Tendencias: Analizando la Imprevisibilidad de 2013 en LatAm

Debemos dar vuelta rápidamente a la hoja del balance de este vertiginoso 2012 que estamos dejando atrás y pensar en lo que podría venir con el objetivo de manejar eficientemente los recursos monetarios excedentes
por Diego M. Burzaco

"El tiempo no corre, vuela".

Se trata de una frase muy habitual para describir el ritmo de los acontecimientos en cualquier ámbito de la vida, como si nunca tuviéramos momentos disponibles para hacer la pausa y reflexionar.

Quizás esta sensación es más extrema aún cuando nos ponemos el traje de inversor y nos embarcamos en la aventura de surfear los vertiginosos mercados financieros buscando poder defender el poder adquisitivo de nuestros ahorros y, por qué no, lograr una capitalización de los mismos.

Y esto es así. Porque cuando nos ponemos a analizar fríamente qué es lo que ocurrió en 2012, ya tenemos a 2013 pisándonos los talones. Y vaya que corrió agua bajo el puente en el año que estamos dejando atrás.

SIN TIEMPO PARA TOMAR ASIENTO

Los mercados son dinámicos, se mueven permanentemente, no descansan nunca y eso nos obliga a estar preparados para enfrentar lo que se viene, siempre con el mismo objetivo: defender nuestras inversiones y buscar la mejor forma de hacer crecer nuestro patrimonio.

Y si nos enfocamos en las perspectivas de un 2013 que está a la vuelta de la esquina, existen varias señales que podemos considerar al momento de establecer una estrategia de inversión.

Por un lado la Reserva Federal, el banco central de Estados Unidos, insiste con la necesidad de seguir apuntalando la actividad económica a partir del refuerzo de sus planes de estímulo monetario.

Con el mecanismo "Operación Twist" finalizado, que implicaba vender títulos de corto plazo y comprar los de largo para mantener las tasas de interés de más de 10 años en niveles históricamente bajos, la Fed decidió directamente expandir su programa de compra mensual a USD 45.000 millones a través de la adquisición de bonos largos, sin vender los de corto plazo. 

Esto no es ni más ni menos que emisión monetaria lisa y llana, y una mayor oferta de dólares "garantiza" debilidad en el valor de la divisa para 2013, a excepción que surja un evento que dispare un pánico generalizado a nivel mundial.

Paralelamente, las tasas de interés continuarán bajas. No sólo la de los bonos del Tesoro estadounidense, debido a la mayor demanda por parte de la Reserva Federal, sino también la propia tasa de referencia de la entidad. Bernanke señaló que mientras la tasa de desempleo (hoy en 7,8%) se mantenga por encima de 6,5% y la inflación subyacente no supere el 2% anual, la Fed Fund Rate seguirá en los actuales niveles de entre 0% y 0,25%.

Aquí otra señal: no conviene comprar bonos a tasa variable ni bonos del Tesoro estadounidense si pretendemos obtener un rendimiento "decente" de nuestras inversiones.

Por el lado europeo seguiremos con la convulsión, adicionándose el hecho de que la que fue el contrapeso en 2012, la economía alemana, está en serios riesgos de ser arrastrada hasta la zona de recesión económica. Hay activos de valor allí, pero no todas las "ofertas" pueden terminar siendo un gran negocio.

China, en tanto, encara su recuperación tras varios trimestres de desaceleración económica. Se trata de buenas noticias para el mundo, pero también para los inversores. Las acciones chinas habían sido exageradamente castigadas por el mercado y sus valuaciones actuales parecerían representar una oportunidad, aunque debe primar la selectividad.

Asimismo, el hecho de que se motorice la demanda china es un punto a considerar para aquellas empresas que destinan gran parte de sus ventas a ese mercado. Aquí también puede haber una oportunidad.

¿Y POR CASA CÓMO ANDAMOS?

Según las proyecciones de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL), la región verá una recuperación en 2013 respecto a la tasa de crecimiento de 2012, ya que proyecta un crecimiento promedio de 3,8% contra el 3,1% de este año que termina.

A nivel desagregado, si bien el organismo proyecta un avance de la actividad económica en todos los países analizados, el crecimiento no será uniforme. Las economías que liderarán los avances serán Paraguay (8,5%), Panamá (7,5%), Perú (6%), Bolivia (5%) y Chile (4,8%).

En contraste, las tres economías más grandes de la región crecerán en torno al promedio: Brasil (4%), Argentina (3,9%) y México (3,5%).

De concretarse estas proyecciones, uno como inversor podría adelantarse a estos movimientos a través de una eficiente localización del dinero en aquellos activos que prometerán mayor retorno esperado. El gran escollo es que muchas veces lo proyectado no es lo que efectivamente termina ocurriendo en la realidad.

Fuente: Inversor Global

para todos nuestros Clientes y Amigos...

Muchas gracias por compartir este 2012,

y los invitamos a trabajar juntos en un 2013

AÚN MEJOR !!!

to all our Customers and Friends...

Thank you very much for sharing 2012,

and we invite you to work together in a 2013

EVEN BETTER !!!

Mails: msg.latam@gmail.com   -   medinacasabella@alumni.gwu.edu

Phone: 0054-11-3532-0510 (office)   -   0054-911-4420-5103 (mobile)

https://www.facebook.com/MSG.LatAm

https://twitter.com/MSGLatAm

http://ar.linkedin.com/in/medinacasabella 

MEyGC 2013 - CEU en MANAGEMENT ESTRATÉGICO y GESTIÓN DEL CAMBIO (UTN)

Link:  http://www.sceu.frba.utn.edu.ar/cursosfooter/-curso-de-extension-universitaria-en-management-estrategico-y-gestion-del-cambio.html

GOSyF 2013 - CEU en GESTIÓN DE ORGANIZACIONES DE SALUD y FARMA (UTN)

Link: http://www.sceu.frba.utn.edu.ar/cursosfooter/gestion/gestion-de-organizaciones-de-salud-y-farma.html

Conferencia "Consultoría y Práctica Profesional" en UNLaM Ciencias Económicas

(Universidad Nacional de La Matanza)

Consultora Interdisciplinaria especializada en Management Estratégico, Inversiones, Gestión Educativa y Capacitación de Latinoamérica

(Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panamá, Paraguay, Uruguay, Venezuela)

Facebook: www.facebook.com/MSG.LatAm

Twitter: @MSGLatAm

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/medinacasabella

Link a MEyGC - Curso de Extensión Universitaria en 

Management Estratégico y Gestión del Cambio:

http://www.sceu.frba.utn.edu.ar/cursosfooter/-curso-de-extension-universitaria-en-management-estrategico-y-gestion-del-cambio.html

Link a GOSyF - Curso de Extensión Universitaria en 

Gestión de Organizaciones de Salud y Farma:

http://www.sceu.frba.utn.edu.ar/cursosfooter/gestion/gestion-de-organizaciones-de-salud-y-farma.html

Los esperamos !!!

Dr. Miguel Ángel Medina Casabella, ME, MBA, SMHS

CEO & Consultor Senior

Mails: medinacasabella@alumni.gwu.edu y msg.latam@gmail.com

(favor escribir a ambas direcciones, gracias)

El Desacople Económico en LatAm en 2012
¿Coyuntura o Tendencia?

La teoría del desacople es uno de los conceptos más utilizados en el siglo XXI para referirse a la dinámica que adoptan las economías mundiales respecto a patrones de comportamiento que prevalecieron en el siglo XX. La idea es avanzar un poco más en el análisis y examinar lo que está sucediendo en Latinoamérica
por Diego M. Burzaco

Los paradigmas económicos globales mutan permanentemente. No existen verdades reveladas ni supuestos inalterables. La economía es dinámica y eso es innegable.

Bajo este escenario, se comenzó a gestar con fuerza la "teoría del desacople" a comienzos del siglo XXI. Este concepto implica poner en el foco del debate el hecho de si las economías periféricas son capaces de crecer independientemente de lo que sucede en el centro.

El estallido económico en el corazón del sistema capitalista en el año 2007 reforzó esta corriente de pensamiento. La explosión de la burbuja inmobiliaria en Estados Unidos fue quizás un punto de inflexión en la historia económica moderna.

Antaño, la regla general era la gestación de crisis de una magnitud inconmensurable en los países emergentes, y su principal efecto negativo se hacía sentir en economías semejantes, con escaso o nulo impacto sobre las desarrolladas.

Esto cambió. Desde 2007 a la fecha no hacemos otra cosa que ser testigos de crisis recurrentes en aquellas naciones que hasta hace pocos años eran el ejemplo a seguir por la mesura en las políticas económicas aplicadas y el alto bienestar de vida de sus habitantes.

El gran contrasentido de estos tiempos es que los países desarrollados luchan por deshacerse de las cadenas de la recesión económica, mientras que las emergentes han sufrido relativamente poco impacto por las crisis del centro y han podido crecer más rápidamente en los últimos años.

El gran interrogante es saber si este proceso es coyuntural o una tendencia de largo plazo. El consenso actual parece inclinar la balanza hacia este último caso. El siguiente gráfico, de un informe de perspectivas globales elaborado por el equipo de investigación del Deutsche Bank, es revelador al respecto:

Mientras que las economías desarrolladas explicaban 60% del PBI global en 1950, su participación actual se reduce hoy a 49% y se proyecta para 2025 una merma mayor, hasta 35%. La contracara es el incremento de la importancia relativa de las naciones emergentes en el nuevo orden económico global.

Las cartas para este nuevo rebalanceo de poder parecen estar echadas. El tiempo dictaminará...

Poniendo la lupa dentro de Latinoamérica

El análisis de la teoría del desacople explicada anteriormente, y que abarca a todo el mundo, puede tener un paralelismo para el estudio de lo que ha ocurrido durante 2012 en Latinoamérica.

El impacto de la crisis en la Unión Europea ha sido desigual entre las distintas economías integrantes del hemisferio latinoamericano, lo que sugiere preguntarnos si estamos en presencia del punto de partida del propio "desacople latino".

Naciones que han liderado el proceso de crecimiento en la región durante los últimos cinco años parecen estar quedando relegadas a manos de los "nuevos tigres latinoamericanos".

Por un lado, Brasil se encamina a cerrar 2012 con un magro crecimiento de 1% del PBI, muy lejos del 4,5% proyectado inicialmente por las autoridades oficiales. En la misma línea, la Argentina mostrará un tímido crecimiento de apenas 2%, cuando en 2011 la economía se había expandido 8,9%.

Los Gobiernos de estos países acusan a los efectos externos como las principales causas de este estancamiento, pero la comparación con otros países de la región deja al descubierto este "chivo expiatorio".

Si bien la desaceleración es un denominador común entre todas las economías latinas, Perú y Chile registraron tasas de crecimiento interanual de 6,5% y 5,7% respectivamente, en el tercer trimestre del año. Por su parte, Colombia se expandió a un ritmo de 4,9% y México 4,2%.

Los modelos de crecimiento brasileño y argentino padecen grandes contradicciones internas y les pueden jugar una mala pasada de cara a los próximos años.

¿Qué nos dicen los mercados al respecto?

Un buen pronosticador de cómo los inversores se posicionan sobre este nuevo escenario y cuáles son las expectativas para el futuro son los mercados bursátiles de cada uno de los países en cuestión:

A medida que las cifras de crecimiento económico de Brasil y Argentina defraudaban a los analistas e inversores, las Bolsas de estos países fueron alejándose de los máximos alcanzados a inicios de 2012. El índice Merval se ubica a 21,5% del pico del año, mientras que el Bovespa brasileño está a 19,6% de ese nivel.

En cambio, a excepción de la Bolsa peruana -que cotiza con ratios insólitamente elevados, como lo muestra su relación Precio/Ganancia (en inglés, P/E)-, las Bolsas de Chile, México y Colombia se encuentran a menos de 10% de los máximos anuales.

Cuando evaluamos los múltiplos respectivos, el mercado bursátil argentino muestra el menor ratio P/E y la mayor tasa de rendimiento de los dividendos de las empresas componentes, lo que sugiere una excesiva subvaluación de las acciones. Siguiendo la misma línea de análisis, la siguiente Bolsa "más barata" es la brasileña, con un P/E de tan sólo 13,7 veces.

¿Acaso esto sugiere que los precios actuales de los papeles brasileños y argentinos ya tienen descontado el peor escenario para el 2013, respecto de sus pares de la región? ¿Estaremos ante una oportunidad de compra en estos mercados?

A estar atentos a cualquier señal positiva en este sentido, porque seguramente podría ser un gran negocio para el inversor que tenga los sentidos más alertas.

Fuente: Inversor Global

Expertos en Economía y Finanzas sostienen que LatAm aún debe hacer Reformas Estructurales

Enfatizan que no se ha avanzado lo suficiente en la liberalización del comercio y en temas como educación

Expertos en economía y finanzas recomendaron en Madrid a los países de América Latina llevar a cabo reformas estructurales como parte esencial del camino para consolidarse como potencia económica, así como cuidar el mercado asiático.

En un acto celebrado con motivo de la presentación del Libro "The Oxford Handbook of Latin American Political Economy", los expertos remarcaron también la necesidad de la estabilidad institucional en la región para continuar en la senda del progreso de la última década.

“Aunque no toda la región va hacia una senda positiva, hay ciertos países que desde hace una década están llevando a cabo reformas llamativas con una gran calidad de ejecución”, dijo Javier Santiso, editor del libro y, también, vicepresidente de la escuela de negocios Esade.

“En 2002, Argentina y Brasil no gozaban de la confianza de los mercados, pero con las reformas de Lula -Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva-, la situación brasileña cambió totalmente. Y Argentina optó por otros caminos”, añadió Santiso.

También apuntó a Asia como el mercado que la región debe seguir cuidando de cara a las exportaciones. “América Latina va hacia Asia, se está abriendo a China e India. Chile ya exporta más a Asia que a cualquier otro continente”, subrayó.

Luis Carranza, exministro de Economía y Finanzas de Perú, destacó por su parte que “la necesidad de hacer reformas todavía es enorme en América Latina”, e hizo hincapié en que no se ha avanzado lo suficiente en la liberalización del comercio y en temas como educación.

Citó a Brasil, Colombia, Chile, Perú y México como los países que más respetan el libre mercado, y que por ello son los que “reciben la atención de la inversión internacional”.

Sobre la agenda de la integración regional, Carranza señaló que el dominio de Brasil “hace imposible o muy difícil una integración entre iguales” ya que, explicó, solo entre Brasil y México ya suponen más del 60 por ciento del producto interior bruto (PIB) del total.

Por su lado, el economista Christian Daude, jefe de la Oficina para las Américas de la Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económico (OCDE), alertó sobre la desigualdad, la pobreza extrema y los problemas de fiscalidad que perviven en países de América Latina y que, sostuvo, es donde los gobiernos deben centrar sus reformas.

Fuente: Portafolio.co

Solutions for Sustainable Development

Economist Jeffrey Sachs addresses global challenges during special lecture at George Washington University

It’s appropriate that Hurricane Sandy prevented Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University in New York City, from traveling to Washington, D.C., in October to give a lecture on sustainable development at the George Washington University. 

“It’s par for the course. Our systems aren’t working. They’ve very vulnerable and the situation is getting worse,” said Dr. Sachs during his rescheduled lecture Monday in the Elliott School of International Affairs’ City View Room. “That’s the challenge of sustainable development.”

Dr. Sachs is a prominent figure in the field of sustainable development. He serves as special adviser to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals and director of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. He’s also the Quetelet Professor of Sustainable Development and Health Policy and Management at Columbia, co-founder and chief strategist of the Millennium Promise Alliance and director of the Millennium Villages Project.

“This is not an easy subject for us because it’s open-ended. It is an unprecedented set of challenges, and there are no known answers,” said Dr. Sachs. “There is a lot of good science. There are uninformed and informed decisions, but there is no proof that the world will achieve sustainable development. And there are real questions as to how it will achieve sustainable development.”

Dr. Sachs defines sustainable development as a society that aims to end extreme poverty and promote economic well-being; encourage social inclusion and individual rights; achieve sustainability of ecosystems, resource use and management; and practice good governance.

Dr. Sachs’ lecture was part of GW’s Sustainable Development Forum, a series of talks by leaders in academia and in policy, which will attempt to set the research agenda for sustainable development following the Rio + 20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development. The forum is sponsored by the Institute for International Economic Policy, the GW Institute for Sustainability and Planet Forward.

“Sustainability is one of the greatest challenges of our time, and the George Washington University has decided to take it on,” Ram Fishman, assistant professor of economics, said during his introductory remarks.

According to Dr. Sachs, the world is not on a sustainable development trajectory. Instead, it’s facing mounting challenges like rising inequality, environmental degradation, rapid population growth, depletion of resources and extreme poverty affecting more than 1 billion people. That’s why, Dr. Sachs argued, there must be sustainable development goals included in the next phase of global development.

“The massive floods, the massive droughts, the massive instability of the climate system – the world has already tipped into the world of extreme events. We’re in a massive and accelerated hit for a worst case scenario,” said Dr. Sachs. “This is a real problem.”

Dr. Sachs criticized the U.S. for not doing enough to support sustainable development and called upon universities to play a larger role through the UN’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network, which was launched in August. The network aims to mobilize scientific and technical expertise from academia, civil society and the private sector around sustainable-development problem-solving at the local, national and global levels. Dr. Sachs said the network will focus on finding solutions for challenges such as urban sustainability, food security, low-carbon energy and economic development. Ultimately, the network will assist countries in developing sustainable long-term development pathways.

“I’m a huge believer in our role as universities in having both responsibility and capacity to help solve these problems,” said Dr. Sachs. “What I hope comes out of this network is a global network of problem-solving and activism by the universities saying what we need are knowledge-based solutions. This is complicated stuff. There is no easy answer to the problems of combining economic growth and environmental sustainability”.

GEORGE WASHINGTON TODAY

Rice Hall
Division of External Relations
2121 Eye Street, NW
Washington, DC 20052
Phone: (202) 994-1000
gwtoday@gwu.edu

Five Habits practiced by Market Leaders

By John Jantsch

It’s pretty easy to get caught with your face buried in a computer screen and forget that the world out there is a pretty amazing place. Plus, that’s really where opportunity exists.

Sure, taking care of customers, writing sales letters and growing your business is your job, but in order to truly evolve your business, sometimes you have to work on evolving your environment.

Here’s what I mean. They say a fish or a turtle or any animal really can only grow to a size in accordance with its environment. Put a fish in a small tank and it stays small, put a fish in a big tank and it gets bigger.

One of the surest ways to grow your business, to become a leader in your marketplace, is to go to work on growing or bettering your industry as a whole.

You can apply this thinking locally, in your marketplace, or globally, depending upon where you start, but organizations that embrace this way of thinking generally show up as leaders in every category of business.

Below are five habits that market leaders embrace.

Network

Market leaders understand that networking is a way of life, not a lead generation practice. Networking is how you uncover opportunities, solutions, employees, mentors, referrals and it’s how you build a team of “best of class” resources to bring value to every aspect of your life.

Networking employs the act of giving and receiving and does not involve scorekeeping. The first reflex in market leader networking is, “who can I help?”

Participate

Every industry on the planet has an association or group, locally, nationally and internationally whose purpose is to improve, protect and grow the interests of the industry or community.

One of the things I’ve experienced over the years is that market leaders participate in such groups. They join them, attend events and volunteer to serve on boards and committees.

This is such a strong trait of a market leader that I’ve long used it as a definable behavior to help describe what, for my organization, is an ideal client. If you sell in a B2B world, targeting individuals that participate at a high level in their industry groups is a smart play.

Teach

Successful businesses have usually figured something out that others have not. Market leaders have figured something out that others have not and they teach it.

Market leaders facilitate discussions with their peers, conduct workshops on various best practices related and unrelated to their core business and view their internal culture much more like a school than a workplace.

Cooperate

Here’s where I may get some push back, but in my experience market leaders view competition different than most. Market leaders believe that cooperation is far more fruitful than competition and look for ways to collaborate, educate and even help industry members that some might view as direct competitors.

Now, you may draw the line at publicly sharing the secret sauce that makes your business profitable, but you may also realize that the world is a tremendously abundant place and cooperation is a much bigger long-term leadership strategy.

Host

Finally, market leaders understand the value of playing the role of host for their community.

They invest in spaces that allow people to come together, whether there is a valid customer generating case to be made of not. They host industry meetings and events. They look for ways to gather two or more to celebrate lunch, music, art or education.

Leadership isn’t really about being better or stronger or faster, it’s more about your gut reaction to things around you and what you do about it. Taking action, without really thinking about it, that benefits your industry, tribe or community as a whole is how you establish a market leader mindset.

Fuente: Duct Tape Marketing

Are you a Boss or a Leader? Before the Meeting Adjourns, tell me What You’ll Do Next

This interview with Bill Flemming, president of Skanska USA Building Inc., was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant

In his team approach, Bill Flemming, president of Skanska USA Building Inc., wants every meeting to end with a clear understanding of what was decided. “What are you going to commit to doing when you leave this room?” he asks

Q. Tell me about your approach to leadership.

A. First, I work for the people below me. They don’t work for me; I work for them. Because if I don’t do a good job in leading and setting strategy and helping them do their job, they’ll probably fail. Second, teamwork is key in this business. This is not an individual sport. I see many leaders who are somewhat egoistic. To me, it’s more about the team. And in my early years in this job, I focused on organizing the senior leadership so that they’re moving more in the same direction.

Q. What did that involve?

A. The first step was acknowledging that I wasn’t going to do it. I’m part of the team, not the guy who’s going to lead everybody in how to change it. I realized that we needed a facilitator to do that. So I brought somebody in just to teach us better interaction.

Q. What were the best questions put on the table by the facilitator?

A. Why do you want to be part of this team? Why do you want to be in this company? Why do you show up at work? What’s in your box? And when I say, “What’s in your box?” it means “What drives you?” and I don’t want to hear the party line that you’re doing this for the company.

And what commitment do you have to your partners? We each had to come up with a personal commitment to our team and talk about our responsibility to others on the team. That drove people together fairly quickly. The interaction in the group has been different.

Q. Any feedback over the years about your leadership style that prompted you to make some adjustments?

A. Sure. I can be somewhat short with people. And the reason I’m short is that I’m urgent. We don’t always have a lot of time, particularly in this business. So it may seem like I’m short and dismissive, but I act that way because of the urgency to get things done. You can change how you do things, but it doesn’t always change who you are. You have to be reminded. When you get a 360 review, it’s often three to five pages long. I boiled it down to about three or four things that I want to focus on, wrote them on a piece of paper and I keep them inside the cover of my tablet notebook. So when I’m at a meeting, I see those three or four things and it’s a good reminder.

Q. Anything unusual about how you run meetings?

A. I’ve noticed in management meetings that you have to drive them to a decision and remind everybody about the decision. Sometimes people will try to change a decision after it’s been made. You can’t leave a meeting with the possibility that that might happen. So you have to have a little more formalized approach, and be clear about what was decided.

I like to conclude meetings with two things. One is: “What do you think of this meeting? Was it time well spent?” And two is: “What’s your commitment to this team? What are you going to commit to doing when you leave this room?” In other words, that’s the personal commitment to your group when you leave. I find that to be fairly important.

Q. That can chew up a lot of time, though.

A. It’s time well spent. I’m not saying we’re 100 percent successful every time, but I think that’s a good way to conclude a meeting. I find that with business meetings, if you don’t pay close attention, they can just wander.

Q. Any other specifics worth mentioning about your management approach?

A. When people ask me a question, I don’t always answer it with, “Yes, this is what I want you to do,” or, “This is what I’d do.”  Instead, I’ll ask them, “So what do you want to do?” I don’t want you to just announce the problem to me and expect me to solve it. You tell me what the problem is, you tell me what your proposed solution is, and I’ll give you feedback. I don’t always want to give you an answer on what to do. I want you to think about what your answer’s going to be. I’ll always have an opinion about something, but I want people to form their own opinions.

I’ve seen organizations where the boss makes all the decisions. That’s not leadership; that’s a boss. I don’t want to be the boss, I want to be the leader. So I want to get you to help me figure out what we’ve got to do here. Because if you’re deeply immersed in the problem or the issue, you probably know a lot more about it than I’m going to know. So what do you think is going to work?  I can give you some insights based on my experience, and I can give you a different view, but you may be more intimately involved with the issue than me.

So that’s another technique I use. It’s captured in a quote I once read about leadership from Russell Ewing, a British journalist, who said: “A boss creates fear; a leader, confidence. A boss fixes blame; a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all; a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery; a leader makes it interesting. A boss is interested in himself or herself; a leader is interested in the group.” 

Q. Let’s shift to hiring. What questions do you ask job candidates?

A. One thing I like to ask people, which I find puts them on their toes, is, “I want you to tell me your most successful trait and your worse trait, and explain why they would help you here or impact your performance here.” You will see lots of different answers and squirming on that. And there is no right or wrong answer, by the way.

Q. But people have a lot of canned answers about their weaknesses — they’re perfectionists, they work too hard, etc.

A. You can sift through those fairly quickly. I’ll say: “Those are a given. Now tell me what the real answer is here.”  And sometimes the person will dodge it two or three times because they really don’t feel comfortable. Or maybe they’re not quick on their feet, and that tells me something in itself.

Fuente: The New York Times

10 Tips to eliminate Chaos in your Daily Routine

by Bruna Martinuzzi

The literature on time management is abundant. We all crave to save time in our increasingly hectic schedules so that we can accomplish our goals. One way to salvage precious time is to focus on eliminating preventable chaos from our lives.

Here are some ideas to help you accomplish this:

1. Know when to disengage. If you are introverted, you have a built-in radar that tells you when you need to disengage and seek quiet time. For those of us who derive energy from others, it is sometimes harder to know when it’s time to disengage. We may continue talking beyond the point when others are prepared to listen. Increase your self-awareness in this area and you will introduce more calm into your life.
2. Attach a monetary value to your time. How much time do you spend tweeting, updating your Facebook status, commenting on photos or creating unnecessary PowerPoint slides? If it is an excessive amount of time, here is an exercise that might help you. Figure out what your hourly rate is, and then ask yourself whether the weekly hours you spend on such activities are worth it. This is a sobering exercise. Rolf Nelson, in The Rational Entrepreneur, says it aptly: “Putting an explicit monetary value on your time has the advantage of ironing out certain irrational habits.”
3. Plan your presentation with care. If you proudly assert: “I don’t prepare for presentations. I just wing it,” know you are doing yourself and your audience a disservice. No matter how good we think we are at presenting, a lack of preparation will almost always result in excessive verbiage, and wasted time. Carefully decide in advance what your take home message is. For everything that you plan to include, ask yourself: So what? Why should your listeners care about this particular point? Will this story or extra bit of data increase their understanding or is it likely to just overwhelm them with detail? This type of preparation will help you avoid giving a lengthy and digressive presentation.
4. Know how to recover a corrupt PowerPoint file. At times, you might be unable to open up a PowerPoint file just before your presentation. This can happen easily with large, complex files. You can eliminate this potential stress and chaos by learning how to recover a corrupt PowerPoint file. To help you in this regard, read the article by Echo Swinford, Microsoft MVP. Print the article and keep it with your presentation material in case you need it.
5. Boost your efficiency with the “ultradian sprint”. This idea comes from the Harvard Business Review article, Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time. The technique entails being totally focused on a chosen task and completing it as quickly as possible. It requires the elimination of all distractions. As the authors say: “Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another—stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance—increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25 percent.” It’s far more efficient to fully focus for 90 to 120 minutes, followed by a true break. Then fully focus on the next activity. The authors refer to these work periods as “ultradian sprints.” Give it a try.
6. Set an agenda for each phone call. Before picking up the phone, write down the key points you want to discuss. It has been said before, but how many of us actually do this? Always end a call with a quick recap of what action items were decided. More important, decide in advance what message you will leave, if you reach voicemail.
7. Don’t drown yourself in research. In Stop Talking, Start Doing: A Kick In the Pants In Six Parts, author Shaa Wasmund talks about the seduction of research which often becomes a way to put off making a decision. As Wasmund says, “hundreds of millions of us are hooked on the idle activity of finding out more information; on seeking ever more fascinating and entertaining research.” This gets us nowhere and introduces chaos in our lives. Know when to put the brakes on more research.
8. Don’t micromanage others. If you work very long hours because you are micromanaging others’ work, you are doing more harm than good. For one thing, this extra burden will divert your attention from mission-critical work and impede your own progress. Stay focused on your real job and you will be less hassled at the end of the day. As well, micromanaging prevents team members from developing their skills and makes them dependent on you. It becomes a non-ending cycle of time wastage.
9. Acquire training in a process management program. If you have not mapped out a process for running your business or department, consider attending training in a process management program such as Six Sigma. Introduce Sigma-like programs in every department of your organization. This will help you improve efficiency and remove wasted steps.
10. Arrive early everywhere. Plan to arrive early at the boarding gate, at meetings, appointments, and other events. Use the planned waiting time productively: to map out activities, draft reports, answer e-mails, or simply to gather your thoughts. If you are habitually pressure-prompted, flying by the seat of your pants, this one strategy will introduce some calm and peace in your daily routine.

American actress Lorna Luft once said: “Living in continual chaos is exhausting. The catch is that it’s also very addictive.” Changing your behavioral patterns to introduce more order and tranquility into your daily routine will help you to stop vaporizing valuable hours every day. It will create a safety net to protect you from potential chaos and whim.

Fuente: OPEN Forum - American Express