Abhijit Bhaduri’s Blog
I write about careers, skills and the world of work. The cartoons and sketches are mine.
Workplace Learning Report 2018
Robots can do many things better. But they lack soft skills. Leadership skills, communication, collaboration and skills that are role specific are the most important ones to develop among the employees. That has to be where talent development professionals and people managers wish to focus. Leaders must make sure that they invest in strengthening the leadership development function in the organization. Their future competitiveness depends on how current and skilled this team is.In my experience as a consultant, I have often found the L&D teams missing on the skills that would make them relevant. Most L&D teams still ask the business to choose which training program they wish to attend. That model of customer orientation may work in a restaurant, but not for skill building. Building the relevant skills can move the L&D teams from being transactional to being strategic. The leaders must invest in making the L&D world class.
Fake followers are influencing you
Governments, criminals, entrepreneurs, movie stars, singers and even the President of Ecuador are guilty of buying fake followers on social media accounts (YouTube, SoundCloud, Instagram etc). If you are a musician, your musical track could notch up millions of likes on Sound Cloud or get you a roaring set of followers on YouTube. And as a YouTube star you could earn a living. Because the difference between a million views and ten million views is a lot of money that you could make. That is what is driving people to buy followers.
Reinventing Me: The Final Frontier
I am always inspired by people who reinvent themselves. Those who chase their dreams. Those who are not afraid to face a temporary period of discomfort before they emerge in a new avatar. To reinvent oneself, one has to break the mould and step out of the zone of comfort and familiarity.
Is the Sarahah app missing the point
We filter all the feedback we receive. We filter it based on what we believe is the motive of the person giving feedback. Feedback from a loved one or a trusted person impacts us disproportionately. Even a stranger’s feedback can have sharp impact when we know that the person giving the feedback has no axe to grind.When people receive 360-degree feedback (much of which is anonymous), we spend time figuring out who could have said what. That is just human nature. It helps us put the feedback in context. Anonymous feedback does not drive change in individuals. It works for organisations. But that is not Sarahah’s target audience. It is aimed at colleagues and friends
Virtual Reality is being used in business
From using VR to design warships (it can't get more serious) to having Realtors do virtual walk throughs. A friend from US mentioned recently that his wife (who is a realtor) has increased her sale because it lets a potential buyer do a virtual walk-through of the property. Try and buy is going to become the way we shop. Learning and development has huge opportunities to use VR in training employees not just on the product and services but to build more empathy with customers. Leadership training can use VR to build empathy - an elusive area so far.
How to Handle Underperformers on a Team You Inherit
How to handle underperformers in a team you inherit? The manager is responsible for the success of the team. It is not fair to top performers when the manager ignores the underperformers and lets the others pick up the slack. How can the manager help?
Introduction to Storytelling by Pixar
I am a fan of Pixar's storytelling style. I don't know if you have ever read their famous 22 rules of storytelling? If you have not, you must. Some of the tips are really super useful to newbies like me who are fascinated enough by the magic to want to be a magician. But for now one has to be grateful that I am getting to read the magician's book of spells before he returns. I make a quick note of rule number 2 in the Book of Spells.
5 Future Skills
Using a trans-disciplinary lens to solve complex problems will become the norm. Google uses anthropologists to understand how users think and behave. Anthropologists are used to making sense of the full sweep of complex cultures. Google’s coders work with psychologists to understand the emotions that their fonts create among users. Being able to understand others is an integral part of how work will get done. Routine, repetitive work will all get done with machines. So what skills will matter more in future?
Brain HackS
Today several people celebrated Teachers Day and acknowledge the role of the teachers in shaping their lives. Today's post begins with a tip that encourages you to think like a teacher when you want to learn something... anything.
Is Apple right in saying no to the government's request
Apple has said no to FBI’s request to gain access to their walled garden. Governments make requests to companies like Twitter and Facebook to block posts that they define as inflammatory. The line between what one defines as freedom of expression and sedition is often blurred. Is Apple right in saying no to the government and is that in our best interest?
Do open offices boost creativity
Startups have open offices – mostly. Everyone from the twenty year old founder to the twenty one year old employees are all sitting around in open cubicles. It is a visible symbol of a non-hierarchical work culture. In a country where hierarchy is everywhere, this comes across like a breath of fresh air and becomes a great draw while hiring. But are they really productivity boosters (because the boss can keep an eye on you) or creativity enhancers?
NoPayMBA: Business education without an expensive MBA?
Laurie Pickard (Twitter @NoPayMBA ) who now lives in Kigali, Rwanda, completed her MBA-level education using only MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). She is now telling the world how to do it through her website NoPayMBA.com and Fortune, CNN/Money, Financial Times have all talked about her idea. She created to document her studies and to serve as a resource to other learners, has been visited by readers from nearly every country in the world.
Performance Management - why is it so hard?
It’s not just in the workplace that we judge ourselves generously. When the weighing scale tells us that our weight is more than what it ought to be, we blame the scale. When a psychometric instrument tells us something about ourselves that we are uncomfortable with, a person will question the design of the instrument. Performance Management is hard ... very hard.
