Being in a band is always a compromise. Provided that the balance is good, what you lose in compromise, you gain by collaboration. —Mike Rutherford
At the core of being an effective leader is ability to analyze the situation and then lead in the most appropriate manner which is best suited for that situation. A leader knows that there is no single optimal style to lead everything. Experts have defined this as “situational leadership.”
Are you still wondering if your business and brand requires to be on the Social Media platform? With the recent political and cultural influence across the world via Facebook there should not be any doubt. Add to this, Facebook has recently announced that it is launching their proprietary search engine. This is called ‘Graph Search’.
You may think that if there is Google already in existence then this might be just one more search engine. Well, the Facebook search engine is two steps ahead. It is not only going to throw up the regular search results but it will go by popularity. The algorithms at Facebook will churn the data in such a way that the results that are thrown up to you would be a combination of the ‘Likes’of your network! Continue reading
The Foundation of Collaborative LeadershipIn an industrial age, people went to factories and worked together to produce the outcomes. When required, they collaborated in person. Supervisors commanded and controlled others and leadership was often equated with “taking power”. Factories depended heavily on rigid top-down hierarchies and people were viewed simply as dispensable workers.
With technological advances, our world of work changed dramatically. Today, we seldom do anything alone. With rise in knowledge oriented work, people in small and geographically distributed groups work together to create value through their expertise and creativity. There is no raw material, there are only people. Continue reading
Many a times business houses are keen to get onto the Social Media landscape. The unfortunate part is that since others are on this platform the business house also hopes to jump in. Usually the business houses would have their website online. This site would have been there since couple of years without being updated and enhanced. This becomes their benchmark. This makes the business houses think that maintenance is not a problem with the social media platform. They feel they will manage it.
Social media requires much more maintenance than what a regular website would require. If you as a business house build a Page on the net remember you need to have fresh content on a consistent basis. This goes for any Page, be it a Blog, Facebook Business Page, Twitter and other Social Media sites. Continue reading
Are you still wondering if you should have ‘social’ in your business? Your business works in an environment and not in isolation. You need to be where your customers are. If your customers are online and on the various social media platforms then you need to reach out to them and meet them there. The social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogs can be looked upon as great open opportunities. Opportunities that can enhance your business and brand.
Social Media is just not for marketing. It is useful in practically all of your departments right from creating strategy, to recruitment, to information sharing and spreading and so on. Continue reading
We all agree that companies should be responsible for any adverse impact of their actions on consumers or other stakeholders. But the extent of their liability is tough to measure. To grasp the challenge of this issue, consider this scenario – Should a cab driver ask for the exact nature of your trip to decide if he should give you the ride? If you think this is absurd, imagine if you were running away from a crime scene or going to one – he did play a central role without really meaning to do so. Some versions of this are becoming real issues that businesses are facing – from banking, to technology and internet companies. Should HSBC have a view on how its customers acquired their money, or should they just focus on providing the best service to anyone who seeks their advise? Should Youtube offer a video platform to anyone who wishes to express themselves, or should they turn into a moral policeman too? Should Facebook block a hate group on its social platform, or should it focus on building the best social networking functionality available to all?
Till now, businesses had a single focus – deliver shareholder value, which was typically just about enhancing profits and ROC. The only rule they had to keep in mind is that they break no law. But now businesses are facing much more complex issues – the unintended consequences of the services they offer, and their impact. Should businesses have a view point on freedom of expression when the local government wants to curb it? At what point does tax efficiency become tax evasion? Wage arbitrage comes with its own moral dilemmas of what benefits do you want to extend one set of workers vs another. Continue reading
Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is famous sarod maestro
Namaskar!