30 Monday Jun 2008
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To move away from the large corporation you founded and nurtured over the years to a future in philantrophy is a challenge that very few people would choose to take. Yet, one of the biggest names in business has just done so. He is William Henry Gates III, known the world over simply as Bill Gates, CEO of Microsoft and estimated to be the third richest person in the world.
29 Sunday Jun 2008
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In a recent conversation, an employee complained bitterly to me about how frustrated he was in an organisation he had joined with a lot of enthusiasm- a little less than a year ago. He mentioned that in reality that organisation was very, very different from the one he imagined it to be. He regretted having given up his previous job and was already looking out frantically for a change.
28 Saturday Jun 2008
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Thanks to Marci Alboher’s Shifting Careers blog in the New York Times, I came across Venkat Rao’s Ribbonfarm.com. I liked the simple yet very effective drawings that Venkat puts up to illustrate his points. The one regarding the evolution of work-life patterns is worth seeing.
I guess the extent to which we allow either the “work” aspects or the “life” aspects to dominate our lives is really left up to us. I say so because the mythical balance can come about only through making the right choices to meet our needs. I realize too that this balance changes dynamically at different stages of our career/life. What was awfully important to me 25 years ago, doesn’t seem to be a major draw just now. Likewise, what I looked at with scorn 25 years ago is, I am afraid, becoming awfully important to me now.
Like I hope to do, plan to visit Ribbonfarm.com from time to time to catch up with Venkat’s thoughts….and drawings.
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This is Post No: 208 of the “A Step A Day” series : To provide perspective and provoke thought to facilitate self-development across a wide spectrum of issues- big and small- crucial for executive success
27 Friday Jun 2008
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To many of us who grew up in the first thirty years of India’s independence, Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw was a major hero. We mourn his passing away at the ripe old age of 94. He was the Chief of Army Staff during the Indo-Pak War of 1971 and led India to its greatest military victory after Independence. This war resulted in the creation of a new nation- Bangla Desh.
26 Thursday Jun 2008
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For an economy to develop, one would expect employment to grow not just in the larger cities but in smaller towns as well. A constraint in many big cities has been the scarcity of skilled people- across different types of jobs. Some organisations have taken the plunge by going to smaller towns and opening up employment opportunities – not just for the men there but for women as well. Continue reading
25 Wednesday Jun 2008
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To millions of us in India, quite possibly the biggest event in international cricket was India’s winning the Prudential World Cup at Lord’s, June 25, 1983. Exactly 25 years later, we still remember that historic photo of Kapil Dev holding aloft the World Cup.
Today the whole country rejoices at that feat. We look back with great pride at an event which clearly shaped the future of Indian cricket.
24 Tuesday Jun 2008
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In most organisations today, management teams keep harping on the need to constantly innovate. People who come out with innovative ideas are sought after and amply rewarded. To me, innovation does not only mean creating a product no one has ever thought of before. It often is meeting a real need of customers by thinking through their problems and coming out with a neat solution.
23 Monday Jun 2008
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For the typical office goer in the bustling city of Mumbai, (population: about 13 million) there are two life lines. One is the railway system which gets them to their office and back. The other is the dabbawalla. The guy who brings you your lunch- even if your house is many miles away. The figures speak for themselves. 5,000 dabbawallas deliver around 200,000 tiffin ( lunch) boxes to hungry office goers every day- come rain or sunshine. These have to be returned to their homes immediately which means a total of 400,000 transactions every single day – with scarcely a mistake.
22 Sunday Jun 2008
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We remember with pride how India won the Prudential World Cup by beating the mighty West Indies on June 25, 1983 – 25 years ago. Kapil Dev‘ s team were amongst the least fancied to win the tournament. Our performances in the previous World Cups in 1975 and 1979 had been nothing to write home about. The odds offered for India winning the championship were 66:1.
21 Saturday Jun 2008
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The newspapers are full of it. The TV channels are showing nothing else. I speak of inflation which is hitting the Indian economy. Here are more details of inflation and what it means. Inflation, in India, reports proclaim is at its highest in the last 13 years!
Earlier estimates that it would stabilize around 7.5 % – 8 % have been tossed out of the window. It looks like inflation has zoomed to be in the region of 11.0 to 11.5 %.
I find from NDTV Profit that pundits predict that It is likely to stay that way for the next few months. One expert said that the earliest things may improve could well be March 2009 – that’s about 10 months away.
How do we brace ourselves to meet the increasing costs and the reduced purchasing power of our rupee? Here are my 7 Steps to Counter Inflation:
People at Work & Play 