Cast System that is not evil!

Scientists and scholars have been on a quest over the past decade to better understand and measure the interplay between social relationships and economic performance. Volker Bornschier, a sociologist at the University of Zurich, looked at the economic performance of 24 rich countries and 9 newly industrialized nations from 1980 to 1998. "Bornschier found that high levels of trust and tolerance had a measurable impact on economic performance, along with several other variables, including technological capital.

Most of us are not fully familiar with the emerging phenomenon of ‘social capital’ — an area of study where culture and economics confluence. Francis Fukuyama, says, relation-based societies generate culturally defined social capital. Social capital is non-formal networking based on kinship within societies. The emerging view is that social capital expedites the socio-economic development process. So social capital refers to people's ability to work together in groups, I prefer to define the concept more broadly to include any instance in which people cooperate for common ends on the basis of shared informal norms and values. Social capital is regarded as a key ingredient in both economic development and political empowerment.

While we as individuals are related by families, our community identity links our families; this transcends the local limits and networks the people across the world now. This collective network stretched across the globe is our collective Social capital and if used positively we will see economic progress and positive drive of development on all fronts including social and political fronts.

Let consider Indian analogy, Caste base network has been is a very strong bond and effectively used rather exploited political objectives, same route can also be use for economic empowerment. Let me give you couple of illustrations. The caste system, which was admittedly savvy with economics over millennia, has in modern times engaged the market in economics and democracy in politics to reinvent itself. It has become a great source of entrepreneurship also. The entrepreneurship generated by the Patel caste today dominates two-thirds of the global diamond trade. The Nadar caste runs over three-fourths of the retail trade, match works, and fireworks in Tamil Nadu. In Tirupur, Goundar caste entrepreneurs, 80 per cent of whom are not even matriculates, compete at the global level, exporting knitwear garments valued at over $2 billion. The World Development Report 2001 found that the social networking within the Goundar caste and the circulation of capital by trust had enabled Tirupur’s rise as a global knitwear hub. In Sankagiri and Namakkal in Tamil Nadu, Goundar caste entrepreneurs own the largest fleet of lorry, tanker, and tipper transport vehicles in the whole of India. Ninety per cent of them were farmers earlier and 20 per cent were just rearing cattle. The list is too long to be captured here. Whether it is the Jatavs of Agra and Kanpur, or the Nadars, Naidus, or Goundars of Tamil Nadu, or the Patels of Gujarat, or the artisan Ramgadiyas of Punjab, they have risen as competent entrepreneurs – many at the global level – mostly by leveraging on their kinship-based social capital. Most of them have had very little education. It is the community that has acted as the knowledge provider thorough kinship and social network.

Now to conclude, nothing will remain unachieved if we build this social capital; social capital is nothing but network of trust and cooperation that spreads beyond family and covers entire community. Accounting to Robert Putnam, Social capital (SC) can be quantified or measured (SC = n_1..t. ) and ‘n’ tracks number of sub organizations within the social group. So it not bad to have large number of communities in any society or country, what is bad is if they don’t sum up ( ) and are at logger heads. For diverse countries like India this can be used effective tool for economic reconstruction for entire country. It helps to grow in pack; and finally nothing is good or bad it is our intent that is good or bad.

Lead Management

Entrepreneurs can learn to target “high probability” prospective clients instead of wasting time and money selling to the ones who won’t commit

The Art of Sales Communication

Too many entrepreneurs waste time and energy chasing sales prospects that have no potential. To increase your sales, you must learn to disqualify sales leads. Though it might seem like a skill better suited for your sales team, you, as an entrepreneur, should master it to get and stay financed.

Sales communication is different from advertising and marketing—it’s more personal. Too many salespeople make the mistake of spewing off hype-driven sales talk. But no one likes to feel manipulated, so this approach doesn’t work. Some sales people don’t even bother to explain the benefits of what they’re selling.

Key Points for Entrepreneurs

1. Be a shrink. We all bring our emotional baggage to every aspect of our lives. We all need to be loved and respected, and to trust others. In selling situations, many of these psychological buttons are pushed. Your sole job as a salesperson is to build rapport. Rapport leads to trust. Trust leads to lasting relationships and sales.

2. Set your objective for prospecting. Shifting your objective from getting the appointment to determining whether the prospect qualifies for an appointment is key. Next, you need to eliminate your fear of rejection. It’s easier to do this when you aren’t begging for sales meetings and you won’t be begging for meetings. Instead, you’ll identify your target prospects using specifics such as price-points, budgets, decision-making ability, and schedules. You’ll only make appointments with prospects who need, want, and can afford what you are selling and are willing to buy from you now if you meet their requirements. You’ll also learn to embrace the fact that disqualifying a prospect is just as valuable and important as qualifying one—whether you disqualify/qualify him or he disqualifies/qualifies himself.

3. Start separating real leads from unlikely ones. This type of prospecting is essentially a practice of sorting and identifying by talking to as many people as you can in the shortest amount of time. You’ll need to avoid the temptation of trying to create prospects—they simple cannot be created. This process involves learning how to disqualify a low-probability prospect and maintain control of the interaction. Remember, whoever asks the questions are in control.

Print out these reminders and tape them by your phone to help you when you call:

• I work with high probability prospects only. I disqualify everyone else.

• Pr • I don’t waste my resources on low-probability prospects.

• No is just as good as yes.

• A low-probability prospect is worse than no prospect at all. Remember the opportunity cost.

• I end the conversation if the prospect is unwilling to make a suitable commitment.

• When in doubt, I disqualify.

• I go into each call with no expectation of a result.

• True high-probability prospects will not allow themselves to be disqualified.

• You can call the same list over and over again and you will get a higher and higher percentage of prospects who say yes as long as you do the following:

Keep changing the offer.

Disqualify.

Don’t waste prospects’ time.

Don’t educate.

Stop spending precious months educating the prospect, who do buy in expectation of goods for free. Forget the concept of consultative selling. If they want consultations, they have to buy first.

4. Stay focused. Fear is what keeps most of us chasing sales leads that we know aren’t high probability. Here’s how to stay on track and further cement this learning into your sales process:

• You are training prospects when you disqualify them.

• Don’t make the same offer twice in a row—you’ll jeopardize your credibility.

• Deal with discomfort by acknowledging it and pushing through it anyway.

• Remind yourself this is the disqualification game.

• You have no power to make a high probability prospect. You do have the power to disqualify.

• Prospecting deserves 50% of your time. It is just as important as meeting in person.

• Twenty percent of the market doesn’t like its current supplier and would be receptive to switching.

5. Get to the decision maker when prospecting.

• Always try to get to the business owner or decision maker.

• When you cold-call the decision maker but get the gatekeeper, treat the person as if he or she is the decision maker.

• If the gatekeeper cannot answer your disqualifying questions, ask if he can put you in touch with someone who can, or bring the questions directly to the decision maker.

Remember prospecting is a disqualification process.

BIM (Building Information Modeling): “A Digital Paradigm Shift”

The architecture profession in currently facing at least three important transformations: the integrated practice, the re-emergence of sustainable design, and building information modeling. BIM is a digital paradigm shift, in many ways similar to that of the CAD revolution of the 1980s. What is BIM? How is it different from CAD? And how, taking advantages of these differences is it possible to use a digital model to assist in the design of sustainable buildings?

Building Information modeling (BIM) is the process of generating and further managing all the building data during the life cycle of the building itself (both in building and construction). The process utilizes a variety of 3 dimensional building software’s to digitally represent the building process. Autodesk defines Building Information Modeling (BIM) as “the creation and use of coordinated, consistent, computable information about a building project in design and construction.” They have developed Revit Architecture for architects and Civil 3D which can be used in concurrence by both architects and civil engineers respectively. BIM has hence enhanced the process of work compatibility in the building design and construction effectively.

Today, BIM is becoming extremely popular in the design, engineering and construction industry. Firms all across the world are moving towards the use of BIM and think that BIM plays a key role in delivery of projects in terms of saving time and costs efficiently. Various aspects of BIM are explored and tools are developed continuously in order to make BIM more and more, a part of the building technology. Skills are being developed at all levels to integrate BIM as a part of the design process. The gap between design and actual construction can be bridged through adoption of BIM software’s and this could be of relief to developers, investors, construction personnel, architecture, and engineers. Through various case studies, it has been repeatedly established that BIM if utilized appropriately, can certainly improve the delivery of building projects. Inter-compatible software’s are being developed steadily in order to respond the industry’s ever increasing demand. Vectorworks Architect is one such software that facilitates BIM in an extremely flexible, design oriented manner in both 2 and 3 dimensions. Vectorworks Architect improves upon the existing design and does not facilitate replacing it, hence easing the workflow. Revit is purpose built for BIM and helps to design and deliver in an efficient manner. In the last few decades, more and more professionals have started adopting BIM and this trend has found customers major global markets.

Some of the commonly used BIM applications are Bentley Architecture, IDEA(IntelliCAD based), Allplan BIM 2008 (2D and 3D planning), Solibri, ArchiCAD etc. ArchiCAD, Vectorworks Architect and Revit are commonly used due to ease in functionality and user interface. Revit helps to explore conceptual design through formal studies and develop these initial ideas through the design process into documentation and the actual construction of the design. Any change that is made at one level is updated throughout the project further resulting in coordinated design documentation.

The fundamental shift has been from CAD as a drafting tool to BIM which is more of a three dimensional design and documentation tool which also can be used as a comprehensive project database. BIM works in three dimensions, which not only helps to detect errors right from the very beginning, but also helps to generate 2D drawings easily. This reduces changes which are usually made at a later stage. Beyond this, it can be used to derive topographies, structure, track schedules, cost estimation etc. as per drawing updates.

Sustainable building design and construction is the need of the hour today and BIM facilitates aids this process by integrating well with the LEED building rating system. LEED-certified buildings will help to transform the built environment into a sustainable world by providing the right environment for occupants and demonstrate the building owner and occupant’s responsibility towards the environment. Credits are awarded to each building which meets the specified prerequisites and performance benchmarks. The use of Revit in design development provides essential data that can be used for sustainable design.

BIM provides assistance in this process by making information available by facilitating collaborative project management, i.e. providing access and distribution of information and further making it available in various formats to all the participants in the building process. This is done in order to avoid loss of information and ease viewing, reviewing and access to all data. The information can be tapped by various users for multiple uses- project planning, project management, costs estimation etc. Technologically, this is done also to span geographical and time boundaries and hence enable efficient data exchange, project management and collaboration. This is further enhanced in large scale, complex building projects as it enables accurate and proficient project communication.

The main advantage of Building Information Modeling (BIM) is the compatibility and interoperability that it offers through technology which facilitates ease in exchange of information. This is most essential in the building process as information travels through various hands to essentially get compiled in one single database. Information travels from concept design by an Architect to localized Structural and MEP consultants to specialized landscape and Lighting consultants and then back to the architect who further sends them to the site; the possibility of data getting lost is tremendous. BIM fosters this exchange in digital formats with ease and efficiency through three dimensional CAD software solutions.

BIM services include and aid schematic design, design development, construction documents, and working drawings for both Engineering and Architecture. Building Information Modeling has set a new platform in the design and delivery of construction projects. With many such players in the market, BluEnt works towards implementing and integrating BIM as a part of our process, by adding the practical working knowledge and previous experience. BluEnt helps in providing BIM solutions which are not only rich in knowledge and content, but also add on to the usability and experience to the industry.

Architectural Outsourcing

Information Technology positions our daily activities and businesses in an increasingly global context: The practice of architecture is no exception. Technology presents new scenarios for Workshare and defines the way in which a design is developed, communicated, and realized.

Today, work association no longer implies personal interaction. Technology has made possible ordinary virtual communications, accelerating information transfer and influencing working methodologies. This is the virtual office: physical space usurped by work space in the internet. Architects are not only facing a promising business opportunity, but a new practice model that will revolutionize the professional practice scenario. Firms will focus on stressing design and creativity as core values and commoditizing production and repetitive but still necessary tasks.

Global economy has provided many opportunities for new innovative businesses and has opened up a space for efficient access to resources. A new understanding of architecture and its practice is increasingly focused on strategically improving business performance. The field represents a unique situation: while architectural practice is quickly becoming global and open-sourced, the physical artifact of architecture continues to serve as the physical manifestation of a community’s identity and aspirations.

Architects are beginning to assimilate and integrate innovative processes into their practice that would be impossible without technological advancements. Principles from these innovative working methods and technologies enable firms to survive by adapting to external changes and maintaining a sustainable advantage in architectural practice. Increasingly dependent on the larger international context, the practice frequently necessitates dispatching team members to remote locations.

The field of architecture is continuously evolving following the changes dictated by contemporary societies, where consumerism and change provoke a new conception of architecture. Today, clients of architects are focusing their interests on issues such as process efficiency and business performance to the detriment of individual interpretations of architecture. Economics and market conditions tend to prevail over design intentions and aesthetic goals. Maximizing the potential of the architectural outsourcing practice model for each architectural firm will require strategic approaches to architectural practice as a service, as well as a business.

Fulfilling current requirements in the management of architectural projects demand the establishment of teams and tasks spanning organizational boundaries as a strategic practice for business results. This task may seem much simpler than it really is. Many issues for multi-team architectural production such as communication, Workshare, and trust, frequently become problematic for reasons beyond our control. Such problems may arise even when dealing with traditional teamwork models. Therefore, when one replaces the often-decisive factor of personal interaction with the virtual alternative in a multidisciplinary team, the challenges become even more complex.

The very need for Workshare arises from the diversity of skills and opinions required to formulate an architectural work. Inevitably architects find themselves working in teams with other members, and these team building experiences help form an overall collective identity.

Today team members are not necessarily required to work together in the same physical space, since communication technologies have enabled efficient interaction at a distance. In fact, personal interaction in architectural Workshare has evolved greatly with time. As remote teams develop the capabilities to collaborate effectively in ways that do not jeopardize the process of logical project development, personal interaction within architectural teams takes on a different significance. The banal transfers of information that once took place between desks in one office now take place many times daily via digital interaction between workstations around the globe. Personal interaction between such parties may be reserved for more significant meetings to initiate or substantiate relationships or to perform checks on a project’s progress.

Some of basic tenants of architectural design over the last fifty years are called into question by globalization’s continual flattening of the world. The fact that people from diverse and remote locations and cultures contribute to a given project’s development has significant implications for practice. This also presents the risk that individual contributors who are employed from remote areas may lack essential contextual knowledge not only about a specific project, but also about its local building industry and its local culture.

This changing definition of architectural practice, as something that occurs on many continents at the same time and followed by many different parties, has contributed to the lack of transparency that outsourcing has received in the discipline. Secrecy has shrouded outsourcing, even when the processes being outsourced were highly auxiliary. Authorship has traditionally been at the core of architectural production, whether by an individual principal in a firm or by a core of designers who work under a collective title. Outsourcing may be viewed as putting traditional values of authorship and remuneration in crisis. However, outsourcing may be studied as an outgrowth of the traditional partnerships that have taken place within individual studios or firms.

While globalization has impacted the way architects work together and therefore their relationship to traditional cues for the design process, the growing global economy puts pressure on the discipline to be more oriented toward the consumer. Changes in the field of architecture echo the trends in all of the design fields where radical improvements in communications and technology have enabled a democratization of design. Consequently, the general public has changed its perception of and value placed on design. Today, availability and affordability are the criteria influencing consumer choices about design. As happened in fashion and in furniture design, the new economic implications are turning design products of all types into commodities.

Architectural design is encountering a similar evolution, where the general public expects architects to provide design services with an emphasis on architecture as a product of consumption. As a result, now more than ever before architects are required to generate original designs, but also to ensure that they can deliver these designs on time and within budget restrictions. This necessity to provide broader services will put additional pressure on architects during the stages of project execution, already often problematic due to the great deal of complexity and coordination involved in bringing a project to completion.

As global markets succeed and information becomes more easily available, domain standardization for design and construction methods is fast becoming a common language for remote interaction. The international use and commercialization of predominant brands for construction components and products, transforms them into preferred industry standards, becoming common knowledge for teams from many different locations. Without a doubt, technological convergence allows further connection and facilitates Workshare between diverse and/or dispersed project teams. However, as technologies change the factor of adaptability must be examined. An increasing exchange of global architectural services brings the added difficulty of dealing with the particular requirements of each architectural environment: local codes and regulations, industry methods and standards, and cultural principles. Nevertheless, the proliferation of young architects, with a global architectural education and, consequently, with a broader perception of multicultural platforms of practice addresses these difficulties.

The overall fragmentation of the AEC industry and the particularities of knowledge iteration in the implementation of building design have impeded architectural outsourcing adoption within the field of architecture until now. Nonetheless, the field of architecture, although slow to adopt this work practice, is not immune to this global trend which has generated certain geographical expertise concentrations for providing architectural outsourcing in countries such as India, Philippines, and China. Architectural outsourcing providers can be characterized by their geographical dispersion.

The availability of talented manpower, lower costs and best infrastructure has helped architectural outsourcing to India gather commendable speed. With the increase in offshore demands and wielding the latest software and technical skills, architectural designing outsourcing in India serves clients from the UK, the US and the Middle East. A number of small-medium firms with 50+ employees have mushroomed across the country offering quality services at a fraction of the cost. The growth in the industry has been so spectacular that the rupee crunch and fall in the number of skilled resources has not drastically affected most firms.

Industry estimates predict architectural outsourcing will form the second largest segment in the service industry of India. Offshore architectural outsourcing poses enough benefits to the overseas markets, which is the reason behind a marked growth in the demand for these services in leading KPO (knowledge process outsourcing) industries in India. Accounting to $16.7 billion in revenue, India is expected to contribute to two-third of the global KPO by 2011. Several architectural design outsourcing companies in India have bagged small scale design projects abroad, mainly from the US, the UK and the Middle East.

One of the pioneer architectural outsourcing companies BluEnt has not only cemented the India’s dominance in architectural outsourcing but has brought tangible value to is Workshare partner. This Texas based architectural firm is a leader in its domain and is one of BluEnt’s oldest clients. They specialize in designing and constructing commercial buildings, especially warehouses among other structures like hotels, offices, hostels, etc.

This firm had a vision of expanding and foraying into projects of greater complexity and undertaking greater amount of projects. Their core marketing team had to bid for higher number of projects. They planned the astute business move of outsourcing a large portion of their CD work. They were looking for an able partner who could produce drafting documents that matched their in-house standards. BluEnt was where their search stopped. Besides, BluEnt could do the job at a fraction of their existing costs then.

The client firm follows a tilt-wall construction and uses higher CAD standards, relative to what we had been doing until then. Besides, BluEnt had to widen its scope for understanding and adhering to International Building Codes (IBC). Thus, there had to be an active and continuous effort at knowledge share too. There were regular training meetings that enhanced BluEnt’s efficiency in meeting their standard and expected drafting time. BluEnt is currently leapfrogging to handle diverse projects from this client.

As par of execution strategy BluEnt deployed its two senior architects to study, understand and train its draftsmen with the sophistication at CAD that was required. Besides, they also scaled up their capabilities to match international codes. In only about a month, BluEnt was skillfully churning out Construction Document sets for their US client that matched stringent global/Texas standards.

The client was greatly relieved from mounting costs that came with hiring architects locally. They could also keenly focus on the strategic marketing part of their business and utilize resident architects for designing more complex projects. While they benefit from quality drafting support at a fraction of their local costs, BluEnt gained manifold from the knowledge of International Building Codes. In other words, they are the practicing architects and BluEnt collaborated in Workshare environment by offer remote supporting architect to them.

Wrote for BuildoTech and featured on Architectural Evangelist

Urban Sustainability and Green Building for 21st Century

Recently I attended UK- India Conference on Urban Sustainability and Green Building, conference was chaired by Mr. Brain Waldy Secretary General of CASLE and fellow of RICS. Conference was attended by urban development experts, green building service providers, research scholars and government officials of UK and India. Agenda of the conferences was to discuss climate change, challenges for Urban Sustainability, developing climate designs and carbon mapping existing building on an urban scale. Experts also discussed environment rating system for existing buildings, strategies for green building and green building in the market- investment and values. I would like to give touch base on the key elements of Green Building that concern you and me and will leave rating system professionals to tackle with.

 

Climate Change and Story so far…

Increasing global temperature will cause sea levels to rise and will change the amount and pattern of precipitation, probably including expansion of subtropical deserts. The continuing retreat of glaciers, permafrost and sea ice is expected, with the Arctic region being particularly affected. Other likely effects include shrinkage of the rainforest, increases in the intensity of extreme weather events, species extinctions and changes in agricultural yields.

Why Climate Change….

Naturally occurring greenhouse gases have a mean warming effect of about 33 °C (59 °F). The major greenhouse gases are water vapor, which causes about 36–70 percent of the greenhouse effect (not including clouds); carbon dioxide (CO₂), which causes 9–26 percent; methane (CH₄), which causes 4–9 percent; and ozone, which causes 3–7 percent.

Human activity since the industrial revolution has increased the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, leading to increased radioactive forcing from CO₂, methane, troposphere ozone, CFCs and nitrous oxide. The concentrations of CO₂ and methane have increased by 36% and 148% respectively since the mid-1700s. These levels are considerably higher than at any time during the last 650,000 years, the period for which reliable data has been extracted from ice cores. Less direct geological evidence indicates that CO₂values this high were last seen approximately 20 million years ago. Fossil fuel burning has produced about three-quarters of the increase in CO₂ from human activity over the past 20 years. Most of the rest is due to land-use change, in particular deforestation.

 

Who Fuels Global Warming….

In our quest to dramatically cut greenhouse gas emissions and lessen our dependence on fossil fuels, we have contented ourselves by pointing a finger at gas-guzzling vehicles. And in doing so we have overlooked the biggest source of emissions and energy consumption around the globe: buildings.

If you took all vehicles off the road tomorrow and replaced them with hybrids, the effect on energy use and global warming would be minimal. The entire fleet of SUVs, minivans and light-duty trucks in US accounts for only 6.5% of the total U.S. energy consumed each year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. And although that doesn't mean we should abandon efforts to produce more efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles, it does illustrate a huge blind spot in energy consciousness.

Buildings account for 70% of electricity consumption and 40% of greenhouse emissions. Therefore, reducing the carbon footprint of buildings is critical to combating climate change. Buildings and their construction account for nearly half of all the greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumed in US each year. Globally, the percentage is even greater. And architects hold the key to turning down the global thermostat.

 

 

What is Sustainable Building Design?

Sustainable building design is measured on five criteria namely site design, indoor environmental quality, and efficient use of energy, materials, and water. It is the practice of designing the built environment in a way so that the consumption of natural resources is reduced for its construction as also its operational lifetime. Simultaneously, greater emphasis is laid on making the most of natural lighting, heating, cooling, etc to reduce load on electricity consumption. The goal is to create environmentally responsible, profitable, and healthy places to live and work.

 

Buck Stops Here

Consumers: Realizing that sustainability and environmental benefits won't resonate with everyone. Other perspective of Green Building that consumers should consider are benefits in terms of indoor air quality, comfort, and economy.

Professionals: Sustainable building designs should become integral part of designer’s professional practices. Architectural Firms should encourage employ LEED AP certified architects and upgrade the capability of executing green projects.

Governments: Everything ends with responsibility of Government; the State and Central Governments will have a major role to play in the propagation of the concept of Green buildings. The Government can create awareness campaigns and adopt Green Building technologies in their own buildings, which can go a long way in promoting Green buildings in India. The Government should also design policy frameworks and legislations for promotion of Green buildings. 

"People don't leave bad organizations, but bad leaders."

Organizations are from people and not vice versa. Bad leaders can convert the entire vision of the organization into a nightmare. You will never love the organization if it is being led by worthless professionals and you will stick on to an organization’s worst phase if you have trust and respect in the leadership. It's all about human relationships and camaraderie that makes the companies work and rise again after falls.  

It necessarily separate bad leaders from bad organizations. In fact, low (or poor) performance culture organizations indicate lack of true real leaders even when they have lots of managers who are in reality some form of 'robot' administrators who apply policies and guidelines literally just to be on the safe side and play the game safely within preset rules.

This quote has been a topic of discussion in the US among those of us who are in the field of leadership development: "People join organizations and leave managers." Both quotes point to the same issue, which research consistently validates that the most important influence when it comes to retaining employees is the person's immediate manager. Unfortunately, companies tend to focus on training managers to manage tasks and projects, rather than helping them become successful at managing people. As a result, companies lose key talent, and don't understand why.

The number one issue facing any organization is that of leadership. Very few people can be leaders, and we are seeing that from the most visible positions in our government to the numerous companies that are posting both major losses as well as ethical choices in the leading of companies.

Once there is a strong leader in place, it is then this individual who must insure whether the "followers" are also capable of changing the cultural environment for business success. Often it is the culture that is has ingrained behavioral issues that does not allow for a successful environment to encourage talented individuals. Without both a strong leadership direction and a cultural shift, most people will choose to leave the organization for greener pastures.

People leave organizations citing the chief problem with "leadership" is that it has to be in a direction people want to go. Just having leadership is not a panacea. A lemming is a lemming either from organizational dynamics, group psychology, or leadership of an uber-lemming. Cliffs are bad ideas when mixed with oceans unless a deep-sea stunt diver near Acapulco.

In an organization where leadership has always been weak, there really have never been any 'team' creation and the one motivating factor, money, if reduced one can see attrition crossing statistical points.

A bad boss can make your entire life stressful. Even if the organization pays you in gold, you want to cut and run in these circumstances. People leave good organizations because of bad leaders.
Organization need realize the problem and focused on training management teams to be "Good Leaders’" and not just good managers who were good only on accomplishing successful tasks.

Leadership is responsible to mold the organization, the quality of the organization is simply a reflection of the quality of it's leaders. The quality of each can not be different in the long run. A good organization taken over by weak leadership will soon enough reflect that weak quality.

Any organization consists only of the people who belong to it and any behaviors that the members teach to new recruits to maintain its culture. Absent active leadership, an organization will develop a more or less bureaucratic culture, and those who try to fight that will be forced aside or out. With active leadership, an organization will come to reflect its leader, whether for good or ill. The rare, truly expert leader will co-opt the members as participants rather than ruling them as subordinates to the leader's will, and such a leader only makes decisions that rise to the top, allowing lower echelons of the organization to handle whatever they can with the authority and resources provided at their own level. The better organizations do not answer most proposals with "I will have to check upstairs." The ego-driven desire to be in charge, and to be seen to be in charge, is ultimately counterproductive, because the effectiveness of any decision is inversely proportional to the time and distance between it and the effect it is supposed to have. The closer the authority to decide is to the action, the better the decision will be. A good leader sets mission and general goals, and requires each level below to figure out and execute its own part in making things so. In fact, the best modern Army is more like a cooperative than a traditional, "do what I tell you" command structure, and so are the best corporations.

The issue is that "leadership" is often misunderstood by people who are given authority and abuse that borrowed authority; however, they don't have authority by token of their own ethics, capabilities, experience etc., and a lot of people want or are pushed into leadership positions who are no good there; or where even no leadership is required.

For the world to move forward there has to be a strong vision of leadership as a competitive advantage in the marketplace. Many individuals believe that they are leading when in fact they are just making tactical decisions to continue doing business as they always have in the past.

Leaderships is both an art and a science of creating a vision for a future and ultimately being able to manifest that future through the resources that are available to them. And now, more then ever, is the importance of the "human resource" bringing innovative ideas and solutions to the forefront of an organizations existence.  Leadership is the logical stimulus to success or failure.

Can we script great economic success stories of our time, what are our challenges?

Today India is fast marching on to catch up to Developed world, Indians are confident that reforms can be counted on to bring them up to speed. There is consensus within the government that India needs to be more like China -- to build rods and airports, and to draw in more foreign investment, leading to more jobs. The continuing presence of the English language in India is now supercharging the country’s economic growth. In the process, middle class Americans and Britons are growing increasingly worried that their jobs will be moved from Boston to Bangalore and Manchester to Mumbai. More than a million white-collar, service-industry jobs have already moved to India. Nine million American jobs will move overseas during the next thirty years, estimates McKinsey & Company. On behalf of foreign companies, Indians answer phone calls, write computer code, and increasingly take on far more sophisticated jobs -- from accounting to investment banking -- that were previously performed strictly in corporate offices across America and Europe. As China has famously become the factory to the world, India is becoming the world’s back office. Of the world’s 500 largest companies, 400 send middle class work to India, up from 150 in 2000.

India’s thriving biotechnology industry began as a vehicle for widespread production of generic drugs and copycatting of other drug companies’ inventions but has grown into an innovative industry. India already has 75 pharmaceutical plants approved by US FDA -- more than any nation except the US itself. Meanwhile, big Western drug companies are tapping India’s well trained doctors to conduct clinical trials for drugs under development.

Success of the off shoring movement has been a catalyst for economic growth in India. The creation of just a million jobs for college graduates in a land with a billion people has had a disproportionate effect. It has stimulated other parts of the economy by creating spin-off jobs -- restaurants, construction companies, motor cycle and car factories. The explosion of new jobs and new spending has helped India’s economy grow quickly.

It is easy to see why India has not yet attracted many new factories. Broadly speaking, India is competitive in manufacturing only after goods make it to the airport or the seaport where they are exported, and that is much more time consuming in India than in China. There are a number of inefficiencies beyond infrastructure both in exporting and even in selling to the Indian market. Companies must navigate antiquated customs processing, variations in taxes and byzantine rules for transporting goods between Indian states, in addition to the crumbling highways, decrepit airports and what-me-hurry seaports.

As a result, while India increasingly supplies the brains foreign companies need, it doesn’t yet provide much of the brawn. Many Indians could work in factories, but because there aren’t enough manufacturing jobs, millions are unemployed or continue to eke out a living in farming. Still, as the rush to move service industry jobs offshore gives foreign investors confidence in India, the nation’s manufacturing industry is also benefiting. Some are beginning to look to India as a manufacturer because they have already moved so many factories to China and are worried about becoming over dependent on the output of a single nation.

Many of the world’s big auto makers now buy labor intensive parts from Indian companies. India’s auto parts exports have been growing by 25 percent a year and are expected to rival China’s by 2015.

Foreign companies doing business in India follow strategies radically different from their approach in China. E.g. Philips has been in India since 1930 making light bulbs. The Indian factory with its 1000 workers is the most efficient the company has anywhere in Asia -- Chinese factories don’t come close. Yet the Indian factory can’t compete in global exports because of poor infrastructure. For competitive exports -- even to keep its exports in one piece -- Philips, like many other companies must turn to China. In 2003, the entire Philips board met in India and toured other companies’ back office operations. They were immediately sold on the off shoring concept. Today, about 300 accountants and financial analysts work in Chennai on behalf of Philips North America. The next 200 workers hired there will do back office work for offices in Europe and elsewhere. Philips finds Indian employees more creative than Chinese at dreaming up new products and strategies. Philips "Innovation Campus" in Bangalore has grown to 1700 employees and is expected to reach 3000 in 2008.They write 20 percent of Philips software worldwide, much of which winds up in products made across the border in China with the brawn of 50,000 factory workers churning out Philips goods.

Few western companies are the cheapest and the best at assembling what they sell. Apple created the iPod and markets it, but the chip that powers it -- the brains of the iPod -- was invented by PortalPlayer, a small Indian company in Hyderabad, and the devices are made in China and shipped around the world.

As each month passes, the Indian market becomes more attractive to Western companies. Even as Americans watch jobs moving to India, American companies are benefiting from the boom there -- selling more products in India.

Even as the New India cohort thrives, much of the rest of India is making much slower gain or even being left behind, creating social and political tensions that cloud India’s impressive strides forward. The lowest paid workers in the offshoring industry earn median wages of $275 a month. But most Indians still earn less than $60 a month, or below just $2 a month. And 36 percent of Indians live on less than one dollar a day. Change has come in small increments to India’s villages, where 70 percent of the population lives. Many villages still lack running water, electricity and reliable access to medical care.

India’s rural poor, are out of sight for many visitors, but its urban poor are extremely visible. Bringing India’s poor along on the ride to a New India will remain a challange.