Jayakumar Balasubramanian

Times of India do publish some good articles once in a while. I came across one this morning. Check out the article titled 'The Art of listening'. This article couldn't have come in a better time as I am learning this wonderful and powerful skill in a slow but steady phase. Even though the article has used terms like 'manager' and 'leader' in multiple places, I feel its very important for every individual to to listen to others to have a better understanding about with their spouce, children, boss, business partners, investors, customers and perspective employee/employer. In fact, many problems in life can be easily solved by developing this skill. For the past few weeks I am applying this in my personal and professinal life. Trust me -- it has yielded excellent results so far. Don't think listening is 'just another management fad' and rule it out. Here is another related article by Bala : You heard me but can you listen?

Recently, Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam has launched fortnightly e-newspaper 'Billion beats'. This is a welcome initiative as the internet medium is reaching every corner of India. Got a chance to read the first edition yesterday and it is very good. Check out this link for the latest edition.

Author : Jack Welch Price: 750 INR This is autobiography of Jack Welch one of the very well known CEOs of the world. Initially the author talks about how he became the CEO of General Electric (GE) and talks some thing about his personal things as well. Things like 'Fix,sell or close' policy, which he applied to each and every divisions of GE, 'Churning bottom 15% people' has became alltime favorite of the business world. One simple lesson, which at least I learned from this book, is neither the organization nor the technology, will give lifetime employment for anybody in any hi-tech industry. Only working in a focused way for the customer will give that. I got impressed with this book so much that I gave the same name to my blog :)

Author: Arindham Chaudhuri Price: 200 INR This is one of the best selling books in India. This book consists of two major sections. The first section is more of a ‘Self development’ stuff where the author talks about the ASK paradigm (Attitude, Skill and Knowledge) in order to raise any individual. The second sections talks about the theory ‘I’ management. The ‘I’ stand for ‘India Centric’ management. Particularly I liked the second section where the author mentions that the management policies in any country should be based on the social architecture. He compared the western and Japanese management and gives a proposal for India,which is quotes lots of examples from Mahabharata.

Author: Napolean Hill Price: 150 INR Its been long time since I stopped reading motivational or self-help books. I used to read them during my school days to 'pep-up' myself during examinations.Recently one of my mentors requested me to read this book 'Think and grow rich' by Napoleon Hill and found it different from typical motivational books. The Author Napoleon came up with this book based on his 25 years of experience in studying success philosophy, inspired by Dale Carnegie. This book consists of thirteen principles for becoming 'rich'. The author describes 'rich' not only in terms of accumulating material wealth but also in-tangible wealth -- in terms of success, accomplishment, love, peace, courage, purpose, happiness and contribution. To be very honest, I found the initial chapters as boring and it was covering typical motivational topics -- imagination, auto-suggestion, having a purpose in life, daily to-do list etc. The later chapters got much ...

Want to get inspired? Watch the video of CMU professor Randy Pausch's last lecture below.

I really liked the caption of TOI's 'Lead-India' initiative: "D.O --Two simple letters" Keeping my opinions apart, this is one of the very few initiatives which really emphasizes about 'doing' something rather than 'talking' about it. In my point of view doing is the only solution for all the problems India is facing today -- be it poverty, illetracy, pollution, politics or traffic problems. As 'Argumentative Indians' we tend to 'talk-talk-and-talk' about every other issue on the planet and do nothing about it. Every Indian is aware of all the problems surrounded by him. When it comes to taking concrete actions to attack the problem, we fail miscerably. If I look back the post-independent history of India, there is very little that is 'done' compared with the amount of planning or talking.I can satisty myself by saying 'mera bharath mahan' and point out our achievements in certain areas. Is there an example in India...

Author: Potharaju Ravindra Price: 160 INR About a year back I read the book ‘Success Vs Joy’ by Geeth Sethi. Two things stand out about this book; its simple language and the overwhelming effect it has on an individual’s thought process. Built along similar lines is the book ‘Give me back my guitar’. In this book author Ravi talks about mind control, inspiration and energy management. The joy of reading and re-reading such books is in the inspiration and support that they provide by telling you just three words: Follow your dream. And just as success vs. joy, give me back my guitar is also blessed with the use of simple and unambiguous language which makes it a pleasure to read. The first thing about the book that interested me was the title itself -- What is this topic all about? Who is going to give the guitar to whom? But, when I started reading the book I found that the book is all the nursery parables that we have all read and enjoyed being modified to suit the pre...

Author: N.Chokkan Price: 80 INR Whenever I see TV advertisements, short comedies or mimicry programs I cannot stop appreciating the creative thinking that goes behind the scenes. Over the years I am able to entertain my friends circle using my amateur imitation shows and I can very well understand the challenge to entertain people. Making others laugh is one of the toughest job and requires very high amount of creativity, timing and constantly coming up with innovative ideas. Added to that, the comedy artist needs to give a peak performance in a very short period of time, failing which will lead to negative impression among the audience. This book talks about one of the all time great comedian who entertained the whole world only with his actions (without words) using his amazing creativity. He is none other than Charlie Chaplin and this book talks about his life. Even though people know him only by comedy, his personal life is one of the standing examples for ‘rags-to-riches’...

Author: Richard Bach ISBN: 0380012863 This is one of the ‘thin’ books I have read and the message conveyed is like a ‘capsule’. So just swallow it blindly! It is written in with simple but powerful words, which coveys a strong message: ‘ Don’t keep doing mundane things and get frustrated with life! Passionately explore and learn to the fullest extent’ . The author Richard Bach conveys this message thro’ a fictional story of a seagull named Jonathan. Looking more deeply, this book touches the basic philosophy of life. In a way this book is similar to another book ‘The Alchemist’ which I have read couple of years back. Coming to the story, Jonathan belongs to a seagull family whose main activity is to scout for food and survive. He belongs to a flock of seagulls, which keep doing the same task and never thought about anything beyond that. They don’t understand the purpose of their life and the reason for their existence. Frustrated by this, Jonathan wants to explore his passion for fly...

I like only two type of movies: serious and comedy. Since Mani Rathnam's 'THE GURU' belongs to the first category watched it on the theater (after a long long time). Overall the movie was pretty good at the same time raises lots of questions about building businesses in India. Before getting the business, let me quickly run thro' the movie. The hero Gurukant Desai, who hails from a small village in Gujarat moves to Turkey for employment and make some quick bucks. Because of his hard work and commitment (and of course his shrewdness)he raises very fast, but comes back to India and starts his own company. The first set of scenes itself says that 'Guru' is the story of Dhirubai Ambani and Reliance. If not for anything I would appreciate Mani's attempt to make movie based on real life heroes. Long time back he made an excellent Tamil movie called 'iruvar', which was a neat sketch of lives of MGR and Karunanidhi. Unfortunately it was a commercial failure ...

The new year is on very much and I trace back one of my initial blog titled 'The manager mania', where i briefly touched upon leadership and management. It made me think more in that direction and sharing my perspectives in this blog. Whether you are a corporate guy or a government employee,these two words are gaining more and more importance. At the same time attributes of leadership and management has gone through changes over time. What exactly do I understand by leadership? What is management? How different they are? How important for an individual to know about them? Read on. What is leadership? According to me ' Leadership' is all about setting a clear direction for a great vision by empowering and enabling individuals. It is more about understanding the present, visualizing the future and leading to the future. This term can be applied to any particular discipline. Some examples are 'corporate leadership' 'thought leadership...