Sunday, August 29, 2010

Enterprise 2.0 Books For General Managers and Human Capital Management Researchers

For the past couple of years I have been focusing on the next generation workplace. My goal was to find out on how the new generation of employees, new technologies that make connecting and sharing easy, will change enterprise software and people behavior in the workplace. I found these books valuable and decide to share the wealth.  The authors are a blend of seminal thinkers, radical practitioners and consultants. Did I miss anything?

Reading for general managers

Andrew McAfee - Researcher, Academic
Enterprise 2.0: New Collaborative Tools for Your Organization's Toughest Challenges


Charlene Li - Analyst, Consultant

Book: Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies

My takeaway: This was the first book I read that covered the Web 2.0 topic in a comprehensive manner.

Josh Bernoff
Empowered : Unleash Your Employees, Energize Your Customers, and Transform Your Business

My Take Away: Consumers are empowered. The only way you can meet their needs is to empower your employees using Enterprise 2.0 tools. A good guide for business and people leaders.
Open Leadership: How Social Technology Can Transform the Way You Lead
My takeaway: The way an organizations leadership behaves needs to change to adapt to the new generation of people and tools.


Morten Hansen's book, "Collaboration"
Recommended by
@movito
My takeaway: The book focuses on the economic value of collaboration. 



Reading for designers and users of people management systems
Richard H Thaler and Cass R Sunstein - Academics
Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness
My takeway: I understood how choice architecture by designers of systems can influence people.


Nicholas A Christakis and James H. Fowler  - Academics
Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives
My takeway: I understood the power of connections and how they affect our lives. The strength of weak links was a good lesson.


Clay Shirky - Academic
Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age
My takeaway: I understood why there is a sudden surge in people's urge to creating rather than just consume.
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations


Seth Godin - Thinker, Marketer
Tribes: We need you to lead us
Linchpin : Are You Indispensable?
My takeaway : In todays world, the factory needs the worker more than how much the worker needs the factory.


Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson - Entrepreneurs, Radical Thinkers
Rework
My takeaway: A small number of companies are disrupting traditional thinking about hiring, managing and retaining workers. 37 Signals is a company to watch. 


Dennis Shiffman
The Age of Engage: Reinventing Marketing for Today's Connected, Collaborative, and Hyperinteractive Culture


Don Tapscott - Researcher, Consultant
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything


Learning, Performance Management and Succession
Jay Cross - Thinker, Researcher, ConsultantInformal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance 
My takeaway : Conversation is the best learning technology. Learning systems should enable conversation.



Ram Charan - Thinker, Academic, Consultant
Leaders at All Levels: Deepening Your Talent Pool to Solve the Succession Crisis
My takeaway : Apprenticeship is the key to succession planning and dialog among leaders is the key to talent management. Not a system that tries to automate talent management.


Daniel Pink
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
My takeaway: Higher financial incentives do not improve performance in 'cognitive' tasks.


Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations
Network Challenge : Strategy Profit And Risk In An Interlinked World

Demographics and Millennial Generation

Marketing and Customer Relationship Management
These book are not directly related to people management. But they are a good read to understand trends in the consumer world.

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Keeping the Millennials

I am reading the book "Keeping the Millennials"
Keeping The Millennials: Why Companies Are Losing Billions in Turnover to This Generation- and What to Do About It
It is a good book on the topic by two experienced organizational development consultants. The language in the book will be familiar for human resources and training professionals. I particularly liked the chapter on the topic "preparing the millennials to lead".

Saturday, August 14, 2010

How not making things affects your thinking

Many of todays professionals move on to the thinking and advising business from the making business. Many of these professionals used to make things and are brilliant and have very good ideas of how things worked, in the past.

But those who moved from the making business to the thinking business are a bit like the Indians who left India a century ago. [or the French who left their France or the English who left England]. While the Indian citizens have moved on with the world and changed their habits and beliefs to cope with current realities, those who left their motherland still hold on to the, sometime decades old, traditions, ideas and beliefs. When they visit their motherland, they are surprised how those in India are not behaving like Indians should. Frequent visits to their motherland open their eyes to what it means to be an Indian in today's world.

This is true for those who stop making things and only advise others for a living. If you are in the advice business for a long time, I suggest you take a break and go run a factory or take a line job for a while. At least visit a real business that makes things. If you can't take a long break, try doing a small assignment where you actually make things. It will change the way you think.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Designing Social Interfaces

I am browsing through the book Designing Social Interfaces
Designing Social Interfaces: Principles, Patterns, and Practices for Improving the User Experience (Animal Guide)
This is a very good reference book for product designers, product managers and social media product developers.

Individualized, frequent, specific and timely recognition can reduce turnover in your company

The Carrot Principle: How the Best Managers Use Recognition to Engage Their People, Retain Talent, and Accelerate Performance
management consultants Adrian Gostick and Chester Elton explain how organizations and managers can use praise and recognition to motivate their workforces.

The authors base their conclusions on a survey of 200,000 employees in North America. Results indicate that job satisfaction has never been lower. Lack of motivation and disengagement leading to increased turnover represents the most significant uncalculated expense for employers. It is estimated that replacing a staff member can cost up to 250 percent of the person's annual salary.

Nudging managers to recognize their employees individually and often can significantly reduce turnover in a company. 

Here is a short video summary
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