At the age of 25 I was a condoctor- Rajnikant

I didn’t even complete my university education – Bill Gates

I was one who served in hotel – oberoi

At my childhood I stiched Shoes – Abharam Linkon

I worked in petrol pump – Dhiru Bhai Ambani

I failed at 12^th standard – Sachin Tendulkar

Education drop-Out, & initially a Key Board Player – A R Reheman

I slept at bench and borrowed Rs. 20/- from friends to travel filmcity – Sarukh Khan

I served tea at a tea shop to support my football training – Lionel Messi

I didn’t have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends’ rooms. I returned coke bottles for the 5 cents deposits to buy food with. And I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.  - Steve Jobs

Life is not what you could not do so far it’s about, What you still can.

Tacit knowledge, though often used, cannot be easily articulated or diffused. It resides within people and represents skills, insights and judgments, practical know-how and technical expertise. It is acquired through personal experience. It is difficult to grasp the concept of tacit knowledge or the know-how contained inside people’s minds. The challenge inherent in tacit knowledge is the difficulty to recognize, generate, share and manage it.

Private and public knowledge

Like tacit and explicit knowledge, there exist private and public knowledge. Individuals and organizations possess private knowledge. It is not open to public domain. Organisations can have an advantage by possessing relevant knowledge that is not available in the public domain. Public knowledge is readily available in the form of market survey reports, cost of living index, published researches, government notifications etc. The same is available to anyone on payment of nominal charges. While public knowledge may not provide a competitive edge, the absence of it can cause concern. Hence, the organization in its own interest should have access to public knowledge to keep the business going.

Knowledge acquisition

In this dynamic age, change is the only permanent thing. Everything is continuously changing. The rate of technological obsolescence is almost frightening. There is constant urge to learn more, to know and to acquire more. People are struggling to keep pace with the fast changing world around.

Employees join an organization not only for earning a livelihood but also for realizing their creative potential through the work and by contributing to the general well being of the society. They have the capacity to learn and are eager to try out new things. Therefore, they can be easily molded. It is imperative that organizations provide opportunities for the employees to hone their skill and acquire knowledge that would be useful for the organization.

Upgradation of technology without enhancing knowledge level of employees may defeat the very purpose of investment in technology. Without adequate business knowledge, it is not possible to ensure cost, quality and delivery. Managers should cultivate a curiosity for new dimensions of knowledge and resist efforts to predicate plans on past and present knowledge only. Workers must be educated on productivity and cost aspects and supervisors should be developed to lead people on the shop floor effectively. Create an environment in which all employees become life-long learners.

Changing business requirements vs job profiles

Where the demands of a job are fully predictable and can be specified precisely and where individuals can undergo training that enables the skills required to be developed to the desired standards, the matching of people to jobs becomes simpler. However, such things have disappeared now. Today’s business world is to volatile that it is not unusual for the specific demands of a job to change just before a newly appointed executive has settled in, or for a new comer to settle in the job without being fully aware of what the job entails.

The dictionary meaning of knowledge is knowing facts, information, ideas, instructions, wisdom and learning etc. There is no simple definition of knowledge in the organizational context. It originates from the minds of people and also acquired through different experiences, applications, and situations. It is a mixture of varied experiences, values, information, which could be evaluated and applied in known areas. There is a rapidly growing interest in knowledge as the new source of competitive advantage and increasing realization that people have entered a new era – the knowledge era. An organization’s knowledge base i.e. the brains of its employees, their know-how and customer knowledge that they create serves the organization as a source of competitive advantage.

What is knowledge + management?

The key question is whether knowledge can be managed. The words management and knowledge at first sight appear incompatible. Knowledge is largely cognitive and highly personal, while management involves organizational processes. Knowledge is increasingly recognized as a crucial organizational resource. It is the organization’s ability to learn that is important. If companies start by asking what they want to achieve, they will immediately know where they lack in their ideas and information. They can then address the issues that block the learning process.

As the global competitive environment continues to intensify, the acquisition of new organizational knowledge increasingly becomes a managerial priority. New knowledge provides the basis for organizational renewal and sustainable competitive advantage. Hence, the management should make concerted efforts towards facilitating knowledge acquisition and ensure that it is used for managing business in the right perspective. Building trust is the key to creating a knowledge-oriented corporate culture. A positive environment would encourage employees to make decisions that are efficient, productive and innovative. Management’s failure in recognizing the aspiration of employees for learning is an obstacle in fostering knowledge management (KM) in organizations. While the management understands the importance of fixed assets and financial capital, they are very much ignorant about the values of intellectual capital and how to manage it effectively.

In an environment where an individual’s knowledge is valued and rewarded, establishing a culture that recognizes tacit knowledge and encourages employees to share it is essential. The need to sell the KM concept to employees should not be underestimated. In many cases employees are asked to surrender their knowledge and experience – the very traits that make them valuable as individuals. For example, Engineers working in Research and Development have come out with an insight for changing design of equipment so that its life’s longevity is ensured. The management insisted them to surrender their knowledge and apply for patent for the company, as the invention is the result of their association with the company. In such a scenario the individual is not recognized for his efforts. The organization gets the entire credit thus blocking the individual’s way to fame and success.

Successful organizations continuously learn, both from their own performance and from others. They secure and share the knowledge of their people in order to maximize learning across and within the organization. There is an openness to accept and use ideas from all stakeholders. People are encouraged to think beyond today and look ahead. They are careful to guard their intellectual property and to exploit it for commercial gain, where appropriate. The employees constantly challenge the status quo and seek opportunities to display innovation and improvement that would add value to the existing services.

Good organizations identify and understand the competencies needed, both now and in the future, in order to implement the planned policies, strategies, objectives and plans. They recruit and develop their people to match these competencies and actively support them throughout. Employee development is promoted and supported by allowing people to realize and unlock their full potential. They prepare people to meet the changes required of them both in terms of operational changes and personal capabilities.

Web link:- http://www.xcelrislabs.com/

Job Title: Territory Sales Executives (Consumables)

Work Profile:

• Sales Revenues / Budgets : Meet / exceed sales targets. Supporting other specialists and representatives and developing tactical plans to maximize revenues.
• Planning / Forecasting: To be accountable for their business planning, forecasting & achievement of objectives , key performance indicators & revenue forecasts
• Business / Markets: Drive & initiate development of new business opportunities and references. Promotion of specialist area within market, ie. organization of workshops, seminars, exhibitions
• Customer focus: Maintain & Develop relationships with key customers & references. Expand customer network & develop new relationships
• Communication: Organisation of meetings / communication channels to ensure effective communication across business units
• Information Systems: Utilize CRM database to input customer data & provide information that will increase effectiveness of pre-call planning & sales approach

If lesser at least 5 yrs of Relevant experience only on PEGA Architecture.

Must to Have

*         Technical Lead with solid 5 to 6 years  of Full Life Cycle
Development using Pega PRPC

*         Proven ability to guide and Lead a Team of Pega Developers

*         Experience working on enterprise-scale, multi-tier, Web-based
commercial software applications with Java/J2EE base

*         Clear and concise communication with US partners, Business and
Pega development team

*         Integration experience with Legacy and distributed

Nice to have

*         Experience to independently design & Architect

*         Certified Pega PRPC System Architect version 5.x

*         Good in user/task analysis and estimates

*         Health Care Domain knowledge advantage

Location : Hyderabad

To take an example, a company was engaged in manufacturing automatic textile looms. It was enjoying monopoly and the business was flourishing. The demand for looms was so huge; the company could hardly pay attention on selling spare parts. The profit margin was good and the company managed its business very well for two decades. There were around a thousand employees working in that factory. A few managers, who had a limited vision managed the company.

They were comfortable with the status quo. No training was imparted to the employees to update their knowledge. Ultimately they became redundant. The government introduced economic policy and opened the gate for importing textile looms. The company status quo was threatened. The management did not pay heed to the threat and remained silent hoping it was only a temporary phase and the things would improve.

Most of the organizations do not sense that they are in trouble and continue the status quo. Finally, when things go out of their control, they try to salvage themselves and stay in business. The textile loom manufacturing companies in India enjoyed protective market and sold the textile looms manufactured by them. But with the liberalization of economy, the central government has permitted the import of used second hand looms from Europe.

Today, the textile factory has shut down. The employees are out of employment. They could not find alternative employment because they did not update their knowledge and became redundant. So, it is important to recognize the need for change.

Fear of the unknown is natural. Change might create a feeling of insecurity. Regardless of its positive or negative effect, change can be stressful. Many believe that brave people are not afflicted by this malady. The truth is that everyone feels the fear of the unknown but the brave manage their fears without getting paralyzed by them.

An organization needs competent and committed personnel to man its operations and achieve its objectives successfully. To acquire such capacity in a constantly evolving environment, individuals have to continuously upgrade their knowledge and skills so that they can contribute fruitfully to the survival and growth of the organization. In today’s fast-changing world, where what is known is soon outdated it is not so much what a person knows but how fast one learns that is priceless. The need of the hour is to improve the knowledge base and work smarter.

According to Peter Ducker, highly specialized knowledge and resources are required for any kind of activity. It can be very expensive for an organization house these elaborate resources and activities, especially when they are not frequently used. To avoid deterioration and waste of resources, many companies resort to outsourcing of services. It saves effort and ensures higher competency and expertise.

Complacent people do not feel the need to learn and are content with their current performance. This is an especially tempting frame of mind when things are apparently successful. The problem is that nothing ever stands still for long and sooner or later the self-satisfied performer is overtaken by events. Change should not exceed the rate of learning. On the other hand, if learning exceeds the rate of change one is at least one step ahead. Continuous improvement involves learning from successes just as much as learning from failures.

One must be with a group of people who are open to change and avoid cynics. Instead spend time with people who have a ‘I can do it’ approach. Choose the advisors and mentors correctly. Pessimism is contagious, so is enthusiasm. In fact, reasonable optimism can be an amazing energy booster. It will not be an exaggeration to say that in most of the organizations the resistance to change comes mainly from the managers and executives, since they do not know how to bring about change at the work place. Many managers give up changing management under some pretext or the other by putting the blame squarely on the workmen and the union.

A company practiced Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system and invested huge amounts of money in computers and software. People are trained on the new system and informed of the benefits to be derived from the new ERP system. Everyone understood the new system and also convinced that non-value adding activities carried out so far could be eliminated to save time. The management set a target of one year for changing over from the legacy system to the new one. But unfortunately only 50 per cent of the new system was put into effect after one year. The people found it very difficult to abandon the old system, even though it was time consuming and used to often result in duplication of work. It took three years for the people to come out of the old system and get attuned to the new one.

Change is inevitable

Change is the order of the universe. The outlook for the future is a consequence and derivative of how the factor of change will guide and govern one’s actions, behavior and conduct. In the ultimate analysis, an organization does not change but the people working there make the changes. Three important dimensions, i.e. the individual, the group and the enterprise as an entity, interact and respond to the change. According to Henry Ford, ‘people do not resist change; they resist being changed’.

There are only two choices in life – to accept things as they are or to take responsibility for changing them. One would agree that success is not an absolute in itself. It takes its bearing from a number of factors such as

• Motivating oneself as well as others
• Developing interpersonal relationships
• Setting goals
• Building passionate teams
• Understanding and making strengths productive.

Change is permanent

The only constant in this world is change. One should have the ability and capacity to cope with change. Managing change has a lot to do with one’s own attitude towards it. For every problem that change represents, there is an opportunity lurking in disguise somewhere. It is up to the person to spot it before someone else does. One should never allow routines to enslave oneself since routine obstructs change. Routines represent zones of comfort as there is a sense of predictability about them, so one should break out of them at times.

Change management in enterprises would demand a quantum improvement in business process. The quantum improvement would, therefore mean that many processes would have to be redesigned completely. This need arises out of the fact that there is a gap between the requirement of the next decade and the current level of organization in which the work is being carried out. To meet this gap, a quantum leap in performance would be required. While the world changes in geometrical progression, Indian industries tend to be complacent. All changes are likely to have some costs. For example, a new work procedure may require the inconvenience of learning new practices. It may temporarily disrupt work and reduce motivation but become valuable with time.

Rule book

Organizational culture should not be fixated on a rule book. The employees working in such an organizations would merely follow the procedures without being concerned about the results. This is exactly what happens in public corporations and government-owned companies. If procedure is followed but the right results are not achieved, nobody is accountable. On the other hand, if the procedure is not followed but the results are right, the manager is answerable for not following the procedures. Organizations, which are procedure-oriented, may not be able to face competition in business, as they are not innovative.

As in any society where rules and regulations are established to help things run smoothly and fairly, those holding leadership positions in a company must act as judge, police officer and parent. Rules and regulations that are not implemented and supported lose their meaning. More importantly, they confuse and demoralize the employees who abide by them when they know that those who break the rules pay no dues for the transgression. Rules, like laws, should be reviewed periodically, with the unnecessary or outdated ones stricken from the books. No one should blindly follow orders they do not understand.

In the old method of working, standards originated at the top and filtered down, usually via written memos and middle managers. It was the employees’ job to follow the standards. Of course, if the standards were ambiguous, they produced uneven results. An ambitious engineering manager might allow costs to skyrocket in pursuit of quality, while a more cautious colleague might opt for ‘adequacy’ in order to keep tight reins on costs.

In a decentralized organization, employees at all levels must understand exactly what the target is and how best to achieve it. Once frontline personnel have taken on the responsibility of making specific decisions, employees must have an accurate feedback system for determining whether the decisions they are making are the ones that will accomplish the company’s overall goals. In a customer-driven company, measurements are derived from how well they are focusing their energy on the areas that are vital to the paying customers.

Challenges and uncertainty

Organizations are constantly facing unprecedented challenges brought about by the relentless progress of globalization and new technologies. The forces of change affect almost every section of business and industry. Decision- making is becoming riskier and organizations are perpetually caught in a web of uncertainty. This could bring progress to a grinding halt. At the least, it can trigger economic slowdowns.

Ideas that used to take fifty years to be born, now take only five minutes to grow and mature. Everything is changing at such a fast pace that the great success stories of yesterday are already outmoded today. Throughout human history, whenever changes have taken place, people have shown an aversion to them. In almost every field – the arts, sciences, medicine, and business – new ideas have met resistance or rejection at first. Only when people have moved beyond fear, have they felt free and been able to face challenges.

It is important to accept realities and work with them. Though managing turbulence is dangerous, refusing to accept the realities and allowing the situation go out of control is worse. Allowing a gap between what the decision maker understands and what the ground realities are, is one such example. In business today, people know the ways problems have been solved in the past. Given a problem, they apply tried and tested techniques to find the answer. However, well-known techniques can only yield typical solutions. In an ever-changing business world it is important to try newer techniques, which can compete with market trends. Hence, current knowledge may not be adequate to meet the new or emerging challenges.

Encourage creativity

Creativity has been identified as an essential ingredient for success in the corporate world. Creative people solve problems better and respond more positively to change. Organizations should encourage it among employees by providing them appropriate training and an encouraging environment. Everyone can be trained to be more imaginative without relinquishing one’s hold on practicality. Educate managers not to veto strange sounding ideas from employees, prematurely.

Transformation presupposes a radical reassessment of the current frame of work templates. It can be convulsive and painful like the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly. Leadership will have to drive the transformation, but people are the main force to carry it through.

Most people do not change when they ‘see the light’, they change when they ‘feel the heat’. Change begins with an acceptance of the mind. Then it becomes a thought and an attitude. Fulfillment comes when the attitudes turn into behaviour. But often it is repetitive behaviour that creates an attitude.

Ethics

Not everybody has the same set of principles. Often young people have better principles than their elders because they are inexperienced with people, who would influence them to sell out the principles. Moreover, principles change with time. In young age, most of the people are straightforward and honest. They take pride in these qualities and also apply it in work situations producing wonderful results. They would not care for the people around them, who criticize their straightforwardness. In reality the critics suffer from fear, insecurity, pretence and a lack of courage and direction. If the majority of people in the society were leading a life compromising on basic principles, over a period of time the youngsters would also simulate them.

Promote positive culture

The management should nurture appropriate culture in any organizational set up. It originates from the top officials and percolates down the hierarchical line. People have to see what kind of environment they have created for themselves. It is tough to expect good things to emerge from bad environment. Where lawlessness becomes the law, honest citizens become cheats, crooks and thieves.

Corporate culture is constituted of beliefs, behaviors and assumptions acquired by members of the organizations. The culture of an organization cannot be ignored. Simply put, whenever there is a clash between a change initiative and the culture of the organization, the culture will always take over. Hence, it becomes important to identify the cultural characteristics of the organization and to initiate changes to ensure that the cultural context supports it. Often, the change initiative will require changing certain aspects of the culture such as attitudes and behaviors. This essentially has to be top driven and displayed by the sponsors of the change program.

Organizational beliefs and philosophies

It is often seen that some giant companies are in the habit of philosophizing certain organizational beliefs. But it is important that such beliefs and philosophies are not imposed on people. Organizational philosophies must emerge as an organic entity from within the corporation after discussion amongst the employees. Further, organizational beliefs must be simple and easy to calculate and remember. It is all the more important that everyone on a regular basis practices them. Implementation of organizational beliefs facilitates successful corporate strategy.

Killing the messenger

The managers may consider that the decisions taken by them at some point of time was correct because of the then prevailing business situations. Business being dynamic, changes are bound to happen. Sometime the managers are egoistic and adamant in their decisions, even though they are convinced that their ideas will not work out. If there are failures due to some reasons or as the result of their decisions, they might not come forward to own up for their failures. The managers, who encourage sycophancy, may find it difficult to receive the genuine feedback. Where studies were held and the feedback was given, the managers may not take it gently. There is a tendency on the part of managers to find fault with the person, who conveys the information.

Leaders set examples

A leader’s ways are watched carefully and adopted by others in the organization. But some members of the company management crib about the bad habits of their staff members. If they were to take a closer look at the patterns, however, they would see that this poor behavior usually originates at the top. Hence, it is all the more important that the managers as leaders should understand the impact on their behavior on other employees and conduct themselves in an appropriate manner.

For instance, a Chief Executive used to invite the managers for discussion. But he was always found talking at length without giving others opportunity to put forth their views. Further, he had no tolerance towards dissenting views. He would interrupt discussions and express displeasure. To avoid his bad temperament, the managers maintained silence in meetings and allowed him to talk. He would talk endlessly without any enthusiasm on the part of the participants. The atmosphere was deadly. The managers bottled up their grievances and revealed to a visiting professor, who conducted an employees’ satisfaction survey in the factory. The professor advised the Chief Executive to change his style. Thereafter he behaved gently with other participants in the meeting and learned to respect their views before arriving at decisions.

Lastly to summarizing all, good communication is the lifeblood of an organization. No organization can function effectively towards achieving the organizational objectives without effective communication. The basic purpose of communication is to create a favorable response from the receiver. Managers spend most of their time in communicating with others. They must learn to listen more and encourage others to communicate freely. A good listener becomes a cogent communicator; a cogent communicator becomes a successful manager.