You are currently browsing the monthly archive for February 2007.
Here is a great post on managerial tips, from Business Intelligence Lowdown blog.
Just a curiosity – Which 3 tips you find most important?
1. What goes around comes around [Treat your employees, peers and superiors with respect, from the lowest janitor to the CEO of the company]
2. Basic humaneness pays
3. Know your employees
4. Bring out their hidden potentialon
6. Equality among all
7. Don’t be a Jack-of-all-trades
8. Match the right job to the right person
9. Delineate responsibility
10. Trust your employees
11. Pay them well
12. Reward exceptional performances
13. Praise in public, punish in private
14. Loudness does not help
15. Personalization is the key
16. Lend a ear
17. Make them feel they count
18. Family matters
19. Constructive criticism works
20. Be a mentor
21. Don’t hold too tight
22. Flattery will get you nowhere
23. Ask and you will receive
24. Mistakes happen
25. Give credit where it’s due
26. Group dynamics
27. Feedback matters
28. Share misfortune
29. It’s a diverse world
30. Show interest
31. Allow them to complain
32. Different people, different styles
33. No technology needed
34. Equal work, equal pay
35. Judge not
36. No tattletales wanted
37. Time flies
38. Disseminate information
39. Keep your distance
40. No “I” only “We”
Work out work and vacation issues…
41. Do not overburden them with work
42. Vacations are personal
43. Keep the office at the office
44. Avoid last-minute tasks
If you are male…
45. No adult humor
46. Accord respect
47. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus:
If you are female…
48. No false pretenses
49. Clothes maketh the (wo)man
There’s always room for personal improvement…
50. Be the best
51. Manage your time
52. Ethics matter
53. Be proactive, not reactive
54. Admit your mistakes
55. Rudeness does not pay
56. Neither does arrogance
57. Waste not, want not
58. Humor works
59. Focus, focus, focus
60. Avoid the office grapevine
61. Be one of the gang
62. Take love out of the air
63. Watch what you do
64. Don’t suck up
65. Practice what you preach
66. Look and learn
67. Stand firm on your beliefs
68. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again
69. Stay firm on terra firma
70. Be approachable
71. Forgive and forget
72. Wisdom pays
73. Be there
Are Japanese the greatest pranksters? Watch out the social behaviour aspects of the prank. The prank forces a single person to follow a mob blindly, without resorting to rational judgement. Great prank.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KXviPd0fRA]
0 is the additive identity.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
I remember reading a book titled ‘Power of Thinking Big’ by Anthony Robins (or someone with a similar name). It explained in a very lucid manner that anybody could really become anybody only if he dared to think big. There were stories, similies and examples – a lot of them. I was impressed by the book to the point of euphoria. I was feeling that I am the next Lincoln (or Nepolian!). But in 2 days life was as usual for me. I then came across a number of such books; I read them with a lot of hope, and each time I was at my optimistic high regarding my future. I would think that ‘Yeah! Look at this. This was the thing I needed to change my future.’
But in vain.
Now the question is – ‘Does this genre of ‘Self-Help books really matter? Do these books really help us in anyway to improve ourselves and our lives?’
What do you think?
A British economist calls for urgent, sweeping action. Some Americans call him alarmist. Who is right? Read this intellectually refreshing debate over Climate Change from NY Times.
Solutions in case of social & environmental problems are often too simplistic – no matter, how deliberately they are planned. When policy-makers start with a wrong solution, they do the deliberations for a wrong solution. And the ‘deliberately planned wrong’ solution fails obviously.
Case in oint is a Tire-reef which was ‘planned’ near an American beach, and which now is turning out to be an environmental disaster. None of intended benefits accrued & a lot of unintended, unanticipated damages are piling up.
Read this story in USA Today.
“A mile offshore from this city’s high-rise condos and spring-break bars lie as many as 2 million old tires, strewn across the ocean floor — a white-walled, steel-belted monument to good intentions gone awry.
The tires were unloaded there in 1972 to create an artificial reef that could attract a rich variety of marine life, and to free up space in clogged landfills. But decades later, the idea has proved a huge ecological blunder.”
The lesson for all decision makers, from this blunder, is – If you have found a right solution, still strive for one more, and one more. Now chose the best. (For, life is too complex to anticipate everything.)
Unless the development is inclusive, unless the process of development cuts through all sections & areas of India – the rise of India will not be sustainable. Since the development today is essentially a technology propelled development, it is necessary that the IT-Telecom benefits must spread to rural India. Prof. Jhunjhunwala talks on the rural transformation to my favorite podcaster, Kamla Bhatt. [from PodTech.net]
[podtech content=http://media1.podtech.net/media/2007/01/PID_010065/Podtech_Ashok_KamlaBhatt.mp3&postURL=http://www.podtech.net/indiatech/technology/1321/it-and-telecom-bring-a-transformation-in-rural-india&totalTime=1736000&breadcrumb=3F34K2L1]
Reality Is A Farce... 