Strategic Management Building Competitive Advantage.

I would like to thank Nanyang Technological University, National University of Singapore, Hongkong University, Malaya University, Assuit University, Bahrain University, Gulf University, Southwestern University, University of Visayas, Central Philippines University, San Carlos University, Bulacan State University, San Beda College, National University of Australia and University of Beirut for including the book in their syllabus and for student's reference. My heartfelt thanks.

Emotional Intelligence- Putting Things In Proper Perspectives and Mojo or Nojo-Where Are You Living? were conceptualized during my stint with one of the colleges in the Middle East. Writing of these books served as a developmental process to me (since there is no collaborative research undertakings within the college-I call it the dry-up knowledge)and minimize boredom created by the environment.

Strategic Management Building Competitive Advantage and Human Resource Management In Action were written a long time ago, but was completed lately when I was in Singapore.

I thanks God for the blessings.

On the Final Thoughts: Dispelling the Myths of Organizational Leadership; included in the book" Mojo or Nojo- Where Are You Living?"

Let's start the year with the reflection of common myths that impede the effectiveness of organizational leadership in pursuing performance excellence. We also examine approaches that can help organizational leadership overcome these faulty assumptions to include truisms for accelerating and sustaining performance improvement. It is important to mention although these costly assumptions of organizational leadership are common failure points, they are not meant to serve as an exhaustive list.

Myth 1: The Primary Metrics of Effective Leadership are Strategy, Execution, and Results
Although I agree that leaders are responsible for strategy, execution, and results,I feel that this is incomplete paradigm that does not account for humanistic factors, the power of culture, and the greater good of society. I have observed that in the short run, leaders can deliver results without creating an environment of employee engagement, but this approach is not sustainable. It's somewhat like comparing the effectiveness of totalitarian versus democratic governments. The organization may succeed for the short term, but in the interim people will be trying to defect or hoping for the proverbial "Berlin Wall" to fall.

Truism 1: Perception Is Reality and Trust Is the Basis for Employee Engagement
Shelley Morisette and Mike Schraeder's article on leadership shares the finding of a survey on our perception of leadership. The authors include the actual rating list of effective leaders with the top 10 characterizing a very high ethos of trust and fostering solidarity . Leaders should solicit feedback proactively and build a diverse network of employees to serve on their personal board of directors to help them identify blind spots. Otherwise, they'll just continue to hear adulations from employees who do a good job of managing up.

The emergence of new generations in the work force, as highlighted by Izzy Gesell's article on dealing with generational workers, can create a barrier that further exacerbates the difficulty in creating employee engagement. Oftentimes a new product launch will fail because the market was not effectively segmented with a compelling value proposition;21st century leaders need to make a certain segment their "internal customer" to understand fully the unique needs and desired benefits of different generations and cultures.

Myth 2: Employees Understand Their Roles and Responsibilities in Achieving the Vision and Mission of the organization
Most of the organizations have taken the basic step of defining their strategy or mission statement collects dust from hanging on a boardroom wall. Steven Hacker provided a clear illustration of how companies foster "zombie-ism" by viewing their employees in the narrow functional role that they perform.Viewing employees as a "set of hands" or "technical skills" becomes self-fulfilling prophecy in that organization does not effectively win the hearts and minds of its employees.

Truism 2: Managers and Training Manuals Teach Function; Leaders and Behaviors Help Employees Learn Their Purpose
Leaders in the 21st Century must view their role as helping employee see the broader context of purpose and not merely their individual functions. A brilliant example of understanding purpose over function occured when NASA employee was asked to explain his job. Although the gentleman performed the function of sweeping floors and emptying trash, he responded by saying that his job was to put a man on the moon.

The responsibilty of creating an environment where employees understand their contributions in achieving the mission, vision, and values of the organization cannot be delegated. Leaders should use every opportunity to personally communicate and reinforce the purpose of the organization . For example, share the strategy with employees,start each meeting by talking about the mission first, and use communication to create an affinity to the values. Curt Coffman, the author of First Break All Rules, says "culture eats strategy;" therefore , leaders need to make certain they are listening actively to their employees to determine if the strategy is effectively deployed.

Thomas Koulopoulos' article stated that leaving innovation to only a small group of innovators overlooks the untapped innovation in the workforce. Leaders need to create an organizational climate that makes employees feel as if they are vital part of running the business. Leaders can help create this climate by holding town hall sessions that encourage open dialog, taking informal tours of the operations to
solicit opinions, and collecting everyone's input in the strategic planning process.

I suggest asking yourself the question " Are you developing a Mojo Organization?" Your answer will tell you whether you are a 21st century leader.

Myth 3: Human Resources Are Responsible for Hiring, On_ Boarding, and Employee Benefits
Large organizations create (also known as bureaucracies) to enhance specialization and improve efficiencies. An unintended consequence is the propensity of leaders to rely on the human resources function for managing an organization's most important resource- the employees. Several years ago I conducted a qualitative study of leaders in an organization to identify their personal behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes related to performance. The leaders from the top performing business units demonstrated a high discernment for selecting candidates and a strong gravitation to developing their leadership team. For example, one of the top performing leaders said, " the business unit with the best team wins!" On the other hand, the contrasting group (a euphemism for low performing leaders) tended to be more detached from the management of human capital. This group did not use analytical methods for hiring, was less likely to know the aspirations of their laders, and often did not know the names of employees working in their business units.

Truism 3: Effective Leaders Invest Time and Resources on Selecting, Maximizing, and Retaining Talent
One of the fundamental concepts of quality is that we cannot have quality outputs without the right inputs; therefore it is perplexing that leaders do not invest more time and effort on sourcing the best inputs, such as talent. Christine Robinson's article on a nationalistic culture helps us understand that cultural archetypes are a byproduct of the people who comprise the culture and mechnisms that reinforce morays or sanctions. In practical terms, if you want a culture of improvement, then select people who have innate ability to maximize a process.If you want to be a 21st century leader, you need to view your role as the architect of your organization's culture and this starts with the selection of the right inputs-talent. Every human is blessed with some unique talent and the key to success is finding talent that strengthens your organization's competitive advantage.

Call to Action
Let's start the year by focusing on the things that matter most-inspiring vision, creating trust. promoting dialog, and leveraging talent.

Tokyo/ Kyoto... Pictures...... Students, Faculty and Friends.. Mark Jardeleza "my kababata's son" on the cover of Asian Times

We Hit the 5,000 copies.....and more... Emotional Intelligence.. Buy your copies at all Bookstores in Singapore, Malaysia, Bahrain, Egypt, Dubai..

Human Resource Management in Action by Jolito Ortizo Padilla- What The Book Is All About..

A heart surgeon took his motorcycle to the garage to be serviced. The experienced mechanic working in his bike said to him, "You know, there are a lot of similarities between your job and mine. We both make a diagnosis, take off covers, replace worn out parts, do some cleaning up, put it back together again and check that it is all working well."

"Your are right, " said the heart surgeon, "but you try and replace the pistons while the engine is running!"

What has this to do with Human Resource Management in Action?

An organization is like a living creature:
An organization is complicated; it was born and grew; it has a mind of its own (often behaving irrationally), it thrives in the right environment, occasionally falls ill, and eventually die. Yet we sometimes study human resource management(HRM) as if managing people in organizations is like building and maintaining a machine. HRM in Action gives you the opportunity to step back from the mechanistic study of the individual elements of HRM ( resourcing, reward, relations and development) and see how, by linking them together, "joined -up" HRM contributes to the living organization. That is one of the reasons why this topic area is such an exciting challenge and a great opportunity if you are a student.

Each Organization is unique:
Just like human beings, no two organizations are the same and each one calls for a different set of HRM actions. By basing each HRM in Acion on a case study, you are given an opportunity to apply your HRM knowledge (possibly already gained in other fields) to a "real" situation. The book is always looking for understanding rather than textbook knowledge, and this is essemtial in HRM in Action.

Think broad-not in waterfight compartments:
We like it when candidates can open up their answers by proposing wide ranging solutions that bring together the different HRM subject areas. (But beware, this is not an invitation to drag every question back to your one favorite topic.

HRM is integrated:
Let me demonstrate. Recruitment links to employee reward because people join an organization to get a total reward package. Reward links to learning because people will learn only if they see a benefit from doing so. Learning and development links to career management and career management to employee relations (how many employees have sensed the psychological contract was breached because they were promised a career but were given only a job with no prospects?)An organization's employee relations climate influences its HR strategy, and the HR strategy dictates the types of employee the organization is trying to recruit. So we have come full circle back to recruitment. There are so many routes we could take, linking every aspect of HRM. Understanding this is central to your success in HRM in action.

Ouch!:
If I kick you in the shin, your integrated response would include your rational brain, your emotions, your mouth, probably your arms, and possibly even your fist! In HRM in Action we want you to demonstrate this holistic approach to managing and developing people. So when you look at the syllabus, pay attention to how each of the topics covered integrate with each other.

But there are a few topics that are central to integration:
By its very nature, performance management is a bundle of HR practices that together improve individual and collective performance. Likewise, the psychological contract and job design are wide ranging. Reward management is often the key to getting people to change; offer employees a reward for changing and they may pay attention; threatens to take away a reward to which they are accustomed and they will definitely listen!

Adopt a managerial perspective:
Recommending managerial action requires students to see things as managers would see them. Seeing things from employees' prespective is useful, but you need to be able to look after the needs of managers and owners as well. Assuming that managers are always bad leaders, owners are unreasonable and money grabbing, and employees always dedicated, overworked and underpaid is only acceptable if that is what the case study says.

"How" not just "what":
This is a very practical paper and candidates need to be able to show not just what they would recommend but also how they would put theirs into action (hence the title HRM in Action). You will find questions say" outline the steps you would take" or "describe how this could be implemented" or "suggest how would you evaluate its effectiveness".

A living organism depends upon its external environment:
So you would expect the management and development of people in organizations to be highly dependent upon the external environment. For example, we would expect you to recommend different HR solutions for a huge public sector bureucracy than for a small high performance paternalistic hotel.

But how do you approach a case study?
It is valuable to ask" what is happening in this case study and (more imnportantly) why?" The approach taken by a medical practioner provides a useful paralle, which you might do well to imitate in the HRM in Action:
1. Identify symptoms: What are the features in the case study?
2. Diagnosis: What are the underlying problems/ issues causing these symptoms?
(Use your knowledge of HR to help you with this analysis.)
3. Solutions: What should be done to address the underlying problems /issues.

Let me illustrate this: In Chapter 4, I presented candidates with a hotel case study. Question 1 asked how candidates would improve the hotel's staff retention without significantly increasing operating costs. Some candidates ignored the cost requirement and simply recommended "increase pay and holidays" But the case study already said that pay was excellent and staff retention already better than in other hotels. So increasing pay would be unlikely to help. (In fact, if it reduced profit too much it could close the hoteland that isn't good for staff retention!)

Staff satisfaction was the key, and the case study gave the clues-quality customer service was critical and this called for better training and employee engagement. We were looking for the employee to improve the quality of working life: increasing the variety of work, autonomy and social interaction-with colleagues, customers and suppliers; engaging staff more with business and providing more responsibility; improving work life balance; and providing a career rather than just a job-which isn't easy in a hotel but was important to this paternalistic employer. All these could be drawn from analyzing the issues given in the case study and applying the sorts of job design solutions.

Don't depend on your experience of work:
Lot's of students have worked in only one organization and have experience of only one sector, size , structure, culture, stage of maturity. If you are in this position you need to read , talk and think about different organizations. Take a look at the previous case studies we have used and you will see some variety.

Practice makes perfect:
HR students always need practice in developing their case study technique. It is somethimg that is rarely natural. There are plenty of HRM in Action case studies to use for practice and discussion.

Finally:
There is still a long way to go but I am determined to help you apply your knowledge of HRM to real world situations. The way you are more likely to become a useful manager and developer of people. I hope you will help me in this endeavor.

The launching of this book "The Human Resources Managemenent in Action" will be announced in the future time...

Business Roundtable Discussion.... Unleashing Indian's Dynamism in the State Capitalism.

Since there are no Indian Professors in the university, I was tasked to research the economic dynamism of India. This was presented in the Roundtable Discussion with the local businessmen to update them on the latest economic outlook of India.

Unleashing Indian's Dynamism in the Shift from State Capitalism:

Nowadays, economist are assailed by irresolute thoughts. What, for example, is the right term to apply to current global economic conditions? Is it "depression", "recession", or "recovery"?

What of the euro? Will it flounder or regain its "health"?

As this debates fill the air in finance ministries and economic departments around the globe, India continues its steady GDP growth, now projected to reach 9.4 percent this year, 2010. The government says the growth rate will hit double figures soon.

Although, many people seem amazed that India maintained such rapid growth for so long-ever in the face of the global downturn-surprise is unwarranted. India's proportion of global GDP stood at 25 percent in 1750, but slumped to 1.6 percent by 1900, at the high noon of imperialism. India is simply rising again to reassert its traditional global position.

Can India achieved this?

Many challenges confront India in its path to sustained strong growth,principally that of converting the country's promise into reality. In order to acieve this in a true democracy, India must insure distributive justice.

It must ensure enhanced purchasing power leads to a markedly improved quality of life for all India's citizen.

Currently, India has a window of opportunity, nearly unique in nature. Thanks to a huge demographic dividend. Almost 60 percent of the country's population is below age 30. This advantage is limited in duration, lasting two or perhaps three decades. It it is not used now, it will dissipate.

To seize this opportunity, India first must move decisively away from state capitalism, the remnants of which continue to retard the country's economic progress. India's economic future lies in maximizing it's private sectors dynamism, which demands an acceleration of institutional reform, including privatization at both the national and state level.

But, as the Indian economist and frequent policymaker Vijay Kelkar has put it, "India need to fashion its own sugeneris model of growth and development toward and advanced economy, greater equity and better governance under liberal democracy.

Simply copying American, British or other Western Policies and institutions won't do. Moreover, India is not China; it cannot be -indeed, it must not be. That is why it should not hanker after ersatz export-led or state- directed growth.

India's second great challenge is to resolve its enormous infrastructure shortcomings. India is no longer primarily an agricultural economy; and agriculture accounts for only around 20 percent of GDP. But this not mean that agriculture should be neglected; on the contrary, it remains a way of life for many millions of Indians, who need capital and technology.

Raising farm productivity and income requires improved irrigation, wasteland reclamation, warehousing, marketing, transport development and the free movement of produce within the country.

That's why rapid strengthening of India's physical and social infrastructure is central to its progress.

This leads us to examine India's current fixation with GDP growth as a national pancea. The theory is that the government, as the agent of the people, collect taxes and delivers public goods in return. In this sense, the Indian state has beed rather a poor agent; it collects little and delivers a pittance- and what it does deliver is of grossly inadequate quality.

Yet the Indian state continues to ask for the disproportionately high price from the people. This must change by directly targeting the alleviation of poverty-and ultimately its elimination.

I accepted that the most powerful anti-poverty program is economic growth, but it works only if and when it is accompanied by distributive justice.

Only such "just" growth can eventually be converted into high GNC or Gross National Contentment - a truer index of economic well being. Rather than endless debates about high budgetary allocations, India needs to find practical ways to promote effective, targeted , self adjusting and self liquidating anti-povety programs.

It is not the amount of money allocated by government that matters. The true litmus test of budget expenditure is what actually gets delivered. Only an inclusive appoach to reform can meet people's expectations, and in turn spread contentment.

India does not need more laws. It needs more effective and more accountable governments. It does not need more regulations, but rather a vastly larger canvass for individual freedom and opportunity. India's economy must be freed from organizing principle of state control so that individual enterprise and creativity become its main engine.

India is at the threshold of an era of unprecedented growth. But to cross it, Indians must craft a new idea of India as the flagship of a modern global economy that unleashes the dynamism of all citizen.