What makes an effective executive?

I was reading this article in ‘Harvard Business Review’. Here is the summary of this article.

To become an effective leader, one need not necessarily be a man with charisma. What made them all effective is that they followed the same eight phases.

1) They asked, “What needs to be done”.
This question, almost all the times will have more then one urgent task. Jack Welch came up with answer, every five years, “what are needs to be done, now” and each time he came up with different answer.
2) They asked, “What is right for enterprise”.
Asking this question while making important decisions do not some times guarantee the best results, but not asking this question always leads to bad decisions.
3) They developed action plans.
Executives are doers. Knowledge is of no use for executives unless it is been translated into deeds. But before jumping in to action, executive needs to plan his course of action. How he wants to execute, about desired results, problems, check-in points etc.In addition to an execution plan, this action plan should contain a system for checking the results. Typically two; one halfway through and other towards the end. Without an action plan executives becomes a prisoner of events.
4) They took responsibility for decisions.
5) They took responsibility for communicating.
6) They were focused on opportunities rather then on problems.
Problems should be taken care of off course, but taking action on problems will not create results, it prevents the damage, where as focusing on opportunities produce results. Executives should put their best people on opportunities then on problems.
7) They ran productive meetings.
Decide before meeting, what kind of meeting this would be and set a fixed agenda. Its equally important to take MOM and distribute the action items to all present in the meeting. Also, it’s important to follow-up on these action items.
8) They thought and said, “we’ rather then “I”.

Effective executives differ widely in their personalities, strengths, weaknesses, values and beliefs. All they have in common is, they will get the things done. Effectiveness is a discipline and like any other discipline, effectiveness can be learned and must be learned.

I think we all have a lesson to learn from this article.

98.3 FM Radio Mirchi: What is the business Plan?

Yes, we do keep hearing Radio FM during some part of our day, may be it is during morning hours or during drive to office or back home. Though we enjoy the songs and RJ’s presentation, the business model which works behind the scenes is kind of complex.

It is untold truth that every business needs to be profitable to exist and it is fundamental element. And where does Radio Mirchi makes it money?

Daily Ads: The first revenue model comes to our mind are the advertisements being broadcasted during entire day. It does get revenue, but is that revenue a business can relay on? Mind you, the number of ads being broadcasted per day more or less can’t be increased, so this revenue is fixed. It can’t really make your top line grow.

In order to be competitive and to make top line grow, each FM needs to engage itself in backend revenue generator models. Look at the events being promoted by Radio Mirchi. They typically get involved with some firm and organize events through out a particular city or area, there by generating revenue from it. The associated firm gets a great marketing boost.

In addition to this, FM radios are being hooked up by marketing firms to survey a particular segment of people. With out our notice we kind of share our information about what we like and what are our shopping habits. This kind of marketing data has a huge value. Off course we do share our cell phone the moment we call.

In addition to this, companies select FM radios for promoting their products or service. Like ‘tikat Thursday’ or ‘Blockbuster Budhawar’, where companies give free vouchers and try promoting the services, needless to say, Radio Mirchi makes money in addition to Vouchers it sends to winners.

In US, the Satelight radio got a huge success, because of the unique business model they have in place. Perhaps it is slightly complex by the way in which it operates and generates money, but it is for sure a money spinner for investors.

We are kind of used to AIR broadcasting where, every thing was decided by the broadcasting ministry. And AIR, typically, don’t bother about the fact that it has to generate money. But, new FM radios needs to have a growing business and this market segment will only get interesting going forward.

‘Mirchi sunnewale always khush!’ :)

Check De India!

I watched Check De India, this weekend. And found many management lessons in it. It’s an amazing movie made keeping sports business in mind.

Team Comes First! :- It stresses the importance of playing as a team. In fact, ¾ th of movie Kabir Khan tries to build a team, which mentally thinks and acts in one direction. And more ever, he keeps on telling his players to ‘pass’ the ball, instead of glorifying themselves by scoring more goals. One’s person ego or personal pride should not come in between, they were for common purpose of winning the championship and they need to make sure they achieve that.

This is an amazing lesson we can learn from this movie. We need to think about team first, individual later. This is the reason of success of any team. This is true with sports or with any business team.

Motivation: Kabir kept on motivating his team, even they lost a game. He had strong faith on his team that they will deliver and up to his expectation they did deliver.
It is foolish to assume that each team member is equally capable of delivering the things. But, keeping everyone’s contribution to peak level is what coaches do. They know in which area each player is good at and they make moves accordingly.

Strategy: The main job of a coach is to make strategic moves, keeping his team in mind and Kabir exactly did that. Be it breaking ‘one-to-one’ mapping of Koreans or thinking about the final penalty push to be a straight one and signaling his team member to prepare for that, he made good strategic moves.

Build the dream: Kabir built a dream in team members that we will win the world cup, this is all coaches and business leaders will have to do. It is ultimately up to players to perform and make things work. Coaches can’t play themselves and win; it is players who do that. Building the dream and making sure each player has the same passion and dedication is extremely important, Kabir did exactly that.

Attention to details: Coaches and business leaders need to keep attention to the details. In this movie, coach kept track of even a small thing that might distract the team thinking and tried to minimize such things. Like, having one bad player in the team, who wants to disturb the rhythm. He took some tough calls, but it was for team again. There was no personal ego involved in it.


As a movie, there might be some negatives points; and I am not here to discuss that. But the theme is about the team. Why team comes first and why team needs contribution from each one to be a successful. It is about setting a goal, and taking your team towards that, even though people call you ‘Tughalak’. This movie certainly gives message to corporate world.

Check de India!

Aligning to client’s culture

I was reading a panel discussion abut BPO and outsourcing. The participants have stressed on the importance of aligning to the vendor and their culture for success of an outsourced project.

I have been working in this kind of industry since almost 6. Obviously I prefer and encourage offshoring with my clients, but not many clients have understood the importance of aligning with vendor’s culture. During one of the project, I remember our CEO told us, align to their culture, and then you can expect better results.

This is most forgotten part of such projects. The responsibility on both parties, vendor needs to understand the culture of client and client needs to understand vendors. I found some general outings and discussion about sports or general issues tend to break this barrier. One should not feel, the technical part is one and all. Off course it is important, but alignment helps to cover a long road.

The way we normally handle clients is that we restrict them to project related discussions and technical discussion. This is important to discuss these with client. But, my whole point is that we should not restrict only to this. Building the relationship is equally important.

After all, we all would like to be treated well and respected at our work by clients, is that right?