The 2% Masala: What I learnt shutting down a start-up
When a newly commissioned ship sails from a port, laden with valuable goods, every captain hopes the ship will navigate the tumble of the seas well and be the ship of choice, in the years to come. No one expects the Titanic journey. Every sailor that you get on board, signs up after confirming at […]
Insourcing – Is it a real threat to the Indian IT service industry now?
After all right from the very beginning, both the models have existed – insourcing in India (popularly referred to as captive organizations), and outsourcing to Indian outsourcing service providers (over the years include the offshore operations of the global IT majors as well). It was probably evenly spread in the late 80’s and the beginning […]
The 2% Masala: When my manager worked for me
Most of us, in our lives we work under the guidance and direction of our manager. There’s of course a lot of talk of servant leadership and how managers become servants to the team. Sometimes it sounds like a good fairy tale story. At other times it’s demonstrated with some apparently visible (albeit trivial) stuff. […]
The 2% Masala: When my manager said “I hope there’s someone to give you a job”
This is from a true real world scenario. Imagine that you are doing very well in your organization. Everybody has a healthy regard for you. One fine morning in your one on one with your manager, he says “I hope there will always be someone looking out for you with a job…”. What goes on […]
The 2% Masala Impact
Over the weekend I was out at a food court to meet a former colleague of mine. She had got along a couple of her young friends as well. As we were conversing, the young lady, who had come along with my friend said “When I discuss with my manager what I have to do […]
Seven pillars of Servant Leadership
Often I get asked by Scrum Masters, who are in the process of adopting Agile Scrum, on references to servant leadership. How should one go about changing from “command and control style” to “servant leadership”. I used to share relevant examples from my experiences that has helped teams self-organize. Highlight instances, based on my observations […]
Communicating with the End in Mind
Most of us are familiar with the Basic Communication Model – with sender, channel and receiver. We all understand that the responsibility for effective communication rests with both parties, with a slight onus on the sender. What I have experienced is that by including an element, that focuses on the outcome, enhances the effectiveness of […]
A study in contrast – Parenting and Managing a team
I began life as a child, and still continue to behave like one. I started my working years as an individual contributor, and still continue to be one. In addition to this in my wonderful journey of life and work I have also become a parent and a team manager. What’s more interesting as I […]
Performance Appraisal : Bell Curve or Absolute Performance – What’s good?
Over the last three decades of my corporate life, I have always found that this topic has always evoked passion at all points of time. Everybody has a perspective and a logic to go along with it. My own views in the early part of my career used to be biased based on which approach […]
Keeping Daily Scrum focused…
The Daily Scrum is one ceremony that the teams following Scrum adopt quickly. There are some hiccups initially, which are sorted out, often with inputs from the coach/guide. The ceremony is on time and at fixed time, occurs even if Scrum Master is not present, team members unable to attend do call in or provide […]
