Entries Tagged 'books' ↓

On my last blog written in French, I shared my enthusiasm on the seminar I attended. It is worth noting that Process Communications is the brain child of Dr Taibi Kahler who formulated his process following works he did for the NASA to ensure the the team of Astronauts who had to live in close confinement for relatively long period had the necessary psychological tools for better communications amongst them.

Process Com provides very useful people skills to acquire by us all.The french book I am now reading thereon give a myriad of examples to be put in application in family, work and social environment. I recommend that you pay a visit to the web site.

Eric Berne nous parle de 3 types de leadership :

Ø Le leader responsable

C’est celui qui occupe la place de leader dans l’organigramme. Il est responsable du groupe et rend des comptes à une plus haute autorité (hiérarchie, conseil d’administration, actionnaires, …)

Son niveau de leadership se mesure par sa capacité à prendre des décisions en toute autonomie

Ø Le leader effectif

C’est celui qui est reconnu par le groupe comme ayant un niveau de compétence pointue sur un ou plusieurs domaines (techniques ou non techniques)

Son niveau de leadership se mesure par l’écoute qu’il suscite et par sa capacité à déléguer officiellement une partie de son leadership effectif à une personne plus compétente sur un domaine.

Ø Le leader psychologique

C’est le plus influent. C’est celui qui représente aux yeux d’une équipe l’image du leader. Il se révèle souvent dans les périodes de tensions. Il occupe, de ce fait, une place particulière dans le groupe.

Son niveau de leadership se mesure par la confiance qu’il inspire et par sa capacité à réguler les énergies au sein d’une équipe.

· Les 3 sortes de leadership peuvent être exercés par la même personne

· La réalité nous montre que c’est très rare

• Toutes sortes de combinaisons existent

Le leadership effectif

Le leadership

Psychologique

J’ai été enthousiasme du séminaire que j’ai participé la semaine dernière sur La process com.

Voila de ‘Quoi’ m’occupait pour la semaine : la lecture des recherches de Taibi Kahler et le livre de Gérard Collignon.

Merci Pierre Agnese pour ta brillante animation.

I am still in awe of the Wikis phenomenon and its potential to transform the human interactions. An excerpt from “Wikinomics” will give you any idea of the changes occurring today and the extent of this new mode of collaborative interactions.

Collaborative Minds

Each model we have discussed represents a new and unique way to compete, but they all share one thing: These new forms of peer production enable firms to harvest external knowledge,resources and talent on a scale that was previously impossible. Companies that adopt these models can drive important changes in their industries and rewrite the rules of competition.

There has probably never been a more exciting time to be in business, nor a more dangerous one. We are in the midst of a paradigm shift. New paradigms cause disruption and uncertainty and are nearly always received with coolness, hostility or worse. Vested interests fight against the change,and leaders of the old are often the last to embrace the new. Consequently, a paradigm shift typically causes a crisis of leadership. The lesson of history is that profound changes favor the newcomer and, in rare cases, the incumbent firms that learn to think differently. The choice facing firms is not whether to engage and work with peer-production communities, but determining when and how. The chance for customers and competitors to get the jump on new innovations in your area of business increases daily.

Thinking Differently

Smart firms will be able to harness external resources and talent to achieve unparalleled growth and success.The hard part will be rewiring your brain and turning off those old business reflexes so that you can capitalize on what the new world of wikinomics can offer

Being Open. A growing number of smart companies are learning that openness is a force for growth and competitiveness. Amazon, eBay, Google and Flickr open up their applications and business infrastructures to increase the speed, scope and success of innovation.

Peering. IBM joins the Linux peer producers and gives away hundreds of millions of dollars of software and resources to support them. Has IBM lost its head? No, it’s stumbled onto a new mode of production called peering.

Sharing. Smart firms today understand that sharing is more than playground etiquette. Organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Tropical

Disease Initiative are leveraging open-source drug discovery to launch an unprecedented attack

on neglected diseases such as cholera and African sleeping sickness.

Acting Globally. Like others in the aerospace and defense industries, Boeing has found that the costs, risks and expertise required to engage in largescale development projects such as designing and building new aircraft are simply too large for it to do alone. So Boeing reached beyond its walls to cocreate its new 787 passenger jet with a network of partners that stretches over six countries.

Wikinomics Design

Principles

So how should leaders go about applying the principles of wikinomics in their businesses?

Your planning must allow for a high degree of learning on your part and the flexibility to

respond to new opportunities that arise out of the interplay among participants in your

business web. Peering is a design and production innovation, and the firm must learn how to operate in this new environment. You must:

● Take cues from your lead users

● Build critical mass

● Supply an infrastructure for collaboration

● Take your time to get the structures and

governance right

● Abide by community norms

● Let the process evolve

● Hone your collaborative mind.

For the business manager, the number-one lesson is that the self-contained inwardly focused corporation is dead. Regardless of the industry or whether your firm is large or small, internal capabilities and a handful of b-web partnerships are not sufficient to meet the market’s expectations for growth and innovation. Managers should treat wikinomics as their playbook and harness its core principles to achieve success.Leaders must prepare their collaborative minds.

Is your mind wired for wikinomics? â– 

We have once more the honor and great pleasure in welcoming Imai Masaaki the Japanese top management guru and his team in Mauritius to lecture on “Survival of the fittest- STRATEGIES OF A LION”.

Should you have the time I would highly recommend that you attend this lecture which will be held at the cyber Tower on the 6^th March from 17.00- 19.00.

The Kaizen Institute has chosen Mauritius to conduct their worldwide meeting this semester and we are benefiting of this event.

During the days I was still active in business, a few Gemba Kaizen workshops and programs were run in some of the units, I used to manage. The Gemba Kaizen exercises gave excellent results on the overall performance fast and at almost no cost.

Elimination of wastes ( MUDA) and running a continuous improvement system in any business unit have worked and is still working miracles all over the world. I recall with much pleasure that in May 2001, SEBNA a bottle plant situated in the Rogers industrial zone were the first unit in Mauritius to contract the program which was brilliantly conducted by Jayen Murthy of the Kaizen Institute.

More so, in today’s difficult times, lean management is the way to remain competitive. This system of operation is often also called the Toyota way as most of the tools proposed by the Kaizen Institute were originally inspired by Toyota manufacturing methods.

In a day’s time, I shall major to what some people calls “age d’or”. Yes, I shall be entitled to the special treatments given to senior citizen: a government pension, free traveling on the public bus and reduced fare for air travel. Tom Peters, one of the business management gurus who I have been reading for years, also turned Sixty a few months ago. On the occasion he published a book which is a compilation of things he believes. “In search of excellence” was the first book I read from Tom Peters. Through the years I kept on reading his books and watching the videos of his seminars I could lay my hands on. Up till now I read his blog regularly. Like him I am still thriving and am still in search of excellence.Wow!

The number of times I heard the word “Happiness or Happy” to wish our friends the Chinese Newyear moved me today. The same thing happens on most feasts isn’t it? Happy Newyear; Happy Divali; Happy Easter; Happy Sankranti or Merry Xmas

I had earlier written a blog on Happiness and had brought to contribution one of my favourite mystics:

Happiness is our natural state. Happiness is the natural state of little children, to whom the kingdom belongs until they have been polluted and contaminated by the stupidity of society and culture. To acquire happiness you don’t have to do anything, because happiness cannot be acquired.

You don’t have to add anything in order to be happy; you’ve got to drop something. Life is easy, life is delightful. It’s only hard on your illusions, your ambitions, your greed, and your cravings.

Today on reading Guy Kawasaki’s blog, I was again awakened to the question of “Happiness.” He quoted:

Andrian White, a University of Leicester Psychologist who wrote on Self Well Being ( SWB) Factor of nations wherein Mauritius would rank 73th on the World Map of Happiness. I would only wish that we climb the ladder of the ranking!

Whilst the interest in SWB within positive psychology is to be welcomed it is interesting to note that the commercial development of the subject is in the very countries where SWB is highest. This leaves positive psychology open to the accusation of selling self-help to the worried well. The current lack of positive psychological studies in countries where levels of SWB are low does nothing to assuage this concern. It is worth asking where are the positive psychological studies exploring the effects on SWB of providing healthcare and education to communities that have never before has access to such resources? An approach that explored these questions really could be called positive psychology.

EXTRACT FROM THE PAPER OF Andrian WHITE

I wonder: how is it possible that the inhabitants of Paradise Island have such a low SWB ranking? It is worth noting that Denmark is at the top of the heap whilst our neighbour Paradise Island Seychelles is ranked 20^th. Why?

My meager contribution to the positive psychology to increase in our country is to offer to you and your friend the location of a free e-book of 90 pages: How to Be Happy and Have Fun changing the world.

Be Happy!

I had always been a marketing man at heart. I was already a Graduate of the Institute of Marketing in the late 60’s before the Institute became a Chartered Institute by the British authorities. Now known as CIM, the institute is thriving.

My keen interest in supermarkets and  industry of retail groceries moved me to keep track on the developments in this field. From recent trip to India and the reading in India on business, I can forecast a gigantic expansion in retail groceries in India.Wall mart is eyeing India. Local giants of the like of Tata, Birla  have already signed up with world wide players in the field  to capture the opportunities.Up to now,the government  of India has been very reluctant to open the market to foreign investors but would give permit of operation to joint Indian and foreign partnership.

SPAR a world wide operator with whom I had dealings for a number of years have already a foot in India.

Tesco, a UK based operator is growing from strength to strength. Logistics and Marketing are the two drivers of this industry. The right product,at the right time  and price to the right customer!Have you heard of dunnhumby way and relevance marketing? They are the marketing brain of Tesco, Kroger and many more..I just finished reading their small book Brand is dead!Long live the customer.It is a fable for business today written by Suzanne Cadisch which very succinctly and  in very simple language gives the essence of the success of Tesco today.More information to serve your customer better!

This morning I woke up with the thought “how was it difficult to optimize the logistics in any business”? In fact, to a large extent I have spent a large portion of my working career on this subject. Optimization of the logistics is the essence of running of a successful business operations. I was first time awakened to the concept of logistics, way back to a management course I attended in the early 70’s at BOAC in London when we were given a very tedious exercise and were taught the use of “Critic Path Analysis” as first time designed by the brilliant logistics experts in the project of “Polaris” the missile in the 50’s.
To have on the selves of a supermarket the right product ,in sufficient number of units at the time when the customer would like to have them at the right price is the aim of the businessman. Matching demand and the offer at the right time, right price and in the optimum quantity is more easily said that done.Just in time delivery is the buzz word!
Tom Peters, the management Guru that I have been reading since the early 80’s in his books and now almost daily, on his blog had always impressed me in his insistence that logistics are to be performed at perfection.

In my notes, I had for my memory sake, summarized the 10 traits of a leader from articles and books published by Tom Peters.Here they are:

1. Leaders create opportunities.

2. Leaders do!

3. Leaders re-do.

4. Leaders convey a grand design.

5. Leaders make mistakes.

6. Leaders nurture other leaders.

7. Leaders are great performers.

8. Leaders accept responsibility.

9. Leaders take breaks.

10. Leaders do stuff that matters.

Logistics will come under item 4.:the grand Design.

Last night the reading of the 33 free pages available on the net of Wikinomics held my breath. Don Tapscot & Anthony Williams‘s book promises to give the reader the evolution of mass collaboration in the new Wiki world.

I particularly enjoyed understanding the principle of Wikinomics and their proposal to strive in the new environment which sprouted from the linux experience. Also, Jacques Attali in his recent book also seems to share the same vision of the future in terms of collaboration & “le monde de gratuite”. . Definitely we shall experience a new form of man-mangement and human interaction in the work environment which in turn will influence the social interactions. Respect & independence whilst collaborating to the achievement of the set objective to serve the common good for free( without  retaining a financial individual claim on the final product or project)!I believe this might well be the spark to greater peace,in line with my optimistic wishful thinking.
I recommend you to avail of this freebie reading….

India without yoga could not be India. It may well be yet another gift that India has to offer to the western world. “Kriya Yoga brings about an integrated transformation of the individual in all five planes of existence: physical, vital, mental, intellectual and spiritual. Everyone can practice it and thus find happiness and peace.”

Yesterday, since I was confined to my room, during the day & because during the PanchaKarma treatment no one is not allowed to be exposed to the windy atmosphere, I did not witness the arrival of this large group of 20 persons strong at the center. I later got to meet and exchange with a few of the group who are all disciples of a yogi master who has his Ashram in Quebec. They come from all over the world in pilgrimage to south India with their teacher Marshall Govindan Satchidananda, who I saw from afar later at lunch.