Vinod Bidwaik

Four Ear Dimensions of Communication…PART II

2012-01-28T18:34:00.001+05:30

http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2011/12/four-ear-dimensions-of-communication.html

Communication and discussion tips for making the same more effective

During the discussion, focus on these four dimensions, check your body language for each dimension.

Shown in the following graphic is “what and how to focus to make the communicant /discussion more effective.”

1. How to focus on “Fact” dimension?

Remain objective

ØPlace the topic as focus of the conversation, rather than yourself or your own interests. The following behaviours could support objectivity:

ØFormulate the topic as a common problem-in-common

ØAnalyze the problem

ØCollect various solution ideas

ØAsk for information

ØDesignate opinions as personal evaluations

ØCompare estimates with current values

ØDiscuss the consequences in several dimensions (financial, personnel, technological, organisational)

Speak in such a way that next person understands your view point.

ØMessages are easier to understand when the speaker organizes his thoughts and presents them in a logical order. The following tips help:

ØUse short, simple sentences with common words; explain foreign words and jargon where necessary.

ØPresent the information in a logically-constructed form, with a recognizable path.

ØKeep the message short and concise, sticking to the important points.

ØUse additional stimuli: pictures, comparisons, illustrations (possibly also visually).

Listen carefully

ØFactual content can be discussed more clearly when the discussion partner listens analytically and not associatively. Listening analytically means:

ØDon’t lose your train of thought through stimulating words.

ØStick to the statements of your discussion partner and don‘t go on tangents.

ØCheck the validity of the arguments rationally, don‘t let emotions deflect you.

Check the arguments for unspoken assumptions and superficially plausible rationale.

2. How to focus on “Relationship” dimension?

Active listening

Listening in people-centered discussions is called active, when it is not limited to a passive reception of information, but rather involves a range of highly active processes:

ØTo put oneself in the other person’s shoes, to think and feel from his perspective

ØTo attempt to comprehend what the other person really means and wants to say (i.e. not to get stuck on certain sayings or key words)

ØTry to sense the emotional state and mood of the other person

ØKeep back one’s own evaluations, suggestions and spontaneous reactions or sometimes for a while knowingly suppress them

ØLet the other person know that you’re following his statements by use of body signals (eye contact, “hmm”, nodding)

Actively listening is recognizable, when the listener

Ø Summarizes the sender’s statements and attempts to repeat

Ø Notes the emotional state of the other person and addresses it;

ØSticks to the main message with open questions, or those that invite further reflection;

ØCan withstand pauses;

ØSends nonverbal signals (see above)

Discuss feelings directly

ØEmotions are usually recognized and decoded from non-verbal signals. Physical responses typically fall into one of three basic categories:

ØLike (joy, trust, sympathy, satisfaction, hope)

Ø Dislike (Aggression, Antipathy, defensiveness, discontent)

Ø Anxiety (fear, doubt, disappointment, pain, evasion)

At work people are generally shy about mentioning the discussion partner‘s emotions. It requires sensitivity and practice to formulate the observed emotional state accurately and appropriately.

Give feedback

ØOne should let one’s discussion partner know how you’re experiencing the situation and the other person, after certain episodes or passages. Such statements are helpful when there are misunderstandings or conflicts.

ØWith feedback, you let the other person know how you have understood his statements, what wishes you have, and how you have experienced him. It is just as important to receive such statements, as to give them, without reacting crossly, out of sorts or defensively.

Such responses are better received, when you

ØDescribe content instead of passing judgment;

ØFormulate emotions directly instead of indirectly;

ØSpeak in the first person (“I”) instead of third person (“One”, “it”);

Ø Allow reciprocity, i.e. staff can speak to their manager in the manager that he speaks to them.

ØState your own wishes (concretely what the other person should do differently)

(Another two dimensions - Next time)

What is your Title?

2012-01-22T21:21:00.004+05:30

“I have completed three years in the organization, what is the further career growth for me?” You must have encountered with such questions, if you are a manager. When they join the company, they take six months to adjust with the team, understand the business; it takes further one year to contribute in the organization. Their question is right, but they also need to ask the question, what they contributed to the organization during these three years. There are number of employees in the organization and off course, it goes very difficult to the organization to plan everybody’s career. In fact, most of the organizations are struggling to address the issue.

There are certain employees and off course Indian psychology supports another pseudo-satisfaction of getting promoted. It is the title change. Manager is promoted to Sr. Manager, without change in role. The visiting card, holding the higher designation gives the social status to employees. Nobody in the society bothers actually what role he handles.

One youth approached me from one of the service organizations. He gave me his visiting card. His title was Regional Manager. I thought he may be responsible for some regional territory. I was quite happy to know that today’s’ youth are progressing fast. I asked him his territory. He told that he was responsible for specific area of the city and they used to call area as region. In his organization, there were almost 50 regional managers in one city!

Is promoting merely by designation improves the engagement? I don’t know the answer, but definitely people are fascinated by the fancy designations. AVP is one of the designations in baking, service and BPO industries. I had one friend working in one of the well known BPOs in Pune. He was AVP there, but working in shift. I was envious his designation. After working there for 1 year, he joined in manufacturing company as Manager-HR!

Candidates negotiate for designations. They want higher title. Manager wants to be Sr. Manager and Sr. Manager wants to be AGM. They totally ignore the role and job description. There can be DGM without freedom in one organization and Manager with lot of empowerment in another organization. MNCs have flat organizational structure and job responsibilities play important role in career development in such organizations. Roles are based on job evaluation methods like Hay, Mercer or Hewitt or simply internal designed methodology.

When you see the job, it is better to check the role and level in the organization. The purpose of the job, span of control, impact of the job, contribution expected by that job and salary offered are the important factors than mere designation.

Career development and career planning is not only the responsibility of organizations, but also employees’ willingness to learn more, their accountabilities and commitment towards job. If you follow this, mere title change will not satisfy you.

Cheers!

Are your “Socially Intelligent”?

2012-01-14T23:01:00.000+05:30

Social Intelligence…

“It is difficult to handle that person. He is crazy.” One of the friends was sharing his experience about the interaction with another colleague. There are different types of personalities in this world and you have to interact with most of them in your life. There are people in the society who even not aware about their own behaviour in public. They don’t know what to talk and where to talk. They hurt, disturb another people and take blame. Can we avoid these personalities? You can’t; you have to live with them. But there is a strategy to deal with them.

You must have heard about Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence can work, but not always. To deal with such people, we need Social Intelligence. Karl Albrecht coined this term.

Social Intelligence: Social Intelligence as the ability to get along well with others and to get them to cooperate with you. It is basic understanding of people.

The question is how to develop the Social Intelligence. The best way is to understand the S.P.A.C.E. model. This is a simple model of assessing and developing Social Intelligence. This has five dimensions.

(S) Situational Awareness: This is the ability to read, understand the social context which influence the behaviour and accordingly choose the behaviour. It is your social radar which helps you to interpret the behavior of people in those situations in terms of their possible intentions emotional states, and pre deposition to interact.

If we want to be accepted and taken seriously, we all need to pay special attention to the sense of presence we communicate. Here you need to sense the expected behaviour of the person. But before that you have to understand, what are his social norms, his communication style and tone of language and culture of the person.

(P) Presence: It’s the way you affect individuals or groups of people through your physical appearance, your mood and demeanor, your body language, and how you occupy space in a room. Your personality should reflect the positive-ness and confidence.

If some senior person, imagine, President of the company come in the meeting room, his presence in reflected in the surrounding. But this is due to his official position. This is charisma due to his official position. There are people who earned the personality, like Anna Hazare. His presence in due to his earned charisma. There are people, who project themselves as personality and carries artificial charisma.

You can check this side by becoming awareness with your style, by asking your family members and friends.

(A) Authenticity: This dimension reveals how honest and sincere you are with people and with yourself, in any given situation. It’s how you connect with others people so you become worthy of their trust. It’s a reliance on or belief in yourself, so you can take real authorship and ownership of your space or place.

It is possible, for example, to have well developed “people skills” and yet lack the emotional depth to be considered truly socially intelligent. Authenticity does not only require being yourself; you must genuinely connect with others, which demands a fair amount of empathy and compassion.

(C) Clarity: This measures your ability to express your thoughts, opinions, ideas, and intentions clearly. Using proper language is important here. Your language should be used skillfully. Simple test is asking the question, “Do you say what you mean and mean what you say?” Sometimes silence also works effectively.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”

There are certain situations were saying less, accomplishes more

(E) Empathy: Last but not least is empathy. This dimension invites you to look at how truly aware and considerate you are of others; and the feelings of others. In simple language understanding and assessing why people behave in specific manner. Putting yourself in their situation is the best way to understand them. Try to understand the emotions, feeling of other and decide your strategy to deal with them.

Try to follow the above dimension of Social Intelligence. This will definitely make you effective in your career and life. Just enter into the S.P.A.C.E….

Communication Technology Syndrome

2012-01-07T19:33:00.000+05:30

Communication Technology syndrome is the abnormal behavior seen in human being (especially in educated human being) where s/he becomes a slave of technical instruments like mobiles, software and gazettes and social networking sites.

I have seen people checking their mobile phones for SMS, some unnecessary updates. By doing this they ignore the person seating next to them. They are unaware about their surrounding. People speaking on mobile while driving and putting their and other’s life in danger are really idiots. The height is wearing hand-free and sometimes Bluetooth instrument. The person wearing Bluetooth instruments looks funny to me. The question comes in mind, “how busy the guy is? And if he has not responded to the mobile alert will the world end?”

“We have nothing to discuss when I go at home; we shared everything on phone, or face book.” One person was sharing. “We go home, eat, watch TV and go to sleep.”

Now a day, people communicate more through mails, mobile phones, and facebook status update. The communication has been through technology and one to one communication has been totally ignored.

I have seen the status update of one person expressing his love to his wife on the fecebook. Human being has the need to glorify himself. Every person has the desire to appear extraordinary among the crowd. Every like and comment on facebook update makes them happy. Hence they are eager to post the happening in the life, but sometimes they ignore the privacy part of the life.

This behaviour is a habit. Checking updates on facebook, being on mobile continuously is the obsession. This can be converted into the compulsive obsession. Is it normal? I don’t think so. This behaviour is definitely abnormal. People do the farming, grow their chicken and spend half of the day on social networking sites. They live in second life on web. This is resulting into loss of productivity.

Blackberries show red signal when some message or email appears in the inbox. This is distracting and there are people who even can not sleep peacefully checking and responding to those mails.

Technology is for human being and human being is not for technology. You can not replace the technology with human interaction, interpersonal communication and relationship. Technology is the mean to improve the relationship and communication and hence we should know where and how to use these tools.

Happy New Year

2012-01-01T17:10:00.001+05:30

With the first rays of the Sun on the Earth and with the first day of the week, 2012 is started. New beginning is ahead. There are lot many things to do in New Year; Lot of plans and resolutions. (http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2010/12/resolution-of-following-resolution.html) 1^st Jan is the same as yesterday, but with new hopes.

Yesterday on one TV show, one actor asked another one, “What does New Year mean for you?” Actor replied, “When my wife asks me to bring new calendar, I assume that the New Year is ahead.”

Earth rotates around the Sun as usual, birds go out from their nest as usual, but for human being, it is the new day for new thinking. Human being thinks what he has achieved, gain in a last year and what he would achieve in New Year. However we should not forget the spirit of enjoying the New Year. We keep back the baggage and hope for the best in New Year. Somebody may say that 2011 was more challenging and volatile, but that is the life. It gave you total new experience. There is one English movie, “Clean Slate”. In this movie one character suffers one type of amnesia, when he goes to sleep each night he forgets everything that happened to him before that time. A woman who had cheated him asked him to forgive. The character even is not aware what she did with him and he is totally clueless.

As you welcome the New Year, your past has nothing to influence your future. The great year is ahead with hopes and lot of positive energy. If you believe on the “Law of Attraction”, then this year will bring more joy and positive energy in your life. No matter what has happened in last year, you have the power to create your next year as you choose. For this you have to choose the freedom of choosing. (http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2011/02/do-you-have-choice.html) You are now deeper, wiser, and stronger by one more year.

Wish you all happy and great New Year…

Santa Claus in our life

2011-12-24T09:30:00.059+05:30

Are you Santa?

People who make diffrence in
our life are also like Santas!

This incident happened almost 14 years back. One of the bikers hit my mother and she felt on the road. It was an accident where most of the people on the road ran towards her. However everybody was just discussing what to do. One of the youth came forward from the crowd; he stopped one rickshaw and authoritatively asked driver to take rickshaw at the hospital. Meanwhile, I along with my elder brother reached at the spot. She suffered a head injury and was in the hospital for one month. She had lot of problem in future but her life was saved.

The youth who helped her and supported us to take her in hospital was working in nearby Cinema Theater as a door-boy. He was just passing by the road and showed his responsiveness.

I never forget him and his gesture.

Few years back I used to drive bike in the city. We were going back from the market, all of sudden; one youth approached us and told, “Hey, check your bike stand.” If he would have not been told me this, we would have been in big trouble at next turning.

I also recognize the responsiveness of second youth who saved us from injury, minor or major.

Giving joy and happiness also make
you the secret Santa!

On this Christmas, when I look back, I recognize both of above as Santa Claus. They gifted us something. There are lot many people in our life who come and support us, help us internationally and unintentionally. Off course the first in the list is our family members, our parents, siblings and spouse, who may have sacrifice for us to make us grow and successful. Children make us happy. Their love relieves our stress and gives the hope of the future. This is one of the precise gifts to any parents. They give the love without expecting something for us.

They are also Santa for us. Their gift is always long living.

We need to take a wider and balcony view of the people in our life. The person who interviews you and gives you the opportunity to work is also a Santa. Off course, you are selected due to your talent, but then there are lot many talented candidates in the row and still you are selected. That person has the vision to identify your talent and not others.

In my life, I also recognize all such people who gave me the opportunity to grow as a professional. They are also Santa for me.

I was watching the reality show, Bigg Boss on TV. One of the participants, Rajesawari, told a very good philosophy to the show anchor, Sanjay Datta while entering in the house. She states, “We need to see the happy moments through the magnifying glasses so that they appear big and sad moments through the microscope to make appear them small.” I fully support her metaphor. We also need to identify and recognize the people who may have contributed not in a big way, but make your life happy for this. The moments, they brought are the gifts like given by Santa.

At the end of the day, we also can play the role of Santa in the life of others. No big deal; only small gestures will help…

I wish you all a Merry Christmas and wish for a wonderful new year ahead….

Four Ear Dimensions of Communication…

2011-12-19T10:13:00.000+05:30

I really like the Four Ear Model of communication. This model is very effective. There are different styles and different methods adopted to communicate by people. Communication is the fundamental in influencing and persuading people. I will not go in detail in theory of communication, but definitely I would like to tell something about Four Ear model.

There are four components in 4-Ear model, these principle are based on Facts, Relationship, Self-disclosure, and appeal. If you believe on these dimensions, you need special ear to understand each dimension.

Factual Dimension: In this dimension, the message contains factual and concrete information about particular topic. Objectivity is a given when person can make himself understood by the receiver without one of the other three sides gaining the upper-hand.

Take an example of the mother asking her child to put on the sweater. She says, “Hey child, put on your sweater, it is cold outside.” Mother is asking her child to put on the sweater. Mother is asking this because she knows the facts that there is a cold outside.

To make the communication effective, sender should think how he can communicate the factual content clearly and without misunderstanding.

Relationship Dimension: This is totally depends upon the attitude of one person towards another person. Here messages contain a statement about how one person views the other as well as about the state of their relationship. This shows itself in

a) The chosen formulation

b) Cadence or tone of voice,

c) Non-verbal expressions (e.g. mimic, gestures,)

It is impossible to discuss on the facts level without in some way coming into contact on the relationship level. The relationship level dominates the facts or information level (iceberg model). If problems in the relationship sharpen, the only thing that helps is to talk about it: the information must wait until the relationship is restored.

In the same example mother has an informal relationship with child and she knows that child may not make his own decisions on her own and hence she needs to tell her/guide her. She is authoritative in his body language.

Here sender should think how he treats other people through his style of communication.

Self-Disclosure Dimension: This dimension is really is on an emotional state of mind. Here the person communicates where he discloses something about himself. This can be his conscious decision or this can be just automatics and unconsciously. In above example, mother asks her child put on sweater because she is concerned about her child. Her child may fall ill if she is not protected. Mother is really thinking about the child and here she indirectly communicates that she cares her child.

Sender should ask the question himself to make the communication effective, what he would like to disclose.

Appeal Dimension: Here actually sender is trying to induce the receiver to do the things what sender has told. He /she expects the results here. Like mother expects that her child should put the sweater and this is a result. A message contains not only information, but also the intention to influence the other person to do, not do, think or feel something.

There can be:

Hidden Appeal: The sender tries “softly, softly” to generate some “good weather” for his undertaking, without his competitor noticing.

Paradox Appeal: The sender says the opposite of what he intends to achieve, since he knows that the receiver doubts his word anyway

Open Appeal: Here there is direct expression of wishes or demands.

Sender should think how he induces someone to behave in a particular way due to his style of communication, without realizing it.

Let’s understand the four dimension of a message in following example. Here wife is driving a vehicle and husband is seating besides her.

(Next week: More tips on making communication effective based on four ear model of communication)

“Varkaris” of the HR Profession…

2011-12-10T19:12:00.001+05:30

I always surprise about the way HR professionals think and perceives their profession. I remember, few years back, I had asked the question to plant HR person in one auto Component Company about the canteen facility. My question was, “Do you provide canteen facility, food to your employees?” His answer was, “Act (Factories Act) says that you have to provide the lunch room facility. Where does it say that you have to provide the food?”

My question was purely from the HR point of view and his answer was purely compliance point of view and he was not wrong that time. He was practicing the compliances only. He never thought that how employees will be engaged if they don’t get the proper food in the organization. Shift working was 7.00 am and people had to travel from 40-50 Km away to the plant. They had to work on the machines and they were expected to bring their Tiffin from their home. Nothing wrong in it, but imagine employee point of view.

In the developing and growing economy, your role is not only for compliance and but you need to be more focus for aligning your talent towards your organizational objectives and by implementing good HR practices.

The HR agenda is not the agenda of HR only. It is and should be the top management agenda, however typical organizations are still far away in understating the HR risk. You can not avoid the tactical HR, but strategic thinking is must. Such small issues may create big problems.

One of the friends shared with me a strange experience. When he joined the company in HR, his typical orientation was planned with some senior employees. He was welcome by one senior person in HR (GM-IR) and the interaction was frustrating. “Oh, one more person from HR to do the bossing on us.” Was the statement of that person! There was no need to show the rivalry between HR and IR functions. Both functions are important. People handling hardcore (so-called) HR and Industrial Relations required the great expertise. But sometimes people incubating the senior chairs behave strangely.

The problem is with the attitude and the mindset of such people. People hate HR professionals because either they are not sensible to HR issues or they run their own agenda. Even in most of the cases they don’t respect their fellow HR friends, forget about the other employees working in different profession. Compliance attitude brings the arrogance. They become so bureaucratic that they forget that they are “Human Resource” professionals and needs to be sensible about the issues. Sensible does not mean emotional, it is being sensitive about the HR issues and take the proper and relevant action.

In Maharashtra, the “Varkaris” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varkari) are the people who follow “Vitthal”of Pandharpur and they have a faith on their God. Crores of “Varkaris” go at Pandharpur and worship the deity “Vitthal”. These “Varkaris” have a unique practice- When one Varkari meets another Varkari both “Varkaris” touch feet of each other, irrespective of their age. Their action indicates that when anybody becomes “Varkari”, he is equally respectable.

There will be issues, confrontations, problems but let’s respect each other.

How to gain the Power…

2011-12-02T21:29:00.000+05:30

You will not get the power by virtue of your position,
but by virtue of your ability to influence others.

Majority of the people has the desire to be in power center. Those who don’t want to be in power center want to follow the power. They also want to be close to the power. In families, communities, societies, organizations, there are people who either want to project themselves powerful or like to communicate that they are close to the Power-station. Low profile people also like to get the support of somebody who is powerful to get their work done.

Power and politics is much discussed and debated topic. I have given lot of references about the power in other articles on this blog. However, I also recognize that you can’t avoid the influence of the power. The million dollar question is how to get the power, how to go close to the power stations to grab more power.

How to gain the power? Some hands on tips for you…..

Efforts required at individual level

v Acquired the Knowledge and be knowledgeable.

v Be expert in your own area.

v Get the latest information about the happening in the organization.

v Work on developing your personality. It includes your assertiveness, influencing skills, and your voice.

v Creating charisma is really difficult. But you have to work on creating your brand in the organization.

v Check your reputation in the organization and work on improving the same.

v Check how your bosses and your team members perceive your professional credibility.

v You also need to get the support form your team and cross functional team members.

v Improve interpersonal skills and work actually building the concrete relationship in the organization.

Organizational level

v Professional life and especially leadership role has lot of uncertainties. Your life can be miserable if you don’t handle the uncertainty smartly. The whole business world in uncertain and also the positions in the organizations. The success depends upon how you cope with this uncertainty. More you are flexible and tough, more you are successful.

v You can’t be rigid. Flexibility in relationship, in learning, in decisions making helps you to take the control of the situation. However it should be at right time and not as the rule. You should know how and when to be flexible.

You can gain the power form various aspects in your life.

v Define your vision, your short term and log term goals, aligned your goals with your organizations goals.

v Participate in decision making process. Support your bosses in getting the information required in decision making

v Integrity is the best strategy to create your credibility and track record in the organization.

v Problem solving and fire fighting is the important trait of successful and influential leader.

v Working in matrix organization is the fundamental need in corporations now days and you should learn to manage various seniors and their needs. It also needs to get the work done from different teams who are not reporting you.

v Know what your boss seeks, needs, likes, prefers, is weak about, is poor at and dislikes intensely.

v Most important factor is to be sensitive to the issues of power and relationships.

It is not necessary to be political to gain the power, but yes you need to diplomatic definitely.

Speed, overtake and risk

2011-11-27T17:34:00.000+05:30

It takes me 1/2 hour for going at the office. The road is always busy. Lot of vehicles on the road make the journey little bit slow. There are certain people who do not follow the discipline of the road and then creates bedlam on the road. Mondays become sometimes anxious due to this reason. There are telcons planned and I have to reach in the office at sharp 9.00 pm. Lot of mails and calls waiting on the laptops make the day demanding.

There is a line of 4-wheelers running at the speed of 30-40 and I want it to run at the speed of at least 50-60. Long queue of vehicles and everybody is in the line. I have two options, either to follow the next vehicle and follow the pace or just overtake and try to reach next to next to next vehicle. I choose second one. There are two possibilities if I opt for second option- I reach in front of all and be on time in the office or I am responsible for creating one more chaos on the road and take the blame from others for that. I chose to be calculative. I see that pace is slow and all the vehicles are following the same pace. I don’t want to one of them but I should be careful. I increase the speed and overtake all and reach next to all. I got it. Sometimes I have to make speace for me indicating another vehicle that I am planning in your line in front of you, be carful.

And one day, I enticed to compare the metaphor with our life. We have dreams and Goals in our life and definitely we want to achieve the same. Life is the journey and we want to reach at the destination. Sometimes we take speed and sometimes we just follow the line of vehicles.

Here are some of my takeaways from this:

1) Don’t follow always: Sometimes, following somebody is beneficial, but not always. You need to decide your own action to achieve your goals. If you try to only follow, then there are near miss opportunities of success. Perhaps if you overtake them just by increasing your speed, you may get the key to success.

2) Take calculative risks: I calculate the risk and as I told you I choose second option to increase the speed and overtake other vehicle. There are people who play the safe game and then blame their destiny. You yourself can decide your fate, destiny. Playing safe is again sometimes beneficial and not always. You know that if you increase your speed, overtake others, or choose another way, further way can be risky. There are lots of risks in the life. Overcoming the fear and taking calculative risk creates the way for the success.

3) Have the urgency: I always tell my team to imagine that if they don’t do the task on time, they would loose the job and the job what they are doing is the only job available in the market. Creating the need of urgency makes your job easy. Steve Jobs rightly asked to imagine that tomorrow you are going to die. When I commute to office, I have the urgency to go in the office, but this is not the urgency, I have lot many things to do and I have in mind that I have to finish all just today.

4) Be alert and aware about the situation and check others movement: I increase the speed of my car on the road, but I also check the situation and movements of others. I know I can be careful but others may create the problem for me. There are others guys on the road, who must be thinking the same what I am thinking and this may lead to the major accident. To avoid this I am alert to understand the situation and try to make the safe space for me by taking the control on speed.

Life is like the same. Once you like this you will enjoy the way of making it more adventurous.

Involuntary Separations… How you handle?

2011-11-20T21:21:00.000+05:30

Involuntary separations should be handled very carefully.

Involuntary Separations are very difficult to handle. As a HR professional, you need to check the trend of separations in the department. You need to be more critical on finding out the reasons. In one organization, there was a trend of involuntary separations in HR department itself. Employees were not at all responsible, but expectations by the line manager from these employees were totally weird.

There are only two reasons for involuntary separations, either you are not managing the performance well or your recruitment is wrong.

In most of the cases such separations are not handled properly. The blame is always on the employee. HR roles is just to communicate and handover the document to the person in most of the cases. When you are retrenching any employee, you need to be more empathetic to the person. You have clause of “termination without assigning the reason” in your appointment letter. But just going by the clause is not enough. After all you have to be more carful about the employer brand and once your image is tarnished, then you would not get the right talent when you need them.

One of the manager always give the justification, he told once to employee that he took only 1 hour interview to decide on the hiring. Six month probation period is enough to decide the separation. He was absolutely right, but then his hiring or interview skill must be very poor.

If you are retrenching employees as per the Industrial Dispute Act (not by the title/designation, but the definition mentioned in the Act), then you may be in trouble, if somebody challenges the termination. Somebody told me that you (means managers) should be tough and ruthless in the business. True but this does not mean that you should be unfair to the people.

Certain tips will be useful to handle such cases.

1) Check your hiring practices: If you are terminating anybody within the period of six months, or due to the mismatch or behaviour of the employee then this means, your hiring procedure is very bad and not professional. If this is happening more in the organizations, then you should question the ability of your HR and even hiring manager. Recruitment and selection is not just an activity, but it is the process, holistic process. From each stage of the process, you should have the proper checks. Unfortunately HR plays just coordinating role in most of the organizations. HR executive, who is coordinating the function, is even not aware or trained properly. Most of the HR executives make recruitment process, a mess.

2) Make expectations clear: Do you have the proper assessment system in place? Line managers should make the expectations clear. HR has to see whether the Job Description is explained, targets are set and proper orientation is conducted.

3) Document: Most of the people think that documentation taxes their time. Is it so? They do not have the priorities decided, or they just are not aware about the consequences. Documentations of expectations, (in term of KRA sheet, JD etc) should be clear and should be signed by line manager and an employee. If there are meetings on issues, minute of meeting should be documented. The letter on agreed action should be communicated to the employee on time.

4) Address the issue at early stage: Most of the issues are addressed when the assessment is due. On the last date of assessment line managers communicates HR that the person is not doing well and require certain actions. Was he sleeping? Has he communicated employee on the issue? Has this been documented? Every issue should be addressed at the early stage, you are not only being unfair to the person, but you are unfair to the organization also.

5) Don’t be unfair: Don’t push your personal agenda on people. Give time to people to think and acclimatize with the function, organization. Show empathy and always be fair with people. Believe on the law of attraction, you can not be unfair with people always; otherwise, you will be the next person.

6) Don’t victimize: As a part of organizational polices, discrimination should be strictly no. Don’t victimize the person because he is not your cheerleader. Grow up and be professional.

Involuntary separations are frustrating to employees and their families and sometimes can be financial death for them. Line Managers are the important key people to decide the fate of their subordinate. Hence the role of HR is very crucial in such cases. HR should be always the Gate Keeper for the process and see that the process is followed properly.

Drill down approach

2011-11-11T21:36:00.001+05:30

Some information can be misleading sometimes. When you ask question, not necessary you will get the right information. If you rely on inappropriate information, then your decision may have the adverse consequences. You can actually go into the details and ask the questions until you are satisfied. You may call this technique as Drill down approach.

What is Drill Down Approach?

The Drill Down Approach is the methodological tool to analyze the whole situation in specific conditions and situations. It is applicable everywhere in the life.

You can use this approach in HR to solve your day-to-day HR issues including employment interviews, exit interviews, employment conditions, compensation etc.

Drill Down Approach in professional life?

A) Interviews: when you hire any employee, you can use this tool to uncover his past performance by asking simple questions. Behavioural Interview Technique (BEI) is the effective method to do this. “Past performance in similar circumstances is the best prediction of future performance” is the principle used in BEI.

We have heard about Fake CVs and subsequent termination of these employees by top IT companies. Candidates can be drilled down on the information given in resume. This will uncover his achievements during first phase of the interview.

B) Exit Interviews: You can apply same tool to uncover the facts.

C) Employee-Employer Relations: An IR person can easily comment on this issue. How horrible cases he has to handle in his day-to-day work. The approach can be used. When you have to investigate any misconduct or you are involved in any enquiry you can use this drill down approach to investigate the matter.

D) Management issues: Besides above you can use this approach everywhere in your life including market analysis.

Investigations done by police or other investigating agencies are based on this approach. But when you use this technique in your professional or personal life, we should be very careful about the style of investigations. You should be smart enough to get the information by drilling on the questions without using your position and power in the organization. Otherwise the information may be misleading.

Do you consider your intuition while taking decisions?

2011-11-04T22:37:00.001+05:30

Albert Einstein on Intuition

I had one manager in past who was very critical on the data and use to take time to take decisions. He would ask so many questions on the data. He was fully relied on the data. But it would take so much time and the issues would be solved by another person or would hang till somebody else would enter into the same. He was neither an effective decision maker nor an effective leader.

In another case, the manager was taking fast decisions. He also would use the data but was more relied on actual fact and related gut feelings. In some cases you have huge data mined by your team for you and have a little time. How you would take a decision in such situation?

If you follow the rational and theoretical process of decision, then you would not be able to take half of the decision in day to day life due to time constraints.

Imagine, you are walking on the road and suddenly stray dog comes in front you. You become consciously alert of the danger. Your mind acts accordingly and you try to avoid the stray dog by distancing yourself from the dog. What you do here? Your mind process the data and you take a decision. In decision making process, you find out the danger and then you take a decision depending on your intuition. When there is no data, or data is huge and you have a little time or just your data is not working, your intuition helps you. You need to develop your intuition. Great decisions by great industry leaders are taken. Take an example of Dhirubhai Ambani. The foundation of the Jamnagar refinery was decided by Dhirubhai and not by engineers. (Engineers had assured that time that Jamnagar was not the seismic region (based on the data). You know the results, during earthquake, it remain safe.

Successful professionals do not make a great many decisions. They concentrate on what is important. They try to make the few important decisions on the highest level of conceptual understanding. For this they need to be able to withdraw from within themselves intuitive, subjective information to help them in their decisions.

Intuition is the ability to tap your feelings to make better decisions. Throughout our formal education we receive instructions on how to follow guidelines. We learn methodologies and acquire information. This creates the basis for deductive reasoning.

The ultimate expression of deductive reasoning is intuition. Through reason we can make a decision based on numbers, however, logical reasoning is not enough in today’s complex world.

Intuition is what distinguishes the mature professional from just the manager. To do this effectively, professionals have to understand the substance of themselves and their rolls and that of the people under them. They must understand the essence of this work and visualize the future. Intuition is what enables them to do this.

But, how do we find intuition? One way to look for it is to follow our common sense, what feels right to us. Intuition occurs spontaneously. When executives are controlled by their egos or their intellect, they don’t let their minds free to use their intuition. Using your intuition is like having a sixth sense. It is like lighting up the mind to enable executives to make the best decisions.

Matured Professional….

2011-10-31T09:58:00.001+05:30

I have seen one manager who was very political in the organization. He would create his opinions based on his perceptions. He also would make his opinions based on the feedback given by his cheerleaders. Facts were far away from the reality. Once one of my colleagues expressed her opinion contradictory to the feedback of this person; he changed his opinion about the girl. He told me, “My secretary is better than your subordinate.” The manager was even not ready to recognize the right of others.

I had always a question about the maturity of this manager. Being 20 years in the organization, he was loyal to his personal agenda of sticking to his position, but he was fully away from the maturity. People grow but not necessary they would exhibit the “professional maturity”.

I would like emphasis most of the important dimension of the personality, “Maturity- Professional maturity.”

We always used the term, “Maturity”. Based on our perceptions we labeled “maturity” to the people. We used statements like “Mr. X is much matured professional” or “Mr. Y is effective, but not so much matured, he needs to be developed.” But then how we measure the maturity.

What is the maturity? According to me the maturity can be defined as the acceptance of your role in life which gives you an inner sense of security. Executives need to be constantly aware of this purpose and their state of consciousness. They need to do work to become their mature self.

Mature executives are tolerant of others and respect people’s rights because they realize that one needs talents of a whole team to compete effectively in today’s marketplace.

In the same organization, one senior HR professional, alumni of top b-school was hired so that she would build the strong HR processes. However instead of focusing on the processes, she firstly used the tactic of being popular in the organization by working on increment and paying performance bonus. The rational of paying this was too mechanical and too old which most of the organizations use. When there is not legacy of such things, you are in a better condition to work on concrete processes. She did not. Somehow her tenure didn’t go well and poor HR Head had to resign. The above manager knew the facts but then he started putting the onus of everything to that lady. He was an advocate of formulating processes; he was senior management representative, but still he never supported any initiatives. He was the victim of his ego and his own personal agenda.

He blamed others for their mistakes. When everything was going good, he used to take credits. If somebody would do best, he was jealous and if somebody would argue with him he was revengeful. Immature executives do the same things.

Immature executives blame others for their mistakes. They have a need to take credit for new ideas, set up rivalry, are jealous, angry and revengeful. Immature executives have the desire to dominate simply to feed their ego. They don’t have the ability to handle negative feedback or criticism, and have the need to appear intelligent to others.

Beware of these dimensions of immature personality. It will never help you. Professionalism also counts your maturity.

Iceberg of Ignorance

2011-10-22T15:36:00.001+05:30

There is a cost of ignorance. If you are in the business, you can not be ignorant about, no matter which. The Managing Director of one company had a great vision of being number one in his sector. He tried to implement best processes in the organization. Top international consultancy companies were hired for building business strategy, operational excellence, Human Resource processes and so on. People were charged to make the difference. However the leadership development was the crucial factor. He appointed a core team to lead the organization under his leadership. Unfortunately he was ignorant the ground level fact of competencies of these people. Just philosophical lectures in the meeting don’t make you successful. You need to act and lead from the front. The members of his core team (they use to call them as “a steering committee” and employees used to call this committee as “steering committee without steering”) never worked on the ground or shop floor or in the market. These people were philosophers in the organization and were more interested to push their own agenda.

The leader was fully reliable on his core team members. He never tried to listen the voice of common employees in the organization. It does not mean what top leader has to spend his time on shop floor, but at least he should have the method, tool to understand the pulse of the organization, market etc.

Top to down communication is always easy but most of the times selective. Same applies to the down to top communication where most of the communication is convenient. People have a tendency to keep the issues under the carpet or to be ignorant to the same. In above case company lost a big revenue, market share and core employees. These all were very much ignorant about the market, issues and people dimensions.

Iceberg of ignorance

The gap between knowing and doing is definitely responsible for such cases. But the major reason is being ignorant to the situation; the gap between the shop floor view and the balcony view. Balcony view helps you to act on a vide spectrum of the business, however shop-floor view helps you to detect and correct errors. Problem known the senior management is only 4%. 96% problems are hidden from the senior management. This big iceberg of ignorance sometimes hits to the whole ship, the organization.

You may get lot of stories why you lost the market share, revenue etc, not necessary that are facts.

Learning, knowing from the circumstances, people, and being close to the ground, either market or shop floor will help you to remove your ignorance. Learning facts is important scenario. In knowledge society, where lot of data flows, you have to work out on the factual scenario. This will help you to change your existing response, challenge your assumptions and reframe your knowledge.

“Let’s remove our ignorance and be more knowledgeable from this Diwali. Wish you all Happy Diwali.”

Fear

2011-10-14T22:08:00.000+05:30

One person had a frequent dream of demon following him. Person was running scary with that demon. Person used to run and demon used to follow him. His nights were sleepless due to this scary dream. Once the person decided to confront the demon when he would follow him and he would ask him the question why he was following him.

Next day, when the demon arrived in the dream of the person, he asked the demon, “Hey, you are troubling me for so many days. Why are you following me? What do you want?”

Demon smiled and replied, “How should I know this? You must know; it is your dream.”

We are like that same person always scare about unknown things and we don’t know why we are scary. The fear brings lot of “Ifs” in our life. “Would I miss the flight, would the taxi pick me on time? Is booking confirmed? What will happened if he says No? And so on…

The fear of losing something is the major obstacle in the success. I have seen some people that have the fear of winning. My one friend was offered the position outside the country by his company. Friend denied the offer only due to fear. Success and failures are the part of life but taking opportunities are important. Most of the people loose opportunities by just not taking these opportunities. The reason is just fear. In 1999, I had referred one vacancy to my classmate. He even did not turn up for an interview. When asked, he mentioned that the company sometimes transfers employees frequently at different site and it might happen with him also. He had to struggle a lot to get the job in future.

Imagine how many opportunities we might have losing by not asking something. The fear of “will that person/salesman give it.”

I like the TV commercial of Tata Sky for the reason where one person fears to ask something (change in currency to bank robbers or lift to the soldier) and then catch line of asking “If I get two connections, will I get the discount.”

First thing first in life should be to remove the fear of thinking and asking something which is really not fearful. One should not suppress his happiness for non existing things. Fear is just like TOMORROW that never comes. So why should think about it. Be calculative, assess obstacles, imagine the output, life will be full of possessiveness.

Survival tips in turbulent situation?

2011-10-09T13:28:00.000+05:30

Bag and retain your job.

Companies in India have kept on hold their recruitment for time being. The situation is expected to be worst than year 2008. Is India heading towards recession? Experts say, yes! At some extent! Increasing interest rates, declining GDP and inflation are fueling the slowdown in India. The situation may remain same for at least next one year. In such situation, job opportunities will be only for experience professionals. Freshers have to struggle to enter in the corporate world and the best will bag the job. Even professionals will also have to struggle hard to keep their jobs.

The problem, in our country is that management graduates develop their unrealistic expectations from themselves. They don’t have much but they expect the best. During turbulent situation, one needs to take the real stock of their strengths and weaknesses.

If you are management, engineering, simple graduate or working professional, read my simple tips for survival.

1) Don’t be choosy about Industries and compensation:

Why the industries pay you more, if their current talent is underpaid or they have more options to get experienced one? Is your college the best in the competition? If yes, what contribution you are going to make immediately. Industry will invest you for 2-3 years on you on their cost, and still they carry the risk of loosing you to the competition. Definitely they don’t want to train you for the competition. Accept the company which comes first to you. If you are deserved, then you will definitely get something. One of the friends was so much choosy about the job, that he rejected offers from different companies. He used to give the excuses like. “The company is not good, compensation is not good, they will send me on the site, they may transfer me to another location and so on.” After one year, new students entered into the market and my friend was forced to take petty jobs in his career.

2) Learn more and more:

Steve Jobs perfectly said, “Stay hungry, stay stupid.” Be hungry to earn more. Just imagine yourself after 10 years. What do you like to know for? 10 years experience – Every year different experience or same experience repeated 10 years? Learn new skills, hone your existing skills, and develop your competencies. Who is kicked out first from the company during turbulent market? The person who has inferior skills is thrown out first. Once we get a degree, we stop to learn and that is bad. Try to learn every aspect of the business.

3) Keep patience:

Most of the new guys have the tendency to change the job every year. They mention reasons like career growth, compensation and so on. Who will promote you within one year? Have you think what value you added in the company? Please stop this. Your solidity counts. Spend reasonable good time in one company.

4) Be expert and be general:

Be expert in your profession, but also try to be general in practice. You can be only expert marketing person; you need to be good sales guy. Who bags top positions? People who know everything of the business including different functions. They may not be expert, in all functions, but they knows aspects of all functions.

5) Be Intrapreneur:

The person who creates and brings into use profitable new products, processes, services, and ways of doing business is the intrapreneur. He is the person who behaves with entrepreneurial spirit within a large organization. They are driver by vision. They have risk taking abilities.

6) Be a self learner & starter:

I have seen people who wait somebody to start. They expect somebody will come and change their life. In this world, you have to build your own foundation. Nobody will come to teach you. Be a self learner and self starter.

Compensation Philosophy

2011-10-02T19:30:00.000+05:30

“When you put the resignation, your company will match your CTC. If they can match it when you put down papers, why they don’t do it properly? Why they wait for the resignation? Do they underestimate the talent value?” One of the friends was asking me this during hot discussion on compensation. In ideal world of the HR professional, they would love to have the compensation policy in place, but the question is how to do that.

“There are certain cases where employees leave the organization and come back with higher salary. Isn’t it an injustice to existing employees?” another friend asked me. “You should go to your top HR person or CEO to ask this.” I replied back.

My personal opinion is that for handling the compensation, you should have the competencies. Compensation management is one of the critical parts of the HR function. Any company and HR professional can’t avoid the importance of relevant compensation philosophy for the organization. If you do not have the proper compensation philosophy, you may have the trouble in retaining your critical talent. Paying maximum salary is not the solution, but paying right salary is. {According to one survey (WorldatWork’s Compensation Programs & Practices research report (9/2010)) - 9 out of 10 organizations report having a compensation philosophy. 61% have a written philosophy. 29% have an unwritten philosophy. 42% reported that all or most of employees do not understand the compensation philosophy says that only 24% organizations have the compensation philosophy in place in their organization.}

When you are clear on your compensation philosophy then you are clear what to do with your talent on compensation perspective. But it is always managed as a crisis management. Compensation is not the top most important factor in retaining employee, but this does not mean you should avoid it. Positioning your talent vis-à-vis a market data will help you arrest your attrition. Employees have a common tendency to update their market positioning, and they try to check their positing in the market. Various job portals are easily available and if somebody in the team gets the double salary in the market, why don’t me, is the logic for searching the job outside. Here he assumes that he would get higher salary, good title, he may ignore the other good dimensions of the company. When he joins new company, he realizes that he got two things, but missed four other important factors. And then he goes for new job search. Most of the time, it is a just temptation of an employee.

However the fact is you can not underpay your employees for long time. You can position your employees in different percentile as per the potential and performance. Paying higher salary, off course, will spoil your culture. Your average employee should be positioned rightly. Your top talent can be at par with the market.

Talent is always vulnerable to the flight risk in India. They are more aware and qualified to understand their potential. Reports show that hiring scenario in 2011-2012 is still promising. In such scenario, your top talent is always at risk. First dimension is compensation philosophy. I believe that organizations will be on the right track. Talent will also not black mail the organization.

Once you have a compensation philosophy in place, your HR practices should support the employee engagement. Organizational culture, transparency, benefits and best practices will still be important in employee engagement, but at least pay the RIGHT salary.

Find out these employees in your organization….

2011-09-24T11:26:00.000+05:30

SMS/Phone employee:

Understand employees &
make your own strategy to manage them.

“I have spent 20 years in this company and everybody respects me. One employee called me after purchasing new cell phone. He told that he is calling me first. In another incident one employee gave me news of his son’s birth first. See how they respect me.”

Incidentally I also knew these two employees. They always used this strategy while communicating something to their superiors. Not necessary you are first to communicate, but they will tell so.

There are such stupid superiors where they wrongly misconstrue the behaviours of juniors.

This is same like the new ad campaign of Airtel where I made the correction “Yek SMS subordinate jaruri hota hain!”

Hazeri (attending) Employee:

When you are in the office, certain set of employees will ensure to come to you to say just hallo. They will not do it with their peers, but only with seniors in the organization. They will ensure to peep in your workplace, cabin once in a day and find opportunities to inform you the updates, mostly about other employees in the organization. They will ensure to filter the information conveniently. Communication of fabricated information is common.

Ear and Eye Employee:

Top bosses are fully relied on these employees. These employees are much closed to the power centers. They maintain the good personal relationship with all employees. They also have their own colleagues in different functions and surprisingly they know everything what’s happening in the organization. The problem is that they communicate everything to top people and not the concern line managers. They may also fabricate the information for their own benefits.

Darbari (Court) Employee

I always wonder how these employees are entertained by their superiors. Almost most of the time, they are in the cabin of superiors. Perhaps superiors also needed these employees to muscle their ego.

Union Employee:

Have you seen employees who always speak about their rights, benefits, holidays and always negative? They find fault in everything. They are actually troublemakers. They are either aggressive or passive. You will always find them in cafeteria or near water cooler.

Buddy Employee:

These employees are very comfortable to talk with. They are warm and welcoming. They are cool and silent. They take personal interest in other person. They make new employees conformable in the organization. Less assertive and good friends. But less effective when they are required to take firm stand on certain issues. However they are good opinion makers.

Coach Employee:

Smart and matured people in the organizations. They like to coach others. They are informal coach to the people without any authority. They don’t hide their knowledge. They are like teachers. They are important in the organizations. These employees are also good opinion makers.

Social Employee:

They are good friends. They will always help you. If they get a call that somebody is admitted in a hospital, they will ensure their support. They will come at our home to help you if you need them and they will never speak about this.

You will find different personalities in organizations. I labeled them based on their visible behavior in the organization. I don’t know how they are talented or performing employees. But some are definitely smart enough to manage their superiors. However it is upto the superior how they get managed by these employees.

However human is human and they will be human beings. You can’t do much to change them. Definitely last three set of employees are required in the organization and Management can actually use their skills. You can use these employees or their skill in different circumstances. Smart leaders do the same.

Manage your boss…

2011-09-17T20:40:00.002+05:30

All employees in this country believe that they don’t need any boss. They also believe that companies are wasting money by hiring highly paid bosses. You will hardly find any employee who is satisfied with his boss. In employee engagement surveys, most of the times superior are rated based on the personal biases. If boss’s boss entertains employee by bypassing the boss, then it goes very difficult to manage employees.

We have lot of expectations from bosses. We expect that boss should be the leader, motivator, coach, mentor etc etc. But we fail to understand the perspective of bosses. Employees tend to take convenient stand about the situation. We always forget that boss is successful because of work of subordinate. At the other hand boss makes you successful by assigning tasks and honing your skills and competencies. Bosses are not God and neither we. They don’t know everything and neither we; however collaborative relationship helps both.

If you want to climb the corporate ladder, your boss will take you there. For this you should learn to manage your boss. Try following strategies to manage him better.

Understand him: Understand the boss as a person. How he is. What is his personality type? How he reacts and what he likes and dislikes. If you understand the boss better, you are creating more opportunities to be more effective. After all he is not your enemy. He is there to support you.

Understand his expectations: Get clarity on goals and KRAs, but also the style of working. If your boss is perfect, then defiantly he will not expect mistakes in data. If your boss is organized, then he will expect the same from you. Make his expectations clear.

Give regular feedback: Give and take the feedback properly. I have seen employees who do not bother to communicate the bosses about their task. After all your boss is accountable in the company. If you don’t give him the feedback, he will get it from somewhere else.

Don’t hide your mistakes: One my employee use to keep her mistakes under the carpet. Sometimes she uses to manipulate the situation by not communicating the issues. I never like that. Never hide mistakes. You are human being and human being makes mistakes, Exhibit your courage to admit mistakes. However don’t repeat the same mistakes.

Don’t lie: Honesty is the best policy. Being truthful is one of the ways to be successful in life. Never lie with your boss. He will come to know anyway if you are lying.

Improve your communication: You must be expecting from your boss that he should communicate everything to you. This is applicable to you also. Communication is the area which always has the room for improvement. Improve your communication with your boss. Don’t scare to go to him if you have any issues.

Don’t complain: I have seen employees who always complain. You will have lot of challenges in professional life. Challenges make person perfect. Never complain about person, situation, and resources.

Don’t give any excuse: Employees give many excuses if the work is not done. You are responsible for what you are doing. Result counts and not your excuses.

Don’t gossip about your boss: Gossiping about your boss and making fun of him is very unprofessional. Somehow gossips are never secret and bosses come to know what you say about him.

Be effective and result oriented: You are hired for your work. You are expected to show the results. If you are not result oriented, you will not survive in the organization.

Go extra mile: He assigns the task because he thinks you have the caliber to do that task. Hence ask more from boss. Go to him and ask if you can support him if he is busy. Ask delegation. Take more responsibilities.

Be creative and think out of the box: If you are traditional and just following the SoPs, you are not adding any value. You are just a clerk. Be creative in day to day work. Go with ideas and influence your boss.

You can not avoid bosses in your life. If you can not avoid them, then it is better to collaborate with them. Try to learn from your bosses. Your boss is also human being. He may have egos, emotions and he will also behave as others behave. However he also recognizes the fact that he needs you. He will definitely coach and mentor you. It is upto you how you take his coaching and mentoring.

Internal Specifications of Personality

2011-09-09T15:31:00.002+05:30

We know human beings are complicated and personalities are more complicated to understand. Every personality has specifications. External specifications like physical appearance, look etc. More complicated are internal specifications. Internal specifications include different ego states, behaviour, mindset, attitude etc.

Internal specifications are the engines to drive the person and he behaves, acts based on the orders programmed or conditioned as per the internal specifications. These internal specifications are programmed in the mind. It is very interesting to understand the person in totality.

Relatively stable pattern of behaviours and consistent internal states that explain a person's behavioural tendencies. These stable patterns are foundation of personality dimensions. But we always see what our mind wants to see. This is called as a perception. The combination of personality traits & knowledge base generates Perception in minds of people about the person. These traits are the part of internal specifications.

Following are some of the examples of internal specifications of personality.

Talents: A recurring pattern of thought, feeling or behavior that can be productively applied. We always refer talent with brain. But talent is the right result of thought process and behaviour at the right time for the right results.

Attitude: An attitude is a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's degree of like or dislike for something. Attitudes are generally positive or negative views of a person, place, thing, or event— this is often referred to as the attitude object. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attitude_(psychology))

Thought process: Talent is the driver of thought process of the person.

Conscientiousness: Conscientiousness is the trait of being painstaking and careful, or the quality of acting according to the dictates of one's conscience. It includes such elements as self-discipline, carefulness, thoroughness, organization, deliberation (the tendency to think carefully before acting), and need for achievement. It is an aspect of what has traditionally been called character. Conscientious individuals are generally hard working and reliable. When taken to an extreme, they may also be workaholics, perfectionists, and compulsive in their behavior. People who are low on conscientiousness are not necessarily lazy or immoral, but they tend to be more laid back, less goal oriented, and less driven by success.

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientiousness)

Emotional Stability: How the emotional state of mind is.

Openness to Experience: This trait is the characteristic of person where he shows the flexibility and the degree how he is open to change and new experiences.

Agreeableness: Agreeableness is a tendency to be pleasant and accommodating in social situations. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreeableness)

Introversion and Extroversion: These are the traits of personality where you can find out the ability of person to deals with others. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extroversion)

The question is when we speak about the specification; it should be in certain unit. Unfortunately in personalities we can not measure the units in absolute numbers.

Are you tough?

2011-09-04T12:39:00.000+05:30

“You should be tough, ruthless and very assertive when you are in business. If managers are not tough, then their subordinate will not be tough and it is very difficult to sustain in the competitive world.” So-called tough manager was preaching the junior managers in the meeting. He then declared that there would be one sharing session where all managers would share their experiences on how they were tough in their personal life. It was year 2008. The indications of slow down were prominent. The business was down. All new projects and businesses were not doing well. The reasons for the failure were different, but the slowdown was the opportunity to conceal their failure.

“You should be empathetic with people.” Was his another preaching topic. He read it somewhere about empathy and started to preach people. If you are empathetic, you can achieve desired results. However he was literally spoiling the career of good employees by doing experiments about their profiles.

“There is a clause of termination in appointment letter, one month notice period. Ask employees to resign without any severance packages. You do not have any obligations. You should be empathetic; still you should be tough and ruthless.” He ordered in another meeting.

Empathy means understanding other’s feeling, putting yourself in their shoes and deciding your strategy to deal with them. Excellent fundamental! I personally use this tactic while dealing with different people.

CEO of the company decided to close one office at one location. So- called tough and empathetic manager was given the responsibility of this project. But this whole project was handled very unprofessionally where high profile and critical talent were treated like a contract and casual workmen. They started agitation against the management. The matter was referred to media and political leaders including ministers. Adverse reports and comments spoiled the reputation of the company. CEO had to take the control of the situation to salvage where management had to agree to pay them heavy severance package.

So-called empathic and tough manager failed in his strategies. He actually did not know the real meaning of empathy. He tried to be tough; but at wrong situation with wrong people.

After some days, management decided to be tough with him without being empathetic.

Being tough does not mean you miss the human dimension. Good companies focus log term goals. The hiring of talent is supposed to be for achieving long term goals. Good companies touch the talent cost at last when all the resorts fail; however bad companies focus cost reduction by reducing the talent at first site. You can be tough with situation. You also can be tough with people but before that you also need to understand the consequences and your capability to handle the consequences.

What is your winning formula?

2011-08-27T19:50:00.001+05:30

Chander is a very sincere boy in 1^st standard, somehow on one day he could not complete his homework as his mother was ill and his father could not help him to complete it on time due to his busy office schedule. Next day in the school, teacher scolded very hard to Chander without understanding the fact. Chander had never experience such rude scolding in past. He felt bad. On that day he could not focus on the studies and instructions of teacher; result of which, he could not write anything in his daily calendar. He had less homework. Next day same incidence was repeated. Chander understood that if he didn’t tell his mother about the homework, he would relieve from compulsory homework. Teacher would scold him, but it didn’t matter much. He would get more time to play, watch TV. Chander had made his mind and decided that he would not share anything to anybody in future. He also started to lie to his parents and teacher by giving certain excuses. So his winning formula evaluated was “to lie, not to share.” By doing this he thought that he would be successful in his certain goals.

I developed an employment blank form where candidate has to mention his strengths and weaknesses. 99.99% candidates mentioned that they are emotional. Tough and assertive people also think that they are enough emotional. Why this is so? The main reason is our childhood and our upbringing. Parents and adults around us nourish the emotional dimension of the human being. Positive and negative emotions are main components of our life. Being emotional, either passive or positive is the wining formula for most of the people.

Sumeet was denied to play by his mates. The reason could be anything. But Sumeet decided that if others are not allowing him to play, he would make his own team. He did that by using different tactics, like attracting other children by offering them to play his toys, sometimes by requesting them and sometimes just by being more aggressive. Sumeet decided to be team former and leader and this was his winning formula.

Survival of the fittest means to find out some ways for surviving in different events of life. Human find out these means based on his experiences. We develop/create the winning formula based on our past experiences, mostly during childhood. Every human being has his winning formula. This is not necessary that the winning formula is logical or right. It is the mere experience where results are perceived. It can be illusioned satisfaction where person thinks that by using the tactic he would be successful in something.

Does it really important to find out the wining formula? In my opinion, yes. Winning formula is just the perceived dimension of personality. If your winning formula is negative, then there are lots of chances to be more passive or aggressive in life. If you understand the derivation of your winning formula, then at least you can redevelop of amend the formula with new context. Roots of your personality are in past. Your parents, teacher and surrounding have major influence on your personality. Hence it is necessary to understand these roots.

Just seat back, relax and go in your past. Experience, why you are “you” today. It will help you to identify the derivation of your personality. You will understand why this is important to your kids if you are parents and to your students, if you are a teacher.

Be a follower, but also be a leader: Small Initiative makes the difference.

2011-08-19T20:32:00.006+05:30

(On the backdrop of fight against corruption)

Driving in Pune is a real challenge. If you are able to drive in Pune, you can drive anywhere in the world. I take more convenient route to reach the office. This route has less traffic signal and leads towards highway. I believe on defensive driving. However one day at one signal, I somehow miss the red signal while turning towards left side. All vehicles behind me did the same thing. They followed me and drove without notice of red signal. Next day when it was red, I stop and all vehicles behind me also stop! It happened on couple of occasions.

On last Saturday, we went to Marathi Comedy Drama. My wife had already booked tickets over phone. When we reached there to collect tickets, lot of people were standing and making a crowd. There was mess at ticket collection window. Nobody was bothered standing in a queue. I just requested the crowd to be in a queue. As all people were educated nobody resisted and formed a queue.

I would like to tell you about the psychology of the people and mass. Take a recent example of crusade against corruption declared by Anna Hazare. We all are suffering from this disease. Corruption is the way of life. Anna Hazare and team came forward. And now every common man is the follower of Anna.

We are in the society where majority of the people are followers. If you take simple initiative to make the difference, you will get the followers. Following is not bad, but their energy needs to be channelized. Each path is only one of a million paths. Therefore, you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path. But there should be somebody who makes the path. Anna Hazare is making the path by putting his heart in it. Leader does the same thing. When you follow somebody you should find the heart it.

But my intention is not to ask you to be only a follower and even Anna also does not expect this. There are lot many thing where we can make the difference. Every human being has the huge potential. One small lead makes the difference. If you are the first at the traffic signal, you can take a lead by respecting the signal. You will see followers behind you.

Two years back, one clerk in nationalized bank denied to give the demand draft to my wife (http://healthwithayurved.blogspot.com/) and asked her to get it from another bank. He had claimed that he was very busy and the day was for the disbursement of pension to pensioners. He was rude with pensioner and was giving the excuses. Will you spare him? She did not. She made a formal complaint to manager, nothing happened. She complained higher ups and even grievance cell of the bank and it worked. The clerk had to face the disciplinary action and the Chief Manager of the area was at our home to apologize. The issue was not denying the demand draft; the issue was his behaviour with the customer and poor pensioners.

The problem in our society is we care a lot about our time. We feel that we do not have a time. At another side, we have lot of time to spend on social networking sites, parting etc. We allow others to abuse our right. Have you find out another escalation route, if somebody is not responding properly?

Anna will not be there with you when any government official would ask the bribe for doing your work. You have to resist and take a lead to take that matter at appropriate platform. The time has come not to be in the victim role. One small lead makes a difference, not only in your life but others also. It is upto you if you want to be follower and leader.

That may be the reason why Anna Hazare’s movement asks everybody to be another Anna Hazare (I am Anna).

Independence and Inner Freedom

2011-08-12T21:22:00.000+05:30

Happy Independence Day!

We had an inauguration ceremony of school constructed under CSR initiative by our company near Pune. After the function, students and teachers sung the national song, “Vande Mataram. I was thrilled while singing the same. (I fear some people even don’t remember the full version. They may also mistake between national anthem and national song.) What is the message? And only free person can enjoy the innerness of the words in national song and national anthem.

Freedom is the great word. Freedom gives the respect to the person. But words alone are powerless. Only actions can make a difference. The function of these words is to inspire us to think, and then to act and make a difference.

Mahatma Gandhi had a dream of freeing the nation from British and he did that. Freedom fighters struggled a lot to get the status which we are enjoying today. We got the independence. But do we value this independence? As a species we have evolved to a level of consciousness, whereby we are no longer able to avoid our responsibility. Reclaiming our power is essential to both our individual survival and the healing of our nation. Let’s not discuss what’s happening in India and how the freedom and democracy is abused by everybody including us. We should not blame only politicians; we are responsible for the fate. But where is the end?

Think for a moment, how the world would be if all people had chosen not to strive for their dreams and make a difference. People like Mahatma Gandhi, Vir Sawarkar, Pandit Nehru, Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa...

You may look at these names and feel somewhat intimidated and be tempted to ask, “Can I really make a difference? Is it worth the price I would have to pay?” It is easier to live a compromised, mediocre life, hoping that someone else makes a difference, while you read about it. However, if that was your choice, you wouldn’t be reading this article now. Now is a time for action.

It is time to confront our upbringing, conditioning and circumstances. We all had and have people in our life, telling us that dreams are for children, encouraging us to be matured. Making a difference is like throwing a pebble in a pool. The ripples spread from the center to larger and larger circles of influence. It begins within you. Time has come to respect the freedom and take some responsibilities. It is the time of referring back to civil science which we learned during our high school. Not so much difficult. You have to come out from the capsule and take small steps like taking a freedom from preoccupied conditioning.

What we need more today is running the second freedom movement, personally, professionally and off course, as a responsible citizen of nation. Freedom from indiscipline, freedom for unresponsiveness, freedom from dishonesty, freedom from negative thinking, freedom from jealousy, freedom from inhumanity and freedom from every evil which we have within us and within society.

Let’s understand the real meaning of freedom. Happy Independence Day!

Recession 2011-Survival in turbulent market

2011-08-07T14:46:00.002+05:30

Sometimes market behaves in weird manner. When market is weird, people have the tendency to be weird also. S&P has taken a decision to cut the global ratings of US' sovereign rating by a notch to 'AA plus' from 'AAA'. This is something that has no preferences. This may have the adverse result on Indian market as well. United States and Europe econmy has the direct impact on the developing and underdeveloped economies. We have seen this happening in 2007-2008 meltdowns.

In 2007-2008, most of the organizations acted strange. They didn’t believe on the positive side of the recession. Even some idiots had used the meltdown as opportunity to enforce their personal agenda by so called slimming. Very few people see the positive side of such developments. Nobody was enough experienced to handle such situations. Fear does not have any logic and so-called top people worked differently that time. Market taught lessons to organizations and especially so called strategists. We can even say it was market corrections. Companies had to run the restructuring exercises.

Now again we have in same situation. US may have either direct (fear factor) impact or indirect impact (exports and services) on us. At the other side, Indian situation is also not promising due to changing PLR rates and inflation. Currently we do not have much to act on this, but we can think some positive outcomes on organization and personal level. I had written an article based on one survey in 2008. (Please refer http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2008/12/economic-meltdown-hr-role.html). The actions and measures were based on the reaction of the market that time and still valid today. However now we are experienced now to understand the dynamics of market.

Some positive actions on such events can be as under:-

1) Do more with less. (We learn this in colleges but eventually forgot: Maximum results in minimum resources);

2) Improve productivity and going beyond one limitations;

3) Limit expenses which are not adding any value, e.g. really do we need to travel by business class? Or instead of travelling, teleconference will be the solution;

4) Strategic recruitment only,

5) No fear please. Align employees towards organizational goals. Review your performance management system if required. Identify nonperformers and have a plan for them;

6) We have the tendency to hire costly consultants during good times. You must be paying huge charges to recruitment consultants, training consultants or any other consultants. Just sit back, relax and just think how much value they added. Are you underestimating the talent of your own staff? Why not develop the skills of internal talent? Project assignments work better on this.

7) So called downsizing has adverse impact. Manage it properly. Your critical capital is Human Resources. You can not treat them inhumanly. I have seen where organizations recruited without any logic and then sacked them. Their only mistake was to join such unprofessional organizations. However professional organizations manage their talent well. Are you looking for short-term results or sustainability?

On Personal front:-

1) Review your earning and expenses. Focus on long term results.

2) This may have a good time to invest in mutual fund and share market.

3) Stretch yourself. You have huge potential. Learn more skills. Ask more responsibilities.

4) You should be in value added job (Please refer http://vinodtbidwaik.blogspot.com/2011/06/are-you-in-value-added-job.html)

This is not a time to be fearful about the future, but is the right time to create the future. Same as the King created in the following story.

In a kingdom, a new KING is picked up by the ministers. He is picked for one year only. After one year, he is dumped on an island, which has a forest with wild animals. If, you were a citizen of the kingdom and if, you were picked up by the ministers, would you accept the offer? Somebody did! And what was the thought behind it?

In the first week, he visited the island and inspected it. He decided to use his authority as a King. He ordered that the trees and wild animals be removed completely. He ordered to build a beautiful house with a garden and birds in it. He transferred his personal wealth to it. This whole exercise took around nine months. The last three months he enjoyed the life as a King.

At the end of the year, he was ready for the ISLAND. He was happy. His future was safe as he created it.

Market is the island. Your happiness is totally depend upon the opportunities you had in the past. Any way, a time has not gone yet.

Personal Excellence

2011-07-30T19:59:00.002+05:30

You must have read this story. But let me tell you it once again. A gentleman was once visiting a temple under construction. In the temple premises, he saw a sculptor making an idol of God. Suddenly he saw, just a few meters away, another identical idol was lying. Surprised he asked the sculptor, do you need two statutes of the same idol.

“No” said the sculptor. “We need only one, but the first one got damaged at the last stage.”

The gentleman examined the statue. No apparent damage was visible. “Where the damage is?” Gentleman asked. “There is a scratch on the nose of the idol. But where are you going to keep the idol?”

The sculptor replied that it will be installed on a pillar 20 feet high. The gentleman asked, “When the idol will be 20 feet away from the eyes of the beholder, who is going to know that there is scratch on the nose anyways?”

The sculptor looked at the gentleman, smiled and said, "The God knows it and I know it ".

The desire to excel should be exclusive of the fact whether someone appreciates it or not. Excellence is a drive from Inside not Outside.

An excellent life does not result from chance, fate, or good luck, but from a succession of excellent days lived in pursuit of a worthy purpose.

I went around an asked several dozen of my friends what they thought of when they thought of excellence – and here are some of the things they mentioned… Great works of art, incredible feats of engineering, astounding accomplishments in science – like landing a human being on the moon – and of course the amazing levels of excellence attained by world-class cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and others.

Which then lead me to ask them WHO they thought of when they thought of people that they felt embodied the true meaning of excellence…?

The question is how they made this all. The only answer is through their personal excellence.

What is actually Excellence means?

Anything which you call excellence is

Unusual / Unique
Valuable
Superior
Outstanding
The Best
Surpassing all others

AS I looked at the definition of excellence – and at my own experience with people questing for excellence – it occurred to me that there is not really one set “position” or a single point that could be called “Excellence” – it is actually on a continuum…

I encourage you to be valuable – to work to be unusual and unique and to strive to become “Outstanding” but I caution you – that to cross that line to move toward superior – or to commit yourself and your life to becoming “The Best in the World” – that is a goal that may actually cost you your life – and everything in it! To be the best – truly best in the world – is amazing – it can be done – but what it may cost you I don’t want to even imagine.

My suggestions is absolutely strive for excellence – settle for nothing less – but aim for “Balanced Excellence” – a life of tremendous value – to yourself, your family, your career and community – a life of well-rounded excellence.

The Formula for Excellence

• Decided what it is that you really want to achieve.

• Determine exactly what it will take to achieve it.

• Focus every bit of energy and effort to achieve it.

The foundation of this all is your core values. The core of excellence – the thing that differentiates the regular man from the excellent man is – clear, specific and strong VALUES. There are many, many things that you can value – family, god, career, success, charity, contribution, honor – but to achieve any level of success your life must be “Values-Based.”

So what I have found is that people who achieve on a massive scale…

A Personal Philosophy of Excellence

You must define – in your own words – what excellence means to you and how you will pursue it and measure it in your own life.

The foundation of excellence is built on Values, Integrity Discipline and Focus efforts.

You must clearly define what excellence is to you.
Your definition must be “values based.”
You must have a specific and detailed plan to achieve you goals.
You must be incredibly curious about what it will take to achieve your goals.
You must FOCUS intently on achieving your goals.
You must have the discipline to keep focused on your goals – regardless of setbacks and difficulties.
You must have the discipline to say “NO”
You must have the self-discipline to make excellence a habit.
You must have the discipline to pursue excellence – even when those around you may not want you to…
You can’t just talk about excellence – you must live it.
If you want to achieve more than others – you have to work harder and longer – there is no reward without effort.
The work of excellence is measured in years and decades – not days and weeks.

So? All the best for your journey towards your Personal Excellence.

Push and Pull Strategy

2011-07-23T11:06:00.002+05:30

“I have already sent an email to him, if he is not responding what can I do?”

“I have already asked him to that, but he is seating on the paper.”

“I can not do it unless he doesn’t send me the details.”

All above statements are common in corporate culture. Email is the best excuse given by most of the people. “I have sent an email, but he is not responding”. Just stating this, we skip the responsibility. By stating this, people throw onus on another person. Now a day, people are so used to emails that they ignore personal interaction. They take lunch together, they gossip together, they have fun activities together, but when they have to interact on professional front, they go for email. On same subject, they have multiple mails. But when issue is not resolved nobody comes out from the cubicle or workstation and speaks with the person seating next to him. This is a “technologically blindness”.

But then where is the accountability? Surprisingly people survive in the organization. This doesn’t always work. Circumstances can be changed anytime and bosses are not always good to protect you.

Above behavior is purely an unprofessional. Lack of professionalism may result into end of your career. There are different personalities in the organization and getting work done from them is a real skill. The best way is to teach the “Pull and Push strategy”. Pull and Push strategy is used in the process to make them more simple and effective. On assembly line one table pushes the material to another table if jobs are done and another table pulls the job if they need more. If both tables don’t understand each others requirement, then the assembly line would stop. Both tables have to work in harmony and with collaboration. If push is more than pull, the pulling table will be under pressure to push it another next table and vice versa. It really works well (peer pressure!)

If we use this principle in our day to day life, your team productivity and accountability will improve.

For example, if somebody sends mail and other person does not send the respond, he really pulls the response, by taking follow ups and putting peer pressure. If required escalating the matter to his senior. In another case if another person can pull the response and even push the response. Sometimes it also forces harmony and collaboration. It works well.

You can take out your team from technological blindness, by training them on pull and push strategy. Following are some strategies to improve on this.

1) Coach your team on accountability if you are the leader. Accountability is the attitude where employee gets the work done in any case. At the end of the day, results matters. He can achieve the results by any means.

2) Build the right attitude by being more communicative. If your emails communication has more than 3 REs, it is the right time to come out the space and have a direct communication.

3) You are in the organization for achieving your and organizational goals. In professional life, peer pressure works. It helps both parties. Always build peer pressure by taking follow ups, pressuring on timelines and if required putting the issue on the table of higher ups.

4) Push people, push paper, push an idea, push your uncompleted task, push communication

5) At other side pull people, pull paper, pull and idea, pull the task completed and pull communication.

The only challenge is how to be more pushy and puller.

Talent Management - Check and Balances

2011-07-15T22:21:00.000+05:30

You don’t know how people will response to your leadership style. Your direct subordinates may be convenient and may response differently in different situations. You can not sweet always with the people, not only due to the bad interpersonal relations but merely due to the professional fact. When you are good, they will be good but when you are bad (in their perspective) with them for mistakes, they will go into the capsule. The problem is with the attitude and they do not understand the reality of the market.

You can be friendly with employees, but you can not be the friend of them. At least, in professional life and especially when you are working in Human Resource. Imagine the incident where you have to issue the termination letter to non performer who is your cafeteria friend. Professional relationships are always vulnerable.

Organizations are the matrices of different human groups and relationship. Like minded people come together and form groups in cafeteria or near water cooler. Most of the gossips are discussed within these groups. There are troublemakers and opinion makers. There are sincere employees and there are employees who abuse facilities given by the company. In the changing world talent management is the major agenda on the table on the HR. There are fun activities, employee engagement initiatives. The issue is where is the check and balances on the behaviour of the talent? Off course, including performance issues also.

There should be always checks and balances in talent management processes. The main challenge is to inculcate the professionalism and the right attitude. We all are aware about “Douglas McGregor's XY Theory” of managing the people.

Theory X is the 'authoritarian management' style which believes that the average person dislikes work and will avoid it he/she can. Therefore most people must be forced with the threat of punishment to work towards organizational objectives. It also says that the average person prefers to be directed; to avoid responsibility; is relatively un-ambitious, and wants security above all else.

Theory Y is the 'participative management' style which believes that the person takes effort in work is as natural as work and play. People apply self-control and self-direction and can be aligned towards organizational objectives, without external control or the threat of punishment.

They are committed to objectives and their motivation is associated with their achievement. They usually accept and often seek responsibility if they are provided the opportunity to use a high degree of imagination, ingenuity and creativity in solving organizational problems.

Do you believe this theory? After working so many years in HR and in different organizations, I started to believe on the theory. But which is more effective? Most of the people believe either one theory. They will fully believe on wither X or Y.

In most of the cases most people prefer ‘Y-theory’ management. These people are generally uncomfortable in ‘X-theory’ situations and are unlikely to be productive, especially long-term, and are likely to seek alternative situations.

What does this means? I believe on check and balances and combination of both. We should believe that we have different personalities and our personalities are the consequences of our upbringing, surrounding and influences of society, parent and people around us. This influence force us in either theory X or theory Y. Sometimes mix of the both. You can not fully rely on one aspect. When your subordinate has the repeated issues with understanding, then you have to match your style. Not necessary all employees will behave in same manner. As discussed earlier, there are different personalities and hence not a single theory works.

You can be best boss, but subordinate also needs to be best employee. Yes, you should do every possible effort to develop him. But when it does not work, you have to be in different style.

Are you radical?

2011-07-09T20:27:00.001+05:30

You must have heard the world “Radical groups”. These groups are of the people who are extremist, fanatic, fundamentalist and actually people who are extreme on their thoughts. I am not fond of these groups and actually I hate them. But what I like the word “Radical”. This word can be associated with words like “beyond the norm”, “extreme”, “revolutionary” etc etc. Another association with this world is “through, drastic and it bring velocity and energy to the person.

I always ask myself how I am radical in my work, job, career and overall my contribution in the organization. I would like to add career after the word Radical. Yes Radical career. What does it means? It is putting action into your job and career…it is the profound, and glorious, and terrifying, and absurdly difficult but infinitely rewarding process of transforming your current self into your ultimate self. Think back to those times in your career when you’ve performed at your absolute best, when you blew past expectations. That’s when you were in Radical career. “Radical career” is taking action to become the most knowledgeable, functional expert, powerful, valuable, and fulfilled version of you. Just have a look on successful people. What they have in common. They are fundamentally expert and erudite.

Career has different perceptions now a days and this must be the topic which is largely discussed. Books, blogs, and webinars that seek to help us create amazing careers. I often surprise about the target audience is for this stuff. Millions of people slog away at jobs they hate. There are millions of jobs that most people would not find desirable or fulfilling. It is not practical to believe that everyone can have a great career. Many people will have careers that are a means to an end, like supporting their families or paying the EMIs of their home and cars.

The most important factor in radical career is passion about the job. I choose my career and I have the passion; like actors have the passion of acting and singer of singing.

“Vinod, the beauty of these people (actors, singers and artists) is that they develop their passion and they get the money from their passion.” Once my friend Prashant was telling me about Zakir Husain. Husain is Tabala maestro because he has the passion in Tabala.

If you do not have the passion, you are bound to make mistakes. I have seen the casual approach of professional (?) about their profession. I sense the passion for professionals who are really made their career. They are the most popular people in any organization because they live according to what’s possible. They are not confined by what is. They are not afraid (or don’t let it stop them) of smashing the status quo or breaking the rules.

If there is one thing that is changing in the world of work, it is that people are not settling for a lousy experience any longer. They know that life is too short to waste away at a job that does not provide challenge and satisfaction (or not enough) (or not a lot) (or not what’s possible). People value opportunity and challenge over security.

Research says that people want to love what they do. They are willing to work hard and make sacrifices to reach this level. Many people hate their jobs and are frustrated. If you show them how, they will do it. Anyone can learn to create a radical career that is fulfilling and enlivening by having expert and knowledgeable in their subject matter and mainly passion in what they do.

Oh No…, How to say “No”….

2011-07-01T21:27:00.001+05:30

There are two types of people in the world. People who always say “YES” and people who always say “NO”. Both of these categories don’t know when to say YES or when to say NO. Challenge is to say YES or NO to right people at right time. “Yes men” are always perceived good boys. If you say yes, then you are good, positive person with right attitude. But when you say No, you are rebellious, egoistic, and you have the attitude problem. Saying yes is always easy, but saying no is very hard. The worst situation is when you say YES, actually you mean NO. Fact of the life is that you have to say NO for something in your life, otherwise you give the opportunity to the people to take the control of your life.

“No” is such a simple word, only two letters. Yet saying "No" out loud is harder for most people than saying, "I'll be glad to..." (eleven letters) or "When do you need me to..." (seventeen letters)

The authority figures in our lives, our parents, bosses do not expect us to say "No." Many of us grow up to be people pleasers. The word "No" drops out of our vocabulary, and we substitute lots of ways to be agreeable and keep the other person happy. Saying "No" to the authority figures is not expected. And underneath it all we believe that saying "No" can cost us a lot in our adult life.

This all has to be related to our mindset of assertiveness. The question is how you are assertive to say, “No”.

Typically due to our upbringing and influence of our values of pleasing everybody, our “No” is accompanied by weak excuses and rationalizations. If you lack confidence when you say "No" you may think that you need to support your "No" with lots of reasons to convince the other person that you mean it. You might even make up an excuse to support your "No." This can backfire if the lie is exposed and again, you will sound ineffective because you need to have an excuse to support your stand.

However the aggressive “No” is done with contempt. "Are you kidding? Me, get your mail while you're out of town? “

Sometimes the aggressive "No" includes an attack on the person making the request. "You must be crazy. I couldn't take on a project that unimportant."

We do not want to be both of above examples. Your “No” should be assertive and stand on firm and on valid reasons. An assertive “No” is simple and direct. Like, "No, I won't be able to help with that." If you would like to offer an explanation, make it short and simple. "No, I won't be able to help with that. I've already made a commitment for Friday afternoon."

Simple rules to say “No”:

When someone makes a request, it is always OK to *ASK FOR TIME TO THINK IT OVER*. In thinking it over, remind yourself that the decision is entirely up to you.
Use your body language effective. Use your nonverbal assertiveness to underline the "No." Make sure that your voice is firm and direct. Look into the person's eyes as you say, "No." Shake your head "No," as you say, "No."
Remember that "No," is an honorable response. If you decide that "No“is the answer that you prefer to give, then it is authentic and honest for you to say, "No."
If you say, "Yes," when you want to say, "No," you will feel resentful throughout whatever you agreed to do. This costs you energy and discomfort and is not necessary if you just say, "No" when you need to.
If you are saying, "No," to someone whom you would help under different circumstances, use an empathic response to ease the rejection. For example, to your friend who borrows money from you, you might say, "No, Rajesh (NAME), I can't. I know you need money desperately, but I have already other expenses in this month and I won't be able to help you.
Start your sentence with the word, "No." It's easier to keep the commitment to say, "No," if it's the first word out of your mouth.

Practice it

You can practice saying, "No," in you day to day life so that it comes more naturally to you.

Say No

to telecaller who disturbs you for credit card, insurance and holiday package etc.
to the perfume demonstrator at the department store;
to your friend's pets when they jump on you;
to the secretary who answers the phone and asks if you mind if she puts you on hold.
to your friend who ask you to drink and you don’t want to do that.
And many more…

Make it a project to say, "No," to something every day.

And off course, don’t say “No” to everything if you do not have the reason to say so. J

Are you in value added job?

2011-06-24T15:56:00.000+05:30

If I ask you the simple question, “What is your definition of career?”

Definitely the answer of most of the people would be, “Good Company with good position, good compensation and with best benefits”

Somebody may also add “upward movement in the position.” Increased satisfaction from the job would be an another answer. Typical response to “career development” is subjective. The priorities and definitions are person oriented. The fundamental question is “what your employer think about your job and not what you think about your career?” Is it just a sequence of performing different jobs and climbing on the ladder? Or something different?

Everyday, thousands of CVs are uploaded on job portals. On any given day, 75% of them would consider changing jobs and 60% are actively looking for the job outside. The reason can be anything, better compensation and career development. People get the compensation and mere higher title while doing the same job in new company.

We also need to look the talent market reality. One thing is sure that the talent has become costly. Human talent costs (salaries and benefits) can comprise between 20 and 60 percent of a company’s entire operating budget.

Cost containment is possible to move forward. There are only two options either improve the top-line and bottom-line or control the cost to improve the bottom-line. Off course the ROI on talent cost need to be justified. In addition to cost-containment, most companies now have a far more strategic approach to managing their human talent.

Second reality is engaging the critical talent strategically. Companies are shedding the expense of positions not critical to their competitive advantage, but then they are differentially investing more into the people who occupy their most critical or wealth-creating roles. Human talent is highly valued—the number one asset. Some roles, however, are more valuable than others. It is ok if you are in one of those roles but there are not many of those roles in any given company. The most important factor is how you create the value to the organization. If you and your job is value creating, then your employer will try to make effort to engage you and provide you challenging career.

While we all need to build skills before we can advance our careers, toiling away over time is not the same as gaining skills. The major mistake is mixing the tenure and experience with skills and competencies. The question is are you really in valued job? And this is a trigger question for deciding you career. What is you career destiny? You yourself have to take the control over your career.

In the world of feisty corporate world, realities are different.

Reality No 1: You are the owner of your career and not the job. Your employer decided about your job and you need to acquire competencies and skills to perform that job.

Reality No 2: Your professional and financial development will likely come from your overall career and not only job.

Reality No 3: Your professional fulfillment and satisfaction will come from the career you build, not the job promotions you receive.

The career can be developed by continuous value addition to you personality by learning new and modern skills and competencies. Consider your interests, your talents, your strength & weaknesses and your motivators. Most of the people spend their time by improving their weaknesses. Improvement is always better, but focusing on your strength helps more in better career building.

And at the end of the day, you have to introspect, what value you add in the job and company today! Isn’t?

You can make your life more interesting

2011-06-20T10:21:00.005+05:30

1. Life pays for what we actually do and not for what we actually know.

2. Most of the human being perform and do only to the extent of 5 to 10% of the actual potential. Tap the untapped.

3. Generally a boy of <15 years age would say “Yes I think I can do that” whereas grown ups > 15 years say “I could not because…”

4. Success is not what you possess in comparison to what your neighbor has but a comparison to your own self as what you would have had and achieved to your potential.

5. Our thoughts control our life and destiny.

6. You are solely responsible to what you are today.

7. Achievers do what they want and not what others want.

8. What you were in the past need not be a mirror of what you are going to be in the future

9. Three important things in one’s life is:

a. How much time you spend with your family.

b. How much time you spend in exercise

c. What and when you eat today to look better tomorrow.

10. Practice not necessarily makes everything perfect but perfect practice makes everything perfect.

11. It is interesting to say every day in the morning in the event of challenges that “Wow. How nice…I have a new problem to solve” – Be in good spirit.

12. Any body can succeed in life when we succeed in withstanding :

a. Criticism

b. Rejection

c. Failure

d. Excuses

e. Feeling of No time, No money and No Talent

f. Challenge mediocrity and status quo

g. Above and beyond

13. All of us are like golden Buddha wrapped in clay. If we shed down the bad covers we are too good within.

14. You need to give your best and full to get the best in life.

15. Can you imagine of a man who was born @1910 and died @1935 and Buried @1985 ? !!! – Better live a meaningful and successful life than live like nobody /useless.

16. Repeat this hundred times every day “I would not give up until I succeed.

17. You need to flush away your past:

A. Errors

B. Failures

C. Mistakes

D. Humiliations

18. External motivation is not permanent it should come from within. Read good books atleast 30 minutes a day. Listen to good cassettes.

19. When you expect and want the best - You Get IT. Have a strong desire

20. Mind works on two principles

a. Selection principle

b. Rejection principle
Hence be careful when you select things to go into your brain

21. Do not allow anybody to handle your self image / self respect

22. Do not ever say that I can not buy it is too expensive. Say that how can I prepare myself to buy that

23. Behavior = Drive X Habits

24. Whatever the human mind can dream, conceive and believe - It can achieve

25. Five Keys for personal success

a. Dream big dreams

b. Develop talent and competence

c. Take 100% responsibility

d. Love what you are doing

e. Single minded concentration until you achieve it

26. Do not share grow-up goals but share give up goals eg: Smoking as a give-up goal

27. CANEI should always be welcomed - Continuous and never ending improvement

28. Life equation is : Self esteem = Success / pretension

29. Everyone has three personalities

a. What we think about ourselves

b. What others think about ourselves

c. What actually we are

30. All great men who succeeded in their life are all nothing but the net output of persistent hard work with a single mind towards the goal.

31. All attempts may not result in total success but no attempts would definitely result in failures!

32. One idea, one thought and one dream can change your life.
33. There are two types of persons, one who has "X" years of experience - one year repeated for X years and second who has one year new experience for X years. Be is second category.

SO DREAM BIG AND ALL THE BEST

(Adopted from various sources)

Dragon, development & fear

2011-06-12T17:13:00.000+05:30

Maglev in Speed

Dragon (

China

) has an amazing culture. They have only one political party (Communist) and the growth rate is incredible. Whenever I go at Shanghai, I see something new each time. Shanghai itself is the case study in infrastructure development. If you have the determination, you can make the development, but further development and maintenance are really challenging. China did this. Shanghai is beautiful with great infrastructure, building, systems and disciplines. They have maglev, the fastest train, which runs at the speed of 450 km per hour.

Does this mean that they have everything? No. They have same issues which we have, huge gap between rich and poor. Somebody told me that Shanghai is not the representation of real China. They are also human being and human nature is same everywhere. I was reading newspapers and the news was same which we read in India. One big shot was sent behind the bar for the corruption.

Beautiful background from 23rd floor

The only one difference is the nationalistic attitude they have. If something comes in between the personal choice and nation. They will choose first the nation. They will not comprise on quality while building national infrastructure. And most importantly they do not have chalata hain attitude. They have huge skill talent and they are also learning English. Most of the MNCs are choosing China over India. At first instant they gives the perception of being introvert and rigid to open. But once you build the relationship, they are very open.

It took us only 7 minutes to reach at Pudong international airport from Shanghai by Maglev train. I was asking questions to myself, if they can do this why not we? Do we abuse the democracy?

We always discuss about the rich heritage, attitude, growth, GDP and so on. But it is like the race. When you see the growth of China, we are far behind them. Common people may not so happy, but larger section is getting jobs. They are enjoying good life style.

I was waiting for the flight for Hong Kong at Pudong international airport. One person was seating next to me. I felt that he is interested to speak with me. He smiled.

“Excuse me?” He asked,

“Yes?” I smiled.

“Can I speak with you for a while?” He asked.

“Oh; why not? But what would you like to ask me?” I

“Nothing special! I have a fear. I can not speak with strangers in English. I would like to overcome this fear.” He answered. He was travelling to Malaysia. He spoke for 15 minutes and then left.

At Hong Kong International Airport

What I like that his attitude to start somewhere; taking one step to achieve one more goal. We also have different fears in life, the question is how many time we exhibit the courage to overcome this by encountering with certain and specific situations.

Hong Kong is planning expansion of international airport for 2020. They published the plan. They are inviting suggestions from common people on the same. I am sure they will do it.

Where we are we? There are lots of gaps. We only speak, but we do not have plans. If we have plans, we do not much bother of the execution. Political leaders are more happy to milk the money from such projects. When we run the project, we have shortcuts. It is good that Indira Gandhi International Airport is built as per the standards. But why not all projects?

Are you assertive?

2011-06-05T21:08:00.001+05:30

“He always put one point against me and that is assertiveness. He himself does not wanted to be assertive but was expecting it from me. How I would have been successful, if I have not been assertive? I definitely was not abusing or dominating anybody. He never understood the difference between aggressiveness and assertiveness” Mr. Jamkhandikar (name changed) was sharing with me his feedback given by his senior. Mr. Jamkhandikar was a General Manager, handling one profit center.

People always misunderstood assertiveness with aggressiveness. Aggressiveness is the passive behavior. It is dominant and arrogant behaviour and worsens issues.

What is Assertive Behaviour?

It is a self-expression that meets three criteria:

1. It is appropriate to the person and situation involved

2. It respects one’s own basic human rights

3. It respects the basic human rights of others

It is standing on own one belief and being on firm on own right without hurting anybody. Off course it is a great skill. It has to be learned and difficult to be assertive. You can be aggressive easily and most of the people choose to be aggressive because it is easy to be aggressive. They gain something but they can not be successful in longer perspective.

Assertiveness is a characteristic of behaviour and not a person. Individuals are not born assertive. It is a collection of skills that can be learned. No one behaves assertively 100% of the time. Being an assertive person means saying what you want to say – letting others know what you think, how you feel, where you stand, and what you want. Assertiveness is a communication skill. You get the satisfaction that you have expressed yourself – registered your thoughts, feelings and opinions. You may not get what you want but it improves your probability of getting what you want.

Assertive behaviour is an option. Some managers feel guilty because they know how to be assertive but fail to respond assertively to each and every situation. They forget that assertiveness is an interpersonal skill and hence is an option. Although, it usually makes sense to use assertion, there are times when a manager chooses not to be assertive. The manager may possess the skill to act assertively in a situation but decides not to do so because he does not want to take the risks involved.

Guidelines for effective assertive behaviour

· Use assertive body language

· Use assertive words and verbal skills

· Think assertively

· Maintain self-confidence

· Relax

Using assertive body language

Eye contact, posture, facial expression, tone of voice, hand movements and so on – can strengthen or weaken your verbal message. You may confuse the listener if your body language and your words convey different meanings. Assertion is usually communicated by direct but not steering eye contact, arms and hands loosely at sides, a relaxed upright posture and a strong, steady tone of voice.

Body language that often is interpreted as non-assertive behaviour includes looking down or away, fidgeting with hands or putting them behind back, swaying and speaking in a very soft or whiny voice. Raising a fist or pointing a finger, leaning forward or moving closer to a person and speaking in a very loud, harsh voice are frequently perceived as aggressive.

Using assertive words and verbal skills

· Make clear and honest statements – use the first person (“I”) when expressing your own thoughts, feelings and experiences.

· Eliminate guessing by letting employees know what you want. Offer relevant information without being asked. Take initiative to clarify your values, expectations and decisions.

· Paraphrase what you are hearing – listen with concentration.

· Be specific – Talk about exactly what you have observed or what you want. Don’t be generic.

· Be positive – Talk about what you want and not about what you do not want.

· Balance criticism with praise – It has been said that criticism should always leave the person with the feeling he has been helped. Focus praise or complements on specific strengths. – Give examples if appropriate.

Think Assertively

Your thoughts should reinforce your behaviour in assertiveness situations. If you want to be assertive but you are thinking thoughts that evoke fear or guilt about being assertive, you may defeat yourself in the process. Examine your thoughts concerning the assertive situation to see if they are realistic and useful. Having thoughts that are conducive to assertive behaviour requires practice and maintenance. Thought patterns are sometimes deep rooted and require conscious efforts for change.

Maintain self-confidence

Self-confidence is the foundation upon which a solid assertive response is built. Self-confidence leads to assertiveness and in turn assertiveness builds self-confidence.

Relax

Keep your tension level low. Tension can create defensiveness in you. It reduces the ability to listen accurately and to respond productively.

Crab Manager

2011-05-28T20:47:00.001+05:30

“You should understand the history of this organization before taking any decision on this.” Crab Manager was commenting on the proposal brought by the Young Professional. This professional was recruited to set up the department in the organization. Crab Manager was nominated as the Head of that department.

“See, I am working with this organization for last 18 years. Preciously speaking 18 years 4 months 28 days; this organization is 80 years old and such decisions may creates the dissatisfaction among stakeholders including owners. You should be very careful while implementing this. Please send me your detail proposal on this.” Crab Manager asked some more amended proposal to the young professional.

Young professional worked hard on the proposal and submitted to the Crab Manager.

“This is not the way to work. Please go to Mr. Fandapurkar. He will explain you the history of this organization.” He asked

Mr. Fandapurkar was one of the cheerleaders of the Crab Manager and was head of the one section in the organization. Young professional went to Mr. Fandapurkar, “Mr. Crab Manager is an excellent person in the organization and he is the Guru of all of us. He is mentor, coach, and god for us.”

“Oh, is it so… good, I came here to understand the history of this organization.” Young professional told.

“Oh sure, I tell you, Mr. Crab Manager is the only person in this organization who can run this business. In fact he brought me here to head this section.”

Mr. Fandapurkar spent almost 2 hours only speaking about the Crab Manager. Poor young professional could not grab anything from Mr. Fandapurkar. He understood that Mr. Crab Manager is the history writer of the organization and the important projected character in the organization.

The young professional could not do anything because Crab Manager and other cheerleaders including Mr. Fandapurkar would create problems politically.

If young professional would go with the proposal, Crab Manager would ask him to do the thing differently. The expectations were not cleared. Crab Manager would ask him to write proposals, Standard Operating Procedures and would insist on writing everything. Young professional was not authorized to take decisions even the increment of the driver and office boys. One fine morning young professional put down his papers not due to any other reasons, but only due to Crab Manager.

You also must have seen such Crab Managers in the organization. Are they really worth to call even Managers? Who are these Crab Managers? They are actually like the Crab. Crab attitude. They will not allow to grow their sub-ordinate. Following are some traits of Crab Managers.

1) They are very old employees in the organization and are much closed to the top level people including owners/directors because of their loyalty. They also arrange plumber for director’s house toilet, cook or driver for them.

2) They are the encyclopedia of the organization. They know everything about the organization. This is the only USP for them.

3) They project themselves as the power station in the organization and have the strong cheerleader base. Followers are mediocre and unsuccessful. They also need such superior because they can not survive outside their world.

4) They are always in their shell and project as sophisticated by nature but very dangerous. When something goes wrong they will scapegoat somebody.

5) They never take any decisions neither allow others to take decisions. They project themselves as detailed oriented and demand more and more data to delay the decision. Documentation of everything is their favorite task.

6) They are very insecure with talented people. Hence they always restrict their growth by sidelining the talent.

7) They want their subordinate to behave rudely and aggressively with others. But they project themselves as polite and humble. They are not. They actually spoil the career of somebody.

8) They have the answers in philosophy and good story teller. Philosophy is their favourite topics.

9) They speak about deliverables of others, but they do not believe on their own deliverables.

10) They do not like change and like status quo.

11) They have their people everywhere in the organization. They keep the repo with them by calling and asking information about other people. By doing this they gather lot of information about people (most of the time biased) with them.

12) They are not sure of one thing; hence always change their opinion about issues, people time to time. They always talk and like to listen convenient to them.

13) Their transactional style is “I am ok, you are not ok.”

14) They are very bureaurocratic and believe on red tapism. They like signing every paper, they like attend every meeting; they expect that their subordinate should communicate everything to them.

15) They creates clerks and do not develop managers.

16) And many more….

Unfortunately they survive in the organization and last for long time. But during challenging, transition period they measurably fail. When they are forced to leave the organization after failure, they are alone. They carry the legacy of paradoxes and do not get the job outside. They have to work as self proclaimed consultant finally or survive on the pension and investment.

Human Relations

2011-05-21T16:41:00.002+05:30

I saw the couple fighting in shopping mall. The wife was literately scolding her husband. She was even not aware about the surrounding. In another incident, due to family conflicts, one of the employees left the home and did not turned in office for a week. We read news about increasing divorce cases and police complaints filed by daughter in laws against in laws and sometimes even by parents against their children.

Interpersonal skills are the major issues now a day. Conflicts are common in families, workplace. Why relations sour? The human nature is responsible for the same. Mainly the causes of bad human relations are:

Ego: Some people are so egoistic that they are not reasonable. They are self centered and always live for themselves.

Anger: Anger actually kills relations. I have seen the people who are good by nature, but their anger made them bad in society. In one organization, whole team of HR professionals (around 15 employees) left the organization within 6 months. He was a seasoned professional. He was not against humanity, but his anger made him bullish boss.

Jealousy: The common nature of human being. The lunch table friend in the organization does not support to other collogue when she is prompted.

Cynical nature: Some people are really psychic. Their behaviour is unpredictable. They are moody and very unsecure in the life.

Hostility: This is one of the reasons for bad human relations. They are actually abusive either by words or by actions. They are unfriendly and don’t understand the human nature.

You will find such people in society, families and organizations. How to manage them? If we encountered with egoistic person, do we muscle her ego? How to face the angry man? How to encounter the jealousy? How to manage the cynical and how to overcome the hostility?

There is no hard and fast rule. The answer is firstly understand their behaviour and them make the strategy to handle them.

Following strategies can help to improve the relations.

• Study of human nature: Understand the reason behind their particular behaviour. I had one employee. She was excruciating and pessimist. I interacted with her on various occasions. I also tried to get more information through different channels. I understood that she was doing hard-hitting with her husband. Sometimes her husband was not even allowing her to come home.

• Influencing human behavior: Your personality and body language play important role. Influencing personality can smash above characters. You are egoistic! But then I am also logical. You have the ego, but for what? You are better in particular thing, but I am also equally expert. But I am more humble than you. Try to develop your personality. But a tough personality means assertive personality and not aggressiveness. Your personality and body language play important role in influencing.

• Art of getting with others: Once you understand the behaviour and reasons behind the same, you will find easy getting with others.

• Motivating others to our way of thinking: People are motivation hungry. They need motivation. They are hungry for good words and appreciation. They need inspiration and motivation. They expect respect. (Though they don’t give it others). Appreciate and recognize others.

• Respecting other’s views and dignity: We don’t live in jungle and hence the space of others should be respected. People should be treated with respect and dignity.

At the end of the article, I would like to emphasis on the Law of Attraction. You get what you think. You are treated on what you treat others. People are unreasonable, illogical and self centered. But love them. They are also humans; they would also understand the fact of life sometimes.