Time Management

One of the most frequently mentioned problems of businessmen is encapsulated in the phrase, “If I only had more time…” This concern is a common problem among all busy people. It seems that no one has enough time. Time is the most precious yet most limited resource of the businessmen. It is a unique quantity-the businessmen cannot store it, rent it, hire it, or buy it. With its supply being inelastic, it is totally perishable and irreplaceable. Everything requires it and it passes at the same rate for everyone. While important throughout the life of the venture, time is particularly critical at start-up and during growth and expansion of the venture. No matter what the businessman does, today’s ration of time is 24 hours, and yesterday’s time is already history. What is Time Management? Managing time means investing time to get what you decide you want out of life, including Continue reading

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership Challenges

Emotional intelligence skills provide developing leaders with an increased understanding of the impacts of emotions within a team or organization. Caruso and Salovey (2004) demonstrated the advantages EI has with respect to six common challenges in leadership: (a) building effective teams, (b) planning and deciding effectively, (c) motivating people, (d) communicating a vision, (e) promoting change, and (f) creating effective interpersonal relationships. Throughout Caruso and Salovey’s descriptions of the six challenges, they cited a connection with Kouzes and Posner’s Effective Leadership Practices Model. 1. Building effective teams The first challenge was building an effective team. Caruso and Salovey discussed the need for clarifying personal values before attempting to formulate team values. Like Kouzes and Posner’s model, Caruso and Salovey explained that leaders must identify their own values before clarifying team values. A significant level of trust is important for leading teams, and a leader must generate positive opportunities for meaningful Continue reading

Technological Discontinuity and Corporate Alliances

A technological discontinuity might be defined as a breakthrough innovations that advances by an order of magnitude the technological state-of-art, which characterize an industry. Technological discontinuities are based on new technologies whose technical limits are inherently greater than those of the previous dominant technology along economically relevant dimensions of merit. Organizations are now being managed through a period of discontinuity because of revolutionary technological changes causing what they called “creative destruction”: where existing methods are changed in favor of new and better methods. Each technological discontinuity brings about a technological cycle. Some discontinuous innovations are competence destroying, while others are competence enhancing. Competence enhancing is when a breakthrough pushes forward a new state by building on an existing knowledge, while competence destroying totally obsoletes the old technology and knowledge and replaces them with new products and brings about new learning curve. Usually competency-destroying discontinuities require new skills, abilities, and knowledge Continue reading

What is Intrapreneurship? – Definition, Meaning and Features

In 1992, The American Heritage Dictionary acknowledged the popular use of a new word, intrapreneur, to mean “A person within a large corporation who takes direct responsibility for turning an idea into a profitable finished product through assertive risk-taking and innovation”. Intrapreneurship is now known as the practice of a corporate management style that integrates risk-taking and innovation approaches, as well as the reward and motivational techniques, that are more traditionally thought of as being the province of entrepreneurship.  They are entrepreneurs who catch hold of a new idea for a product, service, or process and work to bring this idea to fruition within the framework of the organization. Intrapreneurs with their innovations and dedicated effort are perceived as a valuable asset by the organization, inspiring others. He serves as a champion to others in the organization. In recent times, a number of intrapreneurs are leaving their jobs to start Continue reading

Benefits of Corporate Retreats in Organizations

Corporate retreats can be of any type, such as a sport retreat, or a seminar-style retreat. They are to promote a feeling of teamwork and to build a better understanding among company employees. Corporate retreats can also help employees gain some problem-solving skills that lead to better teamwork and better overall productivity. These team-building activities focus on events where everyone has to work together to reach a common goal. The examples are river rafting, rock climbing, mountain climbing, everyone hiking blindfolded while holding on the same rope, team scavenger hunts, friendly competitions between company departments, etc. Corporate retreats can be customized to fit the company’s need. They can make the employees learn about what the temporary retreat goals are, as well as the long-term results that the company is striving for. Why corporate retreats can increase productivity? This is because organizations can derive some valuable skills from corporate retreats. These Continue reading

Significance of Blue Ocean Strategy in Current Business Scenario

Blue ocean strategy makes companies to come out of ocean of bloody competition by creating market space which is uncontested and that makes the completion irrelevant. Since, dividing up existing demand and benchmarking the competitors, Blue Ocean strategy is regarding grow demand and break away from the competition. The business universe can be thought as a composition of two kinds of oceans the first is the red ocean and second one is the blue ocean. Red ocean includes all the industries which exist today and it is about the known market space. But on the other side Blue Ocean can be considered as industries which are not in existing today and it is called unknown market space. The industries boundaries are defined and well accepted in the red oceans. In the red oceans the rules of competitive games are well defined. The companies try to take away the greater share Continue reading