Delving Deeper

Yesterday evening while driving back from Alappuzha district where I had gone to Umpire an all kerala T20 cricket tournament, I happened to listen to this  www.ted.com  talk.  Not sure what made me tune in to this particular talk from the list of suggestions which my mobile app had thrown up for me at that time. I guess the words 'Great' and 'Coach' may have made some influence. Here is the talk which I'm referring to: It's interesting to see the comparison that the speaker makes between the traditional pedagogical view (read - as followed by most academicians) and the view that professional sportspersons take when they are attempting to travel from 'Good to Great'. What I liked about the whole thing is that there is no mention of any commercial connections like certifications while espousing the value of coaching.  To me the commercial interests have made very relevant concepts like coaching (discussed here) frowned upon by the very folks w

Context for this blog is my recent interactions over social media with groups of people in my state who are kind of re-inventing the wheel when it comes to using updated pedagogy for teaching and learning. When one hails from the first state within a country which was declared 100% literate some years ago - one tends to develop a unique outlook towards teaching and learning. As a result, one's expectations from Kerala's teachers will be higher. If I put myself in such shoes, it gets coupled with the fact that my parents happen to be teachers (Mom taught Maths and Dad taught Geography to army men).  Due a combination of forces, my mediocrity meter may have become a bit more sensitive than normal. My exposure to the Education Industry (yes, it's become an industry during my time) as an HR professional gave me many opportunities to look under the veil. From the time I passed out with a campus placement in 1998-99, I've got to witness the transition of management educati

It was during my BSchool days in Pune (1997-99) that I came to know about Richardo Semler via his book ' Maverick ' and it was to his teachings that I would turn to whenever I was faced with an uncertain situation in the corporate world - the world into which I ventured gleefully from mid 1999. Therefore, it was kind of natural that I bought his 2003 bestseller - The Seven day Weekend , around the time I took up my biggest ever role in Jan 2008 as Employee No. 1 of Arbitron India. For those of you who missed catching up with Richardo's work - You can get this highly recommended book from this link . Here are some videos from Richardo Semler - Some of the stuff which I read became bases for the arguments I had (and won) while setting up workspace at Arbitron India's 45k Sq feet office - yes we had a hammock in our open garden. Some of the 'Freedom' concepts became building blocks of the unique Culture which we documented later in our life story with

Stumbled on this talk via the youtube algorithm last week and as I was listening to it, I recollected stuff from another talk by Dan Pink about incentives. Posting the two videos for readers to connect in their own way.  Management is definitely in need of a renaissance... better late than never.  Glad that the  hbr.org  came up with this article - https://hbr.org/2017/09/management-is-much-more-than-a-science

If I would ever look back at my life in search of a time which by itself catalysed the disruption to my own thinking and approach to life, it would be the year 2015 without an iota of doubt.  I've been thinking about writing a note about those for a while now - having raved about the impact this year's events have been creating on my life. so here goes... Yes, it started off with a disruption. The baby i helped nurture was no longer going to be around. The baby grew up and was adopted by another much bigger family where the it's core will become just one of the areas of strength to the new parent company. From a very decent monthly salary  - After starting off as Employee No. 1 for # ArbitronIndia's captive unit in Kochi from Jan 2008, I had not thought about venturing out on my own ever. Yes, not even in my retirement plans. So when the circumstances presented an opportunity to try out something on my own, it was the closeness to comfort (Ex-Colleagues and Boss) th

So this year we 'did not have' Onam. Yes, Keralites will quickly connect to meaning of this sentence.  Let me explain for the benefit of others. Whenever a Keralite family does not celebrate Onam - they mention that situation as 'not having' Onam.  The most common reason is when you loose a close family member and this particular Onam falls in the ensuing 12 month mourning period. So this year I ended up spending time to write stuff on Onam day and it resulted in this  Facebook post about a recent interest of mine. I realised that this post itself will be buried in my newsfeed on Facebook - going by the fact that I tend to post over 25 times in a day on this medium from the time we gave birth to our baby  - SS Consulting. So in an attempt to make the contents searchable, I'm converting the same into a blog post. On this  # Onam  day, I want to express my gratitude to my friends and related folks who via  Facebook  as well as in person, introduced me to the &#

So why do over fifteen thousand HR (People Resources?) make it a point to attend SHRM's  annual conference and exposition? This is the question that many relevant stakeholders back in my country has been asking me whenever (it's been 3 times since 2012 now) I get back and start talking about it. Here is my attempt to provide answer(s) with some visuals.  Why pictures? Well, they will get my readers to feel free to imagine and thereby connect and maybe even find their own 'why'. View from baggage claim at NoLA Airport Look what I got to see when I landed at the New Orleans Airport on 18th June. I had taken an early morning flight from Dallas where I had an eventful time with my classmate and his family after I landed in US from Kochi (Via Abu Dhabi) on 16th June. SHRM has got the location into the design of the conference itself and attendees will get to feel and experience the conference in multiple ways - the above is just one of them. So later, when a speaker(s

#SHRM17 would be my fourth time at a SHRM National conference and my third time as part of the socialmedia squad - a chance to be amongst some really exciting action oriented human capital management folks with whom I had first met up in Orlando (2012). Those times still remain as a 'Deer-in-headlights' moments for me. If you are from India and are planning to attend #SHRM17 - feel free to reach out to me for an inside view over DM's / comments / email. I'll be glad to share notes about why this conference is a 'must to be ticked off item HR Pro's bucket. Hope to see some of you at the special reception that SHRM organises to honour over 1k international delegates who attend this conference every year. My #SHRM17Blogger pals have all been in the thick of action over that past 2 months. The HCM retainer projects from my venture made me miss most of the action on Twitter / Blog this time - so I'm really looking forward to making it up with the forth oppor