Celebrate Both Success and Failure

"In our culture deck, which I like to show to a new team member coming in...one of the main things we talk about is not celebrating," says Siminoff (founder of startup Ring). "I see these startups celebrating every new funding round, and the reality is that there are always bad things that are going to happen to your business. I think it's really important to keep the team realistic." - Anna Hensel in Inc.

Insight
Not celebrating is overdoing things. Both failure as well as success need to be viewed realistically, so why not celebrate ‘learning’ in failure and a ‘job well done’ in success?

Busting Productivity Myths

Popular productivity myths busted:
+ Long to-do lists change unconsciously to “what we haven't done lists,” creating stress and anxiety.  Switch to a positive ‘done list’. Makes you feel good about yourself

+ Focus on failure rather than success so that you can identify threats to your success in time.

+ When you have a problem, talk to a rubber duck. Stating the problem loud, organises and simplifies information & engages more parts of your brain. Besides, the duck won't interrupt, yawn or say he's too busy.
                                     -  in.askmen.com

Insight
Bust the myths, face reality!

Dealing with Crisis

The ban on Maggi noodles resulted in Nestlé’s first loss in 17 years. But MD Suresh Narayanan believes a crisis is a blessing in disguise, and the best opportunity to recalibrate, redefine, reenergise and refocus yourselves.

Insight
Good times or crisis, sorrow or happiness, rich or poor are all states of mind and how we deal with the times separates the men from the boys (and girls from women too!).

Picture: applied neuroscience blog

See the Vision, Feel the Vision

In July ‘15, Bill McDermott CEO, SAP, met with an accident and lost the vision in one of his eyes. He is now back at the helm and says, “I am living proof that vision is not what you just see but it's what you feel and how you make other people feel.”

Insight
To the leader's mind’s eye, the promised land he wants to take his flock to, is clearly visible. But it is  only when he FEELS the promise of the destination he is leading them to, that he can carry his people with him.

Mantras for Cultural Transformation

Suresh Narayanan, MD Nestlé India has a simple mantra:
1. Be Fast - Be empowered & take a few risks
2. Get Focused- Know what you do well & not ape what others are doing
3. Be Flexible - In terms of market outcome, future MS & evolution
He believes by unleashing these three behaviors into the business, it can be run better & can come up with newer, more compelling business models for the future.

Insight
Behaviours are useful tools for cultural transformation in an organisation as they are observable and measurable. Being aligned to the organizational vision, they also help to institute a mindset change.

Innovation Has Many Faces

Do we have original innovation in India? Snapdeal’s Kunal Behl, when asked this question, says innovations in India are unique to the country's challenges. To prove his point, he cites the instance of innovations made around digital payments, supply chain and platforms to cater to the multilingual nature of our country.

Insight
Innovation has many dimensions. An innovative product or service does not necessarily have to be globally unique or globally applicable. More important, focus on innovation should be around making social and environmental context specific systems and processes more efficient.

How to Make Life Easier

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey runs two companies and has an 18-hour workday. He says, a consistent schedule and work structure helps him achieve this. Most of his work is focused on:
1. Reviewing the product team
2. Recruiting
3. Follow-up meetings to check on their weekly progress

Insight
Time cannot be managed, more correctly, you manage yourself. Long hours don't translate into more productivity - a consistent schedule and structure does. This makes life easier for both for the leader, as well as  those who execute his vision.

When Profession Becomes Slavery

“If your profession doesn't give you a chance to evolve as a human being, then it is a burden or a curse for life. It should be able engage you intellectually. I think if your work doesn't help you grow as a person, it is slavery.“ - Irrfan Khan, Actor

Insight
When your work stops becoming engaging and emotionally satisfying, it is time to have a rethink about your future. Time to break free, to have a fresh purpose in life.

The Periodic Stock Take

“The important things in my life are my relationships and well-being, where I am going as a human being in my development mentally, emotionally and physically” - Cameron Diaz, Actress

Insight
The ebb and flow of our relationships and fortunes have an effect on our emotional and physical well-being and can either grow, or hinder our mental development. Are the changes transient, or are they permanent?  Are they controllable, or are they uncontrollable?
Taking time-off for a periodic stocktaking can prove useful.

Work-Life. Or Just Life?

Are work and life two separate compartments? Do we need to maintain separate personal life-professional life lists? TCS chief N Chandrasekaran doesn't think so. He believes you have to keep a very simple priority list and keep it short. This, he says, makes life easier. His list comprises building a strong team and long-distance running, music and photography his interests.

Insight
Life's priorities can be sliced in many ways - there is no one best way to it. Just do what you feel comfortable doing.

Design life with Coach Uday.
Connect uday@arurbizcoach.com

Choosing Life Priorities

“.... a third measure of success that goes beyond the two metrics of money and power, and consists of four pillars: well-being, wisdom, wonder, and giving."
Together, those factors help you to take care of your psychological life and truly be successful….” - Arianna Huffington, Author and Columnist

Insight
This realisation dawned on Huffington after collapsing from overwork chasing money and power. Clarity on life's priorities usually comes after undergoing a life threatening experience. And that is something we understand only intellectually but fail to act on in time.

Tactical Withdrawal in Business

“You have to try different things & you define time frames within which you get to a certain milestone. And if you don't, it's OK to drop them and move to the next one.” Rishad Premji, Chief Strategy Officer WIPRO

Insight
Launching, and then withdrawing a project/product/service, is a difficult decision for leaders - it's a public sign of failure & their ego is on the line. Defining time frames & milestones, & withdrawing if the goals are not met, displays leadership maturity. E.g. Ola is to shut down its struggling grocery division barely a year into its launch as it failed to meet expectations.

The Scopes of Leadership

A leader needs many tools to be successful in our volatile world at the same time - a telescope, a microscope and a stethoscope. A telescope to view disruptive forces, a microscope to see the near term shocks and opportunities and a stethoscope to maintain their organisational health. - Noshir Kaka, MD McKinsey India

Insight
Each of us is a leader managing three dimensions of leadership:
1. Leading Oneself
2. Leading People and
3. Leading  the organisation
Each instrument has to be used discriminately & in the right context. Each plays out differently & with different levels of dominance at every level of the organisation.

Respect The Hierarchy

Tony Fernandes, Group CEO of Airasia says he makes it a point to be accessible to his staff. He recounts how a flight staff came up to him at Bengaluru and said,”Hey look,I have some issues. Can you look at it?’

Insight
In 2011, Airasia's employee force was 5000+, it may be more now. If every employee looks up to the CEO, and not his immediate superior for sorting issues, not only does he get overburdened with operational matters, but more critically, senior managers become less accountable, they also lose their morale because the dignity and sanctity of the hierarchy have not been respected.

Realising Individual Abilities

The symbol of infinity (a horizontal number 8) represents the loci of two energies, spiritual and physical, that meet in the middle at the point, the point around which energy flows. - V. N. Mittal in the Speaking Tree

Insight
The first of the two energies - the spiritual, represents the energy born of inner knowing and awareness, the second, the physical, is the energy born of the resultant behavior and actions. The two in right balance, provide the strength to realise our individual abilities.

Change or Perish

“Jack (Welch) was a great CEO, but he really controlled his world. Those days are over. I’m in the risk-management business. You’re not in the control business today, you’re in the risk-reward business.” - Jeff Immelt, CEO GE

Insight
The accelerating impact of technology on the natural forces of market competition are taking the world by storm & the unconventional business model adopted by Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp of: get users, get them to use more of your product/service & then make money is difficult for traditional businesses to understand, says Uday Kotak. “As a banker, when I sleep at night, I worry about whether I’ll have a bank next morning, or will there be an Ali Bank or a Flipkart bank or some other bank doing  what we do.” he says.

Jeff Immelt & Kishore Biyani's no risk, no reward attitude of reinventing yourself is the way forward.

Be Your Own Judge

“If you want to get rid of being judged for being a man or a woman, Indian, or American, Brown or Caucasian, you need to to be your own judge and set your own benchmark. I have kept my head down and worked very hard. Eventually people get impressed by your dedication and calibre more than anything else.” - Actor Priyanka Chopra

Insight
More often than not in India, Browns bow to the Whites out of a colonial hangover and women bow to men out of a cultural hangover. Stop comparing yourself with the rest and focus on excelling in whatever you do.

Being Relevant

“There are no small roles, only small actors,” said Boman Irani to fellow actor Sonam Kapoor. And that made her realise that she needs to make herself relevant in everything she does and to constantly prove her relevance.

Insight
To evolve, to keep up with the times, give everything you do your 100% and being resilient, keeps you relevant.

Amitabh Bacchan was out in the filmdom wilderness when he decided to do television, which other film actors had up till then shunned as a comedown. And that became his platform for his bounce back into films.

What’s your take on making yourself relevant?

Defining Success

Naveen Jain is serial entrepreneur whose company Moon Express, is the first private company to land a spacecraft on the moon. Talking about when customers don't come on board easily, he says, “...Your success is not about your bank balance, it is about how many lives you have touched.”

Insight
One of the most critical task in today's materialistic times where the money god seems to have the largest following, is to define what success means to YOU personally. Here are 9 ways incredibly successful people define success.

http://tinyurl.com/jv5p2sv

The 10/90 Leadership Rule

10% of leadership has to do with your DNA. 90% has to do with how you use the right combination of what you have, into behaviours to suit your work context.

A Leadership Coach can assist you in putting together your very own leadership recipe through creating awareness of your potential and modeling it for success.

Dealing With The Uncontrollable

There are some people who are fated to play second fiddle, - eg Shashi Kapoor to Big B, Ronaldo to Messi, & Djokovic to Federer, says sportswriter Akshay Sawai. Bonafide achievers all, but nevertheless not the public's first choice. Djokovic initially  hated the feeling & displayed his ire to the partisan crowds, having taken to yoga and meditation & eating goji berries, he now merely smiles at them.

Insight
Life sometimes throws situations at us that we can neither fight, nor understand why they happen. To deal with such times, each of us has to arrive at his own mix of coping responses.

Showing Care And Concern

When an Air Asia plane flying from Indonesia to Singapore crashed in 2014, Group CEO Tony Fernandes, unmindful of the advice of his lawyers, felt that as the face of the brand, it was imperative that he had to be with the airline staff, and most importantly, considered it his responsibility to be there for the relatives of the victims.

Insight
When leaders display concern and care for their staff and customers, they reciprocate by becoming more trusting and forgiving of the leader and the company.

Creating Your Own Leadership Framework

“Great leaders complicate leadership development. The sheer volume is overwhelming, and the lessons that emerge from one leader’s experience may be completely inapplicable to another’s”. - McKinsey research

Insight
Leadership material is voluminous and other's experiences are not transferable. So how do you develop your leadership skills? Inner engineering by yourself. Here's how:
1. Understand your work context,
2. Inventory your strengths & choose the the ones the ones to use/build,
3. Define your values & set boundaries,
4. Examine & reset your paradigms
5. Create own leadership framework

Or, #Connect2Coach.

The Warm Leadership Style

A growing body of research by Amy Cuddy and her colleagues suggests that the way to influence—and to lead—is to begin with warmth. Warmth is the conduit of influence: It facilitates trust and the communication and absorption of ideas. Even a few small nonverbal signals—a nod, a smile, an open gesture—can show people that you’re pleased to be in their company and attentive to their concerns.

Insights
Prioritizing warmth as your leadership style helps you connect immediately with your people, demonstrating that you hear them, understand them, and can be trusted by them.

Mindfulness Practice

“When asked which leadership tools they aim to develop, most MBA students list “practical skills” as highest on their priority lists. We have found that understanding oneself, one’s triggers, and one’s emotions through mindfulness & meditation enhances one’s ability to master these concrete skill sets”. - Yael Shy in Harvard Business Review

Insight
Practical skills call for good judgment in action, conduct, & the handling of everyday matters. Mindfulness helps us to concentrate on the here & now, become more aware of how matters affect us, & learn to change the way they relate to our inner self.

Making Winning a Habit

“I work everyday,  and my ambition is just to do something better than I last did.“ - Author Patti Smith

Insight
When competing with ourselves, there are two voices within us which are clamouring for our attention. One cheers you on as a winner and the other boos you down as a loser. Who wins?  The one you CHOOSE to listen to.

Choosing a Niche

Dr. SC is a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) practitioner in Singapore. He is 85 years old and his clinic always full of patients. He remembers not only the names and combinations of hundreds of herbs and things that go into TCM, but also the names of every one of his patients.

Dr RC, his 40 year old daughter who practices in the neighbouring clinic. She specialses in acupressure, saying  TCM calls for a good memory - and she doesn't have one.

Insight
Focusing on a niche skill to overcome one's weakness is a good career choice. Or is it?

What do you think?

Goals Require Accountability

“Weight loss goals are never achieved just by getting on the scale. Similarly, thinking about NPS as simply a score, without changing the way you actually do business, will never improve customer loyalty.” - Cvetilena Gocheva

Insight
Goal achievement begins with intention but produces intended results only with a planned and consistent change in the way we have been doing things.

Obvious? Yes, but also a reality many of us on the goal achievement path are oblivious to.

Become accountable #Connect2Coach

The Enlightened Leadership Dynamic

“Our greatest hope as leaders of this country is not to go down in history as the best ever. Our aim is to go down in history (as having helped)  Singaporeans to stand tall and see further.” - Singapore Labour chief Chan Chun Sing

Insight
Our personal philosophy of leadership is a dynamic and constantly evolving journey from self interest to enlightened self interest. An ultimate state, where our self-interest lies in furthering the interests of others.

How well are you dealing with the leadership dynamic?  #Connect2Coach

Collaborative Leadership

A man once asked Pablo Picasso why all his art was so screwed up? Why didn't he paint reality instead of these distortions? Hesitating for a moment, Picasso asked, “So what do you think reality looks like? “
Showing him a picture of his wife, the man said, “Like this. It's my wife. “
“Really?” said Picasso, “She's very small. And flat too. “

Insight
Reality is subjective. Encouraging open discussion, leaders can surface  the subjective realities of their team and uncover new perspectives. By incorporating the suggestions & addressing the objections, the decision becomes a commitment to action.

Life Choices

Bookmyshow's founder-CEO Ashish Hemrajani believes, "Ambition is a positive energy.  Desire can be unrelenting. I still live in the same house,  work from the same office and I am pretty much the same man I used to be when I started off 16 years ago."

Insight
"Don't give money way too much power over your life. It's not about how much you make, but the life that you make with the money you have. “ is an advice Suze Orman, TV financial guru says, she would have appreciated when she was 22.

What are the life choices you have made? How well have the served you?

The Art of Change Management

“Like old masonry buildings—such as the Musée d’Orsay in Paris ...that have new glass & steel added to their existing structures, today’s leading companies must integrate the contrasting elements of stability and speed to create a more functional, modern whole.” de Smets et al, McKinsey Quarterly

Insight
Change management is an art akin to the 4 arts of music. Thus you:
INTERPRET what needs to remain unchanged to provide stability & what needs to change to provide speed of customer response
ARRANGE priorities
COMPOSE change activity and
IMPROVISE along the way
Let the music begin!

What's your insight?

Feel For Your Customer

Hard-sell  morticians at the China Dragon Garden graveyard in suburban Beijing set up hundreds for gravestones bearing the names (living) local residents in gold letters. Sales staff would show residents their names, saying, “Look! That could be you.”

Insight
Being close to your product is good, and creative marketing even better, but not at the cost of distancing yourself from customer sensitivities. Know your customer, feel for your customer. #KnowYourself #Connect2Coach

The Advantages of Setting A Range of Goals

“It's impractical to have a growth target being a number. A range is more practical. It gives more room for policymakers to exercise their creativity boost the economy” - Iris Pang, Greater China Economist

Insight
An important objective in setting goals is to make them both challenging and attainable. Emerging evidence suggests that shifting from single number goals to high-low goals offers an increased advantage.
For instance, the impact of being set a high-low goal on members’ sustained motivation to pursue their goal was striking. Only half assigned a single number weight loss goal persisted with the longer-term target, but nearly 80% of those assigned a high-low range weight loss goal did.

Don't Take Your Success For Granted

“We aced at everything, creating products and designing them etc. Going in, I thought, that was it, that’s all we needed. Marketing, HR, and media relations were all BS. How I was proved wrong. Having a great product will not sell itself.” - Rahul Yadav at IIT E-summit 2016

Insight
On his desk, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz keeps a bottle of Mazagran, a carbonated coffee drink he introduced in 1994, and which failed to sell.

When riding waves of success remembering our past failures can serve us well.
#KnowYourself #Connect2Coach

The Positive Energy Within

“Unpark your life. Let your inner you out to play. Stop what you are doing. And just go.” - Ad for the Subaru XV

Insight
There is a powerful source of positive energy within all of us, and when you have an awareness of that, you can consciously allow that energy to flow freely through you and apply it to whatever you are doing.
#KnowYourself #Connect2Coach

Elevating Your Storytelling

“Elevate your storytelling from just a taxi ride to the story of life and its meaning….While Uber is about transportation you can still inspire people with a good story”. - Uber founder Travis Kalanick

Insight
The key to a compelling story begins not by asking , “What's my product?” but by asking yourself, “What business am I really in?  What am I passionate about?” When your true passion becomes the subject of your communication, it serves to truly inspire your audience.
#KnowYourself #Connect2Coach

Your Life Plan Should Evolve

We have to find our own way forward. There is no perfect model that can imported and therefore rather than strive for “unworkable perfection” from day one, Singapore opted to let it's political system evolve to suit it's unique needs. - Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, referring to the country's Constitution

Insight
Rather than live life on borrowed templates, continuously evolve your life plan, and customise it to suit your particular needs and circumstances.
#KnowYourself #Connect2Coach

Simplifying Complexity

“If I look at the mass I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.” —Mother Teresa

Insight
The problem in decoding complexity is because we want to find the perfect solution in one step. Take a step back, find out what you have to do and start by restraining yourself within the limits of your comprehension and doability.”

The Voices in Our Heads

We have two very basic forms of thought: System 1 and System 2.
System 1 is intuitive, instinctual and automatic, makes us prone to look for patterns to better understand our world, and to seek meaning in events.
System 2 is the voice in our head – the narrator who never seems to shut up – that enables us to plan and think logically.

Insight
The first voice is that of our biases that have to be questioned, and the second the voice of our instincts that have to be evaluated and critically examined. Both require a deep dive within and thoughtful reflection.
#KnowYourself  #Connect2Coach

Filter for Leadership Ideas

“This consuming interest in leadership and how to make it better has spawned a plethora of books, blogs, TED talks, and commentary. Unfortunately, these materials are often wonderfully disconnected from organizational reality and, as a consequence, useless for sparking improvement.” - Jeffrey Pfeffer, McKinsey Quarterly

Insight
Ideas for sparking improvement of your leadership style need to be curated using a two level filter system:
Are they relevant to your organizational reality and context?
Do they feel a comfortable fit with who you are and where you want to go?
#KnowYourself   #Connect2Coach

A Career That Excites

“I wake up every day excited and daunted by all we have to do here at Instagram.” Instagram COO Marne Levine, to a question whether she would go back to her previous role in the government.

Insight
Without challenges, the work we do becomes routine and unexciting. If the challenge is that the work itself appears boring and holds no excitement for you, it is time to rethink your purpose and life goals. #Connect2Coach

Baseline Leadership Qualities

“Our human resource system must recognize people who are able to exercise judgement, who know when it is time for man or woman to make rules. This involves courage, heart, purity of intentions and a very human touch.” Ong Ye Kung, Minister, Singapore.

Insight
This list of baseline leadership qualities is a handy checklist for anyone aspiring for a leadership position. Discover,  Develop, Demonstrate your leadership strengths. #Connect2Coach

Picture: People Matters

Energy of Motivation

“Success is never owned; it is only rented -- and the rent is due every day.” - Author Rory Vaden

Insight
Success can either inflate our ego, or it can inflate our motivation to do even better. The first is least desirable.  The second, motivation, can create positive energy which should go into defining new priorities that emerge from the strength and the consequences of the success to create a new balance. #Connect2Coach

The Art of Leadership

"The art of leadership is not to spend your time measuring, evaluating. It’s all about selecting the person. And if you believe you selected the right person, then you give that person the freedom, the authority, the delegation to innovate and to lead with some very simple measure.” - Pierre Nanterme, CEO Accenture.

Insight
As a leader how much do you trust yourself to trust your people? How much do you trust yourself to tell your people what to do and let them do it their way?

Your Paths to Happiness

Seven years ago, Adam Newman, co-founder & CEO, WeWork weighed 30 pounds less, smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day and his hands used to shake. Then he met his present wife, who told him he didn't understand life - he was chasing money, which was never going to work. And even if it did come, he would never be happy. Instead, she told him, he should be chasing happiness.

Insight
Yogic tradition teaches that the four desires, Purpose, Prosperity, Pleasure and Spiritual fulfilment are the basis for all human happiness. What paths to happiness have you chosen within each desire? Connect2Coach

A Leader's Most Powerful Weapon

After reviewing the lives of 11 leaders, from Margaret Thatcher to Martin Luther King, Jr.,Harvard social scientist Howard Gardner concluded that the single most powerful weapon in the leader’s literary arsenal, was their ability to communicate a compelling story, “narratives that help individuals think about and feel who they are, where they come from, and where they are headed.”

Insight
As a leader, what narratives are you paying attention to, and communicating to your people? How do you collect the stories you want to tell? What forums have you created to share them? #Connect2Coach

Picture: Bates Communication

Becoming Exceptional

One of CEO of WeWork Adam Neumann’s earliest mentors told him, “I expect you to be a great husband, then a great father, then a great friend, then a great leader and then a great entrepreneur. And if you do all these together, this is what exceptional people do.“

Insight
To be exceptional you have to manage two things exceptionally;
1. Your intention
2. Not your time, but your energy,
#Connect2Coach

Wise Business Budgets

TaxiForSure founder Aprameya Radhakrishna believes the first half of 2015 saw a lot of money being poured into startups by investors. The plenty made startups splurge on things. Now with some biggies questioned on their spends, there is an overall correction.

Insight
In good times companies spend indiscriminately on initiatives, but when a slowdown hits, there is indiscriminate cost slashing. By making sure their today’s ‘Now’ is positioned in the long-term trajectory of organizational purpose, they can make sure to put the right resources behind where they want to head. #Connect2Coach

The Soft Side of Leadership

SoftBank president Nikesh Arora’s corporate identity has been of a no-nonsense high achiever who valued his privacy. However, at a recent business awards ceremony, Arora, held his wife's hand through much of the evening. And when it was his turn to speak, he choked up talking about his ailing father and family.

Insight
When a leader reveals his soft human side, people warm to him. Displaying vulnerability is as much required of a leader,  as showing the strong invincible side. The wisdom of leadership lies in knowing when.

Caring Leadrship

Mitu Chandilya, CEO, Air Asia India, left early from a recent business awards ceremony held in Mumbai. The reason? His people in Delhi, were having to cope with the problem of delayed flights due to the fog, and he wanted to offer them a much needed morale boost.

Insight
Not big gestures, but little ones like Chandilya’s go a long way to increase a leader's Personal #Leadership Power. They cost nothing, but show his human, caring side.
What does the Leader In You demonstrate to people? #CoachConnect

Each of Us Is Different

A post on Linkedin asks people to give an advice in 4 words. In the 3 months it's up, it has received 4000+ responses, each in some ways different from the rest. Presuming 20% of the messages may have had similar advice, that's a huge 3000+ different pieces of advice!

Insight
Life teaches us different lessons and shapes each of us differently. Reason a coach suspends judgement to look at the world from the coachee’s perspective. He brings to the coachee’s world an eye trained to spot gaps in her thinking. The coachee’s world does not change, but the coach has provided new eyes to look at it.