Interpersonal Skills Important??

Today happened to be beginning of a new subject in my term 1. And the new subject is Interpersonal Skills and Organisational Dynamics. Though we had come across several such things, I felt the class was completely on a different platform today. Probably, is it because of the professor? Is it because of the way he handles the 3 hour session. Anyways, whatever it might be let me churn out few stuffs that I gathered from the class.

The prof started the class with the discussion about future of MBA. And he indicated the corporates are willing to hire people from other disciplines like sociaologists, psychologists, historians. The corporates are slowly moving away from MBA. There were couple of researches done by professors at Harvard and London Business Schools. The findings are as follows: Following are key parameters for a good MBA grad - knowledge, skill and attributes. From the corporate survey, it was identified that MBAs get the knowledge (so obsessed with Analytical and Technical) and hone their skills. But these MBAs are not imparted with the Attributes which is referred to "Managing changes, complexity and challenges". Hence, the B-Schools are required to reform their pedagogy to impart the attributes.

Then the discussion on "What is Management?" came to the fore. Well, several of us came up with different definitions, the prof gave his own definition:
Management is all about 5 Ms - Men, Money, Machine, Materials, Minutes.

One should remember the "SPICE" when we talk about the stakeholders of the company.
SPICE - Society, Partners (Suppliers,distributors), Investors, Customers, Employees.

The culture of two companies were discussed to highlight the importance of Employee satisfaction - GOOGLE and NORDSTROM. We all knew a lot about Google, let me describe about what I learnt abt NORDSTROM.

NORDSTROM - The organisation is so obsessed with customer satisfaction. Refund to the products are given to customers without any no-nonsense, no question to the customer. They are top 1 company is customer satisfaction. In their initial years, the sales personnel were trained to make duplicate car keys. The reason being the buyers leave their keys in the car in late 70's and early 80's and come for shopping. They realise their mistake only after the purchase is made. The customers are made to sit and were offerred with coffee. Meanwhile, the sales people retain the keys and hand it over to the customer. Such is the extent to which customer satisfaction is pursued in the organisation. The sales people had to smile always and be customer focussed. They were always monitored through the means of "Mystery Shoppers".

By the way, Wal Mart used to refund customers without any questions. Oflate, they have changed the practice, wherein they would question the refund if it comes from a set of ethnic group. This is happening due to abuse of the system by a particular group of people.

Can the attitude of any person be changed? May be its tough to change. But the good news is it can be changed. Through AWARENESS, the individual can be aware of the "CHOICES". Based on the choices, the individual can taken the "DECISION" and come up with the "ACTION PLAN".

Why managing people is different?
1. Every inidividual is different, distinct and from diverse background.
2. Human beings are predictably irrational.
3. Humans behave differently in different situations.

Innovation are of two types:
1. Conventional Innovation - happens from within the market.
2. Unconventional Innovation - happens from within the organisation.

The Modern definition of leadership is "Influence without Authority". The other phenomena is "Watercooler" or in modern times "CAFETERIA" phenomena. It is the place from which the general feeling about the organisation can be sensed.

To end with some new words that I learnt :-)
COOPETITION = COLLABORATION + COMPETITION
FRIENIMIES = FRIENDS + ENEMIES ( There are no enemies and friends as such. This coexist in the current world scenario).

Hoping that I could continue posting few more....