24 April, 2012

Leader leading by example


A good leader is someone who can lead you by example.  Here is a story about one leader who influenced me.

In the starting days of my career, I have all the confusion and doubts about my career as any new hire would have.  Fresh out of college and being new to corporate world,  iam not habituated to work for long hours with patience to complete an assignment. I was honest, hardworking but fickle-minded and easily distracted. I didn’t have any long term goals at that time. I just wanted to earn, make my family happy, spend and enjoy.

This was the time I met a team lead for my first assignment. He seemed to be strict, explained all the terms and introduced me to other team members. He introduced me to different people or I can say experts in different fields whom I can contact for help in office. I felt welcomed to the team, started understanding the work and enjoying my time without any interest of improving my technical skills. I was improving on my work though.  

One day my lead suggested that I should improve my technical skills, network with other experts in the same field, read technical blogs, participate in technical debates, contribute in quality initiatives, explore new technologies, implement new ideas  and last , but not the least enjoy the work iam doing.  I have seen him doing all the above and he became my role model or a leader leading by an example. He participates in all kind of technical discussions in forums, guides other people to solve problems with his experience. He talks to all the team members, connect with them personally to improve their comfort levels and motivate them to work with collaboration. He recognizes flaws in the current process of software development and proactively suggests quality initiatives and best practices to improve the quality of software. He is open- minded and listens to every individual in the team for constructive feedback.

I feel fortunate to learn all the good qualities from him and use them in shaping my career. This made me grow as a real consultant and also a pragmatic lead in my career. Now, I will become another leader in action.

Until next time,




Image: jscreationzs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

12 April, 2012

Summer holidays - childhood memories

               Summer holidays were the only thing we used to wait and dream for whole year in our childhood. Ours was a christian missionary school and we used to have Christmas holidays as well for 20 days, which was cool. But, summer holidays were always different. After Pongal holidays or Christmas holidays, we used to have some exams and so we need to study at least for some time. But no need to study anything for summer holidays.


          Every year we (my sis , me and my cousins) used to go to my grand mother's home which is in a nice village in east godavari district. As you might be knowing already, East godavari district is famous for nice scenery with many coconut trees. Our grand mother's home is a big one with around 13 rooms and a big garden behind the house. Garden has all types of trees (coconut, Guava, mango, orange, jack fruit, flower plants etc.,). So, there is always place to play many games outside the house. We used to watch TV together, play anthyakshari, caroms, hide and seek and many other games running around the house and it was very difficult for my uncles to control us when we were all together. Evening snack time was favorite. My uncle used to get sweet mangoes and water melons which were delicious to eat.


        There was one funny incident happened on one night. Power was not there on that night and all children were already slept. My aunt brought and kept a big lantern nearer to our room. My cousin woke up at that time and didn't see the lantern kept near our room, but saw the image of mirror on the wall due to lantern light. The image was in the shape of a white haired girl due to the design on the mirror. She got afraid seeing the image and shouted loudly with fear. I don't know if a shout/ fear can be contagious, but all cousins shouted one after the other waking up from sleep in panic. Every one woke up and realized the reason behind my cousin's fear and showed her that it is only a image. After she realized, we all laughed heartily for long time for the mess that she made.


Good or bad or funny or emotional, there are many memories tied to summer holidays which will remain as the best family moments in my life.
Do you have any such experiences/ memories related to summer holidays? 


Until next time,










This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

10 April, 2012

Blue ocean strategy - [Book Review]

Book details:
Name: Blue ocean strategy
Authors: W. Chan KimRenee Mauborgne
Publisher: Harvard business review

Basically, iam not interested in management kind of books and am hesitant to read this kind of book. But, i found this book very interesting with many real time examples and research study facts. It is a must read for entrepreneurs who want to do something new in the business or implement new strategy. No wonder, it was the best management book in 2006.

What this is about?
Blue ocean strategy is nothing but creating a demand in an untapped market space rather than competing with other suppliers in the existing industry for profits. Main aspects of strategy are the 6 principles of strategy and the four actions framework. The four action framework - Reduce, create, Raise and Eliminate raise 4 important questions, whose answers can help in creating a blue ocean.The four questions are:
1. What are the factors that industry takes for granted and can be eliminated?
2. What are the factors that can be reduced well below the industry's standard?
3. What are the factors that can be raised well above industry standards?
4. What are the factors that should be created that the industry has never offered.

                       Practically, we can use this four actions framework to create a blue ocean in any industry. If we take 'redbus.com' as an example, they reduced the complexity of booking a bus ticket to anywhere in India by a simple and easy to use website. They eliminated the need of agents to book a bus in less time. They raised the standards of bus travel booking experience by providing a good search feature and displaying ratings of the bus by different parameters like punctuality, cleanliness, service and comfort. And finally, they created a new service to customers that never existed before in the industry.

This book can be very useful for someone who wants to start a new business or make changes to the existing business. It is also helpful for management students to understand a new business strategy with different case studies mentioned in the book. 

What i liked in the book?
It gives you a different perspective on industries and business strategies. Writing style is simple without complicated management jargon. Many real life examples are given throughout the book which are very interesting.

Take time to read the book and let me know if you too liked it. Here below is a link  to purchase this:
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Ocean-Strategy-Uncontested-Competition/dp/1591396190
 



Until next time,

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