• Insist on doing everything through "channels." Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
• Make "speeches." Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your "points" by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
• When possible, refer all matters to committees, for "further study and consideration."
• Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
• Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
  
• Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes, resolutions.
• Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
• Advocate "caution." Be "reasonable" and urge your fellow-conferees to be "reasonable" and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
• Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the jurisdiction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.
• "Misunderstand" orders. Ask endless questions or engage in long correspondence about such orders. Quibble over them when you can.
• In making work assignments, always sign out the unimportant jobs first. See that the important jobs are assigned to inefficient workers of poor machines.
• When training new workers, give incomplete or misleading instructions.
• To lower morale and with it, production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
• Hold conferences when there is more critical work to be done.
• Multiply paper work in plausible ways. Start duplicate files.
• Multiply the procedures and clearances involved in issuing instructions, pay checks, and so on. See that three people have to approve everything where one would do.
• Apply all regulations to the last letter.
• Pretend that instructions are hard to understand, and ask to have them repeated more than once. Or pretend that you are particularly anxious to do your work, and pester the foreman with unnecessary questions.
• Never pass on your skill and experience to a new or less skillful worker.
• Snarl up administration in every possible way. Fill out forms illegibly so that they will have to be done over; make mistakes or omit requested information in forms.
• If possible, join or help organize a group for presenting employee problems to the management. See that the procedures adopted are as inconvenient as possible for the management, involving the presence of a large number of employees at each presentation, entailing more than one meeting for each grievance, bringing up problems which are largely imaginary, and so on.
  

I will be starting next Monday, August 22 as a marketing communications manager with Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) Enterprise Solutions business. I will be based at my home-office here in Memphis. TCS is based in Mumbai, India, with North American marketing offices in New York, Chicago, and Boston.

Tata Consultancy Services, part of the Tata group, is an IT services, consulting and business solutions organization that offers a consulting-led, integrated portfolio of IT, BPO, infrastructure, engineering and assurance services. It is also India's first software company. TCS employes nearly 200,000 consultants in 42 countries. The company generated consolidated revenues of US $8.2 billion for year ended March 31, 2011 and is listed on the National Stock Exchange and Bombay Stock Exchange in India.

The 143-year-old Tata group is the largest conglomerate in India, comprised of more than 90 operating companies in seven business sectors: communications and information technology, engineering, materials, services, energy, consumer products and chemicals.  The total revenue of Tata companies, taken together, was $67.4 billion in 2009-10, with 57 per cent of this coming from business outside India. Tata companies employ around 395,000 people worldwide.

Founded by Jamsetji Tata in 1868, Tata’s early years were inspired by the spirit of nationalism. It pioneered several industries of national importance in India: steel, power, hospitality and airlines. In more recent times, its pioneering spirit has been showcased by companies such as TCS, India’s first software company, and Tata Motors, which made India’s first indigenously developed car, the Indica, in 1998 and recently unveiled the world’s lowest-cost car, the Tata Nano.

Tata companies have always believed in returning wealth to the society they serve. Two-thirds of the equity of Tata Sons, the Tata promoter company, is held by philanthropic trusts that have created national institutions for science and technology, medical research, social studies and the performing arts.

Going forward, Tata is focusing on new technologies and innovation to drive its business in India and internationally. The Nano car is one example, as is the Eka supercomputer (developed by another Tata company), which in 2008 was ranked the world’s fourth fastest. Anchored in India and wedded to traditional values and strong ethics, Tata companies are building multinational businesses that will achieve growth through excellence and innovation, while balancing the interests of shareholders, employees and civil society.

Made this postcard for my wife, Melissa, using her wonderful photography (and her pottery).

I was only dimly aware that my article might be the cover story for the Earth Day 2011 issue of the Memphis Flyer, but when I looked for my article and found myself staring back, it was a bit of a shock. Not that I'm complaining.

You can download the print edition of the story here. (6mb PDF)

Very proud of my wife's spotlight in the January 2011 issue of Southern Living. Melissa is a potter dba Bridgman Pottery.
Southern Living runs a recurring feature called "Best of the South: Made by Southern Hands," focusing on regional artisans (craft, food, furnishings etc).  This issue's feature is subtitled "Breakfast Time," highlighting food and serving ware made in the South. An editor at SL was searching on Etsy for breakfast-related crafts last summer and found Melissa's old-school egg cups on her online store there. (I am still very, very grateful that Melissa ignored my advice to make a ceramic rack for microwaving bacon.)