Management perspective to a menace

Terrorism is a global problem cutting across nations, religions, faiths and threatning the very survival of the human kind.Why has this problem surfaced? Is this a management problem and what could be the possible ways of tackle it?Can force be the only remedy or it has to be a mix and match of all other tools available at the disposal of every global citizen? Lot of questions without direct, readymade answers.India had been a victim since ages and its only in the last few years, the global peers has understood the challenges and hardships encountered by this big democracy. I am neither a security analyst, nor a government administrator, however, being a management trainer and consultant I can see this problem as a management problem happening in organizations and industries, albeit having a bigger magnitude and ramification. In my perspective, there is no quick fix solution to this menace, and it has to be dealt with a multipronged strategy.On one hand special groups need to understand the grievances of those who have adopted this path after leaving the mainstream, on the other hand full proof, impregnable secruity measures should be put in place so that loss of innocent life and property is averted. Sounds pretty easy, but I know its very difficult and challenging. What is needed is a concerted effort by all the nations-the ones badly affected, the ones moderately affected and the ones not yet affected.The ones not yet affected may feel that they can stay away from such forums, but believe me its like a malignant tumour which can pass on the body through the arteries, veins, body fluids, which in this case would be a globalized set up.Its time when we join hands irrespective of our ethnicity, caste, creed and religion to enable our friends shun violence and come back to the mainstream, by understanding them and at the same time collaborate for global measures which enhances the security of the mankind. If we can fight dreaded killer like AIDS and other epidemic and pandemic,we can also deal with this menace provided we are sincere towards the cause.

From an Indian erspective,I propose some moves which can be analyzed by the decision makers including all the citizens, NRI, PIO etc. to check for their viability, applicability and do an impact analysis before actually taking it forward.India has to have a team comprising of experts from different fields like psychology, human behaviour and relationship development, religous experts from different faiths but with the objective of understanding and solving the problem on a win-win basis, empathetic common citizens understanding every other fellow citizen's problem, and try to solve their problems if possible, but refrain from aggravating by making wrong statements and moves.........and more importantly creating a national terrorism fund, where every citizen pay at least INR 1 every day which goes to the a team of professional terrorism managers, located in a central hub.The corpous would be collected on a daily basis and put into a special account from where the amount is to be disbursed periodically on a need basis for welfare measures, and security purpose.The details of spending would be made public through print and electronic media on a fortnightly basis so that everyone knows what is being done to weed out terrorism and more importantly whether the finances are being optimally used or not?
Whats you take on this?

Training on role-model development

Role model development is important for every individual.Every one be it man or woman, young or old try to idolise someone or other during their life cycle. Idolising may be a conscious or a sub-conscious process depending upon the person.It may also happen that a single individual would pick up threads from different individual who are successful in their own lives and customize their strengths to suit his or her own need. I happen to meet one of my role model, the famed cricketer turned commentator, Wasim Akram while travelling to Dubai.Coincidentally we travelled in the same emirates flight and I could see him first hand............which was a sort of dream come true.I admired the cricketer not because I am a cricket buff, but because of his qualities like excellent work ethic, highly professional during the working hours and friendly during the lesiure time,competitive spirit, fire in the belly, never say die attitude, up when the chips are down, handling health problems and many more personality traits . I may not be a cricketer like him, however his successful behavioural traits have provided me lot of insights to move up the hierarchy as far as my own profession as a management trainer and consultant is concerned.Similarly, I look towards personalities like Steven Covey for his writing and thinking skills, Sachin Tendulkar for his professional apetite to succeed even after putting in two decades of rigorous international cricket, Mahatma Gandhi for his devotion, dedication and perserevance shown towards a cause....and few more eminent people from diverse fields.These people or should I refer them as stalwarts often provide me with readymade solutions to many queries which are either difficult to answer or complicated to comprehend.
Its important for all concerned to develop a set of role models who can provide motivation and roadmap inorder to succeed in ones professional and personal life.
To know the tricks of the right identification, assimilation and implementation of a role models behaviour in ones life...................contact yours truly.

Understanding the worldclass Dubai Model

I have tried to understand and analyze the unqiue Dubai model, which has catapulted the destination from nowhere into a famous shopping and tourism spot. All my last five visits including the latest one in November 08 made me realize the sincerity with which the administrators and citizens including the expatriates have contributed towards achieving this goal.Unlike many other GCC countries who sort of try to intertwin the business model around the petroleum sector, Dubai has hovered everything around travel and tourism by putting in place landmarks like the Dubai Mall(biggest mall in the world),Burj-Al-Arab(State-of-the art Worlds first seven star hotel),Burj tower(tallest tower in the planet) and a host of shopping malls, hotels and other places of entertainment, recreation which draw tourists and business travellers from all across.An event like the Dubai shopping festival is known to all shopping geeks all over the world.The concept of integrated management where everyone is having defined roles and responsibilities with a demarcated deadline and sincere work ethic looks to be the success formula.The credit goes to all the stakeholders, and emerging economies like India in particular can draw lot of lessons from their middle-east neighbour, who have created a hub out of sand.Hats off to you.......Dubai.Indeed a case study which can be discussed not only with the management students, but also with national administrators who are responsible for building models of their respective nations.

Training expenditure in the middle east during recession and slowdown

For the last one month I had been tracking almost all the leading corporations of the UAE like Emmar, Dubai world, Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, Dubai Islamic bank, Aldaar, Burj-Al-Arab,Emirates and Air Arabia to name a few, while training my students who represent different organizations across sectors.Recession is cascading all across and all the economies are affected in one way or the other.However, the smart corporations across the globe and few of them I observed here in UAE gave me the belief that you cannot invoke cost cutting in a very way especially when its related to brand building and employee development.In fact my reading said that the smart companies are continuing if not increasing their training related expenditure as they realize its only a matter of time after which things would return back to normalcy.Its that phase of the business cycle where you continue with the training and development plan which otherwise is cut short as preferance is given to other functional areas of management which are related with the departments considered to be the revenue spinners.
Smart companies therefore nurture and groom their soldiers(read employees) during the period of slowdown, so that they can make the right tactical moves by becoming battle ready, once the skies clear up in the economical landscape.

Customizing my training inputs in Dubai

Training corporate executives the subject "Managing Market" in November 2008, I realized the importance of localizing the training content, which compelled me to have a GLOCAL-Global inputs with a local touch.As the executives were working with leading companies from the UAE representing sectors like hospitality, real estate, travel and tourism, aviation, banks, financial services my approach of quoting examples of corporates from the UAE like Emmar, Tamweel, Emirates Airlines, Burj-Al-Arab, Jumeriya Hotels and Resorts, DFC,to name a along with the corporations from Abu Dhabi like Aldaar went a long way in making the trainees understand the concepts of Managing Markets.The response/queries emanating from the trainees mind were focussed around the sectors/companies and their impact due to the global financial crisis and thats precisely the reason why I retorted back by explaining their own organziations, the ones they are familiar with, with those of global giants like Microsoft, Cisco, Ford, Walmart,Carrefour, KLM to name a few.
Its important for a trainer to know the demographic, psychographic and behavioural status of his trainees and research around for information on the similar lines so that his academic delivery is in line with the trainees understanding.
I should admit it was a symbiotic process of knowledge enhancement as I learnt a lot along with my set of trainees. Moreover, I realized the importance of conducting a comprehensive study through primary and secondary in a new territory-be it a district, county, state or even nation as all are different in their own way, and a smart trainer can easily pick training threads from these experiences which would help in delivering need based training.

Nov. 08 Training Experiences in the Gulf

My training experience in Dubai while training professionals from different sectors representing different ethnicity made it very clear, that the trainers job to reinforce the training deliverables has to follow a blend of different training techniques and methodologies.My approach was quite simply, as I was training people from more than one nationalities, I tried to give illustrations from their own countries apart from the global examples and few from UAE-Dubai and UAE.In most of the cases english being the second language, the trainees found it difficult to handle the stuff, I therefore emphatized to the level of the poorest learner.My models of training here in the gulf during my last five visits has added to my training repertoire.

New Article Link on Recruitment

Source-http://www.iupindia.org/1108/hrm.asp?mag=http://www.iupindia.org/1108/hrm_sub.asp

COVER STORY
Recruitment Dynamics -- Manishankar Chakraborty
Recruitment has metamorphosed from a peripheral to a central activity of an organization. The emergence of knowledge sectors, coupled with novel HR practices, is giving a new shape and dimension to the recruitment landscape. Even though there has been lot of positive changes in this sphere, still there is a need for a holistic approach which can, to a large extent, bridge the rural-urban divide amongst the Indian populace. The article provides insights into the area of recruitment and a roadmap for the inclusive growth.
© 2008 The Icfai University Press. All Rights Reserved

Assessment-The backbone of any training program

Assessing your trainees after every training program is the most important aspect of any training department/trainer.Although there are ways and means to do it, the experience I had while mentoring senior and middle level executives from UAE, in the project (In Dubai,November-December 08)was completely different from my earlier exposures. Although I have trained and evaluated trainees(both students and professionals)in India, this new experience was an eye catching one especially when one considers the demographic diversity of the group of trainees.Most of them knew the concepts in and out,however, they lacked the theoritical understanding coupled with application.It was therefore pertinent for me to emphatize with my trainees and reach to their level of understanding.The assessment being related to their place of work, made it more interesting for me as they represented the best of the corporations from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).Interaction with the students while counseling them revealed many a secrets which allowed me to make those last minute changes so that my trainees benefit from my effort.I would candidly admit that I learnt a lot in this fifth experience in the gulf, and like my four visits to the gulf, this too had bagful of takeways for me as management trainer and consultant.

My latest Article Link on Handling Recession/Slowdown

http://www.iupindia.org/1108/gc.asp?mag=http://www.iupindia.org/1108/gc_sub.asp

Gulf Experiences in November-December 08

Its indeed an enriching experience to mentor, counsel and train the trainees working in various leading organisations of the gulf and pursuing their higher professional diploma from the Cambridge International Examination,UK.Students coming from different nationalities from across the Gulf, South Asia,Europe,having different backgrounds from diverse sectors really challenges your capability as assessment advisor.They need to be explained the nuances of submission pertaining to the cambridge standards and more important identify the missing gaps as far as domain knowledge, their understanding, application and presentation is concerned.Its indeed the real challenge for your truly to bring out the latent potential of all the trainees, while reinforcing the domain know-how as and when required.To add to that my experience in managing my team of experienced subject matter experts in this project is really a dream experience for any trainer who would like to learn the trade secrets of a successful trainer and training administrator at one go.Indeed I should confess my past experiences while imparting management and soft skills training to management post graduates and working professionals coupled with my Indian and gulf experiences in consultancy went a long way in making me understand the need of the trainees from middle east.There are various subtle and major differences I noticed and learnt while comparing my trainees in the gulf with that of the Indian subcontinent.These learnings I am sure would make me a better trainer with every passing day as diversity challenges your capabilities and more the variations, more would be the take-aways for a learner like me.

Managing Trainers Dilemma

Trainers are always in a dilemma when it comes to using different tools, techniques and methodologies for training the trainee. The training effectiveness being the bottomline, it is imperative for the trainer to understand the importance of choosing the right tools, techniques and methodologies to impart training.Training need analysis may provide the trainer with important insight so as to understand the actual need of training,however, something like Crik-Patrik model can go a long way in evaluating the effectiveness of the training, both in the short as well as long run.A trainer has to have the ability to experiment continuously so that he can devise new training methodologies, apart from what is being adopted by trainers globally. The trainer has to understand the importance of innovation so that he knows what is good for his trainee, in different setting and situations. Mixing adequate proportions of hard skills, soft skills with interactivities goes a long way in making a lasting impact on the trainees performance.