Workforce Management and Analytics @ Bangalore HR Summit 2014

Which CEO or COO would not roll up his / her eyes when you say you can reduce cost for the organization by 5%,  increase revenues by 4% and bring down attrition by 2% over next one year.   They would jump up and welcome you, make you feel special. 

These are exactly the kind of things that Workforce Management and Analytics can do for organizations.   

This was the theme session on WFM&A at Bangalore HR Summit 2014, yesterday (12 Dec) at Bangalore.   I had the pleasure to anchor this session where there were over 150+ participants and three panelists sharing expertise and experiences from likes of  IBM, Accenture, HP and Cloud9 Hospitals. .  

The presentations revolved around three aspects. First was around WFM itself. Anchored by a budding entrepreneur  the session covered aspects on talent planning, staffing and allocation which actually went on the show how one has to organize for flexibility in staffing, look for JIT hiring and optimize cost and improve the organizations agility.    

This was followed by a concept on how to engage employees after getting them into your organization especially using social media as a lever to create transparency in positions available and also to drive a collaboration across the organization. 

The final part was on how analytics was essential to tie up the view across the complete cycle.  You had to look at  various trends focus on intuitions that you have about the people practices,  convert them into hypothesis and then look for ways in which you can gather, retrieve and generate data to test the hypothesis.   The better the insights the more relevant would be the action taken and outcomes.  

In essence we concluded that for WFM&A to succeed you needed to show tangible outcomes (action from the insights) and this helps build the credibility.  Second it needs support and visibility from Top Leadership.  Third you don’t need to run after complex analytical models.  You start with simple tools and draw insights, build on this as it gets more buy in from your organization members and then move up the complexity ladder.

4P Framework for Career Choice Making

Its placement time once again and lots of students will be lining up for interviews, job search and in the process make decisions which can impact their lives.  How much thought went into this whole process is the question.  Did they do as much research as they would do to buy the next smart phone or to get a new winter jacket

The quest this season could be...To take up a job after graduation,  to pursue higher education, to follow their dreams, to take up something unconventional. However today the young generation at this critical point in their career are faced with abundance of choices.  When choices are many decision making becomes difficult, rather stressful and several interference's come into play. 

 These include Peer pressure,  popular choices of the day (remember the engineering and medicine craze of the 1980's and 1990's) , family pressures all play a part of being among the various interference's.   In such situations how does one bring back focus on their career choices.  A simple way is to ensure you are clued in to 4P's.  A simple yet powerful way to ensure that you are in sync with reality and make a more informed choice.   A brief discussion on the 4 P framework for effective career choice making is elaborated here.  

The first P is Purpose.  Sounds simple but you first need to have a clear purpose if you don't want to get swayed by the happenings around you else,  the slightest winds of disruption around you will distract you.   Most young college graduates think their purpose is clear but not more than 10% of them have actually written down their purpose.   Where do you want to go?  What do you want to do?  Writing down your purpose increases the chances manifold that you will achieve it or move in the direction to achieve it.   Writing down your purpose brings focus into your mind.   This is something you should take a few solitary moments to pen down.   Discuss it, if you need, with a close confidant - a friend, a family member.   State what you want to achieve and by when.  Write it down in a place where you can read it as often as once a day.  The mind has a beautiful way of rewiring itself when you are focused on your objective or purpose. (Read my Blog on Attention & Focus).  One thing that most students who are graduating worry about is what others will think of their choice.  It does not matter.  Your choice is something that is very important for you and if you don't make your choice to do what you want then you will only be living other's choices.  Your's or Others?  The Decision Is Your's.

Once you have your Purpose, you need to drive it to action.  This leads us to the second P which is Plan.   Plan helps give wings to your dreams.    You have to make deliberate attempts to make things happen and only a plan can take you there.   You need to understand your strengths, your values and how they align with your purpose.   Do you have what it takes to give wings to your dreams?  If not - Go Get It !!  It is never too late when you are making a choice for your life's dream.  A career is not a short term venture but something that where you can end up spending 3 to 4 decades of your life in a field of your choosing.   This can be the company you start your career with, the industry in which you want to work or even the field of profession you want to choose.    A plan needs to have milestones.  Break your journey to the destination into manageable bits.  For e.g. if you want to get into a career on animation and gaming it is not just enough to do a few courses.  Talk to a few experts who are already in the field of animation and design.  Spend a few hours talking to them, understanding what stumbling blocks they faced in their career and how did they overcome this.   Work on areas where you have assessed gaps vis a vis making entry into the career you are focusing on.   You also need to understand what would be the best place to start your career. Look for organizations that provide fertile learning ground and good training for early career starters.   Sometimes you need to trade this off with a few thousand rupees of salary that you may other wise get but with few training opportunities.   Finally just like you put purpose on paper you should try to do the same with your plan. 

The third P is very critical and most college graduates don't think about this till it is too late in the day.  Position...  It is like your brand promise.  What is that makes you different from others who are competing with you.  Chose something that is your strength.  Something which you can talk about as your USP.  Marry this P to the previous one if you want a job with a specific industry or have narrowed down to a particular choice of organization.   How will you position your key strengths during the selection process.   Things like Good communication skills,  hard worker and attention to detail are all given today.  You need to show how you are ahead of the learning curve,  what unique skill, capability or talent you have that is hard to come by.    This will help you stand out in a crowd.   You need to start working on this P early on in your college degree course.   Colleges where Training & Placement Departments drive this as a focus area to work on for their graduating classes will be ahead of the curve when it comes to fruitful placements of their graduating classes. 

Perseverance...the final piece of the 4P framework.  One needs to have a drive for perseverance in order to sustain  the focus or career interest area.   Perseverance helps to galvanize action,  overcome stumbling blocks, expand your horizon and achieve excellence.   When it is combined with performance it can create a transformation for individuals.  Remember the budding guitarist who strummed hours on end and became part of the rock band... or the avid writer at school who turned into a budding author or journalist.... or the accounting wizard who went on to become a seasoned Chartered Accountant.  All these examples can be found in real life.   What we are talking here is the never say die attitude that you carry with you and which will help aspirants sustain the quest for what they are looking in their careers. 

While it is important for individual students and graduates who are making career choices to consider these 4P's and strive towards using this simple framework to make a informed and aware choice, it is also in the interest of the educational institutes to set this focus as part of their mentoring the final year students.  Placement Counselors and Training Officers of colleges can subtly encourage students to think on these lines.  The earlier you make the start in college better are the chances that students don't get into last minute confusion and end up  enjoying the careers they strive for. 

A Sure Recipe for A Failed Change Effort

In one of the conversations I was having with a colleague he/ she asked "Why are these things changing so frequently, every now and then".   Cant' we have a permanent change once for all".... Paradoxical it seemed at first but in hind sight it goes to remind us that change is permanent.  It is here to stay and will always be... it was slower but will be faster.... it is something permanent.

Not Only is change permanent, the effects of that can also be permanent.... like going out of business for ever,  or taking a hit on your performance and leading to a downward seemingly never ending downward trajectory.  OR alternatively.... you can manage change to ensure you don't get the wrong side of where you wanted to end up.

In an earlier blog I spoke about the capabilities required to manage change that every organization should look for.  Read Here

What is interesting is that there are some conditions when change cannot be successfully navigated (I like this term as it draws from turbulent conditions akin to a mid ocean storm or air turbulence which skillful commanders are used to handling every day).   One kind of sure condition for failure is when the organization faces disruptive forces (Externally) and at the same time faces internal resistance then you can read it as a signal 4 hurricane sure to leave the scars for long on the landscape of your organization. 

Here is an example:  Imagine a new product is launched in your industry that magnifies some service capability or product feature or deliverable by a factor of X.   This can be anything ranging from "new low cost airlines with a completely untested model entering a fragment airline industry" leading to mass adoption by flyers,   a robotic automation tool by a competitor that can make a fully functional document format meeting your customer spec in a time which is a fraction of the manual effort,  or a completely different retail format where economy of scale can deliver volumes at huge discounts.    

Now if you are in one of these contexts and you have internal dynamics where people resist your ability and efforts to counter that then your organization is heading for failure.   Imagine a situation where your employees are focusing on bargaining wage hikes,  working hours reduction etc when the industry is facing the threat of  disruptive force.  Or if your employees resist automation and are completely uncooperative when a new bank brings in unheard of service quality with great amount of automation and technology adoption then you have little chance of surviving long or you can survive as long as you decide to do something to address the disruptive forces. 

When faced with this diabolic choice then the only way out is "sense making" driven by the organization's change leaders.  The reluctant participants should understand the choice between fighting for more of what they want versus not existing (as an organization) to fight any more.  The more effort put in by the organization to communicate this aspect the better the chances to overcome this resistance and tide through the crisis of sorts that might prevail.  

A combination of disruptive forces combined with internal resistance is something that can be a sure shot recipe for failed change efforts. 

Read More on Change Management  Below

Arise Awake, Don't Be a Boiled Frog

HOPE To Kindle Our Live

The Quest for Delivering Lasting Change

The Quantum Does not Matter, The Focus Does

A student went to a Zen master and said, “I am devoted and keen to study your martial art system. Tell me Sir, How long will it take me to master it?

The teacher looked at him casually and remarked “About Ten Years”

“But I want to master it faster than that, I will work very hard, practice twice the number of hours per day... and also slog at night" and "Sir, Then how long will it take me?”

The teacher thought for a moment and said “Twenty Years”

What we can learn is that it takes time to master something. It is not the quantum of time rather the focus and attention that we can pay that makes the difference in how much skill or knowledge gets accumulated.  

The more one focuses on the task the better is the learning.  If you tend to push through you are bound to undermine the learning. 

There is an optimal speed at which we can learn, understand and synthesize knowledge and we can get more adept at it but short circuiting it in something new we seek to learn will not help the learning any more than walking around with a dictionary makes you an expert in english language. 

Read more about the power of Focus and How It Makes a Difference in What we Do and What Gets Done.  Read Here

Discussions on Creative Leadership at Asia Pacific HRM Congress

It was interesting discussion at the session on Creative Leadership For Tomorrows World. I was part of a session wherein there were three presentations bringing in diverse views on leadership and talent..  

First presentation by Vinod Bidwaik, HR Director at  DSM India Pvt Ltd,  brought out how leadership is key to securing the future for company which is driven by innovation.   The company had evolved  over a period of 110 years from a mining company to a high tech specialty plastics products company and also getting into some amazing innovations that will drive the growth.  To enable this you needed to shape the right behaviors right from entry  screening to retention and motivation and the right leadership was needed to provide that direction.   After all Leadership is a verb and not a noun.  It is all about driving momentum and bringing change and not about remaining good where you are.  The six stage model that was presented made an interesting learning from the companies five year journey. 

The second section was on an interesting point of view by Wing Commander Naresh Taneja Head HR for IRB Infrastructure Services,  who spoke about Toxic Talent Trap and how you can go on for a long way without noticing the side effects of talent that is toxic.  Basically the session was a discussion about what extent do companies go in the pursuit of talent, what extent do you let go of your core values just because you don' want to lose a good talent.  The discussion raised questions about role of leadership in addressing this issue and ensuring that we don't end up as boiled frogs (of course with the internal environment changes) 

The third leg of the session was that perspective I shared from TCS about how leadership is not just at individual level but leadership also extends to the organization as a whole.   The small story about how TCS displayed responsible leadership at the industry level to drive augmentation of talent to enable the industry become more competitive was the essence of what we discussed in this part.  There was an interesting discussion on how competition is no longer between company A and B within an industry but going beyond to competition among nations and  leaders have to quickly understand how the dynamics of talent shortages and unavailability makes your industry uncompetitive due to salary wars and wage inflation and how it gravitates towards a competition between nations.  That is where responsible leadership as a corporate entity comes into picture to secure a sustainable competitive organization.

Chairing a Session @ Asia Pacific HRM Congress !!! Bangalore

This week on 11 & 12 Sept 2014, the Asia Pacific HRM Congress will be held at Bangalore.  The theme of the conference is "Building a Great Place to Work with Powerful Results".  Several discussions and theme based technical sessions are slated as part of the two day event.

I will be chairing one of the sessions with three presentations on theme of Creative Leadership which is a very essential component in creating a strong innovative organization that can be leader in tomorrows world. 

There will be interesting presentations by folks from IRB Infrastructure,   DSM Group and Renault.  The question always remains as to whether leadership in decline and downturn days is same as leadership when growth is all round.  May be we would have a few insights coming up during the discussions. 

Missed Opportunities: Part II

In an earlier post (Read Here) I spoke about missed opportunities.  We discussed four major reasons for these including lethargy in general, being unaware,  being extra cautious or lack of planning. 

While people do keep regretting missed opportunities we should understand how we can avoid unnecessary regrets.    For this consider couple of things.

Often in life many things require decisions to be time bound.  If you delay the decision you may lose the opportunity forever.  We keep hearing, Oh No',  If only I had decided to buy that apartment today I would have earned five times the investment and its just five years since the opportunity went by.   See my friends who joined that company.... I took time to decide and they are at the peak of their careers.

The question to ask is each time you make a delay in decision is :   "What's the Good Reason to delay the decision for".   Once you make that decision don't view it as a missed opportunity,  just view it as a different path or option you chose.   This is what Andrew Lincoln once said about missed opportunities.

Second let us look at it the way the noted motivational speaker Zig Ziglar does when he says  "The top sales person in your organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made."     This sums up another way to look at it. You missed out something to gain something else.   What you did not get by making more sales calls was "low sales".  So even though you missed some you ended up the winner. 

Third and most simple way to look at it is "If you did not try or attempt to do something" then it is not a missed opportunity.  It becomes missed opportunity only if you made a conscious choice to opt for something but then did not do it, not out of constraints or limitations, but as an act of omission.  Only then you should accept it as a missed opportunity. 

Have you heard anyone regret he / she did not become like Michelangelo the painter.  If you did then you must have put in efforts to become a master painter.  

In short, what you did will decide whether you missed out. Did nothing, missed nothing.  

That way you will be able to rationalize your experiences in a manner that does not make you unnecessarily worried and set your mind wandering for a comforting solution. 

Economy in a Sweet Spot? Implication for HR

Euphoria over new Government taking office in New Delhi is slowly fading away.   Now all eyes are on the future.  Economic trends globally are showing an uptick in recent months.   A global survey of over 1300 CEO's including 77 from India shows that 49% of the CEO's surveyed are very confident of their growth prospects in short term and 70% have a very positive outlook on growth in the next 3 years.   

The days to come will now see talent wars as growth and economic confidence returns.  When chips are down you don't worry much about attrition, you give cursory attention to talent shortages (with exception of few critical areas each time there is a down turn) and tide the calm without much problem.  

As things change now,  it is interesting to know that over 55% of those CEO's surveyed saw the loss of key talent as a key threat in coming days.   HR Leaders and Managers need to consider how to ride this wave of growth and progress and how their organizations can come out unscathed.  Some points to consider

a) How do you retain your top talent?  If you have ignored them in the recent years, now's the time to pull levers on all fronts to retain the top talent.  Engaging the solid citizens who contribute to your growth is key.  They need to see something valuable for them, a good career, rewards, recognition (constant reinforcement) and providing greater responsibilities.  Easier said than done.  However for those organizations who looked the other way during the slow down or low growth period the challenge will be enormous.   Your best folks who felt they got a cold shoulder would be the most vulnerable one's when it comes to "continuance commitment" dimension. 

b) Look for alternative talent pools?  In many industries smart thinking in terms of how you can augment your talent supply is very important.  Otherwise the companies will out price themselves on the compensation front and eventually make the industry uncompetitive.  Remember your competition is not going to come just from your industry, so HR and Talent managers should be on the look out where the next boomerang comes from E.g. e-Tailer flipkart.com  is suddenly growing and needs hundreds of new employees every month to keep their supply chain running.  They are giving a run to folks in the pizza delivery chain.   

c) Build Capabilities for the next wave:   As you grow it won't be wise to look at linear growth.  100$  2 people,  1000$,  20 people.  This formula won't keep you growing.  Companies have to look for productivity improvements,  technology and automation to deliver the same with less and keep the bottom line in shape.  This will call for investments both in the people development space to build up and quickly create capabilities required to run the new technologies.   Training functions will also need to rehash their strategies to quickly up skill and / or re-skill sections of the workforce based on the changes anticipated. 

d) Relative Growth of Industries will Vary:  As economies revive the turn around rates will differ across industry. Some will speed up faster and other relatively slower.  But remember your HR challenges does not necessarily come from your own industry.   When Business Process Services companies grew at a rapid 30% plus rates in India in the early years the pressure was felt by banks, accounting firms, financial services companies as well as by retailers.  The need for industry vertical experience among the BPS organizations to serve their global customers led to influx of many banking, financial services professionals as well as retail experts moving into another industry.  HR Leaders need to assess where the next challenge would come from.  

e) How do you attract the right talent:  When economies review the other challenge for HR and Talent Managers is about how to attract the best talent.  After all you would need to hire for growth and this is tough in a growing market.  There will be cost pressures if you relentlessly pursue a wage war to get your talent.   With digital forces like social media and a host of networking platforms making a big presence felt now, it is imperative that the next wave to attract new talent would be predominantly digital marketing challenge. This will need employer branding focus in organizations and creating that pull factor with the right audience.   

While the above are not prescriptive suggestions it is important for HR and Talent managers to reassess their strategic position in the talent market and equip themselves with the right approaches and tactics to survive getting hit by the talent war as economic revival seeps in.

Competencies? Diving In To Understand

Earlier I spoke about "Competency Utilization"  Read the Post Here.  Now Utilization is like the post script.  Competency comes before that. 

To cover a bit of further ground on the topic let us try to understand what is a competency itself.    When it comes to competency let us restrict  our understanding to "people competency".   For us competency is something that makes person  X stand out  on his / her performance outcomes.  That is to say  in a sense that.... delivering high or superior performance is an outcome and something that precedes it (which is capability residing in a person) is a "competency"  It is the preceding aspect of performance. (High Performance)

So in that sense every thing you have as a skill, knowledge etc is all competency?  No.

Now how do you differentiate?

It is something that is present (to some reasonable extent, lets now worry how much or to what degree) or resides in  the one displaying high performance but is manifest either very low or  is absent in the average or folks who are low on performance outcomes.  

So look for "Something distinguishing" found in those that deliver high performance and which is present as a precedent to the performance. 

Now does it mean that there can be only one characteristics that can drive one kind of performance outcome.    No  in fact it is a many to many type of relationship.   One outcome can be driven by more than one competency and One competency can drive more than one kind of outcome.

Now that's getting confusing.... Yes !!!  That's why we need to understand in steps. Here is an example.

Verbal Communication can be a competency that drives both "successful settlement of a collective bargaining process" as a performance outcome as well as "appeasing a unruly crowd" or  "pacifying a set of disgruntled employees" as an outcome.     

At the same time "successful settlement of a collective..."  would need "Business Acumen"  in the context of the business you are negotiating the settlement of the collective bargaining objective. 

Now comes the degree of presence or absence of the competency...  That's something we'll understand as proficiency.   So the question to reflect on are...

a)  Is competency binary?   Is there a 1-0 kind of relationship that if it is present then outcome is delivered? Else No?

b) If it is not 1-0 then how does the grading or proficiency depth get applied in organizations?

These are somethings we'll see later.   Till then  here's a quote for you to reflect on this quote that emphasizes the importance of competencies in business.

"If you don't take care of your Current Competencies,  a day will soon come when your Competitors will be taking care of your Current Customers."

Other Competency Links

Competency : Sum of Parts

Competencies !! What?

What Drives Competency Utilization?

Alternate Careers & The Shortest Path Syndrome in Careers

The thinking about careers is mostly linear.  However reality is that in today's fast changing global context there are always fundamental shifts in demands for skills and careers. Therefore one has to be ready to have a different perspective when it comes to the way one looks at a career.  

Consider this -  when it comes to deciding shortest and best way to cover the distance between two points one would logically  prefer a straight line.  However when it comes to careers it is not always necessary that a straight line be the best choice between the point you are and where you want to be.  Further when context changes  it is all the more  relevant. 

One should be willing to take risks and consider best alternatives.  So the fact that one looks at non linear ways to the destination or goal.   If one is staring in face of declining demand for jobs in a given field then it makes sense to prudently chose an alternative career. . 

Why?  The career market has definitely undergone shift. In UK there have been alarming increase in number of unemployed young people.  Also post college there is no surety of  a relevant job opportunity.   India has the worlds highest number of graduates.  In the engineering field alone the country produces over 500,000 engineers annual and over a quarter of them don't get placed and keep adding to the pool of unemployed.   Take the case of Philippines,  In the past 4 years the global recession and dip in demand for nursing professionals world wide caused a dramatic rise in the unemployment among nurses.  Estimates indicated about 400,000 unemployed nurses today.   How long do these nursing graduates wait to get a job in a hospital and work hands on in a profession they wanted to pursue.  

There are always alternate careers.  However they should not be random choices.  That way you end up with a sub optimal one and also leads to frustration. However if the chosen career is some way related to the core profession then it can be very enriching.   How and What do you do is something we'll see in coming posts.

What you can learn about Egotism

The minister of The Tang Dynasty was known to be  a great leader and statesman.  However in spite of all this he considered himself humble and devout Buddhist.   He would often spend the weekend visiting the Zen Master to study and learn from him and both seemed to get along well.  The fact that he was minister did not affect his relationship with the Zen Master and they struck it off well like a diligent student and discerning master.

One weekend the minister asked the master "Sir, what is egotism according to you".  The master's fumed an in a very insulting and reverberating tone he sad "What kind of stupid question is that"

This kind of reply shocked the minister and he was angry and annoyed.  The Zen Master then smiled and said "This Your Excellency, is egotism"

This was "learning by real experience". No better way to explain the concept.

The lesson for us is that experience is the father of explanation and you imbibe more by just experience rather than someone telling or showing.  It was however possible that the minister would not have sensed what the master wanted him to experience and that's one key reason why learning fails.  We put our own walls of egotism and scaling those walls is a huge task.

If you want to really achieve then you need to break those walls of egotism and keep the mind open to learning.  This is similar to the "Empty Cup" phenomenon in the other story we discussed.

Leaders too have to shed their obsession of self importance and start thinking about how the others can grow, benefit, learn, improve and so on. Egotistic leaders are only concerned about their own position, how they will grow, how they will move up the pecking order.... without much worry about the larger team.   You will find them organizing "durbars" or "mini courts" with participants singing praises in a sense. 

MBA: Whats ailing the programs

A  field of study which landed students with very lucrative career options this field grew leaps and bounds -  attracted so many investors and several institutions started offering MBA programs and the growth was so rapid that by 2013 we have about 4000 colleges with capacity of over 350,000students each year.   Incidentally it is a vertical zoom upwards from 200+ colleges in 1990's.

Now, the tide has turned and there are large number (over half) where as many as 30 to 40% of students graduating in recent years are unable to get a job placement when they complete their MBA course work.   While the mushrooming of colleges did bring about lot of capacity this came at a cost of quality and big gap in employability.

According to the report on MBA employability by Aspiring Minds shows a dismally low 10% employablity in functional areas.   Employability in Operational roles was over 30%. 

When the first MBA course was launched at Harvard over a 100 years ago (early 1900's)  the objective was to help people who were well trained in their profession to sharpen their understanding of business and therefore run successful businesses.   MBA programs across the globe mirrored this and as the decades unfolded the objective changed.  Today Business Schools aim at building capability in decision making and leadership skills in a Global Environment, Most schools have a spattering of those who come with some prior work experience thereby forcing the learners to attempt a surrogate - try to learn from others experience, whatever value add that may bring about.  

The paradox - when there is over abundance of supply you would expect lot of innovation and improvement in curriculum it is not the case.  Reason for this can be attributed to the ingrained Indian' psyche to earn degrees.   Social pressure pushes students to opt for a PG degree like MBA even if it is not of high quality.  So what could be gaps in ability of the students who come to the corporate world after completing their MBA.  We discuss some of these below both from curriculum perspective as well as from the perspective of skills, knowledge and attitudes.  While all of these may not be equally representative  generalization across all colleges, especially among the top 100 or so colleges in India, it provides some aspects to reflect as some of the those graduating  in the lower ranks in these institutes also reflect these gaps.

a) Quick Fix and BOOM BOOM...Approach:  Business Management Graduates who join the industry afresh are full of ideas.  The problem.. solutions are configured in couple of hours.  What should have followed a set of decision making questions is often done in a jiffy.  Result:  Unworkable and impractical solutions.  Often the risk considerations are missing,  how the decisions impacts other parts of the organization are missing.... Systems Thinking.   Today's Solutions are Tomorrow's Problems.... Remember.  We can attribute this quick fix to the speed at which they are used to results.... Google Your Way in 0.052 seconds... seems to be transposed to real life too.  Look for quick fix.... solutions.  

b) Inference at Cost of Tools & Techniques:  More emphasis is placed on learning tools, techniques and so in straight situations the fresh MBA's seem to be very agile in application, but when it comes to drawing inferences,  there is a big gap.   Taking numbers sorting them into a organized information happens well but drawing inferences and linking the various concepts comes at a premium.

c) Synthesis as a Key Ability:   The ability to synthesize, link knowledge they gained across different areas to their decision and analysis is low.  While they are very fond of marketing,  QM and Operations Management integrating concepts of economics and social and behavioral aspects is much more lower.  Complete analysis and reports are prepared focused on strategy,  marketing concepts, operations parameters,  scenarios etc but economic principles, long term impact,  social and behavioral implications,  down side risks are left aside maybe unknowingly or assuming they are not that important pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.   Therefore the down side is that managers often expect that with new MBA's you need to spend lot of time  coaching them (hand holding) and this period of working along side goes for long duration even stretching 2 to 3 years into their career.  This can cause pressure and frustration among the new entrants as they look for being able to work independently much earlier.

d) Latest Concepts Inducted Late:  New trends in industry and business are slow to get into the curriculum and lag by anything between 6 months to 10 years. So at times it looks like Osmosis of Concepts from practice to class room.   For e.g. if you did a quick scan of the number among the top 100 B' Schools in India which have a full fledged course on Social Media on their MBA curriculum as a compulsory subject it is a very small fraction.   On a sample of 12 of the 100 only 2 had a full fledged compulsory course listed.   Even if they do have it they are not listed or among the electives which are easily avoided by the students who don't want to go through the grind.    This is so when today every industry and every business is faced with reality of  digital and social media strategy being part of the business realities. 

e) Ethics & Temporal effects:    When working on decisions in business it important that one learns to think analytically,  critically,  temporally as well as ethically.   While students are very good at the first two aspects when it comes to ethical considerations there is a big gap.   Similarly the ability to think historically as well as futuristically  is restricted.   This kind of tilt towards analytical and critical thinking leaves solutions less practical and often end up ... at the discussion level.  

f) Communication:  While written and oral communication do get sufficient focus in Business Schools it is a problem when it comes to how...  How does one communicate critical issues with employees,  how do you handle communication around issue management.   Fresh graduates are a a loss when it comes to this  aspect of communication - including those from premier Business Schools.  Communication with employees,  issue management,  strategic negotiation are important.  How communication in virtual and globalized context are different from communication in a factory where people work in one location are very different and need to be clearly understood.

g) Attitudes :  You may have great knowledge and skill repertoire but the attitude you have is often the success factor.   MBA's these days may think that the degree is a short cut from Class Room to The Board Room.  This is far from true.  One really has to go through the grind, get his or her hands dirty,  learn the ropes quickly and you will surely have a faster career, make better decisions or scale new and uncharted heights for the organization.  However today's fresh graduates want to move fast and consider the degree as the propeller for success but that's again a short sighted view.  You can get a foot in the door,  but post that it is your competitiveness, spirit and contribution that sets the MBA apart. 

g) Competitive versus Collaborative Mindset:   You are molded to be very competitive. Relative grading,  competing with others for marks in the presentation, staying ahead of the curve to get shortlisted for the plum jobs on campus, all tend to stoke the individual person and not the collaborative person in the young students.   This is carried forward as they enter the corporate world from their campuses.  The need in MBA curriculum is to design ways to encourage and visibly see how collaboration is rewarded.  Any success in organizations is culmination of efforts by several functions coming together to work on and delivering.

The above are some of the key gaps in graduating MBA students in recent years.   The world of business is changing so rapidly that what we call as gaps today may be dwarfed in next five years by something very different.   Society has many expectations from educational institutions and the curriculum is the best benchmark of the pressures acting on the educational institutes being fulfilled.   One has to be constantly aware of what those pressures are and how they can be addressed.   The way out for those who are graduating in these tough times would be to consider alternative careers.  

The straight line may be the shortest and easiest path between two points but when it comes to careers it is not necessarily so and if we understand how this can work to your advantage when there is an imbalance in demand supply (over supply) we can solve a number of problems with respect to employability.  How?  We will see in a subsequent post.

Tribute to Dr. Donald Kirkpatrick

This is a tribute to Dr. Don Kirkpatrick who passed away on 9 May 2014 at the age of 90.   He had served, most of his active working life, as a Professor at University of Wisconsin Madison.   A thought leader and a pioneer in the field of training he conceptualized a model of training management and the framework which stays relevant even after more than six decades since it was first made known to the managerial profession.  

Every HR professional would have come across this term called "Kirkpatrick's 4 Level of Training Effectiveness" sometime in their careers and many would have used it to delve into aspects of whether the lessons from learning interventions were taken back to the workplace and used in the context for which it was meant.   Kirkpatrick model of measuring learning effectiveness at four levels.  Put a trained person or a changed person (in our case) into the same context and the chances are there is a reversible reaction and he or she goes back to the old ways.  Therefore learning becomes ineffective.    So the model of 4 levels of learning evaluation goes into looking at down stream impact and that was the major shift in assessment of training delivered.

Today the world of work is not longer what it was in the 1950's and a far cry from what it was even in the 1990's.   But the relevance of the model still remains.   Whether it was class room learning or self learning or group learning techniques the stages model still remains a primary way of looking at application of the learning. 


Normally most people associate ROI with Kirkpatrick's model but this was not what he proposed.  The concept of ROI came from other proponents and is generally something like water on ducks back for those who are not numerically inclined.  Also when the scale of change is large and difficult to measure the concept of ROI beats people to a corner.  To overcome this I have used something called the VOI (Value of Investment) concept which is all about what value you expect the change to bring to your organization and as long as you are able to articulate that and check out whether it is bearing fruit you are good on your judgment for the investment.  More on this in a later post.

Busiess Process Services: Myth Busters

There are lot of myths about working in the Business Process Services industry (aka as BPO / ITeS industry) 

For the BPS industry has been a story of rapid growth in India having grown  from less than a Billion US Dollars in  revenues around 2001 to about 20 times that revenue by 2013. Truly with the forecast for 2020 being 50 Billion US Dollars the industry is in a sweet spot.

Some popular  myths about this industry:

Myth 1:  It is an industry where work is low end and run of the mill.


Reality:  BPS industry is a very diverse spread of work ranging from F&A,  Supply Chain Management,  Analytics & Insights spread across several industry verticals ranging from Pharma, Manufacturing, Banking, Insurance etc.  Also the industry offerings include managing various business processes of client organizations e.g.  reorder in a store or manufacturing facility; or improving the cash flow management in a business and so on.   Remember Cash flow is a major problem faced in many industries and several organizations are willing to put their money where the mouth is.


Myth 2: Educational Qualification, Degree's not very important.  Anyone can join.

Reality:  This is one of the most diverse industries in terms of skill and educational background.  Employees come with background ranging from Graduate to Post Graduate to Advanced Doctoral Studies ranging from Commerce,  Finance,  Marketing, Pharma,  Economics, Statistics,  Business Management,  Arts, Literature,  Medicine, Law and So on.   The industry has a very good ratio on gender diversity also.  While many companies may have about 30 to 40% women employees overall the industry has over 40% women working. Every industry will have jobs where qualification is not very important and you just need to have a school or pre-college certificate.  This industry is no different.  So Remember: Opportunity in Diversity is what this industry is all about.   

Myth 3: Not safe place to work;  Not good for women

Reality:  Absolutely misplaced understanding. The industry has over 40% women as part of the workforce.   Companies in this industry serve to work for customers in different time zones and so we have employees working in various time slots.   So almost every one gets a pick up and drop facility to their homes,  there is enough emphasis on safe commute with companies playing a very active role in security provided to employees both at work and to and from home to work.   Also being an industry which works on client data there is a highly secure and safe environment with very little scope for unsafe conditions.    Women employees being a big constituent companies have given lot of emphasis on policies that are women friendly and have made it a matter of ease, comfort and convenience for empowering women.

Myth 4:  Industry will not survive long.

Reality:  The industry which grew rapidly from about < 1 Billion USD in 2001 has now clocked nearly 20 Billion USD in revenues and slated to grow to over 50 Billion USD by 2013.  Moreover every country, every industry and every business needs to have better, smarter and newer ways of managing their processes and this industry will find opportunities even in the times of down turn.  Remember when growth was stunted across industries in recent years BPS grew in double digits.

Myth 5:  Low Growth, Low Attractiveness

Reality:  The industry has enormous opportunities,  serving clients across two dozen or more industry verticals.   Given the forecast and nature of work this industry can only expand with more and more industries seeking opportunities for bettering their processes.   With rapid growth comes opportunities. The industry has a matrix of opportunities in a combination of domains and functional areas which span from sales, marketing, operations, transitions, quality,  customer engagement,  risk and compliance and a host of other business enabler functions 

Myth 6:  Bad for Health due to Night Shifts

Reality:  The difference is no more than for e.g. what Bangalore was in the 1980's and early 1990's.  Most of the large companies in Bangalore, Mumbai (textiles) ,  Chennai etc worked round the clock and a host of people worked in the night shifts and rotating shifts.    A range of industries like hospitality, medical care,  transport, airline,  telecom, petrochemicals and other manufacturing all had night shifts and a whole lot of people working in different shifts.  The problem is not about night shift or rotating shifts making you fall ill, rather it is the change in lifestyle in general today that has made people prone to some of the hazards of low sleep levels,  poor diet and exercise regimes,  lack of  revival through breaks and holidays, etc not because they work in shifts but because the world in general has become fast paced.   Imagine you want to do your work, spend hours on Facebook,  Hangout in chat rooms,  celebrate at eateries, coffee shops and do all this in 24 hours -- the victim is sleep.   This is a problem all round not just for those in shifts but a society's challenge.


Myth 7: Strange people,  Work There

Reality:   Thanks to Chetan Bhagat's novel One Night At A Call Center which is a story woven around lives of a few strange people working in a call center and their complex ways and lives, this perception was created.  Reality is that the people in this industry are from diverse segments,  diverse backgrounds and are as good or as bad as people in any other industry.   It's the lens you wear that counts.

finally

Myth 8:   It is a call center. / Telemarketing space

Reality:   The spread of work done by BPS companies ranges from transaction processing to analytics and insights to legal process services to providing inputs on pricing decisions to global retail companies, to helping companies improve their cash flow, to allowing pharma companies launch drugs, vaccines faster and so on.  Today the BPS industry also involves call centers but that is one aspect of the industry and surely one where people enjoy varied opportunities.

You may also like to read.

Some Sectoral Challenges: BPS

Robotic Automation in BPS

BPS Industry in India

BPS Industry: Need for Mainstream Curriculum

BPS Industry: Myth Busters

Leadership Perspectives Series: 1 Vision, Leadership & Direction

There are several dozens of theories on leadership.   Understanding them needs deliberate effort and time.   There are also other ways to build perspectives on something like this.  One simple way is to build perspectives through quotes which are powerful in communicating the message and simple elaboration which gives examples of "action" or "grounded understanding"   In the Leadership perspective series we shall try to understand some simple facets of leadership and we have about a dozen such perspectives coming up in next few months.

We shall start with two simple quotes on Vision and Meaning that are critical elements that leaders should focus on.  Having a shared vision is something that we always speak of when it comes to fulfilling objectives as a team.   Then you would have heard about putting your heart and soul into it once you have a clarity on vision, purpose, goal etc.   Here are three simple quotes.

"We are more in need of a vision / destination and a compass rather than a road map." Stephen Covey

This quote really captures the fact that it is more important to have a destination and then chart a course for our selves.  Anyone who has used Google Maps today understands that there are many paths between two points and while Google does it without emotional upheavals involved.  However human beings are different, they have a high need for deciding their own path.  It is highly motivating to involve people in the decisions and let them be part of the core decision process and this is what drives them to perform.  So a good leader should avoid providing the solution but rather help build a perspective and let the people working in the organization decide the way to reach there.    

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.” 
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leaders are one side of the coin.  Followers make up the other.   For a leader it is most important to understand what each one is good at, what they excel in,  what drives their passion and then ensure they dwell on that.   Realizing ones potential is what every leader would thrive on.    Egg Them on their strengths and they would never have to work a single day.... rather they never feel they are working. At the same time a good leader will surely want to give a chance to people to make mistakes and not get bogged down by failures. 

Sample this...

"A leader is one who climbs the tallest tree, surveys the entire situation and yells "Wrong Tree".  Stephen Covey

It is about owning up and accepting that mistakes can be made... however most importantly it is about not repeating the same mistake.  A good leader surely does not deny the fact that you should learn from your mistakes as well as from that of others and then transfer that learning across situations.   That is why we often hear that the constellation of experiences is what makes a person a leader

Finally from the Holy Bible

When there is no vision, the people perish.  Proverbs, 29:18

It is about not understanding the right word that leads to moral chaos.  Although it may not directly be an attribution to leadership vision it is about having a understanding.


More on leadership perspectives in subsequent posts.  Adieu !!!