Redefining Horizons

The Inevitable Act There would be no manager or executive of consequence, who would not have given a PowerPoint presentation or sat through a few. Presentations, frills attached, is now a way of life and inevitable to effective sharing of information, as bullets , charts, graphs and audio video visuals. Any thing possible could be improvised and incorporated to make presentations impressive. Despite all that, most merely remain visuals and seldom achieve purposes intended.   When presentations are contests to win situations, where only one can win, success normally graces, not the most spectacular but the most influencing. Winners The Internet is teeming with experts and their recipes that guarantee great presentations.   Most of them offer techniques to make screens look better and more attractive. Blazing screens alone, unfortunately, don’t guarantee success in favourably influencing the audience. Without a clear understanding of the means to effectively i...

Dumb Terminals? The stand-up comedian’s program was well subscribed. Each one sitting there was  from the corporate world  and had paid a tidy sum for the laughter riot. Jokes galore followed, few intelligent, some sane, many insanely hilarious and few outright vulgar. But the joke that elicited laughter and claps the most was about the corporate team leader who merely forwarded reports upward and distributed tasks downward to manage the numbers required. The narrative laced in humour painted management hierarchies as endless maze of meaninglessly inter connected, remotely controlled, ‘dumb-terminals’ which receive and send whatever came its way.  It looked as if every one sitting there was familiar with the picture painted and knew some dumb-terminals. Whether they laughed at someone else or at themselves, only they would know, but each one, someone high or low in a vertical in some MNC, laughed at being called a dumb-terminal. The The...

Prologue The distraught CEO informs the chairman that the lady entrusted with the responsibility of conducting the mega event is insisting on chucking out the time-tested canvas and experimenting with an entirely new roll out. The gravity of the situation is accentuated by her insistence on adopting a line, visibly very contrary to the views held by the establishment. The CEO is convinced that if this attempt at questioning authority is allowed to pass, it could open the flood gates for dissent across the board, lead to erosion of authority, weaken controls, adversely affect organisational efficiency and jeopardise the very existence of the organisation. The CEO seeks intervention of the Chairman to ensure continued conformity. She also informs the chairman that she has already identified someone willing and conforming.   Visionaries and Dissenters Customs, practices and policies evolve as organisations grow. In the course of evolution, organisational prac...

An Undefined Emotion Hysterical crowds at a rock concert and the ones swaying to the chants at a guru’s discourse have one thing in common. They all are in search of happiness. In fact, human beings, even with minimal aspirations, are all perpetually in pursuit of some sort of happiness. Happiness is amongst the most extensively researched subjects related to human well-being. Scholars have delved into innumerable aspects of happiness to declare what they think were convincing proofs, means and methods of securing happiness. Proven or not, we know beyond doubt that happiness is one of the most important ingredients of well-being and consequently influences everything an individual does. A universally accepted definition still eludes happiness despite extensive research in everything connected to it. However, universally people believe that happiness comes from within.  Happiness remains as subjective and vague an entity as it was, ever since it was first humanly experienced. ...

H ealthy balance between work and personal life is a challenge most professionals have willingly given up on, happily or otherwise. Distinction between the two, has all but vanished, as work-related activities have pervasively invaded personal and family time. For many, home has become nothing more than a place for ‘homemade food’, wash, change and a nap on one’s own bed. Spending most of the twenty-four hours at workplace or at work, even though physically present at home, is now considered an indispensable ingredient for upward mobility on the coveted corporate ladder. Being expected to stay in office beyond working hours or regularly required to carry work home, is considered synonymous with one’s arrival amongst the ‘ reckonable ’ and ‘ indispensables . It signals one’s proximity to the fountainhead of power. After all, for the coveted ‘Ferrari’ one needs to embrace monkhood of work. Reckonable Performance Indicator Being present mostly at work place or seen engaged ...

“ W hat I really meant was … ”, or “ I didn’t mean it that way …” are sentences, frequently heard at work places amongst professionals and between individuals trying to clear the air. This happens normally during discussions defending an utterance or gesture that was not appreciated.   For each such confessional or explanatory declaration and occasion that led to it, there could be innumerable occasions where possibility of such a declaration never arose and the parties concerned continue to hold positions that eventually turn detrimental to interpersonal and intra-organisational relationships, creating a working environment unnecessarily vitiated. While ‘communication’, is one of the most discussed and focussed  aspects of management, miscommunication remains rampant. Despite innumerable seminars or workshops on effective communication and countless books, on the subject, available to managers and managed alike, miscommunication and communication gaps continue...