiences and different aspects of their business. This forces people to think of solutions beyond what is intuitive and take a leaf out of other industries.

Notes on Marketing 140122

Salesforce and retail networks help to tap consumer needs. Don't ask what is working, ask what is not right. Winning at the game is about understanding what the consumer wants today and being ready on time with it.

Graduate from being a product to a brand to an experience. It relies on the ability to catch a trend at the outset and leverage it into an opportunity.

Advertising has evolved into the role of demand generation beyond its initial purpose of informing. The difference between aspiration and the income to achieve it creates premium demand, advertising is key to that.

The factors of success of one business cannot be applied to another even if they belong to the same category. Be clear about what differentiates the brand and focus on creating fans. The consumer looks to an Indian experience which is also progressive.

Keep the consumer at the center of the business strategy and deliver using technology, design, variety, advertising, and retailing. Standing up to the needs of the customer in a changing marketplace results leads to success.

In a closed market, differentiation depends on fewer parameters. In an open market, being a multi-brand is advantageous as you can reach different segments of consumers. The key, as always, is consumer centricity.

Leveraging the essence of brand ambassadors, rather than their face, works with consumers. Using stories to convey the message instead of a celebrity showcasing a brand leaves a more lasting impression.
Today's Indian consumer in lifestyle categories looks for modernity while continuing tradition. Women outnumber men as buyers in most of these segments.

(Bhaskar Bhat, Titan)

Notes on Management 130122

Maniacal focus on the customer ensures higher returns and an increase in business. This client-centricity can be seemingly self-harming but is a win-win in the end.

Activities lead to outcomes and building an efficient process is the measure of success of any organization. Optimize the process to produce desirable results.

Focus on developing skills and roles, continuously do new things to learn more. Pick inefficiencies in the system and work to solve them. Be mindful and focus on building deep relationships outside of work. Be aware of failures in the start-up journey.

Young leaders need to weigh in opinions gathered from different sources before reaching a decision. Build your skills without fearing the outcome to gain confidence.

Autonomous driving, connected vehicles, electric vehicles, and shared mobility or ACES are set to disrupt the automobile market. The nature of the consumer will change along with the car.

Adapt to the changing needs of customers. Nature of consumption changing with customers demanding higher quality at a better price. Look for digital solutions to problems without compromising on productivity, cost, quality, delivery, safety, and morale.

Total Quality Management is about improving trust levels with teams. Four steps to change management: 1. Role modelling, 2. Communication, 3. Formal systems to drive change, and 4. Developing talent for future change.

Be nimble in decision-making and quick. A layered structure should be avoided when growing. Keep a start-up approach.

Always keep in mind that a good team player is a necessary criterion for a new member to fulfil. Thus, criteria for selecting team members include collaborative attitude, optimism, and decision-making.

Career women need to: 1. Accept that they will feel guilty, 2. Adapt by asking for help from support system, 3. Achieve, grab opportunities, and take credit for success. (Apurva Purohit)

Organizational culture and value systems get eroded every time exceptions are made.

Taking responsibility for everything around your role defines personal accountability. It is a leadership trait and can be learned by reflecting on behaviors.

Plan for failure just as you plan for success. Have a Plan B ready.

Build an organizational culture with negotiables and non-negotiables. Processes and policies build fairness.

Women leaders tend to be calmer and more confident in a crisis than their male counterparts. They are consensus builders, less concerned about control, collaborate more often, and being in the minority makes them less turf conscious. Build an inclusive system that nurtures the excluded.
The main reason why women are not often seen in leadership roles is that they fail to speak up or negotiate hard enough. Men leaders have to be encouraged to mentor women as successors. Measures to incentivize return to work as they start families are key.
The main disadvantages of doing business in India include access to capital and dependency on imports. Affordable innovation is the result of enablers such as a good talent pool and resources at globally competitive costs, and immense market opportunity within the country.
Governance sets culture and integrity in business translates into sustainable prosperity. Both are non-negotiable.
(Kiran M Shaw)

Notes on Management 120122

Create an atmosphere of well-being around you, where employees are as invested in an organization's success as the entrepreneur is.

Accepting no limits, alternative thinking, and driving positive change are at the heart of innovation.

Focus on your USP and lead by example for the people who work for you. This will empower your team to be the best version of themselves.

Two key asset set apart good managers from great leaders: One is empathy. The other is the ability to balance right and left brain thinking.

Passion is the not-so-secret sauce to success. Doing what you truly want to do in life enriches you as a person and gives you the confidence to excel.

The immediacy of response, transparency of the dialogue, and information intensity of social media make the new-age platform an imperative for all business leaders. intensity of social media make the new-age platform an imperative for all business leaders.

Clarity on what you are looking for makes analyzing data easier. Put brightest people on insights and data and leave the sifting through data for analysis to technology.

Strategize to win but focus more on honing the right culture that allows you to evaluate if the strategy is working. The first can be copied, but the latter is unique. Organizational culture defines teams.

Organizational culture defines people long after they have moved on from a company. Focusing on leadership development is about driving change. Welcome change in a volatile world. Know your customer well to understand when to change.

Nurture several interests but specialize in at least one of them. Recognize your core competence and use it as your safety net. Think of culture, industry, and domain as three dimensions, and with every jump in career, change one dimension at a time.

Notes on Management 110122

 A black swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond the normal limits of probability. Because of their extreme rarity, such events are often used to explain failure in hindsight.

Dignity is all about our sense of inherent value and worth. We are born with Dignity and it’s the hallmark of our shared humanity.

The 10 elements of dignity include Acceptance of identity; Recognition; Acknowledgment; Inclusion; Safety; Fairness (equity); Independence; Understanding; Giving People the Benefit of the Doubt; Accountability.

To become accountable leaders and positive role models, we need to understand why we may violate someone's dignity and take steps to avoid putting ourselves in such situations.

We will all be able to think of a time when our dignity was violated. However, the consequences also need to be factored in which can be as bad as physical injury.

Utilize your own experiences to connect the feelings and emotions associated with a violation of dignity and increase self-awareness to consider the issue of Dignity on self, others, and the environment within which we work.

Learned helplessness is a state that occurs after a person has experienced a stressful situation repeatedly. They come to believe that they are unable to control or change the situation, so they do not try — even when opportunities for change become available

Grit is sustained persistence and determination in the face of adversity. Your Adversity Quotient (AQ) is a score that measures your grit—your ability to deal with challenges.

The 3 components of self-awareness are: taking responsibility for your behavior, knowing how it affects others, and developing self-discipline to regulate your emotional response.