Dr. Shailesh Thaker - Best Management Training Blog - Top Management Consultants

Archive for the ‘Learnings for Adults’ Category

“So it was clear that one of the things that’s really a big part of Harpo is the responsibility that  organization and its leaders—all of them—feel, because they have impact and because that’s where the world is going. People expect new things from business, and this organization has a sense of that. I spoke with Tim Bennett at some point about mission and social responsibility in the context of Harvard Business School’s purpose, and Tim said, ‘You know, I think you need to talk to Oprah about this.’” And that’s what happened.

At the end of March 2005, Winfrey phoned Koehn precisely as arranged, and the interview, originally scheduled for twenty minutes, lasted an hour and twenty minutes.

Koehn reflected, “Her message to our case was about purpose: one’s purpose and one’s service. I thought it was a very important, clear, and surprisingly rare message from the public stage at this moment in history. And it was said so accessibly, with great inspiration but also with great humility. That combination of inspiration and humility I found absolutely compelling.”
Oprah attends class

Last May as Koehn prepared to teach the new case to two sections of The Coming of Managerial Capitalism course, she invited Harpo executives and Winfrey herself to come to class. No one dared to imagine that Winfrey would take the time to attend, but she did.

“The students all did double takes when they saw Oprah sitting at the back of the classroom. I thought they would be a little nervous. But they were fantastic in each class I taught.”

After both sessions, Winfrey took the floor for half an hour to speak informally and address specific questions that the students had raised about her company. Winfrey said,
If you only desire to make money, you can do that. Obviously, everybody in here is going to make money. Everybody in here is going to have a level of financial success that most people in the world will not know. But what I will tell you—and I know this for sure too—that the money only lasts for a while in terms of making you feel great about yourself. In the beginning, the money is to get nice things. And once you’ve gotten those nice things, I think some of the most unhappy people I know are the people who’ve acquired all the things and now they feel like, ‘What else is there?’ What else is there? What else is there? And that feeling of ‘what else is there’ is the calling—is the calling trying to say to you [that] there is more than this. There is more than this.

“It was just a great message. And the students heard it.”

In the end, says Koehn, “I think what really impressed the students was Oprah Winfrey’s sense of the big picture and how individuals matter to that big picture. That’s really the essence of leadership.”

Koehn took away some other observations. “Many people attribute some of her success to the apparent contradictions or anomalies about her: She’s a woman in what is mostly a man’s world. Entertainment at both the corporate and entertainer level is still dominated primarily by men. She’s an African American in what is still predominantly a white person’s world. And for many years, off and on, she’s been a heavy person in a skinny person’s world.”

“And therein, I think, lies another lesson for the twenty-first century. Success, despite or because of such contradictions, shows us where people’s focus is, and where some of the new drivers of inspiration are. We are moving to a world that is more diverse, that is more comfortable with that difference.

“We are moving into a world in which just the self as a primary unit of analysis may no longer be enough; where benefits, satisfaction, and purpose are about connecting not only one’s own needs, but also with one’s needs in relation to helping others, or trying to help others, however indirectly.

“This was another level that I didn’t see before this project, and I think it’s very important in this case. It’s another reason the students are engaged by the message ‘find your purpose, it’s about service.’ And it’s a lesson we at Harvard Business School, I think, understand, as very much in keeping with our mission. In that sense we need to be very conscious of our responsibility as a school, as an educational institution, of where the world is going.” by Nancy Koehn and Erica Helms

Oprah Winfrey:

Dr. Tathagat Avatar Tulsi, a Patna-born child prodigy, becomes the youngest professor at Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay at the age of 22. He is set to join as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics from next week.

He had completed his high school at the age of nine, earned his BSc degree at 10 and M.Sc at the age of 12. At the age of 21, Tulsi completed his doctorate in Quantum Computing from Indian Institute of Science.

The young professor, who has never studied in a classroom, plans to ask his students how they would want to be taught. “I have never taught in a class. But I believe I can come down to the level of a student and help them understand the subject,” he said. When asked about his future plans, he said “I want to pursue my research and at IIT-B, I will have the leisure to continue my research and one day set up a lab focused on quantum computation in our country.”

Dr. Tulsi had to turn down offers from Waterloo University in Canada and the Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER), Bhopal to come and teach at IIT-B.

In 2003, the prestigious Time magazine named him among the world’s seven most gifted youngsters, though he went into a shell after an international delegation called him a fake prodigy in 2001.

Today, we see melodious singer Lata Mangeskar but she had invested 60 years of her life in music.  I remember book of DR. APJ KALAM “fire on wings” that influence me most. Because of the most brilliant aspect “consistency of years.” We can say it was more or less time of 32 years. It was a  matter of years , not over night success.
Toyota or Sony or Nokia have never captured market over night. It is a history of decades.
M.K. Gandhi drives himself on quest for 40 years. R.K. Laxman cartoonist draws his most innovative cartoons on the front of the TIMES OF INDIA from last 57 years. Bollywood star Amitabh Buchan is performing from last 40 years.
They never take eyes off from their goals and never allow Obstacles frightful things. Consistency is what counts and matter the purpose.
They all were squeezed. They all were frustrated. They all were full of tears at least for couple of nights. But they have asked themselves that what is inside Me.? They never quit from their purpose and action. In fact, they were master of themselves , they never demand motivator . They have rule their heart for years . They were strict to the resolutions they have made to themselves.
To become world class performer, one has to invest at least 10,000 hours in the field. It can take years of someone’s life to create most sensational or exciting news in the society.

I love India because of 10 most genuine reasons. India has shown to the world that someone can live and die happily without BENZ car and Blackberry. India has given wisdom of peace and power of non-violence to the world. Most exemplary leadership shown by Indian mother from the last couple of centuries. Street intelligence is more powerful than university intelligence is demonstrated by entrepreneur of the country.
1/  POWERFUL CIVILISATION .
2/  STRONG  CULTURE.
3/  INFLUENCING  BHAGWAD GEETA  AND UPNISHAD.
4/ FAMILY SPIRIT.
5/  LIVE AND LET LIVE IDEOLOGY.
6/  GROWING ATTITUDE
7/  MULTI LANGUAGE AND MULTI COMMUNITY ALTHOUGH UNITED.
8/ MOST INTELLECTUAL COMMUNITY. ( I come across community of 62 countries.)
9/  LARGEST CONSUMER MARKET
10/ SPIRITUAL WAY OF LIFE.

During the school year, Mondays in this rural Georgia community are for video games, trips to grandma’s house and hanging out at the neighborhood community center.

Don’t bother showing up for school. The doors are locked and the lights are off.

Peach County is one of more than 120 school districts across the country where students attend school just four days a week, a cost-saving tactic gaining popularity among cash-strapped districts struggling to make ends meet. The 4,000-student district started shaving a day off its weekly school calendar last year to help fill a $1 million budget shortfall.

It was that or lay off 39 teachers the week before school started, said Superintendent Susan Clark.

“We’re treading water,” Clark said as she stood outside the headquarters of her seven-school district. “There was nothing else for us to do.”

The results? Test scores went up.

So did attendance — for both students and teachers. The district is spending one-third of what it once did on substitute teachers, Clark said.

And the graduation rate likely will be more than 80 percent for the first time in years, Clark said.

The four days that students are in school are slightly longer and more crowded with classes and activities. After school, students can get tutoring in subjects where they’re struggling.

On their off day, students who don’t have other options attend “Monday care” at area churches and the local Boys & Girls Club, where tutors are also available to help with homework. The programs generally cost a few dollars a day per student.

Experts say research is scant on the effect of a four-day school week on student performance. In fact, there is mostly just anecdotal evidence in reports on the trend with little scientific data to back up what many districts say, said University of Southern Maine researcher Christine Donis-Keller.

“The broadest conclusion you can draw is that it doesn’t hurt academics,” said Donis-Keller, who is with the university’s Center for Education Policy, Applied Research and Evaluation.

Many districts that have the shortened schedule say they’ve seen students who are less tired and more focused, which has helped raise test scores and attendance. But others say that not only did they not save a substantial amount of money by being off an extra day, they also saw students struggle because they weren’t in class enough and didn’t have enough contact with teachers.

The school district in Marlow, Okla., is switching back to a five-day week after administrators decided students were not being served well by attending school only four days. The 440-student district tried the shorter week the spring semester this year to save $25,000 in operation costs.

“It was harder on the teachers. We were asking the kids to move at a quicker pace,” said district Superintendent Bennie Newton. “We’re hoping the four-day week won’t come into play next year.”

The move by Peach County in Georgia gets mixed reviews.

Parents like Heather Bradshaw worry that their children are getting shortchanged on time with teachers.

“I don’t feel like they’re having the necessary time in the classroom,” said Bradshaw, a single mother with a fourth-grade son at one of the county’s three elementary schools. “The schedule has slowed him down.”

Other parents prefer the shorter schedule and don’t mind the hassle of finding a babysitter one day a week.

“It makes the children’s weekend a little better, so they get more rest,” said LaKeisha Johnson, who sends her fourth-grade daughter to the Boys & Girls Club on Mondays.

The trend of four-day school weeks started in New Mexico during the oil crisis of the 1970s and has been popular in rural states where students have to commute a long way. Other districts have used it as a way to try to fix schools with a long history of poor student performance by shaking up the schedule and giving children more time to study outside of school.

Georgia, Oklahoma and Maine have changed their laws in the last couple of years to allow districts to count their school year by hours rather than days, allowing for a four-day week if needed. Hawaii schools were off every other Friday this year for schools to save money, giving them the state with the shortest school year in the country.

From California to Minnesota to New York, districts — mostly small, rural ones with less than 5,000 students — are following the trend, hoping to rescue their bleeding budgets.

For Peach County, the four-day week was enough of a success that the school district is trying it again next year, Clark said. The move saves $400,000 annually and is popular among teachers and students because they get extra rest, she said

“Teachers tell me they are much more focused because they’ve had time to prepare. They don’t have kids sleeping in class on Tuesday,” she said. “Everything has taken on a laser-light focus.”

___