HBR: What Is The Work Of The CEO?

"The CEO is the link between the Inside that is 'the organization,' and the Outside of society, economy, technology, markets, and customers. Inside there are only costs. Results are only on the outside."
-- Peter Drucker, "The American CEO"

Alan ("A.G.") Lafley TOOK OVER AS CEO of Procter & Gamble in June 2000 when the FMCG behemoth was battling turbulent times. At 6pm on his first day at the office as the new (and first time) CEO he was facing a hostile press conference live on national television – like a "deer in the headlights" as he recalls. P&G stock price that had crashed from $86 to $60 in one day tanking Dow index by 374 points, went further down by 11% at the news of Lafely's appointment as the new chief. The headlines went from "P&G Investor Confidence Shot" to "We love their products, But we hate their stocks." to "Does P&G Still Matter?"

Four years into working hard at trying to turn the tide and leading P&G as the chief executive, one day out of the blue, A.G. decided to give a call to Peter Drucker at his residence. Drucker, 83 at that time, answered the calls himself, and apparently invited A.G. to come over for a chat.

In October 2004, A.G. and a groups of executives spent quality hours discussing the leadership challenge with Peter Drucker at his residence. Drucker made numerous side notes during the meetings, and others made notes of Drucker's advisory quotes and observations. In 2009, before retiring after 10 years as the CEO of P&G, A.G. compiled an HBR article and published a very interesting case study on how he turned around P&G's fortunes to make it one of world's largest consumer goods manufacturer. On the larger part, A.G. credits Drucker for his strategy and success.

In a nutshell, A.G. Lafley notes the following four fundamental tasks of the CEO as per Drucker’s simple and clear observations, with Drucker's comments as quotes:

1. DEFINE The Meaningful Outside –
Determine which external constituency matters most. Your company has many stakeholders, each with important demands. Once you’ve defined your most important external constituency, ensure that everyone acts on that understanding.

2. DECIDE What Business You Are In –

"Equally important—and also a task only the CEO can fulfill—is to decide, What is our business? What should it be? What is not our business? And what should it not be?"

For example, what are your core businesses, and which of them will you grow? Analyze the attractiveness of the businesses you’re already in, your company’s position in existing industries relative to competitors’, and industries’ strategic fit with your core competencies.

3. BALANCE The Present And The Future –

"The CEO decides on the balance between yield from the present activities, and investment in an unknown, unknowable and highly uncertain future... it is a judgment rather than [a decision] based on 'facts.'" Adding that, "Effective CEOs make sure that the performing people are allocated to opportunities rather than only to 'problems.' And they make sure that people are placed where their strengths can become effective."

Ensure that stakeholders’ near-term interests don’t overshadow your company’s long-term future. Balance short-term investments with investments in resources needed for your company’s longer-term future.

4. SHAPE Values and Standards –

"CEOs set the values, the standards, the ethics of an organization. They either lead or they mislead."

Define your company’s values (its identity) and standards (expectations) in ways that encourage the right behaviors.

• See also:
• Related article: HBR: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker
• Related article: "What would Peter do?" – A Tribute at Drucker Century
• Go here for A.G. Lafley's HRB article: "What Only the CEO Can Do"
• Go here for more on A.G. Lafley at "Leading Authorities" website

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Sachin Tendulkar’s Stock Market Run

AUSTRALIA, THE DOMINANT SPORTING powerhouse among the 71 the Commonwealth countries, have invested into researching India’s cricket performance and how it relates to equity trading at Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange of Dalal Street in Mumbai, India. The market cap of BSE stands close to USD 1.4 trillion, and NSE, with market cap of nearly USD 1.5 trillion, is the third largest Stock Exchange in the world in terms of the number of trades in equities.

Australia were dethroned by India from #1 spot for ICC test cricket ranking earlier this year, and are being challenged for their spot for the ODI ranking as the contest is on. And their desperation is evident on the field while the Test Series between the two national sides is currently under way.

As Sachin Tendulkar, the cricketing legend goes on to slam his sixth double century for India, his second against Australia, (and the only International player to ever score a double hundred in the ODI format of the game), the report by the economists goes on to suggest that when Sachin is playing in good form and ends up on the losing side, the stock-market takes an additional 20% hit on the negative side.

Russell Smyth, Head of Economics department at Monash University of Australia and economist Vinod Mishra have the following to say:

"While a win by the Indian cricket team has no statistically significant upward impact on stock market returns, a loss generates a significant downward movement in the stock market.

India's main index, the CNX Nifty, shows that the Nifty index was generally flat the day after a win, but the day following a loss, the index dropped by an average of 0.231 per cent. The drop following a loss was more than seven times greater than the movement following a win.

In the 100 matches in which Tendulkar played and India lost, the average return the day after the match was 0.328 per cent, an 18 per cent higher drop compared to the average drop after losing a match (which Tendulkar did not play).

A feeling of sadness might make investors withdraw from the world and the stock market, thus resulting in reduced trading for a while, whereas anger might make them behave in an impulsive manner, which might involve selling of a lot of the stocks."

Edit: included score details from the 2nd Test match between Australia and India.

• See also:
• Related post: Sach Is Life
• Go here for Financial Times coverage on the Smyth & Mishra report, here for Indian Express coverage and here for Deccan Herald take on the topic
• Go here for report on Tendulkar, 37, and after 21 years on the international pitch, clinching yet another ICC Player of the Year
• Go here for a similar report at cxoadvisory.com linking American NFL Super Bowl with Stock market

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Oct 2 - Mahatama Gandhi at 141

[Photo courtesy: Amitabh Bachchan]

"If blood to be shed, let it be our own.
Let us cultivate the calm courage to die without killing."
~ Mahatma Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948)

[Above] A video clipping of Gandhi's speech challenging Jan Smuts' racist law of segregation. From Attenborough's epic - Gandhi: The World Event.

Richard Attenborough writes in his compilation book:

"[Gandhi's] words struck me so forcibly that there and then I committed myself to attempt to make a film about Mahatma Gandhi - a commitment that changed the subsequent twenty years of my life."

• See also:
• Try http://youtu.be/e3tjIiWIkAQ for the clip on YouTube.
• Go here for Richard Attenborough's compilation book The Words of Gandhi.

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A Thousand-days Challenge

"It is not the mountains we conquer but ourselves."
~ Sir Edmund Hillary

HOW WOULD IT FEEL to be up close and personal with Mt. Everest?

Or to humbly come to face with the Chomolangma ("Saint Mother") as they say in Tibet?

Well, we shall find out in next thousand days or less. Because that's the pledge: To camp underneath the summit of Mt. Everest within next 30 odd months or so.

A thousand days may seem rather stretched, but for a goal such as this, it may all get tight pretty quickly. And needless to say that a much more detailed planning and preparations are required - a whole mountain to surmount in itself before the actual one - mainly towards the physical fitness and mental toughness - as well as evaluating other professional, social and economical commitments and feasibilities. Over the past week or so while the decision over the destination for the challenge has been under debate, some of these aspects have been taken into due consideration. And, that helps.

A couple of pointers and a bit of background: While Mt. Everest has always been at the top of the list of dearness, Lewis Pugh's recent TED talk gave the final push. And though Mt. Everest is a more complicated and rather tougher ballgame all together, it was nice to read the encouraging post by Matt Cutts of Google from Kilimanjaro. Also, Chris Guillebeau had an interesting post a couple of years ago at his unconventional strategies blog asking to name one definitive place that one would want to visit in the lifetime (thanks Amelia for the link).

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Gartner: 10 Changes in the Nature of Work in Next 10 Years

"ORGANIZATIONS WILL NEED TO PLAN for increasingly chaotic environments that are out of their direct control, and adaptation must involve adjusting to all 10 of the trends (listed below)", observers Gartner fellow and VP, Tom Austin.

In a report published earlier this year titled "Watchlist: Continuing Changes in the Nature of Work, 2010-2020", Gartner says that organizations will need to determine which of the 10 key changes in the nature of work will affect them the most, and consider whether radically different technology models will be required to address them.

The other key message that emerges out of the report's overall analysis says:

Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyper-connectedness, 'swarming' and by 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization's work will be "non-routine," up from 25 percent in 2010.

Later next month, Tom Austin is scheduled to speak in London on these trends:

1. De-routinization of Work: Non-routine skills are those we cannot automate. The report argues that the core value that people add is not in the processes that can be automated, but in non-routine processes, uniquely human, analytical or interactive contributions that result in words such as discovery, innovation, teaming, leading, selling and learning.
2. Work Swarms: A kind of work pattern involving a flurry of collective activity by anyone who is available and who could add value, is defined as Work Swarms. The report indicates two phenomena within the collective and apparently unstructured activity: One is that Swarms form quickly, attacking a problem or opportunity and then quickly dissipating. And secondly, Swarming is an agile response to an observed increase in ad-hoc action requirements, as ad-hoc activities continue to displace structured, bureaucratic situations.
3. Weak Links: Members of a Work Swarm may not 'know' each other in the classical sense, or even have a strong or moderate reference. There relationship remains largely temporary, and the report labels it as Weak links. They are indirect indicators which partially rely on the confidence others have in their knowledge of people. Social Networking comes into play at personal as well as professional level that would contribute to Work Swarms.
4. Working with the Collective: "the Collective" are external forces, mainly disparate groups of people tied together by common interests, that are not controlled by the organization but who could impact the success-rate of the organization. Their potential for influence is very high. The report suggests that smart and powerful business executives who live within the business ecosystem which they can not control, will do the market research and come up with ways to work with "the collective" to wield influence in their organizations for their benefit.
5. Work Sketch-ups: Most non-routine processes that could not be automated will also be highly informal and non-standard. The process models for most non-routine processes will remain simple "sketch-ups" which are created on the fly. The practice will evolve over time to be able to identify meaningful patterns of these processes and structure them.
6. Spontaneous Work: Spontaneity implies more than reactive activity. The report says that as in Work Swarms, spontaneous and proactive activities would also emerge, forming its own patterns such as seeking out new opportunities and creating new designs and models. 

7. Simulation and Experimentation: Interface with virtual environment will increase many fold, where technologies such as 3D interfacing with data (akin to the Spielberg film Minority Report) will replace spreadsheets and traditional number crunching. The contents of the simulated environment will be assembled by agent technologies that determine what materials go together based on watching people work with this content.
8. Pattern Sensitivity: This is Gartner's forward looking management strategy approach called "pattern-based strategy". The report argues that the business world is becoming more volatile, with far less visibility into the future than ever before. Organizations will have to create focus groups to identify divergent emerging patterns, to evaluate those patterns, and to develop various scenarios showing how the disruption might play out.
9. Hyper-connected: Organization have complex inter-relationship of networks, with multiple overlaps for a single function. For instance, an IT support function might work well in delivering a service while working in dedicated and isolation mode, but in shared and complex environment with multiple overlaps, networks, and stakeholder, the same dedicated resources may largely under-perform and underachieve, resulting into additional work. The report calls this Hyper-connectedness, and argues that it will lead to a push for more work to occur in both formal and informal relationships across enterprise boundaries, and that has implications for how people work and how IT supports or augments that work.
10. My Place: There will be job roles which are always on-duty. For them, the traditional segregation of personal, professional, social and family matters, along with organization subjects, will disappear. They will work in virtual Work Swarm environment, all the time, across time zones and organizations, and with participants who barely know each other. But the employee will still have a "place" where they work, called "My Place".

• See also:
• Go here for the report on Gartner website (User login required)
• Go here for details on the upcoming summit in Spetember '10 in London where Tom Austin will be presenting these trends.

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HBR: Paths to Power by Jeff Pfeffer

"Power is the organization’s last dirty secret." ~ Rosabeth Moss Kanter

POWER IS REQUIRED IF ONE WANTS TO GET ANYTHING DONE in any large organization. Unfortunately, Power doesn’t just fall into one’s lap: one will have to go after it and learn how to use it. Stanford University professor for Organizational Development, Prof. Jeffery Pfeffer, argues that being uncomfortable with Power Dynamics has cost career promotions (and sometimes, the job) to many talented people from premier organizations and institutes including Harvard and Sloan. Pfeffer offers a primer on why power matters, how to get it, and how to use it to advance your organization's agenda - and thus, in turn, how to furthering your career, not just incidentally.

Powerful people prevail by using various techniques when push comes to shove. With examples from real-life and historical accounts from corporate and national political scenarios Pfeffer illustrates many of these techniques. (Interestingly, Pfeffer analyses Lalit Modi's ascent to great power from the world's wealthiest sporting body to the world cricket arena as one of the case studies.)

In his brilliant article titled "Power Play" in the latest issue of HBR magazine Pfeffer discusses the following basic idea. The article headline reads: "Acquiring real clout—the kind that helps you get stuff done—requires bare-knuckle strategies." Written more as a survival guide for any new 'idea' to progress, Pfeffer identifies personal barriers that the leader has to overcome. The article explains 11-point exercise towards the Paths of Power, acknowledging all along that it is not the ideal world that the techniques apply to, but rather it is for the real world that one deals with, and which is much less 'ideal' and just than all of us may want it to be.

The basic idea of the article is this:

Any new strategy worth implementing has some controversy surrounding it and someone with counteragenda fighting it. When push comes to shove, you need more than logic to carry the day. You need power.

Learning to wield power effectively begins with understanding the resources you control. Money is not the only one. Whatever you have - a valuable network, access to information - can be meted out or denied to gain leverage.

You can also push past obstacles through sheer relentlessness. You should avoid wasting political capital on side issues and dispense with opponents in ways that allow them to save face.

You may find such power plays and the politicians behind them unsavory - and they can be. But you'll have to get over your qualms if you want to bring about meaningful change.

Pfeffer identifies three main barriers that can make you 'your own worst enemy' unless you learn how to get over them and embrace the power you need.
1) The Belief That the World Is a Just Place: Believing in a just world makes people less powerful in two important ways. First, it limits their willingness to learn from all situations and all people, even those they don’t like or respect. Second, it anesthetizes them to the need to proactively build a power-base.

2) The Leadership Literature: The teaching on leadership is filled with prescriptions that reflect how people wish those in positions of power behaved. There is no doubt that the world would be a much better place if people were always authentic, modest, truthful, and concerned about others, instead of simply pursuing their own aims. But wishing that’s how people behaved won’t make it so.

3) Your Delicate Self-esteem: If people intentionally do things that could diminish their performance, they can view disappointing outcomes as not reflective of their true abilities. For instance, told that a test is highly diagnostic of intellectual ability, some people will choose not to study the relevant material or to practice, thereby decreasing their performance but at the same time providing an excuse that doesn’t implicate their natural ability. Similarly, if people don’t actively seek power, the fact that they don’t obtain it doesn’t have to be seen as a personal failure.

In the article, Pfeffer argues that Power is 'exercised' using some of the following techniques:

1. Mete out resources.
2. Shape behavior through rewards and punishments.
3. Advance on multiple fronts.
4. Make the first move.
5. Co-opt antagonists.
6. Remove rivals—nicely, if possible.
7. Don’t draw unnecessary fire.
8. Use the personal touch.
9. Persist.
10. Make important relationships work—no matter what
11. Make the vision compelling.

So, welcome to the real world. It may not be the world we want, but it’s the world we have!

See also:

• Go here for the HBR article page. And here for the HBR IdeaCast podcast page for Jeffery Pfeffer's interview - Telling The Truth About Power.
• Go here for Jeffery Pfeffer's official page at Stanford University.

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Steve Jobs' Presentation Skills Reflects Why Apple is Apple

"This changes everything. Again"

AFTER THE WORLD'S LARGEST PRODUCT LAUNCH EVENT YET, on July 16 Steve Jobs did the press conference following the recent keynote for the world's largest IT organization that Jobs staged for the eleventh year running after his return in '99 to the (then struggling) company he originally co-founded in '76 as Apple Computers Inc.

Over the last two and an half years since the launch of the first iPhone, the competition has grown (and perished) in the smartphone product space. The information hungry, instantaneously reacting, viral population of Social Media 'journalism' was increasingly demanding of this Silicon Valley veteran from 1, Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA, USA.

Apparently, Apple's latest offering of iPhone 4 smartphone with services from AT&T ran into media highlighted issues of a certain "loop antenna" problem where the device was dropping calls if the user happened to hold the device in a certain manner. (Rather interestingly, the same device did not seem to have any such issues in geographies other than the US. where media and service provider coverage were different.)

Jobs presentation at this press release to address the 'issues' was very effective, and some of the key attributes of his presentation skills have been captured below:

Have a laser-sharp focus on audience expectation: "relevancy" runs the highest among people noting, tweeting and blogging in real time during the key presentation events.

Give the audience a pleasant surprise by always having something new: content of the presentation has to be novel or newsworthy. There is no use regurgitating previous press releases or old news.

Forget bullet points - perfect your slide design: design slides with images instead of text, with crisp lines which is not only short and quotable, but even if it's taken out of the context of his presentation, it still makes sense.

Repetitions and consistency: take time to summarize the points, even if they are many. Build intended-redundancy to the presentations that helps drive home the central message.

Evangelize! draw the audience to join the ‘cause’, the main theme of the presentation. If required pitch in the competition with Us-vs-Them scenarios.

Image credits and more: Engadget

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Nassim Taleb on Euro

"EURO IS DOOMED AS A CONCEPT", declares the author of "The Black Swan", Nassim Taleb, at a recent interview with CNBC. Adding that "We had less debt cumulatively [two years ago], and more people employed. Today, we have more risk in the system, and a smaller tax base. [...] Banks balance sheets are just as bad as they were" two years ago when the crisis began and "the quality of the risks hasn't improved."

Part I: While discussing the outlook for the global economy with Bob Long (CEO, Conversus Capital) on CNBC, Taleb says, "We have no other solution but to slash debt".


Part II: "The balance sheets of banks are just as bad as they were" two years ago when the crisis began and "the quality of the risks hasn't improved," argues Nassim Taleb.

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Infographic: Labour Cost Disparities

DISPARITIES OF LABOR COSTS: Interesting Infographic showing how long does it take other countries to make the equivalent of US minimum wage of USD 15,080.

Click the image to enlarge

Source: FixR

With respect to India, the calculation considers the Government recommended minimum daily wage which is about USD 2.5. In practice, a common worker shall make double to three times of this amount, which is still very less compared to high cost regions but it would make the ratio less skewed. Further, if Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) is considered, the difference between USA and India costs shall be about 6 years and 3 months.

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Cheers! to Life

Cheers to Life!

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Goldman Sachs Under Siege (For Doing Good?)

FT point out:
- clueless senators falling over one another to score cheap political points but the sense that outrage against bankers in general, and Goldman in particular, has reached unhealthy levels.
- for millions of home owners and investors psychologically unable to admit at least partial fault for succumbing to the madness of crowds and lure of easy money.
- [an older client on the respect for the firm] 1982 when Puerto Rican nationalists bombed Merrill Lynch’s Manhattan headquarters. “Didn’t they know all the money and brains are at Goldman?”
And, finally,
- some even wonder whether the group’s perceived Jewishness has infected legitimate criticism of it with centuries-old prejudices.

• See also:
• Go here for the FT article.
• Go here for a follow up by TT Ram Mohan in ET.

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Fitts’s Law and Usability of Gmail

Fitt’s law (Simplified):

"Put commonly accessed UI elements on the edges of the screen. Because the cursor automatically stops at the edges, they will be easier to click on. [And then] Make clickable areas as large as you can. Larger targets are easier to click on."
The law is rather simple (or, one might argue, too simple to follow all the time). This is basic common sense. Human Interfaces of computer system typically are a subject matter of Fitts’s law.

A FEW YEARS AGO I HAD THE OPPORTUNITY to attend a workshop with Mr. Aaron Marcus. The veteran man is an industry expert on usability and the designer of the original Nokia cell phone’s user navigation system. Cell phones were a niche product in early 2000's and not much data was available to ascertain how users would react to such an operating system of such a hand-held device.

Mr. Marcus had a variety of ideas and principles to talk about at the workshop on the subject of Software systems and their usability aspects. He began his presentation with some of the photographs that he had captured in the fruits and vegetable markets of Africa. He argued that the rural ladies selling these goods were very less likely to have got primary education. However, looking at the grouping and arrangements of goods that they were selling – lemons, figs, chewing sticks and others – one could observe that all of it adhered to some of the basic though indigenous design patterns. The largest objects were kept at arm’s length; groups of smaller objects were kept at the centre; there was a hierarchy around freshness of the goods; and finally, the whole arrangement was then utilized in bargaining and negotiations. There may not be primary education, but there was some common sense.

Mr. Marcus argued that the same basic senses also drive ergonomic of products and systems.

More recently, a few days ago when Scott Adam smacked Google design team for their unintuitive and flawed design of their web-based emailing system Gmail, there was a lot of hue and cry from die-hard Google fans. Dilbert blog was swarmed with protesting comments, unthoughtful that they were in most cases.

Last week, Jeff Atwood picked up the similar thread and did an interesting study with illustrations by citing two examples from Gmail, and one from Facebook. The point is well made. The eject button is surprisingly lost in the woods of the so called Google Operating System. As one of the friends put it, to log onto Gmail after pubs on weekends is asking for trouble – the arrangements and margins between buttons leave no margin for error and your mailbox could be messed up pretty badly when you notice next morning.

A recent illustration by National Geographic Magazine argues that the success of Google Orkut social networking website in India and Brazil was primarily based on is simple design. While the larger user-base in these geographies use low bandwidth connectivity, it is also to be considered that these are non-native English speaking users where simpler layout of the website design shall work better. A lesson the rest of product team at Google may be overlooking.

Mr. Marcus had concluded that in the years to come, the primary selling point of products would be ‘emotional’ triggers and attachment towards that object. “I love this watch”, shall supersede form and function, utility and usability, value and cost of the watch. And that indeed is coming out to be true, for here we are, with Social Media, declaring our likes and dislikes and associating our choice of products around it.

• See also:
• Go here for the clomplete post: The Opposite of Fitt's law
• Go here for NGM survey of Social Media tools
• Go here some of the best Usability tools that employ eye-tracking for current rich media contents of Web 2.0
• Go here for a very interesting series by Smashing mag on Story-telling as User experience. Note that while there is no direct relation to Usability per say, it has the final inkling from the user's side.

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"The Right Thing To Do" - Harvard Lectures on Moral Philosophy

PROF. MICHAEL SANDEL OPENED HIS FAMOUS CLASS ON "JUSTICE" and Moral and Political Philosophy at Harvard University, USA, with the following (cautionary) address:

If you look at the syllabus, you would notice that we read a number of great and famous books. Books by Aristotle, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, and others. [...] We will read these books, and we will debate these [philosophical] issues, and we will see how each informs and illuminates the other [school of thought]. This may sound appealing and interesting enough, but here I have to issue a warning:

To read these books, in this way, as an exercise in self-knowledge, carries certain risks. Risks that are both personal and political. Risks that every student of Political Philosophy has known. These risks spring from the fact that philosophy teaches us, and unsettles us, by confronting us with what we already know. There is an irony: the difficulty of this course consists in the fact that it teaches what you already know. It works by taking what we know from familiar unquestioned settings, and making it strange. [...] Philosophy estranges us from the familiar, not by supplying new information, but by inviting and provoking a new way of seeing.

But, and here is the risk, once the familiar turns strange, it is never quite the same again. Self-knowledge is like lost innocence; however unsettling you find it, it can never be 'unthought' or 'unknown'. What makes this enterprise difficult, but also revetting, is that Moral and Political Philosophy is a story, and you don't know where the story would lead, but you do know that the story is about You. Those were the personal risks.

Now, about the political risks: one way of introducing a course like this is to promise you that by reading these books, and debating these issues, you would become a better, more responsible, citizen. You will examine the presuppositions of public policies, you will hone your political judgement, you will become a more effective participant in public affairs. But this would be a partial and misleading promise. Political Philosophy, for the most part, hasn't worked that way. You have to allow for the possibility that Political Philosophy may make you a worst citizen rather than a better one. Or at least, a worst citizen *before* it makes you a better one. And that is because philosophy is a distancing, even debilitating, activity. And you see this going back to Socrates [and his dialogue with his friend Callicles who tried to talk him out of philosophising]. [...] Philosophy distances us from conventions, from established assumptions, and settled beliefs. Those are the risks - personal and political.

And in the face of these risks, there is a characteristic evasion. The name of the evasion is skepticism  It's an ideal. [It goes something like this] we didn't resolve, once and for all, either the cases or the principles we were arguing about when we began [with the case studies]. And if Aristotle, Locke, Kant and Mill hasn't solved these questions after all these years, who are we to think that we can resolve them? So, maybe, its is just a matter of each person having his or her own set of principles, and there is nothing more to be said about it. No way of reasoning. That's the evasion of skepticism. To which I would offer the following reply:

It is true, these questions have been debated for a very long time. But the very fact that they have recurred and persisted may suggest that though they are impossible in one sense, they are unavoidable in another. And the reason they are unavoidable, the reason they are inescapable, is that we *live* some answers to this questions everyday. [...]

The aim of this course is to awaken the restlessness of reason, and to see where it might lead...

[Transcript-ed from the actual lecture. Emphasis added. Official transcript could not be resourced.]

Prof. Michael Sandel's class has commanded one of the highest enrollments at Harvard Business School of a thousand plus in a given semester at times. It is one of the most famous of all management classes at Harvard where Sandle is teaching since '80s after returning from Oxford, England. Recently, one such series of lectures was video-recorded and has been placed into (international) public domain [see details below] where one can virtually participate in the proceedings of Prof. Sandel's lectures. It is as much relevant as it is rewarding.

The foundation here is primarily of Western Philosophy. However, when one gets familier with the contents, it may emerge that many of the fundamental ideas debated by Utilitarianism with/against Categorical moral principles in these discussions have also been acknowledged, contemplated, and commented upon by eastern scholars at India's ancient established "Business-Political" schools such as Taxila. Folklore has it that (management) gurus like 'Chanakya' (sometimes, also 'Kautilya') of these times were entrusted with the mentorship of the princes. Where, arguably, Utilitarianism is more akin to Kutil-niti (Diplomacy) and Arthashastra (Economics). Categorical moral philosophy can be referenced with Chanakya's tactics on Raj-niti (Governance).

[Edit: P.S. A follow-up post may appear on this blog after studying the available lectures.]

• See also:
• Related post: Kantian ethics and the German case of torture
• Go here for more on Michael Sandel and his online classes at Harvard website.
• Go here for more on Utilitarianism, go here for Deontology, and here for Socratic dialogues.
• Go here for more on 'Chanakya'.

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The Purpose of Business

"EVERYONE LIVES BY SELLING SOMETHING." Robert Louis Stevenson, the Scottish traveller and writer, once concluded. In the knowledge industry of the modern era, the selling could be of — an idea, a change, an example (PoC), an influence, a model. The logical outcome of which is value creation. Which further translates into profit or benefits of various kinds at different levels of its hierarchy.

Peter Drucker had a different view. Creating profit didn't seem to him to be the main goal of an enterprise. While advocating for Not-for-profit organizations, Drucker observed that there are obvious limitations to making continuous profit-making business models. According to him, to be responsible and relevant in the society, a business model could make profit that is equal to its cost of capital. However, if the goal of the business model is to create a customer, that could possibly provide a sustainable model for existence of a business.

Taking this argument a notch further, FT columnist Michael Skapinker suggests that, like leaders and people, business indeed is in the business of gaining respect:

Some are lucky enough to fulfil the highest of Maslow’s [top need from his psychology theory of the hierarchy of needs], self-actualization, at work. All sorts of people find true fulfilment at work – software developers, recording artists, even auditors. But it is a lot to ask from a job. Others, perhaps most people, hope for work that is reasonably interesting, and indulge their true passions – singing, hiking, wine-tasting – on the weekends.

The best businesses are good at providing a sense of belonging. But belonging can be transient. Businesses succumb to competition and disappear. Or technological innovation makes them redundant. No doubt the photographic darkroom was a companionable place to work; so was a travel agency. There is less need for them now.

I suspect it is Maslow’s second highest need – respect – that people most crave from work: respect not just from their colleagues but from the world [...] and it gets us closer to what business is for: making profits and serving customers by doing something we can be proud of.

[Emphasis added.]

• See also:
• Go here for more on Maslow’s psychology theory of the hierarchy of needs.
• Go here for the full article at FT.

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Sach Is Life!

SACHIN RAMESH TENDULKAR of India scores the first ever double-ton in an One-Day International Cricket match against South Africa on Feb 24, 2010. He remained unbeaten.

"Sach Is Life"

Here are the statistics of the legendary 20 year career of the Master Blaster; here is a short biography; rest of it is Supremacy.

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"Jugaad" - More Than A Fad?

BusinessWeek RAN A STORY LAST MONTH that focused on "Jugadh" and termed it as the new mantra for innovation. Colleagues and clients not too familiar with the Indian culture tried seeking second opinions on the word. Observers commented on the topic from the world over. Some compared the term with Quality techniques such as Lean and Keizen - doing more, with less. Others saw it as the new Agile. Jugadh or Jugaad was considered by the Economist as the latest cost-cutting technique in Asia. WSJ wrote that Jughad is the primary reason why Indian economy remained insulated in the recent Global economic down-turn. Someone else commented that ISB at Hyderabad conducts special workshops to tool executives with Jugadh, also citing the inclusion of the term in the management consulting arsenal. The original title of the article looked at "Jugadh" as the next big export from India.

After due considerations and with due respect to all the views, "Jugadh" is a fad of a business model on the face of hard-core and global requirements for sustainability. To put is into the right perspective, it is rather unfair to model Jugadh either as a new form of innovation or as a path breaking and business changing technique.

The Hindi word Jugadh or Jugaad (de: जुगाड़) literally means a noun referring to an improvised or jury-rigged solution. Wiki traces the root of the term to the farmers of northern India employing indigenous ways to make use of the domestic small diesel engines for multi-purpose transport and similar make-shift usage. There are indigenous ideas like these which can be categorised as Jugadh, but they are by far a minority. In the broader sense of the practical life, however, Jugadh can be described as what Bear Grylls does on his reality TV show "Man vs. Wild" on the discovery channel: some cleaver survival tactics, a desperate measure but with some spin of intelligence, the basic human instinct of improvisation over the most rudimentary of the tools. That is Jugadh; a poor desperate man's innovation, where: Dependence on luck or accidental favours is too great; Against the rewards the risk is usually too high; And measurability, predictability, controllability and repeatability are too low. And it does not matter who opens a "Jugaad" office in Electronics City, in Bangalore.

I am not sure if Tata Nano is the right example of a Jugadh - it just happens to be one very cheap car from India. Neither it is fully agreeable that people in India are risk-averse - historically, India has one of the most risk taking trading and entrepreneur communities in the world. Likewise, considering Jugadh cleaver without appreciating the risks associated with it is but a mistake. A "Jugaadoo" arrangement - by its very application and circumstance, is only a temporary measure. A hope, if you may, largely thanks to Darwin, of doing better by using inherent human intelligence while the resources are scarce. And then, there are ethical issues when short-cuts and cutting of corners become integral parts of "Jugaad-ovative" solutions.

• See also:
• Related article: Santa's "Jugaad" over Euro tunnel project.
• Related article: Catch Phrases of Consulting.
• Image courtesy: outlookindia.com.

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HBR: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker

HISTORY'S GREAT ACHIEVERS - A NAPOLEON, A DA VINCI, A MOZART - have always managed themselves. That, in large measures, is what makes them great achievers. Addressing the knowledge workers in the new economy, Peter Drucker goes on to emphasize the needs for personal development, stating that they must, effectively, be their own chief executive officers in taking the responsibilities of developing their own careers; beginning by saying:

We live in an age of unprecedented opportunity: If you've got ambition and smarts, you can rise to the top of your chosen profession, regardless of where you start.

As the first of the series, the presentation that follows - within a max of 10 slides - captures the essence of Peter Drucker's legendary paper "Managing Oneself", which he published while stepping into the new century at the turn of the millennium.

Peter F Drucker - Managing Oneself

• See also:
• Go here for the full article at HBR website, and go here to try it out at Amazon
• Go here to download this presentation from slideshare.net

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Welcome 2k10

Happy New Year!

And

Welcome 2k10

PS:

1. And, by the way, 2010 = 1+2-(3-4-5)*6*7*8-9
2. Now that the hype is done and soberness returns, here is an interesting one on new year resolutions at The Economist. Here are some of the most anticipated Hollywood films in 2010.
3. Here is a nice graphic at NYT capturing the past decade, and here is a text version of 200X’s at Foreign Policy blog (apparently, both with a pinch of 'merican vanity).
4. Among technology predictions for 2010, here is one on "wisdom of crowd" at CTO blog.
   
5. For mindgap.in - There was this plan to do a three-part series on best of Peter Ducker over the holidays. While the first part was almost done around X'mas, turns out there were no holidays after all, and the plans were to be deferred. (Also, see point 2 above)
   

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"What would Peter do?" – A Tribute at Drucker Century

PETER F. DRUCKER WAS BORN IN AUSTRIA IN 1910, and would have completed a century this past Nov '09. It was celebrated all over by "Duckerites", among which one IIM professor said - if you have some time that you want to spend in a gainly manner then simply flip open any of Peter Drucker’s books and start reading. “Classic Drucker” was at an arm's length at that time and was worth giving a try. Apparently, the prof was right. What follows now is a brief intro before the main business.

Originally, an investment banker from London, Drucker was first published in German in 1930. He then went on to write 39 books on management and wrote editorial for WSJ for 20 years. At the height of the financial chaos, one WSJ issue carried his picture on the front page titled "What would Peter do?" – as if the question was being put to, if you may, a body of knowledge collectively known as Peter F. Drucker.

Drucker was also titled "the father of modern management". His writings have remained remarkably relevant up to and beyond Y2K era, at times touching daily life; his lessons in leadership and managing change offered a very fresh thinking; his passion towards non-profit organizations were of a true spirit; his “predictions” of corporate events such as fall of General Motors – which he actually helped build in 1950's, make him stand ahead of his time. Same as most of visionaries, perhaps. But if one is looking, there is a pattern to be found in Drucker’s digests – the advices pertain to the fundamentals, they encompass overall entropy of the system and urged to find solutions by referring to the organism’s inherent nature, and they were kept simple, brief and generic at times by cleaver wordplay.

What shall follow is a three-part series wherein some from Ducker's best of articles would be featured. A humble tribute [update] starting with Managing Oneself where Drucker sets goals, objectives and responsibilities for the Knowledge Worker.

• See also:
• Series article: Managing Oneself - by Peter Drucker

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Best Performing CEO's and Why MBA's Are Paid Higher

A HARVARD TEAM OF ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT consultants did a sampling of nearly 14 years covering 2000 Chief Executives of global companies listed by S&P. The sampling and tests were fairly exhaustive and unique, and presented a vivid picture of the Executive boardrooms that saw many major global economic events including the Y2K IT burst, Oil-price surge and dive, and 2007 economic down-turn, among others. Though the headline making "attribute" of the published list came out highlighting that the first three of top 5 best performing executives in the world do not have a formal degree in management. Three of the top five are connected to IT industry, and the other two are from petroleum and energy sector. Broadly, four out of 10 successful leaders in IT and six out 10 in energy sector do not possess such formal b-school education.

Overall, there are less than 30% of the top 50 listed chief executives having any formal management degree. The top 5 have total industry experience of about 30 years. And there doesn’t seem to be any trend suggesting that having an MBA correlates with (or compensates for) lesser industry experience.

Basis the media coverage of this HBR story, I did a small poll among peers of taking their opinions on the study, and one common question that I had for all was – what is the "special" expectation from a management grad from top management institutes. After all, this skill-set does command a certain premium over compensation and designation in the job market. Interestingly, alumni of these institutes could provide but a very sketchy and rather tentative reply. Whereas responses from non-MBA managers and professionals were found to be more thought-through.

As a personal point-of-view within the premise of making of an effective leader, the three key specialities in order of their importance that must be expected from these executive (management grads from primer institutes) are:

1. The ability to influence the work parameters
2. The ability to survive in and surpass non-conducive, and at times hostile, situations
3. The ability of effective and dynamic role-play and role-changes

Ability to Influence: Given the set of rules and roles, constraints and commitments, goals and objectives, the problem definition is analyzed. The ability to influence these problem statement parameters (and success thereof) is the value-add that the executive can bring to the table. Negotiators are high-influencers and negotiators are a sort after folks similar to these executives. This should not imply however that all executives should be negotiators; it is important though that most of the activities in addressing the problem definition would involve various levels of negotiations by the executive. It is also important to become an influencer before becoming a decision-maker.

Survive and surpass: The ability to survive in and surpass non-conducive and hostile situations directly correlates with the executive’s ability to stand-up and face challenges and adversities. Simply put, it is the attitude of the executive of not giving up and keep trying, and keep trying different things. (The expectation also arises from the fact that the executive has already surpassed trying conditions of cracking the entrance exams of premier institutes, and then has survived the onslaught of a tough curriculum.) The condition is the training. And the expectation is to have that training extended to the live working environment for the benefit of the project at hand.

Dynamic Role-play and "Seasoning": The top spot of the hierarchy is a summarization of all the roles beneath. A hands-on leader has a clear advantage over a theoretical one in practical situations. Organizations, by design or by default, provide opportunities of taking on various roles in varied capacities. "Seasoning" or Role Maturity is a parameter by which role change is judged, initiated and calibrated. It is also a very effective personal assessment tool by which the executive can identify personal strengths and work on weaker areas. While on one hand this ability is personality driven (where certain individuals may pursue a specific vertical growth is a defined area), versatility indeed is what separates successful top-spot holders from the rest.

• See also:
• Related article: NRN-Percepts of Being a Respectable Leader.
• Go here for the article at (new) HBR website.
• Go here for why Steve Ballmer of Microsoft might have missed any mention at all in the list.

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