Transforming Managers into Leaders Ready for Strategic Action

There are almost as many definitions of leadership as there are people who have attempted to define the concept. According to John Kotter of Harvard Business School, management is about coping with complexity and leadership is all about coping with change.

Good management brings about order and consistency by drawing up formal plans, designing rigid organization structures, and monitoring results against plan. On the other hand, leaders establish direction by developing a vision of the future: then they align people by communicating this vision and inspiring them to overcome hurdles. Peter Drucker has long pointed out that managers are people who do things right; leaders are people who do the right things. However, for a company to be under led and over managed could be as dangerous as for a company to be over led and under managed; therefore, the ideal is a combination of solid management and clever leadership.

Leadership can be better understood if we focus on various roles performed by the leaders. In his book “General Manager Performance", Kotter has mentioned that all effective general managers were found to be ambitious, achievement orientated, comfortable with power, emotionally stable, temperamentally optimistic, above average in intelligence, moderately strong, analytically and intuitively strong, personable, good at developing relationships with people and able to relate to a broad set of business specialists. They were also very knowledgeable about their businesses and organizations, and have set of good working relationships with a very large number of people in their companies.

These competencies can be classified into two categories.
Surface Elements of Competencies
This involves skills and knowledge required to perform the managerial work. These kinds of competencies can be easy amended for development

Core Elements of Competencies
This involves core motives, traits, behavior, characteristic features and attitudes. These kinds of competencies are relatively difficult to amend for development.

The leading companies in the west have come to realize that ultimate source of sustainable competitive advantages are through leaders who keep learning. Hence these companies are investing in leadership development programs that help key executives learn leadership skill. As early as 1993, Business Week estimated that $17 billion was being spent annually on helping managers develop thought processes and company special skill that could enable them to move up and lead their business areas. Besides making huge investment world-class executives are investing significant amount of their time, personally guiding and mentoring future leaders. These world-class executives consider leadership development not a luxury but a strategic necessity.

The Sloan Management Review, Fall 2000 has summarized leadership development practices adopted by most of the Fortune 100 organizations into basic five steps.

Awareness
The foundation of these companies' leadership development is awareness of external challenges, emerging business opportunities and strategies, internal developmental needs and the ways other leading organizations handle development.

Anticipatory
Top leadership-development companies use anticipatory learning tools such as focus groups that explore potential challenges or the impact of emerging technologies strategic; decentralized strategic (planning that builds on many organizational levels' imagining of the future); Analysis of future scenarios and the Delphi methods (successive rounds of composite predictions used to build awareness and consensus).

Action
Action, not knowledge, is the goal of best practice leadership development processes. They believe that answers to tough questions are not in the instructor head; learner should discover them on the spot. Before the course begins the firm gives participants real life business problems and protocol for interviewing the clients. Learners work in a team to develop client recommendations and make a presentation to the actual clients after the course.

Aligning
The best practice organization integrate and align the leadership development with other corporate functions like assessment, development, feedbacks, coaching, education and succession planning.

Assessing
Finally, the best practice organizations always assess the impact of leadership development process by using numbers of tools and techniques like Kirk Patrick four level model of evaluations, etc.

Some of the leadership development programs that can be undertaken are as follows:

• Initially the leadership needs have to be identified and programs to fulfill these needs should be formulated.
• Formal education to the potential candidates to increase their understanding of environment and to develop confidence to take charge of the position should be encouraged.
• Coaching, counseling, mentoring and seminars should be conducted to refine the surface as well as core elements of competencies.
• The organization can also encourage job rotation of the viable candidates to increase the width of business expansion.
• Conduct self-assessment programs to find out the potential of the employees and introduce career development programs based on such assessment.
• Provide continuous inspirational programs to motivate the staff to encourage managers to take responsibility for their own development.
• The management can also have junior boards to encourage team experience and develop leadership quality in the staff.

Although the development of special assets in top managers will take very long time, it will invariably take the organization a long way. After all the top managers were not "made" overnight, nor were they simply "born". They are developed over many years.

Techno- Marketing concept for Non-Life Insurance

Marketing, in its simplest form means arranging sale of product or commodity whereas technology relates to the intricacies of manufacture and usages of such product or commodity.
In the context of insurance business also, the meaning of these two words are not too different. Here marketing implies strategies for sale of an insurance policy, which obviously is the product, and the technology refers to the design, scope, and methods of utilization/execution of the benefits of a product. As a product can be sold only when people need it, so before trying to sell insurance policy the market has to be studied to analyze potential buyers, the expectations, purchasing power etc.

In today's business world, the business is using high-tech in their manufacturing and service generation activities where their risk exposure is also distinct and peculiar. The tailor-made polices are prepared based on their individual needs can only be best solution for them in their risk management. Therefore the marketing strategy of insurance business also should be in line with this reality. For example, we do not have tremendous potential in sale of machinery insurance because it not only includes the very important key machines and big sized machines but also the small motors and various other common appliances. Nowadays there are tremendous possibilities of selling electronic equipment policy as computers and other electronic devices have been installed in various offices and are also used in our daily routine life.

These policies are highly technical in nature. Therefore all insurance players are focusing on techno-marketing concept to sale these types of products and insure the adequate covers from small and mega size with zero defect efficiency.

Today, insurance market is also in the stage where we have good number of all risk polices which can be offered to the insured for mutual benefit of insurer and insured. Regarding insurance of fire and allied perils also, the insurers are looking at the geographical location of the risk and may also have to suggest extraneous perils like flood, storm, earthquake etc. Actually, managing this portfolios may prove much more difficult than others because only efficient after sales service will create confidence in the mind of the insured towards the insurer. Unless there is complete coordination and understanding between the marketing and professional personnel, no insurer can expect to achieve this task - as a customer satisfaction.

Insurers should at no point of time forget that the quality of the product and after sales service are the key note to the success of manufacturing industries and the same golden rule applies to insurance also.

No doubt the insurance markets operates under the principles of utmost good faith where insurer expect all the information to be disclosed by the insured and it is moral duty of the insurer to inform insured person about all aspect of insurance policies.

To tide over the situation we need to improve our overall performance. The technical personnel must impart their knowledge to the insured and extend full co-operation for risk assessment. Technical person must also enrich their knowledge by taking study course and information of the developments of insurance market going around the world.

This techno-marketing concept is not new. This is as old as the insurance industry itself. However with the passage of time and advancement of insurance technology and increased specialization in every sphere of business, two different sets of people should be mobilized jointly in insurance marketing.

1. Persons required to sell the products
2. People who have in-depth understanding of insurance products and formulate the insurance policies and process of claims.

This perhaps was necessary to handle the volume of work of large-scale insurance industry. But the magic of success of the industry will depend largely on their concerted effort and understanding rather than a secretarial look.

Industrialization in recent times is a multifaceted effort requiring attention to be given to areas other than the immediate task of setting up a production facility. The present scenario is very much unlike that in the past. Today the environmental factor is changing with new precedent and trends, which has also changed the risk exposure scenario.

These hazards and risk are all the more prominent in the industries all over country following the winds of liberalization. In order to appreciate the risk better, techno marketing departments should be set up in every insurance company. These departments have also to look into how best to cater to the risk without leaving gaps in insurance coverage.

The ultimate goal of each insurance business will depend upon consumer satisfaction and this initiation will certainly help the insurance market players for success and growth in the coming days ahead.

Socialization of Employees Part 2

Employee Performance and Organizational Stability
Employee's performance depends to a considerable degree on knowing what he should or should not do. Understanding the right way to do a job indicates proper socialization. Furthermore, the appraisal of his performance includes how well they fit into the organization. The qualities like how well one can get along with coworker, have acceptable work habits and how well one can demonstrate right attitude, differ among jobs and organizations. As a result, proper socialization becomes a significant factor in influencing both the actual job performance and how it is perceived by others.

Over a period of time, when jobs are filled and vacated with a minimum of disruption, the organization will be more stable. Its objectives will be more smoothly transferred between generations. Loyalty and commitment to the organization should be easier to maintain because the organization's philosophy and objectives will appear consistent over time. Given that most managers value high employee performance and organizational stability, the proper socialization of employees should be important.

Socialization to Reduce Anxiety and Adjust To New Situation
The entry of an outsider into an organization is an anxiety-producing situation. Stress is high because the new member feels a lack of identification; if not with the work itself, certainly with a new superior, new co-worker, a new work location, and a new set of rules and regulations. A feeling of isolation and loneliness are not unusual. This anxiety state has at least two implications. First, new employees need special attention to put them at ease. This usually means providing an adequate amount of information to reduce uncertainty and ambiguity. Second, the existence of tension can be positive in that it often acts to motivate individuals to learn the values and norms of their newly assumed role as quickly as possible. Therefore, the new member is anxious about the new role but is motivated to learn the ropes and rapidly become an accepted member of the organization.

The anxiety is high at entry and the new member usually wants to reduce that anxiety quickly. The information obtained during the recruitment and selection stages is always incomplete and usually distorted. New employees, therefore, must alter their understanding of their role to fit more complete information they get once they are on the job. The point is that there is no instant adjustment - every new member goes through a settling-in period that tends to follow a relatively standard pattern.

The learning associated with socialization goes beyond the formal job description and the expectations that may be made by people in human resources or by the new member's manager. Socialization is influenced by subtle and less subtle statements and behaviors offered up by colleagues, management, employees, clients, and other people with whom new members come in contact.

Conclusion
It is clear that socialization process is important in every organization. But, many organizations do not have any formal socialization program. The organization has to organize a program regarding the awareness and importance of orientation and socialization program to old employees so that they can be a part of every such programs. Often the old employees are reluctant to change and might not prefer the enrollment of new employee in their group, so they should be trained regarding the process and importance of socialization as most of them are not aware about it.

In most of the cases, organizations use a one way communication system for socialization process. They believe in dictating the terms and conditions to the new employee. The perception and ideas of the employees are not considered at all which stifles the creative instincts of the new employee. This should be improved by implanting two way communication process during the orientation as well as socialization process. The new employee should be encouraged to ask various questions on orientation program and further while working.

It is not necessary that every organization has to follow same process all the time. If we can come up with new ways that can be customized according the organizational needs then it could save a lot of cost as well as manpower. The organizations can use new technology like audio-visual aids, multimedia presentations and different software can be utilized so as to lessen the manpower required.

Socialization of Employees Part 1

The first day in school, college, university and finally the work place is most memorable one. People remember their first day in any of these events. It is because of the new experience and new expectation. At the same time, we tend to feel anxious, and anxiety rules us over the new expectations and ongoing experience. There is, of course, a lot of uncertainty over the various events and moments to come on the way ahead. We tend to develop stress over a small matter also. We are not sure whom to talk with, what to talk about, what to do and many things revolve in our minds. Moreover, since we do not know people there, we tend to feel isolated and uncared for. All these are very discouraging but we have come across these things many a times which is inevitable most of the time. But all these anxiety and uncertainty can be reduced to minimum, if proper steps are carried out. It can be minimized or even reduced to certain extent.

The human resource department in every organization plays a major role in new employee orientation, that is, the role of coordination, which ensures that the appropriate components are in place. As job offers are made and accepted, the HR department should instruct the new employee regarding each and every event they would come across along with their job description. This process is known as orientation and the ongoing interaction with the employee during the work life in an organization is termed socialization.

Socialization is the process of mutual adaptation of new employees and new employer to one another. In course of familiarization to each other, employees learn the organizational culture, values, attitudes, and behaviors appropriate to their roles in the organization. It is a process of adaptation that takes place as individuals attempt to learn the values and norms of work roles.

Some of the purposes of socialization in any organization are to ensure predictability of employee behavior, to substitute for rules guiding employee behavior, to increase employee performance and satisfaction, and to reduce anxiety.

Orientation - A first step of socialization
Many a time's people are confused with orientation and socialization. Orientation is the introduction of a new employee to the organization, the requirement of job, the social situation in which he will be working and the organization's culture. The organization's culture includes its values, shared beliefs, history, tradition and norms of behavior expressed as do's and don'ts. Orientation is a part and first step of socialization process. A new employee who is socialized understands the key points about an organization and its people and why things are done in particular way.

Orientation should create an initial favorable impression. Key ingredients of the good first impression include sufficient information about when and where to report for work, efficiently handled paperwork and friendly people to guide new employees. Orientation should encourage acceptance by other employees. Introductions, informal interaction, a tour of the facilities with short stops to hear people talk about their jobs and history of employment at the farm, and opportunity for the new employees to ask questions all can help gain acceptance.

Every organization has a culture of its own in which the new employee may find it difficult to adapt in the beginning. The culture of an organization plays an important role in building the concept of socialization. It is necessary to examine organization culture, roles, values and norms to understand the concept of socialization in any organization. The shared values and beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that interact with a company's employee, organizational structure and control system constitutes the organizational culture. It is very important for a new employee to know about the organizations' culture to understand how things are done, what behavioral outcomes are important and how others are behaving in the organization.

In any organization, a new person can easily be socialized if and when their behavior conforms to the organizations' standards. If organizational roles, values and norms are rejected by a new employee, the socialization process will be complicated. Therefore, the organizational culture, values, roles and norms are inter-related and make the socialization process easily accessible to those who understand and act as per these standards.

Purpose Driven Leaders

There are different styles of leaders (political, business organizations, NGOs, civil societies, bureaucracy etc.), but the best leaders recognize that leadership is not about them, but about the opportunity to make a difference in terms of service to others.

Purpose-Driven Leaders are best than the Self-Centered ones. The latter also have purpose in their life, the main purpose being mere self-glorification & self-gain rather than true service to others. Here the phrase ‘Purpose-Driven Leadership’ means a purpose to make a difference in the lives of others. What clearly differentiates those leaders from all others is their mission in life to make a positive change in the lives of others. Mark the word 'positive'.

A person does not necessarily need to have a certain position in an organizational hierarchy to be a leader. Many people who possess a passion for service-to-others have been playing influential roles as informal leaders. A Leader-with-Purpose, whether formal or informal, possesses certain characteristics, norms and qualities.

Purpose-driven leaders
1. Turn challenges into opportunities
2. Emphasize on teamwork and always give credit to the team.
3. Know when they need help from outside.
4. Have realistic goals and plans
5. Always focus on completion of the job.
6. Look to stay ahead of the inevitable winds of change and unforeseen challenges

1. Purpose-Driven Leaders turn challenges into opportunities
All organizations face challenges, such as the need for:

• Growth in the organization
• More financial resources to achieve strategic objectives
• New ways to respond to competition within the organization and outside.
• Staying ahead of others.

A Purpose-Driven Leader turns challenges into opportunities with the help of his team.

2. Purpose-Driven Leaders emphasize on teamwork and always give credit to the team.

• A Purpose-Driven Leader looks for members who can perform with others as a team.
• He gives preference to a team player than an individualist. He knows that it takes competent team members to run a successful institution.
• He always gives credit to his team rather than glorifying himself.

3. Purpose-Driven Leaders know when they need help from outside

• A Purpose-Driven Leader always looks to advice and help from outside sources when needed. He knows that preventive help is always better than curative help.
• Such leaders hire professionals, consultants, advisors who put the institution's best interests ahead of that of any one leader.
• Bringing in outside help takes a lot of confidence in a leader.

4. Purpose-Driven Leaders have realistic goals and plans
Purpose-driven leaders get involved in developing strategic goals and plans. Those plans include:

• Action steps which mention what needs to be done
• Realistic implementation plans that show how the action steps will get done
• Identification of accountable persons
• Realistic time frame to achieve the goal
• Tools to monitor progress on a continuous basis.

5. Purpose-Driven Leaders always focus on completion of the job.

• Purpose-driven leaders do not let distractions prevent the organization's mission, goals and plans.
• They focus on priorities, communication, implementation and celebration.
• They know what is important and how priorities are to be fixed. Everything cannot be a priority for a Purpose-Driven Leader.

6. Purpose-Driven Leaders look to stay ahead of the inevitable winds of change and unforeseen challenges.
Purpose-driven leaders strive to keep their organi­zations ahead of the inevitable winds of change and unforeseen challenges. Key steps to achieve this out­come are:

• Focus relentlessly on achieving results.
• Develop realistic growth plans for yourself and for your organization. Be willing to learn new skills or learn about new methods or technologies
• Seek partnership with others to strengthen the organization.
• Demand accountability and be accountable too. Accountability is probably the one key word that best separates the best performing leaders and organizations from the rest. Top performers hold themselves and those around them accountable.

If you want to be a Purpose-Driven Leader, ask yourself questions like

• What drives you?
• What is your burning passion?
• What do you want to achieve in life?
• How can you serve others best?

If you are sincere, the answer lies within you. You can be a Purpose-Driven Leader.

If you are true to the spirit of Purpose-Driven Lead­ership, this is what will determine your accomplish­ments as a leader, on behalf of your organization, community and country. To begin with, let you be the first strive to be Purpose-Driven Leaders in the organization where you are involved in.

Remember, as a current or aspiring future leader, the best leaders recognize that leadership is not about them, but about the opportunity to make a difference in terms of service to others.

Ever changing Photographic market

The only thing that remains constant in the world today is change. Be it fashion, consumer behavior or technology. In the technology sector, the entire world is currently eating, talking and drinking digital. Technology is changing at a speed which barely gives any time to companies to embrace the change. Unfor­tunately, those who prove late in accepting and em­bracing the change soon disappear or shrink considerably.

People associated with photography must agree with the fact that with the evolution of digital, photo­graphic industry has gone under a sea change. Digital has opened up new areas of opportunities to all the photographic goods manufacturers and consumers.

The ongoing digital revolution has forced all the major companies to rethink over their global business strategies. In response to this ongoing paradigm shift from negative film imaging to digital imaging; the major manufacturing players made many strategic moves in the last ten years. There have been major mergers and acquisitions by the big players like Kodak, Fuji and Konica. Each one of them has been acquiring digital based companies to jump in to the digital bandwagon.

With the explosion of information technology con­sumers around the world are getting better informed. Now they have got more power to exhort over manufacturers and the retailers alike. Historically, business people have typically focused on pushing out what have been stocked. This approach is slowly dying its natural death and by de­grees, the market is moving from being a sellers' market to a buyers' market.

In the photography industry, days are near, when we will find the emphasis shifting from products to services. For instance customers will soon be having personal photographic printers and with digital cam­eras, they could print some of their pictures at home. So to make sure that we are needed on that occasion, we are gradually and continuously widening our serv­ice range, which would definitely help us to be the first place customers can call for support.

We do not feel done and secure mere by giving long list of customer service because what was 'customer service' yesterday is a basic hygienic expectation today. Therefore, we are committed not only to satisfy our customers but trying hard to continuously innovate to be a step ahead in terms of delighting the customers. We also try to understand the 'heart and mind' of our customers to address the needs of both, which would consequently create bonding that will be for lifetime, instead of mere transactional.

Truth about the Practice of Management

In Truth about Management Education, we talk about the problems faced by MBA students. The problem is real and solutions are not easy. But, for whatever they are worth, here are some suggestions for making management education more relevant to the concerns of real-world managers.

a) Course structure
In the MBA course, let's bring in more areas related to what the new MBAs would be doing in their first few years. This means - more exposure to aspects of law as it applies to business (statutory legal frameworks, maybe of several neighboring countries, contract laws and so forth) as well as a composite course called "commercial management". This would include all the nitty-gritty of daily business that gets swept aside in the MBA programme - how does one open a letter of credit? How do you start a business - what permissions are required? What are the ways in which an organization deals with its suppliers and customers? What does an invoice in a typical manufacturing organization look like? What does a typical agreement in a service industry e.g. a bank, look like? Obviously, given the great variety of commercial situations, everything cannot be simulated in the classroom, but one can be given a close look at the day-to-day reality of the business, which the MBA would be immersed in, once he/she joins an organization.

b) Faculty
The insistence of PhDs as faculty by many institutions has severely impacted the real-world experience profile of faculty in the classroom. In areas such as economics, such academic background is definitely a huge benefit, but, applied to areas such as marketing, one is almost certain of getting a faculty who is intimately involved in quantitative models and statistical analysis, but who has probably never sold or marketed anything in his or her career. The same considerations apply to areas such as human resources, operations and finance. Visiting faculty can close the gap to some extent, but only partially. The solution is to have full-time faculty with significant managerial experience (who are adequately compensated). After all, would you like to be taught surgery by a medical professor who has never conducted a surgery oneself? Yet, we think nothing of being taught strategic management by professors who have never developed and executed a strategy for an organization (typically a senior management or board responsibility).

c) Interaction with industry
Summer internships and projects, while extremely useful; rarely provide the kind of real-world environment with capabilities and responsibilities, the MBA students require. This is a complicated question, which various forward-thinking schools are trying to address in different ways. Some are proposing breaking up the programme into two parts: the first year followed by a one-year internship in an organization, followed by a second year, by which time the young MBA has a much better appreciation of the real dilemmas and issues of the real world. Others are proposing taking practicing managers out of their assigned roles for two years and immersing them in various learning environments. This approach has been taken by Henry Mintzberg, who firmly believes that management cannot be taught, only experienced and learned, and in his management development programme, only takes in practicing managers. These are exposed to various learning situations in different countries relevant to their working experience and then revert to their original employer.

Whatever be the structure of industry-academic interaction, it is clear that the quantity and quality of real-world exposure of the MBA student has to go up - a lot.

If we study professions such as law, medicine and accounting, it is clear that management theory and practice still has some distance to go before it can be called a profession. Even so, an appreciation of the issues involved in management education would ensure that we are moving in the desired direction - towards a meeting of the real world, where risks are taken, decisions are made and consequences suffered or enjoyed, and the academic world, where such situations are dissected and analyzed.