Musings of an HR Guy…Connecting the Dots
Despite working in a heavily Toyota-oriented environment for many years now, I still take in my breath at how profound (yet deceptively simple) the Toyota Way philosophy is. It keeps revealing its timeless wisdom when stress-tested against both predictable cycles as well as black-swan convulsions. I am usually quite cynical about grand narratives and pristine... Continue Reading →
My first reading of Margaret Wheatley's writings many years ago aroused the sensation described by Keats in his "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" - which ends with those mesmerizing last words: "Silent, upon a peak in Darien". Keats compares his sudden discovery of Chapman's translation of Homer with the moment Hernan Cortes and his... Continue Reading →
Barry Oshry's work is filled with insights on recurring patterns that emerge within various parts of a system...whether that system is a team, department, family, tribe, classroom etc. His work is worth the read for any HR professional. He talks about common patterns of issues confronted by actors in homologous parts of a system…tops, middles,... Continue Reading →
Came across a nice little template of 4 questions that can be used by a leader who is asked to teach other leaders, so that they can make their content forceful, coherent, and authentic. They were drawn up by Noel Tichy, the person who led Crotonville (GE's legendary leadership institute, where they pioneered Leaders Teaching... Continue Reading →
Quotidian HR is sneered on - the ho hum daily work done by salt of the earth HR folks that can add up to work miracles with good teamwork and a supportive culture & leadership. It does not, however, have cinematic appeal. Many consultants exploit this to insinuate themselves and create dependency. The noble exceptions command admiration.
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy! To a Mouse, Robert Burns In the spirit of cautionary tales, I wanted to capture my observations of successful... Continue Reading →
The sight of a plane coming in to land almost always sends chills down my spine. Though it’s one of the most common sights, and the world has been blasé about air travel for over a century now, I still find the idea of hundreds of tons of metal, materials and people floating in the... Continue Reading →
Settling in is a long and painstaking process. Here I was thinking that once our container gets delivered and the boxes get opened we’ll just be a hop, skip and jump away from getting back into gear, after five months of floating in transit. It’s now six weeks in the new place, and there’s still... Continue Reading →
Last lines from Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"... The Clouds that gather round the setting sun Do take a sober coloring from an eye That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality; Another race hath been, and other palms are won. Thanks to the human heart by which we live, Thanks to... Continue Reading →
1. The artist I'd commissioned to do a sketch for B's farewell in 2000 coming charging down the passage in my office to deliver the drawing which he had delayed. At first I could hear his regular tread from afar, but as he realized he was within earshot of my office he literally started sprinting,... Continue Reading →
Notes to Self 