Vijay Bankar

I had referred to 11 IBM Leadership Competencies in my previous posts. Fortunately I had managed to get more details (below) of these competencies in Management and Organisational  Behaviour by Laurie J. Mullins – (2005)(Page 319-320). Hope this would give us additional insights to understand efforts taken by Mr. Louis Gerstner for the transformation of IBM during his tenure. [ IBM - List of Competencies page 210, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? (2002) ]. This post will give us a complete picture of the significant role of competencies in organizational transformation.  Focus to Win Customer Insight Outstanding IBM managers and senior professionals put themselves in the minds of the customer, and see customers’ needs and businesses, from the customers’ point of view. They focus on the unexpressed or future needs of the customer. Managers and senior professionals having Customers’ Insight go beyond IBM’s exemplary responsiveness to customer complaints or...

Once, I heard someone say, what is so important about the Job Description? After all, it's just a piece of paper & what difference does that make? The Job Description can best be compared to a  'User Manual'  which tells us  'how to'  operate particular device or machine. It gives precise details about components, requirements, directions for effective and efficient use. As they say 'When all else fails, read the instructions', and, 'When all else fails, and the instructions are missing - kick it'. In our case we can't kick it; hence a wise option is to 'read the instructions'. Let us see why a Job Description is so important. As we all know the process involved for this is called 'Job Analysis' and theoretically the output is 'Job Description' and 'Job Specification'. [While the Job Description describes tasks to be accomplished, the Job Specifications lists the Knowledge, Skills, and...

[Image source: Google Image] While going through SHL - "2013 Global Assessment Trends Report", trends reflected that 'Creating / implementing Competency Model (s) was ranking at number eleven (11) in list of 'HR Priorities - 2013'. And only one-third of respondents indicated that Competency Models are used effectively in their organizations.  Now, that was an unexpected finding, considering the fact that Competency Development and Management is an integral part of strategic HR initiatives. In fact mission critical for successful strategy implementation for any organization. ( 'The Execution Premium' by Robert S. Kaplan, David P. Norton ) It also reminded me of a well-known quote, "Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important" by Stephen R. Covey. As a matter of fact it was Hay Group that assisted Mr. Lou Gerstner Jr. Chairman & CEO, IBM (1993-2002) in developing eleven ...