Bread Winning Management Style

So its that time of my career when I need to diversify and re-focus on ways and means to provide for my bill paying, food and wine indulging, best concert seats seeking, sublimely non-sensical haute couture needs.

The past few days, I have been interviewing and scoping out whats out there that would bury me deeper into this capitalistic society. Hence the sparsity in blogging.

Anyway, wanted to share with you all this piece where I was asked to assess my own behavioral style for some of these management qualities. I am no Drucker but I figured I would respond to my initial senses and lucid interpretations. Most are "oh-so-obvious", but I guess its nice to recap. Let me know what you guys think.

Required Behavioral Competency	Description of Your Behavioral Style (My Responses)
Change advocate	Change is desired only when there are tangible values associated with that change. Web transformation changes are often tied to metrics and quantifiable ROI. I am a strong believer in such metrics. Process changes that are needed to adapt to technology meets resistance initially, but as a thought leader, I find that the onus is on me to draw attention to the overall business value and advantages for that process change.
Leadership	Fine leadership for me translates to inspiring and motivating team to tap their true talent. To recognize every individual’s talent and to harness it a de facto requirements and I constantly strive to discover talent in the team.
Client partnership	I believe that partnership is a win-win relationship wherein there is proven value between to the two parties. I highly recommend testing a partnership through a dry run or a mini project before starting out on a huge investment project. This way the risk is mitigated and the dynamics and rules of engagement can evolve over the due course of time.
Communication for results	I believe that in the IT world, communication needs to be lucid and within the domain. From an CxO to a VP / Director, the communication is strategic in nature. It only delves into what the end goal is. The onus then is on the VP/ Director to translate those strategic goals into tactical implementations and communicate this to the managers. The manager takes these tactical implementations and communicates the requirements to his team. This form of communication provides focus on the work ahead. Having said that, its key that all team members truly understand the business value of an application or an initiative.
Consulting	I am blessed to have been in the consulting world for sometime now. It provides a natural ability to react and respond to situations – project situations, communication changes, change in strategic direction, make travel plans on a short notice, adapt to work cultures, comprehending business problems without the luxury of documentation, etc
Customer service orientation	The key business driver for all web automation is efficient gains in customer service resulting in bottom line value either in the form of increased revenues or customer loyalty. Customers could be internal or external. To the external customer, the company is not perceived as functional organizations. It’s therefore vital that internal customers have all the information they need at their fingertips even if it’s not part of their subject domain.
Decisiveness	The act of being decisive is preceded by a scientifically calculated assessment and a bullet proof rationale to make a decision in the first place. Decision, end of the day, is as human as it can be and is vulnerable to extraneous factors that were not considered during that scientific assessment or rationale. It’s important for me to sense these extraneous factors and make necessary changes to keep that initial decision back on the winning track.
Initiative	Innovation is no innovation without the drive and initiative to take that innovation to fruition. I take initiatives after I have done some due diligence. I believe that when taking initiative it’s key to present supporting data on the viability of that initiative to gain consensus.
Mentoring and developing others	A team stays intact only when every member of the team wakes up everyday looking forward to learn new things. Knowledge is a commodity that is not equally spread out. It’s acquired at various intervals and circumstances. It’s therefore important to set up a platform to exchange ideas. Developing others is to facilitate the team members to work on their individual projects and provide enough face time for them to share their accomplishments of their individual projects. This promotes camaraderie and provides vigor when the team is working on the actual project.
Team leadership	Sense and react to group dynamics. Instill the ability to win and succeed in each team member.

Au Rendez Vous and a borderless world

It was my first gastronomic experience with authentic French food. It was also my first experience waiting for a table, despite a confirmed reservation. My notoriety to be cranky when it’s well past supper time is something that I am not proud about. You see, Au Rendez Vous is a hole in the wall, no frills, no decor, family run home-style restaurant. The tables are so tightly set up that you can almost feel the love of that couple whispering away the intimate plans they had for the evening.

So, for lack of better ideas and enough layered clothing (to step outside), I stood by the door. While at it, I figured I would get some cheap thrill to reduce my wait time. The best way to evict a party that has already finished dinner is to give them a guilt trip. I furiously was munching on the mouth fresheners placed at the exit. It’s also the art of sporting a famished look that stares into entrée plates coming out of the kitchen. The trick worked I think, for the most part.

Almost an hour and few peppermints after I entered the restaurant, my entrée was served – Sol fish fillet soaking in a mustard sauce served with cucumber slices and raisin garnished pilaf. The sol was incredibly soft and almost melted away on my palate. For dessert, it was pistachio and maple syrup infused crepes. It was the best crepe I have ever had. So, it was definitely worth the wait time. So thats that.

In other notable events, watched Oliver Stone’s Alexander. It was an atrociously bad cinematic experience. He would be better off not making any more films and just regale with his past gems in Doors and Natural Born Killers.

The only thing that sparked my imagination after watching Alexander was the concept of a borderless world. One democracy, one rule of law that would nullify the pretentious cause and existence of a G8. There will be no trade alignments (NAFTA, EU, etc). No strategic defense alignments (NATO, etc). There will be free movement of populations. Blending of ethnicities. A thousand years from now, race and skin colors would have mutated so much that they would have become trivial to support identities. What’s the big deal about identity anyway? The whole notion of remembering where you come from?

Also, watched Me and you and everyone we know. This satirical masterpiece blends top notch characterization with a simple narration. Has the psychedelic existentialism message ala I Heart Hucklebee. It was the judged the best film at the 2005 Sundance fest. Talking about Sundance, watch out for this year’s fascinating line up at Park City, Utah from Jan 19^th to 29^th.

Football Finesse - Ain't Oxymoronic any more

Any given Sunday, heck!! any given day..I was not a serious football fan. I always viewed it as a game that was designed to appeal to the self-indulgence of power and ferocity, a game that treated its players as crash test dummies - 250lb dummies. And finally a game that was single handedly supporting the beer, wings and all the finger food economy. You get the flow of my cynicism :)

All that changed last nite. The Rose Bowl sure lived up to the advertised excitement and all that football finesse. I say finesse, because, for the first time I could interpret the nuances of a solid defense and rush plays. The game sense of making a 2 point play after touch down rather than taking a 1 point goal kick. The edge that a team has if your quarterback is a darn good rushing offensive player as well.

Strangely so, I have been keeping up with all the football action this year - NFL and college football. Right from being disappointed to see the Colts come that close to the dolphins record set in 1972 (16 straight wins in regular season) to the disastrous season that the Falcons have had. And, talking about Falcons, here are my four words about Vick. Vick was once Vince.

Watching Vince Young play yesterday was like watching a fire spitting mammoth dragon having the nimble skills of a Russian gymnast doing a floor routine. I hope Vince doesn’t fall prey to the cautious play techniques that NFL players employ to avoid injuries and lose million dollar contracts in the process. Well!! I don’t blame them, but somewhere there the spirit of football (hitherto undiscovered for me) is lost.

So with this new found spirit I am looking forward to watch the super bowl on Feb 5th and yes! With lots of finger food and beer to wet my sporting appetite. Let’s hope the colts make it there to save the pride and consistency of a 13-0 winning streak they enjoyed.