Talent Is Overrated - What really separates world-class performers from everybody else

Geoff Colvin

Nicholas Brealey Publishing 2008

Rs.795 and pages 228

You could dismiss this book as the ranting of a cynic. And mind you, cynics come with a lot of research behind them: how else would they know all the prices (let’s not mention values). The theme of the book though, is disturbingly close to the work of Malcolm Gladwell: Outliers, which also came out in 2008.

The author, for instance says that if you had thought Mozart had talent, forget it! From a very early age Mozart received instructions from his father (Leopold) a teacher, composer, performer and domineering parent. And yet Mozart’s first masterpiece (Piano Concerto number 9) was composed when he was 21 – after 18 years of extremely hard, expert training. Tiger Woods had Earl Woods, his father, a ‘teacher of young men, with a lifelong passion for sports’. Asked to explain Tiger’s phenomenal success, father and son had the same answer: hard work.

Jack Welch and Bill Gates showed no signs of world-class abilities in their younger years. And Warren Buffett showed world-class performance after having worked diligently in the field for over 20 years. Several more such cases are brought out to show that outstanding performance has little to do with inborn talent and much more with hard, focused, disciplined work.  Colvin calls it ‘Deliberate Practice’. According to him, while developing the specific abilities of the particular domain, Deliberate Practice also effects changes in the person’s brain and body. There is a brief discussion on ‘myelin’, a substance that builds around the nerve fibres and neurons: great performance happens when ‘Myelination’ occurs ‘millions of times’. No more on ‘Myelination’ because research on the subject is still in its early stages.

Then he anticipates some questions: Can Deliberate Practice fully explain high achievement, and his answer is: No, real life is too complicated for that. Candidness is not acceptable when explanations are expected.

Another anticipated question: Where does the passion come from? This is answered with another question: Do people feel driven or can they be induced into it? The general belief and largely supported by research, he says, is that is intrinsic. So ultimately there is an internal element which goes beyond all research, and reasoning, and cynical logic.  Later, the author says that possibly these kids are somehow born with a compulsion to work in a particular domain. Why? Ah, that’s the mystery.

So much for talent at the individual level. In organisations, the need for churning out innovations increases as products, services and business models have shorter lives. The old beliefs (that creative ideas come only in Archimedean flashes; and creativity can be inhibited by too much knowledge), are patently wrong.  The greatest innovators in a wide range of fields – business, science, painting, music etc – have spent decades in intensive preparation before making any kind of creative breakthrough.  They were not burdened by knowledge but nourished by it.

Nourishment, or nurturing, is also what the homes of outstanding performers can teach us. The parents, willing to do anything to help the children, believed in and modelled a strong work ethic – of excellence, hard work, and to spend one’s time constructively. In an organisation this would be analogous to choosing developmental assignments that continually stretch an employee’s abilities. Employees will continue doing what they feel comfortable with – employers, like parents and coaches, have to keep pushing them to develop, and this process requires sacrifices on their part as well – including periods of low productivity from an employee while he or she is learning new skills.

While on the subject of performance in organisations an interesting question is posed by Colvin: Should we create business prodigies? The first aspect of this question is whether it is possible. Colvin says it is. Then the more important aspect: Is it desirable? Instinctively our answer is no for various reasons. He warns however that the emerging economies may not have such qualms …

Finally Colvin admits that we have reached the point where we are left without guidance from scientists and must look into the only place we have left: within ourselves. Having failed to effectively prove that there is no such thing as inborn talent and that it is all ‘Deliberate Practice’ he tries a placebo: great performance is not reserved for a preordained few – it is available to you and everyone; you can apply Deliberate Practice in your own life and work – you will be better off than if you had not.

One significant point in the book however, is his statement in the very beginning that if we believe that ‘natural talent’ is a precondition for success, we will put people (including ourselves) off, never allowing them (or us) to pursue an activity. By far the only significant point.

THE BIG SHORT - Inside the Doomsday Machine

THE BIG SHORT

Inside the Doomsday Machine

MICHAEL LEWIS

Penguin (

Allen Lane

) 2010

Pp 266    Rs.599

“… an undisciplined economy will collapse by its own rules …” a dire prediction of 1985 attributed to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI) by Italian Finance Minister Giulio Tremonti. It matters little whether anyone said it so far back in time. No one was listening. Meredith Whitney, of Oppenheimer & Co., predicted in 2007 (when the world was yet traipsing on the edges of financial disaster) that Citigroup had so mismanaged its affairs that it would need to slash its dividend or go bust. No one listened – but two weeks later Citigroup slashed its dividend – after its CEO resigned … and since data on the extent of the mismanagement within Citigroup or elsewhere was clouded in intentional opacity, Meredith was largely guessing. But by now everyone was up and listening.

Then Bear Stearns fell and then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fell. The Lehman Brothers debacle followed… and then all hell broke loose with AIG and Washington Mutual and umpteen others and the vulgar-size bailout. US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson persuaded the US Congress to release the S700 billion to buy subprime mortgage assets from banks; once he got the money, ‘Paulson ... [gave] away billions of dollars to Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs, and a few other unnaturally selected for survival.

We have gone too far ahead in time.

Michael Lewis has, in his all too candid and chatty manner, traced the origins of the meltdown (American euphemism for rape of the financial world) through all the myriad frauds and countless acts of subterfuge.

Several seemingly unconnected events occurred in the 1980s. Saloman Brothers converted itself from a private partnership to Wall Street’s first public corporation. They encouraged small markets in bonds funded by all sorts of strange stuff: credit card receivables, aircraft leases, auto loans, health club dues – and the most obvious untapped asset in America was still the home. The creation of the mortgage bond market extended Wall Street into the debts of ordinary Americans. At first the new bond market addressed itself to solvent half of the American population – later, it addressed the other half. The intention was to give the loans to less and less creditworthy persons – not to buy a house but to cash in on the equity on the house they already owned. The method was simple: keep making loans to people who can’t repay; don’t keep them on your books; sell them to fixed income departments of big Wall Street investment banks who will package them into bonds. Initiated by Long Beach Savings, and followed by “B&C” (whose mortgage was bought by Lehman Brothers). By 2005, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley were in. At this time, a new tool was found for betting against subprime mortgage lending: credit default swaps. The author of this device was Dr. Michael Burry, medico turned financial analyst. The supporting factor in all this was the while the stock market was heavily regulated, the bond market was not.

Such bonds were claims on the cash flows from a pool of thousands of individual home mortgages. But the borrowers had the right to pay off any time they please – which made bond investors reluctant to invest in such loans. To limit this uncertainty, they took giant pools of home loans and carved up the payments made by borrowers into ‘tranches’. The buyers of the first tranch got hit with the first wave of mortgage prepayments – for which they received the highest rate of interest; the buyers of the last tranch got the lowest rate of interest in exchange for the assurance that his investment wouldn’t end before he wanted it to.

Then another innovation arrived: interest rate swaps – one party ‘swapped’ a floating rate of interest for another party’s fixed rate. The condition here was that it should be a large non-banking corporation “willing to bury exotic risks in its balance sheet”. AIG Financial Products came to be the largest owner of subprime mortgage bonds. Goldman Sachs’ Gregg Lippmann transferred to AIG FP all its future losses from $20 billion in Triple-B rated bonds.

Then came CDOs (collateralised debt obligation) – originally intended to redistribute the risk of defaults in corporate and government bond “now jiggered to disguise the risk of subprime mortgage bonds”. Surprisingly, the rating agencies (paid fat fees by Goldman Sachs) pronounced 80% of these as Triple-A. The innovative spirit turned the purpose of redistribution of risks associated with home loans to hiding the risks by complicating it.

When the defaults came cascading, there was financial genocide – and yet the problem remains: no one knows the amount, in dollars, of credit default swaps bought and/or sold by various banks.

The book wasn’t meant to be a chronological account, one presumes – it has been written more to display the author’s familiarity with the inner workings of the sinister financial machine (though not quite the I-told-you-so variety). At the end of it all one does get a rather murky  idea of the murkier deals that brought the house crashing down. 

GOOD VALUE - Reflections On Money, Morality And An Uncertain World

GOOD VALUE

Reflections On Money, Morality And An Uncertain World

Stephen Green

Penguin India 2009

Pages 207  Rs 550

Where do we go from here? 

What part did we play in what went wrong? 

What do we do in the future? 

It was inevitable. This introspection. These perplexing, disturbing questions. Unbridled progress (however defined) needs ‘correction’ – to use a term from the stock market; questions need to be asked and answered.

One wouldn’t readily agree though with Stephen Green, that ‘we are at one of those moments in history when it seems as if the tectonic plates are shifting’. Alvin Toffler, much earlier, called this the ‘hinge of history’. These tectonic shifts and cardinal movements have been going on for ages, ever since the wheel was invented, through history recorded and unrecorded – through Galileo and Gautam Buddha, Jesus Christ and Einstein, and through Hitler and Stalin… old orders have changed yielding place to the new. Admittedly they were few (though far reaching); they are more palpable now with their frequency rising at a disturbing rate. Be that as it may, the need to reflect and mull over where we have reached and where we are heading has always been with us.  Attend a funeral and hear the philosophising about the ephemeral nature of human existence, the mastery of Father Time, the need for life to go on…. The current worldwide meltdown has been a strong reminder to us that, indeed, all is vanity.

And there are many asking these questions:

Arun Maira in Transforming Capitalism (2008) avers that the purpose of business is not just business – it has ultimately to be improvement in the quality of life.

Robert Reich in Supercapitalism (2008) decries the transformation of the citizen into a consumer who looks for the best deal – to his own detriment.

Rajni Bakshi in her Bazaars, Conversations and Freedom (2009)  speaks of the on-going struggle between treating the earth as an abode and as a marketplace, with a hesitant hope that the current meltdown may lead to “a healthier culture of commerce in which bazaars are conversations about not just freedom of exchange and material opportunity but also about purpose and social and moral values” – a culture beyond greed and fear, a culture not driven by limitless wants.

Stephen A Marglin in The Dismal Science (2009) attempts to understand what is lost as economic development proceeds, and concludes that what is lost is community. He further examines whether there was inevitably a trade-off between material prosperity and maintaining cultural integrity of the family or village?

David C. Korten in Agenda for a New Economy (2009) speaks of Phantom Wealth (illusory; created by inflation of asset bubbles unrelated to the creation of anything of real value or utility) and Real wealth (healthy happy children, loving families, caring communities, and a beautiful, healthy natural environment; healthy food, fertile land, pure water, clean air, caring relationships and loving parents, education, etc.).

And Ayn Rand’s warned in Anthem (1938) there is no scope for us to escape moral responsibility for wherever we have arrived at, by wailing: ‘But I didn't mean this!’"

The double-barrel word, as Green calls sub-prime (-lending), has been the symbol of the loss of easy certainties as time progresses. He refers to Chekhovian wistfulness about an illusory golden age. And the Faustian bargain. He also refers to our tendency to, and need for compartmentalisation as a refuge from the surrounding ambiguity – it enables us to simplify the rules by which we live in our different realms of life, and so avoid the moral and spiritual questions.

From The Phenomenon Of Man (de Chardin – 1955) to Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny (Amartya Sen – 2006) there has been a call for recognition of the full range of links that have woven people together across divides of religion and nationality over the centuries

An interesting question that Green asks is ‘why should I bother?’ and in the process considers the ramifications of ‘corporate social responsibility’ as the raison d’etre of the company. From this he moves on to the concept of individual social responsibility which cannot be an optional extra or an adjunct to a life focused purely on work/pleasure. The responsibility involves the whole person: it cannot be limited by compartmentalisation, on discharged just by writing checks.  There is an interesting analysis of the rich young man in the New Testament which is a close equivalent of the Faustian bargain – which grants immediate and undiluted pleasure in exchange for acceptance of the consequences.  We take this option in many small ways all the time, and sometimes we justify it because we can’t bear the ambiguity of imperfection.

That Stephen Green is an ordained priest is significant; his position at the HSBC is incidental. The book is a reminder of all that we can be.

MOJO - How to get it / How to keep it; How to get it back if you lose it

MOJO

How to get it / How to keep it

How to get it back if you lose it

Marshall Goldsmith

With

Mark Reiter

Viva books Pvt Ltd 2010

Rs 225   pages 205

‘How’s your Mojo?’ is a question that could stop you in your tracks. ‘What’s Mojo?’ you ask, and you’ll die happier if you do not wait for the reply. The present author says that Mojo is the moment when we do something that’s powerful, purposeful and positive, and the rest of the world recognises it. Originally it referred to a folk belief in the supernatural powers of a voodoo charm; it has evolved to a sense of positive spirit and direction; also a more elusive sense of personal advancement. Sports people call this being ‘in the zone’. 

And it’s not an ailment peculiar to Marshall Goldsmith. In 2008, Gary Bertwistle had come out of with a Who Stole My Mojo? How to Get It Back and Live, Work and Play Better and attempted to define this elusive term as magic, voodoo, charm, or energy, vitality, zest, drive, zip, zing, spirit, verve, pizzazz, punch, passion, oomph, power, get up and go, vigour and feistiness; the extra spark that is the difference between having a good day and great day, between getting good results and outstanding results. The person with Mojo takes responsibility, runs the extra mile, loves doing it, appreciates opportunities and is inspirational; the opposite (which Marshall refers to as Nojo), tends to play the victim, is satisfied with the bare minimum, is generally uninterested and indifferent. If you’re yet alive, you’ve got Mojo!

How do you show your Mojo? Love what you do and show it – and, says Goldsmith, it is seen when the positive feelings towards what we’re doing comes from inside us and are evident for others to see. The author had in 2007 brought out an impressive book entitled: What Got You Here Won’t Get You There and seems to have lapsed into the mystical … it’s only his earlier reputation that whets your appetite for further reading.

And, here’s the recipe – four vital ingredients. Identity (Who do you think you are? Specifically, not what other people think of you); Achievement (What have you done lately that has meaning and impact?); Reputation (Who do other people think you are?); Acceptance (What can you change, and what is beyond your control?). It is by understanding the impact and the interaction of identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance, that we can begin to alter our own Mojo.

Assuming that the reader is not yet confounded, the author mentions that there are two forms of

Mojo in our lives: professional Mojo – which is a measure of the skills and attitudes we bring to any activity; and personal Mojo – which is measured by the benefits that a particular activity brings back to us. Further, five qualities are identified in the professional variety namely, motivation, knowledge, ability, confidence, and authenticity, and five in the personal variety namely, happiness, reward, meaning, learning, and gratitude.

There’s more Joe! We have also the Mojo paradox – our default response in life is negative. Once you appreciate the paradox, says Marshall, you become aware of its effect on every aspect of your life, particularly in things that really matter – such as the level of happiness and meaning in your life – and you become more thoughtful about turning things around.

The rest of the book analyses each of the building blocks (identity, achievement, reputation and acceptance) for better understanding and use for building up Mojo. For instance, identity is analysed in its different forms such as ‘remembered identity’ (where self and past collide), ‘reflected identity’ (where the past and other people’s opinions meet), ‘programmed identity’ (the result of other people sending messages about who you are or will become in the future), and ‘created identity’ (where self and future meet; neither controlled by our past nor by other people – the beating heart of Mojo). This is followed by a reference to our tendencies of over-committing, bashing-the-boss, wishful-thinking, refusing-to-change-because-of-‘sunk-costs’ – which lead to loss of Mojo. The author then offers fourteen tools for building up and maintaining our Mojo related to the four building blocks. For instance, in relation to identity, the tools include the establishment of criteria that matter to you, finding out where you ‘live’ (just surviving, short-term/long-term satisfaction, short-term/long-term benefit), optimism in the face of adversity, subtraction of one activity that could add happiness.

This is a self-help book – if ever there was one. The problem with self-help books is that when the book is read and closed, the ‘help’ ends. Several authors offer web-pages for continued contact and for ensuring sustained change. Marshall advises that it would be more effective if we confided our self-improvement programme to another person. Our ego should not come in the way. But in sharing this confidence are we not going to lose our Mojo? The million-dollar question.

The Nine Lives of Innovation &The Seven Keys to Small Business Success

CATS The Nine Lives of Innovation Stephen C. Lundin Tata McGraw-Hill 2009 Rs.250       Pp 170

LOOPS The Seven Keys to Small Business Success Mike Chaet & Stephen C Lundin Tata McGraw-Hill 2009 Rs.225      Pp 127

Two books are under review here: one written by Stephen Lundin (Ph.D.) with Mike Chaet (Ph.D. too) which, one expects, will send the major business schools into loops around the world, and the other produced single-handedly by Lundin, the man who started off with Fish! (exclamation mark and all) and has now graduated to Cats. Fish! dwelt on the need to make the work place a fun place – good reading with several original insights (you can choose the attitude you take to work; play and have fun; make their day; be there), until he surprised us with his Cats. Cats are innovators, (and no, it is not an acronym) – though why they have to appear in feline garb is beyond understanding. But then, cats and cat lovers are not known for logic.

Although it doesn’t quite arouse the same emotions as the expletive “Rats!”, “Cats!” do arouse a multitude of reactions ranging over a whole lot of connotations from Cool Cats to the Catty. And none of them qualify as an inspiration for innovation. The book does not really explain the connection – between cats and creativity. But with the all too obvious intention of keeping the metaphor going throughout the book, the chapters and sections end up with ‘Cat Nips’, ‘Cat Pause(s)’, and ‘A Cat’s Eyeview of Life’. There is also a cat belt of varying degrees. There is no reference however to catnaps – perhaps because innovators don’t enjoy such luxuries?

The book first speaks of the four basic challenges to innovation, viz Doubts / Fears / Distractions; Being Normal (best summarised in the author’s quip that the last thing that a fish discovers is water); Failure; and Leadership & Energy (leaders have to know that  innovation dies in toxic energy). The nine lives are actually nine different aspects of innovator behaviour – and has little to do with the furry little bundle that leaps into your lap without invitation. Much like ideas that leap into one’s mind... but, an innovator seldom lands sunny side up. More often than not, innovators manage to stagger back into the innovation mode after every failure or success. The entire play on Cats is based on the old attribute of the species – curiosity – something that can scarcely begin to describe the urges that compel the innovator forward. And there is also the memory lurking at the back of one’s mind, of the cat that was killed for its curiosity. Ever heard of innovation gone to the dogs?

And then there is Loops. Before reading this book, one could have easily presumed that tying-up-loose-ends is what closing-of-loops is all about. But a loop as an ‘essential key to success’? And there are seven of them... all looped (oops!), bound together to spell success in small business units. The front cover of the book includes a pointer: success in business is all about closing loops, and a parenthetical warning: you have to close the RIGHT loops – where lies the rub. The authors have adopted the Ken Blanchard style –  a skit or playlet like record of people involved in the running of a business unit. The book however stretches the situation too far, assuming the reader’s credulity – and naivete. This is a story of a young heir to a small business, sent out on a ‘practical assignment’, and his interaction with his mother (who runs the family business), the employees (ideal in all respects, and starry-eyed about their deceased employer), and several successful businessmen in the town who seem to be paragons in management with several easy-to-see insights about their own successful business units. The main protagonist is asked by his professor (another admirer of ‘Dad’) to choose a proven leader as a part of his summer assignment for his course on Entrepreneurship. Of course, he chooses his own father (now deceased) who built up the business that the young man is expected to inherit. In the process he encounters the loops.

The first in the series of loops is Manage Your Experience Zones – areas that have the maximum customer contact (something the authors could have said directly, without getting us into this convoluted concept).  Then we have Building a Winning Culture with Vision Moments – fairly straight, though designated as a loop!. Execute Fundamentals with a Loops Group, being the third loop, refers to setting up a group of businesspeople who can help each other succeed. Possible perhaps in small towns with small business interests – and then again perhaps not. Standardize Every Process, and Innovate Constantly, are a pair of straight loops. Live in the Real World – in loops? This refers to having plan B and plan C. Lead By Example, the last of the loops, needs no comment. But at the end of it all the reader is left wondering: what’s with these loops? Management literature is known for its jargon and rarefied theories than can make one go around in circles – or is it loops now?

Knowledge Management From A to Z

Knowledge Management

From A to Z

Quick Reference Guide To Principles, Concepts And Contemporary Practice

A.V Vedpuriswar

Vision Books 2009

Rs.280   Pp 232

In 326 BC, Alexander had to turn back after defeating Porus on the banks of the Indus (Puru and Sindhu, respectively for those indigenously inclined) because of information received about the military prowess of Chandragupta Maurya. All wars are known to have been won or lost on the extent of information available on either side, and military intelligence is perhaps the earliest form of knowledge management known to man. In more recent times, the Kargil ‘situation’ was a telling example …which also helps to bring out the basic difference between Information and Knowledge. Vedpuriswar says (and most thinkers on Knowledge Management would agree) that information is that which is fed to you after contextualising ‘Data’. Knowledge is what you make out of the information given to you. “It takes a clever question to turn data into information; it takes intelligence to use the result,” says Lauren Ruth Weiner, in a quote at the end of the book. Drucker supports: Information only becomes knowledge in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it. It is a kind of internalising process that converts Information to Knowledge. Then how does one manage Knowledge?

Drucker asserts that there is no such thing as Knowledge Management – only knowledgeable people. It is generally accepted however, that the need to manage Knowledge assumed importance when the rate of obsolescence went out of control. The leisurely passing of knowledge from one generation to another seemed to have worked very well till about the early 20^th century. The incredible change in the rate of data-transmission itself became the major cause of rapid obsolescence of knowledge. The management of business came to depend more and more on the speed with which information could be collected and internalised for the generation of profits. And so arose the need to tap the knowledge available inside the organisation as well as whatever could be collected from outside. Drucker’s ‘Knowledge Worker’ has thus become the foundation of a whole new area of management literature: Knowledge Management. And A.V. Vedpuriswar, in his attempt to collate the available knowledge on Knowledge Management in a sort of dictionary of the terms used, has just added another volume.

The book is broadly divided into three parts. The first fifty pages are devoted to a pithy introduction to Knowledge Management leading up to its social dimensions. The ‘dictionary’ proper constitutes the central part. The concluding part consists of twelve case studies showing Knowledge Management in actual practice - twelve companies in short, telling accounts of their success in Knowledge Management initiatives. McKinsey, heads the list and mentions the role of Rajat Gupta’s mentoring plans in making the firm a benchmark in Knowledge Management. The case of Pfizer highlights how they have effectively combined Knowledge Management with succession planning, leading also to competence development among newcomers in the shortest possible time. Interesting to note how Pfizer taps tacit knowledge through some ‘basic questions’. The lesson from Kao is clearly that learning organisations do not happen without top management’s deliberate and conscious shaping. Toyota brings home the fact that it is ahead of others because of its superior ability to learn. Nucor Steel brings out the importance of ‘social ecology’ for effective Knowledge Management. The Silicon Valley experience shows that Knowledge Management is not restricted to moves within organisations but can also be seen in effective use over a large number of units located in an area. Canon and British Petroleum are among the others companies covered.

Bringing up the rear is  an eight-page collection of quotes (54 in all) in an awesome range from Drucker, Senge and Argyris, Andrew Carnegie, Onassis and Bill Gates to John Adams, TH Huxley, Marcel Proust, Immanuel Kant, and Kahlil Gibran, among several others. Samuel Johnson also makes an appearance with his famous Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. That, dear Sam, was when life was simple and the grey strip between the black and the white was narrow – and as yet definable. Mankind has progressed since to levels of complexity where a book like the present one can, with impunity, have thirty-six entries starting with the word ‘knowledge’ (under the letter K) and at least one under almost every other letter of the alphabet!

Made in a non-threatening and handy size the book covers the major aspects of the subject. As a reference book it would be useful to practitioners as much as to corporate trainers.

HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Basics, Applications, and Future Directions

Michael J Kavanagh

&

Mohan Thite

Sage Publications   2009

Pp 469     Rs 495

Time was when ‘people management’ (by whatever name called) referred to little more than record keeping. At a stage when the field was yet green, Drucker (1954) had found reason to remark that the constant worry of all personnel administrators is their inability to prove that they are making a contribution to the enterprise. The evolution from that non-descript, though not always humble, status to the present day Strategic Human Resources has been long and arduous. Drucker later coined the term Knowledge Worker in Landmarks of Tomorrow (1959) and expanded the scope of the HR Manager beyond the obvious, bringing in the need to create organisations that nurture Learning, the need to tap tacit knowledge, and the need to institutionalise the process of matching the right person for the right job through appropriate training and reward systems. He also opened the floodgates for a whole genre of management literature encompassing the Knowledge Worker, Knowledge Economy, Knowledge Management …

Mohan Thite the co-author of the book under review, published Managing People in the New Economy: Targeted HR Practices That Persuade People to Unlock Their Knowledge Power (2004) acutely conscious of the knowledge worker and the need for the human relations professional to reinvent himself… and stressed the need for HRM to ensure that its theoretical base is integrated into the organization which will in turn result in HRM being integrated into corporate strategies and line managers’ functions and decisions. Thite, Senior Lecturer at Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, has also recently co-edited The Next Available Operator: Managing Human Resources in the Indian Business Process Outsourcing Industry (February 2009) along with Bob Russell also of Griffith Business School, Australia. They present eleven papers examining HRM in business process outsourcing (i.e. call centers) in India and includes views of industry practitioners and comparative studies of call centres in various countries.

The present book written by him along with Michael J Kavanagh, Professor Emeritus of Management at the State University of New York at Albany, highlights the advancements in Human Resource Information Systems. The basic philosophy in this book, in the words of the authors, is that the integration or harmonization of technology with people management in an HRIS will create distinct competitive advantage. A tiny revelation of Thite’s subconscious acceptance of Drucker’s statement of 1954!

There is hardly any debate on the importance of the management of employee information in maximizing the use of human resources in an organisation and maintaining competitiveness in its market. What is impressive about this book, however, is that it presents a cogent account of the best of two distinct disciplines: HRM and IT. The first purpose of this book, say the authors, is to provide information on the development, implementation and maintenance of a Human Resource Information System (HRIS); the second purpose being to demonstrate how an HRIS can be used in HRM programmes.

The book is divided into five parts. Part I is an introduction to the HRM and HRIS – which covers the evolution of HRM from its pre-World War I stages to HRM and Strategic HRM followed by a brief introduction to the concepts of databases and computer applications. The second part deals with determining of HRIS needs. This covers long- and short-range planning, system design, and cost considerations. Part III covers the implementation of HRIS – an area which could perhaps be called one of the major obstacles in the use of HRIS: “while technical challenges will always remain in implementing complex HRIS, the major challenge to successful implementation is more behavioral than technical.” The authors therefore felt the need to devote a chapter largely to the management of change. Part IV describes HRIS applications, which covers important areas such as Talent Management, HR planning, recruitment and selection “in the internet context”, training and development. Part V is entitled: Special Topics in HRIS, in two chapters.  The first chapter Information Security and Privacy in HRIS covers among other things the Legal Requirements for Information Security and The Role of HR in Information Security. The last chapter appears under the heading: The Future of HRIS: Emerging Trends in HRM and IT and ends on a somber note. The student of HRIS is cautioned that he/she must never forget the human issues in developing and implementing an HRIS. In sum, say the authors, technology is extremely important in the filed of HRIS, but people are simply more important. People are simply important.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Paperback Series

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW Paperback Series ON
BRINGING YOUR WHOLE SELF TO WORK US$ 19.95 Pp 182 2008	THE PERSUASIVE LEADER US$ 22 Pp 205 2008	STRATEGIC RENEWAL US$ 22   Pp 207      2008	TALENT MANAGEMENT US$ 19.95  Pp 196        2008

The HBR paperback list seems interminable – the frontispiece shows over sixty titles. The topics covered in each of the four books (eight articles in each) selected for this review are down-to-earth-and-no-jargon, not esoteric as management books tend to be – and what one might expect from the ‘mother of them all’. The series is designed to “bring today’s managers and professionals the fundamental information they need to stay competitive in a fast moving world.”

BRINGING YOUR WHOLE SELF TO WORK

This collection dwells on the need to balance professional and personal commitments while safeguarding one’s health. The articles range from underperformance of ‘smart people’ to the apparently near-universal ‘feeling like a fake’. The Attention Deficiency Trait which leads to underperformance is reportedly a response to the hyperkinetic environment – more widespread than one imagines. Now there is a certified excuse for bad performance! Are You Working Too Hard claims that stress arising out of overload compromises performance and health; also that careful control of stress could also lead to a ‘break-out’ – sudden creative insight. An interesting aside (Decisions and Desire) is brought in by Gardiner Morse where he deals with the evolution of the human brain from its primeval stage to Homo sapiens, and insists that we ignore emotional self-awareness (causes of our sometimes inexplicable responses to situations) at our own peril. Leading by Feel is a collection of statements from several experts on Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis among them.

THE PERSUASIVE LEADER

This collection emphasises the need for persuasion for getting things done – particularly in today’s flat world and the shift from command-and-control and hierarchies.  The first article speaks of persuasion based on credibility (in turn based on expertise and relationships). Interestingly the article also points out how not to persuade, particularly, not to assume that persuasion is a one-shot exercise. Debra E Meyerson who wrote Rocking the Boat: How to Effect Change Without Making Trouble (Harvard Business Press 2008) where she spoke of Tempered Radicals, also figures here in an article entitled: Radical Change, the

Quiet Way

. One article says it loud and clear: What you don’t know about making decisions! differentiating the advocacy process of decision making (arguing passionately for preferred solutions) from the Inquiry Process (consideration of several options to discover the best solution).

STRATEGIC RENEWAL

Strategic Management became the fashionable word sometime ago – today it seems to have lost its gloss. The speed with which organisations spewed out strategy statements only  proved what CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel were to say later (in Competing for the Future – 1994) that these statements were mostly fill-in-the-blanks exercises. This collection of essays brings out the specific areas where companies could go for strategic analysis, including considering whether there is a need to change one’s core business.

It starts with an interview of Jeffrey Immelt (successor to Jack Welch as CEO of GE) who believes that it is vital to view growth as a process. This is followed by an interview of Jeff Bezos, founder-CEO of amazon.com. Though most companies concentrate on what’s going to change over the next given period, amazon.com concentrates on what’s NOT going to change (e.g. customer insights and consumer expectations) while continually showing a knack of spotting white spaces and a willingness to jump into them.

TALENT MANAGEMENT

A comprehensive look at the problem with some interesting twists at the end. What would keep the best and brightest with you is an on-going quandary. You need to create a “signature experience” i.e. the ability to tell prospective employees what’s unique about working in your company. You also need to identify your ‘A’ players and create a differentiated work-force just as you would products and services that create value for customers. An area which business units tend to leave to the HR is that of leadership development; this has to be taken as a prime responsibility of the unit under the overall control of the board.  Then a major problem of top performers is the egos they carry on their sleeves (or wherever); they also need to be understood and praised at appropriate times, getting them to play along with their team, if you want them to perform even more effectively.

No discussion on talent retention would be complete without a word about women. Their need to take a break (the long ones!) has to be accepted by industry, allowing them to re-join without the stigma of having taken time off. And then comes the problem of the aging population! With a larger percentage of senior citizens and lesser availability of younger employables, the need is felt for a new look at retirement. The authors suggest a flexible approach towards older persons who may well be able to contribute right into their sixties or seventies.

Overall, not quite the material for What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard, but it comes close!

The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business the RICHARD BRANSON WAY 10 Secrets Of The World’s Greatest Brand Builder by Des Dearlove Pages:158          ₤9.99	The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the BILL GATES WAY 10 Secrets Of The World’s Richest Business Leader by Des Dearlove Pages:177              ₤9.99
The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the DUNCAN BANNATYNE WAY 10 Secrets To The Rags To Riches Dragon By Liz Barclay Pages: 168    ₤9.99	The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business the PHILIP GREEN WAY 10 Secrets Of The Billionaire Retail Greatest By Liz Barclay Pages: 156    ₤9.99
The Unauthorised Guide To Doing Business  the JAMIE OLIVER WAY 10 Secrets Of The Irrepressible One-man Brand By Trevor Clawson Pages: 210    ₤9.99 Wiley and Sons / Capstone Publishing Ltd (3rd Edition)

In these times of name-dropping and authentication of every other thingamajig the Capstone venture into ‘unauthorised guides’ is strange, to say the least. The frontispiece explains the ‘unauthorised’ part of it to some extent though the need to emblazon it across the main title of the book(s) is not quite clear. It claims to be ‘...  an unofficial, independent publication, and Capstone Publishing Ltd is not endorsed, sponsored, affiliated with or otherwise authorised by’ Des Dearlove / Jamie Oliver / Liz Barclay (the three authors of the five books under review). But the ‘unauthorised’ aspect ends there. The books, brought out in convenient hand-book sizes, contain everything you ever wanted to know about Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Duncan Bannatyne, Philip Green and Jamie Oliver – referred to as ‘the leaders’ hereafter for reasons largely of brevity.  

There is in each of the books, a brief sketch of the life of each of the leaders – generally eulogistic (even starry-eyed) but quite detailed. The extent of detail would alone belie the claim of being unauthorised. The undiluted eulogy is seen throughout all the books: Philip Green’s heavy-handed arrogance, for instance, is covered over with ‘…it’s easy to see how some … could find his manner difficult to deal with.’ Not quite the warts-and-all depiction that one would expect from a work that is not ‘endorsed, sponsored …’

Each of the books then covers the lessons to be learnt from the leaders, neatly framed into sets of ten. It is interesting to note that at their core most strategies boil down to the same basic materials. There is the need to have a driving passion deep down inside somewhere that takes you out of the mediocre to the billionaire brackets, to growing from scratch to being a competitor to Marks & Spencer (Philip Green) or being awarded an OBE for services to business and charity (Duncan Bannatyne); the importance of people/employees pervades their thought processes; agility of mind, the need to remain private yet ‘smile for the cameras’…the themes are similar. This is not to discount the power of these themes – it rather emphasises the fact that many of the basic thoughts of achievers, and leaders, converge on the point of superior achievement through greater efforts and clearer focus than the ordinary. Each of the chapters covering the ‘ten secrets’ has a summary of the ideas that make up the particular ‘secret’ – including steps taken by ‘the leaders’ in implementing/executing them, making it easier to keep the ‘lessons’ in focus.

Each of the books ends with a kind of summing up under the title: The Last Word. The starry-eyed eulogies however continue:

Branson has been fortunate to live in exciting times. You can’t help thinking that he would have made any time interesting. Gates was there standing on the threshold of the PC revolution, to usher in the new era… there will never be another quite like him. Oliver prides himself on working with creative, ambitious people who can move his companies forward, and he’s successfully launched ventures based around his brand rather than his personality. Retailing has rarely had someone so high profile and colourful – as Philip Green. Bannatyne is a man who will always be looking for the next deal, the next money making venture. The old entrepreneurial restlessness seems to be unabated.

Perhaps the eulogies are justified. Maybe the leaders deserve all that is said about them and more – as persons who have risen to their respective heights with nothing but what they had between their ears, and some. One however expects writers to maintain a minimum level of their knowledge of the English language – whatever services the personal computer may offer by way of spell-check. The word “whose” is “who” in the possessive mood; and the variety with an apostrophe, used on page 3 (Philip Green / Liz Barclay) is the shortening of “who is” – and the two are not interchangeable. “Who’s” can never mean “whose.” While the Barclays of the world snigger at what is now commonly known as ‘Hinglish’ they should also be careful to avoid what may soon be termed as ‘Bringlish’ i.e. abuse of the English language by the British!