Real Case Stories

Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, in his book Principles:Life and Work , he writes about learning Transcedental meditation at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and how it has benefited him throughout his career because it produced a calm open mindedness that allowed him to think clearly and creatively. In this HBR article  ,  Alak Vasa, founder of Elements Truffles,  a trader at Goldman Sachs and ITG claims meditation helped her keep fear and panic at bay, even under duress.  She speaks of an instance where the market crashed causing panic on the desk. Thanks to her meditation practice she was able to keep my composure and propose solutions to reduce the impact of the market crash. Jonathan Tang, founder and CEO of VASTRM fashion, first introduced meditation to his staff after 9/11.  “In the aftermath of 9/11, the employees at my company were noticeably shaky and distracted.  I decided to bring in a m...

When Arthur T Demoulas, the CEO of Demoulas Supermarkets was sacked by the Board in June 2014, the company was stunned when the employees went on strike to demand his reinstatement. What was even more shocking was when even the customers started boycotting the store in support of the CEO and suppliers stopped restocking the stores. source: wiki Market Basket protests What then makes employees, customers and even suppliers so loyal to a CEO in an age when only money rules. The CEO, Arthur T. Demoulas was perceived as a father figure. He was known for his ability to remember his employees' names, birthdays and milestones. He is also known to check on ill employees and asking about spouses and children of his workers. In this Boston Globe article one employee recollects the time he received a call from Arthur when his daughter had a serious car accident and was in the hospital. Arthur enquired about his daughter, whether the hospital was doing a good job and if they needed...

When Nobel laureate Economist Milton Friedman was consulting with an Asian nation government in the 1960s he visited a site of a large scale public works project and found workers shoveling but not using any heavy equipment like bull dozers, tractors or heavy equipment. On enquiring he was told that the purpose of the project was to provide jobs. To which he drly remarked "Why don't you give worker's spoons instead of shovels?" In the book " Rise of the Robots: Technology and the threat of a jobless future " the author cites this story and also speaks about the looming threat of a jobless future with advancement of technology creating a jobless future.  In Rise of the Robots, Ford details what machine intelligence and robotics can accomplish, and implores employers, scholars, and policy makers alike to face the implications. The past solutions to technological disruption, especially more training and education, aren't going to work, and we must deci...

When the 75 members of Stanford Graduate School of Business’s Advisory Council were asked to recommend the most important capability for leaders to develop, their answer was nearly unanimous: self-awareness. src  HBR article Also read about Vasella, CEO of Novartis who built an entirely new Novartis culture centered on compassion, competence, and competition. He did this because of his health issues during his childhood and the trauma he went through during his treatments. When he was 8 years old, he still remembers the pain and fear when the nurses held him down during the lumbar punctures to prevent him from moving. One day, a new physician arrived and took time to explain each step of the procedure. Vasella asked the doctor if he could hold a nurse’s hand instead of being held down. Vasella recalls “The amazing thing is that this time the procedure didn’t hurt,”. “Afterward, the doctor asked me, ‘How was that?’ I reached up and gave him a big hug. These human gestures...

Debbie Good, clinical assistant professor of business at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz Graduate School of Business, teaches time management to her MBA students. She has them account for every minute of two full days in 15-minute increments . Many are surprised at how long they really spend on certain tasks, she says. You might think you’re only checking social media for 15 minutes, but it may be four or five times that long. Write down to look at how long you’re spending on the things you do each day, she says. Once you have a good sense of how long various tasks take, you might even note those amounts on your list to help you track how much you’re trying to cram into your day, she says. Source - Fast Company

Why is Feedback only synonymous with Negative? Why do we give only Negative Feedback? It's very common to see people get very defensive when someone gives a feedback which is perceived as Negative. One tends to lockdown and get into a counter offensive mode whenever such feedback is given. This very often results in promoting a culture where people don't openly discuss issues. This author,Sonia Di Maulo  proposes a 3+1 feedback model. For every One opportunity for improvement, 3 positives need to be highlighted first. They key to the 3 positives is It builds Trust and Collaboration It increases engagement

MIT's Richard Locke researched  2 Nike tshirt factories in Mexico. These two factories have many similarities - both are in Mexico, both are in the apparel industry, both produce more or less the same products for Nike (and other brands) and both are subject to the same code of conduct. Plant 1 gave workers complete freedom to decide production targets, team organization and managing production plants and schedule. Employees work in teams and are also responsible for routine maintenance of equipment. Jobs are rotated and they value knowing how to perform a variety of operations and claimed that this opportunity to work on several operations plus in teams significantly improved working conditions. Every morning, the supervisors communicate to each team the style and quantity of products they need to produce. The workers would get together and discuss amongst themselves how much they can actually produce and then meet with the supervisor and agree on the production target f...

Kevin Systrom worked in Google for 3 years before quitting and eventually co-founding Instagram which was acquired by Facebook for a billion dollars. In his book "How Google Works", Eric Schmidt writes about this incident. Salar Kamangar was very impressed with young Kevin who was a marketing associate and wanted to transfer him to the Elite APM program (Associate Product Manager). He was however rejected because the programme only accepted candidates with a computer science degree. Even though Kevin was a self-taught programmer and had a history of working with engineers he wasn't allowed into the programme. Read the book

In this study by Sociologist Cedric Herring, he found an association between Diverse workforce and increased corporate profits and earnings. This is in contrast to other accounts that view diversity as either nonconsequential to business success or actually detrimental by creating conflict, undermining cohesion, and thus decreasing productivity. This research tests eight hypotheses derived from the value-in-diversity thesis. The results support seven of these hypotheses: Racial diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, greater market share, and greater relative profits. Gender diversity is associated with increased sales revenue, more customers, and greater relative profits.  The value-in-diversity perspective makes the business case for diversity, arguing that a diverse workforce, relative to a homogeneous one, produces better business results. Diversity is thus good for business because it offers a direct return on investment, promising greater...

WhatsApp co founder Brian Acton had applied for a job at Facebook in 2009 but was rejected. He had posted this sad tweet "Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life's next adventure." Here's the link to the tweet He eventually sold his company WhatsApp to Facebook for a whopping $19 billion

In 1987, Psychologist Benjamin Schneider in an article titled " The People make the place " lays out a model called ASA. Attraction - Selection - Attrition. He writes about how organization cultures are defined by the people that work there and not by people at the top. He asserts that “the people make the place” and that organizational culture, climate and practices are determined by the people in the organization. Attraction: People are differentially attracted to careers as a function of their own interests and personality. They have stated that people search environments that fit by their personality and that people would like to obtain their outcomes by selecting a specific organization. Selection: Organizations select people who they think are compatible for many different kinds of jobs. In that way organizations end up choosing people who share many common personal attributes, although they may not share common competencies. Attrition: The opposite side of...

HiPPO - Highest Paid Person's Opinion is an affliction that affects most organisations. Managers tend to throw the weight of their designations on their juniors by asserting their will even though the subordinates may have a better perspective. This results in a culture where the workforce gets into an execution mode throwing away their thinking hats. A famous quote from Jim Barksdale, Netscape CEO is “If we have data, let’s look at data. If all we have are opinions, let’s go with mine.” The most famous case is of Ron Johnson  who was Sr VP of Retail operations at Apple and was responsible for the success and launch of Apple Stores.  He was appointed CEO of JC Penney in 2011. Buoyed by his success at Apple, he had complete disdain for the competence of JC Penney staff or their culture. He frequently mocked Senior executives in public, ridiculing them for their decisions.  He relied on his gut rather than data and bull dozed his way through implementing his mandat...

In their book "How Google Works" Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg speak about the Google work culture. Google encourages people to stay longer in office and keep them in cramped quarters. In order to do this they have free food, games on campus, bring your family to work and an open cluttered and cramped office where people are in close proximity to each other. This constant interaction with people in the office brings out new ideas, breaks communication barriers and keeps the flow of information which is difficult in the case of a work from home environment. A very good example cited in the book is that Google's Adsense product which developed into a multibillion dollar business was invented by a group of engineers from different teams who were playing pool in the office. Read the book

Netflix's HR practice is so revolutionary that Sheryl Sandberg called it one of the most important documents ever to come out of Silicon Valley. The company is treated like a Pro Sports team which means Stars are hired in every position Key Highlights of the policy are Face to Face 360 degree feedback. People who are not good enough are given a very generous severance package Attendance is not measured. No 9am to 5pm policy No Clothing policy  The company's Expense policy is 5 words - "Act in Netflix's best interest"  eg: Travel as you would as if it were your own money. Employees booked their trips online on their own. Vacation Policy - No policy, take a vacation whenever you wish to. If you work in accounting or finance, you shouldn’t plan to be out during the beginning or the end of a quarter, because those are busy times. If you want 30 days off in a row, you need to meet with HR. Senior leaders are urged to take vacations and to let peop...

In this HBR article "How to respond when your employee asks for a raise"  the author offers a few do's and don'ts on how to handle the situation. First and foremost when the employee asks for a raise, don't react right away. The writer quotes from a book "How to be good at Performance Appraisals" by Grote. He suggests a simple 3 word sentence "Tell me more" and take notes while the person tells you why she deserves the pay increase. This conveys that you are not dismissing the request and your act of taking note indicates your seriousness. The article also has 2 case studies at the end. Buy the book

This Fortune article talks about how many Employers are using third party firms to analyse Medical reimbursements, pharmacy claims and Search queries to predict whether an employee is trying to get pregnant, is pregnant or about to undergo any major surgery. Castlight Health  is an Enterprise Healthcare management platform that lets companies provide employees with personalized tools for healthcare benefits. According to the Fortune article, Castlight has the ability to gather employees' medical information and then predict who's at risk for being diagnosed with diabetes, who's considering pregnancy and who may need a back surgery. Also read "Behavior targeting - How Target knew about customer's pregnancy before her own Father knew about it"

In his book "  Power  :Why some people have it and other's dont", Jeffrey Pfeffer talks about how important it is to understand Politics and Organisation Dynamics. He cites a few examples on how high performers were forced to leave their organisations because of politics In 2004, the Miami-Dade county, Florida, school board hired former New York schools chancellor Rudy Crew as superintendent to help a struggling school district. During his tenure, the disctrict was a finalist in the board prize for urban education 3 years in a row. He was also awarded the National Superintendent of the year by the American Association of School Administrators. However, within 6 months of receiving the award, he was forced to quit by the School board. The book talks about how people live in the fallacy that we live in a Just-World and do not recognise the intrigues of the real world. In another case, Jim Walker who was hired to build Nomura Securities' Asian operations was a cha...

Nudge theory  is a concept in behavioural science, political theory and economics which argues that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance can influence the motives, incentives and decision making of groups and individuals, at least as effectively – if not more effectively – than direct instruction, legislation, or enforcement. src Wiki The UK government set up a department called the Behavioral Insights Team (BIT) in 2010 which is also known as the Nudge Unit. The purpose of the Unit was to apply Nudge Theory to try to improve government policy and services as well as to save the UK government money. Some of the initiatives involved adding a simple line in unpaid tax notices stating that "9 out of 10 people pay taxes on time". This resulted in many people actually paying taxes and saving the government 100s of millions of dollars annually.