Team Harbinger

Create Your Own Success Stories

noreply@blogger.com (swati sudhakar) — Mon, 09 Mar 2015 07:13:00 +0000

The week of March 8th is abuzz with many organizations celebrating and conducting activities to celebrate the International Women’s Day. At a recently conducted National HRD Network (NHRDN) Pune event, Ms. Swati Ketkar, Co- Founder and Executive Director Harbinger Systems was invited as a speaker. The theme this year was, women entrepreneurs – the journey behind the success and what organizations are doing to facilitate women returning from a long break. The event had representation from across the industry, Ms. Sharmila Bhide, Co- Founder Calsoft, Ms. Dnyan Shah - SVP Business Head, Mphasis and Ms. Anita Panakkal Vice President,Human Resources Alfa Laval were some of the other speakers.

Swati spoke about her entrepreneurial journey.

It all looks very easy when one has reached the top, and as Swati spoke of her entrepreneurial journey and shared anecdotes of her initial days on how Harbinger Group was set up, I could only think of one thing “It takes 20 years of hard work to become an overnight success.”

As Swati shared her experiences with the packed audience from the HR fraternity, she spoke about how innovation, passion, leadership and alignment with the values of the company helped her a lot in making Harbinger a 600 people strong company that we are today. Out of this 37% of Harbingers are women.

As she closed her presentation, Swati shared some thoughts for all ladies present in the room.

Believe in yourself
Don’t underestimate your own abilities
Don’t hold back always
Don’t be afraid of failure
Make a difference
Create your own success stories

Harbinger Group strongly believes in gender inclusivity and diversity. Over the years we have gone back to the drawing board on many occasions to ensure that ladies are able to maintain a healthy work-life balance.

Fifty percent of the board members and forty percent of the top management at Harbinger are ladies. This is undeniably higher than the industry average.

Just policies are not enough to draw and engage talent at any company, that is a given. One needs to feel that they are adding value, that there is someone who is willing to listen to them.

In continuation with what Swati very strongly believes in, “Create Your Own Success Stories”, she has initiated “Dialogue with Women” where she meets groups of Harbinger ladies every month to mentor, motivate and listen to their success stories and help them to create their own success stories!

Celebrating Women's Day at Harbinger every day, by creating our own success stories!

Managing Strategic Knowledge

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 13:03:00 +0000

Two knowledge management researchers present a strikingly simple framework to visualize what organizations can do with their strategic knowledge assets. In Harvard Business Review (Jan-Feb 2015), Ihrig and McMillan suggest that every organization plot their knowledge assets along two dimensions – the extent to which the knowledge is distributed (undiffused to widely diffused) and the extent to which the knowledge is codified (unstructured or tacit to structured).

For example, a company may have proprietary expertise that is in key people’s heads (unstructured and undiffused), proprietary process documentation (structured and undiffused), product usage guides (structured and diffused), and so forth.

The authors suggest four ways to manage knowledge assets, each visualized as a movement along the horizontal or vertical axis.

Contextualize. Take some codified process and apply in new setting. For example, P&G uses its brand building process in new markets. This is indicated by an arrow pointing down vertically.

Codify. Make explicit the product knowledge – and leave process knowledge sharing informal – to protect against leaks. Combine people networking with knowledge codification to dig deeper into tacit knowledge. Use structured knowledge as hook to get to the right person. Codification is indicated by an arrow pointing up vertically.

Diffuse. Diffusion works best at the top where knowledge is structured. You can diffuse knowledge either inside the company (through apprenticeships and other knowledge sharing practices) our outside by licensing (the way Du Pont or Harvard Business Publishing do) or by giving away strategically (the way Tesla does with patents, Adobe with the pdf format, and Mckinsey with ther Insights newsletter).

Gain insights from big data. This is the hardest to systematize, but successful examples include Rolls Royce (who use engine sensors for scheduling preventive maintenance), and Subway (who capitalized on low-cal trend).

Harbinger Group Alumni Networker

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 05 Feb 2015 13:09:00 +0000

I had the privilege to welcome a networking dinner for alumni and managers at Harbinger Group earlier this month. The place where this meet-up occurred was the lawns of YASHADA, a prestigious administrative training institute for government officers. Interestingly, I lived in a house right there on the campus a quarter century back, and so, it was the birthplace of Harbinger Group as well.

Image: Harbinger Alumni Meet 2015

As alumni started streaming in to join their hosts, conversation flowed and old memories of working together were rekindled. I have often wondered what it means to people to be Harbinger alum. Without any direct experience, of course, I offer these hypotheses:

First and foremost, it is a shared experience: a place and time in our youth. For many people, Harbinger was a time during their formative years, when they lived and worked with intensity, made their mistakes, and learned a lot.
It also means a commitment to certain professional values: strong business ethics, customer-centricity, continuous learning, gender diversity, and innovation. Harbinger was a place that shaped many of us, honing our professional skills, workplace behaviors and ethical values.

One of the alums summed this up well: I owe my professional career to this company. Another one said, it is such a wonderful idea to bring alums together! And then, as has happened many times before, others chimed in: why did we not do this before?

See you at a future event. Stay tuned.

Self-healing Systems

noreply@blogger.com (Abhay Patil) — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 04:30:00 +0000

When we want to change something, should we do it in one fell swoop – or should we let it happen iteratively? Should we build an elaborate mechanism of checks and balances that ensures that no mistakes are committed – or should we be lenient and let the system recover from mistakes? These questions stem from one of the most fundamental challenges any designer encounters: should we design a complex system, or should we develop a simple system that grows organically?

Of course, the answer to this age old dilemma is KISS – Keep it Simple, Stupid!

Let me explain. In one of our internal systems we keep the information of employees and their managers. Our employees frequently move between projects. It is necessary to keep track of who is managing whom in a timely fashion. How do we do that? As the manager-direct relationship is not trivial, we had a process where the outgoing manager informs the HR department about release of their direct and the new manager requests that employee to be assigned to them. Now the problem is that for the managers this is a chore. And not one, but two managers need to synchronize their actions to make this happen. The direct, for whom this change is very important – as her performance review is at stake – has no control over the process which routinely used to drag for days or even weeks. The process had been designed to ensure that the changes, whenever they are effected, are always correct. But this process proved to be too painful for the key stakeholder, viz. the direct.

We decided to invert the process completely. We now allow employees to change their managers by themselves. The immediate reaction was of panic. Sacrilegious! How can you allow someone to arbitrarily change their own manager without any approvals? What if they play a mischief? If they mess it up what will be the consequences and who will clean the data? However, soon everyone reconciled to the simple “organic” nature of the change. Why would anyone play a mischief? If they do, won’t they get caught quickly? (We have notifications built in.) In case someone messes up – isn’t correcting it also simple?

The ability to spot an aberration quickly and letting it be corrected swiftly, as a part of the process itself, is the hallmark of a “self-healing system”.

The celebrated Gall’s law (John Gall) states: A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple system that worked. To further quote Wikipedia, this law is essentially an argument in favor of underspecification: it can be used to explain the success of systems like the World Wide Web and Blogosphere, which grew from simple to complex systems incrementally, and the failure of systems like CORBA, which began with complex specifications. Gall's Law has strong affinities to the practice of agile software development.

Gall’s law, fundamental as it is, is applicable to any field you could think of. In fact, chances are you may already have used it – or may have seen it being used - somewhere. If that’s the case, can you share your experience? In any case, why not put the Gall’s law to use in our everyday life?

- Abhay Patil

Four Cultural Signatures

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 15:30:00 +0000

Recently I came across a book titled Corporate Cultures. This book, written by Terrence Deal and Allan Kennedy, is a classic on the rites and rituals of corporate culture. The authors combine insights from anthropology, psychology, sociology and management into a work that outlines the effect of corporate culture on strategy and performance.

Fig: Four Generic Cultures

In describing the various types of company cultures, Deal and Kennedy present four cultural archetypes.

• Macho – A world of individualists who take high risks and get quick feedback on whether their actions were right or wrong

• Work hard, Play hard – Employees take few risks, with quick feedback. Culture encourages maintaining high level of low-risk activity

• Bet-your-company – Years pass before employees come to know whether decisions paid off. Big stakes decisions. High risk, slow feedback.

• Process – Little or no feedback, hard to measure what you are doing, so people concentrate on how it is done. When taken to extremes, it is bureaucracy.

Can you place your organization on this map? What kind of culture do you have? Personally, what kind of culture are you comfortable working with? When a person’s behaviors stick out as being different in your company, can you discern the cultural reasons?

Harbinger Systems Hat-trick

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 09:19:00 +0000

The year 2014 has brought another reason to cheer for Team Harbinger. For the third year in a row, Harbinger's name will feature in the FORTUNE magazine, thanks to a prestigious award. Yet again, the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals has named Harbinger Systems in its select list of global 100 companies.

The IAOP serves 120,000 professionals drawn from the $6 trillion global outsourcing industry. It uses an independent panel of experienced outsourcing buyers to pick the top 100 companies. The panel uses four critical characteristics: size and growth; customer references; organizational competencies; and management capabilities.

Our big thanks to customers, employees, suppliers and well-wishers for their unwavering support in the pursuit of Harbinger mission. Harbinger Systems is proud to be building some of the world's coolest software products in education, talent management, healthcare and other applications. Harbinger works closely with independent software vendors, including Fortune 500 global tech leaders, mid-size companies and start-ups. In close partnership with them, we use our expertise in security, mobility, cloud and web technologies to develop and test great products.

Putting DISC Profile to Use in Your Team

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Feb 2014 07:40:00 +0000

Managers often struggle in coping with the different working styles of different team members. One common error for a manager in dealing with a team member is to think - why can't this team member behave more like me? The answer lies in the different behavioral tendencies people have. The DISC profile is a great tool for understanding the behavioral tendencies of a person.

Dominance. People with a high D score are known to be result-oriented. You can count on them to get things done. They may come across as being rough around the edges, but they won't mind straight talk from you.

Influence. People with a high I score are friendly, talkative, and full of enthusiasm for new ideas. They will get started with things in no time, but don't count on them completing everything they start. They are prone to exaggerating, and easily over-estimate themselves and others.

Steadiness. People with a high S score provide the glue that holds the team together. You can count on them to tell you how everyone on the team feels. They may come across as being resistant to change. They will want to make sure everyone is on board with a new idea before jumping into it.

Conscientiousness. People with a high C score are perfectionists. You can count on them for producing quality work, and getting it right the first time, always. They are very focused on the the task at hand, and may appear reserved. They won't interrupt when you talk.

Are you curious to know what your DISC profile looks like? There are several free tests available online that only take a few minutes, and you will get your full profile! Click this link to take yours now.

Fostering Entrepreneurship: Chilecon Valley

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 03:58:00 +0000

Recently at the World Entrepreneurship Forum in Lyon, France, I came across a unique model for fostering entrepreneurship. I met Nicolas Shea, a businessman-turned-bureaucrat in the Chilean government who described to me what they are doing in Chile to attract entrepreneurs. The government issues an Entrepreneur Visa to foreigners who are interested in setting up a business in Chile. The visa is good for an initial period of one year, and comes with $40,000.

Yes. You read that right. The Chilean government pays you for the visa. You get the money. It is not a loan. You don't even have to give them equity in your company. The money is yours to use for putting together a start-up in Chile.

How many companies have you funded? I asked Nicolas. Five hundred, he replied.

That is twenty million dollars spent - how does your government feel about it? I asked.

Nicolas Shea's answer was thought-provoking. That is a small sum, he said, to attract the best of talent from all over the world. We screen thousands of business plans to pick a hundred every quarter. We have some of the world's most exciting technology start-ups coming up in Chile, thanks to this program. How else were we going to get talent from Stanford and other elite institutions? We hope some of these start-ups get to a stage of raising money. Even if two of them raise $10M each, we have our $20M back in Chile. And imagine the way in which it helps our economy. Visualize the ecosystem we are creating.

He has a point. A big one. If you want to have a Route 128 or a Silicon Valley in your country, you have to do something crazy, something unique - like Startup Chile. Here is a link to a recent article in The Economist on Startup Chile. What do you think about the idea?

Crowdsourcing - Some Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 06:28:00 +0000

For those of us seeking to convince ourselves of the power of crowdsourcing, we need not look any further than Wikipedia. Other examples of crowdsourcing abound. Threadless, an online community of designers, conducts weekly competitions for T-shirt design and prints the winning designs. Quora, a great Q&A website, sources both questions and answers from its members. Procter & Gamble uses crowdsourcing heavily to generate ideas about packaging, marketing etc. The list goes on.

There are two fundamental approaches to crowdsourcing: competition and collaboration.

In competitive sourcing, you look for the best input by designing incentives to win. Competition weeds out the mediocre and elicits the best anyone in the crowd has to offer. The Threadless model, for example, appears primarily to be based on competition.

In collaborative sourcing, you get people to work together in communities to solve problems or come up with new ideas. This model works best when you are looking at projects that a single person might not easily be able to work on. The open source software movement, as well as Wikipedia, are examples of crowdsourcing based on communities that collaborate.

In essence, both competition and collaboration play on three fundamental types of human motivation: intrinsic, extrinsic and pro-social. A person experiences intrinsic motivation when he or she simply likes to do something. For example, you might be an expert in disaster management, and you may simply want to answer a question on earthquakes because you are interested in the topic. Extrinsic motivation follows rational thought. It makes you wonder: what is in it for me? Cash prizes, coupons, discounts and reward points would create extrinsic motivation. Pro-social motivation has to do with social factors. People like to be 'liked', and seek feedback and validation. A lot of online content uploading is motivated by pro-social factors.

When defining a good crowd-sourcing business model, the entrepreneur must ask these questions: How would I approach crowdsourcing - through competition or collaboration or both? How can I create the right mix of the various motivations so that I can build a great community that produces the best? In short, why should the crowd care to participate in my enterprise?

Team Harbinger Celebrates Employee #500

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 05:02:00 +0000

Harbinger Group's employee count has crossed 500 now. Bootstrapping this company from a start-up, and developing it into a global organization delivering cutting-edge software has been a wonderful personal journey for me. It has been full of learning and a sense of meaningfulness, that only comes from pursuing a purpose with passion.

Harbinger grew in interesting times. Founded in the pre-liberalization days of Indian economy, it witnessed the emergence of India on the global economic scene. In parallel, it participated in key transformations in computing technology - personal computing, the Internet, mobile, social media and more.

In times of constant change, some things have remained constant at Harbinger - notably its values: make an honest buck, respect the individual and learn continuously. At Harbinger, the guiding light has been its unwavering purpose: make a difference in our world through software innovations.

We have been doing that, and how. Harbinger pioneered several e-learning technology innovations, including Raptivity, helping thousands of course developers build interactive content. We built some great e-learning content for leading global corporations. We helped dozens of cutting-edge global software vendors build their products which eventually reached hundreds of thousands of users. We participated in the evolution of Windows operating system by working with Microsoft. In the process we developed several long-term customers, who came to look upon us as partners in innovation.

In conversations with new employees, ex-employees, customers and colleagues at Harvard Business School I keep hearing this - 'There's something different about this company'. It's a difference that matters, and I feel committed to preserve it and to build upon it.

As we reach the milestone of 500 employees, all I have to say is: Thank you Team Harbinger, for creating this wonderful workplace to belong to, and where it feels right.

What is Strategy without a Strategist?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 01:37:00 +0000

Earlier this year at Harvard Business School, Professor Cynthia Montgomery took a group of entrepreneur-owner-presidents through a series of discussions on strategy. We discussed several case studies, one that examined Gucci's near-death experience and another that chronicled Ryanair's strategic self-discovery.

To analyze the cases, she used what she calls a strategy wheel, that puts a company's purpose in the center, and a set of mutually-reinforcing activities all around. As we progressed, I couldn't resist asking her how she defined strategy. Her answer was quick - A system of value creation anchored on a purpose that makes a difference that matters.

It was refreshing to hear a view of strategy that did not focus primarily on beating the competition, but rather on making a difference that matters to the customer. It seemed to suggest that the all-important sustainable competitive advantage would be inherent in the strategy wheel - no need to obsess with it.

So, when she announced her new book, The Strategist: Be the Leader Your Business Needs (Harper Business, 2012), I was eagerly awaiting its publication. Sure enough, the book is a great read for the business leader, whom she inspires to become a strategist. For her, strategy isn't some left-brain activity to get right once, but rather an ever-evolving agenda to live with. Her revisionist view of strategy is refreshing, vibrant and imbues strategy with a moral purpose.

Long time back, Kenichi Ohmae, in his classic titled The Mind of the Strategist, talked of the strategist's mindset. Cynthia Montgomery's new book takes you on a journey that will help you discover the strategist within you. This is an opportunity you don't want to miss if you are at the helm of an enterprise. A highly recommended read, and I would love to hear what you took from it.

About Purpose, Priorities and Alignment

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 21:19:00 +0000

Some of the healthiest debates in an organization are about its priorities. Here is an exercise your organization could do, to develop a better sense of alignment.

1. Define your purpose.

Answer these five questions briefly (typically in 1 line.)

Who are you? (This question is not as simple as it seems to be. This is a question about your organization's identity, its self-perception. Many times it is extremely hard to get the right answer. )
What do you do? (List the products or services you offer, or better, say what outcomes you help achieve)
For whom? (If you were not around, who would miss you? Would there be a tear in the universe? Where? Who will mourn you? This could be customers, community and other stakeholders)
What difference do you make? (Obviously you make some difference in a unique way for those who will miss you. What difference is that?)
Using what unique competencies? (What is it about you that helps you make that difference year-after-year? What is your unique strength? Your secret sauce?)

2. Define your priorities.

Use a table such as the one below. Too many priorities are no good.

Short Term (3-6 months)	Medium Term (1 Year)	Long Term (3 Years)
1.	6.	10.
2.	7.	11.
3.	8.	12.
4.	9.
5.

3. Check alignment.

Now answer the following questions

Are your priorities aligned to your purpose?
Have you allocated resources (time, people) in line with priorities?
Have you prepared yourself to change resource allocation as you transition to mid-term and long-term?
Do you feel you can make some changes to align yourself with the priorities?
What are those changes, if any?

Madhukar R Joshi (1938 - 2011) - Distinguished Scientist, Military Bridging Expert, Art Connoisseur, Early Harbinger Well-Wisher

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 06:35:00 +0000

M. R. Joshi, former director of Research & Development Establishment (Engineers), a DRDO institution, passed away recently.

Joshi, a distinguished scientist and a brilliant innovator, was a civil engineer by training. He was an expert in military bridging. His work included MLAB, the manually launched assault bridge and Sarvatra, a multi-span bridging system. The idea in these unique systems was to help Indian soldiers make rapid advances in difficult terrains with lightweight bridging equipment.

Joshi was relentless in his pursuit of applying information technology to engineering, administration and knowledge management.His establishment was the first to have a local area network in the city of Pune. He worked towards a paperless office, and pursued several ways to foster knowledge sharing and collaboration amongst project teams using computer systems.

It is in these areas that Harbinger in its early days became a trusted software provider and partner of DRDO. For an engagement spanning several years in the early '90s, Harbinger continued innovating software applications with inspiration from Mr Joshi.

Recipient of many awards, Mr Joshi was a remarkable person to know. At the time we worked with him, he was about two times my age, and yet always managed to make the difference disappear. The Establishment would organize classical music concerts, and he would personally send a signed invitation every time. Harbinger was a 10-people company back then, and this vendor treatment was indeed very special, as you can imagine.

Joshi had a deep regard for the military genius of Leonardo Da Vinci, combined with the great master's legendary art. His home was decorated with his favorite Leonardo paintings. His loyal dog was named Ermine. When he commissioned a beautiful new auditorium on the R&DE campus, he named it Leonardo da Vinci Auditorium. It took him a few trips to Delhi to convince the bureaucrats and politicians that this was a good idea.

Mr APJ Abdul Kalam, who later became the President of India, was his immediate boss, and paid him glowing tributes for his work.

Dr S Guruprasad, a young and promising scientist who worked in his team, later went on the become the establishment's director. In a fitting coincidence, he felicitated Joshi on the occasion of the establishment's golden jubilee.

Team Harbinger cannot stop counting its good fortunes - this great man was certainly one of them. We will miss you, M R Joshi. Rest in peace.

Business Models

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 10:00:00 +0000

A business model tells you how a company makes money. More formally, a business model describes the rationale of how an organization creates, delivers and captures value. Alexander Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur have proposed a business model canvas, a shared language for describing, visualizing, assessing and changing business models. The canvas identifies nine building blocks of a business model.

Business Model Canvas by Osterwalder & Pigneur

My team used this canvas for analyzing one of our businesses, and found it very useful in galvanizing a vibrant discussion. I recommend it highly. To know more about the business model canvas, visit their web site.

Here is a quick primer on the 9 building blocks:

1. Customer Segments
Who are the people or organizations that you aim to reach and serve? How would you group them into segments with common needs, behaviors, buying habits, etc.? Different segments may require different offers, channels or relationships. They may have different profitability and willingness-to-pay.

2. Value Propositions
What product-service offerings do you have and why do you think they create value for a specific customer segment? The value proposition is the reason to buy from you, not the company next door. Are your offerings new, better-performing, customized, cost-effective, well designed, status-enhancing, risk-free, accessible, convenient? What is your value proposition?

3. Channels
How does your company communicate with and reach the customer segments to deliver the value proposition? This includes channels for communication, distribution, sales and support. Channels raise awareness, help customers in evaluating value proposition, allow purchase, deliver value proposition and post-sale support.

4. Customer Relationships
What type of relationship does the company establish with specific customer segments? Answer could vary: dedicated, personal, self-service, automated, communities, co-creation etc.

5. Revenue Streams
What kind of transactions result in generating net cash for the company from each customer segment? What value are they willing to pay? Though what pricing mechanism? One time or recurring or both? There are several ways to generate revenue streams: product sale, usage fee, subscription, leasing, licensing, commission, advertising etc.

6. Key Resources
What are the most important assets you must have to make the business model work? This includes physical, intellectual, human and financial resources.

7. Key Activities
What are the most important things a company must do to make its business model work? The answers could vary from technology R&D to supply chain management and from product sales to brand management.

8. Key partnerships
What network of suppliers and partners would be critical to make the business model work? What kind of partnerships would you pursue? Strategic alliances, JV, buyer-supplier relationship or even competition?

9. Cost Structure
What are the costs incurred to operate a business model? Are they largely fixed or variable? Are their economies of scale or scope?

For those of you contemplating start-ups, as well as those responsible for sustaining and growing existing businesses, I highly recommend asking these questions Osterwalder and Pigneur have proposed.

Tribute to a Man at the Intersection of Art and Technology

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:21:00 +0000

Steve Jobs is no more.

'Think Different', proclaimed a proud and defiant campaign inspired by Apple, his tech company, that was struggling while stalwarts like Microsoft were stealing the limelight at the turn of the century. Apple really thought different and came up with one home run after another - first the iPod, then the iTunes store that revolutionized the music industry. Then, a wholly re-written OS that made the Macintosh line of computers compatible with Intel chipsets. This, followed by the iPhone - a revolutionary smart phone that left Blackberry and others in the space running for cover. And yet again the App store which sold millions of apps developed by thousands of third-party developers - generating a huge network effect. An again, the iPad which spawned the tablet computer industry. In a space of ten years, Apple not only surpassed Microsoft, it became the most valuable tech company in the world.

Steve was a designer at heart, and an unreasonable perfectionist. His products were the best-looking gadgets of his times, and sported the best usability amongst all their peers. If you wanted to be proud of your electronic gadget, you had to buy Apple. Such was his fanatic following, that every Apple conference in San Francisco was completely sold out, heavily talked about and widely publicized. He was a master of publicity. His famous superbowl ad of the Mac is subject of marketing case studies. His product designs and package designs were epitomes of aesthetics - as were the Apple retail stores that he set up to own distribution. The model of Apple's proposed building in Cupertino has been subject of intrigued discussions in architectural circles.

An inspiring speaker, Jobs was a presenter par excellence. He was a great showman. There are pages after pages written on his presentation style. He prepared well, knew his audience and knew his subject only too well. Steve was a vegan, loved calligraphy, had traveled to India and walked through the Himalayas as a youth.

Steve Jobs was a great soul of our times - we've been lucky to have witnessed his stellar decade of achievements as he battled liver disease and pancreatic cancer. He worked till the end, and only resigned when he believed the time had come.

Leonardo Da Vinci was an artist and an engineer - and many other things. So was Steve Jobs. Such multi-faceted talent is god's gift to mankind, and we must be grateful - even if he lived only 56 years on this planet.

May his soul rest in peace.

I Moved Your Cheese : New Business Fable Helps You See the Old in New Ways

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:26:00 +0000

Entrepreneurs – by definition – won’t accept things the way they are. They are keen on changing the world. They pursue opportunities that are seemingly beyond their resources. One critical aspect of an entrepreneur’s journey is the changing environment in which he/she must operate. Uncertainties external to business abound, and you never know who will move your cheese.

I Moved Your Cheese (IMYC), Harvard professor Deepak Malhotra’s latest book, was written ‘for those who refuse to live as mice in someone else’s maze’. The writer of Negotiation Genius should know a thing or two about mazes, I thought, as I approached the book – on my Kindle – half expecting a clever treatise on negotiating. What unfolded, to my delight, was a business fable that rebuts the message of the bestseller Who Moved My Cheese? (WMMC) by Spencer Johnson.

While WMMC exhorts you to get out of denial, accept change and adapt to it, Malhotra’s IMYC goes to deeper questions. Why has the change been forced on us? How might we exercise greater control over our lives? Are the goals we are seeking the correct ones? How do we escape the maze designed to suit the needs and interest of those in control? In a simple, storytelling way, Malhotra wages a scathing attack on the philosophy of embracing our limitations, blindly accepting change and eagerly adapting to it. Indeed, he questions the very assumption that we are condemned to be mice in a maze chasing cheese.

It is not unusual for people, organizations and even entire nations to feel trapped in their current circumstances. IMYC makes a strong case to rise above that feeling. No one says it better than Zed, one of the three adventurous mice: “You see, Max, the problem is not that the mouse is in the maze, but that the maze is in the mouse.”

Without departing from his characteristic wit and humor, Malhotra encourages reflection: Have you experienced a moment which made you realize ‘our hunger for inspiration is greater than the hunger for cheese’? Will it be worthwhile to reconsider some of the things in our environment that we often take for granted? Have you come across adventurous people that simply walked through a wall when no one else thought it was possible? What mazes do you find yourself in? Are they of your choosing? What’s the game you are playing?

This book is a must-read for every entrepreneur. The author suggests specific questions for organizations, which will help them see the old in new ways. Those interested in talent management will find this book a great asset. What’s more, it’s a really short read. What you will get from the book will depend on you – which is always a hallmark of a great fable. Read all about the book here.

Innovation and its Discontents

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 00:09:00 +0000

The US Patent and Trademark Office recently granted a patent for my work on interactivity software here at Harbinger Knowledge Products- our second patent among several filings. That triggered a thought process about this whole idea of patenting.

What purpose does a patent serve? The system of patents creates incentives for innovation. The innovation process is inherently risky - one could use the time, effort, money and other resources to do something else, rather than go invent a mousetrap. Patents provide enough protection so that investors have an incentive to put up the money, and inventors are willing to put in the time to develop new technology.

Josh Lerner and Adam Jaffe provide an interesting counterpoint. They argue that patents are blunt instruments. Because of the complexity of the evolution of technology, the monopoly that they create will sometimes retard rather than encourage competition.

Take the example of Edison's light bulb. Edison was granted the basic patent on incandescent lighting in 1880. In the subsequent years, Edison General Electric Company practically throttled all their competitors' efforts at improving their design by bringing infringement suits, which they won. It took until the expiration of Edison's patent for other improvements to kick in. Soon after that, bulbs got better and cheaper.

In effect then, the patent system essentially slowed the pace of innovation in a bid to protect Edison.

So it is hard to get it right, say Lerner and Jaffe. In the best of worlds, a patent system is a compromise among competing objectives.

I hope to catch Lerner (those who have seen him run about in class will know what I mean) again next spring before deciding where to stand on this issue. His book is titled Innovation and Its Discontents: How Our Broken Patent System is Endangering Innovation and Progress, published by Princeton University Press.

Developing People in a Growing Team : Coaching

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:58:00 +0000

When an organization grows rapidly, its members must keep up. In the half-hour long one-on-one (O3) meetings discussed in my earlier posts, the last 10 minutes are reserved for the team member's development. The question is - how do you go about developing a direct. The answer is - you do it through coaching.

Some people sense a negative connotation in the word coaching. Somehow it is linked to fixing the wrong things. Or even worse, it is seen as the last resort before letting an employee go. Nothing could be further from the truth. Coaching is a pro-active effort to develop the direct to the next level.

Here are the main steps in coaching that I have found effective. These are largely adopted from Auzenne and Horstman's Manager Tools podcasts:

1. Identify the next stage of development a direct needs to get to. This would follow from his/her growth path and next position you plan to promote the direct to. For example, your direct may be a frontline sales person who needs to learn campaign planning as one step towards becoming a sales manager.

2. Collaborate with the direct and get a buy-in on the development goal. This sounds easy, but may not always be so. The direct may have a different view of his or her own future. You want to be sure the commitment to development is mutual.

3. Again, collaborate with the direct and identify some good resources that would help. Examples would be e-learning material, training programs, books, webinars, expert consultants, budgets etc.

4. Collaboratively create a learning plan. The plan should have clear deliverables that can be discussed in each weekly o3. For example, the next week's goal could be to download two books to Kindle and to schedule an appointment with a consultant.

5. In every O3, follow up with the direct and find out how the direct is progressing relative to the plan.

That's it. Coaching is not training. In coaching you encourage the direct to improve effectiveness. You do this through regular, goal-oriented communication.

Do you believe a manager needs to be expert at a subject in order to coach the direct on it? Do you know the growth path for each of your directs? Do you have a coaching plan for each of your directs? Do you think delegating some of your own work to a direct is a good strategy to develop the direct for the next position?

Encouraging Effective Behaviors in a Growing Team : Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 10 May 2011 16:50:00 +0000

Do the math. When you have a small team, you have 24 hours in a day to work with them, in the unlikely case you all work round the clock. The team doubles in size, and you still have 24 hours in a day. How does that impact the time you have for keeping each of them focused on the most effective behaviors?

In an earlier post, we reviewed the one-on-one (O3) meeting as a mechanism for regular communication that builds trust with directs, in a growing team. In this post, we talk about one aspect of O3 meetings that not all of us are very comfortable with – giving feedback - which encourages effective behavior in future.

Clearly there are two types of feedback. Positive feedback, which encourages observed behaviors, and adjusting feedback, which encourages changed behaviours.

The positive feedback is easy, but it does not come easily to all, so let's mention it here. When a direct does something that deserves encouragement, give positive feedback. Example: When you came up with that idea in our project meeting, it showed us a way to meet our timelines. Thank you.

Now, we come to adjusting feedback. Here, Manager Tools (the site I referred to in my earlier post) shows a couple of ways to deal with it.

Cite the behavior and state the consequence. Example: When you show up late for meetings, it wastes everyone’s time. Just thought you should know. Now let the direct interpret that and decide where to go from there.
The same as above, plus add the line: Can you do it differently? Or say: What can you do differently? Example: When you judge others’ ideas too quickly during brainstorming, they feel less secure and we miss some good ideas. Can you do it differently? Another example: When you bring a project in late, it makes us lose money. What can you do differently?

Notice that in both cases the format is nearly the same: When (behavior) here is what happens (consequence) Thank you / Can you do it differently / What can you do differently?

Auzenne and Horstman, the Manager Tools gurus, go to great lengths in clarifying that you must cite behaviors, not characterizations. Behaviors are observable. Characterizations are your interpretations. For example, ‘you show up late for meetings’ is a behavior, and ‘you are unpredictable’ is a characterization. So is ‘you are arrogant’ or ‘you are a nut’. Behaviors being observable, are undisputable. Characterizations being subjective, are disputable.

Can you see the difference between positive feedback and praise? Can you distinguish between adjusting feedback and criticism – or punishment?

Okay, so when do you give feedback? Three points to check.

Give it when you are sure about the direct's behavior.
Give it during O3, during your 10 minutes.
Give it when you are absolutely sure you are not angry.

If you follow these simple rules, your directs will look forward to feedback (I’m serious) and you both will feel better after each meeting.

Generation Y in the Hot Seat

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:23:00 +0000

At Harbinger Group's annual awards function last week, the 500-strong audience witnessed a unique event.

The Generation Y, represented by twelve young men and women members of Harbinger, participated in a talk show. As their host took them through a series of questions, what unfolded was a rich fabric of dreams, aspirations, emotions, achievements, values, work ethics and lifestyle choices of this dynamic generation.

Given the unique demographic cycle through which India is passing, the 1.2 billion strong nation will have a fascinating workforce composition by the turn of the decade - a good majority of people will be under 30, and possibly managed by today's Gen Y.

The youngsters on stage - aware of their hot seat, but confident in their demeanor - answered questions effortlessly, and their stories were applauded by the audience ceaselessly. We witnessed a youthful company whose core values were evident in its youngest members - what a blessing!

Strengthening Bonds in a Growing Team : One on Ones

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 14:39:00 +0000

As a start-up grows from a few dozen employees to several hundred employees, and then to thousands, the founding team needs to devise scalable and resilient ways to foster relationships up and down the hierarchy. In a small setup, relationships are natural – everyone is physically together, and feels together in the venture. Growth can change all that.

One-on-One (O3) meetings with direct reports encourage relationships through regular communication. The rationale goes to basic psychology. Relationship is based on trust and regular communication improves trust, particularly when it is about things that the direct cares about.

Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne are co-founders of Manager Tools LLC, a management consulting firm, providing consultancy and training to managers around the world. Both co-founders are United States Military Academy graduates (West Point) and former US Army officers. I am impressed with their work in this area. You can access their free and premium podcasts at manager tools website.

In this post, I summarize some of the lessons learnt about conducting effective O3s with one's directs. These are based on my own experience for over a year.

Great managers build relationships with directs by communicating regularly. The O3 is scheduled as a recurring appointment in my calendar, every week, for 30 minutes. This appointment is rarely missed, never cancelled and only rescheduled when there is a conflict. The meeting can be over phone, IM or in-person, in the manager’s office.

Every time before the O3 the manager needs to tell himself or herself: This O3 focuses on the team member. Not you, not your work, nor your issues! This half hour belongs to my direct. The rest of the week is for me.
The suggested format of the 30-minute O3 goes something like this: 10 minutes for them, 10 minutes for you and 10 minutes for their development.

Preparation for the O3 can take about 30 minutes – sometimes more. Trust me, the prep time is worth it. Review all deliverables and communication. Decide what you need to tell. Write down positive or adjusting feedback. Figure out what to delegate. Write down questions you want to ask. The questions could be about their weekend, week, work, family, project, questions, worries, etc.

Auzenne and Horstman suggest you start with the same question each time, and write down the answer your direct gives. I have not always followed this.

Listening: This is the most important skill for a manager conducting O3. Clear your desk, focus, stop doing other things, and listen. And remember, do not interrupt!

Take notes. O3 must be documented. The Manager Tools site provides a free O3 form that can be used for writing your notes. After about 10 to 12 weeks, you can review your notes and they will be a rich treasure of information on the direct’s work performance, behaviour and development. This makes periodic appraisals more powerful and real easy.

There are two aspects of O3 that need separate discussion. How to give feedback, and how to coach your direct. I will write about these separately at a later date.

Developing Young Leaders in a Growing Company

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 09:18:00 +0000

If the transition of a manager from tactical management to strategic management is big, an earlier career transition from contributor to manager is even bigger. A learning event at Harbinger, known as the Emerging Leader Workshop, brings home this truth to participants by letting them experience this transition in a simulated environment. Sort of like a sneak peek into their future as a leader.

Here is a quick description of the general format of the Emerging Leader Workshop.

This program targets junior staff members with three to six years of work experience, who have excelled as individual contributors in a certain function such as sales, engineering or tech support; and have a potential to get ready for moving up. They meet on six to eight Saturdays for the workshop, typically spread over three to four months.

Each meeting lasts three-quarters of a day and has five parts. The contents vary depending on audience background.

1. Situational response
Given a realistic business situation, how do you combine your prior knowledge, skills and judgment to arrive at an appropriate response? A typical example could involve responding to a project crisis involving multiple parameters such as customer expectations and team morale.

2. Problem solving
Use your analytical skills (and lateral thinking) to get to a solution of a well-defined problem in your area of work. For example, allocation of resources against a complex work schedule.

3. Written communication exercise
Prepare business-quality documentation of various types. Examples could vary from software release notes to announcements appreciating team member contributions to a project.

4. Research-based presentation exercise
Use the Internet and other resources to find material related to a technical topic and prepare a presentation with a coherent theme, such as applications of a cutting-edge technology, or competitive landscape in a particular product category.

5. Discussion on company values
Understand company values and find out how they translate into decisions made when the management is faced with a choice. Internalize the values by applying them to decision making situations.

The method for teaching each part is different. Several formats have been used, including case study, individual exercises, group projects, group discussions and lecture sessions.

Previous graduates of the program act as observers, and rate the participants on their performance during the program every day. At the end of the day's session, they convey feedback one-on-one, helping the participant understand his/her strengths and areas of improvement.

Participants that form a learning team are not necessarily co-workers, and their observer may not be a superior at work. We mix them up.

Occasionally, a bonus session features screening of a documentary or a movie after which people socialize, dine and discuss what they saw.

Already in its 4th year, the results of the Emerging Leader Workshop have been remarkable. Participants report a much better appreciation of the manager's role, a greater identification with the organization as a whole, a desire to play a leadership role, a sense of learning something new and a mindset change. Some participants have shown a remarkable improvement in presentation abilities, yet others have developed a more positive outlook.

Many times individual contributors are too comfortable in the job they are good at, and there is no impetus to want to get into leadership. The Emerging Leader Workshop delivers just that.

Valediction usually involves participant's speeches and presentation of a bonus and a memento.

Anybody aware of other programs or has ideas that could be launched through Emerging Leader Workshop?

How do You Measure Entrepreneurship?

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 07:33:00 +0000

How can you tell that a society is highly entrepreneurial? Simply counting the number of small businesses will not cut it, because not all small businesses propel economic activity. I have often wondered if it is utter folly to confuse small business with entrepreneurship. By serendipity, I found the answer.

A couple of months back I met a bunch of entrepreneurship researchers and scholars at the World Entrepreneurship Forum in Lyon, France. One of them was Zoltan Acs, professor at George Mason University. He founded the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute and devised a way to measure entrepreneurship potential of nations - known as the GEDI index.

The Global Entrepreneurship and Development Index (GEDI) is comprised of three sub-indexes, each measuring the context of entrepreneurship in a society. Here is an excerpt from Prof. Acs's article on GEDI.

1. Attitude
Entrepreneurial attitudes are defined as the general disposition of a country’s population toward entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship, and business start-ups. The index in-volves measures for the population’s opportunity perception potential, the perceived start-up skills, feel of fear of failure, networking prospects, and cultural respect for the entrepreneur.

2. Activity
Entrepreneurial activity is defined as the start-up activity in tech sector. The entrepreneur’s level of education is an important measure. Level of competition is another important measure.

3. Aspiration
Entrepreneurial aspiration, is defined as the efforts of the early-stage entrepreneur to introduce new products and services, develop new production processes, penetrate foreign markets, substantially increase the number of firm employees, and finance the business with either formal or informal venture capital, or both. The role of ‘gazelles’ or high-growth businesses is also vital to entrepreneurship as are internationalisation of trade and the availability of risk capital.

As you can see, this index is a sophisticated measure, which really focuses on the job-creation potential of entrepreneurship and hence the economic activity fueled by it. A big improvement over reporting the number of start-ups.

On this scale, then, the top 5 countries are Denmark, Canada, US, Sweden, and New Zealand. Among others, UK is at 14, France ranks 18, China 40 and India 53.

Three Sure Ways to Kill Innovation

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 06:45:00 +0000

Slides from the Harbinger presentation at Innovations 2011, a premier event showcasing technology innovations in India, conducted by IIT Bombay Alumni Association.

Sometimes stating the negative is a great way of clarifying the positive. Therefore, instead of worrying about how to encourage innovation, let us talk about...

We are going to learn this in three easy steps. Ready? Let's go. Step one is...

Children carry little baggage of pre-conceived notions. They are open, curious, and prone to ask the question "why not?", which incidentally is the key phrase in innovation. Once you stop acting like a child, you have embarked on the path to kill innovation. Now you are ready for step 2, which is...

When Leonardo Da Vinci designed the ornithopter shown here, the materials required for building one were centuries away from being available. He dreamed ahead. When you stop dreaming, you are well on your way to thwart innovation. Now on to step 3...

Innovation is a hero-journey and the biggest devil of self-doubt is within us. Instead of slaying it, be its advocate, join other devil's advocates surrounding you and start doubting the merit of each innovative idea. Find out everything that could go wrong with it. Now, you have effectively killed the idea.

That's it, folks. Follow these these three simple steps...

Innovation and marketing together go a long way in building the right company. Innovative entrepreneurship thrives in a company where diversity and customer centricity are key values.

Our best wishes for Innovations 2011 and congratulations to all the innovators.

Links to Pictures and Videos

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 11 Nov 2010 07:17:00 +0000

The pictures and videos from Lyon are online. Enjoy!

Photos: http://www.flickr.com/photos/em-lyon/show/
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SDWfxrMCsw