Employers Federation of Southern India, Andhra Pradesh's Newsletter,  July-September 2009

Excerpts

"Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?"  Source: www.101zenstories.com

...While the effort to improve operations and delegate the supervision of this is still on,  promoters and senior managers need to start working on appreciating the ‘context’ within which the operational ‘content’ is processed. In other words, there is a need for recognizing the Big Picture  (Context) from the patterns of opportunities and challenges that are emerging in the economy, within which the operational Small Details  (Content) are accomplished. This ability to see the Big Picture and Small Details, is a critical skill that enables find opportunities for growth of revenues and profits for the business, and is enabled through being able to switch between ‘Context’ and ‘Content’ at will.

This BPSD skill then is the basis for being able/ Enhancing Competitiveness of the business while recognizing and using its Core Competences...

The complexity of stimuli that we process in our minds, both external and internal, requires us to build useful mental models that enable us to move forward. Older mental models have to give way to newer ones, to enable survival and growth in a new era.

It is when we are ready to accept that mental models can change (like Nan-in’s cup), that we can work towards building useful, newer mental models, which can significantly enhance business growth. And this  only possible when we are willing to let go of ‘operations’, become ‘aware’, and use the time thus made available to ‘sense’ and develop useful newer mental models (which are the forbears of successful business models).

Employers Federation of Southern India, Andhra Pradesh's Newsletter, April-June 2009

Excerpts

"A blow is never hit at a mark. It is driven through a mark.  Follow-through is just as important in fighting as it is in any other sport and it can only be obtained by punching through and beyond the point of attack."  ‘Jeet  Kune Do’, Volume Three, Bruce Lee, Page 210, Edited by John Little (Tuttle, 1997)...

Broad three fold message:

1. “Recent times have seen a lot of flux, in the ‘outside organization’ realm. Businesses have seen this ‘change’ as a threat and an opportunity. However one looks at it, the world has now changed forever.”
2. “Learning to cope and address such an attractive challenge … is enhanced by the ability to ‘think through’.”
3.  Thinking through first requires finding new ways of accomplishing existing work (primarily in operations area) through delegation and transfer of knowledge to ‘professionals’. Second, it requires being able to become aware of shifting patterns of opportunities for benefiting the business, from within the organization and outside it. Thirdly, it requires the people at the helm of affairs to be able to look outside the organization for lessons, opportunities and challenges...

Learning to ‘think through’ endows business organizations and their promoters/ founders to successfully ‘follow through’ (a la Bruce Lee)  in their initiatives for broadening and scaling up products and services, through the necessary professionalization and successfully leveraging the consequent requisites of systems development, structural design and organizational culture that emerge, while retaining their overall control of their enterprise.

Employers Federation of Southern India, Andhra Pradesh's Newsletter,  April -June 2008

Excerpts 

...In the last few decades, the world over, managers and what they do/practice, has come to be considered as the elixir that organizations need to survive and grow. Performing managers are ones who are able to ‘enterprise-manage-lead’; with emphasis of course on ‘manage’.

While ‘enterprise’ is an act of commitment and assuming risk, that of ‘management’ is of effectiveness, and that of ‘leadership’, of constructive, collective action.

This leads to the question, so who is a manager and what does s/he do?

According to me, a manager is a person who works to achieve a desired outcome, individually or collectively, first effectively and then consistently, reliably, speedily; all the while building in quality, excellence, efficiency, in a thorough, thought-through manner.

A manager’s essential role is therefore: to take initiative; to take actions, that will result in possibility of utilizing a potential benefit that will become available, when the desired outcome is achieved.

A manager’s focus is therefore, three fold:

• To identify the emerging pattern of opportunities,
• To structure resources and organize them to leverage opportunities, present and future
• To engage in specific tasks to achieve desired outcomes, in the desired manner.

In smaller firms, one manager may oversee all three aspects of this work. In bigger organizations, these responsibilities are divided amongst three levels of management, senior-middle-frontline managers, in an overlapping manner...

Building the Managerial Pool
Managers normally are hired from outside or grown from within the organization. While those hired from outside, are management graduates or performers in other organizations, the need to have a conscious, graded, open-ended managerial development program within an organization is necessary.

A good managerial development program within an organization would be able to begin a dialogue with its prospective managers on:

• The Organizational Context with emphasis on the culture, vision and values
• The Business Context with emphasis on Effectiveness, Business Model and Structure.
• The Personal Context with emphasis on need to continuously learn, align and make efforts...