Friday 17 June 2016

Why should I develop my team?

In one of my recent management seminars to senior leadership team, one participant asked the following question, which I think, is powerful and thought provoking.

 He questioned, “Why should I develop my  team  by teaching all my  years of learnings and spending    time to guide them? If I equip them, will not be a threat to my position?”.

My response to this is as follows

1.Assume that you are not developing your  team and not preparing any  successor for you. When management  considers you for elevation or  different growth  opportunities, they think twice about existing  positions as there is no right successor. Management  may want to keep you in the same position till they find an alternative. Who will be the loser?

2.Assume that if you are not  developing your team, you will continue to do the same job forever and how will you equip yourself for new learning’s and new growth?

3.In today’s scenario, real talent will find its own way. If you are  not  taking care of your people development and growth, eventually  your smart team member  find his own way to grow  either in your existing organization or in the new organization. You will be just witnessing their growth.

4.By law of nature, you will grow only by helping others to grow. In the short term,  you may feel, you are not getting what you deserve, but in the long term, your growth depends on  winning mindset, accepting the change, helping others, seeing the big opportunities in the world!!.

Hence, in all dimensions, as a leader of your team, you should develop your team.

Would like to hear your perspective on this question!!

Thursday 9 June 2016

Dealing with setbacks

       In business or professional environment or in sports, when something goes wrong, the most affected person will be those who are headed the business or organization or function or team . Simply, the captain of the team. The challenge for the captain is to bring back the confidence of all stakeholders through quick actions and more than that managing self emotionally to overcome the setback.
       When we go through the successful peoples life stories, some common patterns emerge in their thought process and approach in dealing with setbacks

1.They use to feel gifted to lead a team either as captain or as owner of the business. They see the position as a responsibility. They internally feel and believe that if they are blessed with such privilege, they will also be blessed with to overcome any setback. It is more about taking the setback as  part of the divine play to make him strong

2.They strongly believe that failures are acceptable. This reflection protects them from self –sabotaging and think a way forward 

3.They deeply spend time with themselves to introspect the causes and mistakes they did. They  critically evaluate the assumptions, decision making process, management style  behaviors etc.  

4.They are quick to come out with an alternate plan and put into action

5.Single minded focus on execution till seeing the result 


It is not a problem falling down. How quickly we bounce back and strong reveal our true inherent strength.

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Relooking at problems

     A rich man had many domestic related problems. To get solutions to his problems, he approached a saint and prayed for relief from his problems. The saint was quietly listening to the person‘s problem. The saint asked him to go out and pick up a pebble and he did so. The saint asked him to keep the pebble closer to eyes and look at the things around him. The seeker did so and replied he could not see anything else in his surroundings since the pebble obstructed everything. The saint had asked the seeker  to keep the pebble away from his eye and look again. Now the seeker  replied that he could able to see the pebble as well as other objects in the environment.

    The saint responded to the seeker, “Your problems are also like pebbles. When you look the problem very close and thinking on the same all the time, you could not see other good things in life. When you keep the problem away from you and look at the problem at different perspective, you can solve  problem as well as you can enjoy other things as well".

    In our life span, we may come across the problems in every moment, which may be tiny, insignificant and time specific. It depends on how we are looking at from a different perspective. If we introspect, most of the problems, we magnify as big and create panic within ourself. Just think about  a problem which you faced a year ago and how you responded to it and  realize the relevance or significance of that problem today.

It just requires  awareness on problems as they are part of life and how we look at problems makes a difference to our surroundings and us.

Sunday 29 May 2016

Business model with compassion and profitability

   Inspiring video about a person who started from scratch after retirement and built a great , profitable organization with more compassion to poor people. It talks about Vision, Values, Business model, Spirituality, Possibilities, and Compassion.

   Moreover, while most of us striving for operational excellence through lean system thinking in manufacturing segment, they had been practicing lean operation/ service management and brought efficiency. Actually, that efficiency made their service more affordable and competitive .One key insight leadership is all about vision and execution.

Thought that it is very  inspiring , learning experience and hence  sharing the link below

https://t.co/2HnW47rN81

Hope you enjoy this video…

Saturday 21 May 2016

Response to adversity

“Everyone goes through adversity in life, but what matters is how you learn from it”—Lou Holtz

       Everyone  goes through adversity in life at some point of time. What makes the difference between average and successful people is the interpretation or learning from such adversity  or  experiences. The way we are looking  at our experiences and taking further action only determines the growth.

       We may come across situations  wherein  our decision results in heavy financial loss or damages the reputation among peers or customers, etc.. Now  we  have three choices  which decide our  ability to overcome the adversity.

Choice of response 1:

    Feeling guilty and becoming sad about the  decision and the result. The consequence may be your self esteem may go down and you may be cribbing. Self pity will be increasing and no corrective or forward thinking will take place 

Choice of response 2:

    Start defending your position with justification. You tend to build logics to justify your  decision  or stand and in this process, you  refuse  to look at the truth. No learning takes place to improve further.

Choice of response 3:

     Take pause ,reflect on the decision making process and the analyse the impact .This may lead you to find more truth about mistakes done . Your mind tends to analyze the fact and accept the need for corrective action for growth. 

The choice response that you are choosing to any  adversity  or experiences  determines the further growth. Hence, be aware of your response to any adversity. 

Saturday 14 May 2016

The shift from “whom” to “what”


“Accept responsibility .Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else”.-- Les Brown

       Whenever we face any problem both family and professional environment, most of us  tend to blame the environment and cite the root cause of the problem as parents, friends, society, teachers, boss, colleagues, school, college or something else other than self. In this process, temporarily we may feel comfortable.The moment we blame and push the responsibility to others, the mind never attempts to find  alternatives  to overcome the problem.

       What is needed in that moment is a slight shift in mindset towards taking personal responsibility.When we accept personal responsibility for the outcome of the event, we tend to find out the solution. Moreover, we will not have the habit of blaming and complaining others. In addition, when we take personal responsibility, we take control of the situation. This mindset is one of the qualities of leadership. 

        For example, in an organization, when the problem comes in, most of the time, tendency to shift the focus on WHOM, the moment we shift the focus on people, we close our thinking process to solutions approach. Instead, when we shift the focus on “what,” mind cools down to think of solutions.

       It may be difficult for some people having this mindset naturally, but it is possible with AWARENESS and your life will be more rewarding as you are perceived  as a solution provider than problem creator.
        
        Hence, the key is to  accept the personal responsibility of life events, which is the first step towards achieving Growth!

Wednesday 4 May 2016

Change @ Individual level

An interesting poem whose author is unknown, but thanks to his profound thought process

“When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world, 
I found difficult to change the world, so I tried to change the nation
When I found, I could not change the nation, I began to focus on my town
I could not change the town, and as an older man, I tried to change my family 
I could not change my family, as an old man, I realized, I can change myself
And suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself,
I could have made an impact on  my family,
My family and I could have made an impact on our town,
My town impact could have changed the nation and in turn, the world”

This reflects our attitude towards change either in organizational or  in a family environment.We assume that the change has to happen first at organizational level or higher positional level  and feel that as individuals we do  not have much influence or control. Instead the change  can be initiated at individual level  or functional level, which will trigger changes at the organizational level.

For example, you could have noticed that one person with the good thought process, intention may change the quality of discussion or perspectives in meetings. He changed his thought process first and could able to trigger to the entire gathering. 

Small, continuous change in our practices at the individual level or functional level  will have a ripple effect on the organization’s culture. Others can able to realize the change and always you can be the influence of change wherever you are! .