Consensus is doing what is most responsible in a situation

"When groups set out to work, they depend on building consensus. But many view consensus as the majority opinion. Teams resort to voting or other methods to determine the majority opinion. Consensus is not all agreeing on something nor is it the most popular proposal. Consensus is doing what is most responsible in a situation. It is choosing an action for the larger good."

-- Cyprian D'Souza, MD, Kanbay India
as read in The Economic Times, Corporate Dossier, 28-Apr-2006

My take:
I havent seen more original thoughts on consensus before. Only with this perspective can we have meaningful democracy in India. Hail !

There is no such thing as 'managing people'

"Most of us live with the illusion that we need to manage our people. We express our value by the size of the teams we 'manage', number of people we recruit and the size of our workforce.

I learned over the years, we cannot manage people. People have their own agendas, their own aspirations. Most have their own plans as to where they want to be and what they would like to do. All we can do is manage the processes that give people what they are looking for. The best managing task we can undertake is to create an environment that provides people with the freedom and the resources to risk, learn, innovate and grow. People manage themselves. In trying to 'manage people' often managers come in the way of successful individuals."

-- Cyprian D'Souza, MD, Kanbay India
as read in The Economic Times, Corporate Dossier, 28-Apr-2006

My take:
1. I agree
2. A workplace that has clear-headed self motivated achievers is a delightful workplace
3. There arent as many of these around as there should be :)

Presentation skills matter

"After a bit of banter and passionate pitch from Mark, we bought it. Talk about changing your mind about something because of a good presentation and a lot of passion. ... I walked into the meeting thinking - this guy's outta here - and walked out thinking - isn't this neat ?"
- Jack Welch in Jack, Straight From The Gut

My take :
Presentation skills make a big difference to the outcomes. Passion and level of preparedness should make themselves apparent in the presentation.