Kaivalyam

I recently listened to Worklife with Adam Grant podcast about “ Creative Misfits ”. Adam Grant is an organizational Psychologist and in this podcast he talks about value of outsiders in workplace. He focuses more on “blacksheep” inside the company that could unlock creativity and success. Turns out this has been “Pixar’s” success formula and they thrived on self-disruption. Grant interviews Brad Bird - a writer, animator and director at Pixar and was considered as misfit elsewhere before he was hired by Pixar. The podcast uncovers unconventional hiring practices at Pixar and encourages HR to explore full potential of human assets without falling into routine thinking.  Pixar during its success, hired a “misfit/blacksheep”, Brad Bird. He was just fired from Disney and two other jobs as well. Pixar saw something in Brad despite his failures. I can’t imagine why would a company risk that in their popular times! After Brad was hired, he gathered blacksheeps like him inside ...

Trends in technology has enabled companies to take customized or diverse orders from customers. Internet has also created many opportunities for companies to make mass customization easier. In the HBR article by Pine and Boynton, they explains how continuous improvement and mass customization are different. They also point out that continuous improvement should be should be a pre-requisite for mass customization. Toyota failed to differentiate mass customization and continuous improvement. They found out hard way that these two concepts are different in terms organizational structures, training, management and customer relations. In my opinion, mass customization in one way reduces waste expenditures and creates value for customers by giving them what they want. On the other hand, there are challenges such as finding right workforce with vast amount of creativity, flexibility, breaking cross functional teams, long response times etc that are all required to make mass customization...

I  recently listened to a HR Break Room podcast where Barbara Corcoran was interviewed. She is the founder of The Corcoran Group and investor on ABC’s famous S hark Tank show. The podcast discusses about tips for leading effective organizational changes and the critical role of communication in transformation. It talks about how technology in workplace affects different demographics along with how HR can use technology for better opportunities and emerge as strategic leaders. Interesting facts Barbara Corcoran borrowed $1000 and quit job as a waitress to start a tiny real estate company in NYC. Her company is the pioneer in selling real estate on internet and identified the use of internet technology in their business. Few take away from the podcast are as follows: Transformation and Communication Transformation and communication should go hand in hand. Change or transformation is essential that if not implemented well, organizations disappear. She points ou...