Mondays are 'bad' days - by Sandeep Manudhane sir

Mondays are 'bad' days

Mondays truly are 'bad' days. Don't get me wrong. BAD is an acronym I use for Beautiful And Demanding. Actually, Mondays set the tone for the entire week, and I take extra care to ensure they go smooth.

So was today. Let me share my day's learnings!

• When a company head takes a report, especially marketing reports, he/she wants material facts that shape his opinions and future decisions. So observant individuals win hands down here!
• 'Never make assumptions while working'. Good revision of basic wisdom.
• A detailed counselling of a manager responsible for several work-groups highlighted some key issues -

• Efficiency versus Effectiveness - the perennial debate - we spent some time assessing what percentage of the manager's time was being spent on what.
• Final conclusion after an hour long brainstorming - the staff reporting to him were not clear about the extent to which they were supposed to take ownership of their own work (till the last deliverables)
• We concluded that at least 25% of his time was to be spent on "effectivenss" rather than being obsessed with "efficiency" alone.

• I was reminded of the axiom - if you wish to chop a tree, spend half the day sharpening your axe. Today was the "sharpening the axe" day for my colleague.
• Three other incidents in the day reminded me (and my senior colleagues) of one of the strongest management principles ever "What gets measured gets done". This is so important a truth, that I will treat it separately in another post also.
• I took a personal tuition in the evening for almost 2 hours (from an external IT professional I respect a lot due to his practical expertise) on basic Internet related issues.
• Actually, for quite some time, I was feeling hamstrung while taking some IT decisions (costly ones!) due to lack of authoritative insights into internet issues. So decided to get myself coached today. It really helped. The guy was kind enought to come over and coach me, as I sat with my diary, noting all crucial points. (If you are a student reading this - remember - there is nothing as powerful as properly prepared, neat & clean handwritten notes)
• I now can ask sensible questions while deciding issues related to : Webservers, Dataservers, ISPs, Domain Hosting, Streaming servers, Mailservers, Spam, etc.
• For anyone who understands what capitalism is (creating a business model that removes some inefficiency from the system), here is a big opportunity. Develop some kind of technology for the neon-signages that takes care of their going "phut" in bits and pieces every time Lord Indra smiles. You have a multi-crore idea ready buddy.

Signing off, here is a powerful thought for tomorrow. I found it quite moving in the film "The Untouchables". The veteran policeman Malone (Sean Connery) judges the newcomer to Chicago Eliot Ness (Kevin Costner) who has been sent to get the dreaded Al Capone. Here goes the conversation -
Malone: You said you wanted to get Capone. Do you really wanna get him? You see what I'm saying is, what are you prepared to do?
Ness: Anything and everything in my power.
Malone: And *then* what are you prepared to do?