Timothy Pascoe - date: 2011/05/10 07:37 am

Dear Phadke,

As you highlight, it doesn't matter what one's title is. The key is what you do. And, if no-one is following you, then you're not a leader - regardless of title.

To borrow the old saying: it's about walking the talk - and, in terms of balance, more walking and less talking!

Best wishes,

Timothy

Phadke Subodhkumar Narayan - date: 2011/05/09 03:05 pm

Namaste sir,

This is another good one. Out & out, hitting the nail in straight direction with complete force.

My observation of tons of customers (in which I had met leaders in respective office)all across India confirms that this is one more big issue.

Many so called leaders to whom I met had many pit falls. Their thinking was good. Planning was good. But no actions. Over & above, I also realised there was disconnect between what they said last night & what they said in the morning?

In addition to this, missing of discipline.

I also observed that leaders were carrying too many faces in turn there was no continuity in thinking, talk, writing & action.

I also quote "It is very easy to carry handsome & fancy designations like Managing Director, CEO, CFO, CTO, CMO, CSO, President, Chairman, Vice President & so on so forth, but difficult to live up with the expectations, difficult to do justice & difficult to honor".

I thank you once again for spreading wonderful knowledge remotely.

Your beloved student,

Phadke S. N.
City: Pune
State: Maharashtra
Country: India
Date: 9th May 2011
Day: Monday
Time: 1035 Hrs (Morning as per IST)

Timothy Pascoe - date: 2011/05/09 09:37 am

Dear Kurt,

Your warning is timely - and accurate. But, I think it has to be seen as part of a longer-term shift.

The Western model has been the leading one for many centuries. However, within this, problems of indebtedness have come and gone. But, most importantly, it has been the driver of changes in leadership from one country to the next (from ancient Rome to nowhere during the dark ages then, in the last half millenium, from Spain to France to England to America). In each case, the then wealthiest country or empire lived beyond its means in part, as a result of shouldering the burden of being European or worldwide policeman - or warlord, depending on your point of view. All of which involved over-spending and the accumulation of debt by the current leader - often funded by the next leader during its period of growth and wealth accumulation.

This is now being repeated but with a difference.

The coming change is that China and other emerging countries will be taking the lead and they are not just generally free of debt (and the lenders to the West) but they also come to the leadership with very different cultural assumptions.

So, I totally agree that we need to get our (Western) house in order. But, equally, I doubt we will fight this long-term power shift that is a recurring part of history. And, this time it involves not only new countries but also countries with different ways of operating. If true, this means we not only have to address our debt issues but also learn a whole swag of new things if we want to remain part of the game.

Best wishes and thanks for a great comment.

Timothy

Kurt Rieger - date: 2011/05/09 09:06 am

As always you hit the nail on the head. In the early 60th "Those that only look to the past and present are certain to miss the future". . . JFK. More true today than in his time.

The deep fear inside of me however is: We as leaders failed to heed these words the western world is driven by greed, money, money, money . . . and today we are painfully aware that this is unsustainable, and socially irresponsible.
We are living of future money which does not exist and never will - except in countries that add value to commodities, service activities do no make money, they circulate money the mountain of dept remains the same. We need to create meaningful jobs in the West and in this country.

The economies of money alone are doomed to failure as 'war' has moved into cyberspace - without guns, but with stealth the creation of these viruses, worms in the first place is unimaginable and human failure led to their release into cyberspace. Today, societies need early detection, avoidance, vigilance and knowing and understanding change. This means we are forced into the knowledge economy without knowing it.

However, in the mean time it will be business as usual. The mean time to a major earthshaking experience is already past its use by date?
Time is our friend and our enemy can we act just in time, doubt it the organisational momentum (money, money, money) is too great. 2012 the year of the double dip economy?
Food for thought

Timothy Pascoe - date: 2011/05/09 08:54 am

Dear Goodnews,

Many thanks for the great case example in your comment.

Best wishes,

Timothy

Goodnews - date: 2011/05/09 08:43 am

Tim:

In the field of personal, team, and organisation development (including leadership), we have to learn from what the financial management discipline has done to save itself from the label of bean-counting. They made exactly the kinds of shifts you are advocating for, in the filed of human capital development. Data on its own, is not helpful for any form of growth plan (read the book: competing on analytics). Reporting without predictive scenarios for future plans (which an inventory of your team's, entire population of employees' needs, including external stakeholders' needs, can deliver with clarity), will affect negatively both the accuracy of your remedies, and ability to resource your development activities, as you will not be able to offer the expected rate of return, in quantitative terms, for the decision makers.

It is the accuracy of your plans to develop the organisation (at every level of existence: individual, team, business unit, enterprise-wide)that will save the day, when the budgeting cycle is at the planning stage, for it will be based on the future, rather than the past, and on the outputs, rather than the inputs only.

I thank you Tim.