Management

Hiring... What are the attributes you should be looking for?

2006-07-21T15:31:00.000-05:00

1. ATTITUDE
2. ATTITUDE
3. ATTITUDE

That is the most important thing in any team member.

How is business done?

2006-05-18T07:57:00.000-05:00

I got this today in email.:)

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Father : I want you to marry a girl of my choice
Son : "I will choose my own bride!"
*Father: "But the girl is Bill Gates's daughter."
*Son : "Well, in that case...ok"

*Next Father approaches Bill Gates.
*Father: "I have a husband for your daughter."
*Bill Gates: "But my daughter is too young to marry!"
*Father: "But this young man is a vice-president of theWorld Bank."
*Bill Gates: "Ah, in that case...ok"

*Finally Father goes to see the president of the WorldBank.
*Father: "I have a young man to be recommended as avice-president."
*President: "But I already have more vice- presidentsthan I need!"
*Father: "But this young man is Bill Gates'sson-in-law."
*President: "Ah, in that case...ok"

*This is how business is done!! *

Communication in Crisis

2006-05-15T14:54:00.000-05:00

In last 3-4 weeks I have heard/read a lot about importance of effective communication in crisis situation. Leadership is crisis is a different ball game all together. So here is what should be done.
1. Show your commitment as management
2. Show your resolve to handle the crisis
3. Show Efficacy
4. Maintain credibility
5. Show your responsibility towared the community.

One crisis situation that happened is with company called AWID. News broke that AWID RFID readers were not FCC compliant. This is a big thing. You are breaking law here by not following FCC requirements. I think the management at AWID has really managed the situation well.
1. They immediately replaced the CEO
2. Management acknowledged the problem and stopped all sales
3. Within 2 weeks they came back and lifted self imposed ban on few products which did not have issues
4. They gave commitment that they will look into other issues.

I think they have done a good job. Lets see how market reacts to all this.

Enjoy your coffee

2006-02-14T23:44:00.000-05:00

A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life. Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups - porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to hot coffee. When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: "If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups were taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is but normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups and were eyeing each other's cups. Now if life is coffee, then the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, but the quality of Life doesn't change. Some times, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee in it." So, don't let the cups drive you... enjoy the coffee instead. Have a great day!

Great Performance...

2006-01-16T13:16:00.000-05:00

Picture this:
It's the Friday night before Christmas in a large bookstore. The lines at the register are consistently 50 to 60 people deep, and have been all day.
The staff is tired, and the managers have been on a mandatory six-day workweek since November. All eight registers have been going nonstop for hours, when suddenly, at around 8 PM, the registers crash. Not freeze, not need rebooting, but completely shut down. All of them. At the same time!
With 60 people in line! Time to panic?

Ah... there's where great performance comes in.

Rebecca is the manager there, and she jumps into the emerging chaos.
Quickly one supervisor is on the phone paging the IT department, and Rebecca has a basket of candy and is moving down the restless line of customers, explaining what is happening, giving each person some candy, and assuring them that a solution will be found shortly. No one leaves the line.

Ten minutes later the IT department is trying to get the registers working again, and Rebecca is walking down the line with coffee, explaining to each customer how very sorry we are, what options they have (leaving their info and us shipping the items later, putting items on hold, etc.), and offering them coffee. 20 more people have joined the line. No one leaves the line.

Twenty minutes. IT is frantically bringing the computers back up, and Rebecca goes back down the line, this time with bottles of water and $5.00 gift certificates, good anytime, apologizing and letting the customers know we expect to be back online in the next 5 to 10 minutes. Four people leave the line - leaving their info with us so we can mail their purchases (free of charge) to them the next day.

Thirty minutes - the registers are finally back up. The line stretches to the back of the store with over 100 people waiting. Rebecca makes an announcement over the paging system, and a cheer goes up through the store!
Almost every employee is at the registers, ringing, bagging, and Rebecca is still going up the line, thanking everyone for hanging in there.

Registers were down for half an hour, on one of the busiest days of the year, and we still beat budget by over 20%. Why? Because Rebecca demonstrated all the qualities we look for - honest, sincere, friendly, knowledgeable, and most importantly - she brought it all together into professionally handling a daunting situation with grace. We didn't lose a single customer, and she got a letter from the CEO thanking her. The supervisors who were working that night all chipped in to treat her to dinner. I also received about 10 phone calls and 3 letters from customers complimenting her behavior.

Now that's what great performance looks like!

By Darlene Pineda

Nice Story...

2005-12-09T12:54:00.000-05:00

A Really Nice One. Don't Miss the Moral.Once PVNR (PV Narasimha Rao), L.K.Advani and LalooPrasad Yadav were ravelling in an autorickshaw.

They met with an accident and all three of them died.Yama Raja was waiting for this moment at the doorstepof death. He asks PVNR and Advani to go to HEAVEN.

But, for Laloo, Yama had already decided that he should be sent to HELL.Laloo is not at all happy with this decision.

He asks Yama as to why this discrimination is being made.
All the three of them had served the public.Similarly, all took bribes, all misused public positions, etc.

Then why the differential treatment? He felt that there should be a formal test or anobjective evaluation before a decision is made; and should not be just ased on opinion or pre conceived notions.

Yama agrees to this and asks all the three of them toappear for an Englishtest.
PVNR is asked to spell "INDIA" and he does itcorrectly.
Advani is asked to spell "ENGLAND" and he too passes.
It is Laloo's turn and he is asked to spell"CZECHOSLOVAKIA".Laloo protests that he doesn't know English. He says this is not fair andthat he was given a tough question and thus forced to fail with false intent.

Yama then agrees to conduct a written test in Hindi(to give another chance assuming that Laloo should at least feel that Hindiwould provide an equal platform for all three).
PVNR is asked to write "KUTTA BOLA BHOW BHOW". He writes it easily and passes.
Advani is asked to write "BILLY BOLI MYAUN MYAUN". Hetoo passes.
Laloo is asked to write "BANDAR BOLA GURRRRRR....."Tough one. He fails again.

Laloo is extremely unhappy. Having been a student ofhistory (which the other two weren't),
he now requested for all the 3 to be subjected to a test in historyYama says OK but this would be the last chance andthat he would not takeany more tests.
PVNR is asked: "When did India get Independence?". He replied "1947" and passed.
Advani is asked "How many people died during the independence struggle?".He gets nervous.
Yama asked him to choose from 3 options: 100,000 or 200,000 or 300,000.
Advani catches it and says 200,000 and passes.
It's Laloo's turn now. Yama asks him to give the Name and Address of each of the 200,000 who died in the struggle. Laloo accepts defeat and agrees to go to HELL.

Moral of the story : IF YOUR MANAGEMENT HAS DECIDED TO SCREW YOU, THERE IS NO ESCAPE.

People First...

2005-11-29T09:37:00.000-05:00

"We spend all of our time on people. The day we screw up the people thing, the company's over"

-Jack Welch, former chairman of General Electric

Outside--In is always better.

2005-10-18T13:08:00.000-05:00

You should always look at a problem from outside in and never inside out... This is true for any problem any strategy anything we do.... Your external interfaces should define ur internal structure not the other way around. You will always hit a road block if u take inside out approach.

Vision

2005-08-31T07:48:00.000-05:00

Vision without action is daydream
and action without vision is nightmare...

From A Friend...

Leadership Quotes..

2005-08-10T08:19:00.000-05:00

A leader is a dealer in hope.
~ Napoleon Bonaparte

management

Leadership Quotes..

2005-08-09T08:56:00.000-05:00

Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.
~ Dwight Eisenhower

management

Leadership Quotes..

2005-08-08T19:11:00.000-05:00

Don't tell people how to do things,
tell them what to do and
let them surprise you with their results.

~ George S. Patton

management

Leadership Quotes..

2005-08-07T21:01:00.000-05:00

Management is doing things right;
leadership is doing the right things.
~ Peter F. Drucker

management

Good Leadership...

2005-08-03T15:50:00.000-05:00

Good Leadership is not about how popular you are it is about how the result you show. So being good to everyone does not do any good. Make sure you can get the work done also...

management

Oppurtunity Cost...

2005-07-31T00:32:00.000-05:00

Most important analysis a manager has to do is that of oppurtunity cost. How much is the value of x$ if you invest it today compared to keeping it in Bank and not doing anything with it.. If you spend 1000$ and have chance to get a business of 100000$ it is more important to spend it rather than preserve it and loose its current value also...

Everyone should be in business to Earn Money

2005-07-27T15:53:00.000-05:00

Everyone running a business should be doing so to earn money. Only thing is never forget your ethics. Finally money is not everything you also need a good night of sleep.:)

Sell Dreams but never try to implement them...

2005-07-26T14:08:00.000-05:00

Job of marketing is to sell dreams to the customers but never ever try to implement all the dreams as finally dreams are dreams....:)

Time is priceless...

2005-07-25T20:45:00.000-05:00

Time is priceless. Always treasure it. Worst thing you can do is be late for a meeting...

Importance of Clear Org/Reporting Structure

2005-07-22T08:06:00.000-05:00

Clear Reporting/Organizational structure is key to success of a business. Lack of clarity creates total chaos in the organization and reduces accountibility. U never want company CEO questioning a developer about what he/she is doing...:)

Indecisiveness is frustrating...

2005-07-21T19:16:00.000-05:00

The worst thing a manager can ever do is not make decisions. You have to take decision, right or wrong... Managers are hiried to make decision and convey them to there subordinates...

Importance of Project Manager

2005-07-20T15:15:00.000-05:00

There is a reason why project managers are so important in any project especially consulting projects. You never want your development team to face the customers. You need a shield for them. I have been in a situation where my PM resigned and I had to interact directly with the customer and I had to face all the heat. It is too stressful. Development team is always under pressure to deliver stuff on time and the kind of stress you have from customer is totally different by differentiate the role and people you actually divide the stress by two and you could buy time in situations where things really gets heated up. If you don’t have PM, be prepared for some really stressed out developers….:)J

Usage of Terminology is key...

2005-07-19T01:28:00.000-05:00

For an organization to grow it is a must to use Professional Definitions as defined by the Body of knowledge either in Project Management or Quality or SDLC.

BS

Work for your Employees

2005-07-18T19:14:00.000-05:00

Good Manager works for his employees. He protects them from any external influence and stands by them under any circumstances. If he does that his employees will automatically do anything he wants them too.

Never give and take away...

2005-07-17T15:41:00.000-05:00

Never ever give your employees something and then take it away. It could be as simple as snacks in office break room to as big as a bonus at the year end. Never ever give something and take away. It causes a lot of disturbance in the organization. Again this is related to trust. People will loose trust in u.

Never Over Commit...

2005-07-16T19:44:00.000-05:00

Never over commit to your employees. Never commit something you can't stand by. There are lot of times people over commit at the time of making an offer to new employees or just before a new project is started. But if you cannot stand by what you committed your employees will loose trust in you and finally you will loose more than what you gained...

Most important asset...

2005-07-15T03:46:00.000-05:00

Most important assets in a software company are the employees. Nothing is more valuable in a software company than the employees and there knowledge. Treasure them. In other sectors people are easily replacable. In Software companies it is just too difficult to get a perfect replacement.

Have right people with you

2005-07-13T18:22:00.000-05:00

Most important decision a management can make is to hire right guys for right positions. Management should never hire friends and family in the company. It is difficult to manage them and they always become a liablity in the long run. It is difficult to question family and friends in business. Which is most important thing to run a business effeciantly.

Trust...

2005-07-13T05:43:00.000-05:00

Trust is foundation for any relationship. Relation between an employee
and employer or employee and his manager is no different. If the trust
between them is lost nothing else is going to save the day. It takes a
life time to gain trust and just 1 wrong decision/move to break it. So
think before u act... Enjoy...

First Rule...Stop Micromanagement

2005-07-12T21:29:00.000-05:00

Stop Micromanagement. Micromanagement is one of the biggest problems in the industry currently. Whenever you start feeling there is less time and more work. You are micromanaging stop it. You will do a favour on urself and ur company. I have seen so many managers micro managing stuff you will not believe. Ability to trust people to do the assigned task is very important to be a good manager. :) Enjoy...