Christmas tale and generous managers

Leadership is not an inanimate object. It has a face, and moreimportantly, it has a heart. The good leaders do not merelycommand respect, they earn it. A leader who rules with an ironfist will influence people once. A leader who rules with a kindheart will influence people for a lifetime. We like to associatewith leaders who see themselves as humans, and not anextraordinary species. For

Innovative marketing and packaging

In the business environment, there are the Davids and theGoliaths. Occasionally, we read inspiring stories about how onesmall startup company can gobble up a large share of the pieand surprise the older boys. More often than not, they are notabout David killing Goliath, but about the two of them formingstrategic alliances and capitalizing on each other's strengths. Itboils down to

Customer service – accept blame, own the problem

When things go wrong, as they often do, what is your firstreaction? Blame it on others. This blaming game is played evenat the highest levels in the corporate offices and in ourgovernment. When complaints arise and it is obvious that thefault lies in a certain person, he gets the whole troop of officersin the department to share the blame. It sounds unfair, but it isa useful strategy. Here,

Autocrats, dictators, and dominant bosses

A majority of complaints and agitated office gossips are related tothe bosses, either they are too incompetent, demanding,unreasonable, or autocratic. It is difficult to work under thesetypes of managers and supervisors and the frustrations at worklead to misery and low morale and eventually disaster for thecompany. While many of the complaints are fair and true, we havepulled out a fable which

Business strategy based on false assumptions

When formulating theories and business plans, we are usuallyfond of qualifying them by stating the assumptions we have made.The commonly used assumption is the latin phrase “cēterīs pāribus”,basically stating that our plans are based on “all other things beingequal.” Should there be a change in these variables or assumptions,our projections would be different. The critical thing to remember