level 5 leadership Archives - Third Eyesight: leading management consultant - retail, consumer, fashion, food, textiles, home, strategy, India, business growth, marketing, ecommerce, omnichannel

10 Books for Start-ups and Small Businesses

Devangshu Dutta — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:32:21 +0000

There are so many valuable books an entrepreneur can learn from that this list is only a starting point, rather than “the Top-10”. But the thing about lists is that even if you find one item on the list that makes a substantial difference to you, the list has been useful. In this one, I believe you will find more than one book that could create such an impact...

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A crisis not to be wasted

Devangshu Dutta — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:25:17 +0000

Cisco's John Chambers is calling the current economic scenario "the biggest opportunity of our lifetime", and asking managers to shift from a centralised approach to a more collaborative one. Of course, Cisco as a company has much to gain from the growth of collaborative network organisational models, but he does have a point.

But will it be simple to make that shift? After decades, maybe centuries, of command-and-control behaviour training from kindergarten, it will take more than a few months for people to learn how to collaborate. Remember the management adage: "Lead, be led or get out of the way"? May be time to question even that. I'm not suggesting that there is no further need for leaders, but Jim Collins' Level 5 Leadership (or even a more evolved form) needs to be adopted, for true collaboration to happen rather than a push / shove / cut & chop. Many current management models have to be thrown out and new ones implemented, and even old ones re-discovered. While we may not realise it (or may not want to see it), many of the current management models are quite feudal in nature.

What's more - and I might be out on a limb here - we may even have to de-construct our whole economic model which is built on the principle of "scaling up and consolidation", in favor of fragmentation and individualisation.

A very very good documentary to watch in the current times is "The Corporation", other than digging into the host of other literature that is available.

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Weapons of Mass Dialogue

Devangshu Dutta — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 13:30:39 +0000

The need to accept differences and the use of democratic dialogue as a process to close the gap is the basis of Arun Maira’s Discordant Democrats. While the book is largely about democracy in India, Maira draws from events, personalities and initiatives around the world to make the case for democracy as the only reasonable mechanism to manage diversity in society, and dialogue as the only reasonable mechanism to sustain it.

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