Skill takes you till some point beyond that Attitude Matters.

One of Zig Ziglars famous lines goes like this…. “Your Attitude, not your aptitude determines your altitude”   How high you rise comes from how you approach things.  

Sample this…

There was a foundry foreman Jack who was supervising his workmen striking away at the sand moulding machine one morning.     A gentleman came and stood by and was observing.   The foreman said “Hi Steve,  It’s been long time I have not seen you”.  They both conversed about how they met twenty five years back at the foundry and how the technology was different then and how the foundry had only one workshop and now it had over 40 workshops across the state.

When the gentleman left one of the workmen came up to Jack and said.  “Jack, Wasn’t that our Chairman whom you just spoke to a while ago.   Is it true that both of you started work this foundry at the same time several years ago?”

“Of Course" Said the foreman,  "Both me a Steve signed up for work the same day 25 years back,  Today he’s the Chairman and I’m the foreman”. 

And he continued in the same breath…

“The only difference twenty five years back was that I came to work for the 1$ to the hour and he came to work for the foundry”

Yes, Cant’ be truer the point made by this simple narrative is that how you look at your work, your task, your role, your part in the play makes the difference in how you approach it.   You clearly see that Steve had an attitude to work very different from John.     So what Zig ZIglar said in his statement is best illustrated by the simple story.

In organizations up to a certain point one can go with a sour attitude.  Maybe a few notches up the entry level stack...beyond that you have to make way for your outlook, the way you see things, the way you conceive the world around you, the way you approach a problem, the way you solve it and essentially the way you get things done.

Arise, Awake and Find Your Altitude!!!

Going Digital : What Does It Mean for Human Resources

Everyone's talking about "Going Digital" but what really does it mean?  How does it affect organizations and what does it mean for HR.

When we talk about Digital evolution we are basically looking at changes happening either within or outside the organizations due to things like Social media,   Mobility due to communication devices like smart phones, tablets and other devices,   Analytics 

Shooting the Dark: Some Insight on Diversity

Women's day just arrived as it does every year.   Air India just boasted about its all women crew last night that would fly its 17 hour long haul flight from New Delhi to Newark.



 Often it is debated 


Diversity and Inclusion are like two sides of the same coin.  One side without the other is not worth the metal it is embossed on. 

Realizing Ones Potential: Success Criteria

This is a brief discussion on how and why some of of the most popular quests (phrases) related to individual success often run 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 per se. 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 / beholders.  

However 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.   

SHRM Conference Panel DIscussion 2015

In many industries entry level hiring still continues to be a major chunk of the total talent requirements in any given year.  In the IT industry for e.g.  about 10% of head count or more is added every year from entry level candidates.  The same is reflected for Business Process Services.  Hence it is very important Challenges in entry level hiring faced by Industry Today... Excerpts from Discussion as the last SHRM meet

Key challenges for BPS Industry included

a) Awareness of the industry

b) Curriculum and knowledge gaps

c) Low attractiveness of Tier 2 and 3 locations

Other Related links

Now Don't Junk that Degree Please

BPS Industry Need for Mainstream Curriculum

Bring Focus on How and Why in Performance Management

Everyone seems to be jumping right onto the band wagon.  Bell curve has become "passe"... So what's the in thing....  That's a million dollar question.

A clear mandate now would be to go back to the basics.  Pressure would now mount on such systems which have done away with Brother Bell to actually motivate performance and no longer manage it..

This is going to mean

a)  Regular and precise goal setting
b) Clarifying understanding and expectations of the goals
c) Reviewing periodically and being transparent on the achievement / non achievement
d) Understanding what went wrong and what could be done better.

Over and above is the substantive element that needs to be covered.

One objective of a good performance management framework is to drive the right kind of behaviors within your organization and its various entities.   How does this happen? By Setting Targets and Goals with qualifiers.  It is important to emphasize both "how" and "why" aspects when setting goals and not just the focus on "what".  It has to be a deliberate attempt and should not be left to chance.

Take for example the highest achiever of sales in Pharma Co (name is irrelevant).  Here was Madan the highest grosser on sales.  For eight quarters he clocked over 40% growth each quarter and was the star salesman two years in a row.  About 9 months later when a new drug was launched by the competition the skeletons tumbled out of the cupboard.    Madan used his smooth talking skills and network with stockists to off take and store more than they needed and the inventory went piling up finally leading to zero off take in two quarters when things got tough.

We don’t need to mention the fake invoice generation by “unscrupulous” employees to show higher sales.  This happens in various industries and google your way to “Billing Scams”

So if you are looking for good behaviors aligned to your organizations value system then you need to ensure the “desired behaviors” are brought into focus.

This can be done through combination of the Performance Management and the Competency System.   The PMS should focus on the goals the “how” and “why” along with the “what”.   The managers should ensure that they anticipate how things can “Go Wrong” and discuss these with their teams in the process of setting goals.   

The competency framework should ensure that the behaviors of the competencies (managerial and leadership) do cover behavioral aspects of “how” apart from defining the core job related behaviors of the given role.

Focusing on just numbers,  targets and deliverable s you might end up like the proverbial  missing the woods for the trees.

Challenges for BPS industry in Entry Level Hiring of College Graduates

There is the positive side when it comes to talent in India... there is a huge supply, with over 28 million students enrolled at any point of time and about 9 million students graduating each year.  Of this 9 million+ graduating about 15% are from engineering streams and about 65 to 70% are from graduate streams like commerce, economics, arts, sciences, and so on.   

Business Process Services industry hires graduates, post graduates and PhD's from across streams such as Commerce, Accounting, Economics, Sciences, English, Art and so on.  This industry has one of the most diverse need when it comes to college graduates for entry level jobs.  Their skills are needed to cater to several hundreds of business process across over 20 industry verticals that the BPS industry caters to.  Year after year the competitiveness of the industry is being 

the last two days I  was surprised to read the buzz in social networking and messengers like Whats App around the fact that Ernst & Young decided to dump their degree classification criteria at college entry level hiring.  But the way it was interpreted based on news reports is very different...Looks as if you no longer need a degree to get into E&Y.  And already this decision  (interpretation of no need for degree) is getting huge thumbs up in Social Media forums.

This goes to show how naive people can be and how quickly they start jumping to conclusions and also how something like this becomes a thing everyone's thinking of copying without even understanding.