The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig

Great ideas, specific articulations of them and the books which present them transcend genres. The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig who is a professor of strategy and international management at IMD, Switzerland will most probably, be always found in the business section of the bookstores around the world. It just shouldn’t shouldn’t be so as it is a book which is as genre crossing as any, which should be read by many more than the people who would browse that section and is one which will surely be judged as one of the most important business books ever written. Read full story »

Through Netaland to Tiger Riders – Some (more) truths from Satyam II

The Satyam episode is over, and well too. The government and the populace couldn’t have hoped for a better ending, with the farce of needing to ‘nationalize’ Satyam if no bidder other than some carcass eating Private Equity funds turned up to take it over thankfully avoided. Barring some class action lawsuits or some past acquisitions that Satyam made blowing up on Tech Mahindra, Satyam has moved away from the front pages – except for when we hear about Raju’s sentence. And the pace of our judicial process ensures that the Ramalinga Raju episode will drag on for much longer. It also seems that the government appointed directors are on their way out after doing a sterling job.

So, as good a time for the second and final part of the post-mortem. Read full story »

From the Professors to The Sidekicks – Some Truths from Satyam I

So what happened at Satyam? This will be a two part series trying to bring in some perspective – now that the big picture has by and large emerged and the media cacophony has died down, its a good time to try to make some sense out of the sordid Satyam scandal. Rather than the chronology of events, looking at the people who played the lead roles in the plot perhaps more enlightening and indeed, more interesting. Read full story »

On Leadership

Once, an assumption was that any leader was an industrial manager. He had to assemble a bunch of specialists, show them the ‘vision’, tell them what they have to do and then ‘manage them by objectives’.

Find the numbers. Show and use carrots and sticks on the ‘worker’.

…..my argument is – this is incorrect . Read the rest of the essay to find whether you agree. Read full story »

Organization Model in Indian IT Service Companies

Guest post by Indu
I currently work for a large Indian IT services company which follows a ‘role based organization model‘ for human resource management. The term now used in the industry is ‘talent management‘ since that sounds more executive.
I was happy to participate in a recent HR (Human Resources) Department survey on the topic.  I … Read full story »