Curry: How Much Spice Is Good For Organization?

I love curry: it's spicy, there is a lot of it, it is easy to make, and you can have lots of friends over for some curry with basmati rice and an assortment of sambals. That's what I did a couple of days ago. Spain being Spain, only one Italian turned up on time. An hour and a half tardiness is considered fashionable. It is a great way to allow the host to have uninterrupted conversations on subjects of common interest with those who are unfortunate to follow the old maxim "punctuality is politeness of kings".

The main course for the dinner was red Indian curry (for some strange reason I was cooking beef, but please let's keep that fact secret). When we started eating it transpired that there are people who love spicy food and there are those who would need at least five glasses of lassi with it (in addition to the whole performance with tears, moans and groans about the injustice of this world and existence of chili peppers). The food was a success, of course, in my eyes... and whoever disagrees is not invited to my place ever again.

As usual, I started thinking of parallels and connections in the organizational context. Curry - you cannot be impartial - is either loved or loathed. There is no golden middle and there are no gray areas. How do you make a perfect "organizational curry" without disappointing anyone? The problem is that you add chilies at the very beginning, after you are just done sauteeing onions. You cannot make it more or less hot (well, surely you can by adding extra chilies later or diluting it with yogurt but those are culinary perversions I don't want to ruminate).

Think about an event, a policy, a project - anything in your workplace - that you are going to launch/introduce/set up or whatever... how much spice can you add? Add none at all and it will be bland. Add a lot and you will be pleasing a few selected junkies. How much is just right? Plus bear in mind that there are always those vegetarians, lactose intolerant and curry-allergic. By the way, I am apologizing for picking on those categories (been a vegetarian for two years myself), but I just want to make a point that there are always certain categories of people who fall out of the general picture and need special attention.

An easy example would be the air-conditioner rule. Do you know that if there are more than 5 people in the room, somebody is bound to ask to turn the AC either up or down? It would not be so funny, if it weren't so sad. Nowadays, in big corporations there is an international standard of 22.4 degrees Centigrade unless another unanimous agreement in reached about the room temperature. What if the issue is merely a notch more complicated than the freaking temperature-changing and air-dehydrating contraption? Then the companies resort to the services of....consultants! Yes, please, Mr and Mrs Bain and McKinsey, come and help us with the organizational kitchen. The old wisdom still stands though: too many cooks are unlikely to make a good boeuf bourguignon. Scrambles egg - maybe, but we are not in the business of fast-food solutions.

I guess that the point of this post is to make myself aware (and whoever is reading this too) that if it is difficult to cook a dish of curry for five friends (and the curry turned out delicious, trust me!!!), it will take much more time, efforts, expertise, experience, huffing and puffing, groaning and moaning, and other words normally associated with hard and unpleasant labor before you get the job done.

Bon appetit!

2010 Hiring Trends

I am getting extremely excited reading the various prognoses for the netx couple of years when it comes to hiring. As I graduate in May 2011, there are all indications at the moment that it´s going to be a pretty hot market out there, and even though it is not clearly stated in the companies´ preferences, the historical evidence proves that the demand for MBAs increases after large (cataclysmic) changes in the economy and society in general. This happens mainly because while those changes were happening, the smart students were crunching numbers and preparing case presentations, analyzing what is happening around them. Thus, they are perceived to be better prepared for the new market and conditions.

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Employers share their plans for rest of 2010

By anthony balderrama on Jul 1, 2010 in Featured, Job Search, Job Surveys

Today marks the midpoint of 2010. At the risk of sounding old, can you believe we’ve already gone through half of the year? I feel as though we were just talking about what to expect inthe first andsecond quarters of this year. Yet, here we are looking at the second half of 2010  in the newly released Job Forecast from CareerBuilder and USA Today.

As you might expect, employers are cautiously optimistic when it comes to hiring. Between July and December, 41 percent of surveyed hiring managers plane to hire new employees. Approximately 20 percent of hiring managers plan to hire full-time, permanent employees in the third quarter, which is similar to figures in both the first and second quarter of this year.

What does this mean? Simply, don’t expect a hiring sea change in the next three months. Employers have held a consistent approach to hiring this year and plan to continue. Although everyone (employers and job seekers alike) would like to see a boom in new workers, take heart that companies aren’t looking just to boost their payroll momentarily and then have to downsize — they’re looking to fill positions for the long haul.

However, for those of you looking for work, here are the sectors where employers plan to begin their hiring. Note that the focus is on positions that bring in revenue for the company:

• Customer service (25 percent of hiring managers)
• Sales (22 percent)
• IT (18 percent)
• Administrative (13 percent)
• Business development (10 percent)
• Accounting/Finance (10 percent)

What to expect for the rest of 2010:

1. Emerging jobs: Much of the year’s hiring will be in positions that either didn’t exist a few years ago or weren’t in high demand until recently. According to the survey, 24 percent of hiring managers will recruit for jobs in social media, green energy, cyber security, global relations and health-care reform.

2. Employees jumping ship: Some HR professionals worry that an improving economy could mean their top performers will leave the company in pursuit of another job. Fifty-six percent fear their top talent will leave, and the survey finds that 29 percent of workers do plan to change jobs when the economy is in better shape.

3. Skilled labor is still hard to find: Although the job market has no shortage of applicants, it does have a shortage of qualified workers, according to employers. Twenty-two percent of employers report that they are having difficulty filling positions with qualified candidates. IT, customer service and communications are suffering from a shortage of qualified workers, say hiring managers.

Looking ahead at Q3:
Most job seekers want to know three things: Is anyone hiring? Where are they located? How much will they pay?

Is anyone hiring?

Yes! Although most employers don’t plan to hire new employees, approximately one-fifth are.

• 21 percent of employers will add full-time, permanent headcount.
• 8 percent plan to downsize.
• 65 percent don’t anticipate a change in headcount.

Where are they hiring?Hiring seems to be occurring at the same pace throughout the country.

• 22 percent of Western employers intend to add full-time, permanent workers.
• 21 percent of Northeastern and Midwestern employees say the same.
• 20 percent of Southern employers plan have the same plan.

How much are they paying?
While many employers don’t foresee any salary raises or cuts, some do. However, most employers who will be giving raises expect them to be on the moderate side.

• 42 percent of employers do not plan any change in salary levels.
• 31 percent expect to see an increase of 1 to 3 percent.
• 12 percent plan increases between 4 and 10 percent.
• 1 percent anticipate an increase of 11 percent or more.

What do workers think?The recession has caused many workers to reevaluate their situations, from expenses to education to employment. The economic troubles of the past two years have not been kind to some companies, as 25 percent of workers admit to having a worse opinion of their employers as a result of the Great Recession. On the other hand, 14 percent have a better opinion and 61 percent have unchanged views.

Why do workers want to leave?As mentioned above, 25 percent of workers plan to leave their organizations in the next 12 months. Why?

• 30 percent of workers blame the recession. They feel overworked, the climate has changed, and resentment lingers from layoffs.
• 33 percent of workers believe they are overqualified for their positions.
• 23 percent of workers are not interested in their work.

Of course, you might not be surprised to learn that the number one reason employees would stick around is an increase in salary. If that’s not an option, then employee recognition will do.

You can read more in the complete forecast here. Do you agree with what employers say or do you see a different future in the coming months? Let us know.

Stories of Mass Delirium

Sometimes people are irrational. At times, they are illogical. There are instances when they are nuts!

Last weekend I went to Pamplona (Spain) for the San Fermín Festival. It's an annual one-week long festival dedicated to the local patron saint and the most prominent feature of the event is daily running with the bulls and the subsequent encierro and afternoon corrida. Nobody has ever been able to outrun the bulls (not even athletes) and every year there are injuries (only I saw two guys being carried away on a stretcher in two days). The latest death was recorded last year and the death count amounts to 15 since 1911 when the official runs started.

What makes people do such crazy things? If we take someone out and ask him (her) run with the bulls, most likely the answer will be "No, thank you very much". However, as the crowd swells, its members become braver, more reckless and - yes - crazier. A lot, surely, has to do with collective unconscious, a term was coined by Carl Jung early in the last century. A bit later such behavior was better described in terms of herd instinct. I recall from my Psychology classes that such instances can be categorizes as chronotypes and are subject to a host of conditions, less of star positions and wind movements. Without getting too philosophical about it, the question is - what makes people flock to Pamplona each year, put on white clothes, red neck scarves and belts and engage in one of the most dangerous and seemingly pointless activity of running with the bulls and teasing them afterwards?

If we could find the answer to this question, it would be so easy to mobilize masses of people in no time, who would willingly and eagerly engage in a collective effort for whatever cause. I fathom that the history gave us such examples:

• defending one's motherland in the times of war
• large scale events, such as Eurovision competition, Prides or strikes
• Spain celebrating winning the 2010 World Cup

Analyzing the common elements of the above, it is possible to identify certain common elements:

• sense of unity and belonging
• high emotional charge
• high level of dissatisfaction/perceived danger/extreme pride (something worth to fight/live/die for)
• willingness to succeed
• leaders and, consequently, vision for change

Now if we compare these five against any mass change theory, what is the overlap? Very significant I would say... So should now we be reading cases from human history alongside business cases in the MBA programs? Because if senior leaders can understand the underlying forces that make people perform at the limits of their capacity, put in an extra effort, go an extra mile and be loyal to the work they are doing, at the end of the day it is the only thing that matters in a manager's job.

The weekend was too emotional for me with the whole Pamplona and the World Cup story, and I might not be totally rational drawing these conclusions, so I am welcoming you to prove me wrong. There is only one thing you cannot take me on:

SPAIN IS THE 2010 WORLD CUP CHAMPION!

McKinsey is launching a research initiative on identifying and analyzing the factors that shape our immediate future. I found this introductory article extremely insightful. As you read through, my observations on people implications are in red.

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Global forces: An introduction

Five crucibles of change will restructure the world economy for the foreseeable future. Companies that understand them will stand the best chance of shaping it.

JUNE 2010 • Peter Bisson, Elizabeth Stephenson, and S. Patrick Viguerie

“I never think of the future,” Albert Einstein once observed. “It comes soon enough.” Most business managers, confronted with the global forces shaping the business landscape, also assume that their ability to sculpt the future is minimal. They are right that they can do little to change a demographic trend or a widespread shift in consumer consciousness. But they can react to such forces or, even better, anticipate them to their own advantage. Above all, they ignore these forces at their peril. Another quote that I like about future is: "Future is already here; it is just distributed unevenly".

Business history is littered with examples of companies that missed important trends; think digitization and the music industry. Yet this history also shines with examples of companies that spied the forces changing the global business scene and used them to protect or contribute to the bottom line. Companies ranging from insurers to energy producers did precisely that in embracing the growing social concern about climate change. So did Wal-Mart Stores in applying technology to automate inventory management and reduce costs dramatically for the company and its suppliers.

The fact is, trends matter. Systematically spotting and acting on emerging ones helps companies to capture market opportunities, test risks, and spur innovation. Today, when the biggest business challenge is responding to a world in which the frame and basis of competition are always changing, any effort to set corporate strategy must consider more than traditional performance measures, such as a company’s core capabilities and the structure of the industry in which it competes. Managers must also gain an understanding of deep external forces and the narrower trends they can unleash. In our experience, if senior executives wait for the full impact of global forces to manifest themselves at an industry and company level, they will have waited too long.

For much of the past year, a team at McKinsey has revisited and retested our assumptions about the key global trends that will define the coming era. We have identified five forces, or crucibles, where the stresses and tensions will be greatest and thus offer the richest opportunities for companies to innovate and change:

• The great rebalancing. The coming decade will be the first in 200 years when emerging-market countries contribute more growth than the developed ones. This growth will not only create a wave of new middle-class consumers but also drive profound innovations in product design, market infrastructure, and value chains. With Europe and Japan dying out, US will soon start encouraging people from Latin America to immigrate to the States. China will have to address the gender imbalance caused by the one-child policy. What are the sources of the future talent then?
• The productivity imperative. Developed-world economies will need to generate pronounced gains in productivity to power continued economic growth. The most dramatic innovations in the Western world are likely to be those that accelerate economic productivity. Is not it easier to encourage people consume less? Or is it too late? 
• The global grid. The global economy is growing ever more connected. Complex flows of capital, goods, information, and people are creating an interlinked network that spans geographies, social groups, and economies in ways that permit large-scale interactions at any moment. This expanding grid is seeding new business models and accelerating the pace of innovation. It also makes destabilizing cycles of volatility more likely. Right... the global recession has just proved how real and palpable it is. Some countries claimed they would not be touched by globalization and were proved wrong (e.g. China with their spectacular GDPs in the last decade thought they would not be affected... well, with plants shutting down or shifting onto 3-day week around the world, the demand for Chinese exports decreased too).
• Pricing the planet. A collision is shaping up among the rising demand for resources, constrained supplies, and changing social attitudes toward environmental protection. The next decade will see an increased focus on resource productivity, the emergence of substantial clean-tech industries, and regulatory initiatives. Do we need new skills for this? As one speaker this week said, there are MBAs who graduate without a heart, and there are environmental specialists who know everything about butterfly sex, but can't construct a basic cash flow. How do we bridge the gap between the current educational offering and the new demands of the future?
• The market state. The often contradictory demands of driving economic growth and providing the necessary safety nets to maintain social stability have put governments under extraordinary pressure. Globalization applies additional heat: how will distinctly national entities govern in an increasingly globalized world? Visas, international mobility, expatriate remuneration, double taxation... HR hell in flesh!

Our thinking is exploratory rather than definitive. Precisely how these forces will unfold—and, as important, how they interact—is very much a work in progress. Still, our research, extensive one-on-one contacts, and broader survey data give us confidence that these topics should be framing every organization’s strategic conversations about how best to chart its future course. Over the coming year, McKinsey will dive deeper into each of these five areas to draw out the business implications and inform the strategic debate. We can be certain that this new era will not evolve smoothly. Future economic crises—quite likely, major ones—are inevitable. And management theory for the 21st century, the first with truly global enterprises, is being invented in real time, as thousands upon thousands of companies make it up as they go.

What we do know is that the forces driving the emergence of this new world are too powerful to be denied and that running a 21st-century company is exponentially more complex than running a 20th-century one, of any size. Companies must pay attention to more stakeholders, more regulations, and more risks—and watch to see what their customers are tweeting about them. That complexity is greater, but so, we believe, is the opportunity.

Even the most talented strategists will have, at best, incomplete knowledge of what comes next. But from our experience, we know that an understanding of the forces defining the future will also provide the best chance for seizing it.

Ambassador'ing the Employer Brand

Do you teach your employees how to handle visitors? Most likely, you would be focusing on security issues, like not letting them in without a valid pass, or insisting on accompanying them wherever they go, and so on. However, (just like the theater begins with a cloakroom) you company begins with the first encounter. Trust me, it does now matter, whether the first person a visitor will meet is a janitor of a vice president --- the first impression is always the most lasting.

It is particularly important now, when the war for talent is becoming more and more rampant. When I worked for Shell in Moscow, we used to have an HR Marketing Analyst, who was responsible for promoting HR as a function internally withing the company and the Shell brand as an employer outside. Now this gives a totally new perspective not only to the human resources management profession, but also sends out a distinct message how much the company is concerned about its employees and the image it projects into the wider community.

The following video is a good illustration of the concept that EVERYONE is an ambassador of a brand one way or another. How do we embrace this idea and how we act upon it might be the ultimate competitive advantage.

Story-Telling Dinner

Story-telling is wider and wider recognized as one of the key competencies of a modern manager. With new technologies invading our brains, there is a severe and ruthless competition for brain space, attention and processing capacity whenever we receive information. It is the ancient and yet most efficient art of story-telling that captivates the minds, mesmerizes the eyes and reaches the hearts of the listeners that comes to the fore nowadays.




The first event of the IE HR Club was organizing the story-telling dinner at the Mood restaurant on Monday earlier this week. The instructions were simple: think of a story of a mind-wrecking success or a spectacular failure and come and tell it to the other participants in an engaging manner. I should say we genuinely enjoyed the variety of stories that the IE students and alumni brought to the table (literally!!! as the food was nice!). We spent three hours in a relaxed and friendly atmosphere, sharing life experiences of each other. Interestingly enough, even though it was an option, nobody picked a borrowed or a fictitious story, and that surely had added to the overall feeling of the evening. Some were very personal, and the emotions behind those were true and intense.



Each one of the participants will receive an individual feedback, which will be an aggregated report compiled from the inputs of everyone else. The observations commonly shared around the table are that there is a dire need in upping the game on the art of story-telling in IE, and there definitely has been a lot of learning in the event. Gary Stewart, the Executive Director of the Venture Lab, has concluded the event with his personal story and several pieces of advice to the participants:



- Timing and Rhythm are key (attention span is short, time your story right)

- Start with a hook (like a movie trailer)

- Empathy (make it feel genuine)



Since there is a lot of interest, we would be willing to listen to your event suggestions or comments on the topic.

3 Lessons from Granada

Wow! This was a fun weekend. Yes, Term 1 of my MBA journey is over and surely we took the opportunity to get out of Madrid to recharge our batteries (sufficiently depleted by the exam week) and explore the beautiful country of Spain further. What what I have seen so far, Granada takes the cake with its profoundly relaxed and laid-back provincial atmosphere, finger-licking traditional cuisine, free tapas and vast opportunities for shopping. Surrounded by Sierra Nevada mountains, it is a perfect get-away location for whichever purpose imaginable.

There were four of us in the car: my classmates Dana and Niels, and my friend Olga, who was visiting me from Moscow. I believe that four is the perfect number of people for a road trip without conflicting priorities (such as sight-seeing and shopping, even though some believe that shopping is indeed sight-seeing), and if any tensions arise, they could be easily managed.

I am deviating, however... When I was talking about story-telling in one of my previous posts (http://hrboutique.blogspot.com/2010/06/story-telling-inspirational-wisdom.html), I failed to mention that you can get inspiration for your stories from wherever: films, books, your own thoughts, borrowed stories from others, observations - the repertoire can really be boundless. Driving back from Granada to Madrid, I had enough time to think about my experiences of those three days, and they have boiled down into three important insights, which I am going to share with you now. I will codify them as:

• View from the Top
• 6th Gear, and
• Leapfrog

Lesson # 1: View from the Top

On Saturday, one day after our arrival in Granada, we decided to take a drive into the mountains and enjoy the magnificent vistas of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Getting up at 8 am on Saturday, when you are on vacation, is a noble deed in itself, traditionally rewarded in Granada with a cup of coffee, croissant with butter and jam and a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. Getting out of the city was not an issue since all respectable Spaniards prefer not to grant the world with their presence well into the day, so the roads were clear and the drive was pleasant. 

As we were driving up into the mountains along a winding serpentine road, the weather was getting a bit gloomier and it started drizzling. Finally, at the mark of 2750 m above the sea level we stopped and (being awfully excited to see the snow-white mountain tops in the middle of summer) got out of the car. That was freeeeeeezing!!! The wind was blowing and I can promise - the snowflakes were circling in the air. By all means, we were not ready to go out into that kind of weather.

Insight: in the organizations getting to the top always looks so attractive and most ambitious people have it as one of their career goals - to reach an executive position and being able to make important decisions affecting the entire company. However, in many conversations that I have had with senior executives, there are certain trade-offs. Apart from longer hours, serious emotional strain, non-existent work-life balance, etc., there is something else. At the lower levels in the organization, it is about teamwork and helping each other and the general atmosphere of camaraderie and friendship. Then, as you get promoted you notice that it's not that sunny at the top. You notice that it is cold and everyone is watching their own backs. Getting to the top unprepared can result in a very quick roll down if you do not have a senior protector and adviser.

Lesson # 2: 6th Gear

Niels and I took turns driving both to and from Granada. It is a relaxed 4-5 hour drive: the roads are good and the weather was more than great - it was fantastic! Normally I drive fast and I like the feeling of control, hence my affection for cars with mechanic gear; automatic cars just don't give you that "umpf" feeling.

I have always been driving cars that have a 5-gear switch box, and naturally I have not been closely inspecting the details of a weekend rental car. Only on our way back Niels has casually mentioned to me as I was cruising on the highway in the 5th gear that it was a 6-gear car. It means that all that time I had the hidden potential to optimize the fuel consumption, which I had not taken advantage of.

Insight: often people are not aware of the hidden resources within themselves and their surroundings. Moreover, we are able to convince ourselves that there are none and give logical arguments why there cannot be anything. Still, we are so frequently proven wrong (sometimes by ourselves). Yes, we are faster, stronger and smarter than we think we are (not to confuse with overconfidence and incorrect self-image!!!) - all it takes is taking a closer look and tapping into the potential lying within. That's why feedback and (self-)observation are so important: they help us get rid of blind spots and assess our capabilities more objectively.

See related: Coaching.

Lesson # 3: Leapfrog

Have you ever played leapfrog on the road? If you have not yet - please do not: it is silly and dangerous hormone enticed activity. Basically, you are competing with another car(s) in who's faster by repeatingly overtaking one another. Obviously, it creates hazards on the roads for other drivers as well and I am quite sure it is illegal in some countries.

Still, on the way back to Madrid there was this black Mercedes, which accompanied me for 150 kms or so and we played a sort of leapfrog. Well, first of all, I had no intention of proving anything to that (aged and seemingly well-mannered man and his, apparently, wife), and secondly, it was a four-lane highway separated in the middle, so we never overtook each other in a true sense of the word. What we did was switching into the fast lane and speeding past a couple of slower moving cars and then getting back into the slow lane again. Thus, we took turns: now and then either he or I would be in front and then we would repeat that trick again.

Insight: apart from the obvious insight of the danger of such (or similar) behavior on the road, there are some thought around organizational behavior that came to my mind. I have caught myself thinking how much harder it is to be in the front, to be the car leading the group of other cars. Now you must set the pace and you should choose the speed. One you are following someone, somehow you adjust to their speed up to the moment you think they are too fast or two slow. Another point is about the rear-view mirror: it is much more important to see what is happening behind once you know that there are others who are following. It comes back to the essential characteristic of a leader: there are no leaders without followers.

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So --- here are the three points that I will take with me from Granada trip. I will use the opportunities to share this stories with others, and you are my first audience :)