Using Experts

This afternoon I spent almost 3 hours trying to fix a problem in my camera. Suddenly my dad remembered the tech-genius in his office and called him up. I explained him my problem, he gave me instructions over the phone and tadaa - problem solved! The problem I couldn't solve in 3 hours (sometimes I tried doing the same thing over and over again) was solved in less than 3 minutes by an expert without even looking at the device. If I had consulted him in the first place, then I'd not just have saved 3 hours of my day but also would have saved the additional stress and frustration. We cannot do everything on our own. Even if we try to then we can't be an expert at everything. Some people...

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Leaders Without Title

They treat you with respect. They keep their promises. They're firm yet flexible. They keep hold of their temper. They appreciate what's good and look for ways to improve the bad. They're punctual, organized and fair. They work with sincere dedication. They're continuously striving for excellence and efficiency. You might question their results but they leave no room for questioning their efforts. They meet deadlines and makes sure you do too. They don't waste their time in gossip and personal melodrama. While they work with passion, they have a cool detachment from their jobs. It is because they know how to draw a fine line between what's personal and professional. They can stay calm even...

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SWOT Analysis for Career Choice

SWOT Analysis is a popular term in management. It is a technique used to identify the internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats of a business. The SWOT analysis commonly helps an organization to devise appropriate strategies in order to capitalize its strengths, eliminate its weaknesses, utilize the opportunities and overcome the threats. This same technique can be a very valuable tool for individuals for making important career decisions. An individual will first have to make an internal evaluation of oneself so as to identify one's strengths and weaknesses. In this process, he/she can also find out his/her likes and dislikes. This is important because...

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How important is winning?

I judged an interesting competition today. There were two teams in the competition – one team had one player and the other team had two. The one-man team had an average guy. In the team of two players, there was one player who was outstanding but the other one was a letdown. At the end, the winner was the average guy. If he had competed only with the outstanding one, he would have surely lost. The weak link in the other team acted to his advantage. This got me thinking – if you had to choose between winning and taking chances then what would you choose? The fact that the weak player had the courage to try is commendable in itself. It is a noble deed to support someone who wishes to improve....

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Policies and Flexibility

I've seen organizations operate in the following two extremes: 1. Has a set of strict policies but no room for the slightest flexibility. 2. Has no policies and thus operates in ambiguity. The question is: "Which of the two is better?" Buddhism talks about taking the middle road. Have nothing in extreme but everything in moderation. Thus, following the Buddhist philosophy and drawing from my own experiences, I can tell you for sure that neither of the two is better. While it's important for an organization to have it's set of policies, there also needs to be room for some flexibility. Therefore, the wise and efficient way is to take the middle road. An organization operating only...

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Importance of Job Description

You might have heard the famous story of Everybody, Somebody, Anybody and Nobody. This is how the story goes: "An important job had to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought that Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when nobody did what Anybody could have done." Do you realize what was the underlying problem in this story? Well, there was no job description! Job description defines a list of tasks an individual is supposed to undertake as a part of his/her job. It...

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A new journey begins!

I've been writing for the past 10+ months in my blog My Voice. My Voice is basically my personal blog where I write about positivity, personal growth, life lessons and whats obvious in my journey of life. However, having been a management student and internalizing my recent encounters with people who don't understand the value of management and who seem to lack heavily in this area, I'm encouraged me to start this blog - The Management Blog. In this blog, I'll basically be writing about all areas of management. The articles will be about a wide variety of topics like planning, team building, motivating, human resource management, organizational policies, leadership, training and development...

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