How to Conduct Effective Counselling?

 Counselling techniques are pro-actively used as means of Staff Development or to remove barriers to development.

Counselling is likely to be most effective method of managing a situation in which a subordinate is coming to terms with strong feelings, facing up to reality, and deciding on a course of action which may need a lot of commitment to sustain. The counsellor's role is to provide environment, stimulus and support which enables the subordinate to achieve this on her/his own.

How to Conduct Effective Counselling?

Before you plan to begin with the Counselling session, do take care of following:

• Allow sufficient time and ensure that there are no interruptions from any source.
• Pick a venue that is informal, quiet and comfortable.
• Spend atleast 10 minutes, before counselling session, to review your knowledge of the person.
• Detach your image of the person from common stereotypes.

During your counselling session:

• Do not take not take notes during the interview, as it will create communication barrier. Hence, it will destroy the atmosphere of trust and frankness.
• Your opening remarks have to be warm and general. Prior Rapport will be an added advantage.
• It is important to tune into each other.

There after the Counselling interview can flow through Four stages:

1. Identifying The Problem: Ask them to tell you about the problem. Let them take their time. If necessary, help with simple questions. Listen carefully i.e. Employ Active Listening, which means maintaining regular and friendly, but not piercing, eye contact. So, you need to be aware of non-verbal communication as well. While listening you should not be thinking about - What to say next.

Frequently, the first problem identified and described is the one which they are able to recognize more readily, but there may be underlying problem they have either not realized or they have been avoiding.

Encourage them to look more deeply at the situation, with such questions as:

• What else you think might be causing this?
• Why is it a problem to you?
• What have you tried doing so far?

Working out why earlier actions have not resolved the problem/s, will reveal deeper causes.

Never at any stage in the interview criticize anything that the other person has said or has done by saying. Your intention is to help your subordinate get to the root of his/her problem. Hence, to make judgements about what is revealed in the process is an abuse of trust amounting to Psychological Violence.

It is helpful throughout the interview to paraphrase what has been said occasionally. This reflects back to subordinates the picture they are putting together, and it can help you guide them into next stage. if you think they are ready.

2. Accepting Feelings: Help the individual to recognize and accept the feelings being experienced as a result of the problem with such questions as:

• What did you feel like When.........?
• How do you feel now about..........?

Try to put yourself in other person's shoes with intent of helping the person.

3. Exploring Alternatives: Using the same kind of 'Open Questioning Techniques', encourage the individual to identify alternative responses to the problem. Also, the realistic implications of each alternative. Some of the useful phrases you can use are:

• Have you considered.........?
• What do you thing would happen if......?

But don't rush into solutions/ suggestions until the other person has put in great amount to effort and time to think of as many themselves. They should determine the direction they should follow. Too much direction from you may prevent further development.

4. Making The Decision: This has to be done entirely by the person you are counselling, because he/she has to be fully committed to it. You can help with such questions as:

• When do you have to make the decision?
• What do you think, you will do now?
• When / Where/ How do you think you might do that?

Of course they may decide not to take any action. They may wish to go away and give consideration to option.. But, No advice should be given, or pressure as to How they should decide and act.

There should be enough time to wind down the interview without abrupt stop. The person you are counselling feel satisfaction of having fully explored the problem, and know what personal follow up they need to be doing.

Counselling is not easy, but with practice and training will make you better with sessions and time.

Why and How to Know your Staff Better?

 We Can MANAGE – Whom we Know, With How much We Know and What We Know !!

Ask any number of bosses if they know their subordinates and they will say off-course they do. Do you know:

• About your Subordinates’ birthdays?
• The names of their children?
• Important anniversaries in their lives?
• What date did they join you, get last promotion, achievements at work?
• Their aspirations for the future?

Why to know?

Bosses who walk around their patch regularly. Stop to chat briefly at coffee time and take a personal interest in their staff generally have good rapport with their staff. This in turn leads to positive Assertive Behavior.

Even with small number of staff, it is useful to keep a notebook or a card index of important personal details, interests and major achievement to help you to build up a picture of the whole person. Without this positive effort, we see only the tip of the iceberg of each individual.

Reflect for a moment on following suggestions:

• A good boss/subordinate relation is is often the most important factor in job satisfaction.
• “The Boss” is a powerful influence in most people’s lives.
• The power of shared values as motivators and developers cannot be over-estimated and they can only be transmitted through sound relationships based on mutual knowledge and understanding.
• Your subordinates probably have same ‘hang-ups’ and worries that you have.
• They want to know you too, because they can relate better to someone they can understand as a person.

How to know?

The better we know people, the easier it is to engage their interest in the work and goals of the department, and to develop their abilities and intent to achieving them. Effective Communication, whether verbal or written, always begins with putting yourself in other persons shoes.

You typically almost half of the week with your staff. Hence is is important to know your staff at least half as well as you know your family. Some of the activities are suggested below:

• Do not delegate interviewing your staff.
• Be part of their induction process.
• Do create weekly and monthly interaction/training/development platforms.
• Water Cooler and Coffee break chats are very good and effective tool. Never undermine.
• Periodic family meetings or get-togethers do wonders. One a quarter or twice annually.
• Do create a process, where you have recorded information and timely updates on staff’s important dates – Birthdays, Anniversary, promotion, achievements etc….
• Do make sure that you wish them or congratulate them on their special dates..

Can you think of any more? Please do share what you can think of.

You can’t relate to the unknown, and you cannot develop what you don’t relate with.

How to Manage Your Boss

 How do you see your Boss - as a boon or a burden?

It is as much your job to create an effective working relationship with your boss it is his/hers. After-all It takes two to tango. If the relationship is poor, you must be at least half the problem. Once you realize this, you can be at least half the solution.

In normal business situations, we do not get to choose our bosses. This is just like the fact that in our personal lives, we usually do not get to choose our relatives. So, unless we want to make life hell for ourselves and our subordinates, damage the company, or move on, we must find means and ways to effectively collaborate with our bosses. This is to achieve their priorities as well as our own, in pursuit of organisational goals.

There are for important things to remember about bosses:

• They are human i.e they are not infallible and have the same needs and hang-ups as rest of us.
• They are dependent on us as we are upon them.
• They have different constraints, pressures and priorities than we have- it is never quite possible to fully appreciate the view their window.
• They have bosses too.

Not only it is in your own interests to maintain an effective working relationship with the bosses, but as manager, you are also a representative of your subordinates in from of your boss as well as organisation. If your have read my previous blog on Knowing Yourself, identifying your strengths and weaknesses. You use that information to manage your relationship with your boss too.

Managing your boss also means - Influencing your boss. And it is worth remembering that there are four major sources of power:

1. Expertise
2. Personality
3. Resources
4. Status

You and your boss will have varied levels of elements present out of the above four sources of power. In many situations, you and your boss might be almost at par except the fourth one.

 you know about yourself, you boss, and your powerbase, you may influence your boss, in following ways:

• Work on Creating Rapport with your boss.
• Nothing succeeds like success, but only if he the boss knows about it. Find ways to inform him/her of your people's achievements and of your own success.
• Make your boss look good - in front of his boss, management, and his teams.
• Do not let yourself or your team be perceived as problem creators, but as problem solvers.
• Set up healthy boundaries, in yours and your team's relationship with your boss.
• Check out with your boss that staff development that you propose is compatible with company culture and your boss's idea.
• Associate closely with your boss on discussions, propose seminars etc - to enable your boss to effectively develop his team and yours, to help him get to his business goals.
• Involve your boss, in your team's development activities and sessions.
• Share the progress reports and other developments in his business environment. Keep him abreast with whatever is happening and impacting business.
• Nurture contacts and relationships with help of your business, and involving him.

I suggest that you closely discuss with your teams and add more action points. Idea is to create a cordial working environment by creating yourself as an extension of your boss. 

After all your and your boss's objectives are same - Get to the Business Objectives.

How to manage - Know Yourself.

 Management is about encouraging and controlling the Behavior of others.

How can we effectively control the behavior of others? I mean, Why will they listen to me? Why will they act or behave according to my wishes and instructions?

Well, I cannot just get people to fall in line with what I want them to do. Definitely not, unless I understand, encourage and control my own behavior first. And if I wish to positively develop the attributes of whom I manage, then Self Knowledge becomes even more important. The two major reasons for this, which I can think of are:

• Attitudes and prejudices learnt throughout our lives, sometimes in totally different contexts, influence what we say or do now, even without knowing it.
• What we say and do can have lasting impact on others, and usually determines the response we get in return.

One of the greatest influences on how we behave with others is the Self Image that we have of ourselves. This also acts as filter, interpreting all the other information our senses feed to us.

Same has been emphasized, in no less words, in our Indian Ethos through texts right from Vedas to today's Gurus and mentors - "Dealing effectively with outside world begins with understanding of ourselves." 

In the year 1970, an American psychiatrist- Thomas A Harris, wrote a best seller on this theme. He published his work in the book named - I'm OK, You are OK.

Using his work, we can identify and map out the position from which we view life.

1. Managers with Life Position "You are ok, I'm OK" feel good about themselves and about their subordinates. As a result a mistake is a learning opportunity which does not threaten but develops the employee and cements the relationship for future.
2. I'm OK, You are Not OK manager has a good opinion about his or her own abilities, but tends to build up his/her image by putting other people down. The manager's subordinates are highly unlikely to admit mistakes in this relationship, and will certainly not learn and develop as a result. Mistrust becomes mutual and when the subordinate tries to hide the mistake, or corrects it ineffectively without guidance,it will further reinforce the manager's view that the subordinate in no good.

However, the good news is once we are aware , we can make a change or course correction. A good boss/manager would want to develop an 'I,m OK, You are OK' relationship with his/her people for the reasons which are central to Effective Management and good results:

• It leads to better judgments when making decisions about delegation, promotion or recruitment.
• It develops trust not only between the boss and the subordinate but between team and department as a whole, and trust is basis of good management as well as staff development.
• It encourages realistically high expectations of a person's ability, which are more likely to be met.
• It enables coaching and counselling to be carried out positively and effectively without judgement.
• It enables honest appraisals of performance to be made, and it can lead to genuine improvements and justified rewards.
• It creates the kind of relation in which boss and subordinates can share the same values and aim for high goals.
• It makes life lot more satisfying for everyone.

As I feel good about me, and I also feel good about you, lets work together to increase the awareness of your life's position, and ways you can change it if you wish.

One thing all of us will need to realize. Whatever is written above applies equally to all of us, and not just the manger or the leader. Whether you are a manager, subordinate, driver, union leader, factory worker, salesman....... This applies to all to effectively manage our respective environment well...

I'm OK, You are OK.

Build Confidence.

 To Think Confidently, Act Confidently.

Here is the psychological principle that is worth reading and reading over and over again and again...

To Think Confidently, Act Confidently

As Swami Vivekanand, one of the great Indian Thinker, Sage, Guru, puts it in one of his thought - "We are what our thoughts have made us. So take care about what you think. Words are secondary, thoughts live. They travel far."

Psychologists tell us that we can change our attitudes by changing our physical actions. For example: You will feel more like smiling, if you make yourself smile. You will feel more superior when you stand tall than when you slouch. On the negative side - Make effort to find faults in your best friend or love of our life, you will start hating them in a matter of few days.

You can prove very easily to yourself that Managed Motions can Change Emotions. 

People who are shy, introducing themselves, can replace their shyness with confidence just by taking three simple actions:

1. Reach out for other person's hand and clasp it warmly
2. Look directly at the other person
3. Say, I'm very glad to know you.

These three actions, instantly and automatically banishes shyness. Confident actions produce confident thinking.

So, to think confidently, act Confidently. Act the way you want to feel. Following are the five confidence building exercises. Make the conscious effort to practice them to build your confidence.

1. Be A Front Seater: Yo u must have noticed in meetings - in classrooms, office meeting rooms and other kind of assemblies - how back seats fill up first? Most people rush to take the back seats first so they won't be "too conspicuous." And the reason they are afraid to be conspicuous is that they lack confidence.

          Sitting up front builds confidence. Practice it. From now on make it a rule to sit as close              to the front as you can. 

    

      2. Practice Making Eye Contact: How a person uses his eyes tells us  a lot about him.             Instinctively, you ask yourself questions about the fellow who does not look into your                 eyes - "What is he trying to hide? What is he afraid of? Is he trying to put something over          on me? Is he holding something back?

         Usually, failure to make proper eye contact says a thing or two about you - "I feel weak             besides you" or "I feel inferior to you". or "I'm afraid of you."

         Or, avoiding another person's eyes may say - "I feel guilty. I have done something that I             do not want you to know. I'm afraid if I have an eye connect with you, you might see                   through me..."

         You do not say anything good about yourself, when you avoid making eye             contact.

         Make your eyes work for you. Look straight into the eyes of other person and interact. It             not only gives you Confidence, It helps you win confidence too.

      3. Walk faster than you usually do: Well, I'm a Walk-watcher. Watching people walk is           fun. In corridors, in lanes, on the sidewalks, in offices - I love to study humans by                     watching them walk and move about doing their normal activities.

         Psychologists link slovenly postures and sluggish walking to unpleasant attitudes to one            self, work and people around us. But psychologists also tell us that you can actually                         change your attitudes by changing your postures and speed of movement. Watch, and                     you will discover that your body action is result of your mind action. The extremely                     beaten person, the real down and out variety just shuffles and stumble along. They have             zero self-confidence.

        

        Average People have Average Walk. Their pace is average. The Walk reflects - "I do            not have much pride in myself."

        The third group is persons with Super-Confidence. They walk faster than the average.                There seems to be a slight sprint in the way they walk. Their walks reflects - "I have                    someplace important to go. Something important to do and I'm looking forward to                    succeed..

        Use the Walk-Faster technique to help yourself build self-confidence. Throw your                        shoulders back, lift your head up, move ahead a little faster and feel the Self-Confidence           Grow.

   4. Practice Speaking up:  In working with many kinds of groups of all sizes. I have                     watched many persons with keen perception and much native freeze and fail to participate       in discussions. It is not that these people do not want to be part of group or do not know             what to say, It is just lack of confidence.

      They think of themselves - "My opinion is probably worthless. Others anyway know more          that me. I might look foolish." and so on....

        Every time he fails to say something, he feels further inferior and worthless.        and each time he feels less confident about himself.

       On the Positive side, The more you speak the more confident you feel about yourself. The         more confident you feel about yourself, more you want to speak and put forward your                views in future. So, Speak Up. 

        So, Next time, put this Confidence Builder in practice - Make it a rule to Speak up at every         opening meeting you attend. Speak up, voluntarily, at every business meeting, conference,        community forums etc. you attend. Make No Exception. Try to be the first one to speak.

    5. Smile Big: You must have heard from many people that the Smile gives them a real                boost. They have been told that smile is an excellent medicine for Confidence Deficiency.         But a lot of people do not really believe in this because they never tried smiling when they         felt fear.

        Make this little test. Try to feel defeated and smile big at the same time. You can't. A big            smile gives you confidence. A big smile beats fear , rolls away worries, and defeats                        despondency.

        A real big smile makes friends, melts away misunderstandings, irons out insincerity.                    Another person cannot be angry with you.

        Many a times people say that they do feel like smiling when they have fear, when they are         angry, when they feel down. Off course you don't feel like smiling, no one does. The trick            is to force yourself to smile and then Smile Big..

       Harness the Power of Smile. 

       Closing note is same as the beginning note:  To Think Confidently, Act Confidently.

The Failure Disease.

 People- As You THINK Yourself to SUCCESS !!

Go deep into your study of people. you will discover Unsuccessful people suffer from mind-deadening issues called "Negative Thoughts". Every failure has this disease in its advanced form.And most "average" persons have at least a mild form of  "Negative Thoughts"

You will discover that Negative Thoughts or Negative Mindsets explains the difference between the person who is going places and the person who barely achieves.

What does the Negative Thought trigger?

You will notice, eldest baby of Negative thoughts is "EXCUSES". And not just one or two but a series of Excuses - Why it cannot be done? How it is going to fail? Who all believe that this is impossible? and so on...

Study the lives of successful people and you will find - No Excuses at all.

I have not been able to come across or heard of any highly successful executive, military person, salesman, professional or any leader in his field who could not have found one or many excuses to hide behind.

• Roosevelt could have hidden behind his lifeless legs.
• Truman could have used "No College Education."
• Nelson Mandela was in jail for many decades
• Narendra Modi comes from a very humble background.

Like any disease, habit of giving Excuses keep becoming worse if not identified and corrected and treated properly.

Four Most Common forms of Excuses and their TREATMENTS:

1. I have Health Issues.
• Refuse to talk about your health.
• Refuse to worry about your health.
• Be genuinely grateful that your health is goo, as it is.
• Remind yourself often - It is better to ear out than to rust out.
2. I'm not intelligent Enough.
• Never under-estimate your own intelligence, and never over-estimate other's intelligence.
• Remind yourself daily - "Attitudes are more important than intelligence."
• Remember - Ability to think is of more importance than ability to memorize.
3. I'm too young or too old.
•  Look at your current age positively. Practice looking forward to new horizons and create the enthusiasm within.
• Compute how much productive time you ave left
• Invest your future time in doing what you really want to do. Practice - "I'm going to start now and my best years are ahead of me.
4. My Luck is always Bad.
• Accept the Law of Cause & Effect
• Don't be a Wishful thinker.
• Don't waste your mental muscles, mulling and strategising on effortless ways to win and be rich.

We come with One Life and Limited time. What we do with it depends on how we manage our mindset. Either we decide to waste our life making Excuses or We decide to make something of it

We decide for ourselves...

Relationship Management - Confronting The Unacceptable Behavior

The key to ensuring that confrontation produces positive outcomes - key to handling CONFRONTATION skillfully.

In most of our working environment, stress is laid on building better relationships with teams and individuals.And most of us make conscious effort to build and nurture relationships across. Despite your efforts and the efforts of your team members, someone may initiate or continue unacceptable behavior serious enough to warrant corrective action.

A final communication tool to ensure course correction of the unwanted behavior is that of CONFRONTING unacceptable behavior assertively. How you handle such situation is critical to your effectiveness and your goal of encouraging accountability.

How do you respond to the word CONFRONTATION?

For most people the word conjures images of unpleasant, angry, combative sessions in which participants are accusatory, judgmental, defensive and uncooperative with one another. Few people have positive associations with Confrontations.

Positive Side of Confrontation

As you would have realized, confrontation can benefit all concerned. If someone's behavior is creating problems for others, chances may be that the person may be completely unaware of it. And if no one is willing to say anything to him, his undesired behavior continues and possibly damages relationships.This lack of discussion and awareness can explain why "Ignore the undesirable, and reinforce the desirable" strategy may have failed at changing the behavior.

The key to ensuring that confrontation produces positive outcomes is handling the confrontation skillfully. Most people do not know how to do that because they have not received any training and they have not had any good role models from which to learn the skills. 

The CARING CONFRONTATION process involves four steps:

 1.  Identify the Behavior: Did you describe the situation in relation to te other person's characteristics?Did you use adjectives such as arrogant, lazy, passive, stupid...... If yes, you did what most people do. Typically, when we have difficulty dealing with another person, we consider the person to be a problem.

         If we define the person as the problem, we are likely to set out to change the other                 person in some way to resolve the difficulty.But we cannot change the people's                     personalities.We cannot change their core values or their lifelong attitudes.

        The behavior is where the problem lies. It is what the person does that we wish he did         not do, or it is what that person doesn't do that we wish he would do. It is basically                doing or not doing the behavior.

        You must identify the specific behavior and describe it to the other person in factual,            non-blaming language.

2.  Identify the Tangible Effects: Why is the other person's behavior a problem for you? Because the behavior results in or could result in undesirable impact upon you. How does the behavior affect you?Does it cost money that comes from your budget? Does it take time and effort away from the activities? Does it affect the quality of product you produce or the quality of service you provide? Does it distract others from being productive? and so on........

        More that one or two tangible effects often result from person's unacceptable behavior.         It is these concrete results that make the behavior unacceptable.

        If you can think of no concrete, tangible effects of the person's behavior, then you                probably disapprove of the behavior just because it is different from what you consider         appropriate. You are judging the behavior by your own standards, which is normal                human tendency, but it gives you much less reason to ask someone to change his                    behavior. People don't like others beliefs and standards imposed on them and there's a            strong probability that they might refuse to comply (heard of Teenager's Rebellion?)

        

        When you can explain to someone hos his behavior causes a tangible negative  impact         upon you, ten he is much more likely to change it. Idea is to provide a rationale rather            come up as an overbearing parent figure.

3.  Identify your Own Feelings: Whenever someone's behavior creates a problem, you are likely to respond emotionally. It is important to be aware of your feelings and to communicate to the other person.

        Many people find this aspect of confrontation challenging because few people learn            much about the emotional part of being human. Many people are unaccustomed to                identifying their own emotions or feelings.

        You may get a better feel for your emotional responses if your realise there are only            four basic human emotions - Mad, Sad, Glad and Scared. All the other words words         we use to describe feelings are simply degrees of intensity of one of these four, or                combination of two or more of these basic emotions.

4.  Identify the Change You Desire:  The final step is to identify - What kind of Change you Want. Do you simply want the person to stop using the behavior? Do you want a different behavior in place of unacceptable one? Do you want the other person to suggest a solution?

        The last question above is important. People are most likely to follow through and                implement a change they thought of themselves. If you allow other person to suggest a         solution after you have presented your case, you may discover that the other person            may come up with a better and acceptable solution. This is then ideal, since the other            person will have sense of ownership and is likely to be comfortable in implementing            the same.

As a Thumb Rule - Avoid using commands in a confrontation situation. Even directing or guiding personalities, may get the other person to rebel against your telling them what to do.

Most people will react more cooperatively when you ask them to change a behavior or ask for their ideas.

Relationship Management - Creating Rapport

As important as positive expectations are for successful relationships, they are not the only component. As a - manager/subordinate/peer/salesperson/client..- you will also want to establish rapport with individuals in your environment - Your boss/Your employee/ Your client/Your team player......

Rapport is difficult to define because it is such an intangible thing that occurs between people. The dictionary describes it along the lines of "a harmonious accord"

I keep coming across various corporate leaders and thinkers. How they describe rapport? Some say it is when two people "click" with each other and have the ability to communicate with ease. 

Indeed, rapport building is a very slippery phenomenon of somehow getting on the same communication frequency with one another with the result that we understand each other with seemingly little effort.Without rapport, communication is more strained.

How does rapport occur? How do you know when you have established rapport with someone?

Recognizing Rapport

• Each person makes consistent eye contact with the other.
• Both people seem to be comfortable with each other.
• Each person is polite and courteous.
• Everyone is talking at about the same volume.
• Each person is about at the same emotional level.
• Each person is paying attention to other.
• No one is talking loudly.
• There is no swearing or vulgar language.
• Body postures are similar.
• The pace of conversation s relaxed.

Well, cultural differences also play a part in rapport. For example -  In some cultures direct eye contact is considered impolite.So certain subjectivities need to be applied, basis place, or group dynamics of people involved and so on....

Having rapport is like communicating by short-wave radio- you can communicate only when the sender and receiver are on same frequency. Likewise, when you and another person are "on same frequency" you feel comfortable and connected with each other. You have rapport.

How do I consciously make effort to create Rapport?

Most people depend on rapport occurring accidentally - you have rapport with some people and you don't seem to have it with others. But you can also help create a connection with another person by practicing a technique known as "Pacing".

This technique involves deliberately noticing certain characteristics of the other person and mirroring them. characteristics such as:

• Pace or speed (slow or fast)
• Volume (soft, moderate, loud)
• Emotions
• Facial Expressions
• Gestures, movements
• Body positions, postures.

Pay attention to:

• How fast or slowly a person speaks?
• Does he want to talk business immediately or does he prefer to socialize a while first?
• Does he walk and move at a fast pace or slow?
• Does he answer the question immediately or does he take a few seconds before he responds?

Why does Mirroring personal characteristics help create Rapport?

Because we all are naturally most comfortable with people like ourselves. By making yourself more like those with whom you are communicating, you help them feel comfortable with you.

With little patience and practice you will notice people's traits more readily, and you will develop pacing skills- matching or mirroring just enough of their characteristics to increase rapport....

It Works.....

Wok-Life Balance

In my consulting and speaking engagements over the past several years, about half of all managers want to work with their employees to help them achieve some form of balance.

Most bosses correctly believe that at the end of the day,  Work Life Balance is your problem to solve, and not theirs.

Only you can figure out your values and priorities. Only you know what trade-offs you are willing to make, and only you can envision their consequences. Only you can organise your schedule and your life, at work and at home, for the balance you have chosen.

There can be no question that negotiating work life balance arrangements adds layer of complexity to a manager's job. But your manager should welcome the challenge. It gives him another tool motivate and retain great performers, just like salary, bonuses, promotion,s and all other kinds of recognition.

But along the way, It is only YOU who can and should help yourself. Following is my take on the subject, basis what ever I have learnt over the period of decades coupled with my numerous interactions with various working professionals:

1). Compartmentalize: We have already established that work wants 100% of you, and so does home. To alleviate angst and distraction, and to enhance your performance no matter what you are doing, be focussed on where you are and whom you are with.

Compartmentalizing is not easy. Sometimes you must call the customer from the gymor check on your sick child between meetings. But the more you blend your life, the more mied up, distracted and overwhelmed you feel and act.

The absolute ideal is to draw crisp boundaries around your activities. However, there will always be pressures on whatever rules you set, but smaller and less frequent the interruptions are, the more balanced you will actually feel.

2). Learn to Say NO: Have the mettle to say NO to requests and demands outside your chosen work-life balance plan. Eventually, most people come up with a work life balance arrangement that works for them. The trick is - Stick to it.

That takes discipline. Saying no is hard, especially for business people who have gotten ahead precisely because they have said yes so often. Usually, however, you don't need to say no to something as big as a promotion to get the balance you want. You just need to say no to smaller stuff.

If you say yes to everything, you won,t get balance. And, though saying no is liberating but try it on anything and everything that is not part of your deliberately chosen work live plan.

Create your own fine balance of Yesses and Noes.

3). Don't leave yourself out of your Work-Life balance plan: A really killing dynamic in this work-life balance thing is the "everyone's happy, but me" syndrome. Very competent people figure out a perfect work life balance plan that allows them to deliver enough to themselves to the workplace, and enough of themselves to family. But the problem is, this perfect plan creates a kind of fun-free vaccum for the person in center ie You.

Of course, work-life balance involves making trade-offs, and decent people are obliged to deliver on their commitments to their home and work. But if if you craft a work-life balance plan where you are not having any fun, chances are you will not be able to sustain it.

You have to ensure that work-life balance plan fulfills your dreams and passion. If that means working a lot, do it. If that means being home every evening, let that happen too. Yes, you are responsible for all those around you, but you cannot live someone else's concept of your life, in the name of balance. Well, you can, but you should not.

It almost always backfires !!

The closing note....... Work-life balance is not a decision that you make alone. You have to confront - how your choices myriad of others. But if you do not fulfill your own joy with your plan, all the balance in the world will be just duty and slowly you will keep finding yourself in a special kind of hell, where everyone else is happy but you..... And that will not do any good to anyone.

The Job, No Leader should Delegate..

Having Right People in the Right Place.

Given many things that businesses' can't control, from the uncertain state of economy to the unpredictable actions of the competitors. From environment to  disease outbreak resulting to forced lock down, most of us witnessed during recent worldwide pandemic.

You would think companies would pay careful attention to one thing they can control - the quality of their people, especially those in the leadership pool. Any corporations' human beings are the most reliable resources for generating excellent results year after year. Their judgments, experiences, and capabilities make the difference between success and failure.

Yet some leaders, while they talk of people as their most important asset, usually do not think very hard about choosing the right people for the right jobs.

Why The Right People Aren't in the Right jobs?

Common sense tells us that the right people have to be in the right jobs. Yet so often the aren't. What accounts for the mismatches we see every day? Following are a few of my observations and learning, through out my Corporate career of decades of working with various large corporations:

1). Lack of Knowledge: Leaders often rely on staff appraisals that focus on - may be the wrong criteria, or they might take a fuzzy and meaningless recommendation for someone a direct report. Direct report recommends to the leader- "Bob's a great leader and a great motivator". The leader fails to enquire about the specific qualities that makes Bob a right candidate for the job. May be the job has not been defined by the leader himself to his direct report before asking for his recommendations. He has not defined in terms of three of four non-negotiable criteria.

2). Lack of Courage:  Most people know someone in the organisation who doesn't perform well, yet manages to keep his job year after year. The usual reason, we find, is that the person's leader does not have emotional fortitude to confront him and take decisive actions. Such failures can can do considerable damage to a business. If the non-performers are high enough in the organisation, it can be destroyed.

3). The Psychological Comfort Factor: Many jobs are filed with the wrong people because the leaders who promote them are comfortable with them.Its natural for executives to develop a sense of loyalty to those they have worked with over time, particularly if they have come to trust their judgments. But it is a serious problem when the loyalty is based on wrong factors. For Example- the leader may be comfortable with the person because that person thinks like him and does not challenge him, or has developed a skill of insulating the boss from conflict. Or the leader may favor people who are part of same social network, built up over years in the organisation.

4). Lack of Personal Commitment: When the right people are not in right jobs, the problem is visible and transparent. Leaders know intuitively that they have a problem and will often readily acknowledge it.But an alarming number of leaders do not do anything to rectify this problem. Leader cannot simply fix this problem by issuing directives.

Leaders need to spend at least 40-45% of their time  effort,and emotional energy to - Selecting, Appraising,and Developing people.

BOTTOM LINE

The foundation of a great company is the way it develops people - providing the right experiences, such a learning in different jobs / departments, learning from other people, giving candid feedbacks, proving coaching , education and training. If Leader spends substantial amount of time and energy developing people and assigning right people to right jobs, the payoff will come in form of  Sustainable Competitive Advantage.

Employer's Perspective for Job Seekers...

What does an active Job seeker do? In other words, what are the activities does s/he indulge in?

1. S/he does research to get as many potential employers.
2. Then, S/he approaches them through various means of communication - Telephone, Email, Jobsites, references and so on.....
3. Attends interview meetings
4. Waits for the response.

Well, if the job seeker is selected and offered, Congratulations !!
otherwise, move on with the effort and keep repeating the above. But, one thing that most Job seekers mention is - "Getting a Good Job is Very hard..."

Lets take it further on to the other side of Hiring table...

During many of my appearances in front of the business audiences and interactions with many of the Employers/ Hiring Managers/ Leaders, two observations come out very distinctly...

1. Hiring Good People is Hard.
2. Hiring great People is Brutally Hard.

Nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field. All the clever strategies and advanced technologies in the world are nowhere near effective without great people to put them to work.

Where is the Gap then?

Well, Great employers desperate to hire great people. And on the other hand, great job seekers desperate to get hired by good companies.....

Then why do job seekers find it very hard to get Good Jobs?

To my mind, to a large extent the answer lies in the lack of job seeker's understanding of Employer's / Hiring manager's perspective and his view of - Good / Great Employee....

A job seeker might be Well groomed, good looking, smart and well educated candidate, but does he face the interviewer with a clear perspective on what the employer is looking at? Is the job seeker her/him self projecting right?

Let us understand the Hiring Manager's/ Employer's perspective. What S/he is looking at and how S/he is analyzing you?

Because Hiring Right is so important for any Employer, lets try and understand what and how a job seeker is being observed and assessed. While writing the following, I'm assuming that your formal education certificates, age etc are in order. Let go.......

1. The First Test is for INTEGRITY: Integrity is a fuzzy word, so let me tell you my definition. People with integrity tell truth and they keep their  word.They take responsibility for their past actions, admit mistakes and fix them. They know the laws of their country, industry and company - both in letter and spirit- and abide by them. If you have jumped a red light to reach for interview on time, you are low on integrity.
2. The Second Test is for INTELLIGENCE:  This does not mean that person is an Einstein, or loved to read Shakespeare. It does mean that the candidate has strong dose on intellectual curiosity, with a breadth of knowledge to work with or lead other smart people in today's complex world. And, do not make the mistake of confusing formal education with intelligence.
3. The Third  Test is for MATURITY: You can be mature at any age, and immature too. Maturity means that a person has grown up, the individual can handle stress, withstand the heat, handle stress and setbacks and can also enjoy success. Mature people respect the emotions of others and are confident about themselves.

Once the Employer/Hiring Manager has assessed you on the above and has created positive impressions on the above aspect the interviewer will move on with further assessments on following very important personality traits of the candidate:

1. Positive Energy: It means ability to go....go...go... to thrive on action and relish change. People with Positive energy are generally extroverted and optimistic. They make conversations and friends easily. These people are enthusiastic about everything, every day, every moment. They love to play and they love life.
2. Ability to Energize others: People who energize are the people with positive energies themselves and can inspire their team to take on the impossible- and enjoy doing it.
3. Courage to make tough Yes or No Decisions: The world is full of Gray. Effective people know when to stop assessing and make a tough call, even without total information.
4. Execute- The ability to get job done: You can have positive energy, and energize every one and all other above-mentions characteristics, and still not get over the finish line.Being able to execute is a distinct skill. It means a person knows how to put decisions into actions and take it forward and over to the finish line and ensure timely completion.

Well, above is what I have learned, observed, practices and solidified as knowledge after decades of my professional live and practice. Many other practitioners and professional might have different frame works but the fundamentals remain the same.

Happy Job Hunting !! 

Effective Execution & The Essential Behaviors of Leaders.

 Leaders have to live their businesses !!

The CEO was sitting in his office late one evening, looking tired and drained. He was trying to explain to a visitor why his great strategic initiative had failed, but he could not figure out as to what had gone wrong.
"This was the brightest team in the industry. I assigned stretch goals. I empowered them and gave them freedom to do what they needed needed to do. They knew the rewards and penalties. We worked together with high energy. How could we fail?"

Effective Leadership is the Key Element. The Leadership here is not about the fancy designation you hold, or the number of people assigned to your team. Leadership is resultant of series of coordinated efforts and activities that are repeated and enforced by the leader, day in and day out.

Leaders have to live their businesses !!

Following are seven essential behaviors that form the key building block of execution:

1. Know yourself: Good leaders learn their specific personal strengths and weeknesses, especially in dealing with other people, then build on their strengths and correct their weaknesses. They earn their leadership when the followers see their inner strength, inner confidence, and ability to help team members deliver resuts, while at the same time expanding their own capabilities
2. Know your people and your business: In organisations, with weak execution action, the leaders are usually out of touch with the day-to-day realities. Here, leaders are getting lot of information delivered to them, but it is filtered - presented by direct reports with their own perceptions, limitations and agendas or gathered by staff with their own perspectives. The leaders are not where the action is. They are not engaged and neither do they know their organisation nor the people know him.
3. Set clear Goals and Priorities: Anybody who thinks through the logic of a business will see that focussing on three or four priorities will produce the best results from the resources at hand. Any leader who says that he has ten priorities does not know himself as to what the important things are. Along with having clear goals, leader should strive for simplicity in general. One thing you will notice about leaders who execute well is their ability to talk plainly and forthrightly about whats on their mind.
4. Insist on Realism: Realism is the heart of execution, but many organisations are full of people who are trying to avoid or shade reality. WHY? It makes life uncomfortable. They want to hide mistakes, or buy time to figure out a solution rather than admit that they don't have an answer at the moment.  Embracing realism means always taking realistic view of your company and comparing it with other companies
5. Follow Through: Clear and simple goals don't mean much if nobody takes them seriously. The failure to follow through is widespread in business, and a major cause of poor execution. Everybody may have agreed that the idea was good, but since nobody was named accountable for results, it doesn't get done.
6. Reward the Doers:  If you want people to produce specific results, you reward them accordingly. It is a known fact, yet many corporations do poor job of linking rewards to performance that there's little correlation at all. You have to design and make clear to all that rewards and respect are based on performance.
7. Expand people's capabilities: One of the most important part of leader's role is to pass on acquired knowledge to next generation of leaders. Good leaders regard every encounter as an opportunity to coach. Coaching is the single most important part of expanding others' capabilities. You must have heard the saying, "Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day; Teach a man to fish, and you will feed him for life".

In nutshell, Effective Execution is one of the most important component of Effective Leadership.  The heart of the working of a business is how the three processes of People, Strategy, and operations link together.

Smart Sales People

(PS- I have tried to keep the following, a bit light hearted and without any offence to anyone. I have been a Salesperson myself, for decades)

What do Smart Sales People do? They close good sales. Right?

One innovative Sales Situation I witnesses, as a customer was what I call it - The Broken Freezer.

A pick up truck with a freezer unit in the bed shows up outside my house. Driver (Salesperson) explains to my wife that freezer unit has just gone dead, and he has got a whole load of meat in there and that's going to spoil if he cant find somebody to take it. He offered my wife an 'at cost' deal on a box or two of prime streax. She can have this steal deal and can also recommend same to a few of her neighborhood friends. Since he does not have time to reach back his office in time, he might spoil the entire stock and might loose his job.
Its surprising how well it works. He plays on the natural desire to get "Good Deal" while also helping the guy to save good food and his job.

You call it Salesmanship or a Scam, your choice. But as as Salesperson, I see this as a strong sales presentation.

Marketing would be nothing without their Supermen called "Sales People". 

Good salespeople know that human brain has several parts. One part of your brain- the rational part- thinks. This part of your brain thinks, "All I need is Food, Shelter and may be some sex and I'm Happy. This rational part of your brain does not want to buy most of what I posses - Expensive Scotch, 5 pair of different footwear, Fancy car, Home theater system and so on......

The job of a salesman is to deactivate that happy part of the brain and get to the part that thinks, "Unless I buy an unending stream of unnecessary merchandise, I die."

The first task of a salesperson is to make you miserable, because happy people don't need anything. If there is nothing wrong with you, the salesperson will provide you with a problem. Salespeople want you to think about how desperately inadequate your life is now and how wonderful life will be in the future, assuming you buy some unnecessary products.

Well, it would be interesting to analyse a few sales presentations you might have attended in past, in the light of above....

What say?

All Managers are Leaders. Is it?

There was this news item that I read a couple of years back. It was about an incident of major fire in a chemical factory.

During that incident, material worth millions was destroyed and it took 8 fire fighting whole night to douse the fire. However, the highlight of this tragic incident was a Janitor, who single-handedly saved lives of many and helped avoid a major catastrophe.

As the fire broke out, manager was informed immediately and he in-turn ordered complete evacuation of the factory and he himself rushed out to safety. However Hero of the day, The Janitor, realized that there is large amount of chemical flowing in various tubes and in mixers. Boilers were also operational. Storage tanks have tonnes of chemicals stored in them... All this and uncontrolled fire would lead to a major accident and might lead to loss of Human life and other serious losses...

Seeing the situation and its potential escalation, this Janitor rushed to switch off the power from the mains. Simultaneously he instructed the electrician and few other coworkers to turn off the knobs of Storage and boiler tanks. He further made the housekeeping staff to switch on all the firefighting equipment. Atlast, he and his band of brothers ensured that all the factory roads are cleaned up for fire fighting trucks to rush in smoothly. 

A major Hazard was averted.

Question arises, What made this Janitor to drive himself and his fellow coworkers to do what they did?

He were not officially in charge. He was not instructed by any of his seniors either. Infact his Manager instructed all to evacuate immediately. What made him do what he did?

Leadership and Management

Most people think of a Leader as someone with a vision who effectively communicates that vision to others, who then help the leader achieve the vision. A leader is good at defining goals and inspiring others to achieve those goals. A leader is someone whom others trust and often admire.

How does a Leader differ from Manager?

The classic textbook definition of a Manager is someone who gets things done through other people. This means the manager is responsible for accomplishing goals by making sure that other people carry out the action steps and tasks designed to produce the desired outcomes.

Do you see mush of difference between Leaders & Manager?

In the above story of Chemical factory. While Manager was Manager, Janitor came up as a Leader:

• He foresaw.
• He did not panic or display any knee-jerk and abrupt reactions
• He visualized with clarity planned.
• Gave clear instructions on goals, actions, timelines and end result.
• Inspired a group of unrelated co-workers into action which was not normal for them, and achieving the ultimate goal of avoiding a catastrophe.

Many managers do not have skills or wisdom to get things done through other people. They become dictating bosses or paper shufflers or political creatures whose primary goal is to protect and preserve their own jobs and further their careers by pleasing their own bosses.

Above is the precise reasons, why much of time and energy is devoted to develop leadership abilities in managers.

Hence, While Managers are Managers, GOOD MANAGERS are GOOD LEADERS too..