B27 Building Decision Making and Risk Taking Abilities

 A few months back we at Aventus Partners has carried out a structured interaction with Corporates to understand better their respective and collective human resource needs and explore opportunities of working in tandem to address at least some of these needs.

This included Corporate Leaders, Business Heads and HR leaders across industries like Food & Spices, Financial Services, Textile, Software, Trading, Electronics and Consumer Goods.

While 50% of the Corporates were evaluating initiatives that will enable them to accelerate at a faster rate of growth over the next 15-18 months.(To be primarily achieved through expansion to new geographies, products/services/markets), another 30% were keen to focus on consolidating their current position having battled out a tough period 12-24 months back.

We observed that at an individual (employee) level there was a recurring need for Managers in these organizations to display strong decision making skills, risk taking ability, the ability to nurture and rally their people and have the required influence and impact in order to actualise the above plans.

This can be honed by making people  

•  More aware of the process and the key elements in risks and its impact on decision making
• Cognizant of their preferred decision making style, their responses to risks and their ability to be flexible depending on the situation
• Sensitive to their thinking and behavioral patterns /habits while making decisions
• Capable of creating a personal plan for further skill enhancement.

We believe that this would be one significant step in enabling organisations strengthen skill levels of their people and push decesion making closer to the customers .

B26 The Skills Development Challenge in SMEs

 Lack of talent more often than not sounds the death kneel for an entrepreneur; especially those in the small and the Medium sector.

I am sure many of you reading this will identify with this. For you an investment in Training and Development is a necessity for business survival and not a luxury. 

Though most of you intuitively know and agree in private conversations that you would prefer to grow people from within the organization, when faced with your day to day challenges you seek to recruit skills and talent from outside . But you are caught in a loop here as you realise your limitations inattracting good talent from the open market and paying for it. 

Some of the typical challenges entrepreneurs talk about in the context of  growth and talent within SMEs are

1) Lack of trained/skilled managers to manage for growth

2) Inability to attract skilled trade practitioners

3) Inability to retain good trained resources for a long time. People keep leaving for new and remunerative pastures

4) Most of the market offerings for talent development are generic or are designed and implemented by people who do not understand the specific requirements of the SME.

5) Inability to spare people for training for extended periods of time

6) Need to balance between long term perspectives and short tem practical skill needs

7) High need /demand to show training investment ROI

8) Cynicism and lack of motivation among the staff towards training

9) Inability to pay the high fees that most institutions charge for formal training

10) Lack of knowledge as to where and how to look for and locate quality resources

11) Inability to have dedicated resources spearheading developmental activities

12) Poor image as employers

13) Low social status attached to people working there

14) Lack of professionals skills to carry on and develop on the work done by the promoters 

Success emanates from addressing these challenges. 

The guide for training in SMEs available in the European Union Website (link Provided below) offers a lot of practical suggestions and examples that address some of these questions . I find the ideas to be relevant even in a non European context. Read it , it is worth your time. 

ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=3074&langId=en