I have just started reading ?Driven ? Inside BMW, the most admired car company in the world? by David Kiley

It promises to be interesting and I hope to be writing more about it.

I asked Panke, (BMW?s chairman Dr. Hemut Panke) who was a consultant at Mckinsey and Co. before joining BMW in 1982, what he would tell companies seeking insight from BMW if he were still charging McKinsey big bucks for his advice. Said Panke, “I would say: Focus on understanding who you are, what you stand for. What are the values you have in the organization? What are the values you believe in for the products and services you sell and provide? People like to play charades when they are children. But in real life you cannot impersonate other values and characters and basic principles. There is a sentence I often use to crystallize what we are about. And I think it?s important to be able to do that: to articulate the one idea in one sentence that captures the company?s character so that every one understands and believes it. ‘BMW builds high performance products because BMW is a high performance organization.? It is across seemingly unrelated fields and organizations within the company. Striving for better performance than our competitors is something that drives our controllers and our human resources people, not just our designers and engineers.”

An interesting study by Ellen Galinsky of Families and Work Institute called ?Leaders in a Global Economy? on how men and women in 10 multinationals have dealt with primarily the following two questions:

The findings throws up some very interesting aspects of what is becoming a priority for people at work and who ultimately are more successful.

While 61% of the respondents were what one would call ?work-centric?, nearly 32 % put the same priority on their lives on and off the job (dual-centric). Some of these could also be tri-centric (work, home and a third area- a hobby / community work)

What difference does it make to be dual-centric?

While Dual-Centric people actually work about 5 hours less per week compared to work-centric people, there is no difference to visible success indicators such as compensation, number people they supervise or their reporting level.

In addition:

So what should organizations be doing?

Be able to design appropriate ?work-life balance? policies and more critical, create an environment to encourage people to be ?dual-centric?.

So, if multi-tasking was not enough, this age demands we be multi-focused in mutli-areas too! (with similar levels of competence!)

Read the summary
here

Consider these findings from a survey conducted by Top Consultants.

I believe that the “need for contract staff” increased with organizations needing to fill the gap arising out of specific short term assignments while at the same time needing to keep a control on manpower numbers and managing the uncertainties in business.

In addition technology has made it possible to engage staff from any corner of the world.

Technology and vagaries of business will continue to ensure that this trend will continue.

Any thoughts? Any opinion?

Here is what I think would be the top six dominating challenges for organizations in the year 2005 and beyond:

To read more about the top three issues, go
here

2004 ended on a solemn note with the Tsunami taking a heavy toll in this part of the world. While Singapore, the country where I reside has been spared, Tamil Nadu my home state in India has been ravaged.

This blog was the best thing that happened last year and with it I had the pleasure of meeting a great bunch of people across the globe including some great, passionate bloggers.

I am thankful to you, dear readers for your encouragement. Thank you for making this blog possible.

In particular, I would like to thank Gautam Ghosh for sending the maximum readers to my blog.

I hope the new year brings peace, harmony and joy to all.

• Deepa