Seek: Finding Your True Calling , Rakesh Godhwani
(Random House India, Rs. 150)
One of the biggest challenges students face is with regard to their career path. Worries and concerns such as these — how will I repay my education loan if I don’t get this job? Or how can I move to IT if I take up the bank job? — confuse many a career seeker.
And addressing such issues and questions is this book which provides insights into various industries, including consulting, IT, media, banking and oil and gas. Success stories of IIM Bangalore alumni such as Arun Balakrishnan, Malavika Harita and Apurva Purohit have been used to offer smart, practical advice on following your passion and finding your dream job.
Inside the Box: Why the Best Business Solutions are Right in Front of You , Drew Boyd, Jacob Goldenberg
(Profile Books, Rs. 499)
Most corporates believe that to find an original solution to a problem, one needs to think outside the box, ‘brainstorming’ random connections. No, say Jacob Goldenberg and Drew Boyd. They feel for a faster, better and more original innovation and creativity, it is better to work inside your familiar world.
The newest and most inventive ideas are much closer than you think, and can be found by using five simple techniques — subtraction, unification, multiplication, division and dependency. This strategy helped Philips use subtraction to create the slim-line DVD players we use today, while dependency leads to iPhone apps such as Four Square which provides services that change according to the user's location.
This strategy will work for anyone — a CEO of a MNC or a hurricane rescue team, and even to jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, who actually restricts the range of his instrument to induce increased creativity.
The Elephant Catchers: Key Lessons for Breakthrough Growth , Subroto Bagchi
(Hachette India, Rs. 499)
Hunting for a rabbit is quite different from trapping an elephant. The former calls for enthusiasm, while the latter requires wisdom and expertise.
Well, the same applies to many start-ups too. They begin with a bang but somewhere along the line, they lose sheen and begin to falter in their attempts to achieve transformational growth in their later phases. In this book, Bagchi uses his years of on-the-ground learning and experience to explore why this happens and what such organisations and their people need to do to climb to the next level and beyond.
Through a combination of engaging anecdotes from his experiences as co-founder and subsequently Chairman of Mindtree Ltd and insightful stories from the everyday world, Bagchi demonstrates a crucial point — organisations that want to get to the top need to embrace the idea of scale and then ensure that it systematically pervades every aspect of its functioning.
Practical advice on real issues, from how to deal with consultants to the question of succession and words of caution on strategy traps, and a whole range of growth-related issues are discussed here.
