Any Time Is Good Time For Change!

Navratilova was arguably the best tennis player ever to step on the court, amassing an unmatched number of professional records over the course of a career that spanned an amazing four decades. She won 59 Grand Slam crowns, a record 9 Wimbledon singles champions, and overcame the odds to become both one of the most successful tennis players ever and an equally successful leader. In her life, both on and off the court, the secret of her super success has been - never be afraid of change. And she has practiced this all her life.

In 1982, Navratilova was in the middle of a winning streak and unbeaten going to the French Open, when she discovered the metal racket. "Why change when you're winning?" someone asked her. "That's not the point, this is a much better racket," she replied. She won the French Open.

Another important lesson Navratilova points to - the responsibility for change rests with oneself. Like for instance, responsibility of changing the strategy that doesn't work for you. "The mark of a champion is how good you are at your worst" she says, and she speaks from experience. Navratilova was 32 when Steffi Graf defeated her in 1988 and 1989 in Wimbledon. Watching the tapes later, Navratilova realized something wasn't quite right. Her footwork was the old-fashioned cross-step and she needed to change it to a different outside step. "After 26 years, I had to learn to do it a different way...completely rewire my brain. I had to adapt."

So how does one rewire and adapt? Here are the four steps to change:

1. Awareness of the need for change: This is critical, as without awareness, no change can happen. For Navratilova, it was her shock defeats in succession by Steffi Graf which brought about this awareness. Once awareness has been created and our intention to change has gathered strength, the next step is...

2. Knowledge on how of change: For Navratilova, the knowledge on what and how to change came from watching her game videos. This made her realize that she needed to change her footwork. Business leaders can begin by asking themselves, "which habits keep me from achieving my goals effectively?" This calls for a lot of reflection and even asking people for feedback and help.

3. Ability to implement required skills and behaviors: Very often, what keeps us from developing our ability to implement required skills and behaviours is a sense of being overwhelmed by the difficulty of doing it. For this Navratilova has a piece of advice, "You don't get to the top automatically. You take one step at a time. Each daily goal is a rung on a step ladder", she says. Every day, little by little, is manageable and you don't get overwhelmed by the big goal.

4. Reinforcement to sustain the change: Once our goal of change has been achieved, it needs to be reinforced. Remember, change is an ongoing process, so you need to monitor, assess and reflect continuously in order to sustain the improvement.

Call to Action

Personally dealing with change is one thing. As a business leader helping your people deal with change is another. Ask yourself:

  -What are you doing as a leader to anticipate change?
  -What are you doing to stay current with new market trends?
  -What are you doing to encourage and help your employees  upgrade their skill\s and knowledge?

Use the same four steps above to arrive at your answers.

A Coachee's Improvement Log Page #2

Reading through this page from a client's notes, you would be surprised at how obvious and simple some of the points noted are. This then is the power of coaching - bringing the obvious in plain view and most important, creating an awareness about the need for change.

The Continuous Improvement Process

"We should properly train ourselves for professional methods of marketing. Attend the inquiries properly, meet customers queries, educate them about plus points of our products. Follow up in a decent manner and obtain orders from clientele. Involvement of all staff is important. *Introduction of incentives is a good step in this direction.(1) Share the information about progress with staff and let them be partners in the growth.(2)"

"Action steps

1. What: Prepare the cost and price statements with all data on competitors

          Action: 

•   List incoming cost and outgoing prices
•   To change the style of marketing meetings - the results should be important.

         By When: Immediate"

*1,2: My comments: These were the 'eureka'  moments for the the client

1. Client used to give rewards randomly i.e. whenever he felt someone had done his job well. This was good leadership quality, I remarked and related an incident from the life of Alexander to reinforce my point (link http://managementnotes.blogspot.com/2011/07/7-leadership-lessons-from-alexander.html). Then I proceeded to suggest to him that linking the rewards to certain specific actions, targets and objectives would prove more effective.
2. Client was of the opinion that it made no sense to share information on sales achieved and y-on-y or q-on-q growth. I was pleasantly surprised to see he had included this point in his recap 

A Coachee's Improvement Log Page #1

After every coaching session, my coaching clients write a log of the awareness created, clarity, and learning during that session.They also commit to actions they will take as a result of the new knowledge, which serves as an action review template for the next session. Reproduced below, with the client's permission,  is page # 1 from a coachee's session log. His priority was to improve his Customer Service for which I employed the learning methodology of See, Plan, Do, Check and Fix model (see visual). The process was not linear and I went with the flow of the client's thought processes. 

SESSION COACHING OUTCOMES

Session #1                   Date: XX/XX/2011

My Awareness-Action Cycle

• I need to properly encourage staff members and middlemen to find out ways to improve sales and after-sales services. 
• I need to give more attention to incoming inquiries, attend them in an improved manner and do something positive to generate good business.
• There are areas which need my personal attention.
• Marketing should be given more time and attention.

Next Steps

1. What : To discuss with staff  

    Action: Ways to improve sales

    By when: This week

2. What: Reports

    Action: Improve management reports and implementation

    By When: Today

3. What: Follow-up personally

    Action: Attend sales inquiries personally

    By When: This week

4. What: TimeManagement

    Action: Find ways to save time

    By When: Immediate

How the Coach Helped the "Keen to Grow" Butterfly

The Monarch butterflies are great performers - every year they travel vast distances of upto 2000 miles! During their migration they cover upto 50 miles per day and they travel at speeds of upto12 miles per hour! Now why do you think the Monarch butterflies perfom this stupendous feat? Beacuse they have been doing so for generations. But there was this one ambitous Monarch who wanted to do more. He had four burning desires;

1. To learn new skills
2. To perform better.
3. To develop himself and
4. To reflect on  what he did.

He wondered who could help him fulfil his heart-felt desires, till one day he read (he was the reading sort, as you can see) about how coaches help people who desire to excel. So he checked out the various coaches featured on Linkedin and landed up at one who he thought could help him the most.  The coach was busy, but noticing the eagerness in the eyes of the Monarch and the determined flutter of his wings, he decided to listen to what the butterfly had to say to him. The Monarch explained the purpose of his visit and began by describing about the annual migratory habits of his species, he told him how they had been doing so for generations, and how he wanted to go about it not by instinct, but in a planned and well thought out fashion. Through all this, the coach had said not word, but the Monarch noticed that he had an encouraging smile on his face as if to say 'Go on, tell me more!" 

And so the Monarch proceeded to ask the coach his first question; "I want to hover in the air like a hummingbird so that I can survey the terrain better!"

The coach smiled, and asked him,

"And how soon would you like to fly like a hummingbird?

"Who could help you with it?"

"What's your action plan?"

"When are you going to start?" 

The coach's questions had the Monarch thinking, he realized he had never really thought about his desires in this way! And so he proceeded to ask his second question, "I want to fly higher, better and more efficiently!"

And the coach responded,

"How high exactly would you like to be flying?'

"What techniques are you using at the moment to achieve that height?"

"What other techniques are there, which you haven't tried yet?"

"And what else could you do to acheive that height even faster?"

"OK. Now show me what your action plan is, how you're going to measure your progress and what you'll do when things get tough." 

With every question the coach asked him, the Monarch was beginning to think of his issues in ways he had never before done! He was starting to get clarity about his priorities! And so the Monarch proceeded to ask the coach the third question. "I want to take the next step."

And the coach said,

"So, you want to be hummingbird? Cool! What can you do now to make that happen?"

"And what else?"

"And how are you going to get those things you say you need?"

"How else?"

"When I look at a hummingbird I see feathers, and when I look at you I don't see any feathers...(silence)...To what extent are feathers neccessary?" And how are you going to solve that?"

The Monarch was now in deep thought, slowly a plan for achieving his desires was beginning to form in his mind, but he still had one more question to ask him and he proceeded to do so, "I wonder," he said, "whether butterfly-ing is all there is, and whether I functions as I should?"

And the coach replied,

"Whether this is all there is" and "Do I function as I should?" are two different questions. Which question would you like to focus on today?

"Suppose you have the answer to that question: how does that feel?

"What is the effect of having answered it?"

"What has changed?"

And finally, the pieces began to fall in place for the Monarch. He had the answers to his questions for the fulfillment of his burning desires - and he had thought all of them himself! The coach had offered him no solutions for fulfilling them, but what he had done was far more invaluable - through his powerful questions, the coach had provided, 

• a higher and deeper perspective to his thinking,
• an objectivity to his assumptions and
• clarity about his priorties for achieving his dream of excelling at all the things which he had up to now, done only by instinct. 

Going to the coach was like going to a mental gym, the ambitous Monarch had come out stronger and well-toned in his thinking and raring to go out in the woods and put his plan into action!

He said a heartfelt thank you to the coach and flitted away with a new flutter to his wings.

This piece has been inspired by the delightfully creative blog article A Butterfly goes to a coach by Sandro DaSilva.

The Difference Between Coaching and Consulting

At various times since I began contemplating and taking up a full-time career as a coach some 8 years ago, I have read, thought about and also had to answer the question, "What is the difference between coaching and consulting?" I got a fresh perspective on this oft-wondered curiosity of mine, and that too in a delightful and creative fashion, in this coaching blog by Sandro da Silva.

A butterfly goes to a coach

By Sandro da Silva

Telling someone exactly what the difference is between coaching and the other four helping professions (consulting, mentoring, counseling and therapy) is one of the many challenges I face as a coach.  Doing that in a clear and accessible way has been one of my constant pursuits.

While reading page 11 of Coaching with Colleagues (de Haan & Burger, 2011) today, I felt inspired to write about butterflies that go to the five helping professionals in order to tackle four questions they face.

The four questions are (Witherspoon & White, 1997):

• the desire to learn new skills,
• the desire to perform better,
• the desire to develop itself,
• the desire to reflect on itself or on what it does.

My attempt to clarify the differences in the approaches of each of these valuable professionals has resulted in a chart with 20 different stereotyped reactions which, in my opinion, exemplify how each professional works and what one could possibly expect from them.

Here they are:

To a butterfly who wants to learn new flying skills, for example hovering in mid-air like a hummingbird,

1. the consultant says: Here’s the program I have designed so that you can learn how to hover in mid-air like a hummingbird. And here’s the bill.
2. the mentor says: Pay close attention to me, and to what I do with my wings so I can hover in mid-air like a hummingbird. Now it’s your turn to give it a try. No, no, no. Not that way. This way. See it? Now you.
3. the counselor says: So, what you’re saying is that you want to learn how to hover in mid-air, just like a hummingbird. Is that what you mean?
4. the coach says: And how soon would you like to be flying like a hummingbird? In what ways could you acquire the necessary skills to do it? Who could help you with it? What’s your action plan? When are you going to start?
5. the therapist says: We’ve concluded that this is a much more efficient way of doing what you want to learn. By following this guideline, you won’t experience those many difficulties. You’ll learn faster and won’t forget it.

To a butterfly who wants to fly higher, better and more efficiently,

1. the consultant says: You can’t fly high enough because you’ve been keeping the angle of your wings at a constant 37,9 degrees. Once you keep it at 42,57 degrees and vary it according to the wind speed, you’ll use less energy and thus fly better, more efficiently and higher. And here’s the bill.
2. the mentor says: I see you’re trying to fly higher but it does not seem to be working. You’re keeping your lower body too straight, and that does not allow you to react quickly enough to the changing wind. Relax and do not put excessive effort to it. Very good! You see how much easier it gets?
3. the counselor says:  I can see you’re not fully satisfied with the height you’re flying, and that you’d like to fly higher….
4. the coach says: How high exactly would you like to be flying? What techniques are you using at the moment to achieve that height? What other techniques are there, which you haven’t tried yet? And what else could you do to achieve that height even faster? OK. Now show me what your action plan is, how you’re going to measure your progress and what you’ll do when things get tough.
5. the therapist says: You can’t fly any higher because of your are afraid of heights. That’s what we call acrophobia. We’ll work on that now and once we’ve treated it, you’ll be able to fly higher.

To a butterfly who wants to take the next step,

1. the consultant says: Our research shows that the next recommendable step for you should be to create a strategic alliance with bees. That’ll reduce the operational costs of your pollination activities and therefore allow you to survive in this ever changing market. By the way, here’s the bill.
2. the mentor says: So. I see you’re ready to take the next step here. I will now introduce you to some guys at the top of our community. Try to be yourself and don’t ask many questions now. Just observe how these guys interact with each other. I’ll tell you more about it while you drive me home tonight.
3. the counselor says: So what you’re saying is that you’re ready to take the next step in butterfly-ing. You have reached a plateau and you feel it’s time to take the next step…
4. the coach says: So, you want to be a humming bird? Cool! What can you do now to make that happen? And what else? And how are you going to get those things you say you need? How else? When I look at a hummingbird I see feathers, and when I look at you I don’t see any feathers….. (silence)……To which extent are feathers necessary? And how are you going to solve that?
5. the therapist says: What exactly feels uncomfortable in being what you are? How come you’re having difficulties in accepting who you are? Why doing what butterflies do doesn’t satisfy your needs anymore? Can you tell me a little about your relationship with your mother? What kind of person was she?

To a butterfly who wonders whether “butterfly-ing” is all there is, and whether it functions as it should,

1. the consultant says: Why don’t you buy me a beer so we can talk about it?
2. the mentor says: Well well….I’ve experienced it myself. But look at how far you have come, how much you have achieved. Look at all those people who depend on you, who look at you for inspiration. There’s no need to be insecure about it. You’re doing great!
3. the counselor says: It must be very uncomfortable to be feeling the way you’re feeling, having done all you’ve done, having achieved all you have archived and not knowing whether you’ve done what you should have, or whether this is all there is…
4. the coach says: “Whether this is all there is” and “Do I function as I should?” are two different questions. Which question would you like to focus on today? Suppose you have the answer to that question: how does that feel? What is the effect of having answered it? What has changed?
5. the therapist says: Since when have you been experiencing those feelings of uncertainty? What has happened to your self-confidence? How come you’re so dissatisfied with yourself? 

If, based on my stereotyped account,  I were to list the characteristics of each helping profession, I would say that:

• Consulting = downloading information, selling expertise, selling solutions;
• Mentoring = downloading information, correcting, protecting. It has a lot to do with parenting and teaching;
• Counseling = accepting and empathizing, recognizing, reflecting;
• Coaching = uploading information, action-orientation. It seems to foster autonomy, learning and taking responsibility.
• Therapy = downloading information, digging, diagnosing, inferring , healing. It seems to be problem-focused.

Here I have borrowed one the best definitions of coaching I have ever seen:

“Coaching is uploading.” (Scoular, Anne 2011)

Writing this post has brought me clarity at last. And taking a stereotyped perspective to write it has made me laugh (a lot). I hope you enjoy the light and the fun.

Hi-5s to Your Business Improvement

Every day, newspapers and TV news channels in India keep telling us of the dark clouds of political uncertainty in West Asia and North Africa, unemployment in the US and the Greek debt. And then there are the ominous whispers that more news – bad of course – on the debt front from Italy and Spain. Are things really that bad? Is it all gloom and doom?

The Economic Times recently surveyed 22 CEOs of large businesses to rank 10 issues on a ‘headache scale’ of 1 to 10, where 1 stood for the ‘least headache’ and 10 for the ‘worst headache’. The most important conclusion of the study was that in India, consumer demand would continue, that top line growth would remain intact and that we can weather a global crisis. This will come as good news to all those business leaders who may have started to grow jittery, hearing all the global bad news. So then, what does Indian business need to worry about - if at all? It is the high input costs which could end up hurting their profits. And it is this situation of shrinking margins that is likely to give business heads, especially from the SME sectors, sleepless nights. And sleepless nights, as we all know, can lead to rash decisions. So what should they do to deal sensibly with the current situation?

In my experience of working with owner-managed businesses I have noticed that most, if not all of them, are so deeply operationally involved in the day-to-day managing of their businesses that they rarely give time and thought to put in place a long-term directional view of their businesses. Renny Thomas, of McKinsey & Co attributes this neglect to the fact that up until recently, India was in a period where lack of a meticulously planned strategy did not matter as much since the growth areas were obvious. But with increasing competition from Chinese and other foreign competitors, coupled with shrinking margins, business heads have realized that it is no longer enough to go with the flow. It’s time to move beyond the present and start planning the future with purpose and intent and desired results in mind.   

So where do you begin? Here are five ways to kick-off your change process:


1. Assess Your Company’s Current Status: Put everything on the table, both the good and the bad. Include areas of the business you are proud of and problems you wish would just go away. Address issues relating to staff, products and services, location, profitability, and new business development.

Hi-Fives to Your Business Success



2. Review The Past: Look carefully at your past marketing efforts, successes, and failures. If you are running a marketing program but cannot justify its expense with increased sales, consider cancelling it or placing it on hold. Successful marketing turnarounds stop the bleeding quickly.



3.  Analyze Competitive Activity: Often, a new entry in a market will use new marketing techniques and follow new thinking to achieve sales that you didn’t know were possible. Evaluate objectively, to achieve a successful marketing turnaround, you must do what is best for your company.

3. Rethink Your Business: Keeping your learning from the earlier three steps in mind, think again, about current customers, competition, industry changes, and technology. Rethink your business model. Many successful businesses have managed to stay successful by moving with the times. They saw that the needs of their customers were changing and acted accordingly. Be flexible to adjust to new opportunities and challenges.

5. Be Quick. Act quickly on your plans to marry the short-term to the long-term. Speed and flexibility are essential in turning a company around.

And don’t give up - giving up too early may result in your falling short of the great success your business was destined for.Act consistently and diligently on the five ways and you could have success dancing on the palm of your hand!

And in case you need help; I have more than10,000 hours of Buisness coaching experience of supporting business-owners such as you. I can help you reach your business goals faster, achieve higher and become stronger! For contact details click on Contact tab above.

Accountability - Do You Demand It Or Command It?

"Accountability", says Stephen Covey, "breeds response-ability,"  and it is with this stated objective that every boss goes about asking for accountability from his employees - to improve their response-ability and thereby their performance.  However in doing so, each boss brings his own individual leadership traits to bear on the practice. Based on my understanding of the subject, there are three ways bosses practice Accountability, and I shall be illustrating them through the examples of two IPL team owners of and an unnamed military commander. But first, for those who belong to a world different from cricket, a little about the IPL. 

 The IPL or The Indian Premier League is a professional league for Twenty20 cricket competition in India. It is currently contested by 10 teams consisting of players from around the world. In 2008, when the IPL first conducted it's auction for players, and even now, it attracted the rich and the famous who bid huge sums for players from all around the world to be part of their teams. Two such bidders were business czar Vijay Mallya and film star Shah Rukh Khan, who owned the Royal Challengers and the Knight Riders teams respectively. In its very first edition in 2008, the two teams ended up being at the bottom of the rankings. The reactions of Mallya and Shah Rukh Khan to their teams failures make for interesting reading. For it was in the way the two went about making their players, managers and coaches accountable for their performance, that they displayed their different personalities as bosses.

The Three Types of Accountability Bosses
1. The Teflon Boss When his team's semi-final hopes went up in smoke, Mallya reacted by blaming his captain Dravid and sacking Charu Sharma, his manager, for selecting a team of their – not his – choice. For good measure, he also blamed the media. He claimed publicly that he was at loggerheads with the captain and the manager,  and that he had some players in mind but Dravid and Sharma completely ignored them and went ahead with their own plan. He said Sharma backed Dravid to the hilt and even in the second auction, where the captain was not present, the former CEO discouraged Mallya to buy players of his choice.  He then demanded accountability of his team by saying (to the media), "I want from Rahul Dravid to do the best for the team and to produce some good results for us because I don't think Rahul Dravid enjoys being at the bottom of the league tables, and certainly I don't."

Mallya thus absolved himself of all blame by claiming that none of the decisions regarding the team composition were his, and publicly proclaimed that he did not enjoy losing. How were the players reacting to all this song and dance in public? A picture can speak a thousand volumes and the picture below says it all!

Mallya is, in my  assessment, a Teflon Boss. One who deflects all blame when things start going wrong for the team. He demands accountability of his people, but when the team fails to perform, he want no part of it. And in the case of Mallya, runs them down publicly. The Teflon Boss demands - not commands accountability.

2. The Cheerleader In contrast with the Royal Challengers, the Kolkata Knight Riders made a good start to the season by winning their first two matches with batsman Brendon McCullum scoring a record 158 runs. Thereafter however, things started going downhill for them and they lost their next four matches. The team did manage a comeback of sorts by winning the next three, but again went into a down slide with the loss of the last three matches. These included one in which they were bowled out for  67 runs, the lowest score by a team that season. Finally, when their match against the Delhi Daredevils was washed out by rain, the Knight Riders lost any chance of making it to the semis.Apart from the losses on the field, team owner Shah Rukh Khan faced various other issues off the field, which could have put off most people. These included questions in the media on his team composition, choice of the team batting order, entertainment tax being imposed on the matches played on the team's home ground in Kolkata and to crown everything, he was banned from entering the dressing room when matches were in progress.  And how did Shah Rukh Khan respond to this dismal state of affairs? He declared to the press that he was undaunted by the teams lack of success and that the failures of this season would be the pillars of success for his team next year. He then went on to pep up the spirit of his team by sending each of them an SMS saying, “the beauty of failure is that it brings people together…. So, let’s stick this out together…”

And to reward him, it seems, the Knight Riders ended their season on a winning note by defeating the Kings XI Punjab on their home ground!

Shah Rukh Khan, to me represents the second type of boss, the Cheer leader Boss, who never lets his spirits flag inspite of a spate of adversities. Most important, he never shows his displeasure, but always keeps motivating his people and promising them of better times to come. In doing so he commands - not demands accountability from his people.

3. The Accountability Partner Boss The army officer had failed to complete an important part of a deployment plan assigned to him, and his commander had called him in to his office. Knowing why his officer wanted to talk to him, the subordinate on reporting apologized  for the failure. But rather than berate him (as the officer feared he would), the commander said, “I don’t want to hear you say you are sorry for what you failed to do. That is not an excuse for your behavior and that is not why you are standing here in front of me today. You have a job with a lot of responsibilities and you are accountable for your actions in carrying out those responsibilities. And, because you are accountable, I want to hear your plan for correcting the problem. Then, we will discuss the soundness and practicality of your plan, and the results you are going to achieve going forward.”

The commander had confronted his subordinate because he had failed to do what he and the rest of his deployment team were counting on the officer to do. In describing his experiences of the day, the subordinate officer recounted, "I knew the meaning of accountability going into that meeting, but on that day I learned something new: When I accept responsibility for a job I must confront myself in advance. That way I will make sure I am thoroughly prepared to carry out the plan and achieve the expected results. I walked out of that meeting feeling stronger and more confident in my abilities.

By explaining to his officer  what he expected of him, the commanding officer had made the rules of accountability clear. In explicit terms, the commanding officer had laid out for his staff  a way they could deal with performance issues. With this clarity about on how they would be held accountable, the officer made his staff feel not only stronger, but more confident of their abilities. The commander was an Accountability Partner Boss, he commanded - not demanded accountability from his people.

Over the Moon With Your I I

"When it comes to the future, there are three kinds of people: those who let it happen, those who make it happen, and those who wonder what happened."

                                                                    --John M. Richardson, Jr 

The problem of getting started with any change, whether personal or organizational, is our initial reluctance to it. The tendency is to procrastinate, even though we know the circumstances require we do something about it. We let "things happen" and when the inevitable happens, "we wonder what happened!". In my previous blog post (On Why CEO's Procrastinate. And What They Could Do About It), I had suggested an approach to overcome this reluctance to act  which was more in a business context. Thomas Pytchyl, an associate professor of psychology at Carleton University  who specializes in the study of procrastination, suggests a way all of us could employ. When Pytchyl is asked what someone should do to reduce procrastination, his most common answer is, "It's not enough to have a goal intention, you need to have an Implementation Intention too." Implementation intention, a term coined by Peter Gollwitzer, is a specific type of intentional statement that defines when and where a specific behavior will be performed. and is an easily applicable planning strategy that can help overcome procrastination by automating action control. An implementation intention supports goal intention by setting out in advance when/where and how one will achieve this goal. So instead of making yourself a "to do" list of goal intentions it is more effective to decide how, when and where you are going to accomplish each of the tasks you need to get done. 

In my opinion, the best example of this format  is John F. Kennedy made to the American congress on May 25th 1961. That's when he announced a plan to put a man on the Moon before the decade was over. Now, even though there wasn't even a plan in hand nor the technology to do so, it had to be done. The reason?  The feeling worldwide that the Soviets were way ahead in the space race. Only twenty days before Kennedy's speech, NASA had launched Alan Shepard into space, the first US man to reach space. And, unlike Yuri Gagarin more than a month earlier, Shepard didn't even orbit Earth. He was just launched like a cannonball. 

Kennedy clearly knew that getting NASA started on a project as crazy as this was to put a stimulus for action into the environment. And the stimulus? The fear of the Soviets beating them to the moon and making it a Red Moon. Remember, this was in the days of the cold war when the US-Soviet competition to beat each other in every way was at its height. So here is how Kennedy in his speech, used the "If....then, when/where and how" format to galvanize his countrymen into action:

If... (we do not) "land a man..."
Where "on the moon..." 
When "by the end of the decade..."  
Then (left unsaid) the Soviets will beat us to it and rub our collective noses into the moon dust!

The result was that on July 20th 1969, an American became the first man on the moon.

The result of Kennedy's "If...then" stimulus

 The spectacular results of Kennedy's 'moon speech' has now made it a classic example of the perfect  mission statement. His accomplishment was to set his scientists a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) with a "then" stimulus (even if not explicitly articulated) impossible to ignore.

And for You and Me...

 Considering that you and I do not have such bruising(?) imperatives as did Kennedy, let us consider an everyday example Pytchyl cites. I might have, say,  a goal intention of "flossing my teeth regularly" An implementation intention can support this goal intention by setting out in advance when/where and how we will achieve this goal. In this case, it might be "When I put the toothpaste on my toothbrush in the evening (something which is a habit for me), I will then stop and get out the floss first." Essentially what I've done in making this implementation intention is to put the cue for behavior (putting the paste on my toothbrush) into the environment, so it serves as a stimulus for my behavior. I don't have to think about or remind myself about my goal. The moment I put the paste on my brush, my behavior is cued. In time, this should become as automatic as my teeth brushing is already. My 'then' stimulus could also be, "or end up with decayed teeth or a root canal treatment." This of course would make my stimulus an imperative in the same league, or close to that of  Kennedy's in his moon speech!

Call to Action

Studies indicate that implementation intentions on getting started can help when we have an initial reluctance to get started on an aversive task.What the above examples clearly prove is you're more likely to get started when you put the stimulus for action into the environment.

So when do you intend to get started on your "moon mission"?

_____________________________________________________________________

SPEAKING OF GOALS >

A study by the American Society of Training and Development showed that:

• People who merely hear a goal, have a 10 percent chance of achieving it
• People who create a plan for a specific goal have a 50 percent chance of achieving it
• People who have a coach holding them accountable to their goal have a 95 percent chance of reaching their goal 

In other words, you can double your chances of success by being held accountable through a coaching program versus merely having a plan. A good coach can leave a positive impact on your life (and business) and help you achieve things you may not have been able to attain on your own.

Get yourself a coach. Contact uday.arur@gmail.com

 

On Why CEO's Procrastinate. And What They Could Do About It

And when is there time to remember, to sift, to weigh, to estimate, to total?

                                                                                                   - Tillie Olsen

From my years of coaching CEOs, one of the important understanding is that the first and most prominent challenge for CEOs in the pursuit of their goal is - procrastination. In other words, getting started on the key priorities that will make their biggest ideas a reality.The reason for the procrastination? The threat of uncertainty.

Timothy M. Pychyl, who specializes in the study of procrastination has an explanation for this on his blog. According to him, people when faced with a task about which they are uncertain on how to proceed, experience negative emotions and threats to self. To cope with this experience, they end up delaying the task, escaping the negative emotions and rationalizing the choices they make. I have had CEOs come up with all kinds of excuses for not implementing the tasks they had committed to. Excuses such as "I cannot think beyond a three months planning horizon" (to delay their long-term planning exercise). Or "My customers insist on speaking only to me and not my subordinates" (to avoid delegating to them). Or even rationalizations such as the executive in the cartoon below.

 What such CEOs are doing is that instead of self-regulating their behavior to stay on task such as mustering their creativity to make a plan of action, they self-regulate their emotions. Mood for them, takes precedence. While useful in the short-term in terms of mood repair or protecting self-esteem, this short-termism can have serious long-term consequences for their companies. Consequently, they end up undermining their company's, as well as their own performance.

Strategist and author Kaihan Kippendorf, is right on target when he says that most CEOs invest their energy at any one time on four initiatives:

1. Wastes of time: hard-to-execute ideas that would have little impact on their achieving their goals. 

 
2. Tactics: easy-to-execute ideas that will not significantly impact their success. 

3. Winning moves: easy-to-execute ideas with huge impact. 

4. Crazy ideas: difficult-to-execute ideas that, if you could figure out how to make them happen, would really make a difference.

Investing Time Wisely

If they have the best interests of their companies at heart, and wish to invest their time and energy more efficiently, CEOs should practice the following.

• Dump the Wastes of Time and focus energy on more productive activity.
• Execute the Tactics or the easy-to-do stuff of the second , but bear in mind that they are not strategic priorities.
• Attend to the Winning moves NOW.
• Instead of dismissing the Crazy ideas as "go to the moon" ones, spend their time figuring out how to make them feasible.

To begin practice, they should ask themselves two questions: 

( i ) If I successfully executed this initiative, what impact would it have on my ability to achieve my goals? and 

( ii ) How easy is it execute this initiative?

An an even better way; they can get themselves a Business coach who can support them to question themselves in sifting and weighing their options and estimating chances of success. And most important - remember the commitments they made to themselves!

To know more on how I can help you, check out my website http://arurbizcoach.com/

The Art of Sensitive Change Management

In a recent interview with the Economic Times, Management Guru Ram Charan explained the importance of why top leaders need to be involved in bringing about transformational change in organizations.

Most companies manage incremental change but it is the transformational change that’s difficult. Any major change almost always requires a significant change in internal culture. That means some of the key decisions will be made differently. Resource allocation will change. Some of the things the company used to do when they were successful will need to be ditched. All this, says Charan, makes it imperative that the top people be hands on for driving change.

But, managing change can be a challenging task for top leaders. For the change initiative to be successful, it is important that employees be ready, willing and able to adapt, and be flexible to these changes. However, any major change initiative carried out in organizations can cause an imbalance in the work environment. People find themselves caught between the old and the new with one foot firmly planted in old familiar ways, and the other teetering in the new environment they find themselves in. It is human nature to want to feel a sense of balance and therefore, it is important that top leaders manage their change initiatives with sensitivity. A fast roll out of several initiatives together tends to reinforce the sense of imbalance and may lead to disaster. It is therefore extremely important that the change program be handled in a sensitive manner. Since, each of us responds to change in different ways, knowing the nature of the response of their employees, top leaders can evaluate and make the necessary course corrections in the change initiatives. 

But how is the top leader to know his employees’ responses? Author Mary Frances-Winters suggest a way.

All of us are different. Some are extroverts, others introverts. Some are quick starts, others fact-finders. Some are liberals, others conservatives. All of us, says Winters, have natural ways in which we respond to conflict—natural ways in which we each respond to change. Understanding the natural way of how people handle change can therefore be important for top leaders in managing change sensitively. Winter’s formulation of the six “types” of employee reactions to the changing workplace is a useful tool to enable this understanding.

1. The Foggies: Oblivious to the changes all around them.
2. The Fakers: Tell themselves and others that they are on board with change but make no personal changes to their behaviour
3. The Faultless: They see the changes around them, do not like them, and constantly complain.  They see themselves as hopeless victims of an unfair system.                  
4. The Fearful: Fear is a natural response to uncertainty.  Fearful people engage in self-protectionist, non-team-oriented behaviour.  There is low trust and oftentimes paranoia sets in.
5. The Fighters: There are two types of fighters. One who rejects change and ardently promotes a status quo position. The second type of fighter wants change and feels frustrated by the lack of progress.  They are vanguards, often seen as troublemakers by those who fear change.
6. The Futurists: These are individuals accustomed to change, and/or highly self-differentiated, or workers new to the culture.  They are adaptable, flexible, and global in their thinking.  They know that they are in control of their destiny.  They are career-resilient

 Winter’s formulation of the six responses is meant to facilitate employees to discover for themselves, their ability to find peace in the workplace. However, I believe, there is yet another important role the formulation can play.

Using the Six Fs Tool as a Change Sensitivity Monitor

I see Winters’ formulation serving as a tool for top leaders to understand the impact of their change programme on their employees. They can do this by categorizing their own perception of the responses to the change of each individual employee into the six types. By involving other key decision makers in the process, top leaders can eliminate their subjective bias in the categorization. The results of the combined exercise should enable a deeper understanding of the impact of the change programme on the employees. More importantly, it can help top leaders to examine the impact of change on individual employees, rather than holding a homogenous and amorphous view of the impact. The individual understanding can be used by top leaders to deal appropriately with each response; either in a one-on-one, or by appointing internal (or external) coaches for the deserving ones. The next step is to use this understanding to regulate and monitor the speed of change, and formulate strategies to bring everybody on board.  

And manage change sensitively.

Move Over Visioning. Enter the Future Story

Jeremy King is an English restaurateur whose interview with Vir Sanghvi appeared in a recent issue of Brunch. Asked what his principles for starting a new hotel were, Jeremy made a point which appeared to be of particular interest to me for my Visioning workshops which I conduct as a strategic coach. This was about how every hotel must have a back story. 

A back story is an essentially cinematic concept. What it means is that the events you see on screen have a background, a story that explains their provenance, even if we don't have to confront that back story in the actual plot. An example is the story actor Michael Caine created around his role as the butler in the Batman series. He fleshed out a story about how Alfred the butler was a former British commando who took up to cooking on difficult postings and who went to work for Thomas Wayne (Batman's civilian avatar) when he retired. This story helped Caine to not only understand Bruce Wayne's motivations, but also to understand Batman's world of violence. Moreover with his commando background, the butler could actually help Batman in his fight against crime. All this Caine made up because he reckoned nothing made sense with out a back story. 

Jeremy applied the same principle to the new hotel he is opening in London's Oxford Street. According to the story,  the hotel was built in the 1920s by a rich American who loved London. It was the toast of the town, Then as the American owner went back to the States and the hotel fell on bad times and was sold to a modern chain which destroyed its character and now King and his partner are renovating it to recover its lost lustre. None of this of course is true, so why bother? Because, says King, it gives the new owners, the architect, the designer, the management and the staff an idea of what the hotel should be. They don't just say, "Let's convert this office block into a hotel." They say, "What would the hotel have looked like at its peak in the 1920's?"And while designing the rooms, they ask themselves, "What would a luxury hotel built in the Jazz Age have offered to its guests?" The back story serves as reference point for everybody in the same way that Alfred's back story told Michael Caine how Alfred would react to any situation. According to King unless a hotel had a convincing back story, it failed in the long run.

Source: Philantopic

Source: Vision Ohio

 And this brings me to the connection between the back story and the 'future story' people can create for their companies. Just like a well-thought-out and crafted back story serves as a reference point for everyone involved with the project of building or renovating a hotel, a carefully crafted future story can serve as a fleshed out story of future success in companies. The individual stories help people to understand the dreams and concerns of their colleagues, and the stories lead to significant themes around which an energizing  and motivating picture of the future can be painted. The resulting one story, embodying critical themes from all the stories, helps to create an irresistible pull which acts like a compass, a battery pack, and a talking map all in one.

So instead of making people rack their brains and go thorough an exhausting day(s?) of a  Visioning exercise, move to the Future Story, it will enable your people to:

• make up stories, plausible or fantastic, to paint the future
• understand organizational issues better because they are presented in the form of a story
• sort out and describe what has happened to oneself or others, often with a richness of context and detail, and often with great relish
• envision chains and webs of causation
• build scenarios and to plan and think strategically
• resonate with the stories of others; to see another's viewpoint when presented with the stories which underlie or embody that viewpoint
• to discover themes in the events of the story
• to recognize (or select) certain elements as significant, as embodying certain meanings and to draft a road map of the future

And finally, don't forget to tell your people to give their stories a touch of the cinematic. The  gloss, and shine will illuminate the future everyone can look forward to.

To make it a shining beacon to the future.

References:

1.  http://www.co-intelligence.org/I-powerofstory.html

Decoding the Desi Dynamic

With more and more Indian executives being posted abroad - especially in booming sectors such as IT, Pharma and FMCG, Indian companies have felt an increasing need for the chosen people to be trained in the culture and the ways of the country of posting. This has meant the rise of a new breed of trainers in culture and special classes for country specific culture training to help such executives fit smoothly into their new roles.

But have we ever stopped to think about the Indian manager who is about to take up a position outside his native state? Have we ever thought of the need for training such individuals to quickly settle down into their new roles they are about to take up? Why do I say this? Hear what some expat CEOs have to say. Kwon of Samsung believes serving in India is like serving in many countries. Michael Bonham, who is the Ford India CEO supports this view. When he shifted to Delhi after spending nearly three years in Chennai, he actually thought he had shifted to a "different country."  So how does one go about learning about these countries within a country and our cultural traits and attitudes?  How does one go about decoding what the Economic Times calls the desi dynamic? Learn from the experiences of expat CEOs posted on Indian shores. Why? Because they notice things which we as Indians don't and they put a light on attitudes which we take for granted.

For many of us our attitudes and beliefs about different communities are the cultural stereotypes handed down to us from our parents and friends, (the Bong is sentimental, the North Indian is aggressive etc). And these become the drivers influencing our behavior and responses to people from these communities which can come in the growth path of executives who aspire for leadership roles. For, as Jacques Challes the Managing Director of L'Oreal puts it, "India is about the future of business." Moreover Challes believes that in India "you are constantly building" unlike his own country France, where everything is static. Since the business of business is primarily about managing people, and the Indian environment is one of constant change, where do we begin? With one of Challes observations.

Challes has observed that the power distance between the field staff and the highly educated managers at headquarters, is so big, that they are not able to communicate effectively. The loss in translation is the reason why strategies created at the top are often not executed efficiently in the field.

The Indian manager has a unique set of attitudes, knowing which, can help us grow quickly in our leadership roles

So how can managers cut this loss in translation? How can s/he improve execution of his or her painstakingly planned strategies? The learning about the desi dynamic of the expat CEO trying to settle down into his leadership role in India, holds important lessons for us. 

Yves Martinez of Legrand has discovered that its not enough to set targets and issue instructions to his managers you have to take time to convince the internal teams. "...people want to understand what they are doing, they want to take time over it." 

Benoit Lecuyer, the MD of Hager Electro believes that management in India is more personal and therefore managers have to make people the centrepiece of business and life. Instead of calling large meetings with 50 people, they should call the managers for one-to-one discussions. This  helps the manager and his senior to get to know one another better.

Kiminobu Tokuyama CEO of Nissan Motors seconds this view when he observes that Indian managers are rich with ideas and views but in business meetings, they do not express any disagreement with their bosses. "My constant effort," he says. " is to create an atmosphere of mutual respect, trust, confidence and fearlessness and thereby enable free flow of honest opinion from all."

A very important insight comes from Neil Mills, CEO of Spicejet. He calls for dealing with people as individuals and not as members of a community. He believes that there is no such thing as a common Indian culture, for instance, a person with a south Indian name could be more north Indian, because he has lived in Delhi all his life. This means one has to tailor the way instructions are given to people based on their divergent backgrounds and not as a Marwari, Tamilian, Bengali etc.

So there you have it - the desi dynamic decoded. Now to set about internalizing and validating the observations in our corporate lives and leadership roles.

Strategic Planning in Volatile Times

Growth takes place whenever a challenge evokes a successful response, that in turn, evokes a further and different challenge. 

                                     - Arnold J. Toynbee

Long-range planning is usually considered to assume present knowledge about future conditions. It looks to make certain the plan's exact results over the period of its implementation.

Strategic planning, however, assumes that am organization must be quick to respond to a dynamic, changing environment, which may require changes in the future. And in today's volatile world, this ability is being sorely tested. 

Volatile times require new ideas and approaches to growth planning

With opportunities coming faster and disappearing even faster, decision making and flexibility becomes critical. Any response which is not nimble and flexible enough, can spell disaster for companies. Five year plans are therefore history, and one year plans are in - and even these need to be monitored on a weekly basis. The Economic Times in a recent article, decribed how various companies have adapted themselves to the times:

1. The Godrej Group has streamlined the strategy planning process to such an extent that the quarterly planning meetings which used to last nine hours, have shrunk to three.
2. At Cognizant the strategic planning team would meet a couple of times year to make sure things were on track, which turned to monthly meetings during the recession. With things having settled down a bit, they now meet every quarter, but with far more awareness about what is going on in the business.
3. At Marico, they realized that with the shrinking cycle time, the planning and budgeting cycles tended to get merged and it was therefore important to clarify the sanctity attached to the planning horizon. They have attempted to separate the two religously. 
4. At Bharati AXA GI the five year plan is redrawn every two years.
5. At Accenture, while the long-term directional view stays, the short-term tactics are tweaked constantly.

However, while most companies have seen planning cycles shrink, at software firm Persisitent, the reverse is true. The process now involves a bigger base of people discussing how the technlogy landscape is changing and a strategic response in the execution of things.

The trick, in these volatile times then lies in finding a balance between the short and long-term objectives and strategy. As S. Ramesh, President Finace and Planning of Lupin puts it." Often market-beating strategies see rapid failure without a solid implementation plan." Assessing how the strategy positions the company, the level of insight it rests on and therefore the kind of implementation it calls for, takes on critical importance.

Are you keeping up with the changing times? Even if you are, a Business  coach who specialises in leadership and strategy can support you in navigating and negotiating the turbulent times even better! For more details see the About Me page on this blog.

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Master Strategist Mahatma Gandhi

 Gandhiji on the Salt March

Eighty-one years ago, in the month of March Mahatma Gandhi began his Dandi March, an excellent case study of the meticulous thinking, conviction, thinking and planning that need to go into the making of a great strategic plan. What makes the Dandi March so, is Gandhiji’s synthesis of  the ‘method of action’ and the ‘method of enquiry’ involved in the process of arriving at salt as an evocative symbol of the campaign. His activities were never fragmented in their approach and style, Satyagraha was an important component of his actions but it was not the only act. It was Gandhiji’s  ability to discover and make strands of  interacting relationships and engagements of various streams of public life and politics as a part of his strategy, which mark him out as a master strategist. An example of this is in the manner he planned the form the Dandi campaign should take, the length of the march, and the sea-side town where the protest would be staged.  Let us examine Gandhiji’s approach to strategy and its individual elements in greater detail.

Salt as a symbol For the campaign, Gandhiji wanted a symbol, which was universal; something the poor peasant could understand and identify with. He therefore chose salt and the breaking of unjust British salt laws as the focus of his strategy. Though this choice had its share of sceptics, Gandhiji had sound reasons for his decision. The choice of the salt tax was a deeply symbolic since salt was used by nearly everyone in India. Being a tropical country, sweating necessitated greater intake of salt and such an item of daily use could resonate more with all classes of citizens than an abstract demand for greater political rights. Moreover, the Salt tax represented 8.2% of the British Raj tax revenue, and hurt the poorest Indians the most significantly. Explaining his choice, Gandhi said, “Next to air and water, salt is perhaps the greatest necessity of life.” Rajaji - the shrewdest of Congress leaders, termed the choice was not salt, but disobedience which was to be manufactured. The Form of the Campaign Having finalised salt as the focus, Gandhiji decided on the march, as the form the campaign would take. The march in Gandhiji's mind was linked to the idea of a pilgrimage. Dandi fitted this imagery not as any association with a holy site but because getting there would be a hard 26 day trek and a tough test of physical endurance and will-power - a reflection of the marchers resolve. The Length of the March The length of the march - a gruelling 390 km, was important for several reasons: it would be taxing in the extreme, and that would bring about a wave of sympathy and support throughout the country. The period would also help in the build-up of publicity, remember this was in the days before the 24/7 media coverage we have now, which can blow up a minor incident into a nation-wide concern. And how brilliant this element of his strategy was, can be gauged from the fact that when the March began, American journalists had come in large numbers to jeer. A whole lot of them stayed on to cheer and alter American opinion, especially about Satyagraha.

Success of the Dandi Strategy

Gandhiji’s meticulous planning resulted in the overwhelming success of his strategy for the Dandi March and marked the launch of a world changing philosophy. Satyagraha, until then was seen as a theoretical construct of Gandhi's writings but after the worldwide publicity and interest the march evoked, it came to be seen as a philosophy that could actually change the world. The March to Dandi planted the seeds of August 15, 1947, and later for what Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela achieved. And what future generations might achieve all over the world.