Structure of a brainstorming meeting

1) Set the meeting before lunch; this would be the first part of the meeting. In this encourage the brainstorming without any limit on the ideas.
2) While breaking for lunch, suggest everyone to think up of any new ideas during lunchtime.
3)Set up the next part of the meeting after lunch, when you can convert the ideas into a more practical framework.

Bas karo Lalooji

Recently we had Laloo Prasad Yadav give a lecture on the Indian Railways in IIM Ahmedabad. But as it turned out, he was there only for eye candy (An oxymoron, if there ever was one!) The answers and explanations were given by his subordinates - the actual people responsible for handling the changes. Now there are news reports of Laloo Prasad being invited to Wharton and Harvard, probably to do the same thing. I do not oppose the Indian Railways being discussed & studied at these B-schools. What I wonder is why does the railway minister need to go along too? I don't think his contribution is required much there. If all he is going to do is to quip a few sound bites, I think it would be better for him to concentrate on doing that to his political rivals here in India. Udhar kya woh Bush Presidentwa ko paath padhayenge?

Further it seems to me that Laloo's role in the Indian Railways turnaround is a bit overhyped. If we go by the facts, it seems that Laloo is just enjoying the fruits of the hard work put in by railways officials in the last five years. It is just Laloo's fortune that he happened to be the Railway Minister when the turnaround showed some results. And I do not blame him. I'm sure his rival Nitish Kumar would have done the same thing. That's what politicians all around the world do - Promise. Not act. Claim. I don't think Laloo's the kind to miss out on such an opportunity. I just hope he doesn't take the whole family and a dozen of his favourite cattle along with him as well. But then again, he could teach them Americans a few things about milking cows efficiently.

Attrition

Here's a very interesting and relevant post on the IT industry (and I'm sure in the other sectors as well). Though it delves mainly on the prudency in serving the notice period, it highlights a major issue in the industry today. Attrition. Everyone (at least the HR dept) would agree that attrition is a major problem in IT companies. Employees, at the drop of a hat, leave their jobs and join some place else. This could be because of as trivial a reason as a slightly higher salary. And the way they do it is in an unceremonious manner too. And most often than not, it sours the relation between the employee and employer when it should have no reason to. The reason is two-fold.

Firstly many companies seem to get hurt when an employee gives them his resignation letter. They seem to develop hostile feelings to the employee from that point on itself. And many a times, due to this, the severance formalities take a long time to complete and with a lot of dhakke in true sarkari style. Yes, Indians, as a whole are not proactive enough. They have yet to learn the fact that even though the person is leaving for a rival company, the fact that he gave his best here, and he is leaving gracefully is sometimes overlooked. Many a times, the employee chooses to ignore the notice period and just get his hands clear of the company (especially if he's had a bad experience at the company).

The second reason why this is a major problem is that employees don't bother to realize why the notice period is there in the first place. Among other things, it is required so that the company can train another employee, so that in that last few weeks, you can transfer your responsibilities to that other person. This is important esp. in the software development level where the level of understanding your own code, no matter how beautifully written decreases proportionally to the weeks gone by. Then what would a complete newbie figure out in your program without your help? So it is easy to see why companies would be pissed off if you do not serve the notice period. Many people would think, I gave my resignation, why should I think about what they do, or what they don't with my work? Why should I ever contact them again? Well, then that's a basic attitude problem in such people and no one can change that. Many people think, everyone does it, kya farak padta hai? Padta hai farak esp. when you've done such job-hoppings more than you should have. Someday the IT Industry will bring out a black list of such job-hoppers and then you wouldn't have any place to hide.

The moral is that employees should learn to be more responsible (if they already aren't) during these last 'awkward' moments and should help the company to smoothly ride the transition. Secondly, companies should be proactive and not turn hostile to the employee who has genuine reasons to leave. If the person has fulfilled his responsibilities before leaving, why should you still be fuming? Thirdly, employees shouldn't break their links with their previous employers just because they're not within meeting distance of each other. The world's a small place and someday you might just meet up again. And you would like to be introduced as someone who handled all existing responsibilities before looking for higher opportunities than as someone who shirked his work and snuck out the back door.


PS. May have many grammatical mistakes. Guess I'm done for this Sunday.