The Secret to Long-term Personal Success

The most powerful way to achieve long-term personal and business success, is to redefine success as something internal rather than external. It has been my experience time and time again that success begins with defining values, and then consciously creating a life where those values play a central role. And this is true as much of people as it is of organizations.Using this 'inside-out' approach, I have discovered in my experience as a Business coach and consultant, gives gratifying results. Success I have realized, begins with defining values, and then consciously creating a life where those values play a central role. So what exactly do we mean by values, and how can we plan a values-driven life?

What are Values?
Roy Posner, on his highly informative website, describes values as “a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful.” Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every one of us has a core set of personal values. Values can range from the commonplace, such as the belief in hard work and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as self-reliance, concern for others, and harmony of purpose.

When we examine the lives of famous people, we often see how personal values guided them, propelling them to the top of their fields. In the book, Leadership@Infosys (Penguin India), the editor Matthew Barney describes the time the company had imported its first computer to the office. A customs official indirectly asked for a bribe. Narayana Murthy pretended he did not understand the request. As pay back, the official refused to recognise the a government certificate that entitled Infosys to a concessionary import duty of Rs. 1 lakh instead of Rs 10 lakh. Murhty did not budge. The company paid the higher duty and went through a long process of six years to reclaim the extra money it had paid.

It is this personal as well as business commitment to his values that has brought Murthy such glory - personally as well as to Infosys, the company he created. On a personal front, his commitment to his values brought respect to businessmen as a class. Kiran Karnik1, the former NASSCOM chief explains the reason thus,”For the first time, the middle class had an icon who came from an ordinary background and yet made money without doing something underhand and being upright.” On the business front Murthy’s commitment powered by his intellect, and driven by his values has brought Infosys to the forefront of a new India Inc. since 1981.

we can “create a life of our own making” and live our life with meaning and peace of mind, rather than “letting our life live us.”  An important learning from Murthy's example is that values drives our behavior and also our commitment.                                                   The most important advantage of identifying our values is that the exercise helps us to align and shape our behaviors in a way consistent with our goals in life.

Call to Action

To begin the unraveling of YOUR secret to long-term personal business success, begin by of identifying your values from the list on Roy Posner's site. Using your identified values as your decision making paradigm, you can now create a life of your own making and live your life with meaning and peace of mind, rather than letting your life live you.

Yew did it. Can you?

The success story that is Singapore is principally credited to its first President Lee Kwan Yew’s strategic vision of economic modernization and internal stability. He sought to bring this about through an ambitious programme of economic and social transformation. In short, he envisioned a radical change in the countries culture and he made it happen!

Culture change in organizations

Every time people come together with a shared purpose, culture is created. This group of people could be a family, neighbourhood, project team, or company. Culture is automatically created out of the combined thoughts, energies, and attitudes of the people in the group. In the case of organizations, culture has a vital and measurable impact on the organisation’s ability to deliver on its strategy. Research as well as practical observation of successful companies has established a direct link between strong corporate cultures and high performance. 

 

Read more...

The Pandit Time Management Strategy

Vikram Pandit, the India-born CEO of Citibank (his father live in Navi Mumbai) has recently been in the news for his spectacular turnaround of the bank. Pandit did the unthinkable by transforming the world within Citi. The bank, which had an umbrella as its logo, sold every financial product under the sky, changed tack and decided to focus purely on banking. The core purpose of banks, Pandit had decided, was to help the real economy. His strategy has proved successful, and he has been hailed as bringing about the biggest financial turnaround in the history of banking. How did he do it?


Few people would have considered Pandit a potential candidate as a future CEO when he joined Citi July 2007....


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How clear are you about your 2011 goals?

 A recent  issue of the Economic Times, had an article, "India Inc Has A Dream For 2011", in which prominent captains of the industry spoke of their personal and business goals.

Having just completed a workshop on "The Effective Manager" for a client, of which effective goal setting was part, I was curious to analyze the goals for their "SMARTness". SMART, as many of you  may know, is an acronym for Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timebound. How well had the captains of industry fared when it came to setting SMART goals for 2011? I decided to analyze the goals of two of them - Vijay Thadani, CEO of NIIT and Venugopal Dhoot, Chairman of the Videocon group of industries. Here is what they had said:

Vijay Thadani: "I sincerely want to reduce the schoolgoer's burden and make their bags lighter by a tenth. Our school solutions division, NIIT eguru, which works with 15,000 schools, could help children carry tablets instead of books, and we can achieve this through customised offerings. My second resolution is to reach 20m more learners this year and take the count to 50m as NIIT turns 30 this year. Cutting across verticals, from corporates schools, colleges individuals and the government, I want to double the target which took the company three decades to cover."

Venugopal Dhoot: "I see 2011 ushering in social well-being  and economic prosperity for the aam Indian. Poised to become the world's fastest growing economy, the coming decade will see the rise and rise of India towards becoming a superpower in its own right. Not through just material power, but through 'soft power', that is, the ability to influence and impact the world through its unique culture, values, policies, and institutions. In such a context my New Year resolution will be to do my bit, both at personal and industry level, to drive this 2020 vision forward."

For the purpose of analysis, I decided to score them on each of the SMART parameters on a scale of 1-10, where 1 was very vague, and 10 very specific. Here is how the fared:

Score             Name	Specific	Measurable	Action oriented	Relevant	Timebound
	Who What Where Why When	How much? How often? How many?		How important is it to your business?	By When?
Vijay Thadani	10/10	10/10	10/10	10/10	10/10
V.N Dhoot	2/10	3/10	3/10	5/10	6/10

Here's my rationale for my scoring:

Specific: Vijay Thadani (VT) 10/10, Venugopal Dhoot (VD) 2/10
VT: We see that VT has covered all the important bases for this parameter - What (reduce the school goers burden, double the target), Why (make their bags lighter), Where (in 15,000 schools and across verticals), When (by the end of the year).
VD: He has resolved to "do his bit" - vague enough to get a score of 2/10.

Measurable: VT 10/10, VD 3/10
VT: VT's resolution answers the How much? question specifically (make school goers bags lighter by a tenth, reach out to 20m more learners, double the target achieved in 3 decades),
VD: VD's resolution to "do his bit" is just a resolution and no more. How can such a subjective target be measured? He therefore scores 3/10 on this parameter.

Action-oriented: VT 10/10, VD 3/10
VT: His resolutions on this parameter are totally action oriented because they are both specific and measurable. He talks about cutting across verticals, from corporates, schools, colleges, individuals and government to double his target.
VD: He wants to drive forward the 2020 vision of making India a superpower in its own right by influencing its ability to influence and impact the world through its unique culture, values, policies, and institutions by doing "his bit both at the personal and industry level".  How action-oriented can that be?

Relevant: VT 10/10, VD 5/10
VT: NIIT is in the business of training and education and his resolutions aimed at the school goer and other verticals are entirely relevant to his business.
VD: Here I have been a little more generous with my scoring by giving VD 5/10 - the only reason being that in the broad sweep of his resolution, he also talks somewhere about doing his bit to help India impact the world through its institutions. One presumes by institutions he means his own group of companies.


Time-bound: VT 10/10, VD 6/10
VT: Clearly all his 2011 goals, except for the doubling of sales, are aimed for achievement by end of 2011 hence a 10/10.
VD: The saving grace is that the resolution is at least time bound - by 2020 (for whatever it is worth), and hence in this parameter VD gets the highest score of 6/10!

All of us make New Year resolutions and many of us make them more as a ritual, only to forget all about them a few days into January. If one is serious about acting on one's resolutions, it helps to set SMART goals. For then we can :

1. focus our attention and action, 
2. mobilize our energies towards their achievement, 
3. increase our persistence, and 
4. encourage development of workable strategies 

towards the successful  attainment of our goals.

And by the way, any guesses about who between Vijay Thadani and Venugopal Dhoot is better placed to achieve his goals for 2011?

Vijay Mallya and Ratan Tata - a Study in Contrast

Part 1 - The Early Years 

Vijay Mallya's first name name means "victory" in Sanskrit. His life revolving around fast cars, fast horses and fast life is the envy of millions. But despite the size of his empire, he has never got the respect from the business community which considers him a "fast talker, who can sell deep freezers to Eskimos - the only problem being that he ends up believing his own bullshit!"

Ratan Tata's  first name means "diamond" and is derived from the Sanskrit word 'ratna' meaning precious stone. Tata is a much admired business leader both in India and abroad - Businessweek, in an article called him "India's shining jewel". And deservedly so - for, though in recent times his image has taken a beating, he has been known for his personal integrity and the Tata name shines out for the respect and trust it commands.

The two are a stunning study in contrast in their lifestyles.While one is  flamboyant, the other is low profile. While one flaunts his wealth (mansions in London, Manhattan, California and Goa, to name few) , the other lives in a flat in Colaba, Mumbai, which he has been occupying for years. While one is married twice and loves to be surrounded by beautiful women, the other lives a lonely bachelor's life surrounded by books and dogs.

Their early years too are a study in contrast. Though a rich man' son, Mallya was never brought up to feel rich. He grew up in upper-middle class comfort with his mother in Bangalore, and would offer to fix people's cars to make extra pocket money. Ratan Tata never had to - he grew up in astonishing luxury at a huge villa in the centre of Bombay.  Mallya is a graduate of Calcutta University while Tata is a trained architect from Cornell University with an Advanced Management Programme from Harvard. 

Mallya's mother separated from his father when he was young and he lived with her in Bangalore, while his father lived with his second wife in Calcutta. Young Vijay longed for approval from his father, and though he never dreamt that he would be as rich one day, at some deep level he envied the Mercedes lifestyle of his father's new family. Could this be at the root of his flamboyant lifestyle and his spending money as if it was going out of style?

Ratan Tata parents too had a troubled marriage and he was brought by a loving grand mother. Though he must have been painfully shy and a loner - just as he is today, he would never have had to envy anyone for their wealth. He went to America for his education and while there, washed dishes, as he had very little money because of Reserve Bank restrictions then in force. He could of course have bought dollars in black, but did not do so, which speaks volumes for his personal values.

However there IS something the two share in common. Both Mallya and Tata never dreamt that they would be named the inheritors of their respective businesses. Both came to head their respective business because of  the lack of a male inheritor. Mallya's father had no son from his second marriage and his untimely death brought Vijay Mallya to the helm of the liquor business his father had created. JRD Tata was issueless and therefore groomed Ratan Tata to succeed him, though the latter never really imagined he would succeed JRD.

Our childhood and growing-up experiences leave a tremendous influence on our personalities. It would be interesting to speculate how the adolescent years of Vijay Mallya and Ratan Tata shaped their individual personalities.

But that of course, is the job of a psychologist.

References: Men of Steel by Vir Sanghvi and Internet sources

The Rewards of Paying Respect

A recent cartoon by Salam in the Economic Times shows a manager telling his boss, " We have arrived at a respectable compromise with the employees...they have given up their demand for a raise...in return for being treated with respect." The cartoonist neatly captures a profound workplace truth - that employees value being treated with respect more than money.

A variety of surveys show that workers want more than just monetary compensation. In their article in the  Journal of Economic Perspectives, Ellingsen and Johannesson  observe that "in particular, workers want a sort of appreciation and recognition from their employers that conveys respect" As a matter of fact, they report that, "workers sometimes respond negatively to  what they perceive as signs of disrespect, including intrusive managerial control and even, in some cases, monetary incentives." However, inspite of a substantial body of evidence to the contrary, employers insist in their belief that monetary compensation out beats any other form of reward. 

Dilip was one such client of mine who, inspite of my efforts to convince him to the contrary, insisted that monetary rewards were the best form of rewards for his employees. To find out just where the truth lay, I decided to conduct a survey of his employees which evaluated their ratings of five workplace factors; Self-fulfillment, Esteem,  Belongingness, Security, Physiological/Basic. To my no great surprise (but to Dilp's great astonishment), the majority of his employees top rated Esteem and Belongingness.

The lesson for employers - those who treat their employees with respect may find themselves in the situation depicted in Salams cartoon. But those who blend it with monetary rewards, are in store for even greater rewards- a highly motivated employee force!

Ref: Tore Ellingsen and Magnus Johannesson, Paying Respect, Journal of Economic Perspectives-Vol 21, Number 4-Fall 2007-pages 135-149

Elementary eh, my dear Holmes?

Lie to Me was a TV show on Star World that I loved to watch! It was about Cal Lightman, a genius psychologist  and founder of the Lightman group, who uses unusual techniques to arrive at the truth. One of the episodes was about a policeman who has been shot and rendered a quadriplegic - he could neither speak nor make any actions. Lightman shows him pictures of likely suspects and detects the answers by observing the cop's irises of the eye - they dilate on his recognizing his shooter's face.

I have personally found the science of Body language fascinating and of great use in my coaching practice, and the program was like a primer on micro expressions and also helped me revise my knowledge of the subject. When I coach (always face-to-face) I look out for different signs which can help me get a better understanding of the coachee's personality. The pitch and tone of voice in his speech, his facial expressions, hand-to-body gestures and body language are one set of signs I look out for. The others are around him and only need an awareness of their significance to add colour to the canvas of his personality. For instance, a cluttered table to me reflects the clutter in his mind.

What does this table suggest about the owner's personality?

This could mean two things - either he is disorganized in his ways or currently navigating through several decision making options. Also, how does he handle interruptions, how does he speak to people on the phone and why, what kind of books does he read? All these observations help me to get clues to his personality and draw up an approach to coach him.

Leaders too can gain from a knowledge of reading people - they can apply the insights gained through observing to improving their performance as leaders and to navigating the ever-present corporate politics. In our corporate lives, says Art Petty in his blogpost we spend a great deal of time struggling and striving to be heard and somewhere along the way, many of us forget how important it is to shut up, listen and importantly, to observe. How true!

He has some useful suggestions to make on how to watch and learn - the 'elementary' lesson Sherlock Holmes always needled his dear Watson on.

The Emotional Investment Finder

You are what your 

deep driving desire is,

As your desire is

so us your will,

As your will is

so is your deed,

As your deed is

so is your destiny

                  - Upanishads

Will stemming from desire, aka commitment, says Michael Neill, is that place inside ourselves, that recognizes the inevitability of creating any result we are willing to put 100% of our mental and physical energy into achieving. Will also calls for a deep driving desire - an emotional investment in the lengths one wishes to go in achieving the goals. A commitment born out of an emotional investment says, "I will get there or I will die trying" - and as much as it is one of the most powerful forces in the universe and one in which any one can tap into at any moment, simply by making the decision to do so.

But for J my client, this decision wasn't simple. Long on planning and short on commitment, at every one of our coaching sessions, he made enthusiastic plans and actions to achieve his goals - even making a careful note of them in his diary. However at the subsequent session, when I asked him about the action taken on his earlier commitments, he would have acted on none. On probing further, I discovered that he never referred to his diary to check on his commitments.

The challenge for me was to make J act on his commitment, but how? Just then I happened to came across a Michael Neill tip, which I thought with a little bit of tweaking, could help me push J across the chasm from interest to commitment. Based on the tip, I designed an exercise to help me evaluate his degree of commitment to achieving his goals, and called it The Emotional Investment Finder Scale  Here's a quick look at it from the bottom up:

Exercise

The Emotional Investment Finder

To achieve my goals, I commit to...

Want them

Choose them

Strive for them

Act on them

Give them priority

Honor them consistently

Find them satisfying/affirming/pleasing

Miss them when they are gone

Adhere to them under pressure

Uphold them when facing resistance or opposition

Sacrifice for them

Fight for them

Suffer for them

Working through the exercise helped J evaluate just how much his goals meant to him and the degree of  commitment he was willing to invest in achieving them. The exercise brought about a significant improvement  in his "actions done" rate.

What separates winners from losers?

What separates a winner from a loser? Does success mean owning things? How does it feel when you are doing what you like to do best? What does love mean?

Hear Paul Newman and Piper Lawrie talk about all these issues in this clip from the movie The Hustler. You could then reflect on, and interpret their conversation  within the framework of your own experience.

Hedgehog Concept II

Hemendra Kothari is an ace deal maker and a well respected millionaire stockbroker who founded  DSP Financial Consultants in 1975. He set up and chaired a joint venture with Merril Lynch and and sold the bulk of his stake to Merrill. In 2008 he formed a mutual fund joint venture with BlackRock Investments, in which he holds 60% stake. Now the Economic Times reports, that Kothari is toying with the idea of a second innings as a social entrepreneur. After having made a mark in the world of investment banking, how certain are the chances of success for Kothari in his new avatar?

Quite certain, claim people in the investment banking industry. Here's how Rajeev Gupta, an investment banker describes why his chances of success are high, "In every business, Hemendrabhai combines strategy, drive and ethics." And how exactly are these three factors important to his success? "The first two procure visible differentiation and the last a powerful employee commitment." Success, concludes Gupta  "invariably follows."

Hedgehog Concept II

I find the three factors of success cited by Gupta as universally true for every one of us who wishes to be successful in life and business. As a matter I would call it Hedgehog Concept II.

 A hedgehog concept, according to Jim Collins in his book Good to Great is "not a goal to be the best, it is an understanding of what you CAN be best at” The essence of a Hedgehog Concept is to attain piercing clarity about how to produce the best long-term results, and then exercising the relentless discipline to say, "No thank you" to opportunities that fail the hedgehog test. 

But once you have evaluated your opportunities through the filter of the three circles and found your sweet spot, it is time for the Hedgehog Concept II to kick in. 

The essence of a Hedgehog Concept II is to attain piercing clarity about how to produce the best long-term results (strategy), and then exercising the relentless discipline (drive) to say, "No thank you" (ethics) to opportunities that fail the hedgehog test.

Are you encouraging innovation in your company?

Yesterday my friend Shiva texted me the following joke:

Teacher: What is half of 8?

Student: Depends sir, if  cut horizontally into half, then its '0' and if vertically it is '8'!

The teacher fainted.

Researchers at the Wolverhampton University looking for the world's oldest jokes have found that jokes ancient and modern shared “a willingness to deal with taboos and a degree of rebellion.” Much the way the student did - no wonder the teacher fainted! 

Innovation like jokes, also requires a willingness to deal with taboos (out-of-the-box thinking) and a streak of rebellion (an ability to take risk). However, no innovation can be called an innovation unless its implemented because, as the graphic below shows, Implementation = Profits and Profits fuel Innovation. An unimplemented innovation remains a mere idea generating zero profit, instead it reduces the time spent on generating and vetting it as cost to the company.

Source: http://www.jpb.com/innovation/index.php

Recently, I happened to facilitate a team of key managers from an engineering company which was one of the oldest in its line of business, but getting battered by the competition. The MD wanted me to help them change their way of doing things. At one of the sessions the MD observed that one of the reasons the company was lagging behind was that few, if any, innovations were happening in the company. Based on this observation, we decided to form a cross-functional team that would work exclusively on innovation projects. However, a few months into the project, the MD suddenly decided that  as it was nearing the end of the sales year, all innovation projects were to be shelved and everyone was to focus only on completing the target. The Innovation projects went out of the window, and the last I knew, they have not been revived either.

The MD may have had his reasons for doing what he did, but imagine the consequences of his decision on his team. If  innovation was be a priority for the company, then the leader should have been communicating this message to his team in all possible ways. In this case, by taking a so called break on the innovation projects, he had sent a message to his team that the projects weren't important enough, generating sales was.

Change management requires several tasks to be done simultaneously. It is therefore very important that leaders drill into their managers that all change management tasks need to be done in addition to their day-to-day tasks. Not in exclusion, or one instead of another.

As the graphic above shows, successful implementation of innovation projects need to be powered by management. By taking his eyes off the "innovation ball", the MD had sent a silent message to his team about where his priorities lay.

PS If you are interested in creativity and innovation, you will find Jeffrey Baumgartner's website http://www.jpb.com//index.php very useful:

The checklist for change

Every evening for going to the gym, I fill my gym bag with two towels, a change of clothes, shoes, socks, and a bottle of drinking water. Every so often, I forget one or the other and have to either do a sweaty  workout (forgotten towel), or miss out on the steam and bath (forgotten bath towel). Now, to save me from the miseries,  I have put up a sticky note on the cupboard door with a checklist of all the things to be carried in the gym bag.

I am not particularly fond of checklists and tend to rely excessively on my memory - unreliable though it is. But reading Atul Gawande's book, The Checklist Manifesto, has been the trigger for change. The book’s main point is simple: no matter how expert you may be, well-designed check lists can improve outcomes. Checklists help foster communication, which in turn lead to teamwork. In a world of complex surgeries, there are so many details to focus on, it’s easy for errors to happen. Often  surgeons have to focus on their own responsibilities and trust that their colleagues are taking care of theirs. The checklist brings them all back to the same page; if nobody can proceed until it’s confirmed that a particular task has been performed, they’re forced to check in with each other. A BBC programme the other day had a doctor from a hospital in the UK recounting his experience of using the checklist. There were times, he said, when a surgeon forgot a swab inside a patient and risking his life considerably. Now, taking a count of the number of surgical swabs prior to, and post the operation, such mishaps have been completely eliminated. In the process, saving many a life - if not a malpractice suit! Even a simple thing like each person on the surgical team introducing himself/herself  to the others, has saved precious moments of time when a patient's life hung by a slender thread!

Personally, I have found the checklist a great tool in my change management projects. Such projects tend to be complex because you are not sure where and how exactly to begin the process. The checklist brings in the much required structure and rigor, providing clarity and saving me much time in laying out the road map for the project.

I have found the resources at ProSci BPR Online Learning Centre  particularly useful. Registering on the site makes you eligible for free tutorials and there are also several change management checklist you can download and use. Steve Banhegyi also has a very useful set of Leadership Checklists you can make use of.

Importance of values in our personal and professional lives

Becoming a leader, says Warren Bennis the leadership guru, is if not identical, similar to becoming a fully integrated human being. Leadership, says Bennis is about self awareness, as well as being aware of the effect of others. I have experienced the truth of Bennis' observation in my coaching practice where I adopt the 'whole person' approach.

A man they say is the sum of his parts and in the whole person model, we call these parts

1. The domain of self management
2. The domain of people management and
3. The domain of organization management

In my experience,  the best outcomes happen when we focus on the first, i.e. the domain of self management. This domain deals with values, attitudes, beliefs and emotional intelligence - the building blocks of self awareness. Once self awareness happens, it becomes much easier to deal with one's relationships and environment (aka organization). Of all the elements in the self management domain, I find working on  values  to be the most useful in getting a handle on one self. Unfortunately however, I find that values in the minds of most business leaders are something which are either too abstract, or thought to be  irrelevant. Why are values so important? 

Jack Welch's definition of values brings out their importance in the organizational context, as well as describes them best.  Values according to Welch, are just behaviors – specific, nitty-gritty, and so descriptive they leave little to the imagination. People must be able to use them as marching orders because they are the how of the mission, the means to the end -- winning. In other words, values are an organization's formula for winning in business. In fact, Welch thought values to be so important, that he developed a matrix of 4 types of managers -  those who lived by their values and those who didn't. Those who lived by them, could continue in his organization and those who did not, were summarily fired!

Thus managers falling in the Q2 and Q3 category, were to be fired, those in Q4 were to be coached and the ones in Q1 were considered invaluable. So invaluable,  that they were to be "handcuffed, making sure they did not leave the company for the next five years!"

Given this understanding and critical importance of values, it is not hard to understand the importance of their role in our personal lives too. Values are our personal formula to winning in life, and inventorying of our values gives us a deep insight into the moorings of our aspirations, and help us immensely in carving a solid goal plan to achieve them.

Here is what Mr A, the MD of a large chain of hospitals, wrote to me after  doing one such exercise,

" ...the coaching process that I went through with you was extremely useful in helping me to understand myself. It helped me to focus myself for the first time of the direction that I always wanted to take and it helped me to make a commitment to myself.  I am now very aware when I take any action as I go along and do question whether the action and outcomes are in sync with the goals that I set for myself."

On Humility

Recently at meeting with an HR head, the conversation veered to the subject of leadership and Jim Collins' take on it - specifically about his concept of  the Level 5 hierarchy of Leadership.

According to Collins,  Level 5 leadership is about humility and fierce resolve. These leaders manifest humility by routinely crediting others, the external factors and good luck with their companies success.But when results are poor they blame themselves.

However, the HR head thought differently. He believed there was no way that humility could be an essential ingredient to success as a leader. Though he did not say so explicitly, he probably meant that success as a leader breeds more arrogance than humility and is not necessarily a deterrent. So firm was in this belief, that he said he intended to do a PhD on the subject and prove Collins wrong! I daresay this observation and conviction left me bemused.

Soon after the meeting with the HR head, I came across an interesting insight on humility by Clayton M. Christiansen, the professor of Business Admin at Harvard University in the July-August issue of the HBR.. The professor had been invited to speak to the Class of 2010, because the financial meltdown had forced the students to recalibrate their careers in view of the changed business world they would be entering. In his talk, Professor Christiansen's  touched upon the importance of humility in the life of a successful leader. 

The professor began by asking all the students to describe the most humble person they knew. One characteristic of these humble people stood out: They had a high level of self-esteem. They knew who they were. The students also decided that humility was defined not by self deprecating behaviour or attitudes but by the self-esteem with which you regard others. "Good behaviour flows naturally from that kind of humility....Generally, you can be humble only if you feel good about yourself - and you want to help those around you feel really good about themselves too."

The HR head's take on humility had left me bemused  and wondering about the importance of humility in the success of a leader. The article helped me to place humility in context and realize the importance of  Jim Collins' findings of the attributes of a successful leader.

The theoretical aspects to Manmohan Singh's gut feel

At a recent lecture, to a question whether he was guided by theoretical reasoning as against gut feel, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh responded, " I have no definitive answer to your question whether I am guided by theoretical reasoning as against gut instinct"

He went on to qualify his statement by saying "Everybody who is in politics and seeks to influence economic policy and history has some notion about what is workable and feasible. He must have some theoretical perspective while formulating views. Whether it is good or bad, " said the good doctor, "will be judged by history."

A definitive theoretical reasoning, and the answer to Dr Singh's uncertainty lies in the Kolbs Learning Model. According to Kolb "learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping experience and transforming it." Let us look at some of the characteristics of experiential learning and see how they apply to the PM: 

• Learning is a continuous process grounded in experience.The Economic Times headlined the story with "Singh gets politician's tone" So the PM (in the eyes of the all-powerful media) has certainly learned well from his experiences!
• Learning requires the resolution of conflicts between dialectically opposed modes of adaptation to the world (learning is by its very nature full of tension). Dr Singh, who attained renown as an academician and a man most comfortable in the rarefied world of economic theories, was suddenly thrown into the hurly-burly of Indian politics. His growth as a politician called for his balancing what his heart and mind told him was good for the country, with the steep political cost it would entail. Dr Singh appears to have managed the tensions well - witness the passing of the nuclear deal in Parliament which meant his party had to make deals with unsavory political parties and elements. 
• Learning is a holistic process of adaptation to the world. From his comments and recent actions, the process of the PMs adaptation to the world of politics may not be complete, but he has adapted - and he has adapted well. (see above).

Based on the above characteristics, Kolb proposed a four stage learning cycle, which looks like this:

 This cycle gives rise to two continuum;

• The Processing Continuum: Our approach to a task, such as preferring to learn by doing or watching (the Active experimentation-Reflective observation axis)
• The Perception Continuum: Our emotional response, such as preferring to learn by thinking or feeling (the Abstract conceptualization-Concrete experience axis(

The PM's comment that one must have a "theoretical perspective while formulating views" clearly indicates his tilt toward the Perception continuum. As a man of compassion and learning coupled with his concrete experiences as the PM of a chaotic developing nation, does his statement at the lecture in Malaysia, indicate his coming of age as a politcian?

Time will tell.

The importance of social media to organizations

Yesterday was at a seminar hosted by SHRM on Social Networking is changing the way people manage their careers and organizations. The panelists; Mahesh Murty of Pinstorm, and Rajeev Dingra of WatConsult, expressed balanced views on both the upside and downside of the use, as well as the non-use, of social networking within organizations.

Mahesh described his company's use of two metrics, the Desirability Index (DI) and the Engagement Matrix. The first metric, the DI, was directly proportional to the number of times the company's name appeared in search results, and therefore indicated a prospective employee's interest in it. By inference, it served as a barometer to the company's popularity as an employer. An event like the publishing of a book Employees First Customers Second by Vineet Nayar, the CEO of HCL, propelled the DI of the company northwards, indicating its rise in rankings as an employer of choice.

On the other hand, the second metric, the EI, tracked and analyzed what people were talking about the company on various social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Social media have the power to transmit any view, either good or bad, extremely fast across the globe and therefore a company needs to be highly alert to what kind of conversations are going on about it. Prompt action in such matters as adverse reports about the company's products or services can help avert disastrous consequences. Obviously, both these metrics are critical in a company's recruitment efforts as well as, sales growth, and need to be monitred closely.

Rajiv on the other hand made the important point about how employers need to track what their employees are talking about the company on the social media networks.  Most importantly, Rajiv explained, used the right way, these networks can serve to alert employers about the gripes and complaints their employees are making on various company related matters. Employers responding promptly and sensitively to such feedback would be seen as caring employers, making social media powerful culture building tools..

A lively interaction with the audience by both panelists followed, which made the event even more interesting.

The Buddha's Eight Fold Path to Personal Success

The power of coaching lies in its individualization to the client needs.The coach needs to understand the coachee; his personality, his needs as well as his expectations. Having understood this, the coach then proceeds to create a customized approach to help the client move from where he is, to where he wants to be.

This will become clear from my experience with a client of mine. After having successfully managed the international interests of his family, he had handed over the reins to his brothers, and had taken to concentrating on investments and charity. He ran a well-managed charitable hospital for the poor in India, and also did a lot of good work in an African country  - his way of giving back to a country which was the source of all his wealth. 

For our first meeting, he invited me to London, where we had week-long coaching sessions. In his well-appointed office (he had the queen as neighbor!), hung a large portrait of Shiva and he always attributed everything that happened in his life to "the good Lord's wishes". Having observed this side of him, I began to think of ways to use this spiritual trait to hasten him towards the achievement of  the goals he had set for himself. The result was a worksheet - The Eightfold Path to Personal Success.

 Using the Buddha's Eightfold Noble Path as a template, I modified his eight original Right Paths

Source: http://brian.hoffert.faculty.noctrl.edu/HST330/13.IndianBuddhism.html

to Appropriate Paths to render them more practical to practice to make them look like this;

1. Appropriate Understanding
2. Appropriate Speech
3. Appropriate Livelihood 
4. Appropriate Concentration 
5. Appropriate Mindfulness 
6. Appropriate Effort  
7. Appropriate Action and 
8.  Appropriate Intention

I presented the worksheet to the client at our next session, telling him to read, contemplate and interpret the eight paths in his own life situations and implement them. The client was greatly impressed, and kept asking me where I got it from.

"From the Buddha," I replied. And I wasn't far from the truth. With the Buddha's blessings, the client benefited significantly from the contemporary rendering of his Eight Fold Path.

If you too wish to use the worksheet to help you carve your path to personal success, write to me and I'll send you a copy.

Why is the practice of leadership difficult?

More than 2,500 years ago, Sun Tsu, in his The Art of War, advised military leaders to "Know the enemy." In WW II, the German general Erwin Rommel did it so well, that he came within an inch of hammering the Allied British forces. On the other side of the enemy lines, the commander of the gun battery on the Dover cliffs knew his enemy too! Every night, during the war, a German boat from the other side of the channel would travel up the straits on a reconnaissance mission. The commander, knowing the Germanic trait of being methodical and disciplined, watched for a pattern to emerge. He soon realized that the boat would come around exactly at 10p.m. He would therefore set up his guns and be ready and waiting, and when it hove  into view - he would just blast it away!

So then, can the knowledge of military history and strategies, along with the study of Sun Tsu's Art of War and other writings on leadership, lead one to becoming a successful leader? Well yes, but only partly. 

The reason? Leadership is  a complex phenomenon.

Being a leader requires heavy lifting!

 But just how complex? Atul Gawande in his book, The Checklist Manifesto, describes 3 levels of complexity;

• At Level 1 are simple problems like baking a cake, you master the recipe, and you are ensured success.
• At Level 2 are complicated problems like sending a rocket to the moon. The special expertise, once learned, becomes replicable.
• At Level 3 are complex problems such as raising a child. Since every child is unique, outcomes are uncertain.

Leadership shares it complexity with parenting. Just as every child is unique, every leadership situation too is unique. And therefore, even though reams and reams have been written, researched and studied about the subject of leadership, its practice continues to create uneven outcomes.

Given the complexities of leading a business , business leaders have found a CEO coach to be a useful help in becoming better leaders. A coach can help leaders unravel the complexities, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and make the knowledge work to their advantage. As one of the business leaders I was coaching remarked," Uday,  after I have started  practicing my coaching commitments, I find my employees have a greater respect for me."

A respect born purely out of understanding and successfully working on his leadership potential.

Indian firms losing leaders!

There is worrying report in yesterday's Hindustan Times, a B-school study shows that there is a serious downfall of leadership in Indian companies.

The findings of the study, conducted by Pune's Symbiosis indicate that in the past two years, a lot of people in leadership roles at all levels, have either switched jobs or been laid off. When such roles are offered to existing employees, they find excuses to reject the offer. The reason? Lack of investment  by Indian companies in grooming them to become leaders and bringing in people from outside to fill leadership roles.As a direct result of their neglect of developing and investing in the potential of their own employee, they find themselves low on confidence in taking on leadership roles.

According to Mr K.S. Subramanian, the director of Symbiosis, neglecting to groom employees to become leaders results in them display  'stopping behaviour' where their mindset stops growth. "The self awareness to rise up the ranks is missing," says the director.

As an Executive/CEO coach, I have noticed this neglect of grooming employees for leadership roles at first hand. A few companies who do invest, do so on the conduct of training programs, the objectives and design of which are little related to leadership grooming.

As an Executive/CEO coach, my prime objective is to build my client's self awareness by offering a mirror to himself . I do this by initiating the coaching process with a focus on Leading the Self. Only after this do I move on to the other two leadership domains - Leading the People and Leading the Organization. This inside-out approach proves extremely valuable in enlarging the self-awareness of clients, and helps them engage better with their external world .

One of my clients after a coaching session, said to me, "Uday I realize now that I have been spending only 0.5% of my time on my most important priority - communicating my vision to my team!" 

Imagine what that one single insight can do to a leaders effectiveness!

How good are you at reading the pulse of your employees?

In his book, author Alfie Kohn, relates an interesting tale of an elderly man who had endured the insults of a crowd of 10-year-olds every day as they passed his house on the way home from school.One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the following day and shouted rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth.