Assessment & Development Centres
With the purpose of identifying talent among Tata managers the assessment and development centres are designed around the Tata Leadership Practices and Tata Work Levels. An Assessment/Development Centre (AC/DC) seeks to assess the competencies of individuals as desired by the client organisation. It revolves around a process that comprises a number of exercises, simulations, business games etc, which are customised according to the industry and context of the client organisation. An AC is designed to replicate the tasks and demands of the role for which an individual is being considered. These exercises or simulations look at the person in an individual as well as a group setting. A group of trained assessors obser ve the individual during the assessment process. The process culminates with giving feedback to the individual and submitting a report to the client organisation. TMTC also trains managers from different Tata companies to become assessors.
Leadership Development
An identified talent pool undergoes structured training and exposure to help broaden their perspectives and enhance key managerial skills for higher effectiveness. This is supplemented by other initiatives taken by the respective organisations.
Multi-rater feedback
A powerful development tool, it helps individuals better understand how they are perceived by others on the Tata Leadership Practices. The process involves gathering data about the ratee from a ‘circle’ of sources namely—self, peers, and subordinates. This data gathering process is web based and strictly confidential. The ratee receives a written summary of the collated data. There are no names associated with specific feedback data. The summary typically includes analysis of strengths and development areas*. (* Usually the written summary is delivered in a workshop setting where the person can also make an action plan for development.)
Innovation Workshops
The objective of this programme is to provide a tool kit for stimulating innovation at an organisation and applying it to specific business segments. This is a practical course highlighting the modes in which innovation could be stimulated through the use of a series of tools and techniques, and a series of examples from various corporate innovators. The participants learn problem- solving skills through exercises stimulating creative thinking and identifying and solving business problems. Innovation emanates from a judicious combination of hard and soft skills. This programme aims at the development of both these skills.
WOW-TRIZ
The Wonder of Wonder-TRIZ is a programme for stimulating innovative ideas using ideational tools. The main tools that are used are TRIZ and lateral ideation. TRIZ is the acronym for ‘Theory of Inventive Problem Solving’, developed by Altshuller. It has been a major effort towards developing a unified theory for innovation that can be used for innovation in products, ser vices, business and software. TRIZ is a method of using contradictions in attributes of systems, processes, and products as a source of innovation. Totally 40 principles can be used for this. The programme addresses three critical elements that support creative thinking—soft elements, self-belief and task commitment, and innovative capabilities. The soft elements that support creative thinking are prerequisites for generating creative ideas. Creative ideas lead to new products and services and also facilitate problem solving. Self-belief and task commitment induce creative thinking that lead to innovation. Using a series of exercises and cases, the principles are internalised in the participants. Innovative capability is a critical element of leadership and the programme aims at the creation of this element.
