When John Reed, longtime chairman of Citicorp, accepted the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Executive of the Year award in 1999, he ended his acceptance speech by challenging his audience of elite academics. Download Article

Organizations rarely develop leadership pipelines or plan successors in advance. This is compelling them to import leaders from other countries, says Ed Cohen, executive VP, Nelson Cohen Global Consulting, who is in India to attend the HR Leadership Congress India. In an interview with DNA, Cohen, who helps firms grow their leadership pipelines, talks about how the Tatas should have started searching for a successor 15 years ago and how firms should draw inspiration Indian cricket team on leadership. Excerpts: When it comes to succession planning, where does Indian Inc stand? The Indian market is growing fast, but succession planning is too short. Organisations should plan leadership needs looking at longer time periods. They should look at 10-20 years from now and evaluate their leadership requirements for those periods. They need to look for leaders who can build and sustain relationships and create trust so that people are ready to work with them. There is too much buzz over Ratan Tata’s successor. As far as Tata’s succession goes, they waited too long to identify a successor. They have the founder’s syndrome, wherein the founder looks at the business like his daughter and therefore wants the perfect husband for the daughter. They should have identified someone 15 years ago. Look at GE. Ten years before Jack Welch retired, they identified six potential candidates and groomed them and finally one of them, Jeff Immelt became the CEO. Tatas will have difficulty in transitioning, as people will have to connect with the new head. When Narayan Murthy retired, he transitioned into the role of chief mentor. Ratan Tata needs to move into the role of the chief mentor. The market however will not respond negatively as the market sees Tata as a strong and successful house and will give time for the transitioning to happen. The Tata group has enough equity and goodwill for anyone to react negatively. What if the next head is not from the Tata family? There are many firms where the founding family is not currently with the firm. No one says that just because the founding family is not working, the group can’t succeed. Tata has its own identity. It will evolve, as it is a living organism as has the spirit of the Tata family. Look at companies such as Goldman Sachs, O&M, McKinsey, today no one from their founding families are associated with them. Also Walt Disney - today the founding family is not involved. But they are bigger and have kept the spirit of Disney alive. You won’t find gambling happening in Disney parks. It is still the place for the entire family to enjoy. The DNA of the organisation should be kept intact. Do global firms pay heed to succession planning? No. Result is a shortage of leaders. Firms are importing leaders from other countries. Many firms have grown so fast that they have imported rather than created leaders. But Proctor &Gamble is a different case. They grow all their leaders internally and don’t import. They could not have done that overnight. Firms need to think of a pipeline. Also when leaders are imported from outside, companies need to use their skills to further build leadership internally. Several Indians are heading global firms….. Yes. India is one of the largest exporters of leaders. There are so many academic and corporate institutions lead by Indians. But the questions is, as Indian economy grows, will there be enough leaders in India, who will lead companies in India and will they be able to entice leaders from abroad? Greatest leaders can come from anywhere and not just from your own backyard. Look at the IPL. You have the best cricketers playing. There is no nationality. Same way organisations should look at the best leaders without any boundaries of nationality. Look at the Indian team winning the World Cup. The leadership was shared. There were many leaders like captain, vice captain, coach, senior players. If one didn’t have prowess in a particular area, there was another leader. Many leaders mean many voices and every member of the team could voice his opinions. Firms should learn from sports, spiritual organisations, as leadership is not just about business, but humanity and people.

Saving a Crisis-Ridden Company After massive fraud was discovered there, Satyam Computer Services survived by helping its employees focus on their emotional trauma. by Priscilla Nelson and Ed Cohen A senior executive of a scandal-rocked multinational computer services company broke down in tears during a session with his leadership coach, devastated that he had given more than 10 years of his life to a company whose CEO had been caught in massive fraud. With just a year to go until reaching mandatory retirement, he had invested most of his savings in the company’s stock, which was now worth next to nothing. Another of the company’s managers, 50 years old, received a call from his father urging him to leave the company before his own reputation was further tarnished. A young supervisor realized his impending wedding was at risk when it appeared he might lose his job because of the scandal. "The rug was pulled out from underneath us all," one of the executives said. "We felt forced to heal rapidly so we could help others to heal. I broke down and wept; not once, but several times." Read more

LIVEMINT.COM Business of Life Posted: Sun, May 8 2011. 7:23 PM IST Just getting a new leader on board is not enough. He will need guidance on how the company works-a ‘learning buddy’ can help him adapt - Komal Sharma How can you successfully integrate leaders who have made a lateral entry into your business? This was a topic of debate at the three-day HR Leadership Congress, India, organized by UK-based media and research organization Ideas Exchange in Delhi last month. One of the speakers at the event was Ed Cohen, executive vice-president of Nelson Cohen Global Consulting, which helps companies develop their leadership pipeline and learning strategies. Cohen, who spoke to Mint about helping leaders adapt to their roles in a new team, company cultures and attrition, was senior director at strategy and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton’s corporate university, the Centre for Performance Excellence, from 1998-2005. Between 2005 and 2009, he was chief learning officer at information, communications and technology company Satyam Computer Services (now Mahindra Satyam). Cohen and Priscilla Nelson, his partner at Nelson Cohen Global Consulting, are presently dividing their time between the US and India. Cohen and Nelson are authors of Riding the Tiger: Leading through Learning in Turbulent Times. Cohen has also authored Leadership without Borders: Successful Strategies from Global Leaders. Edited excerpts from the interview: Read the article:  http://www.livemint.com/2011/05/08192307/The-rules-of-engagement.html?h=B

  Corporate universities with global responsibility must meet the learning and development needs of all constituents throughout the world. Within a global corporate university, time differences, geographic differences, escalating travel costs, opportunity cost of time, and other barriers exist. Instructor led learning cannot be justified as the primary means for learning. Beyond actual real time, on the job learning, use of virtual learning combined with alternatives including degree and certification programs, executive coaching, performance consultancy, global learning circles, experiential learning, and self-study need to be primary for learning deployment. These corporate universities are business enablers and catalysts for performance and relationship enhancement[1]. Strategic alignment is critical to learning so here are 13 effective steps for doing so. Why 13 steps? An early memory I have is going to the bakery for fresh rolls with my Mother. She asked the baker for a dozen and was handed a bag filled with fresh warm rolls. When we arrived home, Mom asked me to unpack the rolls. I took each from the bag, 1…2…3…4…5…tempted to taste but didn’t dare (ok I admit to having a small piece from one) …6…7…8…9…10… and I carefully placed them in the container …11…12…13. Thirteen, I wasn’t expecting that. I asked Mom if the baker did not know what a dozen meant. She explained, "if the baker likes you, you always get an extra item and that is called a bakers dozen." So, here’s my baker’s dozen "must" list to guarantee strategic alignment of learning services— Make sure everyone knows development is more than training. Training will accomplish no more 20% of necessary learnings. The remainder requires work experiences with real time feedback and coaching; supportive colleagues including peers, managers and mentors; documented success factors and derailers; and, alternative learning services such as coaching, learning circles, and action learning. Use a formal process to link learning. All development activities should be anchored to core values and best-practice performance standards. Performance standards should include both competencies (level of desired skill demonstration) and work life cycles (processes followed to complete series of tasks). Competencies represent the skills needed to be successful in the role, Once identified, they can be easily mapped to all learning opportunities including on the job learning. Conduct organization development and specific interventions. Offering OD and intervention services builds strategic relationships across the enterprise while at the same time, expanding credibility and providing an excellent source for information gathering. For example, at Satyam, we have a program called "Maximizing Team Effectiveness". For this intervention, we work with leaders to analyze customer feedback, associate delight and other business indicators. From there we develop, in partnership with the team, an effectiveness plan. The plan is developed over two days with follow-up taking place after to make sure it is implemented. This allows teams to become part of the solution rather than having our consultant go in to "fix" their problems. Define roles for senior leaders (integral to your alignment strategy). Every opportunity taken to interact with senior leaders enhances access to information and resources. Roles for leaders including sponsors for key programs, ambassador who always talk highly of learning services, advisors who provide access to and freely share information, as well as presenters and coaches. Obtain resonance from advisory teams. Many organizations have an advisory team exclusive to the corporate university. While this is excellent, it is a narrow way of approaching the business. To align effectively, make use of existing advisory teams across the enterprise. This includes leadership teams, task teams, and corporate governance. The School of Leadership has an advisory board called the Leadership Development Council. Chaired by our firm’s chairman, Ramalinga Raju, the provides strategic guidance and oversight. Help individuals successfully transition to your culture. Every organization, no matter where it is located, has its own distinct culture and language. When individuals join, surround them with a tailored infrastructure, an immersion process, mentors and learning opportunities to expedite awareness and comfort. This includes written and unwritten, spoken and unspoken, and common and uncommon sense behaviors. Be aware of the obvious and not so obvious culture differences. At Satyam, we have a one-year process we developed to ease the transition of new senior leaders. The Full Life Cycle Leader immersion process includes elearning, classroom learning, action learning, coaching and mentoring throughout the leader’s first year. Meet needs of culturally and geographically disbursed employees. Instead of participants coming to a centralized site to receive learning services, have your learning professionals travel to them or offer them online. Putting learning professionals on the road has several advantages—they learn about the unique needs of staff located outside the central facility, cost is considerably less for one to travel, and it eliminates the sense of "haves" and "have nots". A virtual campus, allowing anywhere, anytime access is a tremendous benefit for extremely mobile staff. Offering programs online and via VTC also allows for great reach. When using VTC, keep in mind that you can emanate a program from any location so they are not always carried live at the learning center. Rather, consider offering the live version at a small site and using VTC to provide access to all others. Again, this reduces the perceptions of "haves" and "have nots". Build critical skills. Long term and short term business goals may have organizations entering a new or rapidly changing market, require organization changes and reskilling or upskilling. Others may be facing new compliance requirements or a need to increase specific skills such as diversity. The corporate university can easily align and provide high value by assessing the gap, prioritizing needs (with assistance from advisory teams), and developing services for the most critical and visible areas. Forecast needs and identify gaps. The delta between assessed and desired performance allows unique access to important information. Learning professionals have the ability to close gaps, while at the same time influencing workforce planning. Respond to trends. Is your organization experiencing an aging population or trends in specific demographic areas? These are perfect opportunities to align and demonstrate high value. In order to do this, map the trend, analyze it, assess gaps, prioritize, and build learning interventions. Other trends to look for are common performance gaps within a job family or team. This can be determined by meeting with managers and reviewing performance assessments. Participate in emerging market strategies. Collaborate with the business to assist in rapid learning and deployment of new products and service offerings. Learning professionals facilitate the process by working with subject experts to glean and interpret information into manageable learning solutions. Training those same experts in presentation and adult learning methods rapidly spreads learning across the organization. Quantify impact. I cannot remember where it was first heard, but for long as I can remember, the saying "you are what you measure" has been universally understood. If you measure and reward the right behavior, you get the right behavior. The same is true when it comes to quantifying impact. Rather than measuring how many people attended, how many courses are offered, how many hours of training are delivered, measure impact as defined by your organization’s leaders. You might or might not need to calculate and assign monetary values to measures being used within your organization. This ensures your leaders both understand and take seriously measured results. By determining desired outcomes in the design phase of a learning service, measurement of outcomes is clearer and easier. This is much better that what most do—retrofit measures after the fact. When you calculate value, invest the time to communicate results to stakeholders. Once a target is achieved, stretch is further to demonstrate additional contributions to the business. Help build the business. Building a world-class corporate university can assist the brand of your organization. Sharing best practices, hosting visits, extending services to customers and earning third party employer of choice recognition help your organization’s brand and enhances the value of the learning function. That’s our "baker’s dozen" to guarantee strategic alignment. If you can check off that your learning group is actively engaging each of the 13 "must" items, greater success for the corporate university and even greater contributions to your organizations is ensure. Namaste’ [1] Next Generation Corporate Universities, edited by Mark Allen, Global Considerations for Corporate Universities, 2007, John Wiley and Sons.

Ed Cohen shares his opinion on ET Now on Satyam Results and the buzz about Satyam getting de-listed on NYSE. He expects that the company now has the opportunity to further its reputation as a good client-partner. For details, watch the video below.

Ed Cohen shares his opinion on NDTV on Satyam Results and the buzz about Satyam getting de-listed on NYSE. He expects that the company now has the opportunity to further its reputation as a good client-partner. For details, watch the video below.

We have been facilitating The Leadership Challenge (Kouzes and Posner) workshops for many of our clients in US and India. Participants from all over the world, participate in a 360 feedback and workshop with profound and highly impactful results. The Leadership Challenge is about how leaders mobilize others to want to get extraordinary things done. It’s about the practice leaders use to transform values into actions, visions into realities, obstacles into innovations, separateness into solidarity, and risks into rewards. It’s about a climate in which people turn challenging opportunities into remarkable successes. Participants complete a 360 assessment to measure leadership behaviors in five key practices Modeling the Way Inspiring a Shared Vision Challenging the Process Enabling Others to Act Encouraging the Heart Organizations all over the world have benefited from this proven, research-based leadership development model. A 2005 survey of 94 large companies discovered that those consistently applying the transformational leadership practices of The Leadership Challenge® over the previous 10 years achieved: Average stock price growth of 204% Net income growth of 841% Nelson Cohen Global Consulting is an authorized partner for The Leadership Challenge. Ed Cohen has been conducting Leadership Challenge assessments and workshops for more than 12 years; Priscilla Nelson has been conducting 360 assessment and workshops for more than 20 years. All leaders regardless of their experience benefit from the extensive feedback they receive. The messages are clear and easy to align to individual developmental plans. Executive coaching supports each leader’s ability to grow.   For more information write to us info@nelsoncohen.com

Seeking the glue that binds us all together as an organization.  We have different levels in our organizations; different roles; different competencies; if global different cultures, so what is the glue that binds an organization together. Read about it in this article from Hindustan Newspaper.

Strengths based leadership is a definitely the way to gain the maximum value from your leaders and their people.  Read about the Satyam Case Study as written in the Gallup Management Journal. Download Gallup Radical Leadership  

In 2006, Booz Allen achieved number one on the Training Top 125 and ASTD BEST Awards rankings.  Download the white paper. Booz Allen Learning & Development

Here is a great article on Do’s and Don’ts of Offshore Software Outsourcing written by my friend and colleague, Erich Kreidler.  The software industry has sharply declined in the markets over the last three years. Software development companies departments saw a severe drop in their revenues and corporate IT budgets were reduced drastically. At the same time, the user base grew and the requirements for more software infrastructure and applications increased. These opposite trends forced executives to look for cost effective solutions: build more for less money.  Read more

Video Post VenSat Corporate Identity - Animation of its Logo from Hari Ankem on Vimeo.

Stand-up comedy fundraiser for german shepherd rescue shall be organized on Saturday, June 29, 2013. Venue: Carlsbad Comeday Cafe Time: 6 pm to 10 pm.

What behaviors are impacting your organization? Was it performance that caused companies like Enron, Satyam, Countrywide Mortgage, and the many of world’s banks to go out of business? Absolutely not! It was the behavior manifested by the leaders of these organizations that … Continue reading →

My Starbucks $2 Grande Latte Experience I stepped off the airplane from my short flight from Hyderabad to Mumbai, gathered my luggage and walked out into the warm-N-humid day to wait for my friend Rahul who was about 15 minutes … Continue reading →

Manager is DEAD Today, September 22, 2014, at 4:38 pm PDT, Manager was declared dead. Manager was born 1580. Manager was a person who had controlled and directed institutions, businesses, and divisions as well as countless people for over 434 years.  That … Continue reading →

Can Integration replace Management? On 22nd September, we posted an article,"R.I.P. Manager Declared DEAD". You may want to read that for more background. It has generated a significant amount of debate with responses ranging from "leave it alone" to "spot on" … Continue reading →

4 "LIKES" from 2 Baby Boomers to Millennials We have curiously observed the new generation of millennials as they entered the workforce and taken on their own persona. We are both baby boomers. When we entered the workforce we were … Continue reading →

Has Learning & Development fallen behind the Times? Having just returned from the 2014 Fall CLO Symposium, we were struck by some of the conversation around how learning and development has fallen behind the times. There were plenty of sessions on … Continue reading →

5 Leadership Lessons: Growing up Abused, My reflections […] The post 5 Leadership Lessons: Growing up Abused, My reflections appeared first on Nelson Cohen Consulting.

Diwali gift from America- 5 days, 5 Leadership Lessons […] The post Diwali gift from America-5 days, 5 Leadership Lessons appeared first on Nelson Cohen Consulting.

Indian Outsourcing: When ‘Yes’ is not &#821 […] The post Indian Outsourcing: When ‘Yes’ is not ‘Yes’ appeared first on Nelson Cohen Consulting.

4 Tips to GAIN ENERGY instead of Weight this Holiday Se […] The post 4 Tips to GAIN ENERGY instead of Weight this Holiday Season appeared first on Nelson Cohen Consulting.