manedge

Team ConQuest prepares Class-7 students for excellence

2012-01-22T21:18:00.000+05:30

Team ConQuest –a team of 16 dedicated teachers from 10 schools of BSP’s Education department is all set to instil in young Class-7 students of all the English Medium Middle Schools (EMMSs) the spirit of excellence through a novel initiative.
Approximately 1050 students from eleven EMMSs have appeared in a Proficiency Test on 18th January 2012. This is the first step in their grooming for the future, as they gear up for the prestigious National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) in November this year. Through a series of tests, throughout the year, the Education department of BSP hopes to prepare a selected group of sincere, dedicated and enthusiastic learners, who will have imbibed the quest for excellence for their entire life.
The programme is an offshoot of the Education department’s Specialised NTSE Guidance Programme for Class-8 students. It began in October 2010 with a team of five subject experts, led by Dr. Hemant Pandey, Professor, Hislop College, Nagpur , conducting the first-ever session over two days at BSP Senior Secondary School, Sector-7 (SSS-7) for 100 students from the EMMSs, selected after a tough screening test. After the session, the students wanted more inputs. A team of teachers from some EMMSs and BSP Senior Secondary School, Sector-10 (SSS-10) conducted an 8-day programme during the Dussehra-Diwali break in October-November 2010 at SSS-10. As many as six students from EMMSs cleared the first stage of NTSE 2010-11. However none could clear the second stage, which was a huge setback for Team ConQuest.
Subequently two teachers were sponsored by BSP management as observers for two days to a 10-day camp held at Deepshikha Sainik School, Chikaldara, Amravati district, Maharashtra in April 2011. This camp is conducted every year by State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT), Maharashtra for students who have qualified for the second stage of NTSE. A similar model was adopted for BSP’s Education department by Team ConQuest.
Soon after the summer vacations, approximately 1200 Class-8 students of BSP EMMSs, appeared in a Screening Test on June 29, 2011. 200 students were short-listed based on this test. This list had four students from Bhilai Ispat Vikas Vidyalaya (BIVV), Sector-6 – an exclusive school for BPL children. The EMMSs continued their own efforts to prepare students as they had been doing in the past. Another test was conducted in September 2011, pruning the list down to 100. And once again one student from BIVV had made it. The success of BIVV students is testimony to Education department’s concerted efforts over the last decade to impart education to disadvantaged children of BPL families.
Specialised NTSE Guidance Programme was held for the 100 short-listed candidates at SSS-10 from 10th to 22nd October 2011. It was followed by a series of three tests in October-November 2011 that exposed the young minds to a host of problems besides subject content. They were given inputs on smart problem-solving tips.
Members of Team ConQuest are waiting with bated breath as time nears for the declaration of first stage results of NTSE 2011-12 by SCERT, Chhattisgarh which had conducted the NTSE exam in November 2011. Now is the time to start grooming NTSE aspirants for the next academic session for which the first step has been taken with the Proficiency Test for Class-7 students on 18th January 2012.

Planning is the key to revive the Indian Test Cricket Team

2012-01-15T19:22:00.001+05:30

The seventh successive defeat abroad is the time to act. And this should not be limited to sacking the players in their late 30s. A more coordinated and sincere effort is the need of the hour.

Let us have a look at India's top cricketers' schedule since the World Cup win. It was followed by IPL-4. Then the team played the West Indies in the Carribeans. The Tests were followed by ODIs. Within 5 days of finishing the ODI series in the West Indies, India landed up in England. After a 3-day game they plunged into 4 Tests and kept on losing. Injury to key players who had not missed the lucrative IPL earlier was given as the reason.

The series in England ended with the ODIs, which England won 3-0 thanks to D/L. Immediately thereafter the English team travelled to India for a 5-match ODI series. Then we played 3 Tests against the Windies with Ashwin running them over. The Test series was followed by 5 ODIs. Instead the tour should have been so planned that India would have played ODIs first and Tests later. This would have helped players like Sehwag and Gambhir, and even Kohli to some extent to get into the groove in the ongoing Test series versus Australia.

The poor form of Laxman, first in England and now in Australia is a signal that the selectors need to record in their log-books. It is time to get Rohit Sharma for the Adelaide Test, followed by Pujara sooner than later. Dravid too, after a great tour of England has shown signs of weakness. Sehwag is a great one-day player and should remain in the team for the shorter versions of the game. He was never a Test player in the true sense of the world. He just bludgeoned his way through bowlers and gave India good starts. But his time too has come as far as Tests are concerned. The selectors should look to blood Rahane in the opener's slot with Gambhir, who too will need to work on his technique.

Unfortunately all this debate and discussion would be lost simply because India do not play a Test series, and that too at home, before November 2012. In the interregnum, Indians will play in the Asia Cup (ODIs) in March 2012 followed by IPL-5 (T20s) in April-May 2012 and the T20 World Cup in September 2012.

Instead of planning meaningless ODI tours in the free periods that the team is likely to get this year, the BCCI should plan professionally for the future. The top players and upcoming youngsters are playing each other in T20 matches only. For Indian Test Cricket Team to survive, we need such contests in the Duleep and Ranji Trophies. The Duleep Trophy should be given more importance. Right now it has been reduced to a knock-out tournament. Duleep Trophy should be played in the round-robin format as in the past with each of the five teams playing each other twice - home and away. As India do not have any international engagements in October 2012, Duleep Trophy should be played in that period. It should be made mandatory for all Test hopefuls to play in the tournament. Then only a Varun Aaron or a Umesh Yadav will get an opportunity to test himself against the skills of a Tendulkar or Dravid. Imagine a young batsman being tested by the guile of Zaheer!

But will all this wishful thinking come true?

AARAKSHAN stirs two debates

2011-08-22T06:59:00.000+05:30

After all the hullabaloo preceding its release, and promising to deliver more than what it actually did, one can only say that Prakash Jha's AARAKSHAN has only stirred two debates affecting India's youngsters today.

The film's release was preceded by protests in many parts of the country, with three states actually jumping the gun by banning the film. After seeing the film one can say that had these governments also seen the film, they would not have banned it in the first place. The film does raise the reservation issue but only compassionately. While there are umpteen references to the friction in the society that reservation is creating, AARAKSHAN doesn't oppose it. It talks more of meritocracy and one can see filmi jingoism at many places which even a director like Jha fails to escape.

The film brings up the malaise afflicting the educational sector in the second half. The coaching-tuition mafia and big money involved in setting up of educational institutions. There is also a reference to how these colleges are being set up to encash the enhanced aspirations of students who may not get a seat in a good college due to paucity of good institutions or reservation. Teachers bunking classes is not a new thing because they are busy in private coaching. While in RDS College, Muzaffarpur, twenty-five years back, we would often miss classes because our teacher would be actually 'coaching' in Patna which was 80 kms away.

AARAKSHAN has not offered any solutions, which no film can in a short duration. But it has stirred up a debate on the two issues it touches upon. The larger issue of classroom teaching and helping youngsters plan and build their careers has not been touched upon. Why are parents and children limiting themselves to only a few career options? Aspiring for a coveted college is great, but why close other options?

Amitabh Bachchan has, once again, delivered a power-packed performance. Saif Ali Khan looks a misfit in the role of a young teacher. Deepika Padukone, surprising comes out better than what she can deliver given her limitations as an actress. The script is tight and the dialogues are perfect.

The film climaxes re-asserting the supremacy of people power, which is the flavour of the season. And one lesson that I would like to personally draw from the film, and ask others to follow too, is the supremacy of right over wrong. We all know what is right and what is wrong. Let us, like the protagonist, stand by what is right without trampling upon the rights of others. If each one of us could have a core value to stand by, wouldn't this world be a happier place to live in? THINK.

Applying Management Techniques to a School

2011-01-24T19:25:00.001+05:30

Six months back I took over as Senior Principal of Bhilai Steel Plant(BSP)'s number one school - Senior Secondary School, Sector-10. The offer came two months prior to that, literally as a bolt from the blue. But the gut feeling was that I should say YES. And I did in less than a day, though I had never thought about moving to Education from core engineering.

In fact in my twenty years at BSP, I had worked in different sections of Distribution Networks (DNW), later Power System Department (PSD). The very nature of the department meant that I had the opportunity to have worked with all the departments of BSP, except Education. In the interregnum I had completed by Masters in Business Administration from IGNOU and later a Diploma in Training and Development from the Indian Society for Training and Development. These two distance learning courses and my foray into quizzing and writing thanks largely to my mentor, V Ravi, had helped me develop my skills as a trainer.

I must confess that I was feeling a bit bottled up in PSD for the last two years or so. The job was too repetitive, in spite of the opportunities that I had to work on more than ten projects, thanks to the expansion in my area of work. The areas I worked in - Blast Furnaces, Power Syystem Operation and Steel Melting Shop-II hardened me no end. The urgency, the pressure and the quest for perfection taught me a lot.

When I look back at the last six months, I can say without doubt that I have never felt more satisfied or happy in my life. For someone who wanted to become a journalist but was forced to become an engineer due to parental pressure, the present job as school head is a near dream-come-true. I love interacting with children and engaging myself in solving their myriad problems. In my career I have never worked with more qualified and knowledgeable people, i.e., teachers and what they can achieve is beyond their imagination. Hope I can motivate them.

The school is also the centre of a number of activities of the Education department and that makes the job more meaningful. With its expansion project on its way to final approval, SSS-10 will have an excellent infrastructure. I have been lucky to have joined in the aftermath of the visit by SAIL Chairman in June 2010, which has resulted in pouring in of resources for renovation that the school badly needed.

Very shortly SSS-10 will admit students in Class-IX on the basis of a Talent Reward Test (TRT). We are also going in for Accreditation to Quality School Governance norms laid down by NABET-QCI.

One key area where I am focusing my energies is ensuring that the open learning environment is backed up by discipline. This means focussing on time-keeping and regular attendance.

The Three Questions Leaders Should Ask Themselves about Employee Goals

2010-01-27T21:27:00.001+05:30

There are three questions every manager should ask themselves while evaluating employee goals. If anyone of these three questions cannot be answered in the affirmative, then it might not be the best goal for that employee.

Is the goal achievable? As leaders we want our employees to succeed. Failing to achieve an impossible goal can be demoralizing to the employee. Once it becomes clear that the goals won’t be achieved; motivation will wane quickly.

Is the goal difficult? This might seem like it is in conflict with whether the goal is achievable, but it is different. The goal must stretch the employee. Successfully stretching employees will naturally improve productivity.

Will the goal move the strategic pendulum? Every employee goal should be linked to a company or team strategy. The employee needs to know how their success affects the organizations success.

PERFECTING THE ART OF WASTING TIME AT WORK

2010-01-25T19:40:00.000+05:30

Writing in his column THE HUMAN FACTOR in the Business Standard, January 22, 2010, Shyamal Majumdar rightly announces,

Managers of the world seem to be united in their passion for wasting time at work.

According to the Late Sumantra Ghoshal a whopping 90 per cent of managers waste their time by procrastinating, becoming emotionally detached, and distracting themselves with supposedly busy work.

Some examples of how many things “busy” people are doing that will never be missed.

· just stare at just about anything so that people around them think that they are pondering something intense.

· schedule meetings just to tell juniors to “work smarter, not harder” and to “think out of the box” etc.

· send emails and call up people to find out about things that would have got done anyway without their intervention

· insist on a written report for just about everything.

(on being given a written report, they will ask juniors to tell them about the matter in their own words briefly. If the subordinates come in with a verbal suggestion next time, these managers would demand a written report.)

In The Peter Principle, Laurence J Peter and Raymond Hull (people who have devoted many years to the study of incompetence) talk about managers having Rigor Cartis, an abnormal interest in the construction of organization and flow charts, and a stubborn insistence upon routing every scrap of business in strict accordance with the lines and arrows of the chart, no matter what delays or losses may result. These type of managers are always frantically busy, drawing up reports and flow charts and making appointments to confer with one another.

The most popular form of wasting time at work is, of course, social networking. Employees may seem busy, but many are wasting time on the Internet, or are “cyberslacking”.

A study by Assocham last month has warned that employees waste a minimum one hour of office time every day accessing social networking sites for reasons other than work. Assocham’s Social Development Foundation (ASDF) survey says companies effectively lose 12.5 per cent of total productivity each day. The survey says most organisations do not monitor and manage these sites as closely as email.

However, this problem is not restricted to India alone. Managers of the world seem to be united in their passion for wasting time in office. Time-wasting at work was spoofed in the 1999 cult film Office Space, while The Office, a British TV comedy that now has a US version, has shown characters playing a computer war game as part of what they described as a team-building exercise.

Americans do work hard at surfing the Internet and catching up on gossip, according to studies done by Salary.com and America Online. The average worker admits to frittering away 2.09 hours per 8-hour workday, not including lunch and scheduled break-time. The total in lost salary dollars adds up to $759 billion per year, the studies have shown.

Flawed Managers that Flourish

2009-12-27T19:08:00.003+05:30

In 1990, psychologists Robert Hogan, Robert Raskin, and Dan Fazzini wrote a brilliant essay called “The Dark Side of Charisma.” It argued that flawed managers fall into three types:

the High Likability Floater, who rises effortlessly in an organization because he never takes any difficult decisions or makes any enemies.
the Homme de Ressentiment, who seethes below the surface and plots against his enemies.
the Narcissist, the most interesting of the three, whose energy and self-confidence and charm lead him inexorably up the corporate ladder.

Narcissists are terrible managers. They resist accepting suggestions, thinking it will make them appear weak, and they don’t believe that others have anything useful to tell them. “Narcissists are biased to take more credit for success than is legitimate,” Hogan et al. write, and “biased to avoid acknowledging responsibility for their failures and shortcomings for the same reasons that they claim more success than is their due.” Moreover:

Narcissists typically make judgments with greater confidence than other people . . . and, because their judgments are rendered with such conviction, other people tend to believe them and the narcissists become disproportionately more influential in group situations. Finally, because of their self-confidence and strong need for recognition, narcissists tend to “self-nominate”; consequently, when a leadership gap appears in a group or organization, the narcissists rush to fill it.

Vote for the type of managers that flourish in your organisation by clicking on the relevant check box in the column to your left.

Why the Mighty Fall

2009-12-25T07:11:00.000+05:30

In his latest book How The Mighty Fall, Jim Collins describes the five stages through which a proud and thriving company passes on its way to becoming a basket case:
- hubris born of success
- undisciplined pursuit of more
- denial of risk and peril
- grasping for salvation
- capitulation to irrelevance or death

Toyota's president Akio Toyoda, who took over in June 2009, believes his company, world's largest carmaker since it surpassed GM in June 2008, is in the fourth stage. He surprised business journalists and his own company by making this announcement at a press conference in October 2009.

Collins elaborates that companies in the fourth stage 'react frantically to their plight in the belief that salvation lies in revolutionary change usually hastening their demise'. Such companies 'need calmness, focus, and deliberate action'.

Mr Akio Toyoda is the grandson of the founder of Toyota. His approach is not visionary. It is simple, incremental and requires painstaking attention to what the customers want. That, experts believe, is its virtue.

We are what we are - the Lake Wobegon Effect

2009-11-08T21:24:00.000+05:30

The Lake Wobegon effect(1) is the human tendency to overestimate one's achievements and capabilities in relation to others. It is named after the fictional town of Lake Wobegon from the radio series A Prairie Home Companion, where, according to Garrison Keillor, "all the women are beautiful, all the men strong, and all the children intelligent"(2). Keillor’s 1985 novel Lake Wobegon Days describes life in the fictional town situated in the US state of Minnesota. According to Keillor, Lake Wobegon is the seat of Mist County, Minnesota(3), a tiny county near the geographic center of Minnesota that supposedly does not appear on maps because of the "incompetence of surveyors who mapped out the state in the 19th century". The town's slogan is Gateway to Central Minnesota(4). The town’s motto is mentioned on its crest – sumos quud sumos – we are what we are(5).

In a similar way, a large majority of people claim to be above average; this phenomenon has been observed by researchers among drivers, CEOs, stock market analysts, college students, and state education officials, among others. Experiments and surveys have repeatedly shown that most people believe that they possess attributes that are better or more desirable than average.

Surveying drivers, Ole Svenson(6) found that 80% of respondents rated themselves in the top 30% of all drivers. Asking college students about their popularity, Zuckerman and Jost(7)showed that most students judged themselves to be "more popular than average".

In 1987, John Cannell(8) completed a study later popularized as the Lake Woebegone effect. He reported the statistically impossible finding that all the US states claimed average student test scores above the national norm. In addition to teaching for the test, he concluded that some teachers encouraged low-ability students to be absent on test days, helped students take the test and allowed outright cheating.

The effect has been found repeatedly by many other studies for other traits, including fairness, virtuosity, luck, and investing ability, to name a few. Don’t we all claim to be always right? Let’s introspect.

References:
1. http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Lake_Wobegon_effect
2. Devangshu Datta, Looking good in comparison, VIEWPOINT, Business
Standard,Kolkata, November 7, 2009, page 15
3. Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, Viking Penguin Inc.,1985,pg.8.
4. Garrison Keillor, In Search of Lake Wobegon, National Geographic
Magazine, December 2000.
5. Garrison Keillor, Lake Wobegon Days, Viking Penguin Inc.,1985,pg. 6.
6. Svenson, O. (1981), Are we all less risky and more skillful than our
fellow drivers?, Acta Psychologica, 47, 143-48.
7. Zuckerman, E. W., & Jost, J. T. (2001), What Makes You Think You're So
Popular? Self Evaluation Maintenance and the Subjective Side of the
Friendship Paradox, Social Psychology Quarterly, 64(3), 207-223.
8. Sheila C. McCowan, Using standardized test scores to compare schools is
unfair, Buffalo News, July 21, 1999.

Use your brain effectively

2009-10-21T16:58:00.007+05:30

A bewildering blizzard of email, phone calls, yet more email, meetings, projects, proposals and plans. This must be familiar territory — your average day at work.

David Rock, a consultant and leadership coach who advises corporations around the world, has collaborated with world-renowned neuroscientists to find answers to the following:
– Why do our brains feel so taxed;
– How do we maximise our mental resources;
– Why is it so hard to focus;
– How do we manage distractions better;
– How do we keep our cool in difficult situations;
– How do we collaborate more effectively than others; and
– How do we get more effective at changing other people’s behaviour?

In his new book Your Brain at Work, Rock travels inside the brains of the two main characters as they attempt to sort the vast quantities of information they’re presented with and figure out how to prioritise, organise and act on them.

Rock says while the brain is exquisitely powerful, it has some surprising performance limitations as well. And even the brain of a Harvard graduate can be turned into that of an eight-year old by being simply made to do two things at once. The idea then is to develop more brain-smart approaches to everyday challenges.

Making decisions and solving problems rely heavily on a region of the brain called the prefrontal cortex. It’s the part of your brain central to the thought process. But it’s important to remember that prefrontal cortex doesn’t have infinite capacity, so each time you use it, you need to allocate it to something important. For, you can’t keep on making brilliant decisions all day long in the same manner a truck driver can drive all day and night, his ability to keep going limited only by his need for sleep.

Always-on people are poor decision-makers
Companies often mistake brilliance for the person’s multi-tasking abilities. But the reality is different. A study done at the University of London found that constant emailing and text-messaging reduce mental capability by an average of 10 points in an IQ test. The irony is despite research findings that ‘always on’ may not be the most productive way to work, managers continue to stretch themselves to do more at the same time even though the benefits they receive may be minimal.

Rock says if you push yourself, in the short term, being ‘always on’ can seem as if you are being productive. The cost on the brain, however, can be significant. Your brain may be ‘parallel processing’ — taking in multiple streams of data, but not doing much with it. Result: Whenever you multi-task, and more than one task requires any amount of attention, accuracy goes down. Besides doing only one thing at a time (which most people who show off the fact that they receive 200 email a day will simply scoff at), what’s the other solution?

Allocate tasks to different parts of the brain and different time slots
Rock says the idea is to use another part of the brain called the basal ganglia which takes care of routine activities that don’t require much mental attention. For example, driving a truck doesn’t require much use of the prefrontal cortex, unless you are a new driver, in a new truck, or on a new route.

But using the basal ganglia, which is highly efficient at executing patterns, involves guidance and quite a bit of mental training. Your Brain at Work helps you in doing this. One way of keeping your prefrontal cortex energised enough is to experiment with different timings. One technique, Rock says, is to break work up into blocks of time based on type of brain use, rather than topic.
For example, if you have to do some creative writing in several different projects, which requires a clear and a fresh mind, you might do all your creative writing on a Monday. People don’t tend to do this — they tend either to work on one project at a time, or to respond to issues as they rise, sometimes thinking at a high abstract level, sometimes at a more detailed level, and then sometimes multi-tasking and switching around a lot.

Instead, you could divide a day into blocks of time when you can indulge in various activities: One block for thinking and creative writing, other blocks for having meetings, and other blocks for routine tasks such as responding to emails. The bottomline is: Your ability to make great decisions is a limited resource and it’s hard to be in a zone of peak performance continuously. So conserve this resource at every opportunity.

Ref: New Age Brain-Drain by Shyamal Majumdar in his column THE HUMAN FACTOR, Business Standard, October 15, 2009.

Entrepreneurs - a breed apart

2009-03-25T16:49:00.003+05:30

IN 1995 Captain G.R. Gopinath, a retired military officer, had a chance encounter with an unemployed helicopter pilot that got him started on setting up India’s first helicopter company. He spent three years lobbying government bureaucrats to obtain the necessary licences and sold all his possessions and mortgaged his house to raise capital.

Even in his darkest years he never had any doubt that he was destined for success. “I knew this could not go wrong. I knew the money would come,” he says. And sure enough his business eventually took off. That allowed him to pursue a new vision—cheap flights. Why should Indians travel the length and breadth of their huge country on trains when Americans got on planes? He established India’s first low-cost airline, Air Deccan, pushing the government to relax regulations.

Entrepreneurs operate in all kinds of ways. Some see a market opportunity and draw up a business plan to take advantage of it. Others are more like the captain, driven by an inner force to start a business and unwilling to take “no” for an answer.

A growing body of evidence suggests that entrepreneurs have certain distinctive psychological traits. Noam Wasserman, of HBS, suggests that many entrepreneurs are unusually, sometimes excessively, confident. They are convinced that, against all the odds, they will be able to turn their dream into reality. This sometimes allows them to do something at which most people fail, but it also means they hardly ever hit the forecasts in their business plans.

According to Mr Wasserman, entrepreneurs are strongly attached to their companies. They habitually talk about “their babies”. This motivates them to give their all to their companies, whether they make money or not. But it can also be their Achilles heel. Once they get started, they hate giving up control of their companies, even if they are no good at management.

Entrepreneurs are also highly tolerant of risk. A group of scientists at Cambridge University studied the brains of 16 entrepreneurs, chosen because they had started at least two high-tech companies, as well as 17 regular managers. They found that when making rational decisions, the two groups produced the same results. But when making “hot” or risky decisions, entrepreneurs were consistently bolder.

Entrepreneurs also share some more surprising psychological traits. Julie Logan, of the Cass Business School in London, found in separate surveys in 2001 and 2007 that 20% of the British entrepreneurs and 35% of the American entrepreneurs she studied were dyslexic. (By contrast, only 1% of corporate managers are similarly afflicted.) Famous dyslexic businessmen include Richard Branson, Charles Schwab, Ted Turner, John Chambers and Henry Ford. Two possible explanations are that dyslexics learn early in life to delegate certain tasks to trustworthy people, and that they do well in business to make up for doing badly at school.

Attitude may matter more than talent

2008-12-19T08:27:00.000+05:30

Music composer Elliot Carter celebrated his 100th birthday last week with a concert at Carnegie Hall. It featured a 17-minute piece for piano and orchestra that Carter wrote when he was 98. Carter has already lived three times as long as Schubert and 65 years more than Mozart. Yet his first opera premiered in 1999 and he produced seven works in 2007 and six more this year.

Since he turned 90, the composer who many critics rank among the greatest ever, has churned out more than 40 pieces and he shows no signs of slowing down. Aficionados say he’s still writing at the top of his form and every piece has new ideas that he’s trying out along with subtle refinements of those presented earlier.

At an individual level, Carter’s life offers a heroic example of unwavering faith married to unstinting effort. This can be particularly inspiring to younger contenders who fear loss of heart and burn-out. If he can be that productive at 100, just imagine how much you could do even if you make a fresh start at half or quarter of his age. Their effort, however, needs to be backed by what creativity wonks like Colin Martindale called ‘cognitive disinhibition’, which refers to the ability to focus or defocus attention as per task demands. So one “first learns the rules and then breaks ‘em!”

It also shows that for genius to thrive, at any age, attitude may be even more important than talent. This entails what the investment guru Warren Buffet called “the art of not getting in your own way”. “It’s not about your potential horse power,” says Buffet. “Whatever you have, learn to utilise it fully”; till the very end.

Call me anything except Junior - Parenting Tips

2008-12-17T06:36:00.002+05:30

Randel S Carlock, the first Berghmans Lhoist chaired professor in entrepreneurial leadership and director of the Wendel International Centre for Family Enterprise, has reviewed Oliver Stone's latest film W in INSEAD KNOWLEDGE. The review has useful tips for parents. And as Carlock observes, had George W Bush been groomed differently by his parents, the world would have been a different place altogether.

The new Oliver Stone film W explores an important concern for business and wealthy families – how parent-child relationships shape a child's personality development and, specifically, individual drives and motivations. The coming of age drama could be many family businesses where a feckless son struggles to redeem himself by overtaking his preferred younger sibling to succeed his father as head of the family dynasty. The Oedipal conflict between father and son, an ever present mother-father-son triangle, an oldest son's birth order expectations and a dose of sibling rivalry allows the film to explore a full range of family dynamics and their influence on W's behaviour.

There is a powerful scene in the film that captures the emotional challenges that next generation family members, especially eldest sons, face under the shadow of their powerful and successful parents. When the young George W Bush is introduced by a friend to his future spouse Laura as George Bush Junior he replies, "call me anything except junior." The future president's response is simple and telling about his relationship with a powerful father who dominates his emotional life and his need to demonstrate his autonomy.

We also see his father's frustrations in another scene when the elder Bush confronts W about his son's alcohol-driven lifestyle by characterising him as "acting like a Kennedy," probably the most powerful put-down a patrician conservative could offer. As the plot develops, it is clear that much of George W's behaviour is motivated by his lack of self esteem and the need to prove that he is the rightful successor in his "family's business". The film even suggests that George W's motivation for pursuing the war in Iraq was to prove himself as a stronger and more capable leader than his forbidding father.

W teaches business families about the powerful influence of parenting practices on a child's personality development. Being from a successful family can create psychological problems because as Mathew Freud, great-grandson of the famous psychologist, stated so aptly: "You grow up feeling slightly special, but at the same time it was all reflected glory. I am a firm believer that everyone's parents damage their personality, but if you have famous parents, they have more ammunition." There are no magic bullets for effective parenting but there are behaviours that support positive parent-child relationships; that support a child's development, first, as a responsible and satisfied adult, and second, as potential stewards of the family's legacy.

Understanding and accepting the child as an individual and celebrating his or her uniqueness is the foundation for the child's building of self-esteem. This is a challenge for successful parents who often have a clear view of how the world works based on their success and want to imprint their experiences on their children. To some degree we all live vicariously through our offspring but we need to ensure our expectations and actions are based on their needs and not ours.

Other parenting behaviours to consider include:

- Demonstrating your love and concern. Children measure love by face time. Don't skip you child's school performance or event for a business meeting and then tell him or her that they are your highest priority.

- Encouraging your child's personal development based on his or her talents and interests. Any activity that creates a new experience for a child is a benefit.

- Teaching your children the value of service to others. Working with your child in a homeless shelter or an environmental clean up programme builds their sense of self-worth and practising stewardship strengthens service to others as a value.

- Coaching not caretaking. As your child grows up your parenting role must evolve from a caregiver to coach. Use your life experiences, both good and bad, to help them experience failure and struggle so they grow up with a more realistic picture of themselves.

- Practising 'fair process' in your decision-making and relationship with your children and the larger family. Your children's first experience in communication, conflict, planning and decision-making is with their siblings and parents.

Young people in successful families often experience a sense of powerlessness and unworthiness that comes from being valued for their family's success. Reflected success is a powerful force that makes it difficult for young people to see themselves as autonomous adults, able to function away from their family. This forces them to compensate for feelings of inadequacy with behaviours that are not healthy or effective. Engaging with your children to help them learn who they are and who they are not is an important step in supporting their psychological development.

Parenting matters – if the first President Bush had better understand George W's uniqueness and helped his son differentiate from his famous family, perhaps the world would be a very different place today.

THE ART OF CAPTAINCY

2008-12-15T17:20:00.000+05:30

Mike Brearley is a qualified psychoanalyst. He is also among the game’s legendary captains.

Brearley’s strategic skills and leadership qualities transformed England into a formidable force from the mid to late 70s. Captaincy was always his strongest attribute whether leading Cambridge, Middlesex or England.

The 66-year-old Brearley retains his passion for the game. A part of the English media covering the India-England series, he shared his thoughts with 'The Hindu' in an interview.

Q. What is captaincy? How would you define it?

A. You cannot really define captaincy. Can you define female beauty? I think captaincy is a lot about having a passion for tactics…getting the best out of people. Each cricketer is different and you first need to understand a player, his strengths and his weaknesses.

I don’t like the word man-management, which is more about sitting in a chair and sending out instructions. Captaining a cricket team has several more dimensions to it. A captain has to reach out to his men, anticipate, create and react to situations on the field. For every match you have a different plan. And for every plan you have alternate plans. This could change between every session, hour, and over.

Q. You were admired for the manner in which you motivated the players…

A. It’s a lot about human engagement. There are certain basics. You must not try to humiliate a player in front of others. You got to be honest with a player without putting him down too much. You should try and encourage him whenever you have a chance. You must remember and recognise his contribution in a team meeting.

© Copyright 2000 - 2008 The Hindu, December 14, 2008

The chimp way to the top

2008-11-25T05:54:00.002+05:30

In chimpanzee groups, there is a strict pecking order, with apes lower down the order striving to move further up and eventually reach the top. Political assassinations, where two juniors form an alliance and kill the chimp at the top are not uncommon. We see human parallels to this in assassinations, wars and the jockeying for positions within organisations.

Source: The Inner Ape by Frans de Waal

Condensed from: Our place in creation, SPiritual Link magazine, November 2008, Science of the Soul Research Centre, Vol. 4, Issue 11

A Sense of Urgency

2008-10-18T21:04:00.002+05:30

Book Excerpt

A Sense of Urgency

By John P. Kotter, Konosuke Matsushita Professor of Leadership, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School.

The problem with using crises to reduce complacency and create urgency is that the tactic is a potential diamond sitting on a rock surrounded by quicksand and very nasty beasts. Any naiveté about the downside risks can cause disaster.

Big Mistake Number 1: Assuming that crises inevitably will create the sense of urgency needed to perform better.

At a major European retailer, margins were shrinking year after year because fashionable boutiques were taking its top-of-the-line business, and discounters were taking away its low-end business. Then the European edition of the Wall Street Journal published an explosive article spelling out many of the firm's problems. The CEO had two weeks' warning, but instead of alerting others or working to kill the story, he deliberately chose to do nothing. Not only did he not warn others, except one close confidant, but he also did little to analyze in advance exactly what would happen the day the article came out and what precisely he should do to channel fear, anger, and confusion into a determination to act fast and succeed.

The day came. A full-blown crisis was created. The CEO waited for the organization to shrug off its complacent platform and into a good direction. But it didn't happen. Instead of mobilizing people into action, the crisis led many managers into making fewer decisions because they didn't want to be accused of mistakes with the press and public watching. Many other managers were genuinely afraid that if they rushed into actions their decisions might accidentally create harm. So they held back just at a time when the CEO most needed their help to get the organization moving swiftly into a better future. Without needed planning and action to leverage the crisis, the situation grew worse, not better.

Big Mistake Number 2: Going over the line with a strategy that creates an angry backlash because people feel manipulated.

No one wants to feel manipulated. If people sense that someone has created a crisis that deliberately puts them in harm's way, especially if it is not strongly connected to real business problems, they may suspect sabotage or lunacy, both of which can create anger and not a steely determination to act fast and win. The crisis-creating strategy not only fails but makes matters worse.

Because his managers and employees would not change to meet new market demands, the head of the largest division of a Midwestern manufacturing company reluctantly drew the conclusion that his only alternative was to engineer a crisis.

But energy within his organization did not emerge as a strong sense of urgency to act. New energy formed more as anger looking for someone to blame for the crisis. Suddenly, a rumor started that the plant manager had purposefully taken steps in the prior year in order to create the severe problems the company faced. Any energy to confront the facts and deal with the real business problems was redirected at the plant manager.

Big Mistake Number 3: Passively sitting and waiting for a crisis (which many never come).

A passive, hopeful, wait-and-see strategy fails.

The CEO at an electric utility was actually looking forward to deregulation as a means of unfreezing a tradition-bound monopoly that was not adequately preparing for a more competitive future. But deregulation came slower than he anticipated and with fewer new freedoms. No crisis was thrust upon the firm. The enterprise continued to make money even as it turned slowly to lose market share in a post-monopoly world. The positive net income helped greatly in supporting complacency. In frustration, his change agents waited and waited for a powerful legislation that they knew must happen in the current year. But it never did, and the crisis never came.

Big Mistake Number 4: Underestimating what the people who would avoid crises at all costs correctly appreciate: that crisis can bring disaster.

Using a technology recently made available because of ever-shrinking microchips, a new competitor took away dozens of a firm's key customers. The crisis could have been anticipated. But the management believed that only an unexpected burning platform could help push a complacent organization out of its comfort zone, it didn't pay attention to the danger signs. Revenues collapsed, losses mounted, the stock tanked, people were laid off, and some good employees jumped ship. The platform burned for all but the most complacent. Yet the economic collapse meant there was little or no funding left for new plant equipment, a new IT system, and a new R&D effort, all of which were required if the firm was to leap into the future. Even the few employees who were mobilized into action found that the firm's needs were overwhelming. Morale sank. Losses continued to grow. Then the firm was bought by someone at a bargain price, someone who sliced and diced the company out of existence. In summary, a burning platform, yes; a changed organization equipped to meet the needs of the future, not even close.

Of all the risks associated with crises, this last one is obviously the biggest. Instead of creating a sense of urgency, you end up out of business. You don't find this happening often, because people sense the danger and work very hard to avoid it. But crises sometimes do cripple or destroy organizations. Here is the strongest demonstration yet that crises, though they can be highly useful, are not necessarily your friend when urgency is needed.

The bottom line

Don't be naïve. Management control systems and damage control experts serve a critical purpose. But don't let that blind you to an increasingly important reality. Controls can support complacency in an era when complacency can be deadly. Handled properly—and we know the rules for proper handling-a crisis can offer an opportunity to increase needed urgency, an opportunity that cannot be disregarded.

Best evidence available today tells us that crises can be used to create true urgency if these principles are followed:

Always think of crises as potential opportunities, and not only dreadful problems that automatically must be delegated to the damage control specialists. A crisis can be your friend.
Never forget that crises do not automatically reduce complacency. If not monitored and handled well, burning platforms can be disastrous, leading to fear, anger, blame, and the energetic yet dysfunctional behavior associated with false urgency.
To use a crisis to reduce complacency, make sure it is visible, unambiguous, related to real business problems, and significant enough that it cannot be solved with small, simple actions. Fight the impulse to minimize or hide bad news.
To use a crisis to reduce complacency, be exceptionally proactive in assessing how people will react, in developing specific plans for action, and in implementing the plans swiftly.
Plans and actions should always focus on others' hearts as much or more than their minds. Behaving with passion, conviction, optimism, urgency, and a steely determination will trump an analytically brilliant memo every time.
If urgency is low, never patiently wait for a crisis (which may never come) to solve your problems. Bring the outside in. Act with urgency every day.
If you are considering creating an urgency-raising crisis, take great care both because of the danger of losing control and because if people see you as manipulative and putting them at risk, they will (quite reasonably) react very badly.
If you are at a middle or low level in an organization and see how a crisis can be used as an opportunity, identify and then work with an open-minded and approachable person in a more powerful position who can take the lead.

Certainly we need to be prudent. But in a more rapidly changing world, finding opportunities in crises probably reduces your overall risk.

Reference: Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, October 8, 2008

Journaling

2008-08-31T19:34:00.004+05:30

This article was written by Laura Villacrusis-Weaver, a leadership consultant with The Refinery Leadership

Partners, an international consulting company, in co-operation with Refinery co-principal Rosie Steeves

(rosie@refineryleadership.com). For more ideas about leadership development, visit

www.refineryleadership.com. This article was previously published in Business in Vancouver in July 2008.

A leader I used to work with amazed me once when he showed me his personal

leadership journal. His journaling wasn’t what amazed me--many leaders try this simple,

yet powerful development activity--but that the journal itself was so thick and well-worn.

He’d been writing in it at least once a week, he told me, for six years.

Many leaders start journaling with the best of intentions. They get into it for a while, at

least until “real work” gets in the way and their journal is relegated to a desk drawer,

mostly blank and completely forgotten. But my old co-worker would never dream of

burying his notebook, which he considers one of his leadership treasures. In fact, he

even takes it with him when he travels, for work and pleasure. I asked him recently how

he explains his commitment. “The act of writing helps,” he says simply. “It allows me to

act upon things swiftly and appropriately when I take the time to really sit down and think

about a situation. I’ve surprised myself many times with the different perspective I take

when writing my journal compared to just thinking through something.”

Indeed, journaling helps leaders become more self-aware, and self-aware leaders are

better able to adapt their behaviour to changes in the organizational environment, which

ultimately makes them more effective. All that from a little writing. Why then do so many

leaders give up on journaling? Why does one notebook collect insights while another

collects dust?

Journaling is a habit. Forming a habit requires repetition, and repetition is motivated by

positive reinforcement. In other words, leaders who don’t quickly see the benefits of

journaling aren’t likely to stick with it when time and energy becomes scarce. But

journaling is also a skill, and the benefits of a skill come quicker when we do it right.

Learn how to journal effectively, and the habit-forming benefits will soon follow.

So dust off that old notebook and see if a new approach can help you kick-start a good

habit. The more you do it, the more you’ll want to. Before you know it, that old journal will

have become one of your own leadership treasures.

The author has also suggested a three-part structure for effective journaling. If you are interested in going through it please send an e-mail to manedge@gmail.com or put in your request by clicking the Comments link below.

Crowd Surfing

2008-08-15T20:11:00.000+05:30

The way people buy has gone through a massive revolution in recent years: thanks to blogs, review sites and chat rooms, we no longer have to rely on what a company says about its products and services — we can read what our fellow consumers think about what they’ve bought, and make our own decisions bearing those views in minds. The result? Empowered customers who know exactly what they want and who can now explore many ways to get it.

Many companies, however, just won’t accept that things have changed and haven’t adjusted their marketing efforts to match. In Crowd Surfing, David Brain and Martin Thomas explain what marketers, advertisers and brand specialists need to do to communicate with today’s savvier consumers. They include case studies of successes and failures from the business world and beyond, and interview leaders such as Michael Dell and Sebastian Coe to help illustrate their points.

About the book -

Crowd Surfing
Surviving and thriving in the age of consumer empowerment
by David Brain, Martin Thomas

£16.99
Available 1 Sep 2008 (subject to change).

ISBN 9781408105955
Format Paperback, 208 pages. Size 234x153 mm.

Are Followers About to Get Their Due?

2008-07-14T21:06:00.002+05:30

Abraham Zaleznik wrote about "The Dynamics of Subordinacy" more than four decades ago. Fifteen years ago, Jack Gabarro and John Kotter published a piece called "Managing Your Boss," in which they advocated: (1) understanding your boss and his or her "goals and objectives, pressures, strengths, weaknesses, blind spots, and preferred work styles"; (2) understanding yourself and your needs, including "strengths and weaknesses, personal style, and predisposition toward dependence on authority figures"; and (3) developing and maintaining a relationship that is centered around such things as frequent communication, an understanding of mutual expectations, dependability and honesty, and selective use of "your boss's time and resources."

Now Barbara Kellerman in her new book, Followership, asks where leaders would be without good followers. This question may be particularly significant in an age when followers find it easier to organize, in Kellerman's opinion, "cultural constraints against taking on people in positions of power, authority, and influence have been weakened." Kellerman goes on to say: "The fact is that followers are gaining power and influence while leaders are losing power and influence." In fact, in recent years we have seen management experiments with teams in which it is difficult to identify a leader.

Kellerman describes five types of followers: isolates (completely detached), bystanders (observers only), participants (engaged), activists (who feel strongly and act accordingly, both with and against leaders), and diehards (deeply devoted). Dismissing the first two groups as antithethical to good followership, and by extension, potentially supportive of bad leadership (as in Nazi Germany), she focuses on behaviors of the other three types. Of these three, "participants" seem to me to offer the most potential for long-term, productive relationships between subordinates and their bosses, particularly in large organizations. Participants work hard either in support of or against the policies and practices of their leaders. As Kellerman puts it, "they care enough … to try to have an impact."

Clearly it's in the best interests of successful leaders to understand and capitalize on the needs of such subordinates. Leaders need to be constantly aware of something that several of us have discovered in our research: Every decision made by a leader is judged by 10 or 15 subordinates, who regard the "fairness" of those decisions as one of the most important factors in the quality of their work life.

References:

1. John J. Gabarro and John P. Kotter, "Managing Your Boss," Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1993

2. Barbara Kellerman, Followership: How Followers Are Creating Change and Changing Leaders (Boston: Harvard Business Press, 2008)

3. Abraham Zaleznick, "The Dynamics of Subordinacy," Harvard Business Review, May-June, 1965

4. Jim Heskett, Are Followers about to get their due Harvard Business School Working
Knowledge, July 3, 2008

What do you think on this subject?

Are You a ‘Vigilant Leader’?

2008-04-03T11:58:00.002+05:30

Writing in the Spring 2008 issue of MIT - Sloan Management Review, George S. Day and Paul J. H. Schoemaker talk of vigilant leaders. Vigilant leaders are those who make a practice of being abundantly alert and deeply curious so that they can detect, and act on, the earliest signs of threat or opportunity. They seek to nurture equally vigilant employees by modeling such behavior and by providing incentives for managers to look for — and interpret — weak signals.

While such icons as Andy Grove and Jack Welch exemplify vigilant CEOs, the trait remains in short supply. That is a conclusion the coauthors reached after surveying 119 global companies about their overall capacity for diligence. Among their findings: Just 23% of the businesses were run by CEOs who tried to pick up weak signals from the periphery. Most leaders, they theorize, rise to the top by demonstrating superior operational skills.

To help leaders recognize and develop the habit of vigilance, the researchers examine in detail the three traits that characterize vigilant executives: focusing externally, applying strategic foresight and encouraging exploration by others. They also capture such leaders in action and provide examples in which a distinct lack of vigilance has led companies such as The Coca-Cola Co. to “miss the boat” by overlooking big opportunities. Companies like General Electric Co. and Johnson & Johnson have instituted systematic programs to instill employees with the qualities of vigilant leaders. The CEO of Denmark-based Novozymes A/S is curious, fast and enterprising, an attitude he nurtures in his workers. Organizations may encourage vigilant leadership by hiring specifically for it or by openly rewarding displays of it.

Whatever strategy CEOs choose, the authors find that it is critical for them to set an example. After all, it is only through vigilance that companies can avoid hidden dangers — and discover opportunities ripe for innovation.

Impatient people are terrible procrastinators

2008-02-19T17:34:00.003+05:30

If you’ve found yourself putting off important tasks over and over again, it’s time you consult a psychologist.

Going by a new study, you may be suffering from a condition that can require therapy. A team of international researchers has found that procrastinators are impatient people.

In fact, they have traced a clear link between the two opposite traits which are “actually different aspects of the same condition.”

“Procrastination seriously affects our productivity at work and can cost people considerable amounts of money as they postpone work indefinitely.

“People don’t want to procrastinate — it is just that their impatience gets in the way, researcher Ernesto Reuben of the Kellogg School of Management told The Daily Telegraph. — PTI

Ref: http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/11/stories/2008021156502000.htm

For the full paper, send a mail to manedge@gmail.com

Information Dissemination

2008-01-13T19:56:00.003+05:30

It’s critical to distribute information quickly and reliably throughout an organization. Today, e-mail is the primary means of information dispersal, but is it the most efficient? In their paper titled Productivity Effects of Information Diffusion in Networks, the authors – Sinan Aral, Erik Brynjolfsson and Marshall W Van Alstyne – analyzed 10 months’ worth of e-mail (more than 125,000 messages in total), as well as five years of revenue data and employee interactions at a mid-sized executive recruiting firm. They identified two types of information that employees shared with one another. The first was “event news”: simple, declarative messages, about such news as forthcoming layoffs or a significant change in top management, that were spread both vertically and laterally throughout the organization in a rapid and pervasive manner. The information moved quickly among employees with little regard to reporting relationships. The second type was labeled “discussion topics”: more specific and procedural communications, with the information tending to be more complex and relevant to accomplishing specific tasks. Discussions were influenced by functional relationships and the strength of ties between people. This type of information was shared by colleagues who worked closely together and moved vertically up and down the organization.

The report concludes that email was valuable in the organization in two areas. First, fast access to information via e-mail increased the number of projects completed by each individual, and second, the receipt of new information communicated via e-mail contributed to additional revenue generation.

Bottom Line: The relationships among co-workers and the way they communicate and spread information is a highly significant predictor of worker productivity. +

This is a summary of an article published in the Recent Research section of Strategy+Business, Winter 2007 issue.

The full paper is available online at http://ssrn.com/abstract=987499

Do I Dare Say Something?

2007-12-16T19:23:00.000+05:30

As every company knows, employees are its greatest resource. It's more than a shame, then, that many workers are either not encouraged or afraid to speak up and communicate ideas at work. Employers are losing valuable knowledge and experience, and their companies are weaker for that loss.

Latent voice episodes and Upward voice

Latent voice episodes describe those moments at work when someone considers speaking up about an issue, problem, or even an improvement opportunity. How do people think about speaking up? The episodes are called "latent" because they are potential communications that may or may not in fact occur. Understanding the factors that encourage or inhibit people speaking up at work with the relevant ideas and concerns they have is the focus of this research.

Upward voice refers to communications directed to someone higher in the organizational hierarchy with the perceived power or authority to take action on the problem or suggestion. This is why leaders are inherently important to the improvement-oriented voice process — because leaders are the targets of voice. If they send signals that they are open, interested, and willing to act on subordinate voice, it is logical to expect that subordinates' motivation to do so will be increased; conversely, where subordinates perceive leaders' behavior to indicate it is either unsafe or futile to speak up, they are less likely to do so.

Factors that determine whether or not an employee feels safe using their upward voice

Research suggests two types of factors that lead people to feel more or less safe speaking up: individual differences and contextual factors.

Individual differences include personality dispositions such as one's level of extraversion or pro-activity, or one's developed skills such as how to communicate in ways that don't evoke defensiveness, and also personal concerns about job security and / or mobility. These factors tend to be seen as applying across situations. For example, a person with greater communication skill might be more likely to speak up despite an unfavorable context.

In contrast, context refers to organizational factors, outside the individual, that provide cues about how voice is likely to be received. Leader behavior is one such contextual cue. Aspects of organizational culture and structure also matter, such as the degree to which an organization is hierarchical or egalitarian, or has explicit mechanisms for inviting upward input (e.g., suggestion boxes, regularly-scheduled meetings, surveys).

Specific features of the situation in which voice is contemplated, such as the size and formality of the venue and level of hierarchy present, also matter, as does the degree of demographic similarity between the speaker and the intended target of his or her communication.

Why are we so hesitant to take the risk and speak up?

The fear of speaking up — and therefore a tendency toward silence — is over-determined by both the general nature of humans and the specific realities of the modern economy. Even from an evolutionary point of view, it seems we're all hard-wired to overestimate rather than underestimate certain types of risk — it was better (for survival) to "flee" too often from threats that weren't really there than to not flee the one time there was a significant risk. So, we've inherited emotional and cognitive mechanisms that motivate us to avoid perceived risks to our psychological and material well-being. As Daniel Goleman² observes in his seminal work Emotional Intelligence,

One emotional legacy of evolution is the fear that mobilizes us to protect our family from danger. Automatic reactions have become etched in our nervous system because for along and crucial period in human prehistory they made the difference between survival and death.

Turning to the modern economy, most of us depend on hierarchical organizations and their agents (i.e., bosses) to meet many of our basic needs for economic support and human relationships. Thus, fear of offending those above us is both natural and widespread. One way we can get in trouble with those above us is to speak up in ways perceived as challenging of authority or critical of cherished programs. Given the exaggerated and real reasons to fear offending authorities, it isn't surprising that people clam up when the signals seem unfavorable. (Even during our upbringing most of us have grown on the fear of punishment and reward from our parents and teachers.)

How to change a culture so that employees feel more comfortable expressing their opinions?

It's difficult to change a culture of fear. An organization that has fully transformed itself from one of fear to one in which most employees would rate the organization as open or conducive to speaking up, is hard to pin-point. At the same time, there are many organizations that have pockets — groups, departments, work units — that are palpably open and actively engaged in discussion, debate, experimentation, or improvement. Companies in which voice or other learning behaviors are relatively widespread, were founded on principles of respect for all employees, deep commitment to openness, etc. But changing a culture so that people believe speaking up is expected and desired requires some fairly drastic indications of commitment to change. This includes placing individuals who are known to be open in key roles, illustrating in visible ways that voice is celebrated rather than punished, and making fundamental changes to how people get evaluated and rewarded.

In one organization, many employees suggested that "openness to input from below" should become a key component of each leader's 360-degree performance evaluation, and a cut-off score be set for this component, such that those below the threshold could not be promoted. This would have been a fairly radical change in this company, where technical excellence was seen as the primary basis for promotion. Although senior management did not act on this suggestion, which would have been, admittedly, very difficult in their well-established culture, it points in the right direction.

Openness need not be a nice feeling

As Gandhiji tells Munna in Lage Raho Munnabhai, telling the truth requires maximum courage. So does openness. Openness is not about being "nice" or creating a "nice" workplace. In fact, those organizations where voice is more natural and welcome can be pretty tough places in the sense that people are direct! Managers need to hear from the people in the organization who are closest to the work, closest to the customers — that is, from those who are in the best position to recognize problems and have new ideas.

How can managers create a free work environment where employees feel free to express their opinions?

Research has shown that two beliefs are essential preconditions for the free expression of upward voice: first, the belief that one is not putting oneself at significant risk of personal harm (e.g., embarrassment, loss of material resources) and second, the belief that one is not wasting one's time in speaking up. In short, voice must be seen as both safe and worthwhile. Anything an organization can do to prevent the widespread belief that voice is unsafe or not worth your time is likely to increase the upward communication flow.

Environments where risk-taking is championed and visibly rewarded rather than punished, where leaders have good personal as well as technical skills, and where factors that create psychological distance between bosses and subordinates are minimized are likely to be better places for speaking up. Yet, even in such environments people have to speak up to specific individuals, and our research suggests that people can be afraid to speak up to their boss even when the overall organizational climate appears conducive to voice. This makes facilitating voice every manager's job. Expecting a general suggestion system or a semi-annual feedback meeting to take care of the "voice problem" is almost certainly a mistake.

Ultimately, every manager needs to work at being open and accessible and taking action on ideas or reporting back on why action can't or won't be taken. These are behavioral skills that all of us can continue to practice and improve. These don't need to be grand, highly contrived actions. Some people have pointed to immense value in leaders simply stopping by in the cafeteria, or pulling them aside in the hallway for a couple minutes and really listening. This sounds a lot like "management by walking around" but it seems to be worth a lot in this regard.

There are certainly some contextual factors — cultural and structural — that contribute to making larger companies difficult places for speaking up. Size itself is one such factor: People speak up more in smaller groups and in settings that are more intimate. In smaller companies, where everyone knows and regularly interacts with top managers, there is less likelihood employees will be silent based on lack of established relationship or lack of accessibility. Given the physical distance between sites and culture differences that MNCs have to deal with, creating a positive setting for voice can be a serious challenge.

Leadership behaviour is the key

However, bosses can be arrogant or busy or lacking in interpersonal skills in any size or type of company. Similarly, senior management in any type of firm can consciously or unconsciously fail to utilize the formal mechanisms that facilitate speaking up. In fact, much of our research has been conducted in settings that don't fit the descriptions of "large" or "multinational" and yet we have consistently identified the same types of individual differences and contextual factors (especially leader behavior) as key influences on speaking up by subordinates.

The degree to which fear appears to be a feature of modern work life is a startling revelation. A large amount of untapped knowledge goes waste and a lot of pain and frustration results from this silence. People are genuinely hurt and frustrated about their silence. This suggests that employees aren't failing to provide ideas or input because they've "checked out" and just don't care, but because of fear.

Source:

Q&A with Amy C. Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School (HBS), March 20, 2006, HBS by Sarah Jane Gilbert , content developer at HSB’s Baker Library.

Ref:

Latent Voice Episodes: The Situation-Specific Nature of Speaking up at Work, HBS Working Paper, December 2005, revised June 2006 as Everyday Failures In Organizational Learning: Explaining The High Threshold For Speaking Up At Work, Amy Edmondson and James Detert
Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, Bloomsbury, London, 2004.

Are Indian Business Leaders Different?

2007-11-02T20:50:00.000+05:30

Do Indian CEOs and business leaders operate in a way that is markedly different from those in other parts of the world? What is the source of their competitive advantage? Can other managers learn from their experiences?

Four Wharton professors – Peter Cappelli, Harbir Singh, Jitendra Singh (now dean of the Nanyang business school in Singapore) and Michael Useem – answer these questions in a new study titled, "The DNA of Indian Leadership: The Governance, Management and Leadership of Leading Indian Firms," co-sponsored by India's National HRD Network. Based on interviews with 100 CEOs of leading Indian companies, the researchers concluded that while top Indian leaders do share several attributes with their U.S. counterparts, they also have distinctive characteristics.

In contrast to U.S. business leaders, Indian CEOs tend to be more preoccupied with internal management, long-term strategic vision and organizational culture. Financial matters, on the other hand, are not at the top of their agendas. Indian leaders care a good deal more about motivating employees and setting an example than about currying favour with shareholders or the markets.

Advantage: Leadership? Is there an Indian Leadership Model?

In defining the scope of their research, the professors describe their objective as follows: "Our ultimate goal for the project is to see whether the practices and priorities of the [Indian] CEOs in our study suggest something like a different or distinctive model for leading and managing business enterprises. The rise of the Indian economy, and especially the international competitiveness of Indian businesses now, raises the question as to whether there is a distinctive Indian model and, if so, what that model might be."

The competencies most important to their success in the past five years, according to the Indian CEOs were shared values and vision, as well as building the top team.

For example, B. Muthuraman, MD of Tata Steel talked about a leader "being a visionary" as an important capacity, thus being able to make people envision their future as well as energize, enthuse and empower them." The respondents also noted that leading from the front and leading by example were important personal characteristics.

A number of the Indian business leaders also stressed that their vision for the company should be rooted in its underlying values, and that the vision in turn should energize and excite the company's employees.

When asked how Indian leaders might be different from their Western counterparts, the CEOs responded that Indian business executives were marked by flexibility, being in a family ownership structure and entrepreneurship/risk-taking. The leaders noted that the strict regulatory climate and challenging infrastructure environment in India necessitated a capacity to be resilient, adapt and move forward in the face of adversity.

Anu Aga, former chairperson of Thermax India, an energy and environment management firm, pointed to the many obstacles Indian companies have to deal with, such as "roads and ports in terrible conditions". Family ownership stakes sometimes helped leaders have a more long-term approach to strategy, reported the respondents. In addition, they noted that being entrepreneurial was important in order to get large companies to act nimbly and take advantage of the changing marketplace.

The CEOs believed that their firms' competitive advantage lay in their high-performance culture, customer focus, innovation and entrepreneurship, and low cost. Even when asked how their roles are changing, they overwhelmingly noted that they spend more time these days setting strategy and dealing with customers rather than worrying about shareholders.

Look Inside to Get Ahead?

Perhaps the most telling responses were the CEOs' ranking of their management priorities. They chose "Chief input for business strategy," "Keeper of organizational culture" and "Guide or teacher for employees" as the top three. "Unlike CEOs in America, Indian leaders tend to focus much more on internal issues -- on people management, motivating employees and so forth," says Cappelli. "U.S. CEOs spend a lot more of their time on shareholder issues."

Harbir Singh adds that, "in the U.S., CEOs often see shareholders or the board as their primary constituency. In India, CEOs need to focus on employees because of the safety net factor (which doesn’t exist in India). With the Indian economy booming, and a shortage of talent, investing in employees is the right thing to do.”

Cappelli notes that the best way to be successful as a manager is not to focus solely on short-term profits and to reward or punish leaders based on such performance: "If you're a manager, it's hard to motivate employees when the big goal is to increase quarterly profits by a half-percentage point. Not enough pay is at risk for that to be sufficient motivation.

What ails Indian Leaders?

Subodh Bhargava, CEO of telecommunications firm VSNL, told the researchers that, "In India we tend to be hierarchical, not just in administrative and management structure hierarchy but we are very conscious of personal hierarchy in our position. Second, in India we are over-emotional, and a lot of big decisions tend to be emotional. The attachment or other softer dimensions emerge, whether it's an acquisition or an investment or while evaluating people or opportunities. Finally, one of our biggest weaknesses is that we are unable to use scientific, reasonable assessment of white-collar productivity. We are poor judges of people, their capabilities and expectations."

Are Indian CEOs simply better at internalizing best practices that they have read in the management textbooks? "Of course, they have seen a lot of how U.S. CEOs operate," says Cappelli. "They know that U.S. leaders are more concerned with shareholders; they have been exposed to U.S. models and best practices. But then why did the Indian CEOs take it up, and not the American CEOs? I think it's more organic than that." Cappelli notes that many U.S. employers were exposed to Japanese models of management for some time. "But right when the Japanese model was hot -- that's when U.S. employers were abandoning it," he notes. "It's just not the way they saw themselves, and they didn't adopt it."

Time-Tested or Flash in the Pan?

It is tempting to think that Indian CEOs can afford to indulge in their inward preoccupation simply because the country's economy and markets haven't developed quite as much as they have in the U.S. Even though Indian companies are competing with U.S. and other Western firms, the CEOs don't report that they are subject to the same investor pressures

"While the Indian CEOs certainly engaged in some self-criticism -- they admitted that some aspects of management could be more professionalized, their staff could have more competences or deeper expertise -- they didn't feel that the financial aspects needed more attention," says Cappelli. "It was quite remarkable in that there was no significant dissent on this. When asked about their legacy, they talked about their firm's performance, about growth, influence and reputation -- not about share prices increasing."

Reference: http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/india/article.cfm?articleid=4238#

Published: November 01, 2007 in India Knowledge@Wharton

Only one in five global workers "engaged"

2007-10-25T08:05:00.000+05:30

Only one out of five employees of major global corporations is engaged in his or her work, and top managers may be to blame, according to a study released by a global professional services firm.

A survey of 90,000 workers in 18 countries by Towers Perrin HR Services, US-based consultancy, found that only 21 percent of employees are engaged in their work, while 38 percent are disenchanted or disengaged. The study defined "engagement" as being willing to do more than is required to help their employers succeed and measured it by their responses to questions about their feelings about work, as well as their behavior.

Mexicans proved to be the most engaged, followed by Brazilians and Indians. U.S. respondents ranked fourth. The least engaged workers were the Japanese, followed by residents of Hong Kong and South Korea.

The study found that worker engagement was most driven by senior managers -- not by an employee's upbringing or relationship with a direct manager.

"The organization itself is the most powerful influencer of employee engagement," says Julie Gebauer, of Towers Perrin. "People's views about the company are also shaped more by what senior leaders say and do than by what the individuals' direct bosses say or do."

By cross-referencing the survey data with the financial history of 40 companies whose employees were polled, the firm found that companies with the most engaged employees tended to do better financially than those whose workers were disengaged.

Despite the high level of disengagement, many workers say they are happy in their employment situations, with 86 percent reporting that they like or love their jobs and 84 percent saying they enjoy challenging work.

The survey was conducted in May and June, 2007.

Source: Reuters, October 22, 2007

Note: A fuller version of this report can be obtained by writing to manedge@gmail.com

Additional detail about the Towers Perrin Global Workforce Study is available at www.towersperrin.com/gws

Companies face looming leadership crisis - IBM study

2007-10-19T20:12:00.000+05:30

Companies worldwide face a looming leadership crisis due to the retirement of baby boomers (see text at the end of this post) and rapid growth in Asia with half fearful they cannot develop the skills they need, a study released on Thursday (Oct 18 2007) said.

The survey by IBM's consulting arm interviewed 400 HR executives from 40 countries and suggests companies are putting growth strategies at risk if they cannot identify and develop the next generation of leaders.

Baby boomers will drain companies of valuable knowledge when they retire, while multinational firms need to find people to lead their businesses in booming markets such as India and China, the study said.

"You've got this perfect storm of leadership crisis that is hitting the mature and maturing markets," said IBM's Eric Lesser, one of three co-authors of the study

"Companies are really crunched both in terms of their current capacity of leadership and also their ability to develop leaders in the future. Three-quarters of the people who responded said this was a significant workplace issue."

The study found 88 percent of companies in the Asia Pacific region are most concerned with their ability to develop future leaders, followed by Latin America (74 percent); Europe, Middle East and Africa, (74 percent); Japan (73 percent); and North America (69 percent).

Fifty-two percent of HR executives say their organizations may be unable to rapidly develop skills to meet current or future business needs. The study also found 36 percent of firms said employee skills fail to meet company priorities.

With competition for talent on the horizon, younger job applicants might want to list online gaming skills on their resumes, Lesser said. Many can be translated to realities of the new workplace.

"It requires using virtual communication techniques, everything from voice over IP to instant messaging to e-mail," Lesser said.

Source: Daniel Trotta, Reuters, October 18, 2007

A baby boomer is a person born between 1946 and 1964 in Australia, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States. Following World War II, these countries experienced an unusual spike in birth rates, a phenomenon commonly known as the baby boom. The term is iconic and more properly capitalized as Baby Boomers.
Source: Wikipedia

Kumar Mangalam Birla on Leadership

2007-10-04T11:45:00.000+05:30

PLUGGING INTO PEOPLE'S MINDS AND HEARTS

The criticality of the human element is today more pronounced than ever before. What sparks and sustains the success of an enterprise is its people. This is a universal truth. It’s no different in India.

Leadership is all about plugging into the minds and hearts of people, about rallying them around to a compelling and exciting vision of the future. It is about upping the quality of imagination of the organisation. It is about encouraging a spirit of intellectual ferment and constructive dissent so that people are not bound by the status quo, and mavericks are given space and free play. It is about building the highest levels of empathy, without compromising on fairness and running a popularity contest.

As I look ahead, I believe the war for talent will intensify and that could become a major speed breaker. There is an acute competition – rather a scramble for inducting and retaining people with the competencies apposite for a globalising corporation. When a company globalises, its internal demography transforms into a socio-cultural potpourri. There is an inherent instability. Corporations that embark on this growth trajectory will face churn and uncertainty amidst change. On such a journey success will come to those corporations where the leadership is alchemical and values-driven.

Source: AlumniNews, London Business School, Issue 112 July - September 2007, pp31