Saturday, 27 February 2016

“Culture: Key to Organizational Success” ―Professor M.S.Rao








“Organizational culture is civilization in the workplace.” — Alan Adler


When you look at companies including Google, Southwest Airlines, and Zappos.com, they did exceedingly well due to strong organizational culture. A. G. Lafley of P&G strove hard to connect people by emphasizing organizational culture.  Other leaders include Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com and Ross Fowler, the Managing Director, Cisco Systems Australia.  In fact, strategy and culture are two eyes of an organization with strategy as the guiding path while culture as the driving path. Balancing and blending these both will enhance CEO’s effectiveness.

Thomas P. Wise and Reuben Daniel, their book Agile Readiness: Four Spheres of Lean and Agile Transformation says, “The right horse for the right race is an axiom meaning the leaders must carefully choose the right style for the right goals. Leadership style, personality, and goals must align with the desired culture of the organization. Steve Jobs built a culture of creativity and cutting edge technologies. Jack Welch created a culture of rapid delivery of new products that people want to use. While you may not agree with these leaders and their styles, it is a pretty well settled argument that their personality and leadership style were aligned with and for that matter drove the culture of the organization.”


Culture versus Strategy

“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” ― Peter Drucker

Culture and strategy are two sides of a coin. Given the choice between culture and strategy, it is the culture that must be given more importance because culture cannot copied but strategy can be copied. Culture is unique and it takes a lot of time to create it. Strategies can be changed as per the situation but culture cannot be changed easily. Strong culture connects employees emotionally and engages them effectively.  Richard Perrin rightly remarked, “Organizational culture is the sum of values and rituals which serve as ‘glue’ to integrate the members of the organization.” Healthy organizational culture promotes fraternity, eliminates organizational politics, and builds trust which is missing globally. It enhances productivity and performance. Precisely, organizational culture builds value system.


As Culture is to Your Family, Organizational Culture is to Your Company

“You can’t sell it outside if you can’t sell it inside.” ― Stan Slap

When you want to succeed in your family life, you must create a strong culture in your family. You must spend your quality time with your family. When you create a healthy and peaceful climate at home, children grow healthy and happy. They develop a positive, right and strong attitude and present themselves as healthy citizens. As a parent, you will be successful. Similarly, when you want your organization to prosper, you must emphasize organizational culture as it helps connect with other employees, develop team spirit and work in a healthy organizational climate. It ultimately paves the way for organization productivity and performance. Recently, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella emphasized the importance of organizational culture. As culture defines the individuals organizational culture defines companies.  To conclude, emphasize organizational culture to achieve organizational excellence and effectiveness.


"Organizations do not transform unless people at the top of organization adopt new values and change their behavior. The organizational culture reflects the personality of the current leadership and the legacy of personalities of its previous leaders." ― Richard Barrets

Note: This article is adapted from my book, 21 Success Sutras for CEOs: How Global CEOs Overcome Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times to Build Good to Great Organizations to be published by Motivational Press.

References
21 Success Sutras for CEOs: How Global CEOs Overcome Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times to Build Good to Great Organizations by Professor M.S.Rao, Motivational Press (2016)
http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in/2015/11/free-sample-chapter-21-success-sutras.html


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Read my ‘Vision 2030 One Million Global Leaders’ URL: http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in/2014/12/professor-m-s-raos-vision-2030-one_31.html  


Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Recipient of 10th International Prestigious Sardar Patel Award―2015
Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com
Blog: http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com
Global Top Gurus 30: http://www.globalgurus.org/leadership/upcoming.php
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI




Thanks for reading!

Kindly share your thoughts and comments below, I’m sure someone out there will find your story useful.



Copyright©2016 MSR Leadership Consultants India. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

This is a nonprofit blog to share Professor M.S.Rao’s passion and vision to build one million students as global leaders by 2030. Please don't cut articles from my blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the Blog http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in.  This material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party without permission.
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Friday, 26 February 2016

“Align Your Resources with Opportunities to Achieve Leadership Success” ―Professor M.S.Rao









“My job is to not be easy on people. My job is to make them better. My job is to pull things together from different parts of the company and clear the ways and get the resources for the key projects. And to take these great people we have and to push them and make them even better, coming up with more aggressive visions of how it could be.” ― Steve Jobs


People find it challenging to align their resources with opportunities. At times, they may have resources without opportunities; or opportunities without resources. This is a constant leadership challenge globally. Hence, it is essential to keep resources ready and explore opportunities simultaneously. It helps leaders achieve their leadership effectiveness quickly.  However, it is easier said than done.

As a leader, you must always explore opportunities although you may not have appropriate resources because nobody knows when opportunities knock your doors. When the opportunities knock your doors, you must raise resources accordingly. If you don’t have adequate resources, you must create resources accordingly. If you find that resources cannot be created, then align the available resources with the available opportunities to create compatibility and synergy to achieve leadership success. Never sit idle without building resources and exploring opportunities.

When resources and opportunities are available, leaders frequently find it challenging to execute them due to several bottlenecks including misalignment. This misalignment arises due to the round peg in a square hole or a square peg in a round hole. Hence, leaders must exercise their patience and work with perseverance to ensure alignment to execute their tasks effectively.  

Peter Drucker once remarked, “The pertinent question is not how to do things right — but how to find the right things to do, and to concentrate resources and efforts on them.”  Leadership is a continuous process, and to achieve leadership success, leaders must constantly create resources and explore opportunities. Remember, opportunities don’t come when you want but you must rise to the occasion when opportunities knock your doors.


"No leader can possibly have all the answers . . . .The actual solutions about how best to meet the challenges of the moment have to be made by the people closest to the action. . . .The leader has to find the way to empower those frontline people, to challenge them, to provide them with the resources they need, and then to hold them accountable. As they struggle with . . . this challenge, the leader becomes their coach, teacher, and facilitator. Change how you define leadership, and you change how you run a company." ― Steve Miller, Group Managing Director, Royal Dutch/Shell.




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Read my ‘Vision 2030 One Million Global Leaders’ URL: http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in/2014/12/professor-m-s-raos-vision-2030-one_31.html  


Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Recipient of 10th International Prestigious Sardar Patel Award―2015
Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com
Blog: http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com
Global Top Gurus 30: http://www.globalgurus.org/leadership/upcoming.php
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI




Thanks for reading!

Kindly share your thoughts and comments below, I’m sure someone out there will find your story useful.



Copyright©2016 MSR Leadership Consultants India. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

This is a nonprofit blog to share Professor M.S.Rao’s passion and vision to build one million students as global leaders by 2030. Please don't cut articles from my blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the Blog http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in.  This material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party without permission.
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Wednesday, 24 February 2016

“How to Bridge the Gap between Leadership Theory and Practice?” ―Professor M.S.Rao



“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards a ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.” ― Leonardo da Vinci


On Feb 19, 2016, I travelled by flight to keynote leadership conference in Nagpur, India. The person who sat beside me asked about my profession. I informed that I am an executive coach, author and leadership keynote speaker. He curiously asked me how to bridge the gap between leadership theory and practice. Will books help readers grow as leaders? The question was quite interesting and I replied him as follows:

Books don’t groom readers as leaders but serve as guidelines to them by providing different perspectives to widen their mental horizons. They provide theoretical inputs to help readers understand the various aspects on the topic to equip with expertise and build confidence.  They provide knowledge from multiple perspectives as authors do intensive research before writing books. If the authors are from research background, they provide various aspects on leadership research with pros and cons to enable the readers to understand and apply. Since the readers may not have research mindset, time and resources, the books help them immensely. If the authors write books from practitioners’ perspective, they help readers understand various challenges in exploring the leadership concepts.  They make readers become better leaders as they serve as blueprints for them. Having theoretical knowledge helps minimize mistakes and maximize leadership effectiveness.

Nobody can become a crackshot unless they lose some ammunition. So real learning about leadership starts in practical life with trial and error methods. When readers apply theoretical aspects in real business environment, they understand what works and doesn’t work in their specific environment and industry. They accept and apply what is relevant and discard the rest. In this way, the readers can close the gap between theory and practice. When you look at leadership educators in various business schools, they refer various case studies share with students and discuss with them. They share the pros and cons of theoretical aspects that enable the students to understand and explore. After students enter into corporate world, they encounter the real challenges and adapt to the environment accordingly.

Leadership basically depends on theoretical inputs. Of course, the practitioners change their strategies at the ground level to suit their needs and expectations of the industry and stakeholders.  Hence, theory is the foundation to leadership which guides and grooms. Theory provides the principles and philosophies on leadership. It provides directions for the practitioners to move forward cautiously and carefully. Hence, theory cannot be ignored. At the same time, there must be changes at the practical front as challenges differ from industry to industry and leadership style differs from the personality of the leaders. Yogi Berra rightly remarked, “In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”  Therefore, there is no quick fix formula to leadership learning. There is no one-size-fits-all-approach to leadership development. Leadership must be customized as per the situation, style of the leaders, environment and the industry.


Conclusion

To achieve leadership effectiveness, there must be symbiotic relationship between the leadership scholars and practitioners. Scholars must visit industry regularly to understand the corporate ground realities and practitioners must visit campus to customize the curriculum as per their requirements. It helps both scholars and practitioners to understand each others’ expectations and aspirations to bridge the gap between theory and practice. To conclude, books build confidence in the readers. They offer theoretical leadership ideas and insights to prepare readers as leaders and help them understand various aspects on leadership to minimize mistakes and maximize leadership effectiveness to achieve organizational excellence and effectiveness.


“Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.” ― Immanuel Kant




If you like this article, Like and share Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Professor-MSRao/451516514937414


Read my ‘Vision 2030 One Million Global Leaders’ URL: http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in/2014/12/professor-m-s-raos-vision-2030-one_31.html  


Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Recipient of 10th International Prestigious Sardar Patel Award―2015
Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com
Blog: http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com
Global Top Gurus 30: http://www.globalgurus.org/leadership/upcoming.php
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI




Thanks for reading!

Kindly share your thoughts and comments below, I’m sure someone out there will find your story useful.



Copyright©2016 MSR Leadership Consultants India. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

This is a nonprofit blog to share Professor M.S.Rao’s passion and vision to build one million students as global leaders by 2030. Please don't cut articles from my blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the Blog http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in.  This material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party without permission.


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Monday, 22 February 2016

“How Can Women Break Glass Ceiling?” ―Professor M.S.Rao

“You can and should set your own limits and clearly articulate them. This takes courage, but it is also liberating and empowering, and often earns you new respect.” ― Rosalind Brewer, President and CEO of Sam’s Club


On February 19, 2016, I keynoted a leadership conference in India where I shared my leadership ideas and insights on my upcoming book titled, “21 Success Sutras for CEOs: How Global CEOs Overcome Leadership Challenges in Turbulent Times to Build Good to Great Organizations.” The audiences were leadership practitioners from middle level to senior level. One of the women practitioners asked me the following question, “How can women break glass ceiling?”

A shocking research report by McKinsey in 2011 unveils that men are promoted based on potential, while women are promoted based on past accomplishments. It is unfortunate that there is a glass ceiling prevalent globally.  Glass ceiling is all about an invisible barrier that prevents women and minorities to scale corporate ladder. It is often tough to identify but it can be felt especially by the women. There are many ways this issue can be addressed. Here are some tips to address it earnestly:

Women must remove their mental blocks that they cannot compete with men to reach leadership positions.  They must be very confident in undertaking leadership roles and responsibilities. They must handle organizational challenges effectively. They must avoid preconceived notions that men don’t allow them to grow professionally. They must take risks to prove themselves. They must draw inspiration from successful women leaders like Hillary Clinton, Indra Nooyi, Ursula Burns, and Sheryl Sandberg who broke glass ceiling and succeeded globally as leaders.  

Women have many advantages over men since they can multitask and work under pressure with patience and perseverance. They are strong in emotional intelligence and soft skills. They have the heart to forgive and forget. They can handle leadership responsibilities effectively without any fear. What they must do is to build their own qualitative network to grow instead of depending solely on male network. They must work hand in hand with their close connections to fight for their rights to establish themselves to excel as leaders.


Conclusion

Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox Corp remarked, “If you are sitting around the table but you say nothing, that's a lost opportunity. Move beyond that and say something about what you have to offer. The reason you’re there is because you have something valuable that can be added.”  As men add value to organizations, women also add immense value to organizations. Leadership is not gender-based but purely performance-based. Women must break their mental barriers to compete and collaborate with men as per the situation to improve organizational bottom lines.  Melanie Hope, wrote in Get Over It & Get Started: Self Help with a Spine! “No glass ceiling was ever shattered by a whiner.” Therefore, women must not whine to excel as winners in all spheres of life.  

A bird cannot fly with one wing since it needs two wings to fly. Similarly, no society can progress without the support of women. It requires support from both men and women to build a better global society. Hence, it is essential to respect women with dignity and honor and empower them to build a better global society.


“This is the ultimate chicken and the egg situation. The chicken: Women will tear down the external barriers once we achieve leadership roles... The egg: We need to eliminate the external barriers to get women into those roles in the first place. Both sides are right.” ― Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead




If you like this article, Like and share Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Professor-MSRao/451516514937414


Read my ‘Vision 2030 One Million Global Leaders’ URL: http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in/2014/12/professor-m-s-raos-vision-2030-one_31.html  


Life is great!

Professor M.S.Rao, India
Founder of MSR Leadership Consultants India
Recipient of 10th International Prestigious Sardar Patel Award―2015
Blog: http://professormsrao.blogspot.com
Blog: http://professormsraoguru.blogspot.com
Global Top Gurus 30: http://www.globalgurus.org/leadership/upcoming.php
21 Success Sutras for Leaders: Top 10 Leadership Books of the Year (San Diego University) Amazon URL: http://www.amazon.com/21-Success-Sutras-Leaders-ebook/dp/B00AK98ELI




Thanks for reading!

Kindly share your thoughts and comments below, I’m sure someone out there will find your story useful.



Copyright©2016 MSR Leadership Consultants India. All Rights Reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.


This is a nonprofit blog to share Professor M.S.Rao’s passion and vision to build one million students as global leaders by 2030. Please don't cut articles from my blog and redistribute by email or post to the web. The use of this material is free provided copyright is acknowledged and reference or link is made to the Blog http://professormsraovision2030.blogspot.in.  This material may not be sold, or published in any form, or used in the provision of business services to a third party without permission.
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