Attitude Makes the Difference

Not Intelligence, Not Chance, Not  Hard work.  It is Attitude that finally makes somebody a great performer, it is attitude that defines success and it is attitude that takes you a long way.

Who cannot forget Zig Ziglar quote:  "You cannot tailor-make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations"

It is easy to say -  have a positive attitude,  your attitude decides your altitude and so on but the question I have is what really determines your attitude.  If having a positive attitude alone made you a winner everyone would have been there and done that.   Why is it only some maintain a positive attitude and rest of them do not.  That's the question I want to explore in this piece and the next.

Is attitude determined by behaviors exhibited or is it vice-versa? 

To understand better:  An attitude is a learned tendency to exhibit behavior in a certain way.  The way I think,  feel or display behavior on / to an  issue, a person, a group, a subject, a trend are all examples of  attitude.   

We can be conscious of our attitudes or - they can be sub-conscious (blind spots about the attitudes)

Attitudes can be influenced in either positive or negative direction and it is here that role of managers  leaders and other key influencers in organizations is very important.  A person can develop a very positive attitude towards work and at the same time a very negative depending on the experience.    It is the experiences we have or the conditions we are exposed to that determine our attitude towards a phenomenon, place, person,  event etc.

So behavior changes according to the attitude toward something.  However remember that it is the behaviors itself that influence attitude.  If you want a person to change from a extremely negative attitude towards say "gender diversity"  it cannot happen just by feeling it.  He / she has to actually start being more accepting of the other gender being equally contributing in team work or other gender being as competitive, or the other gender being as hard working or whatever the negative bias he or she has about "gender diversity"

So next time you find you are carrying your problems in your mind and it is affecting you negatively you need to check whether it can be attributed to attitude you have about something.  Can you change the way you are affected by just changing your attitude? As a manager you need to see what behaviors the person needs to change if the attitude has to change.   Well more about how managers can work on attitudes with examples in a coming post.  

Meanwhile if you have something to share, your experiences, your observations, your thoughts are welcome.

Be The Light, This Festival of Lights- Happy Diwali

Emerson once said "When a Happy Person Enters the Room, It is as if another candle has been lit"

Let each one be like that candle this festival season and may you have  joy and happiness through the year ahead.


Happy Festival of Lights to my friends, colleagues and their near and dear.

Interestingly notice that  even when you light up the candle for others, first person to see it's light will be you.

Quotes You'll Love, Zig Ziglar & Others

Here are six wonderful quotes to reflect this weekend.  

When you change your attitude about your job, it'll make a dramatic difference about your performance on the job.- Zig Ziglar

If things go wrong, don't go with them. - Roger Babson

Others can stop you temporarily - you are the only one who can do it permanently - Zig Ziglar

If you learn from defeat you haven't really lost - Zig Ziglar

Happiness is not something you find, but rather something you create. - Zig Ziglar


Other links to Quotes

Hello, Hola !!! Blogging World

Five Success Quotes You'll Love

Quotes

BPS Industry: What is It All About?

There are lot of myths about this industry viz.,  Business Process Services (BPO or ITeS as it is also known) has been a story of rapid growth in India having grown  from less than a Billion US Dollars in  revenues around 2001 to about 20 times that revenue by 2013.  Truly with the forecast for 2020 being 50 Billion US Dollars the industry is in a sweet spot.

However, thanks to Chetan Bhagat (novelist who wrote about the strange, complicated lives of a few characters and put this the context of a call center) there is a common belief that BPO companies are all about telemarketing and making those pesky calls to clients who don't need them in the first place.   Well reality is very different.  Sample this....

Imagine you want to launch a product and worried about the price you should launch it in a particular city or region or geography.   What should be the price and how much share will this give you potentially?

Imagine you are a Procurement Leader for a global paint manufacturing company and want to optimize your sourcing of pigments across the globe from various geographies.  Where should you order the next batch of  pigments for your plant in New Zealand.   

Imagine you want to set up a process to engage with a large group of regular clients through a loyalty program and make them feel great each time they connect with you on your network through various channels or touch points.

Imagine a pharma company wants to launch a new vaccine in a much shorter time frame, and you need to work in alignment with various regulations that govern the trials and outcomes. With the development of a vaccine being a long elaborate process (several years) it is greatly beneficial if the process can be speeded up without compromising any of the  steps.

Imagine you have a great retail banking product and need to really understand quickly which are your most valuable customer segments and how to increase your revenues and at what level of income potential should you sell these to maximize your profitability from this line of product.

Imagine you want 20 to 30% improvement in your gross margin and looking at some transformation of your processes to realize better contribution and profitability.

Well all of these scenarios above are some of the ways in service providers can add value to businesses that look to become better, more agile, more profitable, better performance at business outcomes.

Business Process Services is a very large industry today and several companies are working in this space to make all of above kind of scenarios a reality.   Couple process focus with technology innovations and solutions that blend technology with business process and you have increased marginal returns on your investments.

In short the industry is surely in a sweet spot and looking to change business outcomes by more than just running contact centers.  The industry has matured to an extent that it is a formidable partner to businesses globally and set to be here for a long haul journey of excellence.

You may also want to read

Business Process Services: Need for a Mainstream Curriculum

BPS Industry In India: In a Sweet Spot

BPS Industry in India: Some Sectoral Challenges

Narrow the Intent-Content Gap !!!

When Content does not Match up to Intent,  you are likely to  lose credibility.  The writing on the wall is loud and clear.  If we fail to live up to the talk as HR professionals 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) 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.

Good One !! On Big Data

A nice interesting perspective on Big Data from HBR Blogs in the link below

Read here (External Site)

Thanks

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/10/does-bigger-data-lead-to-better-decisions/#!

Is Promotion a Reward for Performance - Part II

In an earlier post (Is Promotion A Reward for Performance) I had spoken about how organizations can stall the outcomes of an important process by positioning it inappropriately as something which is attributed as a reward for performance.  However performance is a necessary but no sufficient condition for a promotion.

Take the simple case of A being the best territory sales representative for Pharma Co.   As a Territory sales person he is responsible for ensuring good services to clients within a geographical boundary, increasing sales all at optimal travel and overhead costs. He is the star performer among sales folks.  A is a a go-getter, loves traveling, loves meeting people and extremely achievement oriented.  He always prefers to be in the limelight,  gets excited and highly motivated when receives a praise and recognition from the Regional Sales Head or the Territory Sales Manager.   The Regional Sales Head had just received a resignation letter from the Territory Sales Manager and was contemplating making A the new Territory Sales Manager in next 3 months.

When he discussed the proposal with the HR Manager he got the following feedback. A loves to follow schedules,  meet Doctors as per assigned protocols and engage with them in a very pleasing and detailed oriented manner. However he really hates managing outcome of others.  He just can't lead a team, motivate performance,  coach or mentor others.  He prefers being a star and can't stand losing out on sales targets.  He gets completely dejected and takes the failures to meet targets as his own doing. 

The regional sales head knows this very well and is not sure how to retain A if he is not able to promote him in at least next 2 years.  But the question is will he be setting up for failure.

It is in the interest of the organization to do something else to retain him.  So promoting your best sales guy might end up in your having a bad fit for a Territory Manager role because he has to fix targets for others,  drive up motivation,  arrange team meetings,  take stock of weekly performance all of which is not something that A is very keen on.   He needs a fair bit of coaching before he can take up the role of Territory Manager and the HR team feels that this can happen only after 2 years of inputs

So what options does a manager have to retain A.    Here are three ways it can be done.  While the first is essential you have a choice among the other two.

• Assign a performance coach and work through action and improvement areas. Needs to be a two way process starting with establishing objectives,  working through with understanding barriers to improvement and then action planning followed by action to change 

•  Have an alternative engagement model for motivating and incentivizing the Sales Person (A in this case). This is very important and should be done in parallel to the coaching assignment.  That way A is focused on the achievement and it is important this laddering (showing few more steps on the path towards something different or a new role is to be done)is important.  Most organizations fail on this count and thus are unable to retain your good performer and lose them for lack of action taken.

• Look for a rotation to a new location or new product line in same role and change the context for the individual. It is more likely he / she will be engaged for the period since the change and parallely you need to work on the coaching bit

At times you may be promoting someone into his or her area of expertise or capability then in such case it may be a good thing but if not then it is a sure shot for failure.

Look forward to some ideas and comments and if you liked it feel free to share.

You may also want to read

Is Promotion A Reward for Performance - Part I

The Normal Curve in PMS