Prologue

“One for the master, one for the dame, and one for the….”

Face flushed – uncertain smile stretched across the tiny mouth, the little child stumbles through the popular nursery rhyme, as a crowd of smiling elders look on. Eyes fixed on her mother, she searches for the next word as the mother – mouth slightly open, tongue  touching the upper palate and the lips stretched apart – mimes the bridge word, imploring the child with her eyes to remember, remember, remember…..

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Of horses and men

In 1891, a horse named Hans became very famous in Berlin. Its owner, Wilhelm Von Osten – a High School Maths teacher and a horse trainer had trained it to solve arithmetic sums and many other tasks. Given a sum to do, the horse would tap its hoof to indicate the correct answer.

The horse gained a strong reputation as Von Osten held public – and free – displays of Hans’s gift. So much so, that the German government decided to have his gifts investigated. At the end of a fairly lengthy investigation by pschycologist Oskar Pfungst, it was established that the horse was really not solving any arithmetic sum – it was merely tapping its hoof till it sensed, from the body language of Von Osten and the assembled audience, that the correct answer had been reached!

The “Clever Hans Effect”, as it subsequently came to be known, has had a far reaching impact on the fields of research, cognitive and social psychology and understanding of animal training.

But what has this really got to do with leadership?

Great Expectations

When Pfungst published his findings in 1907, people were quick to label Hans as a fraud. As a matter of fact, neither Hans nor Von Osten were guilty of fraud. It was proven conclusively by Pfungst that Von Osten was completely unaware of the body signals that he was subconsciously giving out. And as for Hans – why he was only performing to meet his master’s expectations.  As a supremely intelligent animal – he developed the faculty of reading his master’s body language!

In AD 8, nearly 1900 years before Clever Hans, Ovid, one of the 3 great Latin poets, completed a monumental work named Metamorphoses – a 15 book epic which contains an interesting story that achieved fame much later, and through other hands. The story is that of Pygmalion.

In this story, Pygmalion is a shy – almost misogynistic – sculptor who carved a beautiful and perfect woman out of ivory, named her Gallatea, and then fell in love with her. The kind Venus, seeing Pygmalion’s condition, granted Pygmalion’s wish and turned Gallatea into a live woman.

Pygmalion is also the name that the noted Social Psychologist – Dr Robert Rosenthal – gave to a phenomenon that he had observed and researched with Lenore Jacobsen – an elementary school principal. Dr Rosenthal’s core research focused on the “Psychology of Interpersonal Expectations”, and he was studying how “one person’s expectation for the behaviour of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy”.

In the study, Dr Rosenthal chose random children and told their teachers that those children had scored very high in a test that established them as a potential A-Grader. The test was of course fictitious – it was never conducted. Curiously those children did do better than their peers!

What really happened? According to Dr Rosenthal, like Pygmalion, the teachers “loved” the potential A-graders (the “perfect” form) and their “wish” or expectation was granted. In a cruel converse, the teachers did not expect the other children in the school who were not picked up by Dr Rosenthal’s random sampling, to perform as well. And they didn’t!

Working to the leader’s expectations has been known to be the cornerstone of successful teams. Equally, it has been the cause for dysfunctional under-performing teams.

In 1995, I was put in charge of Citibank India’s retail banking data center. It was almost a decade old – the electrical wiring was frayed, the raised floor tiling was broken in many places, unused machines grouted to the floor made movement difficult and a jungle of unused cables below the raised flooring harboured rodents. It had to change. ASAP.

Being a retail bank that prided on being 24×7 accessible, we didn’t have a large time window. I, with my two key peers estimated (quite adventurously as it turned out later) that it could be done in 3 days. And Pongal the next week gave us precisely that three days window.

The three of us believed it could be done. We told our disbelieving teams that it had to be done and expected them to do it.

And they did it. As have the teams of many leaders we have come across, in our work in BullzI, who believed in giving “Stretch” goals and sincerely expected that their teams will make a good attempt at reaching the goal.

In most cases, this stretch goal would simply be a percent increase over the targets accepted from the HO or board. In nearly all of those cases, the teams below knew how it worked.

But knowing how it worked didn’t matter. What mattered was the expectation of the boss. And the resulting Expectancy Cycle.

The figure here depicts the “Pygmalion Expectancy Cycle” – a four stage process that starts with the formation of “expectations” – from subordinates and peers. How this expectation is formed is a matter for later discourse.

The second stage – when the expectations are communicated – is perhaps the most critical stage in the Expectancy Cycle. In many of our interactions with middle to senior managers, we have had debates, sometimes heated, on the implementation of reporting processes. The most troubled teams were the ones who were caught in a double bind. These teams were asked to implement a process without being given any leeway as to their existing (already stretched) deliverables. These teams didn’t succeed in implementing the process because they were not expected to.

So what should leaders do?

The challenges to be overcome, as it is, lie in managing the formation and communication of expectations by the leader. Just as in the case of poor Hans.

While the obvious solution is to improve their understanding and control over the way their expectations are communicated, the even more obvious step is to first start by admitting that they could be, if not are, prey to the dissemination of inconsistent and nonverbal cues on expectations. Sadly, that seems to be easier said than done.

It’s not me !

In a survey on “risk prone” behaviour while gambling, 92 % respondents agreed that they had spotted risk-prone behaviour among others. Only 20% respondents agreed that they exhibited the same.

The ratio, when it comes to the awareness of nonverbal cues,is quite the same with leaders. When presented with 360 reports, we observed that the most common first response is – “Hey – that’s not me !!”

In BullzI we use a simple but potent tool to help leaders discover the impact their subconsciously communicated expectations of performance has on the work culture.

We invite leaders to fill up a modified 2+2 tool. Done honestly, results from this activity helps correlate the time the leader spends on an employee with the shared liking and performance of a subordinate. A high correlation is an indication of an environment where Pygmalion Expectancy Effect is at play.

The epiphany that often accompanies this exercise helps win the battle of the mind. The best follow-up to this, we have found, is a good old-fashioned introspection that leads to action steps.

Tailpiece

Legend has it that Hans was not the only animal that Van Osten tried to train. He also tried to train his cat and a bear. The cat was bored and did not show interest. The bear apparently became hostile to his training methods.

It was said that horses and dogs, pack animals who are sociable by nature, are more motivated to “perform to expectations” and develop a higher degree of sensitivity to body language. Bears are fiercely independent. Cats, though to a lesser degree than bears, are certainly more independent than dogs.

It is not uncommon to find cats and bears in teams. A leader will do well to check the 2+2 tool output to see if there is a lack of congruence with the stated value and displayed behaviour. A team and an organization can gain enormously from these independent operators who may be inadvertently suffering from lack of attention.

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Epilogue

….a smile lit up the little girl’s face as a flood of memory triggered in her tiny brain.

“One for the little boy who lives down the laaaayne!” – she finished with a squeal and a flourish and ran into her mothers beckoning arms, burying her tiny head into the dupatta as generous applause and loud cheers rose all around her.

Next time, she promised herself, she will also sing “Frere Jacques”.

 

Good Intentions

This is what happened in the corporate headquarters of a very well known organisation based out of Mumbai.

The founder, a man with a genuine concern for his people and strong faith in the basic integrity of human beings had created a great staff welfare scheme. He wanted all his staff to have the benefit of good wholesome food available at the lowest possible price for breakfast and lunch. To make the model work, administrative costs (including staff required to service this need for the nearly 1000 people) had to be kept at a minimum. A very reasonable rate (approximately equal to the cost of ‘vada pao’) was fixed for both meals and the food was available in eating areas to be self served in fixed portions. The person availing this service was expected to drop the money in a box, serve himself and after eating, clear his plate and the table. There was no one to serve or check for payment (as this would have increased cost of the portion).

After struggling with it for many months, this service was shut down. It was draining the organisation on a daily basis. The number of portions consumed NEVER equaled the amount of money collected by a long margin. The difference between portions and money collected also increased over time.  What was observed was that many did not pay for the service and many others took more than one portion without paying for it. The founder preferred to shut it down rather than police it and run. The employees are clearly unhappy that this had to happen and today, everyone blames someone else for the fiasco.

Unshakeable Faith in Our Proclivity

I was attending a resident’s community meeting the other day and the group was discussing various measures that had to be undertaken to improve security, maintenance, environment and compliance to create an overall better community. The two most telling decisions taken were:

1. Not to form a residents association with financial and other empowerment as this was considered to be the beginning of the end. Office bearers would be looking for special status and rules for themselves, financial probity would become suspect, service levels would fall and groupism would start. It was agreed that the entire service of managing our condo would continue to be outsourced. This motion was accepted with near unanimity. Everyone of course felt that they were never going to be the wrong-doers but were convinced that someone else would be.
2. To get better security, maintenance etc., the group that had to be tackled was that of the residents themselves as they were the ones responsible for most transgressions.

Personal Accountability

Something else that is making news, albeit not as the banner headlines but in the inside pages, is the whitewash that Team India has just been subjected to in England. What is remarkable is the number of people who are being ‘blamed’ for this defeat – the BCCI is being lynched and the IPL (not long ago celebrated as the greatest thing in world cricket and a gift from India) is being flogged.

What we see, in all the anecdotes so far, are fingers that are being pointed at those that wield the power and have the authority.

The finger is rarely ever pointed to oneself.

We find this in our study of organisations quite often. People hardly ever consider themselves to be part of malaises like lack of collaboration or politicking or sycophancy. It is always someone else who indulges in it and most often, it is the leadership which is responsible!

Whenever we have encountered this, our recommendation has always been to encourage each individual to take responsibility for his own action in entirety – and not link it to anyone else’s action. We posit that a unilateral act like that is a mark of true leadership. This is based on our belief that pointing fingers indirectly encourages the individual to abdicate the responsibility of any self-action; usually that does not end up in a successful ‘change’ initiative. The behaviour change that is today required is at individual levels – whatever the behaviour may be (the behaviours to be changed will usually be different at different levels in the organization).

There is enough written and many views available on what makes corruption so endemic in our society. You can read Being Indian or this blog for some opinions.

In the context of the present agitation that we see, it would be truly refreshing to see it move towards fingers pointing back at self. I am glad to see some tentative first steps in that direction (‘I will not pay bribe’ group). There needs to be a lot more of this. Otherwise we will slip back as we allow those with the right ‘connections’ to get into Ramlilla Ground ahead of those in the queue and still point fingers at others who do the same.

Arnab

Arnab has the uncanny ability to see how the accusation he has hurled in his question at the politician/expert/bureaucrat/socialite has been substantiated in the answer that has come back to him. No matter how different the answer, Arnab finds in it the nugget that vindicates his original accusation!

My Uncle (may his soul rest in peace)

I had an uncle who was a member of a political party from the times before independence. Himself a man of very high personal integrity and uncompromising values, he was surprisingly lenient in his views about the party.  For every misdeed of a party leader somewhere, he always found a reason.  He would quote the Mahabharat and how the Pandavas used means – that cant exactly be called fair – many times to win the battle. Surprisingly, such convenient metaphors were inadmissible when it came to any other political party or for any member of his family.

The High Potential Executive

Here is a situation that has played out many times with me.  .
A reasonably senior executive is unhappy in his current job. He is feeling (let us assume) stifled – not able to ring in the changes he wants or explore the new ideas he has because of his supervisor. He has been speaking to another organisation and the offer is on its way. The assignment is with an organisation where the original promoter is still running the place and says he wants ‘fresh ideas’ to recharge the organisation. He says that he will be ‘actively involved in supporting the person to bring about cultural changes and drive it with him……’
Here, what I hear is that he will have a meddling, interfering boss who is very used to exercising and wielding his power and who will be an equal, if not greater problem than his current one. What he hears is that the promoter is looking for ‘fresh ideas’ and will ‘support him’. I bring up the issue for his consideration; he brushes it aside – he believes he has the playground to try out all the ideas that his current boss has put a muzzle on. I voice my concern about whether the promoter will give him a free run as his intentions seem to be to remain actively involved; he reassures me that he got along well with him in the meeting, found him very gracious and charming.
Six months later, he is looking again!!!

Confirmation Biases

In her wonderfully readable book, The Art of Choosing, Sheena refers to problems like these being caused by our ‘Confirmation Biases’.  Here is what she has to say about them:
“As human beings we embrace information that supports what we already prefer or justifies choices we have made before in our lives. It always ‘feels’ better to justify our opinions rather than challenge them, to contemplate the pros and relegate the cons to the back of our minds.” She goes on to quote it as a key reason why people make wrong hiring choices as well – you like/dislike a person because of similarities/differences in personalities and then look for supporting evidence in your conversation, ignoring other aspects.

Arnab finds it easier to carry on with his story when he finds the nugget that supports his point of view. My uncle found it comforting to believe that his ideals and the institution he strongly subscribed to was not incorrect. The restless executive is happy to find confirmation that he is justified in feeling stifled and that there are organisations that value ideas and will give him the freedom to explore.
All of us are probably victims of Confirmation Bias at some stage or the other and usually realize in hindsight our lapses in judgment. So, what if any, are the ways to minimize their occurrence?

Inoculation

Since you are unlikely to know when the “Bias” will kick in, a good place to start is to decide that you will use a process for decisions on the really important issues in your life.
You could choose from a number of processes, all of which have two things in common – analysis and a mentor/guide/counselor/advisor/coach.
Here are two methods that I have found useful. If you know of more, please feel free to add.
OIC
The principle behind this method is to start with the desired Outcome, related to the context (job, relocation etc.), consider the Intent (why do you desire this Outcome) and think of the Consequences (of achieving the Outcome). This is best done with a Coach familiar with this technique who can take you through progressive layers of OICs until you arrive at a point when all three points in every layer of OIC are congruent.
At the very least, the practice of writing down the OIC for the first level itself will provide better clarity.
P&C
Yes, the good old ‘Pros’ and ‘Cons’ method. Again, writing it down will help provide clarity. You may wish to try to write it as though you were advising someone else. This detachment from self helps objectivity.
Very often, when we are making lists or analyzing an issue, we consider only the facts. Factor the emotions into this list as well. The feel of a place, the emotions you feel when with a person, your current state of mind, should be taken into account.  This is to both allow emotions to be factored into decisions as well as be aware when they distort.
Once the list is done to your satisfaction, get feedback on it from a trusted counselor.  When seeking feedback specifically ask the person if you are sounding biased in your judgment of the issue. Be sure to listen.

Hopefully your decision-making will improve and you would have confronted and defeated the virus of your biases.
As for Arnab Goswami, I believe he takes a daily injection of the viruses to keep his mind sharp and find the nuggets that would escape most of us.

p.s. Arnab Goswami is simply used as a metaphor for ‘experts’ and ‘TV Anchors’. No disrespect is intended to him as a person.

 

Changing jobs – how to decide when

Note: Names and some event details have been modified to protect identities of the real persons and organizations.

‘Do you think I should change my job?’

Pooja, by all conventional definitions, is a successful media executive. She is heading national sales for a leading television network and has reached this position at a comparatively young age. We were meeting because she wanted to talk about her career.

As the inevitable question surfaced, I spotted, as I have during many such conversations over the years, the familiar conundrum:

1. The question has to be answered by the one asking, and,
2. The one asking does not have the right set of questions that will lead to an answer.

I knew it was time for me to make an attempt at articulating a framework that may be of use to others in a similar situation.

Question 1: Where are you?

Fig 1 displays a construct (borrowed from Marshall Goldsmith) that looks at job change along two dimensions:

• Direction (Y-axis): You make a change either on your way up OR way down. This UP or DOWN is as perceived by your colleagues and you will need to be completely honest in your judgment of this. This is shown along the vertical axis of Fig1.
• Action (X-Axis): You either jump or are pushed out to make the change. Jump is in your hands, push is not. This is shown along the horizontal axis.

1. When you are on your Way UP and a better opportunity comes along – JUMP to it. The key thing to ensure is that it should take you closer to your ‘goal’ (whatever that is) than your current job could. You have to be absolutely clear and objective about that.Somesh was doing very well in an HR Consulting firm. He enjoyed the daily challenges of consulting, leading a team and was well rated by his clients and colleagues. He had lots of independence and could pretty much decide on business priorities and budgets. He was clearly on the Way UP. He Jumped to join a large organisation’s L&D function in a role where he was reporting to the CLO and was one amongst five other direct reports. Somesh wanted to be the Chief Learning Officer of a large corporation and drive the growth agenda on a large scale.  That was his goal. This was, for him, a ‘Better Job’.
2. Sometimes you know you are on your Way DOWN. Performance is dipping, the job seems to be a drag and getting to work each morning is increasingly difficult. If you encounter this you, can either try and reverse the situation, or JUMP and ‘Save Yourself’  rather than be PUSHED (Fired). In the next question, we will examine some ways by which you can confront the reasons why you have the Way DOWN feeling.
3. The one situation that is difficult to understand is when you are on your Way UP but still get Pushed. This is a reality in today’s context. Seema is doing an outstanding job running a division for a large advertising agency. She has really turned it around and the division has stopped bleeding. Now is the time to invest to make it grow and count. The advertising agency has lost two of its biggest clients over a period of 3 months that accounted for almost half the revenues. The thinking is obviously to cut costs and the strategy being adopted is to rebuild the advertising business, which is the largest entity in the group. Seema will be an unfortunate victim of circumstances not in her control. She could get PUSHED even though she was on the Way Up. ‘What just happened here?’ is an understandable question from Seema.

Where you are in the grid may change fairly regularly.  Maintaining a constantly updated status creates a nice review mechanism and allows one to objectively contemplate whenever the question pops up in your mind.

Question 2: Why do you have the ‘Way Down’ Feeling?

Three years before I quit advertising and started my own venture, I had a particularly good year at work. My boss applauded me in the Executive Committee meeting and bestowed the tag of ‘Manager of the Year’. It was a high point but that evening the nagging feeling of discontent and restlessness refused to leave me. I was on my Way UP but feeling on my Way DOWN. I did not spend too much time thinking it through or doing something about it at that point.

That feeling stayed with me and two years later the same boss was having conversations of a totally different nature. This time I was unequivocally on my Way DOWN. My lack of motivation was showing in my work. I was closed to getting PUSHED.

The time to ask yourself some hard questions is when you are not ‘feeling good’ about our job. Make no mistake, even if you are doing well in others’ eyes, it will catch up and you will soon find yourself on the Way DOWN.  Fig 2 presents a construct that you could use. Ask yourself:

• Direction (Y-axis): Is it because of ME (Inward) or is it the ENVIRONMENT (Outward).  ME relates to reasons that can be directly attributed to one’s behaviour, attitudes, beliefs and goals. ENVIRONMENT is all of the reasons other than ME. This is not as easy to answer, as it seems, primarily because of the human tendency to put blame away from ourselves.  We will delve on it more in the last section.
• Action (X-Axis): If the reason has been identified, can you make the required CHANGE so that the feeling changes to Way UP? The horizontal axis looks at the two possibilities – CAN CHANGE and CANNOT CHANGE. Again these require careful thought as we often underestimate what we can change and overestimate what we cannot, as we will examine later.

Question 3: ME or ENVIRONMENT?

Let us examine the human tendency to put blame elsewhere.

Arvind was extremely talented and achieved great results. He had spent about 8 months in his current job, a challenging assignment but was not feeling good – feeling WAY DOWN, a precursor to being WAY DOWN.

He had changed 2 jobs in the last 3 years. When I asked him why, it emerged that he felt that he was unlucky with bosses, he got ones who did not understand him. When I probed a little deeper, I realized that Arvind wore his intellectual arrogance on his sleeve and was not averse to letting his bosses know that he was way smarter than them. In my book that was a more ‘ME’ reason than the ENVIRONMENT.

If Arvind had to avoid becoming a frustrated, cynical, underachieving person, he had to learn that pissing your bosses off was an immature strategy that was bound to fail sooner or later. He had to make the CHANGE, difficult as it may have seemed and in his current job to realize his professional goals.

Question 4: What can we change? What are those that we cannot or do not want to change?

1. Here is another example about bad bosses; after all it is quoted as the single biggest reason for people quitting.  Pravash was a rising star, one of the youngest to have made it to General Manager in an MNC agency. His boss Aveek Singh had promoted him– Pravash had been a direct report in Aveek’s previous assignment.

6 months into the assignment, Pravash wanted to quit. When I asked him why, he said it was because of his boss. Aveek kept loading various special projects and Pravash was snowed in under, hardly able to create any impact in his new job. He thought he was not good enough for the job and resented Aveek for putting him in that position.

In this case, Pravash’s reasons for feeling Way DOWN were outside of him, it came from his boss loading too much work. Pravash was encouraged to speak to Aveek about it and to his credit Aveek understood his mistake and stopped the overloading. Pravash was able to CHANGE the ENVIRONMENT and hence stayed back in the job.

2. When I quit my job and started this venture, I was very clear that I did not want to be responsible for managing people any longer. I opted to GO because I did not want to make the change. BullzI has evolved as a partnership of very talented professionals who run their own lives and share in the earnings. To my surprise I have discovered that there are a number of others who have felt this way before embarking on ‘consultant’ careers.

Tailpiece

There are many of who have changed jobs just by listening to the “inner voice”. An inner voice that was not necessarily so articulate – but nonetheless correct.  Against every one of them, there are at least a dozen who agonize over this question without the  benefit of unerring instinct. Using these constructs as guidelines, it should be possible for you to decipher the ‘inner voice’ better when pondering this question, ‘Should I change my job’?

What do you think?

Best laid plans of mice and men…
You set yourself a goal. It is discussed with all the relevant people. Timelines are agreed upon and you work hard, stretch and then stretch some more to reach the target.
As the finish line comes into focus, suddenly events, totally out of your control, throw everything into disarray. The path to your goal blurs. Maybe it is the promotion that did not come through at the last minute, sudden change in the per sq ft rate of the house you were looking to buy, cancellation of the holiday because of the strikes in Thailand…. it hits all of us sometime or the other.
Coping with disappointment ranks amongst the top 5 ‘life skills’ that all of us need to be equipped with. It determines not only our immediate welfare but shapes our attitudes and belief in life. I came face to face with this very recently and wanted to share the experience.
Meticulous Planning
Since the October of 2009, I had set my heart on going for a trek in the Himalayas. Along with figuring out routes, guides and costs, I had got into a get-fit regime that increasingly became the largest agenda in my life. From being a ‘foodie’ I went to watching the calories and refusing ‘useless carbs’ and ‘mixed proteins’.  I carried my yoga mat across the country to various hotels and off-site locations where I was facilitating programmes. As June approached, I had built in a walking routine as well that went to 6 km everyday. In my 50th year, I was fitter than I have ever been since 25!
The trek was part of the holiday with family and friends. Family would stay back at base camp and I was to go off with a couple of friends for 4 days. We were climbing from 8500 ft to 15500 ft to a snow-bound pass.  Incidentally, this trek was also a ‘build capabilities’ kind of exercise for me to go for more difficult and longer ones later this year. You can see there was a whole lot of planning.
Unusually liquid and frequent movements
Day1 at our first stop in the hills, I have a sumptuous lunch where the ‘chutney’ and paneer taste a little too sour. The plan is to leave early the next day for the long ride to our base camp in Sangla Valley, Himachal. I wake up in the middle of the night to start a process that has me running to the loo repeatedly and checking out various ’facilities’ next day, en-route to Sangla, from real close quarters. By the time we reach, I am well, quite wasted. I miss the Day 2 walk.
The Disappointment
Day 3 is the last day for preparation before we begin our trek, the first day of which involves a steep 4,000 ft. climb. I have already started on medication but the demons inside are still winning. Have no option but to drop out of the last preparatory walk. I attempt short walks and find that the exertion is taking a toll. For the first time since the bug hit me in the gut, I begin thinking whether it would be wise to go for the trek. I am torn, between feeling guilty about letting my fellow trekkers down, a creeping thought that maybe I am feeling nervous and that is what is causing this problem. By the evening my fellow trekkers are back and we sit to discuss next steps. I am still undecided. They ask me to decide while trying to relieve me of my guilt ‘could have happened to any of us’, ‘not your fault’, ‘we are together so we will enjoy in any case’. I figure there is no way I can climb 4000 ft the next morning and we decide to cancel – my friends are not interested in going if I am not.
Once the decision was taken I started brooding.
Going Negative
I was crushed, totally. I felt like a loser and that I was somehow responsible for the bug. Thought I was a coward who chickened out at the last minute at the thought of physical hardship. I knew there would be some friends who would not let me live this down for a long time. I lost a lot of self-esteem in the first few hours after cancellation.  I began to doubt if I would ever be able to trek again. Then I began cursing my luck and just kept sliding further into a downward spiral of depression. Not only was the trek killed, I was killing the rest of the holiday for those around me by being in a total blue funk.
Going Positive
It helped that family and friends were around. The thought that I needed to ‘get my act together’ was one big reason for being able to bounce back. They were in any case trying to reassure me that it was not my fault.
My first action was to try and get alternative plans in place so that everyone could at least have a good holiday. I must mention here that the tour operators Banjara, were absolutely fabulous in rapidly reorganizing the programme for us.
Then I cracked the first ‘potty’ jokes on myself and that seemed to help hugely. Everyone was waiting to see me get ‘positive’ and they laughed much louder than the joke deserved.
It took me two more days to recover fully. And then I was determined to walk as much as time and place allowed. I found that the nine months of preparation had made a huge difference – was able to breeze through climbs and descents that used to earlier be very daunting. That helped me hugely to recover my belief. I began thinking about the next trekking opportunity.
Have been back at home for a while now. Only one friend cracked the jokes I expected and I have added my own to them. Self-doubts have gone and I am looking forward to the next opportunity.
Sometimes bad karma just happens. We have to find our own way of staying positive and not losing faith. Like bad karma, good karma also happens.
Here is to keeping the faith.

Change – A reality for all

Here is a cliché that visits all of our lives with increasing frequency – ‘the only constant is change’. For some of us the visits are more frequent than others. We know that accepting, adapting and ultimately mastering this new ‘constant’ is the key to continual success. Whether it is the movement from single to married, married but no kids to life with children, individual contributor role at work to being responsible for a team to being responsible for the bottom line, working in the city of birth to working in a different country, adapting to a different boss, understanding the new process at work……it is there everywhere and all the time.

In these days, unlike the past, we also have mentors at work, change management programmes, transition coaches and realms of literature to sensitise us to the requirements. Yet, when it finally comes down to it, how many of us are really able to make the cut, on a sustained basis? Some of the most common refrains for failed marriages are, ‘we could not make the adjustments required’, ‘he just refused to change’ or ‘things were not the same any longer’. Some of the most common refrains for failed professional relationships are also ‘he did not adapt to the new requirements of the role’, ‘she was too old school’, ‘I did not like the way things had changed at the workplace’ and so on.

What it takes to succeed

Change is a process. There are many different models to explain the personal journey human beings travel when facing up to a change. Here is a model that I find useful in explaining the process:

 

Through my interactions as coach and facilitator I have some observations on why some people are more successful than others at dealing with change at certain times. It is critical to add this caveat as there is a difference between adapting to change well all the time and sometimes. More on that later in this post. Here are some of my observations:

1.Shortening the Change Acceptance Cycle

Those who move quickly to a phase of ACCEPTING that the change is already upon them and therefore now look to deal with it rather than DENY it. You will find them enthusiastically embracing the new process at work, welcoming the new boss, eager to try the new thing. They spend time trying to figure out the new and what it means to them rather than dwelling on the old. We often refer to them as ‘change agents’ because they carry with them the enthusiasm to positively affect the thinking of others towards change.

Commonalities that I have observed in this group are curiosity, eagerness to learn, early adoption of gadgets and a risqué relationship with compliance.

2. Recognizing that YOU have to Change

Those who recognize that THEY have to change and it is not the environment or others who have to change manage the change process better. This sounds simple but is generally very difficult. It is another form of DENIAL. Think about it from the context of your own lives – how many spouses wait for the other to make the adjustments, how often you want the city folks to change the way they behave (when you move into a new city), how you want your new team members to understand you and make the right moves by you and so on.

This trait is also referred to as ‘initiative’ in a change process.

 

3. Tuned to change

I had spoken earlier about how some people are good at dealing with change at certain times and some others more consistently.

For both sets it begins with first understanding what change means – that implies that the person has moved out of the DENIAL phase. Sometimes, change moves us into situations that are our comfort zones and then we embrace it happily. Most often though, change takes us outside our comfort zones.

It is my hypothesis that those who have had to deal with a lot of moving around cities, schools, houses in their formative years, find the whole notion of change to be a comfort zone. Children of army personnel, bureaucrats, railway officials and others in transferable jobs have had to deal with new homes, making new friends, getting used to new teachers, different weather and a whole host of other things. They are not fazed by having to adapt to something new. In fact, many of them get bored if left to do the same thing, for a few years.

4.  Not wearing your ‘area of development ‘ as a badge

So you have been told over many appraisals and feedback sessions that you are not assertive enough. You have great domain expertise and are very pleasant so people like you and you have been promoted fairly regularly. You are now responsible for a team of 8 Direct reports and 30 Indirects. Your President tells you ’Smita, you have to be more assertive to be effective.’ You smile and say, ’I have always been told that. What to do!’

Sounds familiar? It could have read ‘I know I lose my cool but what to do!’ or ‘I know I should not micro manage but what to do!’

In areas of leadership development and transitioning, I have found this to be the biggest block to change. It is an internal belief that “this does not need to actually change” or “I simply cannot change it, this is too much me”. Worse still, “this is what makes me and I am quite proud of it.”

There is good news for everybody who believes they simply cannot change some behaviour – unless it is coded in your DNA or a result of a chemical imbalance, you can change. For starters, stop wearing it as a badge and think of it as an ugly sore on your face. You will be surprised how quickly you can remove it.

 

 

BHAG (noun): [pronounced beeHAG] Acronym for Big Hairy Audacious Goal

One of the services that BullzI provides is facilitating the process for organisations to define their long-term vision, their mission and very often, their BHAG

Like every goal, a BHAG is action oriented and clear. Where a BHAG must necessarily differentiate is by being compelling and gripping. People need to ‘get it right away’ – it must ‘hit you in the gut’ and –’give you goose bumps’ by the sheer audacity and ‘wow’ scale it envisions.

A BHAG is a classic bootstrap to initiate an organizations journey to transformation.  We have seen the adoption of their BHAG put a company on a path of transformation from an ‘also ran’ to a top 5; another well on its way to trebling itself and a third betting its future on a line of business which was believed to be ‘niche’.  The transformative power of a BHAG adopted across levels, backed by sound strategy and rigorous execution is an inspiring stage in an organisation’s development.

Working with different organisations through this transformative process of Visioning, BHAG and strategy formulation have provided us insights and understanding that we are often constrained to share. These are mostly classified data.

There is one, however, that inspired me personally and I have the permission of the client to share with you.

Touching the world

Ashoka is a global organisation that has created and organized a network for social entrepreneurs (Ashoka ‘fellows’) who are the ‘engines’ of social change. Operating across 5 continents, this 29 year old organization today boasts of a staggering network of over 3000 fellows.  6 years ago, Ashoka set up a focused group dedicated to the vision of achieving a world where everyone is a ‘Full Economic Citizen’ or FEC.

FEC is not a niche ‘Ashoka concept’. The United Nations provides a very specific definition for the FEC and lays out a charter delineating specific human rights that most nations have signed up to. The charter confers on nations the responsibility to provide access, to its under-served citizens, to basic services like food, housing, clean water, healthcare and power (energy).

The truth, however, is that more than two-third of theworld’s population today do not have access to one or more of the basic services that are required for FEC.
The Ashoka FEC team, spread across 4 continents espoused the concept of HVC™ – envisioning a world where businesses – either mainstream or a social enterprise or a complimentary Corporate – CSO combine – transform their business models to profitably serve the ‘Bottom-of-the-Pyramid’. The concept is radical, innovative and transformative. It is also counter intuitive and hence difficult to sell. Imagine getting a bank to advance a loan to a person who does not have a permanent address or a salary slip OR getting an NGO to distribute ceramic tiles for a profit!

The Ashoka FEC team decided on engaging themselves and their network to launch pilots that would prove to the world that HVC™ was a model that worked – and worked well. Housing improvement projects in Colombia and Brazil were launched, India & Egypt have affordable housing pilots and Mexico started work with small farmer irrigation projects.

Six years and multiple pilots later, the team was experiencing a restlessness that seemed to them to signify that a tipping point is imminent. The time to make that big leap had arrived.

A process that had begun through e-meetings (to restate the Vision and Mission) culminated in the global team getting together at Udaipur this summer.  Their objective: arrive at the BHAG and the way forward.

Define their BHAG they did. And how. The team set for themselves a goal of  ‘Ensuring that ONE BILLION of the world’s neediest people would have at least ONE BASIC SERVICE in the next TEN YEARS.’

The true Davids

The global Ashoka team is currently all of 19 people. 19 fiercely committed and smart social entrepreneurs, who are experienced in dealing with large transformative projects in different parts of the globe. If ever there was a team on whom you had to bet to achieve a goal like this, it would be this one.

Like in any thinking group, agreement was not instantaneous. There were a barrage of questions and critique. Every sentence was dissected, every word analyzed.   It did not matter who proposed what – the Head of the Organisation was questioned fearlessly by the youngest and newest members of the organisation. Driving consensus was hard – but buy-in was all pervasive at the end.

Articulating the BHAG, triggered the tipping point: The conference moved into a decidedly higher gear and tremendous ground was covered in identifying key issues, initiatives, responsibilities, personal change plans. I was impressed by their ability to move fast – stuff that takes a good week to do, this group did in two days! The ‘fly wheels’ of the organisational machine were visibly in motion, inexorably driving the big wheels.

I knew I witnessed something special there. An inspiring goal to transform the lives of a billion underserved people, adopted by a highly motivated bunch of changemakers who continuously punch above their weight and make the seemingly impossible seem probable.

On the right path of achieving the BHAG

I have a feeling that this group will succeed in achieving their BHAG. It is not just an intuition but a firm hypothesis based on some of the observations about this team:

• The right people are on the ‘bus’. Driven, entrepreneurial, individually committed to making a difference
• Total buy-in from the group achieved after rigorous critique and discussion.
• Open communication, willingness to question self and strategy. Will have the ability to adapt and change.
• Ability to move fast & execute well
• A clear roadmap.

Transforming a billion lives in 10 years is truly a Big Hairy Audacious Goal. For the sake of mankind, I wish them an unqualified success.

About the best recognition that an HR Head can get is when the organisation gets selected as the ‘Best Place to Work’ in its industry in the Great Places to Work survey. When that happens 2 years running, as in the case of Network 18 in Media, it is time for all of us to applaud the chief architect of this success story.

Meet Rajneesh Singh, Group Head, HR, Network 18. He carries his over 20 years of work experience and his obvious success with the same genial smile, simple ways and air of humility that marks his approach to both strategy and execution in the job. Rajneesh spent years in structured industries and environments through the National Productivity Council to Gillette India, before moving into the crazy, chaotic, frenetic world of India’s fastest growing Media House.

Network 18 is a collection of many different kinds of businesses managed by over 3500 people. From the maturing world of Television (CNBC TV-18, CNN-IBN, IBN 7, IBN Lokmat, CNBC Awaaz) through the emerging world of the internet (Web 18), the mature world of print and publishing (Forbes India) and the completely ‘different’ animal of Home Shopping (Homeshop 18) and Sports Management (Sport 18), the task of managing talent, creating an ‘Employer brand’ and overcoming incumbency to be voted as the ‘Best Place to Work’ again, takes some doing.

In this interview, Rajneesh shares many of his insights, some of the strategies and some personal opinions on what has worked for him. This is an outstanding interview for all business leaders in the ‘creative’ businesses and for all others who want to understand how a successful HR vision is created and executed across a fairly complex group.

Please feel free to shoot your questions, state your opinions in the comments section.

1. From an FMCG MNC to Indian Media – what were the challenges in terms of culture, processes, acceptance of HR etc. that you had to face? Was it different from what you had expected? Did you ever regret it?

The last question first! I have no regrets at all of joining the Media industry and the last 4 years have been the most challenging and the most satisfying times of my career. I did expect it to be different since it was a young industry (more so Network18). Coming from a very structured work environment (Gillette India), it was important for me to unlearn and relearn. The first thing that one did was to understand the expectations from the leadership as far as HR deliverables were concerned. That initial dialogue set the ball rolling. It is critical for this buy-in to happen upfront.

The next step was to map the current practices, processes, systems, etc. Based on this understanding, a HR model was put in place and the working HR framework emerged out of this model. This laid the way forward for different HR processes either to be reworked or launch afresh. The empowering culture of Network18 facilitated in the execution of any intervention. The freedom to create or design new systems or processes helped matters. We ensured that each process was co owned by the leadership. The other learning was to keep things simple and hence any HR related process was articulated in not more than one page. And it was kept as jargon less as possible!

2. What are the key HR challenges of this enormous growth at Network 18? How are you dealing with them?

While we do believe that we have been able to create a strong employer brand and it is easy to attract talent, the challenge would always be to develop and engage them so that we retain them. While we are doing fairly well on the engagement factor, it is the development aspect wherein we are spending more time of late. We have an Organization Development team in place which focuses on 3 key areas viz Culture Building, Leadership Development & Learning. While we treat engagement practices as the every day practice, the development practices are for the long haul. Most of the development related interventions are being driven internally thereby keeping the whole approach as low cost & high impact as possible.

The other challenge is how to retain the culture fabric of the Network. New businesses got started, some businesses got acquired and some came in as joint ventures. Each one of them has its own set of challenges. We are using various communication forums to keep the businesses connected. Two years back, a Value Book was printed as part of our rebranding exercise, which succinctly states our mission plus values. This articulation helped immensely in the integration process.

3. Is Network 18 one organisation in terms of culture, over riding vision? How do you deal with differences in new media, home shopping and old media etc.?

We strongly believe that while each business needs to be connected at a certain level, at another level they need to run independently too. But as mentioned above, it’s the mission and the values which bind them.

There are synergy teams formed between core functions of each business and they come together on a need basis to provide a Network “push’ so to say to any product launch. This structured approach has helped to tap the power of the Network tremendously.

4. What are the key things you have done to become the Best Workplace in Media for 2 years running?

As HR we have taken various initiatives to make Network18 the Best Workplace in Media. In the entire journey so far we have ensured there is a fine balance between “touch” and “technology”. Every HR intervention leverages these 2 important elements at Network18.

The “touch” element has driven our Campus and New Hire Onboarding processes which we believe is a very critical process to begin with. It has also driven our communication forums in different avatars eg. Know your colleague (a lunch session with the CEO), In conversation (Editorial leads interaction with Sales & Marketing team members), Expert talks (external renowned speakers talk sessions), Town Halls (Top management interaction with team members), etc. As par t of our Leadership Development initiative, we have adopted the “Focused group approach” where coaching takes place with potential leaders in small groups. We run an employee driven contributory fund which takes care of the education of our low income staff’s children. Quarterly recognition programs take place in the newsroom or in a studio, right in the thick of action. Various intra meets plus outbound sessions/training has further given an edge to the “touch” element.

As part of the “technology” element, we have worked around the new media in a big way. We exploit the email mode of communication by getting our leadership to send out regular communication to their team thereby keeping all of them informed. We have a very engaging HR portal, My18, which hosts plenty of HR related information and has 2 interesting corners. The first being the Leadership corner, where a leader is expected to write a note on an area of interest. The other corner carries the profiles of team members thereby giving a face to a name in a large organization like ours. This portal also captures all individual related information in a very easy-to-use format. Various contests and quizzes are run on this portal. The other medium that we have started using extensively is the mobile phone which we believe does wonders in the dissemination of information at real time.

Above all these 2 elements are the other 2 factors which give us competitive edge and have facilitated in making us a great place to work. These are stable & credible leadership and competitive & innovative compensation practices.

5. There is this argument that many leaders of the ‘creative’ businesses extend that HR and processes are not as effective with ‘creative’ businesses as with manufacturing or services? What is your view?

On the contrary I have found very similar acceptance of the HR processes as in manufacturing or services, as if it was the right thing to happen at the right time. There is enough appreciation of the work that HR does whether its in the space of Onboarding or Campus hiring or Learning or Recognition or Communication or Leadership development or Engagement or Reward. It is a people driven industry and that too where creativity flows unabated. It is critical for the HR team members to be equally “creative” if they have to keep pace in this industry. They have to design processes keeping in mind the stiff timelines that an editorial team works on for example. As the industry matures, I see more of HR processes coming into play. These processes need to facilitate the overall growth of the organization and the individuals rather than stifling them. The word of caution here is to not get too structured at the outset. The HR interventions will take time to settle and to that extent any HR team member in the media space needs to be patient and give good time for concepts to give results.

6. How important is creativity in your function? What have you done at Network 18?

As mentioned above, we in HR thrive on creativity. We have been doing things differently, working around what exists around us. The whole HR structure works on 2 “legs”. The Embedded HR team (E HR) and the Organization Development team (OD). While the E HRs are, as their name suggests, embedded in each business in the group, the OD team is a shared pool for all businesses. While the E HRs look after the “here & now” issues of HR, it’s the OD team which is doing the “long haul” work.

While being creative, the other premise that we have worked around is how to keep things simple and keep them low cost, high impact. This approach has helped HR take roots in the Network.

7. What according to you are the key qualities of a good leader? What do you look for in leadership?

From my very early days of corporate life, I have looked for a leader who has balanced the 2 key aspects they deal on a day to day basis. Those are the task and the people. And an effective leader has a slight tilt towards task as compared to people. It’s a fine act to follow and to take eyes off any of these two affects the work at hand. The other learning which I got from the media industry is that true leaders are passionate people. They must love what they do. The leadership at Network18 is classic example of this and I have immense respect for each one of them. They continue to do magic each day tirelessly because its fun for them!

The readers of this blog seem to have voted conclusively in favour of ‘Motivation being an internal and external drive’ (for those who missed it – Is Motivation Purely Internal?). From the comments it also seems clear that leadership plays the key role by enabling the environment, showing the direction and lighting the fires within along with a person’s internal drivers.

My opinion is based on the following:

1. Successful programmes in coaching very senior managers to make behaviour changes.

2. Programmes of facilitating change management interventions with teams of leaders.

3. Over 2000 conversations with potential job seekers of various ages (22-60), through various stages of engagement with many leading to final job choice decisions.

4. Autobiographies and stories of many great leaders (Gandhi, Churchill, Alexander, Ashok, Lenin, Che Guevara and so on).

5. My own life experience as I moved from wanting to be a teacher to an accidental advertising person to my current avatar as a consultant and coach.

The Compass and The Map

Alexander of Macedonia created in 10 years, an empire larger than anything the Romans were able to do over 500 years of empire building. He was fired by his desire for greatness. But what about his army? The one he commanded so expertly to win all those battles? What did they fight for and why did they finally stop? History tells us, and this is a seriously paraphrased explanation, that for most of them, right down to the foot soldier, it was their ‘get rich quick’ scheme. They believed that this was their chance to amass wealth beyond anything that they could otherwise hope to do in their lives. They followed Alexander because they believed he had the military chutzpah to make the risk of death acceptable. They finally turned back because of the never ending nature of Alexander’s quest which prevented them from enjoying the spoils of their victory. The story of Chengiz Khan and his army is only slightly different – Chengiz came from an impoverished and agriculturally barren land which had always only seen a cycle of war and looting for the meagre resources. No wonder his soldiers looted and plundered after every victory.

What we learn from the stories of the most successful conquerors is that their armies were essentially mercenary – soldiers motivated enough to put their lives on the line for a fighting chance to change their financial status for life.They needed a better life and Alexander and Chengiz recognised that and promised them great wealth.

The story of Gandhi and the freedom movement or Lenin and the October Revolution  runs to pretty much the same script – promise of a better life for the individual which led to mass participation and then change. Some may argue that there were those who were motivated by purely altruistic reasons and therefore self interest is not the only motivator. True and we will come back to it a little later but for the moment let us stay with the majority.

It seems to me that the large mass in all of these cases had an internal compass which pointed them in a particular direction but they had no map for reference. It was the leaders who arrived with the map and the coordinates. The rest, as they say, is history.

The Jiggly Pointer

Does the pointer always, unerringly show true north?

I will once again deal with the average – those around the centre of the bell curve. For most people the process of discovering their true north is a lifelong journey. The younger you are, the less certain. It is often at these times, when the compass pointer is at its jiggliest, that people are most open to being ‘influenced’ or ‘led’ into a particular direction. That is why younger people have always been the bedrock of all ‘movements’ and ‘ideologies’. Charismatic and persuasive leadership is most appealing and that is when they are looking to be ‘led’. The fire for motivation is lit from the outside. In the corporate world, the first boss (if he was in any way charismatic) is often one such person. Often we follow this boss into a different job simply because he asked.

The True North

Soon, however, the jiggly pointer starts moving as an individual comes to grip with his own self and situation. Pure altruism often gives way to the need for fame/money/power/freedom/peace/exploration and so on. The person than looks for coordinates that match what his compass shows as true north then.  Should the ex boss ask one to move, he will evaluate whether the coordinates match his compass direction.

The jiggly pointer however does not just settle down and go to sleep, stuck permanently in one direction. Over time, as a persons situation in life changes and his own understanding of self, the pointer keeps moving and homing in closer and closer to True North. The closer you are to your True North, the stronger your internal drive and unsurprisingly, the higher your need for knowledge and independence. Also, the closer you are to your true North, the higher your Self Esteem. You are a lot more at peace with your own desires and drives. This is the state I refer to as Enlightened Self Interest.

This is also the condition under which you are able to deliver the most creative, innovative solutions. There are enough experiments done on this subject. Read Dan Pink for more on this subject.

In the world of knowledge workers, we will increasingly be dealing with people with a firmer grip of their internal compasses. To deal with the truly self motivated, paradigms of command and control and mass incentivisation will not work. Empowerment, knowledge, mutual respect and recognition of self are the pillars of the new paradigm.