Unique management system of Whole Foods

I was very fascinated on hearing the uniqueness of Whole Foods. Whole Foods is a American retailer, headquartered in Austin, Texas, which specializes in selling organic and environmental friendly products in it's stores.

The history of the company  


The following uniqueness in the Whole Foods can be found:

• Freedom: The company gave utmost freedom to employees like the store manager can decide about prices, promotions and even recruiting the staff
• Trust: The company trusts the employees to the core like sharing of company's financial details, this shows how their top management trusts their employees

In the book "The Future of Management" by Gary Hamel describes about the company as follows                 

"Some of the distinctive management principles are: Love, Community, Autonomy, Egalitarianism, Transparency, Mission"

The reason for writing this post is:

• We need a innovative style of managing a company rather than traditional way of handling it, where "office politics" are played dominated role
• We need a company where employees should motivated with regard to their job rather than motivated to intrinsic rewards like monetary benefit, ESOPs, etc
• We need a company where the employee capabilities are fully utilized 

Indians at the top of corporate ladder(International)

Recently appointment of Satya Nadella as CEO of Microsoft Corporation, it sends a strong message to the corporate world that the Indians can excel where ever they are and they can achieve success through their innovative and hard working capabilities.


Some of the notable Indians at the  global C-Suite category:-

1. Sathya Nadela- CEO of Microsoft Corp.
2. Anush jain- Co-CEO of Deutsche Bank
3.Indra Nooyi- CEO of Pepsico
4. Ajay Banga- CEO of Master Card
5. Rakesh Sachdev- CEO of Sigma-Aldrich
6. Francisco D'Souza- CEO of Cognizant
7. Abhijit Talwalkar- CEO of LSI Corporation
8. Rakesh Kapoor- CEO of Reckitt Benckiser
9. Dinesh C Paliwal CEO of Harman International

(Source: The Economic Times dated Febuary 5th, 2014)

Other notable Indians are:

1. Vikran Pandit- Ex-CEO of CITI Group
2. Harish Manwani- COO of Unilever
3. Sameer Suneja- CEO of Perfetti Van Melle sPA
4. Nikesh Arora- Chief Business Officer of Google

This shows the ability of Indians to perform extraordinary and compete with the best around the world. This gesture gives the world that Indians are capable of managing global business.

On the other hand it is also disheartening to see Indian talent flourish abroad and our own country failing to capitalize on the talent. This sends a strong message to our politicians and top level executives alike that they better get their act together. 

The value of Big Data: How analytics differentiates winners by Bain & Company.

Bain report on the big data: Report

The report covers how companies were able to effectively utilizes the available data to tap their potential.

  

The Dynamic capabilities of David Teece

Recently I was reading an edition of S+B, one of the article I found interesting,which it is a interview with one of the renewed professor from University of California, Berkeley.

The article talks about the dynamic capabilities of the organization and it's implications on the business decisions.

Link to the article: David Teece dynamic capabilities.

About the author: David J. Teece is the Thomas W. Tusher Professor in Global Business at the University of California’s Haas School of Business (Berkeley). He is also the director of the school’s Institute for Business Innovation. He is the author of over 30 books and 200 scholarly papers and co-editor of the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Strategic Management. Dr. Teece has received four honorary doctorates and has been recognized by Royal Honors.
(Source: David Teece personal website)

For further information on David Teece

Traditional Vs Logical Thinking - Possible solution...

Hope everyone enjoyed the story and realized the importance of logical thinking.

The possible solution to the previous post regarding the importance of logical thinking.

"The girl put her hand into the moneybag and drew out a pebble. Without looking at it, she fumbled and let it fall onto the pebble-strewn path where it immediately became lost among all the other pebbles.

"Oh, how clumsy of me," she said. "But never mind, if you look into the bag for the one that is left, you will be able to tell which pebble I picked." Since the remaining pebble is black, it must be assumed that she had picked the white one. And since the money-lender dared not admit his dishonesty, the girl changed what seemed an impossible situation into an extremely advantageous one."

MORAL OF THE STORY:

Most complex problems do have a solution. It is only that we don't attempt to think.

For the story refer to the link..
Traditional-thinking-vs-logical-thinking

Traditional thinking Vs Logical thinking

Many years ago in a small Indian village, a farmer had the misfortune of owing a large sum of money to a village moneylender. The moneylender, who was old and ugly, fancied the farmer's beautiful daughter. So he proposed a bargain.

He said he would forgo the farmer's debt if he could marry his daughter. Both the farmer and his daughter were horrified by the proposal. So the cunning money-lender suggested that they let providence decide the matter. He told them that he would put a black pebble and a white pebble into an empty money bag. 

Then the girl would have to pick one pebble from the bag.

1) If she picked the black pebble, she would become his wife and her father's debt would be forgiven.

2) If she picked the white pebble she need not marry him and her father's debt would still be forgiven.

3) But if she refused to pick a pebble, her father would be thrown into jail.

They were standing on a pebble strewn path in the farmer's field. As they talked, the moneylender bent over to pick up two pebbles. As he picked them up, the sharp-eyed girl noticed that he had picked up two black pebbles and put them into the bag. He then asked the girl to pick a pebble from the bag.

Now, imagine that you were standing in the field. What would you have done if you were the girl? If you had to advise her, what would you have told her?

Careful analysis would produce three possibilities:

1. The girl should refuse to take a pebble.

2. The girl should show that there were two black pebbles in the bag and expose the money-lender as a cheat.

3. The girl should pick a black pebble and sacrifice herself in order to save her father from his debt and imprisonment.

Take a moment to ponder over the story. The above story is used with the hope that it will make us appreciate the difference between lateral and logical thinking. The girl's dilemma cannot be solved with traditional logical thinking. Think of the consequences if she chooses the above logical answers.

What would you recommend to the Girl to do?

Note:- Post answer/views as comments...  In next post I will post what she did......

Every thing happens for our own good

During my school days, I had a period of Moral Science class where they teach the ethics, morals and the code of conduct for the students so as to become the good citizens of the country.

In this subject, one story inspired a lot to me which helped me to build myself and enrich my career.

The story goes like this:

Once there was a king named 'Thirumala' ruled some part of the county and he has a wise adviser, who is well versed in the all the subjects.

One day on the king birthday he was well dressed with royal robes and walking majestically into the court room, on the way to court room he his waving his hand to all the citizens present in the court room due to waving his hand his fingers got scratched to the metal door and got hurt as his fingers has a minor cut leading to a loss of blood.

After this incident, the king asked the his adviser that why it had happened he replied "Every thing for our own good", king got angry and told to the guards that adviser to arrested and sent to the dark dungeon for some days.

One fine day king went to royal hunting to the near by forest, for a while he was with all the soldiers, suddenly he spotted a dear, he wanted to catch it but unfortunately he couldn't catch it and he lost with other people he was alone. It was in the evening he was resting under a tree suddenly he heard roaring sound of a lion near by him smelling him he was scared and he was lying silently watching it's activities.When it came near to his hand and saw there was cut in the hand it simply left without harming and he immediately realized the importance of his adviser words that "Everything happens for our own good".

Animals(especially Lion, Tiger) follow a principle of eating fresh meat not a rotten or damaged.

He back to the kingdom, ordered the guards to release the adviser immediately,when he came king apologized for his foolish act.

What can we learn from this a small moral story:
Every thing happens for own good.

We should patiently wait for our turn and nothing happens without any reason.
Hope everyone will think in positive ways for the acts they do in their lives and ultimately good will happen.