Deutsche Bank's Fix

The search for the successor to Ratan Tata has just got heated and the rise of Noel Tata just adds fuel to the fire and creates an immense speculation on who may succeed the modern day legend but that search seems to be a far more liberal one than the problems faced at Deutsche Bank.


“ With speculation reviving over who will succeed Josef Ackermann as chief executive officer (CEO) of Deutsche Bank AG, the company will have to decide how German the leader of Germany’s biggest bank must be.
The answer may reveal whether the 140-year-old Frankfurt-based institution embraces its role as a global investment bank that makes most of its money trading securities on international markets, or whether long-standing business and political ties to Germany remain paramount.


The rise of Anshu Jain, 47, to sole head of the investment bank last month put him in charge of more than 80% of Deutsche Bank’s profit and reinforced his position as a frontrunner to become the CEO. One catch: he was born in India and doesn’t speak German, a potential handicap for an executive who must negotiate the corridors of political power as well as global markets.

“Based on performance, Jain is the crown prince,” said Lutz Roehmeyer, who helps manage about $15 billion (`70,050 crore) at Landesbank Berlin Investment GmbH in the German capital. “But Deutsche Bank has a split personality—a global investment bank being run out of London and a German lender with a very political role. Any successor’s key challenge will be bridging these two worlds.”
Deutsche Bank ducked the issue last year by extending Ackermann’s tenure for three years after the board failed to agree on a replacement.

The Swiss-born Ackermann, 62, rekindled speculation about succession in May when he told shareholders that he’s been holding “intensive” talks on the topic with supervisory board chairman Clemens Boersig for months.”


The Tata’s search looks much simpler considering the fix Deutsche bank has gotten itself into and ducking the problem has increased its magnitude with Global coverage, Speculation, Rumours and even Betting.


The clash of Past Present and future and the organization caught in a whirlpool realizing it has a danger if it ducks any of these issues.

Anshu Jain represents the best person to take over as the CEO but it has a risk attached of not being in line with the values and tradition of the company especially considering the political links in Germany.

But if the company wants to have its local image and does not want to change it then it could go for a local CEO it may well lose its best employee and the person who heads the cash cow division considering upto 80% of the revenues are coming from the Investment bank division to which they cannot turn a blind eye.

The suitors for Anshu Jain won’t be low. He would expect anything but the CEO and anything less than that may cause an issue as he would realize that this weakness over the language would encourage him to defect

The future is compromised because without the man who has increased the profits exponentially the company could stutter in the short run and may concede ground to its rivals and it will also project a bad image for any potential Non-German speaking employee realizing that they could never ascend till the top.”
The company is at cross roads and on the verge of sacrifice and damage reduction.

Authority Is what we crave for ?

"I want to be the most powerful man/woman on earth"

Except immortal Souls and Barrack Obama who doesn't share this dream ! this is what we aim for when we watch Super heroes and also at a later stage, Suddenly we grow older we become less sheepish and then realize that we should have been born in USA to be eligible, now the maximum we can hope for is be the most powerful person in India but 99.9% of us are not born into political families thus it is again ruled out and finally at least in the organization ? much more realistic needs lesser effort ! EUREKA we could finally be what we want and that is necessary that means i can wield power and control people and do whatever i want put all the travel bills in company names. Recently i was interacting with one of my friends (An aspiring journalist
) who explained a bizarre situation

"Boss on the other day on NDTV i saw Prannoy Roy reporting and not hosting a show"
to which i said he is a Journalist who can handle all facets of reporting to which he replied "But if he wanted to report he could have just remained a journalist why did he have to start NDTV and create so many things. If he has started these things then he should not be a reporter" i was amazed i believed people create something by choice and they love it but this statement took me off guard

if authority is what we crave for then i think we should all become entrepreneurs there would be no love to what we do

and there outlays the change which we need to initiate. Make people happy and proud about what they do. One of my favorite books on Human relations and employee motivation has to be the "Great Game of Business" by Jack Stack and he motivated all his employees by a single tactic. His organization was into re-manufacturing and auto components and he made them proud by creating open days where families came and realized the work done by them which created a pride in them.

But ultimately the winning and authoritative desire is needed if we need to have entrepreneurs

Chief Bullying Officer

The primary inspiration of this post is Sidin Vadukut and Cubiclenama

His satirical writing style has fascinated me and so is his desire to criticize the HR department. But in all honesty most of the situations portrayed by him come up true because of shortcomings of HR.

Based on reading his articles and interning with 4 organizations i was able to come up with this unique character of "Chief bullying officer" they are spotted commonly in most offices and found in abundance in government offices. As their name suggests they are mostly in the top strata of the company and which gives them the right to bully officially also. Some of the characteristics of this creature is

#Belongs to the top rung of corporate ladder

#Loves to impose rules but does not apply to themselves

#May very well be your boss

#Short tempered. His anger is unpredictable just like him

#Will never say no to his/her boss and will go to any extent to keep them happy

#great communication skills which they show off and have often used to climb up the corporate ladder

#Might forcefully add you as a friend on Facebook

#Will love to disturb you in the weekends

#Will love to comment on your twitter updates while you are enjoying food

#Will love to insult you and make others laugh over it if possible

#Everybody in the office are scared of him and respect him because they don't want to pick up a squabble with him/her

#Wants you to take everything in good spirit without even consulting you

If your boss satisfies any 5 criteria's congratulations you have the apathy of working under "Chief Bullying Officer" and they only way to escape is wait for him to jump to another company so that you can take over as the "Chief Bullying Officer"

Cheers

Arvind !!

office secrets

A confession ! the first article i love to read on a Sunday newspaper is "Water-Cooler Moment" in the Sunday Times to listen to the office Gossip or the way in which it is portrayed.

Ramblings by employees are crazy, few of them are

# "My Boss is GOD - Good Old Donkey"

# "This HR dude at my office has zipper on the side pockets of his trousers. God knows what he can pull out"

#"There are 25 people working in my process, out of which 11 are resigning tomorrow!"

#"I see dumb people."

#"Sadly my boss is bullied by a bunch of females in my team…(they) threaten to quit or act pissed off.. (just) like GFs!…boss ain’t the boss here!"

#"I hate everyone in my department!"

#"Boss is out today, which means I am checking out mentally. Will continue job search until he returns"

#"I just wanna run away from my office – well actually I am but, still cant feel the same"

#"My neighbour is always on call!!! Don’t know whom he calls!!!"

#"I was in a meeting and this lady started fanning herself and took off her sweater b/c of menopause!"

#"Her pen clicking is driving me crazy. STFU!"

#"I swear my colleague is wearing a wedding dress"

#"I hate female bosses"

#"Why does the CEO always come late to the office"

#The canteen food Smells awesome"

# "No one in your family is allowed to work if you are working except if you are the owners or CEO ! Hypocrites "
Office Secrets

A site about which i learnt after my brushing's with Cubiclenama. The anonymity and the
forum gives anyone who is frustrated at work and 90% od the comments are aimed at the boss and colleagues mostly because they may not find it apt to tell them directly.

Somewhere this represents an extension of our educational system where we like to say pleasing words about our teachers and professors but on forums where they cannot access or where we would be anonymous.

But for the moment enjoy the ramblings

Cheers

Arvind !

The Boom of HR

The evolution of HR has taken a steep curve,

Deeply entrenched in the manufacturing mayhem it was compliance driven and required people

#Who were authoritative and could force their way

#Who knew the legal system

#Finally who could handle the unions and make sure the compliances are done and if strikes occur then to solve it

This was mostly the scenario till 1990's till the IT revolution and service sector boom happened in India. Suddenly people were operating from a higher level they were not shopfloor workmen or they had union to resort to when they felt unhappy they just had one technique "Leave The Organization" and there was huge gap which we as HR could not fulfill.

We started drawing the Ire of people and we were concerned from being the most important people to now being support function a lot of ego's got trampled and got crushed under the weight of expectation which people have.

I think its time we realized that the Boom in services sector ask for a drastic measure of the Hr systems

HR should not totally be the sympathetic character but the one who rewards the best and drains out the worst. No organization wants leftovers thus it has moved from centralized to an extent outsourced.

More and more organizations have started developing a shared services center where the transactional work is done. thus the bottom line is clear unless we improve ourselves it doom time.

Cheers !!

Arvind !!

HR as a strategic business partner

The recent session in NHRD was about Hr the business strategic partner and it was a thoroughly insightful session as people have all been saying about being a strategic partner but how do you bring in the change. The case study of Standard Chartered was shown and which showed how it can be done. The speakers for the session were William Paul and David Nallathambi from Scope international (Standard chartered )

Some key points were

#HR as an SBP (Strategic Business Partner) should focus on creating and delivering strategic people agenda and ensure business goals are achieved

#We need to move out of transactional HR and into transitional HR though there is a doubt on what work will be done if transactional part is taken out

#Crucial to ensure that people can add value to the business and how they can be a business partner

#Any change should be Simple Scalable and Sustainable which will make light of the work

#To transform the HR you need to add responsibility to the Line Managers and give them a part of the work

#To excel in services sector you need to be ahead of the curve and assess what business needs

#Look at areas of Engagement Retention and Talent Management

#When this process of transformation is complete HR will be more efficient and manage cost growth

#A shared service center expertise in other areas cannot be matched by Managers

# To deliver bottom line performance and increase bottomline by changing people in it

#Time to be a Coach, Consultant and an internal business advisor

#proactively manage attrition and last be ahead of the curve

#important factor only if you have people and right system initiate change orelse do not try for a drastic change

The final comments were given By Dr PVR Murthy who concluded Change is like movement of an Orbit to move to a higher level you need to drop mass