Fundamentals of Building Trust

Arun Maira, erstwhile member of the Planning Commission, tells an anecdote of the Tata brand’s distinction of earning the trust of society by its values. Soon after WW II ended in 1946, the board of KraussMaffei, a large German engineering conglomerate met chairman JRD Tata and Sumant Moolgaonkar (CEO of the fledgling Telco) on the platform of the bombed out Munich station. India was under British rule,  and German and Indian companies could not any legal agreements among themselves. The Germans requested Tatas to take their jobless technicians and their families to India. They will teach you all they know; please take care of them them, is all we ask, they said. And thus Tatas learnt metal-working from the best of the best. Many years later when India gained  independence, a letter arrived at the KraussMaffei HQ. Now that we can, how much shall we pay you for the technology you have provided us, it asked. That letter has become a legend in the company of what trust means. You honour your debt, even when it's not legally binding, and even when it's not demanded of you.

Learning
Trust is not built through legal contracts between parties. It is built by doing the right thing by others always.

Communicating to Win

The internal memo Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey sent out to rally his staff amid reports of uncertain future, is an object lesson on personalised leadership communication. He sets the tone by saying, :”....There’s a lot I could say, but there is only one thing I wanted to say: Thank you.” Talking next of how Twitter is still the first choice of people everywhere for news, he ends by expressing gratitude for members of his immediate team. And this is the most interesting part. Each pen sketch lists Dorsey’s observations of his team member's unique attributes such as drive, creativity, entrepreneurial spirit, attention to detail etc. It ends with a humorous mention of the member's personal habit or quirk which strikes a personal chord.

A few examples:
Adam Bain - “constant use of when!!
Kayvon  - “tendency to chew on his hoodie sweater.”
Leslie - “2x talk speed.”
Omid - “how he’s changed everything he owns to a shade of blue.”
Sierra - “ability to be in two places at the same time.”
Vijaya - “secret love for McDonald’s (to the point of having a McDonald’s iPhone case).

MyLearning
Good communication, minute observation skills and a great sense of humour, can be a powerful mix for effective leadership. It can help hold teams together in a crisis and in good times, help build a culture in which trust can thrive.

Harnessing The Power of Appreciation

Does harnessing the power of recognition help boost your team performance?
Yes it does.
That's the conclusion drawn from a year-long survey conducted by journalist Janice Kaplan. 90% of people surveyed said that a grateful boss was more likely to be successful.
For instance, throughout his tenure, Doug Conant ex-CEO of the Campbell Soup Company, sent more than 30,000 handwritten thank you notes. When Conant was in hospital recovering from a serious car accident, employees across the globe reciprocated his acts of recognition by sending him get-well notes.
Showing appreciation is part of a leader's job, “...but recognising it, saying thank you, letting them know that it wasn't for nought really can go a very far way,” says Kaplan.
Source: Businessinsider

Call to Action
In 2014, Mark Zuckerberg challenged himself to write a thank-you not everyday.

Is that a challenge worth undertaking?

The Values Compass

“When I first came into the industry, I wanted my work to speak for myself and my aim was to earn a good name. Over the years,  my priorities changed and I wanted to make more money. But in the last four years, I’m back to square one. My character certificate became important for me.” - Actor Prabhudeva

Insight
Our values determine the choices we make. The priority of values tend to change as our definition of success changes. It is a good idea to revisit our values periodically to determine whether the things we do and the behaviours we exhibit are in sync with our values. Old or new.

The Secret of Learning

“I am just constantly curious and confused”, says actor Tom Hanks….”I am always pondering about this concept about how a particular force of thought gets started? “Be it history,  art,  theology and architecture...I am constantly inquisitive about how we got here and why do we behave the way we do”.

Insight
To be curious requires an open mind and to admit to being confused, a lot of courage. The two together give the mind the strength to range across a variety of bodies of knowledge to know, to learn and to grow.

What is Happiness

Happiness means different things to different people.  For instance, to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, it means having varied experiences and not being apologetic about it.  To actress Kareena Kapoor Khan, it means caring about, and spending time with the family, while to fellow actress Kalki Koechlin it is about being resilient and maintenance of daily life.

Call To Action
Happiness is our true wealth and should be on top of every seeker's agenda. Did you know you can actually retrain your brain and learn to be happy?

Ready to Go? Complete this sentence:
Happiness to me is….

The Importance of Acknowledging Others

“it is only natural to congratulate the person who has gone past you.” believes Sunil Gavaskar. So when Sachin Tendulkar equaled his record of 34 Test centuries he sent him a crate of 34 champagne bottles. When Allan Border reached 10,000 Test runs, he sent him a  congratulatory fax. Conversely, when Gavaskar surpassed the 10,000 runs record set by Geoffrey Boycott, there was no response from Boycott. The reason - “(he) … thinks he is ½% better than me”.

Point to Ponder
Acknowledging the work of others calls for a healthy self-esteem & humility. It's also a significant marker of great Leadership.

Acting With Purpose

Ananya, daughter of Kumar Mangalam Birla, sports a tattoo - it says ‘Conquer’. Asked whether it was a mark of what she had accomplished or what her to-do plans were, she said the word meant a lot to her,“Everyone has mornings you don't feel like getting out of bed.  I see it and think,  ‘I have to conquer the day’. Whether it's to conquer a new song or venture or my fear…..”

CALL TO ACTION
‘Purpose’ is a person's sense of resolve or determination. It is a lens that helps to focus everything you do into a single point action.
What's yours?
A coach can help you do it quickly and enjoyably.

Challenging Yourself

Since 2009, Mark Zuckerberg has set himself an annual personal challenge. Starting off with a personal challenge of ‘Wear a tie every day’, he progressed to ‘Learning Mandarin’ and ‘Read a new book every two weeks’ - among others. For 2016, he has himself the personal challenge to build an AI assistant that would let him control music, lights and temperature using his voice and alert him to anything might need his attention in his daughter's room. Along the way,  he has also set himself mini challenges like changing his baby's nappy in 20 seconds.

Business Point
Setting yourself challenges which require grit, determination and perseverance, gives the drive to succeed both on personal as well as business fronts.

Picture source: Fast Company

The Virtues of Being Competitive

Author Antonio Garcia Martinez believes Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, has been wrongly portrayed in the movie Social Network. “...on the contrary, he’s actually very alpha and dominant,” says Martinez,  “He’s the sort of guy who, if you challenge him that he can't do 100 pushups,  he'll bet a million dollars that he can,  and he'll win.“
Zuckerberg also took three months off to help his wife look after his first-born. "I am a competitive guy,” he boasted, “I time myself to get and better, and I got  (nappy changing) down to 20 seconds.”

INSIGHT
Competitiveness has it’s healthy side too!

The Leader's Quest

“The way I found that works for me is I theme my days. On Monday…... I focus on management and running the company…Tuesday is focused on product. Wednesday is focused on marketing and communications and growth. Thursday is focused on developers and partnerships. Friday is focused on the company and the culture and recruiting. Saturday I take off, I hike. Sunday is reflection, feedback, strategy, and getting ready for the week.” - Jack Dorsey, CEO Twitter

#BusinessPoint
The constant quest for a wise leader is how to reduce the humongous into the doable, and the complex to the simple.

The Millennium Leader

“The golden rule of conduct is mutual toleration, seeing that we will all never think alike and we always see truths in fragments and different points of vision.” - Mahatma Gandhi

#Businesspoint
More  pronounced than the diversity of views and opinions among individuals, the diversity is even more between generations.  Leaders managing a workforce spanning generations need to be aware of, navigate through,  and manage multiple ‘truths’

Encouraging Innovation

For the 2014 April Fool prank, Google and the Pokémon Go teamed up for the Google Maps Pokémon Challenge, in which players had to comb the globe virtually to catch 'em all. Could the virtual game be set in real life, thought John Hanke, the inventor of the game. He took the idea forward, resulting in the worldwide runaway success.

#Businesspoint
Innovation is one part serendipity and three parts possibility mindset, persistence and creativity. Leaders needs to nurture and encourage all parts.

True Greatness

Two men landed on the moon, Armstrong and Aldrin, stepping on the moon within twenty minutes of each other. The feat is well documented and Armstrong went down in history as the first man on the moon. Yet he never capitalised on it.
Two men reached Mt. Everest - Hillary and Norgay. No one, apart from the two,  knew who was the first to do so - and they decided to keep it so. Much later Tenzing revealed in his memoirs that Hillary was the first man on Everest.

INSIGHT
Both Armstrong and Hillary could have chosen to project themselves as great heroes. That they did not, shows their true greatness.

A Window to Our Souls

The late music great David Bowie was an avid collector of art, which he kept private in his lifetime.Artist and writer Matthew Collins says, “I think he was an absolutely genuinely enthusiastic collector who didn't collect to be swanky or big himself up. He really collected because he had a use for that work and it was a personal use. He looked at those things and they changed his state of being“.

INSIGHT
We can harness our passion either for our personal pleasure, or for personal gain. How we use it, reveals who we are & the manner in which we value it..

Kaleidoscope Thinking

“A kaleidoscope is a device for seeing patterns. They’re made up of a set of fragments, but it’s a flexible set of fragments, so that if you twist it or look at it from a different angle you can see a different pattern. So, in fact, it’s not reality that it is fixed, it’s often our view of reality.
Leaders have to shake people out of their orthodoxy and get them to see that a new pattern is possible. So it’s all about seeing new possibilities.” - Rosabeth Moss Kanter

Call to Action
What new possibility do you see for yourself and your team today, that you would like to see realized?

Doing What's Right For You

Liz Wessel is a former Googler, and at 26, already the CEO of her own startup. She attributes her success to two pieces of advice she received. The first was to say yes to taking risks and trying new things, and the second;  to not chase money but happiness.

INSIGHT
Eminently good piece of advice no doubt, but not everything that works for others, may work for you. So, before accepting the thoughts of others, ask yourself:
Are they
- resonating with me?
- in alignment with my values?
- applicable to me this stage of my life?
If yes, then embrace and practice the thoughts.

What Is A True Success Metric?

“For me, a peaceful night's sleep means true success.” - Actor Jimmy Shergill

INSIGHT
Good things and bad things keep happening to us, but it's not what happens that affects us, it's how we react to it, that does. So there cannot be a better criteria of success than a good night's sleep. It proves that we have managed to win the daily wars raging inside us.

Life Transitions

“To be successful you have to be selfish, or else you never achieve. And once you get to your highest level, then you have to be unselfish. Stay reachable. Stay in touch. Don't isolate.” Michael Jordan, billionaire basketball star

INSIGHT
The journey from acquiring to contributing, from taking to giving, from looking without to looking within,  is the journey from doing to being. Each of us makes the transition in different ways, at different stages in our lives.

Raise The Bar

After his first audition, a casting director told actor Sidney Poitier, “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?” It was at that moment, recalls Poitier, that he decided to devote his life to acting. He wasn’t going to let someone else decide his life path. - John Mason, Expect to Win

INSIGHT
Words dig deep. Deep enough to hurt and scar, or deep enough to raise the bar on the determination to succeed.