Unusual People Do Things Differently

C Prasad T G

Description

Unusual people are ordinary people who strive hard to do extraordinary things. They are sensitive to nuances, look to provide lateral solutions, dare to think out of the box, and often end up changing the rules of the game. T.G.C. Prasad presents the views and experiences of sixty-five individuals, from well-known names like Mike Lawrie, Azim Premji and Mother Teresa to a chef, a masseuse and a service boy, with whom he has had meaningful interactions and who have inspired him. He includes people from a broad professional spectrum; CEOs, doctors, the director general of police, realtors, an attorney, a chartered accountant, a consultant and a sports coach are among those who make his list. Singling out a dominant factor from each person s story, he outlines the journeys these people undertook and the behaviours they exhibited, and shows how these link up to the results they achieved. Unusual People Do Things Differently is full of pithy everyday management lessons and offers valuable insights to everyone who aspires to grow, manage and lead.

Sujets

• Employabilité, métiers et formations
• Entrepreneurship

Informations

• Publié par: Penguin Books Ltd
• Date de parution: 19 juillet 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184753516
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

T.G.C. PRASAD
Unusual People Do Things Differently
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Preface
Theme 1: Strategic and Focused on Value Creation
1. Creating Value
2. Management of Technology
3. Stirring Recipes
4. A Businessman s Attorney
5. Emerging Internet Users
6. Meeting Campus Graduates
7. Outbound Centre
8. Mallasamudram to Minneapolis
9. Each Step in the Right Direction
10. Realizing Potential and Making Dreams Come True
11. Technology for Self-Help Groups
12. Participatory Democracy
Theme 2: Perceptive and Derive Creative Solutions
13. Dump Your Leather Wallet
14. A Logo to Remember
15. Screenwriting
16. Simple Living, High Thinking
17. Cultural Integration Key to Mergers
18. Giving Is Important, Not How Much
19. Plan A, Wharton and Think Tanks
20. Pop Song in School Assembly
21. Play with Gary Kasparov
22. Keeping Happy
Theme 3: Driven by Business Excellence
23. Getting Funded
24. Go Collect Money
25. Outstanding Woman Manager 2009
26. Appeared Matriculation, but Failed (AMBF)
27. Recruiting and Recognizing A-players
28. Sales Is a Mind Game
29. Ambiguity-Direction Grid
30. Re-strategizing During Recession
31. Transforming Healthcare
32. Three Initiatives
Theme 4: Deploy Professional Skills to Win
33. Chak De! India -Coaching to Win
34. Overcoming the Fear of Failure
35. True Business-Partnering
36. Managing Patients
37. Stop when the Going Is Good
38. Asking for Discount
39. Combining Skills to Win Business
40. Professional Organizations
41. Adaptive Growth
42. Mentoring Is Bidirectional
43. Breaking Myths
Theme 5: Passionate and Lead from the Front
44. Building Trust
45. Trees for Free
46. Standing Tall
47. Passion plus Competencies
48. The Desire to Make Money
49. Mulberry Meadows
50. Successful People Are Average People
51. Dialogue for Peace
52. Carry People Along with You
Theme 6: Sensitive to People and Customer-centric
53. Remember My Name, Srinivas
54. Meeting Commitments
55. Million-dollar Massage-Parlour Business
56. The Talent Network
57. Three Rules of Survival
58. Fire in the Belly
59. Word of Mouth
60. Contextual Sensitivity
61. For Baby, Milk Is Free
62. Fireworks in the Office
63. Indian Flag in Epson Garden
64. Leadership with a Personal Touch
65. Making a Choice
Note from the Author
References
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PORTFOLIO
UNUSUAL PEOPLE DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY
T.G.C. Prasad offers strategic, advisory, general management and HR consulting services to start-ups, small and medium enterprises, as well as Indian and MNC companies. He also offers executive coaching to senior management.
He has been on the board of Misys India, and has worked as country manager, global VP for Misys Plc. He has also worked with companies such as Wipro, Coopers & Lybrand, PWC, IBM, MindTree, and Alcatel-Lucent in various senior management roles globally.
He is a management committee member of the Dayalbagh Educational Institute (Deemed University)-Information Communication and Technology (ICT) Centre, Bangalore. He is also the national executive council member of Systems Society of India. He lives in Bangalore.
For revered Professor P.S. Satsangi Sahab
Preface
Sometime in 2001, in my early thirties, I took to running, overdid it and busted my ankles. Last year, I underwent couple of surgeries and was confined to my home where I got thoroughly bored surfing channels on TV. I wanted to do something meaningful and decided to write about the business and management lessons that I had learned in the last two decades. Like most of us, I had read far too much management theory about strengths and values, leadership and professionalism, positive behaviours and being effective, the five rules to immediate success, three ways of getting fired and what not. So, the first thing I decided was not to write theory. Don t get me wrong; theory is important, but I was not in the mood for it.
One night before going to bed, I was reading the Panchatantra to my son and it occurred to me that simple business and management insights that we overlook in our daily lives can be easily and effectively conveyed through interesting short stories. And I decided to write short stories about unusual people who do things differently.
Unusual people are ordinary people who strive to do extraordinary things. They are business-driven, customer-centric, effective team players who constantly raise the bar on performance as they learn, teach, contribute, strategize and work. Although their chosen paths may not lead to success, they are determined to walk it and arrive at their destination. They may not care about recognition and accolades; for them creating something of value and bringing about change is more important. They are sensitive to people and leave behind an indelible mark.
In choosing the unusual people featured in this book, I first shortlisted names of close friends and colleagues who taught me the depth of management thought, then people with whom I had had short but meaningful interactions. Finally, I approached men and women who had inspired me and asked them to share their experiences and views. I started with an initial shortlist of about five hundred people and pruned it down to sixty-five, based on the context, the insights offered, the uniqueness of experience and the profession they related to. Since most of my experience is related to consulting and the information technology industry, I veered a little towards the knowledge industry, but was careful to include people from a broad professional spectrum. CEOs, doctors, a nurse, the director general of police, CTOs, realtors, an attorney, a chartered accountant, a chef, a sportsman and a consultant are among those who made my list.
When an event takes place or when a story is narrated, the focus and perspective varies based on the author s perspective. While penning the narratives, I realized that some stories were more profound, while others were simpler in their messages. The Mahabharata runs deep and the Panchatantra is anecdotal, yet both are deeply insightful. Since I believed that conveying the insight mattered more than establishing veracity, I retained the realistic context of the events and wove an appropriate narrative which included perspectives related to end-results, journeys that people undertook and behaviours they exhibited. The stories are not like parables where each chapter ends with a moral . I believe you will gather interesting insights as you read each chapter. The essence is in your interpretation and understanding of the context.
To give overall structure to the book I performed an in-depth analysis and arrived at six broad themes. Since people operate in multiple contexts, bracketing them under a theme may not have been apt and hence I picked a dominant factor for each story and aligned it to a theme. From the stories included in this book and based on the context of each narrative, people are aligned to one of the six broad themes as given below: Strategic and focused on value creation Perceptive and derive creative solutions Driven by business excellence Deploy professional skills to win Passionate and lead from the front Sensitive to people and are customer-centric
As you begin reading this book, I urge you to remember that themes are more often than not subjective, limiting the expression of specifics, and could over-generalize. Hence, it would be best to quickly skim through the themes and focus on each story, for the real meat is in there.
I believe this book will be useful to all those who work, perform, aspire to grow, manage and lead. It will help graduate students, business people, professionals, career-oriented youngsters, and people across any industry or any function. The management lessons learnt are broad and can be applied in a global context too.
I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it.
Theme 1: Strategic and Focused on Value Creation

These stories are about people who transform companies and create value and wealth. These people can unlock the hidden value of an idea to create or revive and sustain companies. They experiment with various management interventions and come up with practical solutions to problems. They establish strong management principles and make cohesive teams, transforming structures, processes and mindsets of people. They take quick decisions, understand the repercussions and propel the organization towards definite change. They have a great perspective of the future and take appropriate steps to create a strong foundation. They have the ability to see both the micro and macro perspectives and can identify opportunities from all economic strata. They intuitively know when to buy and sell and make the right calls when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. They think big, build effective partnerships and launch global products and services. These people are passionate about their businesses and work hard to evolve successful enterprises that are focused on bettering the quality of life.
1
Creating Value
Mike Lawrie is the CEO of Misys Plc, a Financial Times Stock Exchange-listed IT products company that services 1,200 banks globally. Before he joined Misys, Mike was a partner with Value Act Capital; prior to that he was CEO of Siebel Stems. Before joining Siebel, Mike had been with IBM for twenty-seven years and was on Louis Gerstner s succession plan. When Mike joined Misys Plc as its CEO in 2006, he inherited a challenging legacy. Misys Plc was a holding company and with the banking business surviving on recurring license fees (RLFs), competition from i-flex, Infosys and Temenos was rapidly eating into the company s market share. Healthcare had two businesses-hospitals and physicians. While the former was a cash cow, its annual growth was sluggish, and although the latter was growing it was far fr