"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?
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
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
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
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
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.
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
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.
In the 1890’s, William Hesketh Lever, founder of Lever Bros (now Unilever), wrote down the purpose for Sunlight soap, his revolutionary new product for the times.”Make cleanliness commonplace; lessen work for women; to foster health and personal attractiveness, that life may be more enjoyable and rewarding for the people who use our products”.
Insight
How about the purpose statement of Brand You? Have you got down to it yet? Do you want to? #CoachConnect
Latest research by McKinsey across 81 countries, across diverse geographies indicates the 4 key skills of successful leaders as:
1. Solving problems effectively,
2. Operating with a strong results orientation,
3. Seeking different perspectives and
4. Supporting others:
Insight
Search for ‘leadership’ on the Web & you get thousands of results. Research too, constantly throws up new and diverse results. But what works best for you? #CoachConnect
To navigate something as intangible and changeable as cologne, industry “noses” require a vocabulary of sorts. But the key among all the nomenclature is the ”family” to which the fragrance belongs (eg ‘floral’, ’aquatic’, woody’). Like human families, these boxes often bleed into another and you can end up with unusual hybrids. - Bloomberg
CoachConnect
Human emotions, like fragrances, are just as intangible and changeable, and they too can end up as unusual hybrids. The coach, by helping the client give appropriate labels to his emotions provides a handle to better deal with them.
The key to projecting an air of power is being self-confident, says the Business Insider. And the worst thing for self-confidence is having a nagging thought about a flaw in your appearance. No one may notice the missing button on your jacket, but as soon as start to worrying about it, your behavior may unconsciously draw attention to it.
CoachConnect
Has it happened that what you are worried most about, turns out as inconsequential as that missing button on the jacket? Unproductive emotions take a toll on our priorities. Conversations with a coach, help take a healthier perspective on life.
Intelligence, takes more than one form. There is the linear, which enables us to deal with the material world; & there is the intuitive, over which we have no conscious control. It is this latter intelligence that is the source of creativity. - Alan Garner
CoachConnect
“It is as if my every thought is getting a voice.” said my client D after a coaching session. This state is born of a deep trust & comfort of being with one who wishes only your success, This, along with a design thinking approach produces an uninhibited, nonlinear expression of ideas that tap into the client's ability to intuit.
With his New Year's resolutions, Zuckerberg turns the high-powered innovation beam on himself. Every challenge he undertakes carries the end goal of solving for some aspect of himself that he'd like to develop further, some gap in his ultimate self-vision. It's a level of personal accountability that is nothing short of extraordinary.
CoachConnect
New year resolutions are notoriously short lived. This weakness of purpose dogs the other resolutions we make during the year too. But If you want to prove something, not to others but to yourself, get yourself an accountability partner. Get a coach.
“The conversation with you”, said client B, “made me realize that I am spending only 0.5% of my time on my key priorities“.
CoachConnect
This kind of a realisation is a result of a deep dive into what you really want in life, and how you want to take your business to new heights. It’s a process Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook would call ‘Ruthless Prioritisation’.
Want to know what your Ruthless Priorities are and fast track your personal and business growth? Get in touch.
#LivingStories
”I never keep my New Year's resolutions, so this year I resolve to gain weight, make less money, & hate my life”. - A cartoon by Glasbergen
#MyLearning
New Year resolutions are notoriously difficult to keep. The Vedas offer a 3 level hierarchy to test the intensity of our intentions.
L1: Abhilasha: A wish with little energy, with little impetus to move one forward
L2: Svatmi karana: Wish becomes important enough to influence thoughts and actions
L3: Iccha bhavana: Our desire, will, action, speech & thoughts, all become laser-focused on achieving the goal.
For L 3 focus, get a coach.
#LivingStories
“If you inject a live virus into a healthy body, the body will react to it. And it's the same thing with organizations. They say they are promoting innovation but they are not, really. And if you happen to be in the innovation/disruption team, then the organization will attack you. So you need to find a way around it“. - Tobias Digswell, Nobel Museum curator
#MyLearning
Do not stop at just innovating a product or a process, think through the strategy of how to inject and nurse the innovation through the whole system.
#LivingStories
60 years ago this month, at the height of the Cold War, the emergency phone rang at the US Continental Air Defense Command. When the in-charge, Col.Harry W Shoup picked up the phone, it was a child asking to speak to Santa. Turned out, a local store had carried the phone number in an ad asking children to call to speak to Santa. Realising there would be a deluge of calls, Shoup ordered his operators to respond to ”every child who phoned in that night.” The tradition continues to this day.
#MyLearning
The milk of human kindness overflows during the festive season. Put it to good use.
#LivingStories
In his TEDx talk, Sashi Tharoor speaks of the response of a village woman he spoke to. Asked the benefits of becoming literate, she explained she was now able to read bus destination signs, which she previously had to ask others. She could also read the street signs and therefore felt more independent. Tharoor also speaks of how, having a well- formed mind is more import than having a well-filled mind.
#MyLearning
How can I use the benefits of being literate to develop my intellect? To not merely know facts, but to regard them with mindful curiosity & make meaning of them?
#LivingStories
“McEnroe needed to believe that the world was against him, he needed to get angry, to stoke the competitive beast inside of him. He played his best when hard done by - with justification or otherwise. Especially in the 70s and early 80s when the world hadn't been exposed to the ‘competitiveness’ and ‘aggression’ of the modern age, Mac the Mouth was an aberration.”
“…..but being too nice comes with a price too, especially if you are nice to the wrong person.” - R. Kaushik In the Wisden
#MyLearning
Anger and politeness, both have their uses. Use with discretion.
Flash back It was several years ago that I met him on a Bombay Walk - the ones where they take you around to see and learn about the colonia...
