Plain Ideas for Indonesia

New good article from Harvard Blog Network. Every leader should read this article. by Douglas R. Conant  |  12:00 PM July 12, 2013 Comments (83)         Even a brief interaction can change the way people think about themselves, their leaders, and the future. Each of those many connections you make has the potential to become a high point or a low point in someone's day. Each is a chance to transform an ordinary moment into a touchpoint. What is a touchpoint? A touchpoint is an interaction with one other person, a couple of people, or a group that can last a couple of minutes, a couple of hours, or a couple of days. Those Touchpoints can be planned or spontaneous, casual or carefully choreographed. Every touchpoint is spring-loaded with possibilities. Each one can build — or break — a relationship. For instance, when I was a first year graduate student at the J. L. Kellogg School of ...

Aileen Ionescu-Somers and Fransisco Szekely | Sat, 04/06/2013 12:59 PM | Business has entered a challenging new world full of opportunities for strategic innovation, and sustainability will be a major driver of these opportunities into the future. Let's look at some of the trends that indicate the emergence of this brave new world. There is a widening gulf between the replacement economy of industrialized nations and the first-buy economy driving consumption in poor and emerging countries. There is also increasing tension between material and non-material economies: production, demand and commodity prices are rising, while the costs of immaterial goods such as shared multimedia content are falling. And there are new markets springing up to serve the "less poor", who earn between US$2 and $10 per day. Other important trends include the flourishing "south-south" economy — where emerging economies are trading with each other and with less developed c...

What do you do if you're a leader in a large, successful organization with an entrenched bureaucracy, and you see the need for innovation? Can you change the way a large organization — such as the federal government — does its work, when all the forces are arrayed for stability and conservatism? Consider the story of the  Business Transformation Agency  of the Department of Defense, which was founded in 2005 under Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, and "disestablished" in 2011 by  Defense Secretary Gates . The Business Transformation Agency was populated by people brought in from the commercial sector. They were bold and brash and injected fresh new ideas that challenged existing policy and practice in many quarters of the Department of Defense administration (such as finance, human resources, procurement, and supply chain processes). They ran into many of the familiar challenges of making changes in the federal government: the difficulty of firing; the complexity of hiring at m...

View Point: Viva Anas and other corruptors Kornelius Purba, The Jakarta Post | Sun, 02/24/2013 11:32 AM | Opinion When he announced his resignation as the Democratic Party chairman on Saturday, Anas Urbaningrum's expression was a combination of an elegant statesman and a victim of a satanic conspiracy. It was as if Anas had voluntarily decided to quit the country's largest political party as proof of his greatest sacrifice to the nation, and not because he felt guilty for (reportedly) robbing people's money to enrich himself and illicitly finance his party. TV audiences did not see him show remorse or shame for (allegedly) participating in the massive looting of state coffers by people who apparently believe they have the privilege to steal as much as they want at minimum risk. Using "sophisticated" phrases, Anas did not forget to spread "terror" among other party leaders, including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, by stating that what had just ...

October 11, 2012 Related topics Managing Open Forum Message On The Go? You can still catch up on business tips and expert advice with the OPEN Forum App - for iPhone or Android. Learn More Be the first to comment on this article    Employees want the flexibility to determine where, when and how they work. Technology enables them do that. Research shows that workers are away from their desks for as much as 70 percent of work time. That’s a problem. Management styles born in the days of sweatshops and typing pools, based on time clocks and counting heads, just don’t work with a mobile workforce. Whether your employees are down the hall or thousands of miles away in a client’s office, if you’re not measuring by results, you really don’t know who’s productive and who isn’t. Measure Productivity Results-based management  is nothing new or complex. In fact, it’s so simple even cavemen understood it. Find food, eat. No find food, hungry. Only ...

I love to read this article. When you become a great leader, it is not about achieving position or getting more income. From this article, you will understand that balancing your life is very important. One of the ways is through meditation. In moslem way, we call it praying. It is required for us to pray five times every day. Praying is not important as a medication tool, but also as a tool to be a wise leader. Mindfulness Helps You Become a Better Leader by Bill George  |   8:00 AM October 26, 2012 Comments (13)         Ever since the financial crisis of 2008, I have sensed from many leaders that they want to do a better job of leading in accordance with their personal values. The crisis exposed the fallacies of measuring success in monetary terms and left many leaders with a deep feeling of unease that they were being pulled away from what I call their True North. As markets ...