Abhijit Bhaduri’s Blog
I write about careers, skills and the world of work. The cartoons and sketches are mine.
How to find a “jagged” resume
Pursuing an unusual goal is not the sign of having a jagged resume. It is usually an accomplishment that makes you wonder, what motivated the person to take up the challenge. It usually is something that brings out the desire in a person to persist despite setbacks and hardships. The person may finally not even have succeeded. But it is quality of persistence that a jagged resume will show far more effectively than a regular resume.
Humans Are Underrated
Geoff Colvin’s book talks about the importance of what he calls the “Relationship Worker” who has a greater advantage in the new economy. Much more than the Knowledge Workers. While the machines will pull up information and data faster than any lawyer can, they cannot fulfill our need for social interaction. “Understanding an irrational client, forming the emotional bonds needed to persuade the client” will be the differentiators in the future.
Navigating digital ecosystems
Disruption is a leadership phenomenon. Past success is the most effective predictor of future failure. Most disruption occurs not by making the wrong choices, as much as failing to choose at all. When the Ritz Carlton's head of training professes to be unaware of Airbnb, or when the publisher of a newspaper depicts future strategy in terms that disown past strategies we can begin to see the magnitude of the challenges ahead. What is needed is close to a complete reworking of our leadership model.
Insight Out by Tina Seelig
Insight Out starts by describing the term Imagination as the ability to visualize what does not exist today. So how does one go about becoming more imaginative? Stay curious suggests Tina. Observe everything with curiosity and not judgement. Look for patterns and then see what opportunities for improvement exist. Spend a silent hour observing something and these moments of immersion. Then use these to create your own “Moon Shot” projects – a term made famous by Google. Creating a driverless car is surely like taking a shot at going to the moon for a search firm.
The Intangibles of "Make in India"
Is Apple an example of an American brand or is it a Chinese brand? Apple’s manufacturing partner Foxconn, which makes the iPhone, iPad and several other Apple products in factories in China, is in talks to open factories in India to make iPhones. Does it matter to the consumer where the iPhone is made? In a blind test would a consumer be willing to pay the same price for an iPhone that was made in India as compared to some other country?
Hidden Strengths
Your “strength” is a combination of your natural talent, plus the knowledge and experience and the skills needed to actually do it. Talent plus knowledge plus skills reflects your natural strength. Your weaknesses arise because either one or more of these three elements is missing. To develop your hidden strength you need to figure out opportunities to practice these skills. That will help grow the hidden strengths.
CSR in talent strategy
Even a small connection to the people who benefit from your work not only will improve productivity, it makes everyone happier. The single strongest predictor of meaningfulness is the belief that the job has a positive impact on others. That may be a terrific way to rethink your talent strategy.
Analog vs Digital Leadership
Powerful digital engines are everywhere, capable of the continuous production of new knowledge to feed new ideas. But, where are you? Are you still an analog leader in a digital world?
PhD for B Schools - do we need them?
It is not the degree that matters but it's what the degree represents -- critical thinking, familiarity with generalizable frameworks, a sense of "where the field of study is" that the teacher needs to have.
The entrepreneur mindset in the digital age
Entrepreneurs are irrational. Their dreams are always greater than their resources. In the digital age the notion of entrepreneurship is getting redefined. Why is it so?
Games Trainers Play
The whole thing happened in a matter of seconds. We were all stunned and immobilized by fear. The professor then asked students to write down their own version of eye-witness accounts of the incident.
Industrial Relations Skills - The Next Shortage
It is funny how our view of what it takes to succeed changes over time – especially if you are at a B- School. In the pre-liberalization era, people who planned to pursue Human Resources would start their career on the shop floor. The job interviews would inevitably focus on testing the students on their depth of knowledge in labour laws. Trade Union leaders like Datta Samant would hit magazine covers as often as the movie stars – even if it was for the wrong reasons.
The CEO as the Chief Talent Officer
Look at all the places that live and die by sheer talent – Bollywood, the cricket teams, the advertising fraternity and even publishing – no one has a Chief Talent Officer. So do we really need one of these fancy titles in the workplace? If it really mattered wouldn’t these places have one? How do you explain this?
