Game for testing your 'employer brand'?

I have been invited for the SHRM India monthly meet to be held in Chennai tomorrow evening and the theme to be discussed is 'Employer Branding'. Would like to share a few innocent pre discussion thoughts on the topic.

Here are a few questions a business leader might ask himself to test his company's 'employer brand'(Answers should not be on a likert scale. A plain 'yes' or 'no' would suffice):

• Do people join your company to 'build a career' instead of just having a mere job?
• Do they market the success of their company as if it's their own?
  
• Do your employees get riled up when the company's brand becomes a victim of unjustified critisicm?
• Does your employees always look for the next 'big or small' oppurtunity to talk about their company with great enthusiasm?
• Does your employees take a major onus in ensuring that the new recruits get fitted into the company's proud organizational fabric?
• Can your employees find a world of oppurtunities, moments & friends within the company which they can cherish?
• Is your company able to attract the talented yet passive job seekers in the market with minimum visibility?

An 'Yes' to each of the 7 (a spiritual number according to numerology) questions might make your 'employer brand' an incredible brand :-)

TEDx Chennai 2010

I had an incredible time listening to diverse list of speakers during the TEDx Chennai 2010 conference on 9th October 2010 held at IIT-Madras.

All of you who have missed the show and want to get a snapshot about the event, just click the following labels which will link you to interesting posts from the official TEDx Chennai Blog:

• TEDx Chennai 2010 Mindmap
• Rasmus Ankersen's talk
• Peter Van Geit's talk
• Lakshmi Pratury's talk
• Dr Tara Thiagarajan's talk
• Chendil Kumar's talk
• Chinny Krishna's talk
• Dr Ananda Shankar Jayant's talk
• Shekar Dattari's talk
• Rajendran's talk
• G J Siddharth's talk
• Prassana's talk
  

Collaboration in the midst of competition....

Two precursors for success in any team would be 'Competitiveness & Collaboration'. Yet if we consider them as a pair then it would definately qualify to be an oxymoron of the highest order.

So how can we ensure that a team has the right amount of competitiveness juxtaposed with the right amount of collaboration???

To answer that question we must reflect on what is the 'right' amount of competitiveness & collaboration???

The 'right' amount would be definately relative. An A R Rehman or Yanni concert would require higher amount of collaboration among the musicians & singers. However, a number chasing sales team would not mind ensuring high amount of competitiveness among it's associates at the cost of collaboration.

However, in the above context, many would associate 'competitiveness' with a sort of negativity and associate 'collaboration' with postivity. The real recipe of interwining competitiveness with collaboration lies in coating both with 'goodness'.

If there is a spirit of 'goodness' infused in 'collaboration' & 'competitiveness' then both would start complementing each other. Look around to find the best team you have ever come across and you will witness that sense of goodness in their collaboration and competitiveness.

The underlying philosophy should be that collaboration must enhance other team member's performance and one should compete with the purpose of completing the other team member's performance.

So dont let the competition kill your collaboration within the team and dont let the collaboration die down the competitiveness.

Compete with the purpose of collaborating and not vice versa :-)