I am sitting in a stylish New York cafe and thinking how much I'm going to miss the city when I wrap up in two weeks. The combination of a challenging project and staying in the Village (NYU area) has made IBM a rewarding choice for my summer.
It has been an exciting week. For the last three weeks I have been developing new frameworks for the client to think through their organization design. This involves breaking down roles into modular activities and then matching them to skill-set and career direction of people in the organization, as well as using it to identify hiring / outsourcing needs for the client. This week my model found traction with the Head of HR and hopefully this week we will put it to use. It's an opportunity to establish a personal brand on the project and I am looking forward to it.
IBM recently published their 2010 Global CEO Study on how the nature of leadership has changed in the new economic environment, and the issues that are most important to them. Interestingly, they conducted a parallel study with students globally, gathering their perspective on the same issues. The intern group had a fascinating discussion with Partners on the study, that added insight into the stark shift of beliefs from the current generation of leaders to the next. Central to this shift are increased faith in analysis-based decision making, new-found comfort with globalization and huge focus on sustainability (ecological and economic). We had some enthralling discussions on the role of governments, social enterprises and new communication networks.
As I shape the final deliverables of the project, I am keen on defining my career path at IBM. I would like to focus my career on developing operating models for my clients. I want to help clients have nimble yet streamlined, entrepreneurial yet integrated operations. Sure, this duality is difficult to visualize in traditional management thinking, but companies like Singapore Airlines, Samsung and Starbucks have innovated at turning such trade-offs into synergies in the past. This week I will reach out to Partners for their guidance on shaping my consulting career in this direction.
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