Categories
humour Management

Conference Calls in Real life

For all those who attend conference calls in real life, this would just ring through. A hilarious parody on conference calls.

(via Rands)

Categories
innovation leadership Management

Richard Branson: Life at 30000ft

Fantastic interview with Richard Branson at TED – Monterey. The humility of the man blows me away.

My biggest takeaway quote from this:

Genuinely, if I bought something or had a particularly bad service in something that I did, I would go and do something myself to fix the problem. Like the time, I flew an airline, and I got really bad customer service, and Virgin Atlantic was born.

Categories
leadership Management

Seth Godin on “Leaders vs Managers”

I have always been a great fan of Seth Godin. Awesome ideas. Straight forward. Talks from the gut. Passionate.In this short pitch, he talks about how different management and leadership is.

seth

Watch the video by clicking on the below link. (Embed permissions are restricted by the owners).

Exclusive interview with Seth Godin from Leadercast on Vimeo.

(via MichaelHyatt.com)

(image courtesy: screen grab from above interview)

Categories
leadership Management

Three things you should never say – if you want to get promoted

Great advice in this LinkedIn Influencer article from Jennifer Dulski.

Never say:

  1. “That’s not my job.”
  2. “That wasn’t my fault.”
  3. “That isn’t going to work.”

Read the full article here.

Categories
Management

Jonathan Rosenberg: Rules to Success

Fantastic talk and very inspiring.

Categories
Management software technology

10 things you should never put in your resume

Disclaimer: This list applies only to resumes that you send to technology companies.

  1. No Superlative adjectives about your capabilities. No “superior knowledge of OOD”, or “exemplary customer orientation”. This sets a very high expectation, and even a very small flaw in your interview or phone screen, can make your resume look inaccurate.
  2. Do not convert educational grading systems. If you are in India, and your university marks were in %, put it that way. No need to convert to 4.0 system. If you were in IIT, there is no need to convert to a percentile system. You are just confusing the reader.
  3. Do not put in qualities that you are expected to have as part of any job. Example – “Been an integral part of every team I have been in.” This is understood.
  4. No jargon and defenitely no abbreviations. I do not know what SCCM protocol is, if I am not in the same industry.
  5. Defenitely no fluff. Put in only things that you know. If you have have cursory knowledge say so. I actually appreciate that more. I like resumes which say “Expert knowledge in foo; working knowledge of foo2; and cursory knowledge of foo3.” This makes me believe in you.
  6. Do not make me search for vital information. The first page should have everything that I need to know. If I am interested, I would need to flip the page.
  7. Please dont end the resume with Date of birth, Marital Status, Mother Tongue, and finally a statement stating all of the above is true to the best of your knowledge. This may be required for a Govt job, but not in an IT company.
  8. No photos. No clipart. No images.
  9. Do not put in too many fancy fonts. I like an uniform font through the resume. And no fancy fonts. Plain Arial, Times New Roman, Calibri/Cambria. Font size atleast 10 point.
  10. No references to internal technology and algorithms. This makes me wary of how well you respect your Intellectual Property of your current company. If you are loose there, so will you be in my company if I hire you.

Disclaimer2: The opinions in this blog post are strictly mine and have no relation to that of my employer.

Categories
Management Opinion productivity

Delegating vs MicroManaging

Just read a great post by Steven Sinovsky in his “Learning by Shipping” blog, which he started, just after he left MS. This is one of his few rare concise posts. He has a ton of experience and fantastic in-depth into software management, but some of his posts just run too long. I liked this one.

The problem is clearly stated in the words of a first year MBA student:

High-performing people generally want autonomy to get things done without anyone micromanaging them.  At the same time, as a midlevel manager, I’ve often had someone above me who’s holding me accountable for whatever my direct reports are working on.

I’m struggling to find the right balance between giving people their autonomy while also asking sufficient questions to get the detail I need in order to feel comfortable with how things are going. 

And Steve provides 5 tips to find the right balance between delegating vs micro-managing.

  1. Delegate the problem, don’t solve it.
  2. Share experiences, don’t instruct.
  3. Listen to progress, don’t review it.
  4. Provide feedback, don’t course correct.
  5. Communicate serendipitously, don’t impede progress.

I mostly agree with all of them. My favourites (which I try and practice as much as possible) are (2) and (5). I am a big believer in Management by Walking Around (for middle managers atleast). It is so much more productive for the manager and the team.

Maybe sometime later, I will write up something myself on what I feel one can do to find the middle ground. But for now, you can read the full article here.

Categories
design history Management

Cadillac’s Comeback

cadillac

We did this as a case-study when I did an Engineering Management class at University. This Co.Design article captures beautifully the rise to the top of Cadillac, and how it fell during bad times, and how since 2000 they have slowly crawled back. If you have driven sedans in the US, and if you have ever driven a Cadillac, you would know the difference in driving a Caddy and the rest. The luxury is very evident.

Read the Co.Design article here.

(pic courtesy the same Co.Design article above)

Categories
Management technology

Huawei ‘considering’ Nokia acquisition

This should be interesting. Huawei is number 3 in the Chinese volume handset market. The news article says that Nokia is still mum on the subject. Stefen Elof (CEO of Nokia) is still sticking to his Windows Phone Bet (quite obviously – he was a VP in MS before he became CEO of Nokia).

Read the ZDNET article here.

Categories
Management misc

New version of Turtle and Rabbit Story

An adaption of the old Turtle and Rabbit story to today’s scenarios. Describes the importance of joining core competencies and teaming. Watch and enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXTeFa43730