Abhijit Bhaduri’s Blog
I write about careers, skills and the world of work. The cartoons and sketches are mine.
My boss does not have time to mentor me
Mentoring someone needs someone to have the skills as well as the desire to invest time and commit towards your success. Else many mentors simply use the time to tell the mentee about their own achievements. Being a good listener and having empathy makes someone a good mentor.Create a Board of Mentors from your own organization. Build a set of 4-5 people you will seek advice from. I have always had a group of mentors to learn from. I find it wonderful to get a variety of ideas and perspectives on the same problem.
Your L&D strategy is missing one key element
To help employees build the habit of learning, providing them some slack time to learn and reflect plus the opportunity to try it out at work and get feedback.
Outplacement is a new ship, not a lifeboat
The outplacement firm acts as a bridge between the last employer and the potential employer. More often than not, the discharged employee tries to land a role in a firm within the industry. However, that is not always the case. In fact, post-layoff is a great opportunity for individuals to use this event as an opportunity to change to a different industry or to stay within the same industry but change roles. Finally, the most liberating option may be to use the career coach to explore a transition to a completely different career altogether.
The clueless and the charismatic
Narcissists focus on looking good themselves. They often do not grow the second line of leaders, so that there is no one who has the “stature to challenge their decisions”. Many start-ups are as guilty of not investing in building a second rung of empowered and capable leaders.There could well be a better choice than choosing between the two extreme leadership models that we have seen. The price is paid by the employees and common investors. This must change.
Coursera Global Skills Index 2019: 3 skill sets that make you employable globally
2 out of 3 people in the workforce in developing countries lag behind in at least one of these three skills. The educational institutions are lagging behind in most of these countries. That means having a degree is no guarantee of employability. The skills required to do most jobs are evolving quickly. The employers in every country need to invest in upskilling, reskilling, and deep-skilling the employees on a continuous basis.
How to Fix Your Hiring Process
People are the greatest competitive advantage. Yet most companies struggle to recruit, train and retain capable workers. Nothing seemed to have changed since 2008. Here is what NYTimes found in 2008"Managers surveyed by the firm blamed everything from short-term financial pressures — which keep them from investing in talent development — to less-than-capable human resource departments for the persistence of the problem."
Performance Management - beyond count and comparison
Advertising agencies are judged on two parameters. The clients evaluate them on the impact they had on the additional sales and trust in the brand. The peers compete on the number of awards won. The industry judges the agency on the thought leadership and breakthrough thinking. The senior leaders are judged on the number of awards the team members have won under their leadership. If work is going to be all about creative output, maybe it is time for performance management to be designed along with people who have figured out how to evaluate and nurture creativity – the mad men.
Joshua Karthik's 6 Tips for Business
Joshua shares his business secrets. Try out BOLD ideas. Don't crave for every idea to get mass approval. You will never disrupt yourself if you are truly doing something new and original. Like Salvador Dali ...
Reimagine education for the new ecosystem
We often ask children what they want to be when they grow up. 85 per cent of the jobs that will exist in 2030 haven't even been invented yet. There were no jobs called Data Scientist, YouTube star, Sports Psychologists, even a few years back. The educational institutions have to stop being credentialing machines. My take on the Adobe Education Leaders Seminar 2019 ...
Why should hiring be driven by social intelligence?
“Personality is related to every meaningful individual difference. Scientifically validated personality assessments can predict substance use and abuse, longevity, relationship satisfaction, job performance, criminality, and occupational choice, just to list a few examples. Beyond these applications, well-validated personality assessments provide individuals with insights into their own motives, reputations and destructive behaviours, many of which they may not be aware.
HR-Tech Stories: V-Mart the multi-brand value retailer
Technology is a tool to solve the business vision. Start by asking why you are doing this. If the discussion is about features and costs, then the project is about cost saving and not employee experience. Ask yourself what are you trying to achieve. Why are you doing this. Having that clarity within the sponsor team or CEO/CHRO is a good sign.
Dalai Lama on Listening
We tend to view the ability to speak as a sign of leadership potential. What about the ability to listen? This quote by Dalai Lama puts it perfectly. If you want to learn something new, then here is the one thing you must start doing ...
How to be a Futurist
Futurists are experts in systems thinking. They look at socio-economic-political shifts and combine it with technology to create possible scenarios. With practice each one of us can get better at predicting how things may affect us. Thinking and information processing, such as market judgment, can be much faster, more reliable, and ---less subject to political forces than the deliberations of experts or expert committees. Give it a try.
How to Prepare for Your First Interview
The thought of going in for your first interview can be a daunting one. Nervousness is normal. But the key to a successful interview experience lies in the preparation you do for it ahead of time. Here are four things to remember and practice before your first interview.
Can a growth mindset enable success
The experiments in “growth mindset” were primarily done on children in the beginning and it was observed that intelligence does change in children and fluctuates the most during adolescence and then stabilizes. So just wishing for it to increase is not going to make it happen. Think of intelligence as the processor in a computer. Having a faster processor makes the programs load faster.
Book Review: Barking Up The Wrong Tree
Success is not the result of one single quality. It is also about having the right skill and being in the right role where that skill (and your weaknesses) can be an advantage. A job that leverages your natural extraversion or introversion plus a network of people ready to help will take you further than going solo. When you have a story that connects you to the world, you are motivated to work hard at your goal.
HR Must Be Designed for Irrational Humans
Look around and see how much has changed about work and the worker. It is a clear signal that we need to redesign HR. So drop the assumptions of rational human beings. Maybe we will call it Behavioral HR. Google already has taken a lead in this space by starting a lab called Irrational Lab. Maybe it is time for all organizations to start one too where HR will remove outdated policies and replace them with ones that assume people do not make rational choices (mostly).