Have you ever between taught ‘how to attend a meeting or how to run a meeting’? Meetings is a communications tool that is used most of the time in any organisation, yet almost most persons have not thought of the organisation of meetings or its improvements.

At toastmasters, all members are requested to attend meetings and are trained in the optimum use of the important communications tool called ‘meetings’.

I came back from my Syndic meeting of the property where I reside last Wednesday, frustrated in the way the meeting was held. Yesterday, I attended a meeting of the shareholders of an association; I was again horrified by the way the meeting was run and prepared. I am now pondering in the waste in time, money and personal irritation occurring throughout Mauritius in meetings of any sort.

Patti Hathaway, a certified professional speaker who I came to know through my AMA membership offers some tips to make our meetings more effective.

Ten Tips for More Effective Meetings

By Patti Hathaway, CSP

Love them or hate them, meetings are an everyday fact of life for most businesspeople. If you keep these ten tips in mind, everyone involved will be able to use their time more productively—assuring a positive experience.

Provide specific goals and objectives

Every person attending a meeting should be able to answer these key questions:

• What is the purpose of this meeting?
• How can I contribute?

1. It is essential to send out an agenda prior to any meeting. List your meeting objective (i.e., the purpose for the meeting) on the agenda.
2. Outline any preparation you would like the participants to do prior to the meeting. Also, a list of any materials participants should bring to the meeting.
3. Invite only those people who can contribute to the meeting.

Avoid the “information assumption” trap

1. Avoid lecture meetings. Is there a more efficient way to distribute certain information instead of calling a meeting?
2. Prepare action item minutes.
3. Get participants actively involved in the meeting: appoint a timekeeper and ask for help in facilitating the meeting.
4. Have participants attend only for the time they are actually needed.

The “platinum rule” of meeting success

1. Are your participants “big picture” or “detail” people? What format should you use for the project team’s final report? What kind of meeting minutes will best meet the needs of your participants?
2. Start on time. Also set (and adhere to) an ending time when scheduling the meeting.
3. Keep in mind that Robert’s Rules of Order does not necesarily increase the effectiveness of meetings. Develop your own rules of the road to best meet your group’s specific objectives and needs.

John C Maxwell wrote a book entitled ‘Talent is not enough’. I believe that too much talents inhibit success.

Talent is often overrated and frequently misunderstood. When people

achieve great things, others often explain their accomplishments by simply

attributing everything to talent. But that is a false and misleading way of

looking at success. If talent alone is enough, then why do you know of highly

talented people who are not highly successful?

Leadership expert Dr. John C. Maxwell knows that people are never

successful by talent alone, and he outlines 13 crucial things you can do to

maximize your natural talents and become a “talent-plus” person. He is

weighing in on the subject of talent –– and, as always, his opinion and his

insights might surprise you.

A long-time admirer of great talents in sports, business, leadership and

philanthropy, Maxwell says that what separates the talented from the truly

successful is making the right choices. In Talent Is Never Enough, Maxwell

lays out a road map for anyone interested in making the most of their

natural abilities.

“People who neglect to make the right choices to release and maximize

their talent continually underperform,” writes Maxwell. “Their talent gives

them an opportunity, but their wrong choices can shut the door.” Talent, he

contends, is a given, but success must be earned.

I t I took pleasure in memorising the topics which Dr. Maxwell developed in his book:

1. Belief Lifts Your Talent

2. Passion Energizes Your Talent

3. Focus Directs Your Talent

4. Practice Sharpens Your Talent

5. Perseverance Sustains Your Talent

6. Courage Tests Your Talent

7. Teachability Expands Your Talent

8. Character Protects Your Talent

9. Responsibility Strengthens Your Talent

10. Teamwork Multiplies Your Talent

I have been watching an hour long youtube presentation on persuasion by the author of The Art of Woo: G. Richard Shell. Woo with integrity was his last chapter!

This reminded me of an article from Daniel Williams on a similar note which I had kept to read once in a while.

Today leaders must cut through the clutter, focus their leadership agenda, and endlessly persuade.

What do you think is the most needed leadership skill in the digital economy? A top priority should be communicating your leadership agenda. Why? Because business leaders are under enormous pressure to sell their corporate strategies to their best customers, employees, and partners—just to retain them. In an economic downturn, communication and influence skills only increase in importance.

In my experience, the best leaders use a thoughtful and systematic approach to communicating their leadership agenda. These leaders master six skills.

• Listen. Your leadership team has forged a new strategic direction. Now it’s time to execute. But before you do, you must listen, to yourself. Start with some inward reflection. Think through what you want to say and why. Once you have found your authentic voice, listen to others. Test your arguments and explore new ideas. Far from being dogmatic or arrogant, the best communicators learn about the people they hope to influence, their needs, aspirations, and concerns.
• Prepare. Influencing requires careful preparation and planning. Take time to research and develop your ideas. Think through an influence strategy before you start communicating. Don’t go straight from inspiration to communication without preparation and testing.
• Align your messages strategically. Remember, everything you say and do sends a message: Your passion, the clarity of your ideas, your policies and business practices, the structure of your organization, who makes decisions, who gets promoted, who gets fired, and media relations to the press and analysts. The best communicators ensure that all their messages—whether formal (corporate speak), organizational (policies and practices), or personal (what you say)—are aligned with their core business strategies, personal values, and behavior.
• Feel passionate. Pursue the ideas and values you feel passionate about. Communicate that passion to others. If you don’t, you will never connect emotionally with your audience and win them over to a shared vision and course of action. The best leaders draw upon their emotions to get buy-in. They understand that peoples’ hearts and souls are often greater motivators than pure reason alone.
• Use vivid language and compelling stories. To influence, you must position your arguments and present vivid supporting evidence. As one executive said, “There’s just as much strategy in how you present your position as in the position itself.” Use graphics to enhance your message. And tell a story. Story telling is a powerful tool in a leader’s literary basket.
• Influence continually. Seldom will you win over all the critical stakeholders to your leadership agenda in the first try. Rapid communication can never replace a systematic and thoughtful approach to winning people over to your agenda. The best leaders view influencing as an ongoing process that is linked to a larger strategy for change. Persuasion often demands listening to the people you are trying to influence, testing your message, incorporating feedback, developing new messages, retesting, making compromises, and then trying again. Yes, this process can be time-consuming and difficult. But the credibility and influence you gain will make it worth your while.

Last night, I spent two hours listening to the recordings I took during the eye opening seminar I attended by a Philosopher. The material was so dense that I had to stop the recording on and off to reflect thereon. I then mentally reassess my position in the light of Bertrand Vergely point of view. By so doing, I found that by using an ‘observer’ perceptual position, I could better judge the position to take, in melting some of the good sense that Bertrand Vergely was driving to some of my own convictions. I totally adhere to the thesis of Bertrand Vergely on Primary Intelligence (reptilian) and Creative Intelligence which was for me a new way of defining the type of intelligence.

Today whilst reading, an article of coaching it was suggested that one could be one’s own coach by imagination and the use of our creative intelligence. In NLP, we call this the ‘what if’ frame. This is at least how Marshall Goldsmith & Patricia Wheeler start off their script on Coaching.

The best coaching advice you’ll ever receive in life comes from a wise old person. Listen carefully:

First, take a deep breath. Now, imagine that you are 95 years old and about to die. Before you take your last breath, you are given a wonderful, beautiful gift: the ability to travel back in time and talk with the person you are today. The 95-year-old you has the chance to help the you of today to have a great career and a great life.

The 95-year-old you knows what was really important and what wasn’t; what really mattered and what didn’t; what really counted and what didn’t count at all. What advice does the wise “old you” have for you? Take your time. Jot down the answers on two levels: personal advice and professional advice. And once you write down these words, take them to heart.

In a world of performance appraisals, this may well be the one that matters most. At the end of life, if the old you thinks that you did the right thing, you probably did. If the old you thinks that you screwed up, you probably did. At the end of life, you don’t have to impress anyone else—just the person you see in the mirror.

Four Recurring Themes

When a friend once talked with old people facing death and asked them what advice they would have given themselves, their answers were filled with wisdom—and four themes:

1. Take time to reflect on life and find happiness and meaning now. A frequent comment runs along these lines: “I got so wrapped up in looking at what I didn’t have that I missed what I did have. I had almost everything. I wish I had taken more time to appreciate it.”

2. Look to the present. The great disease of “I will be happy when…” is sweeping the world. You know the symptoms. You start thinking: I’ll be happy when I get that . . . BMW . . . promotion . . . status . . . money. The only way to cure the disease is to find happiness and meaning now.

3. Don’t get so lost in pleasing the people who don’t care that you neglect the people who do—your friends and family. You may work for a wonderful company and believe that your contribution is important. But when you’re 95 and on your death bed, very few of your fellow employees will be waving goodbye! Your friends and family will likely be the only people who care.

4. Give it a try—follow your dreams. Older people who tried to achieve their dreams were happier with their lives. None of us will ever achieve all of our dreams. If we do, we will just make up new ones! If we go for it, we can at least say at the end, “I tried!” instead of, “Why didn’t I at least try?”

When we interview high-potential leaders worldwide and ask them: “If you stay in this company, why will you stay?”, we hear the same answers: “I’m finding meaning and happiness now.” “The work is exciting, and I love what I am doing.” “I like the people here. They are my friends. This feels like a team—like a family. I might make more money if I left, but I don’t want to leave the people here.” “I can follow my dreams. This organization gives me the chance to grow and do what I really want to do in life.”

To make a new beginning in life or in your leadership, look ahead to the end and then decide what to do.

Growing Into Success

Why do some people reach their creative potential early while equally talented peers don’t? We’ve all seen the near-misses: people who have talent to spare but never quite make it; and those, like the tortoise in Aesop’s fable, who enjoy eventual success that once seemed out of reach to most observers.

If you believe you are born with all the smarts and gifts you’ll ever have, you tend to approach life with a fixed mind-set. However, those who believe that their abilities can expand over time live with a growth mind-set—and they’re much more innovative.

As coaches, we encounter people who have a stellar track record, off-the-chart IQ, great technical expertise, and a track history of success—but who then reach a career plateau. In contrast, we work with individuals who, despite a rather pedestrian early track record, lack of Ivy League pedigree, surpass those who appear to be the “chosen ones.” How does this happen—and what can you do about it?

This is good news for those who do not grow up feeling chosen or special. Feeling much more like the tortoise than the hare, you may stumble along while others seem to sail through life easily and successfully—or so it seems.

In reality, the pampered and pedigreed are often the ones who stumble, due to adopting a fixed mindset. We’ve all seen folks who were tapped as stars early in life. Cheered on by doting, praise-lavishing parents, they develop the sense that their talents are God-given qualities that they can count on for future success.

What’s the problem with this? They feel entitled to succeed and become risk-avoidant, fearing the embarrassment of failure. They deal with obstacles by giving up, feigning disinterest or blaming others. Or, having enjoyed so many early wins, they keep on doing what made them successful, despite all the changes around them—not a great recipe for ongoing success.

Mark was a bright, results-oriented VP in his company and yet he offended his peers with his brusque style and impatience. His manager doubted that he could, or would, change. And Mark had no patience with fluff. He needed a clear business case for making any behavior change. Once he understood that listening more and increasing his patience would lead to better buy-in from others and improve his department’s product, he embraced the change enthusiastically. Mark implemented his development plan diligently with great results—to the astonishment of his manager.

What propelled Mark’s progress? He embraced a mindset of growth. Never a natural star or charismatic presence, he’s a regular guy who approached challenges with curiosity and saw roadblocks as signs that he needed to change strategy, increase effort, stretch himself, or try new behaviors (high emotional intelligence).

In our early meetings, Mark took a learner’s approach to his 360-degree feedback. Although surprised with the negatives, he didn’t deflect or blame his stakeholders. Although a very private man, he faced his fear of disclosing more about himself to others to enhance his leadership. In other words, he embraced the possible.

You can adopt an attitude that enables you to grow and change.

First, listen to yourself—to the internal music and lyrics that you hear inside your head? Are you telling yourself to give up? That your challenges are the fault of others, less wonderful, less “enlightened” people? Or do you tell yourself that you can figure out what abilities you need to grow or stretch toward to succeed? These belief systems are the underpinning of the success—and failure—of many.

Second, create a regular time and space to reflect on who you are—your beliefs, your vision, your inner dialogue. This will be unfamiliar and uncomfortable for those who value speed and are used to a track record of stardom. My advice: do it anyway.

Third, find a partner to serve as “spotter” and dialogue partner as you grow. This could be a trusted colleague or an experienced executive coach. They’ll help you leverage your strengths and stay out of the way of your blind spots.

Recently, Mark described how he now observed patterns in meetings. “Now that I know myself better,” he said, “I see how other people use different behaviors to manage stress. I’m less impatient with them because I know what they’re trying to do, and I don’t let it get to me.” In fact, Mark now uses his new knowledge in developing and mentoring others. His department is delivering results more effectively, and other leaders are asking him and his team to participate in highly visible and strategic projects.

So what started out as a simple self-improvement project by an ordinary guy has turned into a big win for his company—largely because he has a mindset of growth.

I just had last night the enjoyable moments of watching AMY CHUA’s interview in ‘Conversation with History’. That interview followed the publishing of her book ‘World on Fire’.

The essential message of the book is: How exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethic Hatred and Global Instability.

In Mauritius, it is a fact that the economy is controlled by the 7 odd families of the same ethnic group. The present government has initiated a democratisation of the economy programme. Implementers of the program could well learn from the book and be warned of the possible dangers, -social unrest, and resentment from the majority,- whilst the 7 odd families be also be warned of the dangers and the need  to dilute faster their ‘ sweet wine’  by allowing opportunities to the majority to flourish faster, in the light of what has happened elsewhere.

The book review of the book issued by the British Guardian discusses the content of the book but the interview named above supplement largely AMY CHUA points of view on the subject.

World on Fire
by Amy Chua
346pp, Heinemann, £12.99

There is a plethora of books about globalisation, many saying roughly the same thing. This one is different. It is rare, indeed, to read a book about globalisation where ethnicity is at the core of the argument. That must have something to do with the fact that the great majority of authors of such books are white and from the west. The author of this book is a Chinese-Filipina. That is also surprising because, alas, there is little Chinese writing on ethnicity either. But this book is a gem. It is not that everything Amy Chua argues is correct – it is not – but her theme is different, rich and compelling.

Her starting point is that in many developing countries a small – often very small – ethnic minority enjoys hugely disproportionate economic power. As she points out, this is not true in the west: on the contrary, we are accustomed to small ethnic minorities occupying exactly the opposite situation, a very disadvantaged economic position. The classic case is southeast Asia, where the Chinese, usually a tiny proportion of the population, enjoy an overwhelmingly dominant economic position. In the Philippines, the Chinese account for 1% of the population and well over half the wealth. The same is true in varying degrees in Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam.

As Chua argues, rich and powerful minorities attract resentment everywhere: but when those minorities are ethnically different – and highly visible – then that resentment can carry a dangerous charge. “In the Philippines, millions of Filipinos work for Chinese: almost no Chinese work for Filipinos. The Chinese dominate industry and commerce at every level … all of the Philippines’ billionaires are of Chinese descent. By contrast, all menial jobs … are filled by Filipinos.” There is very little social intermixing and virtually no intermarriage. And the disparities, Chua argues, have grown more acute with globalisation and western-inspired market reforms.

Southeast Asia is an acute but by no means isolated example. Throughout Latin America, a small white elite has traditionally enjoyed both economic and political power, as well as cultural and racial pre-eminence. However, while in east Asia anti-Chinese sentiment has long been a powerful political force, in Latin America, at least until recently, there has been little ethnic – as opposed to class – resentment against the white elite. The dominance of a small white elite has long existed in southern Africa. Although the black majority now enjoys – as do their counterparts in countries such as Indonesia and Malaysia – political power in South Africa, economic power remains firmly in the hands of a tiny white elite. In east Africa, that economic elite is largely Indian; in west Africa, it is often, though in a less extreme form, the Ibos. The picture that emerges is that in much (though not all) of the developing world, economic power is largely concentrated in the hands of – to use Chua’s phrase – a “market-dominant” ethnic minority.

She argues that this disparity between the economic power of a small ethnic minority and the disadvantaged position of the majority ethnic group is a source of great political instability. Ethnicity, as we know, is potentially a highly combustible issue. “That ethnicity can be at once an artifact of human imagination and rooted in the dark recesses of history – fluid and manipulable yet important enough to kill for [Chua’s aunt, who came from an extremely rich Chinese family in Manila, was murdered by her Filipino chauffeur with the complicity of her Filipina maids] – is what makes ethnic conflict so terrifyingly difficult to understand and contain.” As Chua rightly argues, the mass killing of Tutsis by the Hutus in Rwanda in 1994 and the grievance felt by the Serbs towards the Croats in the Balkans were partly related to the economic advantage enjoyed by the Tutsis and Croats respectively, and the deep rifts that this engendered.

One of the difficulties faced by many developing countries is ethnic diversity of a scale utterly unfamiliar in the west, even the United States. Africa is the most extreme example. The major exceptions to this are China, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, all relatively homogeneous, ethnically speaking, and very successful economically. Chua argues that globalisation has exacerbated the ethnic disparities in wealth in many countries, with the “market-dominant” ethnic minorities, for a variety of reasons, enjoying disproportionate rewards, thereby fostering growing instability. This is liable – as happened in Indonesia with the fall of Suharto and the anti-Chinese riots – to boil over at any time.

Further, she suggests that the western mantra of free markets plus democracy is ill-conceived and a recipe for disaster in such circumstances. Here the author, in challenging such a verity, not to say cliché, of modern western discourse is on powerful, if heretical, ground. The western assumption is that democracy engenders a more liberal and tolerant society, but where that society is marked by a profound ethnic cleavage, the reverse may be true. There is no doubt that the anti-Chinese riots in Indonesia reflected the sentiments of the majority; similarly, in Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe’s desire to appropriate white farms was not least a populist appeal to the overwhelmingly black electorate. For Chua, free markets exacerbate ethnic divisions and, furthermore, democracy can act as the vehicle for a huge ethnic backlash by the majority. She believes that the idea that the two somehow form some kind of virtuous circle is wrong. Historically, this was never the case in the west: the rise of capitalism and the market long predated the achievement of democracy. And when democracy was achieved, the market was rapidly attenuated by redistribution and the welfare state, the antithesis of the kind of market policies preached and applied to the developing world by the Washington consensus.

One of the refreshing aspects of this book is not just the centrality of ethnicity, but the honesty with which Chua treats the issue. She doesn’t shy away from talking about ethnic divisions or racial prejudice. She is also thoroughly realistic about their tenacity and endurance. The roots often reach back centuries, as in the case of the Chinese in southeast Asia.

In the latter part of the book, Chua widens the geographical reach of her argument beyond the nation-state and suggests that the Middle East conflict should, in certain respects, be seen as a regional conflict between a “market-dominant” ethnic minority, the Israeli Jews, and the overwhelmingly larger Arab majority, far poorer and getting relatively poorer all the time. Finally, she considers the position of the United States in the post-cold-war world and argues that its global position is akin to that of a market-dominant ethnic minority (overwhelmingly white and perceived by others as such), which helps to explain the tidal wave of resentment against the US since September 11 and the sympathy for that event among many in the developing world.

In the western world, we are still largely in denial about the importance and potency of ethnicity. That is basically because the western world stands in such a privileged position towards the rest of the world, a situation that is intimately linked to colour: whites rarely, with the obvious exception of Jews, experience systemic prejudice. Rather they mete it out and enjoy the benefits of racial advantage. It is a pleasure to read a book that presents ethnicity as a fundamental organising principle of the era of globalisation.

· Martin Jacques is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics Asian Research Centre.

Giving a good presentation has always been one of the assets of a good leader. It has become even more important in this modern and present age where competition is fierce. We would need good presentations to sell your products, to have the buy in of your team, to communicate with your shareholders, to ensure that your bankers follow you and use your presenting skills in so many other instances. Power point presentations are the present most popular tool but it is not enough to convince your audience.

I found this below  text which I feel  gives the essence of what no to do to have a lousy presentation. Again Toastmasters club activities help you to practice the art of presenting and to hone your skills. I have to confess that my Toastmasters practice runs help me to improve greatly in this field; the learning was great and the feedback from the audience who you know are present to help you to improve further. Since I have become a great fan of collective intelligence learning.

How to Give a Lousy Presentation

Fifteen ways to make a bad impression

By Carmine Gallo

Giving truly great presentations requires skill, work, and practice. Giving catastrophic presentations is far easier. So if you want to take the easy way out and look like a rank amateur, here are 15 surefire tips to guarantee that you leave a really, really bad impression.

1. Misspell words. Failing to check the spelling on your slides shows a complete lack of care. If you don’t care enough to proof your presentation, your audience will care less about you and your message. It’s the easiest way to look unprofessional.

2. Create distracting color combinations. Blue on green is especially hard to read.

3. Use inconsistent fonts. Professional PowerPoint designers will use no more than two, perhaps three, font styles in an entire presentation. But why stop there? There are thousands of typefaces available. See how many you can incorporate into your slide show.

4. Use a really small font size. If you really want to drive people crazy, say something like this: “I know you can’t read this, but if you could, here is what it would say…”

5. Insert improperly sized photos that are stretched to fit the slide. Images used in PowerPoint slides should be at least 900 pixels wide by 720 high. Designers start with larger images and shrink them to fit the slide. If you really want to look bad, however, find much smaller thumbnail images, say 200 x 300 pixels, and simply stretch them to fit the slide. They will look blurry, cheap, and bush-league.

6. Look completely and totally disinterested. I attended a conference in which the keynote speaker hadn’t even bothered to create a presentation and had a few handwritten notes in front of him. That’s fine, if you can pull it off. This speaker could not. He shuffled through his notes, lost his place several times, and twice asked the organizer, “How much time do I have?” The people in the audience—influential venture capitalists—found this so appalling that they started looking at each other and laughing.

7. Look disheveled. If you really want to leave a bad impression, wear faded blue jeans, worn, dirty shoes, and a stained shirt.

8. Read every word of each slide. Better yet, turn your back to the audience and read your slides word for word.

9. Don’t bother with a backup plan. If you need a live Internet connection to demo a site, don’t bother making a screen shot of the site in case the connection doesn’t work. That way, you’ll be at a complete loss for words when the connection fails.

10. Don’t practice. At all. Practicing a presentation out loud takes work and will make you look far too polished. Just wing it.

11. Call attention to your mistakes. If you want to show a complete lack of preparation, say something like “Oops, I have no idea how that slide got in there.”

12. Open with an offensive or off-color joke. Half your audience will walk out immediately and you’ll have succeeded in making a really bad impression right out of the gate.

13. Use wild animations. Letting text simply fade into a slide is way too straightforward. Especially when PowerPoint offers you the bounce, the boomerang, and the dreaded “neutron,” which makes letters circle wildly. All are effective at giving your audience a headache.

14. Use cartoon clip art. Why spend $3 on high-resolution photos from a stock photography service such as iStockphoto when there are plenty of cheap-looking and free cartoons that will make your presentation look like a sixth-grade project?

15. Use ancient presentation software. PowerPoint 2003 served its purpose (I used it for years). But there’s no comparison with PowerPoint 2007, which is simply a better, more robust tool. Says Darla Wigginton, an expert PowerPoint designer and creative director at eVision Design in San Francisco, “When [PowerPoint] 2007 came out, it scared the design world because the average user could now create some impressive-looking work.” Why scare professional designers? Stick to older versions of the software and leave the slicker presentations to others.

I hope you find some of these tips memorable enough to avoid them at all costs. But make no mistake, these presentation “techniques” are alive, well, and thriving. Just when I think I’ve seen or heard it all, someone has one more observation to add to the list. Feel free to use the comments section below to add your own experiences. We look forward to hearing from you.

I like the definition of luxury pertaining to hotels in Mauritius as reported by an analyst of a fund manager of Anglo Mauritius financial services (AMFS).

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We were invited to the NMHL analyst meeting at Dinarobin hotel in Le Morne. So have you ever wondered what two finance maniacs discuss from Port-Louis to Le Morne? After our usual rant of the length of the journey we started to wonder why they organized this meeting at Le Morne. Obviously the aim was for us to visit the revamped luxury hotel at a cost of Mur 200 m. A series of questions barged into our mind. Why such a massive amount? What is Luxury?How is it determined? How is the demand created?

We are sure that the many stockbrokers present have already forwarded you the outcome of the meeting in terms of financial and outlook as prescribed by NMHL’s management but we aim to provide you something different including some sometimes under-rated aspect of the hospitality business by financiers.

Here is a synthesis of our thoughts and visit:

There are no precise definitions of luxury. In fact, the least that we can say is that Luxury definitions are blurring. Luxury comes in many guises and defining a luxury hotel is challenging. As in the past, luxury is constantly evolving and means different things to different people. For some it may be a hotel offering simplicity, privacy and spiritual well being whereas for others it may be 24-hour butler service or a personal shopper. Needs may differ according to the nature and purpose of the trip, the origin of the guest and the location of the hotel.To add to the confusion, some operators have taken to calling themselves ‘7 star’ to imply an Uber luxury product. Even at the high end though there are varying degrees of luxury. This means that Luxury is a moving target. There are only a few who really have the “Midas” touch to spot these trends and exploit them. NMHL has a demonstrable past success in this endeavour. Overall, luxury is generally regarded as a combination of facilities and style and something you don’t normally experience at home.

Demand drivers- Motivation for buying luxury goods in general

Clearly the demand drivers for luxury hotels varies with the type of property and is influenced by factors such as location and whether the hotel is an urban, resort or destination property, on the size, style, on-site facilities and so on. But why do consumers buy luxury goods and services? Five main reasons are:

1.         ‘Treat factor’
2.         Perceptions of luxury delivering better quality
3.         Brand image (especially important for younger consumers)
4.         Self indulgence
5.         ‘Showing off’ – this typically lead to marketing via word of mouth

In Dinarobin….

We were tour guided in the hotel where we saw a stunning hotel that really made a good use of a breath-taking site, in particular the Le Morne peninsula. During our tour visit, we saw the famous Clarins brand. Here we realize one important reality of the hospitality businesses in Mauritius: Consumers value spas. Many luxury hotel companies are pursuing out-of-room revenue growth opportunities, including potential food and beverage outlets and spa growth opportunities in specific properties. Increased awareness of spa experiences as rejuvenation exercises, diversification of spa products to include hiking, yoga, dance classes and other multi-generational products, increasing level of branding within the spa industry in hotels and increasing disposable incomes, are some of the factors that will drive the spa component growth in hotels in future years. Those we spoke to agreed that a spa is an essential facility and revenue generator, not just added as a differentiator. Dinarobin has annexed sauna as well as hammam to complete the pleiade of services offered. We also saw the joint golf course between Dinarobin and Paradis as a massive differentiator.

At the end of the tour, we realized that the main aspect of NMHL is that it owns trophy assets located in prime spots. This explains the ability of NMHL to preserve its pricing power even at the time of crisis. NMHL has not barged into cutthroat competition. This we believe showed into the financials.

But in view of the recent world economic plague, is this stock undervalued? Are there better opportunities ahead? How will the forex environment develop? What is the state of barriers to entry? Should you invest your total savings in the name? At what time should you buy it if yes?

At AMFS we have a team of committed and experienced professionals with their minds constantly directed towards finding solutions to these dilemmas. Our expertise range from strong fundamental and technical analysis with the aim to add value to the portfolio we manage. We study business in-depth. It is something that we are passionate about.

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An NLP practiotioner would ask you: “what do you mean by a luxury hotel? Please specify the term luxury?”

I am a regular user of LapTop. I may spend a good 4-5 hours daily on my laptop. Recently Olivier who spends most of his time on a laptop started having wrist pains. For him as well as for me it is becoming an occupational hazard. What is needed to be done? I found an article which discusses this issue and would like to share it with you.

Ergonomic Tips for Using a Laptop Computer

Text partially adapted from Cornell University Ergonomics Web, Professor Alan Hedge

Laptop computers, also known as notebooks, are not recommended for use as primary computers that are used for numerous hours everyday. However, they have been adopted for just that purpose by thousands of people.

1. Laptops are not designed ergonomically – The design and construction of laptops violates a basic ergonomic requirement for computer usage, namely that the keyboard and screen can be positioned independently for appropriate viewing and typing. In the very early days of personal computing, desktop devices also had the screen and keyboard integrated as a single unit, and this resulted in widespread complaints of musculoskeletal discomfort. By the late 1970’s a number of ergonomic design guidelines were written calling for the separation of screen and keyboard. The reasoning is simple. With a fixed design, if the keyboard is in an optimal position for the user, the screen isn’t, and if the screen is optimal the keyboard isn’t going to be placed properly. Even contemporary laptop designs fail to satisfy this basic ergonomic positioning requirement, which means that users must pay special attention to how they use their laptop in order to avoid muscular-skeletal disorders, headaches, fatigue, and similar complaints that result from non-ergonomic computer use.
2. Laptop user type -  Are you an occasional user who works on your laptop for short periods of time or less than two hours per day? Are you a full-time user whose laptop functions as your main computer? Occasional users will have less risk of injury than full-time users, but all users should pay attention to how they use their laptop computers.
3. Computer Posture – As explained above, laptops violate basic ergonomic design requirements, so using a laptop results in some tradeoff between either poor neck/head posture and poor hand/wrist posture.

1. Laptop dimensions – Laptops are available with screens as large as 17″. However, bigger is not always better. Consider your likely usage. The larger the screen the more difficult it may be to use your laptop in mobile locations, such as airplanes or trains. On the other hand, if you enjoy DVDs, “wide screen” laptops are also be proportioned with screens of less height but wide viewing for DVD convenience. There are a number of smaller notebooks and ultra portable laptops on the market that provide more compact portability and lighter weight. Consider issues of screen size and screen resolution, as well. A small screen (e.g.12.1″) will be useful in mobile settings, but if the resolution is high (e.g. XGA – 1024 x 768), make sure that you can read the screen characters and can easily use the input device to point to areas on the screen. The smaller the laptop, the smaller the keyboard, so make certain that you can comfortably type on a keyboard that may be only 75% the size of a typical laptop’s keyboard.
2. Laptop weight  – People who travel frequently and use their laptops on the road must consider the weight of the system they’ll be carrying. By “system” we mean the weight of the laptop plus the required accessories (e.g. power supply, spare battery, external disk drive, printer, etc.). Many lightweight portables can become as heavy as larger laptops after you add all the components into your carrying bag.  If your laptop and components weighs 10lbs or more, certainly consider using a pull-along laptop carry-on bag.  If you prefer a smaller bag and can comfortably carry your laptop, select a bag that is quality designed for that purpose and features a well padded shoulder strap system.

Are we not  in transition? Are we not in perpetual change? Are we not in a continuous motion?

I am very fond of this article by Vicki Heath that compares my early learning of Physics: Newton’s Law of Motion with her laws for successful Transition.

Managing Change: The Three Laws for Successful Transition

By Vicki Heath

Change programs that succeed adhere to certain enduring principles of effective change management. Organizations that act in accordance with these change management principles are more likely to see their efforts result in real organizational benefits. Here are three principles that have well stood the test of time.

Isaac Newton was a giant in the field of physics. We can all remember him from our school days as the genius that discovered the law of gravity. The picture of an apple falling from an apple tree on to Newton’s head is etched indelibly on our minds.

Newton is also famous for his three Laws of Motion. The formulation of these three laws was the largest single scientific advancement since the days of Aristotle, some two thousand years previous. Newton’s laws of motion apply to physical entities operating in space and describe how they interact at the most fundamental level. However, they can just as easily be applied to human entities interacting in an environment of change. When we apply them to people and organizations, we call the principles the Three Laws of Change Management©.

Newton’s First Law of Motion states that an object will remain at rest or in perpetual motion until an unbalanced force acts upon it. Think of your change program for a moment as the object in Newton’s First Law. Once your change initiative gets going, think about what will keep the program moving towards your goal.

As with the object in Newton’s Law, your change program will need a force to get it going and will need a force to move it to each new level. Also, given the natural inertia in organizations, if the driving forces dissipate, like a rolling stone the program will eventually come to a halt.

Just as with Newton’s First Law, the force must be immediate for your program to progress. A potential force that will provide an impetus in the future is of no use in the present. What is the immediate force that will get your people moving and what are the forces that will keep them moving? For some, discussing with them the forces for change may compel them to follow and support you. You could point to:

• legislative changes such as corporate governance, occupational health and safety, and risk management
• competitor activity such as new entrants and decreasing market share
• financial results such as profit and loss and share price
• quality indicators such as defects and delivery to commit
• customer feedback from surveys, mystery shopper, focus groups and field reports
• employee satisfaction survey results
• benchmarking comparison results

You could also highlight the impact of not changing. Impacts that you could discuss with people may include:

• loss of market share
• fines or jail sentences for non-compliance or personal injury
• tarnished business reputation
• increased rate of customer complaints
• loss of key staff

Whatever the forces for change, make sure that the forces are applied to the people needed to bring about the change by communicating often and using a variety of methods.

As you think about what strategies you will use to keep the momentum going in the new operational environment, I encourage you to draw a lesson from Newton’s Second Law of Motion. Newton’s Second Law states that the rate of change in motion of an object is proportional to the force acting upon it and inversely proportional to its mass. Consider the object as being the people working in the new organization and the force to keep them moving in the right direction as the various practical techniques that you can employ.

Your practical techniques could include:

• aligning systems of reward and recognition
• feeding back performance results to employees
• achieving some quick wins
• celebrating achievements
• creating meaning through introducing symbols of the new culture
• operationalizing the change
• aligning recruitment and selection criteria

Newton’s principle is telling us that the greater the mass (that is, the more pronounced the resistance to change), the more diligently you will need to apply the techniques (that is, increase the strength of the force). Think about and record what concrete steps you will take to institutionalize the change and who will be responsible for each action.

The final lesson on managing change comes from Newton’s Third Law. Newton’s Third Law states that every action is met with an equal and opposite reaction. What the principle teaches us is that if you confront resisters with shouting, lies, mistrust, sarcasm or apathy, you will be confronted with shouting, lies, mistrust, sarcasm and apathy in return. On the other hand, if you treat resisters with respect, acknowledge their feelings and listen genuinely to their concerns, you will be met in kind. How can you apply this principle? Things to consider include:

• Communicate openly and often with employees and other stakeholders, and without using commercial confidence as an excuse to not communicate.
• Meet resisters face to face whenever possible.
• Point out unacceptable behavior without resorting to character assassination, sarcasm and other methods that serve to attack people’s sense of self-esteem.
• Keep your commitments in order to build trust and respect. Trust can be lost in an instant and take years to regain.
• Don’t shy away from bad news. Tell people candidly but sensitively.
• Choose people for key positions that have well developed interpersonal skills.

That’s three important keys to guiding successful organizational change. We can summarize these Three Laws of Change Management© as:

First Law: Overcoming the natural inertia in organizations requires the constant application of the forces for change.

Second Law: The greater the inertia or resistance to change, the greater the required forces for change.

Third Law: The way that change agents treat resisters is the way that resisters will treat change agents.

Next time you want to bring about positive change with maximal impact, think about Isaac Newton and the Three Laws of Change Management©. Most importantly, think about how you can apply these three principles to your change program to get it moving in the right direction.