The financial system in the US and, God forbid, that of ROW seems to be in for Black Swan events. Even if you and I may not agree with the dire predictions, it makes sense to hedge our situation as far as our financial assets are concerned..read this piece.

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf – America’s economy risks mother of all meltdowns

Recently, Professor Roubini’s scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is “a rising probability of a ‘catastrophic’ financial and economic outcome”**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: “A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe.”

Sub-prime mess, credit crunch, US recession, Eurozone troubles, non-decoupling of emerging markets…

Suddenly every expert is a prophet of doom!

Question: If banks and the likes of them have lost US 400 Bn (and counting) some people must have got this money or will get it no? After all all these dollar bills have not been burnt!

So my guess this one will resurface sooner or later in the form of more investments or consumer spending….any guesses who will benefit from this spending, what kind of companies?

Hemant

To develop our leadership skills we must grasp reality as it is. But seeing things as they are is not that simple. To quote the genius

Albert Einstein – Wikiquote

Whether you can observe a thing or not depends on the theory which you use. It is the theory which decides what can be observed.

We need some framework to observe things. At Learning Leadership, there is such a framework for carrying out “making sense” workouts. Take a look. (Registration required)

Hemant

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Read this piece…

A Leader’s Real Job Description

A Leader’s Real Job Description
Nikos Mourkogiannis describes the four actions you need to master to stay on track and focus on what matters

To quote from this article, a leader’s job is to

Think, Inspire, Mobilize, and Empower

Well said, but most and even the best amongst us do not have full understanding of what all it means to actually do all these. They do not have tools for these carrying out these jobs.

Learning Leadership provides tools and coaching for above jobs.

Hemant

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I am normally not enamored by case studies. But here is one worth thinking about.

For Cognizant, Two’s Company

A manager on the ground in India and one on the ground at the client site. “They jointly felt accountable for the outcome of that team,” D’Souza says. “We said: Perhaps there’s an organizational model that makes sense here that we can learn from.” Cognizant decided to institutionalize the co-manager concept worldwide, assigning two equally responsible managers to each project team and business unit, with one close to employees and one close to customers. Managers have to work out issues jointly and are equally responsible for customer satisfaction, project deadlines, and group revenues.

Does this indicate a new trend in managing / organization? What are the success factors for such structures?

Hemant

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I can not resist quoting from Lucy’s column again! Please read this entirely.

FT.com / Columnists / Lucy Kellaway – Accenture’s next champion of waffle words

Next comes the business rationale for the change. “With the rise of the multi-polar world, the task of finding and managing talent has become more complex, turbulent and contradictory than ever before.”

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Many people think that managing creative work is different. After being exposed to creative agency work, I should know. It is not that different. Every company is different, but similar lessons apply. Read this piece from Lucy Kellaway, my favorite myth and jargon busting columnist.

FT.com / Columnists / Lucy Kellaway – No way to manage a bleating luvvie

The first big mistake is to think there is something called an artistic temperament that dreary suits need to tiptoe around. In fact creative people are born just like everyone else. If my brother-in-law and I are even remotely typical, three things motivate us. We need to make enough money to support our families. We need some recognition for what we do. And, ideally, we’d like to get a bit of satisfaction out of the work itself. It is all pretty basic.

One could argue that creatives are different as we are more insecure than, say, accountants but I don’t accept this. We simply articulate our insecurity more loudly – something that is made even easier if you have a newspaper column like this one.

The rot sets in when creatives start to be successful, and when their managers start telling them they are wonderful every two-and-a-half seconds. Praise is a mind-altering drug and needs to be prescribed in ever larger quantities to get the desired effect.

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Do read this interesting editorial in Business Standard of 2nd Feb 2008

It is about doing a lot while talking less…just what the leaders ought to do

T N Ninan: Above our weight

Interestingly, China has studiously stayed away from, or kept a low profile at, multilateral talk-shops — unlike some of our diplomats who see themselves as leaders in such forums because they can speak good English, and get pulled into drafting sessions because they can write good English. It did not dawn on us that, when it really counted (like the trade deals), we came away from the big GATT conferences with little to show. In reality, therefore, India made the noise while China enjoyed the substance of power — like a seat in the Security Council, and being counted as one of the nuclear haves.

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For some years, I have been attending classes of Brahmavidya -the science of breathing and thinking. I have been learning the techniques taught in the classes.

This journey has brought me health, creativity, and tremendous joy.

It is my great pleasure and privilege to introduce Brahmavidya to you.

Please visit the site mentioned at the top of the blogroll on the right.

Hemant

-Global M & A are faltering over the hurdles created by the sub-prime mess
-sovereign funds are buying those US financial entities which played role in creating the mess and when their losses are still uncoiling
-Mines are being fought over
-there is shortage of food and energy
-investment expenditure and not consumer spending is driving the boom across the world
-emerging market companies are buying down-stream and up-stream of their value chains
-companies crying hoarse about “talent shortage”
-only thing that is available in plenty is cash….to those who are doing the above

What does one make out of all this?
What strategies can one adapt?