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“What has happened to leadership? With all the crises and challenges we face and the increasingly risk-averse environment in which we operate, leadership has become generic, ephemeral, and bland...
The problem is we’re no longer leading. We’re hiding behind committees. We’re using the crutches of data and metrics to make our decisions for us. We blame policies and corporate culture for the problems our teams face rather than delivering the tough messages with a sense of ownership.
The result of all of this is our people don’t trust us anymore. Work has become transactional. They do the work and we pay them. It’s a fee-for-service mindset. When they find someone who will pay them more for their services, they’re gone. And when we no longer have need of their services, we simply cast those people aside. It’s a toxic environment. It’s hard for people to trust their leaders when they feel like they’re simply a cog in the machine.”

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Most employees I meet accept that these days, more work is expected of fewer people. They realize that performance that might have been good enough last year isn’t good enough today. Many consider themselves fortunate to be working at all. The factories and offices I visit are filled with realists who are convinced that job security ended when their parents retired.
But workers still want their leaders to spend less time voicing uncertainty and more time making things happen. They are disappointed in their immediate managers for making it more politic at staff meetings to recommend cuts than to suggest hiring a top-flight employee...
CAUTION bred at the top is contagious, and it’s been drawing oxygen from the workplace. If the economy is to rebound, it will require a burst of confidence in employees who are now more cautious than creative, more tentative than decisive. That confidence needs to come from their managers, and the managers of those managers, all the way up to the chief executive.
Employees hunger for leadership that will make it safe again to act creatively and decisively. They don’t expect their senior management to ignore the realities of the marketplace or the flux of government policies. But they do want — and deserve — leaders who inspire them to commit the best of themselves to their work.

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Intolerance has grown exponentially in India. Words like “blasphemy” are tossed around as though they were part of Indian culture, tradition and discourse: Most recently, cabinet minister Kapil Sibal called Web pages about his party leader Sonia Gandhi that he found insulting, blasphemous, unconsciously giving her the halo of divinity. India’s greatest painter, Maqbool Fida Husain, had to die in exile, because the state refused to protect his right of free expression when vigilantes threatened him and cases continued to be filed against him even after courts had ruled in his favour, dismissing similar cases. Earlier this month in Delhi, another artist, Balbir Krishan, who happens to be gay, and whose art deals with homosexuality, was attacked. The impulse to take offence runs everywhere...
Delivering the keynote address at the India Today Conclave in 2010, Rushdie noted with alarm the “culture of complaint” that had come to dominate the Indian discourse. He chided India for not defending Husain: “He is even being jeered at for being old. This is the proud face of a philistine India. There is nothing wrong in not liking his art. You can easily opt out. A painting is a finite space of art. If it offends, don’t enter that space. The best way to avoid getting offended is to shut a book… The worst thing is that artists are soft targets… We do not have armies protecting us.”
Writers should not need armies to protect them in a free society. That Rushdie might need protection in India reflects poorly—not on him, but on India.

book books culture reading writing offense free_speech freedom salman_rushdie salil_tripathi wp

I know booklovers like that :)
"It turns out that people are more important than books. Sometimes anthropomorphising goes too far. Breaking a book’s spine does not disable the book. Books have no feelings. Who knew?
I’m getting better. Admittedly my bookshelves are pristine and most of the books appear unread. But my girlfriend is trying to encourage me to open the pages wider when I read, to just let go. Don’t fear the white lines, she says. It’s the sign of a book that’s been enjoyed, she adds. Or pillaged, I think."

book culture reading wp

You don’t teach people how to build a ship, you teach them how to yearn for the sea

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Sanjay sipahimalani's literary predictions for 2012 (so funny, it's not!)
3 The spate of books and articles on Steve Jobs will cease once people realise that many of those writing about him were simply repeating the same thing. Matters will come to a head once it is discovered that a much-linked-to blog post titled "My Recollections of Jobs" simply consists of the words "Stay hungry, stay foolish" typed over and over again.
4 After the furore over the proscribing of A.K. Ramanujan's essay on the Ramayana by Delhi University, members of the varsity's Physics Department will seek to stop the study of quantum physics, claiming that "some German fellow called Heisenberg" was out to promote uncertainty across the nation. "

media culture books india 2012 wp predictions

"Another year — and a spectacular journey coming to an end. We’ve had some very good books, films and music albums making 2011 special. From experimental to populist to downright intriguing — they have kept us entertained through many evenings. Let’s take a walk down recap lane with Jai Arjun Singh as he talks about the books and films that he personally loved this year. And Avirook Sen gives his take on the music albums of 2011 that, he feels, rocked. We wish you a very Happy New Year!"

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It’s hard to tell whether one is winning or, in fact, losing once one starts to think of oneself as a commodity, or a product, or a character, or a voice for the downtrodden. It’s called losing perspective. Fame’s a bitch. It’s hard to handle and drives you nuts. Yes, it’s true that your sense of entitlement grows exponentially with every perk until it becomes too stupendous a weight to walk around under, but it’s a cutthroat business, show, and without the perks, plain ol’ fame and fortune just ain’t worth the trouble.

feminism roseanne culture media fame wp

" Create a service experience around what you publish and sell. Whatever “customer service” means when it comes to books and authors, figure it out and do it. Do it in partnership with your readers. Turn your readers into members. Not visitors, not subscribers; you want members. And then don't just consult them, but give them tools to consult amongst themselves. These things are cheap and easy now if you hire one or two smart people instead of a large consultancy. Define what the boundaries are in your community and punish transgressors without fear of losing a sale. Then, if your product is good, you'll sell things. (Don't count on your fellow Gutenbourgeois to buy things. They're clicking the little thumb icon on YouTube like everyone else.) If you don't want to do that then just find niche communities who might conceivably care about your products and buy great ad placements. It's a better online spend. "

Internet web community wwic wp culture MEDIA customer_service books publishing

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pie

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To the anxiety about these unprecedented demographic changes one can add a reticence in openly expressing it. Inducing this hesitancy are intellectuals of the self-hating variety, who welcome the destruction of the national identity and who argue—in par

culture politics religion multiculturalism britain immigration

Cubicle utopianism was probably a victim of its own success. The idea that cubicles formed a more exciting, humane workplace became less plausible to those who had the experience of working in one. As partitions and the space allotted to each worker shrun

culture distraction cubicles office work business management history technology

Something has happened in our modern world that threatens our very way of living...The standard of good has been replaced by good enough, which is a way of justifying the mediocre.

culture inspiration excellence mediocrity

we talk about creating climates where "employees are willing to take risks." Wrong. What we should be doing is creating work environments where you can try things without risk.

risk business work culture

Dad, I’m throwing a party tonight, so you’ll have to stay in your room. Don’t worry, though—one of my friends brought over his father for you to play with. His name is Comptroller Brooks and he’s roughly your age, so I’m sure you’ll have lots in common.

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Yet the Republican Party’s decision to rely so heavily on Nixon’s 1972 template is nevertheless depressing. Aren’t Republicans supposed to deplore the politics of victimhood? Conservatives make a good case that treating minority groups as victims diminish

politics culture dirty populism

The nineteenth-century version stressed the value of compensating for disadvantage. If you wanted to end up on top, the thinking went, it was better to start at the bottom, because it was there that you learned the discipline and motivation essential for

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Teacher's salaries can never be made high enough to be the lure for talented people. Teaching is a vocation, and the attraction must be the work itself. Destroy the environment in which teachers can do what they love, and they disappear. During an electio

teaching teachers education environment culture

1. Sarah Palin
Charges: If you want to know why the rest of the world is scared of Americans, consider the fact that after two terms of disastrous rule by a small-minded ignoramus, 46% of us apparently thought the problem was that he wasn’t quite stupid e

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