Learn and Lead

About continual learning and leadership

It's Not This Or That, It's This AND That


Came across a tweet by a respected TV journalist today:

r day should be a celebration of creative genius of india, not of armed forces might. fewer tanks, more music. gnight

I have heard people cribbing and providing their alternatives in the past also. “We should not spend money on games, the same could be used for the poor”, “why do film stars get awards, they should be given to intellectuals” and so on.

Mostly we rant about why we shouldn’t do the things that are happening and why we should shift our attention, money, focus to something else. It seems as though magically by doing that we would solve the seemingly bigger problems. How I wish it was so easy. How I wish that poverty would be eroded by not spending the money on games but by giving money to the poor.

Unfortunately it’s usually never a case of EITHER OR but almost always a case of AND. We must have games AND solve our poverty problems, the Republic Day must be a celebration of Armed forces might AND creative genius of India, awards must be given to intellectuals AND film stars.

Do you see yourself using Or in your workplace or are you using AND? Using AND can give shape to ideas and your suggestions stand a better chance of being accepted.

Delivery Led or Sales Led


I have been wondering about this for a while now. What’s better for a business – to be delivery focused or to be sales focused?  Who’s a better business leader – a delivery focused leader or a sales focused leader? I know of companies bracketed as being sales focused or delivery focused. Sales led/focused companies are known for their aggressive attitude towards grabbing business, at any cost, at any promise, irrespective of its delivery capabilities. Deliver led/focused companies are known to be more focused on selling only what they can deliver, known to be risk averse but perhaps more predictable in their ability to deliver. Do customers prefer one over the other? What’s better?

2010 Redux

2010 was a rather quiet year for my blog. My blog didn’t see much of me this year, only 24 posts this year. As for my other social media presence, it’s been mostly quiet all across. My RSS reader missed me, on many occasions I would mark 1000s of unread items as read and try to start again. Tweeting also took back seat. Tweetstats tells me I posted only 854 tweets in 2010 against more than 2000 the previous year. And still, sometime during this year, this blog completed three years, crossed 50,000 hits and more than 370 feed subscribers. Google Analytics tells me that hits this year were marginally more than last year.

During the year, my role changed from primarily developing elearning content to providing learning solutions for the Indian market. It’s mostly about selling training in various form factors, including instructor led and elearning. What’s interesting is the work we are doing with various ministries in the Government of India on employability and skill development, something that I hope to write more about in the coming year. The new role also takes me even closer to the actual implementation of learning solutions and is providing me new insights. I am hoping to make up for my sparse blogging last year in 2011.

Some of the posts I wrote in 2009 and 2008 continue to be popular and appear in the most read posts in 2010. My top 5 read posts in 2010 were:
  1. Rules for Kids and Teenagers for Facebook Usage (2009) is the most read post on my blog, not just last year but in this history of this blog.
  2. Top 10 Qualities of a Good Manager (2010)
  3. Instructional Designer Competencies (2008)
  4. eLearning and Content Development Salaries in India (2009) continues to intrigue the readers
  5. 5 Reasons Why You are Not Being Promoted (2009)


As for the posts I wrote in the year, my personal top 5 posts of 2010 are:
  1. How to Become a Thought Leader
  2. Recognition Beyond Awards
  3. Would You Fire Your Best Performer
  4. Collaboration: It’s Not About Technology, It’s About the Culture
  5. Dealing with Office Bully


I also quite liked my son’s account of student life that I shared in A Day in the Life of a Student.

Thank you again for continuing to read this blog.

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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. Content published here is not read or approved in advance by my employers and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of my employers.

Creative Commons License This work by Manish Mohan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License.

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