Abhijit Bhaduri’s Blog
I write about careers, skills and the world of work. The cartoons and sketches are mine.
Book Review: No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
Talent Density is all about constantly culling the average performer. Think of it as the dreaded bell-curve on steroids. The Netflix culture site says, "Our version of the great workplace is a dream team in pursuit of ambitious common goals, for which we spend heavily. It is on such a team that you learn the most, perform your best work, improve the fastest, and have the most fun."
Book Review: Introduction to People Analytics
People Analytics will undergo a big shift. How do we build a people function that is relevant for the post-Covid world? HR will need to offer measures of productivity, engagement and skills. Analytics can be a great conversation starter, because it is hard to argue with insights that are data-driven. This book can be a good read for everyone in HR. The line that stayed with me was, “HR will not be replaced by data analytics. But HR people who do not use data and analytics will be replaced by people who do.”
Book Review: Saying No To Jugaad
“Saying No to Jugaad” is the story of Bigbasket’s business strategy, culture and its desire to build a culture that puts the customer at the center. There are some interesting questions posed. Is is better to be tech-driven or tech-enabled. Most start-ups fall into one of two categories: a) those that are tech-first, where one of the co-founders is also the CTO. The perspective in these start-ups is often, ‘How can we leverage technology to build new businesses?’; and b) those that are tech-enabled, where the CTO is almost always not a founder. The perspective here is, ‘How can technology enhance the effectiveness of our business?’
Book Review: Looking for Miss Sargam
The settings are varied. What goes on behind the scenes when two star musicians from India and Pakistan share the stage in a concert for peace? A small-town music teacher and a big-city businessman team up. They plan a hunt for India’s best new classical talent—and make a few crores in the process? How does it end? Shubha Mudgal writes about these from the point of view of an insider. That is why each story is so true. The tone is funny but there is a tinge of sadness I felt right through even as I laughed. The stories have a wicked humor that comes from someone who has seen these characters at close quarters.
Book Review: The Secret Life of Organizations
The Secret Life of Organizations written by Shalini Lal and Pradnya Parasher is that map that tells the young Indian professional how to make sense of the chaos in organizations. The authors use their own experience of working across a variety of organizations and their expertise in Organizational Psychology to tell the novice how to decode what they see. They do so with short cases and examples.
Book Review: Demystifying Digital Transformation
The 5 E model begins with Exploration. This is where businesses must re-evaluate their value-proposition in view of the recent technology trends and shifts in the consumer’s behavior. This where the organization must generate options to deliver the value-proposition in the new world. Phase 2 is called Experimentation with all possible ways to deliver the new value-proposition. Evaluate its potential to develop and scale. Check if the new options cannibalize the existing product lines or augment it. Read more ...
Book Review: Great at Work
The way to do this is to redesign your work so as to focus on value, not goals. Looking at your work in terms of the impact you are creating for others helps you discover your passion and purpose. Spending just 15 minutes a day of “deliberate practice”. While regular practice might include mindless repetitions, deliberate practice requires focused attention and is conducted with the specific goal of improving performance – like Jiro crafting each piece of sushi.
Book Review: Just Start
The authors of the book "Just Start – take action, embrace uncertainty", create the future says just that. That’s what serial entrepreneurs do. They don’t wait for the fog to clear. They start moving as soon as they have an idea. They try to stay within what they would define as an “acceptable loss”. They create a prototype and wait for the reaction of the consumer or potential consumer.
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.
Raga Based Gems from SD Burman
The legendary musician KC Dey was the first musical guru for SD Burman. He also learned from Bhishmadev Chattopadhyay and Ustad Allauddin Khan. SD Burman was a very successful composer and singer in Bengali cinema when he decided to move to Bombay to try his luck as a composer for Hindi films - a language he barely knew. He brought in the sound of folk music of the East to Bollywood. Today I want to showcase 5 gems from SD which are raga based.
Movie Review: Badhai Ho
What happens when a couple discovers that they are expecting a third child when their eldest son is about to get married. Badhai Ho is a brilliant take on that. This middle class couple is not really thinking of how the new arrival will impact the economics of the family budget. Far from it. Their main anxiety is how to break the news to the family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, relatives ... Each encounter is a potential bundle of embarrassment for different reasons. No one believes for a minute what the couple wants. Everyone is looking at it from their own point of view. That is the nuanced message this film brings.
Book Review: Stories at Work
When you come across an old photo, you recall a story. Suddenly a date becomes significant. Milestone events get etched in our mind because our brain has created a little PostIt note and created a special place for it. By the way, where were you on 11 September 2001? You may be racking your brains to leaf through the pages of your memory. But as soon as you read the story, everything falls into place. Can you use stories in the workplace?
Your Happiness Was Hacked: Book Review
The deluge of information pouring in constantly causes technostress and blurs the line between work and home. Tech makes it convenient to connect and its ease of use has changed how we work. No one speaks enough about the way tech runs our lives.Not just adults, children are impacted very deeply. Children are spending fifty percent less time playing outdoors than their parents. The children spend less time playing with other children and more time with screens. This book tells you how to take back control of your life from tech.
Committed Teams: Book Review
Work is increasingly becoming complex. In fact, it is becoming too complex for any one individual to do it. We need to work in teams. The time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has exploded by 50% or more. We watch great examples of teamwork in movies that fill us with a warm glow and then we come back to the teams we are a part of and wonder why they are not as committed as the people you saw on screen. This is the book for you.
Unfinished Business: Book Review
Left to nature alone, the population on earth would be give or take 50% men and 50% women, according to what's become known as Fisher's Principle. But look at the statistics: US has just 15% women in C-suite, only 20% senators or law firm partners. Women surgeons represent only 21% of surgeons. For all those who believe that women are more than adequately represented in the teaching profession, remember that only 24% of full time tenured professors are women. How do we explain this?
Disrupting Digital Business - Book Review
The disruptors are companies that are able to rethink the business model ab initio by not only leveraging technology to create the product or the service but they create an organization that operates differently from an analog corporation. A digital business needs to keep the brand promise intact during the transformation.“In the digital world, customers require businesses to focus on delivering authentic experiences and outcomes. We’re moving from selling products to keeping brand promises.”