ARISE, AWAKE DON"T BE A BOILED FROG !!!

When change stares you in the face what do you do?   Depending on how you see change there can be two things that happen. You act on it or you let it go by.   To understand the implications better let us consider the boiled frog experiment.  Whether this was actually an experiment conducted in a laboratory or someone's kitchen should not be the point of debate. The issue is understanding change and how this is handled.  

In the boiled frog experiment you put a frog into boiling water and it reacts and jumps out instantly.  It survives.  However you put the frog into a vessel with cool water and slowly start heating the same the frog eventually dies.   The frog does not realize the change in temperature and snugly sits in the warming waters and eventually can't react and dies. 

In the same way it is important for us to understand the changes happening and know how they would affect us in the long run.  Else a day would come when it might leave you like the boiled frog.  Not understanding the deterioration of a condition and waiting without action is something we have seen often either in our lives or in the lives of people we know. 

In our personal lives it can be things like a vice which we could tackle saying "one more time" .... just "one more time" and then its done. By the time you want it "no more times" it is too late.   Similarly in professional life we keep procrastinating and pile up work or leave an issue unattended...day after day enjoying the comfort of warm waters.  We can end up like the BF.

How does one overcome and realize something is deteriorating.  There is no other option but to keep tab.  Which means focus on what you think is going on.  When you focus you are able to tune in to your situation and understand it better.  Read my blog on Focus:  What Gets Focus Gets Attention; What Gets Attention Gets Done.  So if you focus on the problem you have and try to understand you may do the right thing to address the same and give a miss to being the next boiled frog. 

The Magic Number in Our Lives !!!

Now think aloud what comes to your mind when you read each these numbers?


13



9/11



100


168?

Now that you've thought Go Down !!!


































When it came to 13 people thought of bad luck,  a dark omen or even good luck or good tidings etc.  Did you?



When it came to 9/11 a close 90% would remember the twin tower destruction of 2001


When it comes to 100 most folks either think of a century (cricket, India) or some think about a perfect score in an exam...or the police emergency no



168?  Hard Luck !!!  In case you didn't get It...


It is the number of hours in a week. That's the amount of time we have at our disposal to balance our work, personal lives,  interests,  health and wellness etc.   Most people had no clue on the quantum of time in a week at your disposal and that it seems is the most important factor to plan your time... is the total time available and..... If you did not know how many hours you had at hand how do we plan out.

Now it is easy to understand why so many people crib about  running out of time... not finding the right amount of time and attributing the problem outside of ourselves.

Here's a link to  my earlier blog post  explaining  importance of focus and how things get done   So bring Focus on 168 !!!

Have a Good Day !!! Remember your time available and that's important for time management.

MIssed Opportunities?

Here's a pic from one of my presentations prepared in 2010 when I tried to capture some of my favorite quotes and juxtapose them with appropriate pictures.

They say opportunities come knocking. Not once... but.. several times.  But we often ignore them or overlook them. As Winston Churchill said "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity while the optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."

This can happen only when we are aware of the opportunity. So, coming from a positivist school, I believe the world is not full of pessimists.  Then the question is why do people miss opportunities. 

First the problem of not being able to identify opportunities.  Reason can be explained as unawareness.  Did you remember someone you knew saying " I could have taken the Design Course.. but ....." or"I could easily have done engineering.....' but  or I was up for a top modeling assignment but chose medicine.... imagine what life could have been today OR the more common one among investors "I was about to invest in XYX stock.... only if I did I could have been millionaire like my friend."   One of the  most common mistakes made by students who get into the wrong course (they dislike after joining) or graduates getting into wrong jobs (hate the profession)  is they did not do enough homework preparing to understand what it meant. Most often doing some home work or some kind of scrutiny would have helped make better decisions. 

The other point about missing out opportunity is being overly cautious.    We fear taking risks, fear the unknown, fear not being able to make it, fear the hard work and thus ... miss out the opportunity.    Thus you end up giving a let go to something that you should have seized.  I remember one person telling me that he got into IIT Mumbai in the 1970's but did not go as it was too far and he preferred staying at his village and studying in a college nearby but.. the real reason when we explored more was about the fear of going to the city and competing with the boys there. 

Another reason especially among those who are talented, gifted or have some strength they never capitalized is their inherent lethargy.   Left to themselves they would prefer to chill, enjoy life as it comes and no one was there to push them to the wall and drive them.  So it is mostly talent wasted kind of situations that fall in this category. 

Next think of the dreams you had but never converted to reality.   To give wings to dreams you should have a plan.  Lack of Planning  is another way one has missed opportunities.  By the time the race had to be run you were still working on the equipment and missed the race.   

In human relationships we can often hear someone say "if only I could have made up with him / her.. Now he's no longer here..." .  This happens when we don't mend relationships or build broken bridges with someone while they are there with us but regret it later when they moved away to something new and no longer are with us or when they unfortunately pass away from this world. 

In all probability you find that when people are old and in the evening of their lives they often think and speak about what they did not do... the missed opportunities.  But I think being aware of how one can avoid the chance of categorizing the wrong one's and regretting them is something we should understand.   I will be discussing a very simple framework on how to avoid regretting the wrong missed opportunities.   It is a very simple framework I use in my coaching sessions and training programs. 

Quote , Unquote !!!

"He who chooses the beginning of a road, also chooses its outcome." -  Unknown

So true, they say well begun is half done.  That's the other way to look at it. You start off on the wrong track and have to reverse the road travelled already.  Also it is good to remember that  the roughest roads make the best drivers, so you need not look at the rough one as the wrong road   

"Keep trying, It's only from the valley that the mountain seems high."  Zig Ziglar

So very true, its all about perspective. Raise your self above the problem and you see it in a different light.  That's the way it looks from the valley... all insurmountable, but once your reach somewhere at the top you feel you have conquered it all.   


"There is no limit to what can be achieved, when no one cares who gets the credit". - John Wooden, Coach

The team is sometimes the enemy of the goal.   So true that you have a goal and everyone understands it but in the quest to get name and credit the goal is side tracked.  You can always identify such people.  They will be playing ball on the sides,  send separate emails without including others who are relevant,  try calling out and dropping names and often the one's who try to take credit for others outputs.  These are missing in action but fully present at reward time. 


"Before we can properly handle a problem we must know all of the problem" - 

Einstein, once said, a problem can't be solved at the same level of understanding as that at which it was created.... he means you need a higher level of understanding.   That's why we say "Experience is the best teacher"  You can get to see various turns (understand the problem better or more in detail when you have experience.   Also it is about being wise with the worldly experiences and therefore able to handle problems as they say with grace and confidence.

How do You Handle Costly... Mistakes...

"My action resulted in the department finding itself in boiled water".   This was not a statement made out of fashion but was a real lament of one of the young graduate trainees at a well known company who just managed to blow up a transformer and resulting in damages running to several hundred thousand rupees.  This was only the tip of the ice berg.  The resultant loss in productivity and material added another factor of ten to the losses. 

What was the reaction of the Unit Head of the Department.   "Guys'  this was a mistake, and I want each of you to learn from it"  He further added "As long as none of you will ever repeat the same mistake next time it is a price I am willing to pay and take up the ownership for this"

The engineer in question was relieved but there was a sense of guilt that lasted days after the incident.   However the tide ebbed when things were back to normal two months later and the whole lapse in process was documented back into the process.   No one told the engineer to do this but the person thought it was his / her responsibility to create a shared understanding of the problem. 

When I thought back on the leaders action my first assessment was more like... that he was being lenient.   Why did the manager at least not give any kind of penalty like a fine or a warning memo or a suspension.  But when you step back and look at it there was sense in what he did.  The process mistake that was committed was not part of the documented procedure so it fit the bill of some unknown step being used and therefore the lapse.  It was important that this lapse get documented so that people become conscious of the procedure the next time.

Today the Leader Heads a Large Organization and the engineer is a budding leader of one of the most exuberant team you can find.   

What are some of the things you can think of when it comes to grave mistakes.

Understand the context?  Was it carelessness,  non adherence to documented process?  was there a fail proof process that was given the go by ?  Such conditions warrant strict action like a disciplinary procedure or a  reprimand,  a monetary deduction or the like depending on the severity of the impact and the category of the error.  If it was a disciplinary issue then handle it like one, otherwise assess the context... The reaction by the managers to the mistake and how it was handled will have an impact on the morale of the other members of the team or other teams too.

Communicate the action and consequence:  Often I find that when such a thing happens,  it gets discussed secretly.  You need to share such grave mistakes with others (may be with confidentiality)  so that grape vine does not get stoked in corridors.   Also communicate the remedial action and if it was a disciplinary issue others also get a shared understanding.  That is why a periodic sharing of the errors and mistakes that happened are important.  How may remember the last time your organization shared a grave mistake synopsis and what can be done to prevent it.  


Don't Make the one who committed it.. a Victim :   At times it may seem it was a genuine mistake, something committed inadvertently.   Take care that the one who committed the mistake has a psychological support.  Else it leads to downward spiral on the individual's feeling of comfort and can be quite emotionally taxing.   Speak to the individual and get a pulse within day or two after the issue was discussed and the outcome or resolution completed.   


Never Cover Up A Grave Mistake:   When you cover up it means others never learn.  Also you are then you slowly build up a culture of complacency and disregard for responsible actions.  In fact always encourage and try to put at ease those who own up their mistake proactively and come to you with not just the facts but also the understanding and even perhaps and solution.  These instances can lead to a lot of good in later periods.    

Here is something interesting that was quoted in the context of committing mistakes...

“You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it. So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because, remember that’s where you’ll find success; on the far side.” – Thomas Watson

Inspiration, Not Control is the Key to Realizing Potential

This is a brief discussion on how and why some of of the most popular quests (phrases) related to individual success often runs into a wall....  and more specifically in organizational contexts.   We hear of catchy phrases  like "Give wings to dreams",   "Realize Your Potential",  "You Can, If You Will",  "Discover your hidden power"    and so on. 

The common belief among line managers and HR fraternity is that achieving this objective is a self driven phenomenon. One has to reflect, understand what he or she can do / cannot do and work deliberately and can achieve much much more than what was possibly thought he / she could achieve.   Maybe put them in front of some achievers who have "been there, done that" kinds and there will be some kind of osmosis of inspiration to the listeners.  

Reality is that in order to enable employees achieve beyond what they think they can,  for them to realize their potential we need a whole lot of inspiration coming from the managers in organizations.   Control freaks who are there to stifle creativity and show their teams how to align with them (the manager) are doing very little to create that environment.   

Instead of showing the team how to align with the mission of the company and drive excellence in the delivery of the services or of the product,  instead of  helping overcome obstacles that impede the successful execution of  organizations goals,  instead of  working along side with them to solve problems,  they are expecting the employees to align with their stifling ways.   Align with me and you'll be successful.   Does this statement ring a bell? Familiar ??  Most often it is not explicitly stated but rather an implicit coming forth as clear message to the team led by such managers.

So the need for managers is to inspire the teams to align with the organization, to inspire them to see how their job is contributing to success,  to inspire them to understand how their job / work is relevant to customers needs,  to inspire them to go beyond and connect the dots and to enable them to work without fear.....only then we can really set an environment where everyone can realize his or her potential.   

HOPE To Kindle OUR Lives !!!

There are optimists and there are others.  While one group sees it as light at the end of the tunnel and the other considers it as tunnel vision.  

 

The quotes below capture aspects that have to do with light at the end of the tunnel.

 

 

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.

- Albert Einstein

 

When we stop questioning learning stops and so does development. Imagine what would happen when a drug company stops asking questions about pain. Questions lead to answers and progress.

 

 

We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. 

-Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

All the pools of disappointment will only dry away but the lake of hope is infinitely deep and wide.  You will always find if you look for it. 

 

 

Hope is a Talent Like Any Other !!

- Storm Jameson.

 

Might seem Strange but true, talent is something that helps us achieve and so does hope. Keeps the fires burning

 

Where there is no vision there is no hope

-George Washington

 

As this of any team that was dejected, that was lost, that was drifting and they had probably lost sight of their vision.

 

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

-Benjamin Disraeli

 

 

After all who does not want the BEST.  But Yet, Keep Your Plan B in Mind.

Food for Thought...

To Guess is Cheap, To Guess Wrong is Expensive !!!

We heard of the proverbial intuition in selecting people in our hiring / selection processes.   Haven't you heard about him / her who proudly proclaims.  "I have a gut feeling he would be a great fit.  I will select the candidate".

True, you have a gut feeling but when the choice of a wrong fit is more expensive than wrongly rejecting the right candidate you know which side it is better to err.   Some hiring decisions are for roles where the wrong person can make a huge impact negatively on the organization.  In such cases it is better to be more cautious.


Coupe of interesting one I came across (this is from Zig ZIglar)

Failure is an event, not a person !!

Often the event is missed out and the person bears the brunt of being typecast a failure.  This is short sighted.  In a process centric world today,  we look for six sigma levels of design and so if something fails it should be a mistake in the process maybe due to various reasons, lack of training, lack of awareness or simply oversight.   Thus it is important to distil out the real issue else we would only end up looking for a scapegoat, a name to fix or a head to roll.


Others can stop you temporarily, you are the only one who can do it permanently.

That is why they say today one has to constantly seek to realize one's potential.   Not be able to contribute on what you are capable of is something that causes inefficiency in any system and that is something we always need to look for so that we can achieve beyond what is expected or what we thought possible.


 Success comes when preparation meets opportunity.  

Something I always tell new folks who join my organization. In large organizations we have "Potential Opportunities" but unless one is ready for them prepares and spots them putting the effort it won't materialize.  Those who succeed are the one's who were well prepared and therefore identified, then delivered on the opportunity. 

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.

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.

Problem Elimination, Not Problem Solving Should Be the New Focus

I met Ballu, a good friend, sometime back.  He happened to be of the very sociable types who always had a tale or two to tell.  Here is an interesting one he narrated.

"Some time back I happened to be in a review meeting and one of the things being discussed was a tool to automate some of the work being done by the people engagement managers.  The biggest selling point was that there are many problems that the team had to address and hence an automated tool would help them manage this in a manner that is simple, gives them flexibility and lets them be mobile and at the same time come up with wonderful snapshot of the problems solved.  This was the problem solving mind-set. And the natural tendency is for people to feel very happy to able to help address and solve problems. And our systems recognize this.  People are rewarded, they are encouraged, they are praised. And the problems continue to appear… from somewhere or the other….and it seemed like there is a factory for manufacturing problem that keep appearing and people waiting to solve them."

Our conversation continued… “How long will this solving the problem stuff continue?.  The next thing was to look for an alternative which was “eliminating the problem”

What we realized was that the more people came up with stories of how they solved a problem the more they were rewarded the more they were glorified…. they were promoted,  they had a great future....and That was the problem.

We needed to change our view point and look at focusing on “problem elimination”. rather than "problem solving"  Remember from my earlier blog on FOCUS.  (Click Here To Read the Focus Blog). So if your choice can be from among two things…solving the problem to eliminating the problem then the one you focus on gets the attention. .

There are some of you (or many..) who would have experienced that the same problems are recurring time and again. What problem we solved last year is up again the next year.  The problems faced by the predecessor are repeated just the way it happened earlier. 

When we focus on “problem elimination” the attention shifts from the problem of how to handle problems to a new way of looking at it… how to eliminate the problem.   What problem elimination means and how it can make our lives (both working and otherwise) more relaxed and enjoyable is what we shall explore in a coming post.

Interview Ready: A Unique and Socially Responsible Digital Effort By India’s Leading IT Organization (TCS)

Summary:  TCS has launched a unique mobile app called Interview Ready in the year 2014. This is a  one of its kind app which helps student and entry level job seekers to prepare well for a selection interview in a holistic manner.  Understand how to dress, speak, prepare, make and impact and most importantly how to make a good and informed career choice.  The app is available free of cost and readily accessible to anyone who wants it on Android and iOS Platforms.  Your simple share with your friends, colleagues and acquaintances who can benefit from it will make a difference to someone’s life. Click  Interview Ready Video to know more.

Every Graduating Student who aspires for a job will have a face a job interview for sure. At times the selection process may also include a group discussion or written test.

Getting through a job selection process including success in a job interview depends not only just how you performed in your exam or subjects you mastered but also on other factors like how well you can communicate, the confidence level, the knowledge you have of the industry or business understanding in general.  Your personal accomplishments and successes can also be a highlight and stand out during the process and can stand in your favor.  You come out shining and you land up in the job.

Now comes the second point (some questions) which are rather interesting “Is that the job you really should have taken up?”  “Was I meant to join some other industry”?  “Are my interests in other fields that what the job can offer?”.   Yes these are questions that come to the mind of many fresh graduates after they end up with their first job offer. This implies that they may not last long in their first job or even may not accept the offer. So it all boils down to whether they made an informed choice or not.  Whether they understood what the industry needed and what kind of work they could expect.  If there is no match between aspiration and what the jobs can offer there is low probability of a career being built.

The InterviewReady App created by TCS and available for free to anyone on both Android and iOS platforms is a unique app available in 6 different languages (English, Tamil, Bengali, Hindi, Marathi, Urdu, Gujarthi and Arabic).  It is easy to use and set up and guides an individual on career choices by providing a view of work areas within a industry domain as well as tips and exercise how to prepare well for a face to face interview.  Although the app is designed to provide good exposure to Business Process Services organizations it will come in handy even if you are looking for a job in any other industry.  

To download the app visit this link

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tcs.interviewready&hl=en

Watch a video of the App Here:  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdjpP-Cu6aE

To download the app and install on your smart device go to Google Play Store or iOS and search for TCS InterviewReady and download it for a worthwhile experience. 

FRAME It for Success !!!

Given below is a quote of mine that I often reflect upon and have used in many of my workshops or discussions with my clients. Most of these opportunities and the learning's have come about in my role as a HR professional over the past two decades.

"There is more to do than what I've done, There's more to Go from where I reached, There's more to me than what I am."

Human potential is unlimited and most of us never reach any where near the potential we have. Below is a simple model that I use to explain the possibilities, the endless sea of positives that lie ahead of us in the journey of life. It is called"FRAME" it for Success. Below are the five things you need to do to reach where you want to go or achieve something you always wanted to or be the person you wanted to be.. The FRAME is not a sign post. The FRAME is like an illuminated pathway.

Focus: I would never emphasize less on this ubiquitous (there everywhere but quite often unused) concept that can bring direction, that can channelize attention (Read my blog on FOCUS). It is important to have a clear concept of where you want to be or what you want to achieve. When you focus all else gets tuned out and that is the best way to get your minds complete attention to doing what you need to do at that point of time. Focus channelizes your energy and sharpens the chances of success in what you want to do, where you want to go and how you can go there.

Reflection: Time to take a pause. Take a Look at your strengths. Reflect .... on what can take you there. It is important since your strengths were meant to be your fuel to success. Most of us have hidden strengths. For most of us a good reflection of what we are good at comes from having a conversation with a close friend and asking for feedback. This can be a colleague at work or a friend outside of work or even your manager. Try to see a pattern in a few such feedback messages you get. That is what you are really good at. Remember focus on strengths. Don't get overshadowed by getting your attention to weaknesses. When you are looking at a world of possibilities it is better to see what will get you there.

Articulation: There are two things here. First it is about how you would get there. It is important. It is like a plan you have once you know the destination. When you plan you put to rest unwanted pitfalls (or up your preparedness to overcome them) that may arise. You will surely achieve what you wanted. Most people do not achieve what the set out since they did not articulate it correctly. Articulating it correctly means you have to "express it" and do so openly. A stated goal, shared with those who mean something to you is achieved with much greater probability than one that was just written in the folds of your diary. That is why most new year resolutions are up in smoke by the time Valentines day arrives each year. Once you articulate the mind tries to channelize energy to ensure you live up to what you want to do or get.

Movement: Here it all about action. It is about hitting the road to start the journey. Even the longest journey begins with a small first step. When you are on the path to achievement you will have to keep constant look out for the pot holes and also navigate any obstructions. Pot holes can slow you down... e.g. someone trying to demotivate you, or lack of time to pursue your task of achieving the goal or even the lack of energy due to pursuit of multiple goals. It is here that the focus comes to your rescue.If you feel this way go back and re-look at the focus. Obstacles are things that will stop you. Fear is the biggest obstacle. Many a time they are like the invisible demons fought by the Little Prince in the classic novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery. You need to overcome them and your plan is something that will help you along with the articulation especially the verbal and non private articulation that you need to live up to

Evaluation: It is about milestones, progress, achievement and fulfillment. Each of them is important. Defining milestones is important to ensure you are moving in the right direction and the right distances are covered. The anxiety and anticipation keep increasing as you move to the destination and crossing them makes you recognize progress. You need to look ahead and anticipate as well as look back and reflect as you move on in our pursuit of achieving what you set out for. Celebrating success and feeling a sense of achievement is very important.

The FRAME can completely change your outlook. It helps redefine your views, focus your attention and tune out disturbances. Your life is a beautiful canvas, give it life and vibrancy by the right FRAME. In hind sight it may look like a simple concept but it is mountain like when you try to adopt it and that's why they say human potential is still vastly untapped.

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. 

Robotic Automation? The Emerging Differentiation for BPS

As organizations look for ways and means to become more productive, more efficient we look for ways and means to achieve faster, more accurate work processes,  to eliminate unnecessary steps or to design and implement alternative process steps.  

Robotic automation is one such quest that business process services organizations are chasing these days.   In the world of business processes - robotic automation is very different from the industrial automation that we find in manufacturing.    In the BPS industry "robotic" is used a metaphor - akin to industrial automation - but done by software tools that produce generic automation of processes both business and clerical (that are generally repeatable, manual processes) and augment them into the client processes.  Don't imagine moving robots, looking like humans that you may find in factory or manufacturing shop floors.  Consistency, scalability and ability to deliver the process in a very secure manner are some of the key levers that drive the search for robotic automation in services as an alternative to manual repetitive work flows.. 

Will the cost be justified?  Unlike industrial process automation the capital investment will be lower in services automation as the tools are reusable (or with some customization) and can be replicated over and over thereby bringing down the operating cost significantly.  So you can expect a surge in robotic automation adoption in the coming year and beyond. 

What would be the implication?  Would there by mass scale redundancies created (lay offs').  Not really.  As global businesses outsource more and more of their work the simple repetitive ones get automated and others move in.  This would of course mean that you would need people to perform the more complicated stuff and some amount of re-skilling would happen.  

At the same time you would need a whole new set of skills to create these automation tools and also to manage and run these tools.   These would be more automation technology skills and skills to maintain these systems in steady state (operations).

As we enter the new financial year keep looking for the buzzword "robotic automation" in the quest for business process services becoming more agile, more efficient and moving up the value chain. 

Competency: Sum of Parts ??

You just lost the best person on your team- the champion who had the most admired knowledge, skill and resultant capability to close a deal in one of the complicated lines of business at your organization.   So what way did that impact your competency as an organization.  Does individual competency affect the overall organizational competency.   Does one person carrying away vital capability make any difference to your organization.   

We often hear -  organization is bigger than individuals.  Yes that's true and it is also true that the whole is greater than the sum of parts when it comes to the organization and its employees capabilities.   However the caution for leaders is to understand that even when you deduct something  the same logic holds true.   When a specific capability (embodied in the individual) leaves the decrease is also greater than just one persons capability going away.  You can't have a one sided equation can you?

Here are three aspects that can clarify.

a) An exit of any nature is like something which rocks the boat.  Thought processes are triggered in  mind of colleagues and coworkers as to what made him / her leave,  should they follow and look for a better paying job... if he / she could get 30% more can't I get 40% more. This puts some pressure in the system that has a push effect.  There is a drag on the agility vis a vis that cumulative capability that the individual contributed to.

b) There is bound to be some kind of imbalance in the target goal or objective at hand.   It is like a relay - one person less to handle the baton - maybe you can replace the individual quickly , even before he's actually left , but what about the hours and hours of practice that went in before the final race.   This applies even to work situations.   So it has a slow down kind of impact or at least a temporary one till the capability evens out.

c) Replacement cost, effort and time to speed for building the same capability means someone has to take time out to train or coach another person.  Someone has a temporary diversion of focus towards something other than the goal at hand.  Reduced focus means reduced capability.  Can it be simpler.  

In future posts we'll explore more of the fascinating aspects of competency both individual as well as organizational level.   Other posts related to competency

Competencies: What?

What Capabilities? Change Management

Creating an ambiance for innovation. What do you need?

Innovation means a sure departure from something incremental.  Something new, something different, something not done before.   Incremental change is not innovation.... rather just mere change... just like routine weather change.  Real innovation is like a storm, a cyclonic effect or even a tsunami.  I make that statement in the sense that it has a landscape changing ability and the focus is not on the damages and destruction of these natural disasters.   Most important in organizational context the product or process you created, changed or reworked should add something new of value to the customer to qualify as an innovation.   We often hear companies saying we need to strive to create a culture of innovation.   Doesn't it sound very simplistic?  When you truly manage to create a culture of innovation you can expect a drop in inhibitions,  you can expect lot of new products, services being made possible..... not just one off star kid innovations that you might find.

So what does it take.  Do you think people will read an email from CEO or Operations Leader and innovate or just because you opened an Innovation Lab your people would innovate.  Ask yourself how many people are even allowed access to that innovation lab.  So what exactly do we need to create that culture or environment for innovation.  Easier said ... than done.   There are three elements that need to be kept on top of your mind.  Apart from the investments (which keeps the money flowing into driving the innovation efforts) you need systems and processes to be in place.  Those that help reinforce three important elements that can sustain innovation.

a) Gaining Focus
b) Building Trust
c) Enabling Risk Taking Behaviors


If you want to "innovate" your focus needs to be right there - on innovation.  Focus bring attention and only when attention manifests does it get a possibility of action.   Imagine splitting your focus on several things at the same time, then what gets focus gets attention so it is only by chance that you MAY focus on innovation.  What does it mean on the ground?  It is about letting people have the time, the freedom to look for new things.  Innovation needs new ideas, new thinking which can only come from out of the box or non linear thinking or creative processes.   So people need to make deliberate attempts to bring that elusive "focus" on innovation.   Managers need to encourage ideas and evaluate rather than scrap them with a cursory look  over.   An idea which is novel cannot become an innovation unless it can be converted into a product or a service at a reasonable (practical) cost which someone will be willing to pay for it.  Otherwise it can only be applauded as an interesting idea.   

The question is who should focus.... Simple way to look at is that all those who can influence the innovation process should...if your finance guys and accountants don't understand and keep cutting down the budgets,  disapproving spending requests the focus gets lost.  The HR folks need to understand... are people given time from their routine work if they are to spend time on creative pursuits.   You can't expect everything to happen in the free time even if you THINK your employees are very motivated to spend their off work hours innovating.   Remember the 20% rule at 3M.

Trust gets broken when expectations are crushed, when false promises are made or when cunning sleight is used to distort the reality that people can obviously see.  Imagine the repercussion when one manager said.  "Team, I am not averse to your making that occasional mistake, but let that same mistake not repeat elsewhere once we learn about it" but each time someone faltered he pushed them against  the wall with subtle and overt behaviors that made them feel miserable.   Trust gets broken when simple acts of this  nature send strong and powerful signals that the slogans on innovation are mere lip service.

Finally put the first two together and you have risk taking encouraged in your organization. Without risk there can be no innovation. At a personal level innovativeness and risk taking are key traits among entrepreneurial people and this is something that you need to encourage in the question for innovation.   In today's world of large professionally managed organizations you can't just wait for the entrepreneurial talent in the traditional sense (who came with money, ideas and risk taking to invest)  rather we need to encourage the entrepreneurial capabilities among team members, line managers as well as leaders.

 If you are looking for an ROI do it for established, well oiled products and services. With right focus and trust innovation is surely going to get you much more ROI than you can ever calculate. 

However remember none of this can happen without a keen eye on what the innovation means.   Bringing innovation for the sake of innovation will not yield the right kind of results.

HR Fault Lines: What are they and What Can You Do?

"Fault Lines threaten us on the earth." 

The second way to see it is that "Fault Lines Make us cautious, make us take proactive measures when we construct buildings so that we remain safe in the face of earthquakes, or tremors.  

Any break in the bedrock is a fault line.  Fault lines can be major...extending for several hundred miles (usually at the plate boundaries) or can be minor fault lines.  

Just like geological fault lines existing on earth, we have fault lines in HR.  These are at the boundaries.... the interfaces between key HR process areas.    If you look at it and reflect you may find this familiar.

We have a great talent sourcing process,  we have world class learning systems,  we have designed phenomenal talent management processes,  we have superb communication mechanisms.  Yet we have unhappy people.  Yet some of our employees don't  see the whole as a sum of the parts or greater than the sum of the parts.    You can attribute this to the fault lines in HR.   

Each process is like a plate.  The gaps between them are the fault lines. If you have a great sourcing strategy but yet are not able to convert the offers made and are shying away at 80% offer acceptance, there is a fault line in your post offer engagement.   If you have a fantastic performance platform but your career opportunities are least understood by the people you have a fault line at the interface.   So for the sum to be greater than the sum of the parts you need to design the systems such that there are seamless connections that avoid fault lines.  

If you look at the HR life cycle from talent sourcing then to recruitment and hiring right up to separations at each interface we should ensure that there is a seamless integration.  Any gaps existing should be looked at from the up stream process.   e.g.  if you have to design an effective promotion process or a career moves process then the data from the performance management as well as the HRMS (tenure, job moves,  role changes, experience details) and data on the  competency assessments, key strength areas etc need to be complete and of  good quality)   If this is not so then you have a fault line and down stream process gets affected as what goes into the process is what defines its effectiveness.   So from a design and effectiveness process you need to have an assessment frame work that maps the quality of inputs going into any downstream process and fix where the gaps lie.

That way you are able to avoid the fault lines,  the so called chasms that exist in the interface between the processes and that can result in tremors at the fault lines that are felt in both adjacent processes.  So next time you find the whole being less than the sum of the parts you know where to look for a solution.  In all probability it lies within the organization and a simple exercise of  mapping process flows can help you design a better HR system.