Five Things You can Pursue....An Achievable Wishlist

In today’s world there is an unending quest for happiness.  But what makes you happy does not necessarily make me or another person happy.  In trying to pursue something which I don't want to go after, I am probably living a dream of someone else.

The question is....Is it something difficult to find out what you should pursue.  Is there something we can learn from others experiences.

One way to look at it is from the perspective of terminally ill people.  If you have lived with someone who was in the terminal phases of cancer you would find that they are in a hurry to achieve as many things as possible in the short span of time they have staring ahead at them. They want to do many things and the last days do see some good  progress being made.   They also regret they tried out this so late....Learning something new,  trying out what one never tried out,  meeting others, generally speaking.  All this in the midst of the suffering, the trauma that they go through.   

There was an interesting post that someone put up based on the discussion she had as a nurse with the terminally ill patients she spoke to.    Here's a link to the article.

The five things that most terminally ill people wished they did was

a) Had courage to live a life true to themselves and not living others dreams

b) Wish they did not work so hard... burning themselves and not having time to be happy and enjoy the small joys of life

c) Wish they had courage to express themselves

d) Wish they had stayed in touch with their friends

e) Wish they had let themselves be happier.

These are phenomenal ways in which we can look to in order to make things look and feel different for us.   Anything in hindsight might look simple but to have thought of it that way was the difficult part.  These five are good cues to pursue in our lives.  That would surely make it easier not to regret that we missed out doing these things in a life time.

Light of the Lamp

Here is a story that can be interpreted in various ways.  

In early times in Japan, bamboo-and-paper lanterns were used with candles inside. A blind man, visiting a friend one night, was offered a lantern to carry home with him.

"I do not need a lantern," he said. "Darkness or light is all the same to me."

"I know you do not need a lantern to find your way," his friend replied, "but if you don't have one, someone else may run into you. So you must take it."

The blind man started off with the lantern and before he had walked very far someone ran squarely into him. "Look out where you are going!" he exclaimed to the stranger. "Can't you see this lantern?"

"Your candle has burned out, brother," replied the stranger.

From a human relations perspective you can derive different meanings but the one I want to highlight is....

…if you are oblivious to something does not mean it is irrelevant to others.   What may be important to you may (at the same time) be of no use to the others.   Managers need this realization often in their day to day work.  Someone many think that others see the light of their hard work or action but it is not obvious. 

You may have mastered the art but there are others around you who are at different levels on the learning curve and to each the way ahead will be different.  Apply that yardstick when you decide how to develop people.

Other interpretations I would leave to the discerning readers.

Narrow the Intent Content Gap !!

When Content does not Match up to Intent,  you are bound to  lose credibility.  As Human Resource Professionals the writing on the wall is loud and clear.  If we fail to live up to the talk in our profession then we are seen as folks "throwing the cannon balls" at the party.

Have you experienced that people speak about some new concept they heard of,  bring in a whole lot of jargon and then quickly adapt and adopt what was working somewhere and which they claimed could be a cure all, a solution for tomorrow and then .... Bingo !!! it all fizzles out as quickly as it got created.

If this rings a bell then it is probably a case of intent-content gap at work.  What you wanted did not happen and what you expected did not turn out to be.  Here are four reasons why this happens.

a) The concept did not fit into your context:  Understanding the context is key to successful implementation.  What works for A situation does not apply to Situation B.   Try remembering the last time you tried a least common denominator approach to employee engagement.   Wont' work -  it has to be segmented if it has to work,  Not everything that motivates an employee in second year of his job career can motivate the one with a decade or more.

b) Concept not thought through:  If you tried an approach that resembles tunneling your way through the mountain then at best you can see the other side.  If you want to see the top you need to climb the mountain.  Ask few of your HR teams what a normalization process intends to achieve and see how much they can explain.... or even simpler ask what the philosophy for performance management is and if you have a common response you are doing well otherwise the concept is not clearly understood.

c) Rome was not built in a day:  Big Bang roll out without a prototype or a working model is a sure way to rework, or in all likelihood failed implementation.  Ever remember a day when your folks at work decided that you need a new process or system from the scratch, from the ground up to replace the current one.

d) Mismatched Capabilities: You put the squirrel to do what the turtle was supposed to be doing.  Climbing trees is best done by the squirrel and swimming across the current in the river by the turtle. If you ever tried switching roles in the name of meeting goals of  job rotation then you will be in for a surprise.

So in case you have to think about the narrowing intent content gap you have four places to focus on.  Remember FOCUS brings attention, attention gets results.

Read other Blogs here

PROBLEM ELIMINATION SHOULD BE THE NEW FOCUS

FRAME IT FOR SUCCESS

 SIMPLE UNDERSTANDING OF COMPETENCIES

HR Analytics: Interference's in your Inferences...!!!

We often hear about Analytics Being the next big thing whenever we speak about future of HR.  The shift in focus has been from descriptive to insight, from insight (what is happening) to predictive  (what will happen) and from predictive to prescriptive (What should you do?).   There are couple of things to keep in mind before organizations move quickly to jump the bandwagon in their quest for prescriptive outputs.  I am speaking from the HR perspective only.   

Consider this:  We are all data agents in the sense that everything we do in our lives today seems to generate some sort of data on a continuous basis.  The hand phone we use generates data on our movements (tracked by GPS and Maps),  the messages we put up  on Facebook or other social media sites,  the embedded chips in our cars send data back and forth to the servers,  often washing machines are smart and sending data to the transmission and distribution servers.  All of this data says a story about us.   Something that BIG BROTHER (various organizations that aggregate the data and keep analyzing the trends) can watch understand and know more about you.  

Similarly as members of organizations we are generating data all the time.   We have interview records, application formats filled in, employee demographics, performance data, attrition analysis data,  exit interview data,  snap shot surveys etc.

Now You will all agree that everything we do in analytics is based on data. Just like in our personal and social lives data is generated through us, by us in our organizations.   However there is a subtle yet important difference you need to consider.    Unlike data that BIG BROTHER is looking at, the level of consciousness in an individuals behavior is different when it comes to data in organizations.   People don’t know who is looking at the data, who is watching, who is inferring when it comes to BIG BROTHER kind of data.   So as long as the person on the other side is unknown the level of consciousness remains low and therefore the actions we do tend to be like ourselves. 

When it comes to organization data there is a high level of consciousness and therefore the behaviors get altered.   e.g Employees have to really be trusting of the organization if they give right inputs on the reason for their leaving. They have to be themselves.   Else you end up with wrong data.   Experience has shown that  people are very conscious about leaving with a “good feeling” and don’t want to give right inputs on why they leave.   This will surely lead to wrong conclusions if your analysis is on “prediction of which people will leave”.   Your model would be built on data that is not accurate.     

So before we jump to expecting that the predictive models we develop will work couple of important things to be remembered.

a1) Ensure that the process has sufficient amount of design considerations on interfacing parties.  For e.g. if exit interview is being done by manager and person has problems with work environment in the project / department then the responses may be biased and erroneous.  Similarly if  there is dissatisfaction with HR environment it can lead to distorting responses if the interviewer is from HR group to which employee belongs.   Choosing the right actors (Participants)  during the process is very important

b2) Validate the data you are generating in various parts of the organization. E.g.  take data from off line delayed feedback survey with employees who left.    Compare that with what was said at the time of departure. If you find a good correlation (higher the better) you have reliable data to infer. The same can be done for appraisal.   We all know how 360Degree feedback looks like.  If I were to go by that data in most organizations all of them should be to stars of their industry.  Such is the “high level” of capability that can be seen with 360 datac) 30  Keep revisiting the model you develop by adding data you generated post the earlier time and that way your model is strengthened.

d3)   Use the right frame of understanding before you decide what to test in your model.  It is very important to remember that if we ever want to have new ways to look at a problem we have to have new ways of thinking.  The frame has to be different to view a situation differently.

These three simple focus elements actually will help build that credibility when HR works on analytics because at the end of the day it is important that the insights or  prescriptions lead to tangible actions.

THE BYSTANDER PROBLEM IN ORGANIZATIONS

Ballu came over late afternoon.  Summer was now at its peak and the fellow generally lazed around my home most afternoon's.  The curtains were half drawn to prevent the scorching sun rays from heating up the room.  Ballu started off…yet another narration.

The year was 2005.On a crowded platform at a suburban railway station in Mumbai a huge crowd was waiting for the next local train to arrive.  A traveler was sitting on one corner filming the maddening pace of activity and the popular morning frenzy on the platform with his new camcorder.    People were anxiously peeping over the platform edge to see if the train was arriving.  And suddenly on the screen of the camera the traveler noticed a training arriving and one of the contraptions fitted to the train knocked down a man who was bending over to get a view of the train at the edge of the platform.  The man fell bleeding on to the platform.  The camera captured this silently and surely.   The filming continued.

 

Meanwhile the man lay there bleeding for several long minutes.  The man continued to film the busy platform, the fallen man and the several hundred people watching from the side lines.  The traveler must have captured over 15 minutes of recording after the incident.   No one seemed to come forward and attend to the injured man.   Finally help arrived more than half an hour later.  By the time the fallen man was taken to the hospital he had lost his life.  The bleeding was too much for him to survive.   Perhaps, if he could have been taken to the hospital earlier he might have been saved. 

“So what happened Ballu”, I asked.  “What are you trying to tell me?”

“Well, well”, said Ballu. “Several hundred people including the traveller who was filming the incident saw the man fall after being hit by the train… But No One Came forward to help”.

Staring at the window I asked, “So why didn’t anyone help”

“You see”, said Ballu,   “Each one thought that someone else would help the person and in the process no one actually went forward to help”   This is like a freezing point,  things just don’t move then.  Everyone thought that someone would come forward and no one thought that no one would come forward.   So the most important thing that needed attention went unattended.   This we call the “BYSTANDER PROBLEM”.

“Now tell me”, said Ballu “Does this happen in your organization too?”

“O I see”,   It began to dawn.   When at times we wonder why the same problem gets no attention.  It keeps lingering.   There is a lowering of morale due to issues not being addressed and month after month there is nothing done.   HR thinks ops will own and solve the problem,   Ops thinks someone else is there to address that problem,   and Managers think that team leaders will address the problem.   Team Leaders are just not sure who would take up the problem to address and so on a so forth.   Meanwhile employees start getting frustrated,  some quit and some start showing signs of slowing down and so on.  

Well it was getting terribly exciting …. How does one solve the BYSTANDER PROBLEM?  I shouted out.  

“Let me come back” said Ballu and ran away through the main door.   I was wondering and continued for a while.....  Was it the absence of people,  No.... I realized... it was the presence of people around that was the real problem.   Had the person shooting the film been the only one around would he actually have just stopped filming and started paying attention tot he injured man?

Lets address this issue in a later post.