Being Relevant as a Manager

Relevant: The Oxford Dictionaries defines the meaning as...

"closely connected or appropriate to the matter in hand".

So what does it mean when it comes to a manager engaging with his / her team in work organizations?

If you are to be accepted as a leader manager you have to be relevant in today's context. The expectations, needs, desires and general view of life changes with generations.   Today's young people at work in their early twenties may never  realize that work was once done without email,  without digital systems, with type writers,  with ammonia duplication machines.  There were no scanners, no internet and also fewer cars on the road to the workplace.  Majority of companies did not provide a pick up and drop facility from and to office / workplace  in earlier decade.

This whole digital age, when things are done at the click of a mouse or on pressing ENTER on a key board has resulted in a expectation osmosis towards forming a more generalized view for everything to happen even at work in a jiffy, therefore the need for quick resolution, quick feedback, instant gratification and so on.   Which means that managers need to be fast in all of these aspects- giving feedback,  providing responses, decision making and so on. 

The new generation of employees are tuned to their mobiles all of the time,  familiar with digital technology and more comfortable if there is a reciprocal response from managers. While a manager may ask "Why should I be the one to change"  the simple response is today you as a manager may be in a minority in organizations as there are several companies with over 50% Gen Y employees.   World wide the workforce may have about 36% of millennial generation in the workforce but in countries like India it is higher and in some sectors like the IT/ ITeS it is much higher.  Remember the old saying  :  "While in Rome, do as the Roman's Do." 

Today is the age of fast and not so lasting change, people expect and are so used to change happening all of the time so it is important for managers to also change and reinvent themselves.  You can always lean back on the fact that "It always happened this way.... here"  but not for long as your team will find their managers are not relevant.  Meetings and the way they are organized should keep changing now and then otherwise they become drab, boring, seen that before kind of rituals.

Today you can send and receive as many emails back and forth in a single day to close your communication... so more frequent connects are the order of the day when it comes to work. Which means you need to connect back with your teams more often than what you did in the past decade.  In short influences on the social side of personal lives need to spill over into the workplace.

Adopt latest technologies,  speed up things even in people management, bring more variety and flavors in your meetings,  connect more often, give more feedback,  get more frequently into connect session with your team(s) and keep giving them a thumbs up for good things happening every now and then.

Standardization of Human Capital Metrics Reporting Through Statutory Reporting Requirements

Every quarter organizations release their results (financial) and publish them for use by shareholders, analysts and so on.   These reports contain lot of financial and operational metrics as well as some HR metrics (people related) .  If you observe that most of the Financial data published / metrics are included in alignment with or response to various statutory requirements. For e.g. there is a prescribed method(s) to compute depreciation and method used is declared.   There are specific items on the reports like Cash Flow Statement or DSO that are to be reported.  In a sense this is what helps compare the organizations apple to apple.   So for any organization you can know what is the cash flow,  how they turned their inventory in a reporting period (quarter or year), how well they are leveraged or even how many days outstanding they have on the receivables.  When it comes to depreciation too there is a choice and companies can chose the best suited for their life cycle and industry and report the same.

 But come to people metrics and you are staring at most incomparable metrics across organizations.   Few of the organizations do report some numbers like head count,  employee turn over or even average age of their employees.   But for an investor or analyst is that enough?  Is that necessary?  

Today it is not longer the financial performance of the organization that can help you decide how things will look five years from now.  Financial reporting is historical (past) and we need to understand the future.   There are many intangible metrics that let us know how an organization is geared to meet the coming challenges.  These are leading indicators.  However there is no standard set of metrics.

Take attrition itself.  Companies do it very differently and so even comparing two companies across the same industry you will not be sure the method they use to compute the same.  Also depending on the choice of what the company chose to exclude (interns or contractors) the number can be very different.    Whether the company chose to use the closing head count or the average head count itself matters.   While using closing head count shows a deflated number for fast growing one's it is the other way for slowing down situation.   

Who are all included or excluded.   If the basis remain different this leads to varying head count nos.  

There are strong reasons for organizations to adopt standard metrics which can help investors, analysts and other stakeholders to make apple to apple comparison.  What they are we shall see in later posts.

Headline Goals: Whats Your's? Read On

Ever asked your self this question.  "What has been my biggest achievement this far?"   Generally as humans we tend to under use our potential and achieve only a fraction of what we could have  achieved.  Your potential is much more than what you ever thought.

So How do you move towards your potential?  How do you ensure you have something challenging to overcome and achieve. One of the ways to drive yourself to realize your potential is to define a headline goal for your self.   Set the goal and see it through.

What is that?

It is  something that varies from person to person but essentially it is about something big that you want to achieve, something that is worth putting up as a headline if you could put up on the front page of your life's newspaper.  Something you will be proud of. Something beyond the ordinary.

It can be something in your professional space or something in your personal space.  Let us restrict to professional space for now.   You would generally have goals that you get from your manager.   Are these general things that you achieve as per your managers view?  Is there something outstanding there to be chased.  That would be your headline goal.   

For someone it could mean doing a big marketing campaign that will push up product share 10% in the market or even more in less than a year.  For someone else it would be something like Bringing down cost of operations by 25% when the usual is 10 to 15% (say).   For yet another person it could mean aceing the Project Management Certification and scoring a A+. 

What should be the focus of the goal?   

It can be around your current role / job or it can be around something you aspire to do in the next role.  Achieving your headline goal can give you a feeling of  goosebumps when you're through with it.  It stimulates further desire to achieve a new "headline goal".

How many goals.   By and large chose something that can be achieved in 6 to 12 months. Don't choose 5 year time frame to start with.    

How do you handle these goals.  Spend some personal time off to review your progress on the goal. Put down the goal in writing.   Assess progress periodically... maybe once a week or fortnight.   That way you'll soon get into a habit and it remains in your focus.   Remember  What gets focus,  Gets Attention and What gets Attention Gets Done.   Read more about this in my post here.

I have used this concept quite often and found that it works wonders in the confidence and outlook of  your team members.  Also gives them a chance to aspire for something beyond their ordinary self.   In short.... helping to realize one's potential.

What Gets Focus Gets Attention ! What Gets Attention Gets Done !!!

Here's an experiment I have tried with dozens of audiences at work, at colleges where we interact, at training programs I have run.  I figured out this as a very important and effective way to bring out the point about "FOCUS"

I ask the participants in the group to participate in a mental gym.  The task is simple - to draw the dial of their watch (not an artists view, but just the details) in about 2 to 3 minutes.  Most are able to remember the shape of the dial,  they don't mess up between round or oval or rectangle shape of the dial.  Almost everyone gets the color of the dial face right.... almost everyone remembers whether it was digital or analog display... The Problem starts beyond that and not more than about 5% are really able to capture details beyond this.   What kind of needles are there... Do they have a pointed tip, or is the date above or below the 15 minute line,  is there a concentric circle around the dial edge,  where is the name embossed.  

Most participants tell me that they have been wearing the same watch for several months and some even several years, yet they are unable to do the simple task of figuring out details of the face of the dial of the watch.  They have seen the face dozens of times in a day over the months or years, yet they remember so little.  Why?  The reason being that each time they saw the watch the focus was on the time and not to look at the face rather to know the time. Actually the whole process happens in your mind... The brain has an inherent ability to tune out what is not in focus and at the same time sharpen the attention to what you need out of several images that come flying to you when you see things.   So the periphery (the boundaries and everything around... including how your wrist holds to the watch) all gets tuned out of the mind and you only see what you want to see.  That's the FOCUS your mind brings to what is being seen. (by the eye)

Similarly we have a powerful ability to Tune Out what we don't need and focus on what we need.  This spectacular ability of the mind comes in handy in much of what we do at work and otherwise.  Only the stimuli of interest gets attention and everything else around the periphery gets tuned out.   But this is not always true.  If we are unable to focus attention on the work at hand then we keep shifting from one to another, get distracted and are unable to achieve what was intended.  Now imagine what would happen if while looking at the watch you kept getting your attention wavering to the dial color, the texture of the skin of your wrist and so on.  This consumes lot of mental energy and ability to focus.

In our work too, what gets focused, gets attention.  If you are able to direct the attention of teams to the goals the goal gets actionized.  There is progress and there could be closure.  If the same is not given attention other peripheral things get noticed and focused upon thereby losing track on the goal at hand.  So in case you need to channelize focus on the goals and find that after a period of time if no reviews were done nothing happens then you are not directing focus of your teams.   

As an individual if you find yourself unable to achieve some goal it could be lack of focus.  Remember several 1000's start learning the guitar and few dozen complete even a beginners course and maybe a few reach even intermediate levels.   Millions of people start blogging but give up midway in less than a month,   Remember how many new year promises you made only to realize the volatile promises by the time it is March.   So in case you want to really achieve something bring it to focus,  that way you'll be able to direct your attention to it and tune out other distractions.  So what gets focused gets attention and what gets attention gets done !!!

What Drives Competency Utilization

We've all heard of competencies I'm sure. The very things (characteristics, traits, dispositions) that differentiate the outstanding one's from the ordinary.  In a sense it is like asking "What Makes Schumacher what he is".   Is it something that anyone can get, acquire or learn and become.  Yes!!! That is why the whole competency movement came about.   Primarily it is the outcome of works of  Richard Boyatzis,  David McClelland and others who pioneered the concept.

Now organizations you have seen and heard about spend several millions of Dollars each year on competency based processes, systems and frameworks.  They are investing significant  time and managerial effort to work out the competency definitions, models and so on.  So the question that one should ask is what really determines the utilization of the competencies that employees have.  How else would you be able to drive the utilization and the resultant benefit derived from the  competencies that your employees have.  Wouldn't you want your employees competencies to be used to improve, to do new things for your organization, ... in short to be better, faster, more innovative.  Yes Of Course.... Then the question is how do you drive up competency utilization.   

Is the utilization of competencies something that happens by itself just because you hired the person with level 4 on a given competencies.   Is the person going to shun using his competencies for some reason.  Such questions would surely come to your mind. 

In a series of posts I will try to answer such questions and provide some insights based on my research done over a period of time.   But before that think about how does one define a competency.  More on this in later post.

Questions are As Important As Answers.... Success at interviews.

If one were to take a shot at it... most of those who went for job interviews prepared to answer... how many also prepared to question?   Sounds interesting isn't it.

That's what the ones  who stand out and get selected really do.  If you are a recruiter or have done hiring as a manager did you ever step back to think what responses you get when the concluding question comes up.   Most often it is "Do you have any Questions for us / me"

What kind of answers do you get.   "None" (very confident, most often assuming they have the job) or "What will my role be".  Do the recruiters have a strategy in asking this or is it just a filler to close the interview or just a formality. By and large most people whom I spoke to from among those who asked this question did not have any specific reason to ask other than "it was something we always heard being asked"

But this seemingly inconsequential question(s)  can go a long way in understanding how the candidate thinks, how well he or she has understood the aspects of the organization or industry for which he/she is applying to a job opening.  One should not take this question in passing but prepare a few lines of thought on questions that be asked.    The hiring manager and the other decision makers can learn something  about you from the way you responded to this question - with the type of question you asked. 

So asking the right questions can help sharpen the evaluation you get and the impression you create thereby differentiating you from the other contenders.  It can bring out how you think and relate to issues,  it can show how insightful you are or it can show what your thought process is. 

I don't think it would be good to be prescriptive and give you a set of questions but remember the ability to ask the right question when asked about questions can do well for you as a contestant for a opening you are looking to make it to.

What can you learn from the cup of tea incident? Learning from Zen Stories

Zen Stories are inspiring and are source of very good learning cues for us in field of HR.   Here's one such story.  You may have read it earlier but the lessons is what I have added

A CUP OF TEA

A Japanese Zen Master received a Enthusiastic Scholar who came to meet him.   The Master served tea.  He Poured it till the cup was full and even then kept pouring the tea into the cup.

The Scholar watched the overflowing tea and after a while could no longer stop himself from saying.  "Master, The cup is overflowing and no more will go in"

"Like this Cup" said the master " you are full of your own thoughts, ideas, opinions and understandings   How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

For those who aspire to build capability through training and learning programs, remember your cup needs to be empty for your to learn something.  If you come with an attitude of "Already Know" then learning will be like grains of sand on the floor when winds are strong.... Nothing remains in a while.

If you take up a new role, a new job or even start something new you need to keep your mind open to learning.  Coming to a start with mind full of opinions and the understanding that you have nothing much to learn from others will be a start point for insignificant beginnings    However it is awareness of such attitudes existing that becomes a starting point for change.  

When your mind is full like that of the Scholar then it is like a sponge that has absorbed much liquid and no more can be used.  Remember, lesser the liquid in the sponge the more it can absorb  Just like the Scholar we are all susceptible to be victims of our own perceptions and prudence lies in awareness of our fallacy of feeling full.

This story also gives us insights into motivation   What drives someone to excel.  It is the hunger.... it is that in satiated feeling.... failing which one is contented and chances of achieving beyond today are low.  So key to realizing your true potential is to have the hunger first and then action should follow.

Food for Thought...

Here are some real gems life's lessons can teach.  Why wait for life to teach....Might as well read them and learn.

“ If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time. ”

— Edith Wharton

"Sometimes when things are falling apart...they maybe just falling in place"

- Unknown

"Being happy can only mean that you're willing to look beyond imperfections and not that the world is perfect"

Our life is shaped by our minds... we become what we think.  

- Gautam Buddha

If we don't get lost, we'll never find a new route.

- Joan Littlewood

We are what we repeatedly do.  Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit. 

- Aristotle

Imagination without doing means nothing

- Charles Chaplin

Those who are happy never had everything,  rather they were thankful for everything they have.

- Unknown 

Holding on To Anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die

- Buddha

You are never too old to set a new goal or dream a new dream.

- C.S Lewis

Technology Pushing Us to Think Less, Interact Less in Person?

What strange times we live in...? Technology has so come to influence every moment of our waking lives and takes over even when we are sleeping,  thereby making it unnecessarily easy for our brains. (you don't need to think, just leave it to technology).  Yes !!  Our brain is supposed to be altering its wiring in response to the technologies that we deal with.

Are these things familiar....

We are given suggestions by Facebook...... On whom to make friends with and lo you click on.

Our calendars on Outlook ......  Remind us of our next meeting with our friends and colleagues

We wake up to wish our spouses and kids for their birthday..... Using Auto Birthday reminder on Facebook and Orkut

Reminded which program to watch by the Auto Timer on the Television

Get suggestions on Amazon.Com as to which book we should be reading.

Attend parties where everyone's posting updates on fB on how they're enjoying every moment .... never once having spoken to the person sitting beside

Take a ride in a bus with children but stay glued right through the journey to the screen on the device in our palms.

Use a packaged predictive model to tell us which employees will leave us and when..

Subscribe to online news updates to summarize the key events of the day.

GPS Navigator on the dashboard tells us the route map and where all to turn to reach my destination. 


According to Prof Susan Greenfield of Oxford University modern technology including social networking and video games may have a detrimental effect on development of children. Further  our modern brains are also having to adapt to other 21st century intrusions, some of which, such as prescribed drugs like Ritalin and Prozac, are supposed to be of benefit, and some of which, such as widely available illegal drugs like cannabis and heroin, are not. Electronic devices and pharmaceutical drugs all have an impact on the micro- cellular structure and complex biochemistry of our brains. And that, in turn, affects our personality, our behavior and our characteristics. In short, the modern world could well be altering our human identity.

Recently I came across a quote attributed to the greatest thinker of  last century Albert Einstein.   It goes thus.....“I fear the day technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots.”

Is his foresight coming true in today's times is something for us to prove wrong.  Otherwise it can become an observable law.   

We need to be aware of how these devices and technologies  are overpowering us and changing the way we behave, relate, communicate and interact with people around us.  It is time to reflect.    What does it mean for us?

Below are some tips to avoid being victims of too much digital influence.  Have picked them from my earlier Blog.  Read here Urgent Versus Important.

a) Distance Yourself  from Those Digital Distractions: You need to put away these distractions like the SMS to waiting to be read, the latest Tweet from your rock star hero or the latest update on weather, or the email from office  all arriving incessantly into the digital device.  Keep a time window for such activity and stick to it.  If you follow that routine then it starts getting ingrained in your mind, in a few days the sub conscious sub system of the mind learns to rewire our brain circuit

b) Make Time for Reflection:  In the hurry and pace of daily life we rarely stop to look back on the day gone by.  It would be a good idea to look at how you had done on the things you did each day.  You would need not more than 5 to 8 minutes and this exercise also helps you to identify any priority items that you may have to focus on the next day.   The human mind has a uncanny ability to tune out what is not in focus and one could easily avoid missing out something which might fall between the no light hours that separate the two days.

c) What Are the Other Distractions:  Do you have too many things going on at the same time.  It is said that human's multitasking are more likely to make mistakes.  This is due to context switching leading to reduced attention.  However it is not impossible and people can be trained and become better at multitasking but that is only after training.  Otherwise several studies do show the down side of effectiveness while multitasking. So try to focus on the tasks one at a time as the brain needs to refocus as you switch between tasks making use of mental energy.   So this goes back to making a priority lists as in point a and re-look at what's important, whats not before you race ahead.   Some of us think we are experts at multitasking then you need to have a shared understanding - it is about doing two unrelated tasks.  Second the brain has an ability to switch rapidly between one and the other task so we should not confuse that with multitasking.

When Meetings with PowerPoint Presentations Are Low On Power

The more your meetings are interesting the better your employees can relate to them and come back next time looking forward to them.  Wondering why this on the HR Blog...  Well key to any organizations success is ability to sell ideas, points of view,  thoughts and products / services. The better you are able to do it the greater the chances of turning out winning presentations.... those that translate to decisions (be it buying your product,  joining your team or accepting your proposal)   As a key influence of talent development HR should drive significant capability building on this important facet in day to day life.  The substance behind the form your presentations take is more important than the form itself.   Read on....

Blah Blah...Blah,  Do you remember the last meeting you attended where the presenter was reading away from the slides and you really did not understand what he / she was trying to say.  Happens Quite a Lot these days and with each new updated version of PowerPoint it seems to be getting more and more common.

Perhaps the reason does not lie in PowerPoint itself but in how it is being used.  When PP is used as a cheat sheet for the speaker to read off all that is written on the slide.   I remember many a presentation where the presenter was showing his back to the audience and probably looking almost all of the time at the screen behind him as he did not have a reading off screen or window in front of the podium.

Yet another reason is: having too many slides and the speaker moves back and forth from topic to topic without any seeming connection between the messages or themes being discussed.  You might get a feeling of randomness all through the presentation.

Here are a few tips to make  presentation more effective.


1. Stick to the Essentials, Put the Rest In Hand outs. Now I'm not the nature hater.. but the hand outs don't have to be physical copies but they can be soft copies too that are mailed to the participants.  This way you avoid information overload.

I recently read about how Amazon decided to do away with PowerPoint presentations in all their meetings and managers come for the meetings with notes and action items all written down and not on digital formats. 

2. Remember the default Font Size on PowerPoint:  In case you could not remember the default size is generally 32.   Keep your slides restricted to about 3 to 4 points (bullets) per slide spreading over not more than 6 lines.   This makes it more easy for readability and also for aesthetic appeal to audience.  Clutter and Verbose slides only distract or put off your audience. 

3. Plan to Use a Simple Structure and Stick To It:  There has to be some logic to what you want to say in your presentation.  Let the main idea come out first.  This should lead to sub ideas or arguments based on the main idea.  Then elaborate those sub ideas and go back at the end to the sub ideas and the main idea.  Try to recollect the best presentations you have been through.  In essence the best  presenters  actually tell you what they want to tell you, then tell you and finally tell you what they told.  Simple isnt' it.   There is a powerful concept called the Pyramid Principle which was written about many years ago by a ex McKinsey & Co Consultant named Barbara Minto which gives a simple way to make your presentation structure more impactful  and communicate message right in the way the mind can comprehend.  That will give you some food for thought.

4. Take a Step Back To Reinforce Understanding:  Ladies and gentlemen... please listen for next 60 minutes and when I am done you can ask me all the questions you have in your mind.   It never happens that you have loads of questions at the end of a 60 minute monologue.  Instead keep the demand on the  attention spans small.  Stop for moments every 8 to 10 minutes and look for questions, thoughts and any feedback from listeners in order to keep it high impact.

5. Use Graphics Liberally, Be Wary of Visual Aids:   People come to your presentation to hear you, your ideas, arguments or thoughts.  Too many bullet points distract and drive down the interest and enthusiasm levels.  However a few graphics where appropriate does increase the effect of the ideas being shared.  When you make use of visuals make sure that what you speak is in sync with what you show and both are complementary and not using one as a replacement for the other.

6. Summarize, Summarize:  that is very important part of closing your presentation.  A well stated summary and key points made during the presentation is something which has highest probability of getting across with the audience beyond the walls of the presentation room.  

New Year Wishes !!!

May You have Great Goals

Wonderful Pay Hikes

Fantastic Career Moves

Lovely Training Programs

Sky Rocketing Bonuses
Lingering Lunch Breaks

Exotic Vacations &

Some Work Of Course !!

Enjoy 2014 !!!