The Hindu Business Line : The 3C strategy of thought leadership

With easy access to effective technology and the Internet, there are many new possibilities to train and develop people. Yet, technology can cover only a part of people’s development, says Fiona Czerniawska in The Trusted Firm ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

One of the core rationales for organisations is that human interaction provides the opportunity to develop in other ways, she argues. “Mentoring and coaching programmes need people to be physically present. You need to be able to see your manager and observe what he or she does; that’s not the kind of thing you get from a software package.”

Elsewhere in the book is a stimulating discussion on ‘thought leadership’ — a phrase that means, ‘new vision and thinking in business and technology,’ according to ITSMA (the Information Technology Services Marketing Association).

Czerniawska gives the example of Accenture, which adopts a 3C strategy to manage thought leadership. The first C is ‘content,’ which involves the carrying out of ‘an audit of what ideas the firm was creating, assessing the top ideas in the media and researching what clients were talking about.’

Next comes ‘channel.’ Good thought leadership, as Accenture’s Terry Corby puts it, should yield interesting conversations, based on the right content going to the right clients.

“From research Accenture has done in conjunction with ITSMA, Corby argues that printed material remains important — people like it for reading on long flights, for example — but the best channel is personal briefings, when consultants take particular pieces of thought leadership directly to their clients.”

The attraction lay in the relevance, Accenture found. For, clients like it best when they can see with the help of a diagnostic tool how they are ranked against their competitors. “In the past, people complained that our thought leadership was very academic, but this approach tallies with our focus on delivery,” is a snatch of Corby-speak in the book.

And the third C is about connectivity, about getting people connected to the best ideas in a dynamic way. Accenture set up ‘Ideas Mart,’ to list all its current and planned thought leadership for the benefit of the practice professionals. Narrates Czerniawska: “The most important factor in driving internal take-up has been to ensure that the capability groups collaborate effectively with Accenture’s market-facing industry groups…”

Imperative read.

Get out there and network

What do you normally do if, at the workplace, a colleague responds to your e-mail with a sharp critique, cc-ing others in your department? Or, if someone interrupts you at a meeting to shoot down your idea? Or, when a group of people in the office goes out for lunch to discuss an upcoming project and you’re not invited?

A common response may be to sulk. But, before you get into any such well-entrenched modes, listen to what Cathie Black says in Basic Black ( www.crownpublishing.com).

“Don’t personalise things that aren’t personal,” she advises. “Offices are kind of like families — you’re thrust into close relationships with people you’d normally have nothing to do with. And just as in families, this provides all kinds of opportunities for conflict, whether real or imagined,” writes Black.

Quite frequently ‘imagined,’ because there’s actually less personality conflict than people think, she finds. A stray comment, for instance, may be taken as a personal affront when it wasn’t intended that way.

“And, unfortunately, once a degree of friction or mistrust has been established between people, it often becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and problems really do start to develop.”

The reason why we feel professionally affronted and personally slighted, in the face of perceived provocations, is that we are so attached to our own ideas, explains Black. We can’t imagine people have real objections to our ideas, so we assume it must be a personality thing that shows as opposition.

In certain cases, however, the protests may, in fact, be personal, the author concedes. To tackle such tricky situations, she offers a little secret: “No matter whether a conflict represents a legitimate criticism, a personality clash, or something in between, you should always treat it as if there were no personal component at all.” Make your life thus a grudge-free zone, she counsels.

Another essential tool to succeed comes in a chapter on ‘attitude’ as a simple mantra: ‘Get out there and network.’ The idea behind networking, says Black, is incredibly constructive. “Whenever you can take the opportunity to expand your circle of friends and colleagues, you should — and there are numerous organisations, conferences, and gatherings to help you do it.”

Here’s how to begin. Do a Google search on the words, ‘business,’ ‘women,’ and your town’s name, and you’ll find several useful links, the author guides. “A mentor can help steer you toward a group that will suit your needs, or you can even start up a group yourself. It’s easy enough to put together small roundtable discussions with other working women, by e-mail or through notices posted in other offices.”

While any kind of networking is useful, women’s networking can be particularly valuable, says Black, because it’s not always possible to penetrate the men’s networks that exist.

“The so-called old boys’ network is not as ironclad and closed to women as it once was, but it’s still alive and well. Despite the progress women have made in the last couple of decades, men still make up the vast majority of company CEOs and board members.”

Valuable insights.

Unregulated CT scans

The largest group in the world that has received radiation greater than the normal level consists of people who have been treated with nuclear medicine, writes Gwyneth Cravens in Power to Save the World: The truth about nuclear energy ( www.aaknopf.com). It can’t be denied, though, that ‘millions have benefited from the early detection of ailments thanks to X-rays and computerised tomography (CT) scans and from radiation treatments.’

The author cites studies that have found ‘there’s no clear evidence of radiological harm to people from higher-dose procedures such as CT scans.’ She adds, however, that if a person were to be exposed to multiple whole-body CT scans, the total dose received might approach the equivalent of a thousand chest X-rays, and the risk of developing cancer from the exposure would be expected to rise significantly.

An unnerving fact in the book is that less than 5 per cent of medical exposure is regulated, even as “CT scanning of the whole body of healthy people has become popular at clinics for the ‘worried well.’”

The book has a disturbing quote of Fred Mettler, who began an international campaign to educate operators of diagnostic medical equipment.

He says, “The buttons on those machines are being pushed by millions of people. Digital radiography has replaced films and has the potential of reducing doses of radiation by half. But in fact doses have gone up because the technician will take multiple images.” Without films for the radiologist to look at, there’s no record of overexposure to X-rays, no idea of how many times that button was pressed, says Mettler.

“More people are having positive emission tomography (PET) scans. There are now more chest CT scans. All in all, there are more CT scans per patient than ever before. Worldwide, there are billions of patients getting medical radiation — and more of it each year.”

Unputdownable.

Tailpiece

“I get bcc-ed so much…”

“That you feel great at being everybody’s confidante?”

“No, on the contrary, an eerie feeling creeps on to me that I’m turning invisible!”

dmurali@thehindu.co.in