The Hindu Business Line : CCL ties up with Tata Group for research division in India

Leadership initiative
CCL, providers of executive education worldwide, is joining hands with the Tata group for starting a research division in India. CCL and Tata are working towards putting together a joint team in India to steer overall project implementation for India.

Mumbai , April 4

Does providing Starbucks one every floor, iPods for those with a weakness for gizmos help retain young talent?

If the younger lot are informal and disrespectful, how about the older employees who resist change and show disinterest in learning new processes?

What factors differentiate successful executives from those who derail at senior levels?

The corporate houses, world over, are trying to answer some of these questions in a bid to identify and retain talent.

Shrinking human resource pool in a market place that is exploding with newer job profiles is a situation that cuts across nations; quite a few organisations are looking for global solutions by seeking answers that cut across national boundaries.

Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), that pioneered 360 degree assessment way back in the 1970s, began seeking answers to such questions from business houses in the US and Europe in 2001.

And now, it may be the turn of the Indian corporates to provide answers to such queries as CCL, ranked among top 10 providers of executive education worldwide by Financial Times in 2005 survey, is on the verge of joining hands with the Tata group.

Mr Michael Jenkins, Managing Director of CCL Singapore, who was in India recently, talked to Business Line: "CCL is committed to helping develop leaders for India.

"Our joint initiatives around research and programmes with the Tata Management Training Centre (TMTC) will be invaluable in the realisation of our objectives in India.

"Our experience in leadership development over 40 years, coupled with the in-depth knowledge of India's corporate and non-corporate training worlds possessed by TMTC will be, to my mind, a winning combination."

CCL, that has its global headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina and educational facilities in Colorado Springs, Brussels and Singapore, is joining hands with the Tata group for starting a research division in India.

CCL and Tata are working towards putting together a joint team in India to steer overall project implementation for India. "We are pleased with our association with CCL in the direction of leadership research, an important area for India and the Tata group.

"The current project will run for 2-3 years" said Mr Satish Pradhan, Executive Vice-President, group HR, Tata group.

A cross between a university business school and a research institute, CCL serves as a clearing-house for innovative ideas and techniques for creative leadership development and education.

It puts a premium on self-knowledge as the most important cog in the leadership wheel.

Thus, becoming aware of one's strengths and weaknesses is viewed as an `unfreezing' that leads to fresh goals being set and action being taken for improvement.