What kind of CXO are thou?

Three golf players, and hard to imagine of more different approaches:

- Jones: Grace in motion.

- Hagen: he learnt a long time go that 3 lousy shots and One brilliant shot make it par.

- Junuh: embarrasing in everything, not knowing which demon to fight.

You are what kind of a CXO?

'Top 10' List of Favorite Success Quotes

Favorite Success Quotes #1

Flaming enthusiasm, backed by horse sense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for success.

Dale Carnegie

Favorite Success Quotes #2

You only have to do a very few things right in your life so long as you don't do too many things wrong.

Warren Buffett

Favorite Success Quotes #3

A person is a success if they get up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.

Bob Dylan

Favorite Success Quotes #4

Actually, I'm an overnight success. But it took twenty years.

Monty Hall

Favorite Success Quotes #5

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Sir Winston Churchill

Favorite Success Quotes #6

I don't measure a man's success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.

General George S. Patton

Favorite Success Quotes #7

Eighty percent of success is showing up.

Woody Allen

Favorite Success Quotes #8

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Bill Cosby

Favorite Success Quotes #9

You will find the key to success under the alarm clock.

Benjamin Franklin

Favorite Success Quotes #10

It is wise to keep in mind that neither success nor failure is ever final.

Roger Babson

Vakratunda Wisdom

What an interpretation. Yea, some literary license seems to have been taken, but the end result is lovely and so respectful to the Gods above...

vakratunda: go for non-linearity. the twisted trunk exhorts us to drop the linear way of looking at problems and the linear way of finding solutions.

The legends around Ganeshji too exemplify this. Illustratively for masses, when Ganeshji was asked to circumnavigate the world seven times in the shortest time, he took seven rounds around his parents declaring the parents are the world!

At a deeper level, a broken line is constituted by several linear unbroken lines. Overall, it may be said that the shortest distance between two points on a line may not be through the intervening points'

mahakaya: go for largeness. it is a perspective that aspires for larger than life canvas, looking at the entire BIG picture, not getting lost in its detail and components. Again, it is not size being advocated, it is pervasiveness. Like Microsoft Windows has tried to pervade the geographies. It is like extending your influence circle far and wide, and this would happen only when you have the Big picture in mind and when your spreading mechanism has a sustainable basis. Hitler's methodology obviously wasn't sustainable though he tried to pervade all through.

koti surya samprabha: let the sparkle and energy of billions of suns characterize your work. let it have the equivalent charisma and dazzle. let it have the energy funding of so many suns. And sun of all celestial bodies carries utmost purity and transparency, purifying everything and making everything visible and transparent. let your work have an equivalent influence and effect. let this be the ideal you aspire to be.

nivirghinam: and without any obstacles let things happen. your strategizing has to be so complete and mature that you can visualize unencumbered pursuit of vision, goals and targets. let your communication be straight and direct, giving clarity to the target audience, not messing them in confusion.

kuru mein: the platform is this entire world. the war field of Kurukshetra of Mahabharata is the entire stage. And just as Shakespeare said, "All the world is a stage and we have a role to play", we understand that this world has thousands of people playing various characters. and in this theatrical inter-play of relationships, all has to be figured out and managed. the business organization is not a narrower smaller world than the entire world, it is not a separate reality. al operands work on the entire world canvas, do not lose sight of this larger reality. and see that there is beyond war and battles. and there is a beyond life continuing into a stream of life terms on the same resources of the planet. so mange the world resources smartly, you would need them in your next life forms. and strategy is essential in winning wars. and all wars are eventually unwelcome, but the righteous cannot and shouldn't run away from just wars.

deva sarve: every deva is a pedestalization of a unique set of characteristics and powers. accordingly it is a definition of a way of looking at things. each such point of view needs to be factored when trying to fathom the entire reality. this is thus a prompt to consider all dimensions of a situation. this goes beyond the four physical dimensions of space-time and extends into the realm of n-dimensional mathematical treatment for all. 

look for a balance point amongst various dimensions and amongst various force vectors operating all over.

kaaryeshu: stay focused on the eventual work, on the final outcomes. the desired outcomes should happen. let analysis not bringforth paralysis, the show must go on. the real world is not lost in endless contemplation on itself, it is always in a state of flux and in constant churning. such flux and churning lends this world its freshness, newness and dynamism. love it for its attempts to change itself, do not try to thrust static conditions, for they won't stay ever. do not force clinging to the security and the known; explore for the unknown, always. do not rest on your laurels. but it is not recommending change for the sake of change. the final outcomes have to b monitored, albeit looking at the larger picture.

sarvada: an element of timelessness is to be felt. aspire for creativity and destruction so that the maintenance of the world is beyond timelines. again, in day to day work, value timelines, but look at the larger time picture; consider things from point of view of years rather than months and quarters, from point of view decades rather than years, and from point of view of centuries and millennia rather than decades. the solutions and methodologies would always change and manifest flux, but the eventual outcome of staying on course of vision can show timeless success.

Revolt? Mutiny? Whimpered Submissiveness?

This is directed at someone who is not the CEO, but aspires to be one one day.

If you are at Vice-President or higher echelon, DO YOU find no time to play golf? Or chill out in some other way.

If you are an Asst Mgr or above, do you have a 12 hour workday, and at times longer; with most Saturdays and even some Sundays put in work. 

If yes, take it that you boss DOES NOT want you to grow. Growing needs conceiving creative solutions to work problems and business challenges. Growing requires time for reading (and surfing on) of industry trends, business biographies, newspapers and magazines. Growing demands steady enhancement of learning via various interactions at professional fora and arming with certifications. Growing needs networking with industry peers.

If your boss insists that you primarily put time in transactional issues and not strategic, he leaves no time for you to rejuvenate and come enthused day in day out to work, it is time you change:
yourself/ boss/ organization culture.

Which one is it going to be....

The Cultural Web

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newSTR_90.htm

Aligning your organization's culture with strategy 

What is the first thing that pops in your mind when you hear the term corporate culture? A great many people refer to the classic phrase coined by the McKinsey organization, that culture is "how we do things around here". And while that may be true, there are so many elements that go into determining what you do and why, that this definition only scratches the surface. 

Whether you can define it or not, you know that culture exists. It's that ethereal something that hangs in the air and influences how work gets done, critically affects project success or failure, says who fits in and who doesn't, and determines the overall mood of the company. 

Culture often becomes the focus of attention during periods of organizational change - when companies merge and their cultures clash, for example, or when growth and other strategic change mean that the existing culture becomes inappropriate, and hinders rather than supports progress. In more static environments, cultural issues may be responsible for low morale, absenteeism or high staff turnover, with all of the adverse effects those can have on productivity.

So, for all its elusiveness, corporate culture can have a huge impact on an organization's work environment and output. This is why so much research has been done to pinpoint exactly what makes an effective corporate culture, and how to go about changing a culture that isn't working.

Fortunately, while corporate culture can be elusive, approaches have been developed to help us look at it. Such approaches can play a key role in formulating strategy or planning change. 

The Cultural Web, developed by Gerry Johnson and Kevan Scholes in 1992, provides one such approach for looking at and changing your organization's culture. Using it, you can expose cultural assumptions and practices, and set to work aligning organizational elements with one another, and with your strategy. 

Elements of the Cultural Web

The Cultural Web identifies six interrelated elements that help to make up what Johnson and Scholes call the "paradigm" - the pattern or model - of the work environment. By analyzing the factors in each, you can begin to see the bigger picture of your culture: what is working, what isn't working, and what needs to be changed. The six elements are:
Stories - The past events and people talked about inside and outside the company. Who and what the company chooses to immortalize says a great deal about what it values, and perceives as great behavior.

Rituals and Routines - The daily behavior and actions of people that signal acceptable behavior. This determines what is expected to happen in given situations, and what is valued by management.

Symbols - The visual representations of the company including logos, how plush the offices are, and the formal or informal dress codes.

Organizational Structure - This includes both the structure defined by the organization chart, and the unwritten lines of power and influence that indicate whose contributions are most valued. 

Control Systems - The ways that the organization is controlled. These include financial systems, quality systems, and rewards (including the way they are measured and distributed within the organization.)

Power Structures - The pockets of real power in the company. This may involve one or two key senior executives, a whole group of executives, or even a department. The key is that these people have the greatest amount of influence on decisions, operations, and strategic direction. 

These elements are represented graphically as six semi-overlapping circles, which together influence the cultural paradigm.

Using the Cultural Web

We use the Cultural Web firstly to look at organizational culture as it is now, secondly to look at how we want the culture to be, and thirdly to identify the differences between the two. These differences are the changes we need to make to achieve the high-performance culture that we want.
1. Analyzing Culture As It Is Now 

Start by looking at each element separately, and asking yourself questions that help you determine the dominant factors in each element. Elements and related questions are shown below, illustrated with the example of a bodywork repair company.

Stories
What stories do people currently tell about your organization? 
What reputation is communicated amongst your customers and other stakeholders?
What do these stories say about what your organization believes in?
What do employees talk about when they think of the history of the company?
What stories do they tell new people who join the company?
What heroes, villains and mavericks appear in these stories? 

Examples (car bodywork repair company): 

Rituals and Routines
What do customers expect when they walk in?
What do employees expect?
What would be immediately obvious if changed?
What behavior do these routines encourage?
When a new problem is encountered, what rules do people apply when they solve it?
What core beliefs do these rituals reflect? 

Examples:
Customers expect a newspaper and coffee whilst they wait, or a ride to work. 
Employees expect to have their time cards examined very carefully. 
There's lots of talk about money, and especially about how to cut costs. 

Symbols
Is company-specific jargon or language used? How well known and usable by all is this?
Are there any status symbols used?
What image is associated with your organization, looking at this from the separate viewpoints of clients and staff? 

Examples:
Bright red shuttle vans.
Bright red courtesy cars - compact, economy cars.
The boss wears overalls not a suit. 

Organizational Structure
Is the structure flat or hierarchical? Formal or informal? Organic or mechanistic?
Where are the formal lines of authority?
Are there informal lines? 

Examples:
Flat structure - Owner, Head Mechanic, Mechanics, Reception.
The receptionist is the owner's wife so she goes straight to him with some customer complaints.
It's each mechanic for himself - no sharing tools or supplies, little teamwork. 

Control Systems
What process or procedure has the strongest controls? Weakest controls?
Is the company generally loosely or tightly controlled?
Do employees get rewarded for good work or penalized for poor work?
What reports are issued to keep control of operations, finance, etc...? 

Examples:
Costs are highly controlled, and customers are billed for parts down to the last screw.
Quality is not emphasized. Getting the work done with the least amount of direct costs is the goal. 
Employees docked pay if their quotes/estimates are more than 10% out. 

Power Structures
Who has the real power in the organization?
What do these people believe and champion within the organization?
Who makes or influences decisions?
How is this power used or abused? 

Example:
The owner believes in a low cost, high profit model, and is prepared to lose repeat customers.
The threat of docked pay keeps mechanics working with this model. 

As these questions are answered, you start to build up a picture of what is influencing your corporate culture. Now you need to look at the web as a whole and make some generalized statements regarding the overall culture. 

These statements about your corporate culture should:
Describe the culture; and
Identify the factors that are prevalent throughout the web. 

In our example the common theme is tight cost control at the expense of quality, and at the expense of customer and employee satisfaction. 
2. Analyzing Culture as You Want it to Be 

With the picture of your current cultural web complete, now's the time to repeat the process, thinking about the culture that you want.

Starting from your organization's strategy, think about how you want the organization's culture to look, if everything were to be correctly aligned, and if you were to have the ideal corporate culture.
3. Mapping the Differences Between the Two 

Now compare your two Cultural Web diagrams, and identify the differences between the two. Considering the organization's strategic aims and objectives:
What cultural strengths have been highlighted by your analysis of the current culture?
What factors are hindering your strategy or are misaligned with one another?
What factors are detrimental to the health and productivity of your workplace?
What factors will you encourage and reinforce?
Which factors do you need to change? 
What new beliefs and behaviors do you need to promote? 

4. Prioritize Changes, and Develop a Plan to Address Them