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Author: Manish Mohan

Would You Fire Your Best Performer?

September 27, 2010
| 9 Comments
| Categories: appraisal, case study, Jobs, Management, people management, performance management, Supervisor, talent, Work

Sanjay is a great team leader aspiring to be a manager. He has shown good results in the projects he has handled. He has shown willingness to go the extra mile in the tasks assigned. He has been constantly told he is a great performer and the company would not like to lose a great team leader. Regular feedback and company awards have made him proud and self confident. However he has had some issues in his ability to handle larger projects and teams. His view of the industry is…

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Changing Context

September 26, 2010
| No Comments
| Categories: Blogging, Context, Contextual learning, Leadership, Management, organizational development, people management, Recruitment, Social Media

During a recent organizational development workshop that I attended, the facilitator talked about changing context. It was an interesting discussion that got me thinking about my changed context. I could recognize a few that I have experienced in the last couple of years.About two years ago my context as a manager and leader changed about the way I was managing my teams. I moved from "I have to do everything and I have get everything done” to “I have to enable people to do their jobs"This significantly changed my approach to…

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A Seat at the Table: Are you Ready?

August 30, 2010
| 1 Comment
| Categories: reading recommendation, seat at the table, specialists

Loved this article in the Learning Solutions magazine The Specialist’s Dilemma about getting a seat at the table by Fred Nickols. I especially loved the following description:Next, take stock of your grasp of your organization's purpose, mission, operations, history, structure, strengths, personnel, politics, finances, the opportunities and threats it faces, its competitors and their relative advantages or disadvantages, its customers and markets, its key suppliers and critical inputs, its stated and manifest strategies, its reputation, any governmental and regulatory considerations, the executive cadre (including their history and relationships inside and…

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11 Reasons NOT to Ban Social Media in Your Organization

August 6, 2010
| No Comments
| Categories: ban, Behaviour, Lists, Social Media, Social Networking, Work

Jane Hart seeks rebuttal to reasons commonly given by organizations for banning social media at work. I have heard some of these. Here’s why I believe organizations should NOT ban social media, rather find ways to leverage it. Some of these are in the Indian context of hiring and retaining workforce. I am adding an 11th reason that I have heard for why organizations ban social media that could perhaps make it to the list.11.          Social media takes up too much of company’s Internet bandwidth hampering other work.Given the advantages…

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Progress so far – Unofficial Salary Survey 2010

August 5, 2010
| No Comments
| Categories: Content Development, eLearning, India, Industry, Instructional Design, Jobs, Recruitment, Salary, Survey, Training, training delivery, Work

It’s been a slow start to the 2010 Unofficial Salary Survey of eLearning, Content Development and Training jobs. You can now view the responses by following the Responses link.Some highlights so far:Functions that have participated are Instructional Designers (33%) and Technology/Programmers (22%), followed by Project management (17%) and Graphics and Media (11%).Most participants have 10 years work experience (28%) followed by 5 and 3 years (11% each).So far the survey seems to be dominated by male responders (72%).Only 28% people switched jobs last year.Mostly people from elearning/training vendors have participated…

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A Day in the Life of a Student

August 1, 2010
| 4 Comments
| Categories: Children, education, influences, school, school life, student, studies, thoughts

My 10 year old son wrote a creative writing piece as part of his home work that I just had to post here. It has some interesting insights into the lessons of life he might be imbibing at this age. So here it is with due permissions from my son to post it on my blog (with corrected spellings).A day in the life of a studentAs everyone knows that student life is difficult, I would first plan my day so that I don’t have to plan it afterwards. I would…

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Unofficial Salary Survey 2010

July 14, 2010
| 1 Comment
| Categories: Content Development, eLearning, India, Industry, Instructional Design, Jobs, Recruitment, Salary, Survey, Training, training delivery, Work

It’s time to launch the 2010 Unofficial Salary Survey for elearning, content development and training jobs in India. There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Content Developer, Technical Writer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Content Integrator, Tester, Editor, Trainer, Training administrator, SME, or any other role involved in elearning, content…

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Challenges with the Cloud

June 19, 2010
| 1 Comment
| Categories: challenges, Cloud computing, Collaboration, Teamwork, Technology

In the recent few months, I have encountered situations that required multi-location teams to collaborate and customers requiring almost real-time status update. I have tried to encourage usage of the “cloud” for the team spread across locations working on the same documents/spreadsheets. We have SharePoint Server as an option but that’s mostly used as file storage, if at all. I have explored Google Docs and Zoho. However for some reason working on the cloud just hasn’t take off. Here are the challenges I face with cloud computing:INERTIA: We just aren’t…

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MBTI Insights

June 4, 2010
| 5 Comments
| Categories: Learning, MBTI, Personality Type, Reflection

I am going through a leadership workshop and as part of that, we took the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) questionnaire. I have taken this questionnaire a few times before and have sat through sessions explaining the concept of physiological types. This time however our facilitator Santosh Babu provided some interesting perspectives and insights into the test.There’s a difference between type and trait. Type is who you really are. However trait is something that you demonstrate. I think when I filled the questionnaire, I answered questions according to the traits I…

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Top 10 Qualities of a Good Manager

May 26, 2010
| 3 Comments
| Categories: Lists, Management, people management, qualities of a manager

Loved this post by Taruna Goel where she asks if you are a manager by choice or by chance. Taruna nails it when she shares her view of top 10 qualities of a good manager. These are:It is about people.It is about management.It is about mutual respect.It is about work ethics.It is about being responsible and accountable.It is about letting go. Good managers never micro-manage.It is about communication.It is about thinking out-of-the-box.It is about developing yourself.It is about still being friendly.Head over to her blog to read the whole post.

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