Regenerate!

Scene : A coaching session with a CEO.

CEO: There are now two candidates for the job of the operations head. A has many years of relevant experience and is less qualified. I can get him easily and at a substantially lower CTC. B is qualified, experienced, and very ambitious. He will cost twice as much as A. A is eager to join, whereas B is ambivalent. I think A suits us.

I (the coach): A suits the company or he suits you?

CEO: umm….B seems to have strong views..such people you know..

I: The question is whether A can revamp the operations as you need. If he can not, the entire CTC spent on him will be a waste. As long as B’s strong views are based on facts, logic, and partly gut feeling backed by conviction, there is nothing wrong. One can not achieve anything without these things.

The CEO went into deep thought.

CEO: I see your point. The operations head  will take up the work I was handling so far. I do not want him to leave things as they are and I should learn to deal with a strong person who can change things. But what is guarantee that B will carry out changes and that he is not just a hard headed person? Also, B will upset our salary structure.

I: That is a good question to ask. CTC is less important as long it is market related and as long the company can afford it. Is the salary structure out of step with market? If yes,it will have to change.

The CEO again got immersed in his thoughts.

A leader’s most immediate output is decisions that can leave a lasting impact on their companies and morale of their people. People related decisions fall in this category. Unknown to our conscious mind, we use wrong criteria for making decisions.

A good business \ leadership \ executive coach can help in averting such blunders.

(In this case, the CEO went on to hire B. He also revamped the salary structure realizing that the company was at a risk of losing good people. Some years down line , the  company has revamped its operations and has a stronger and balanced management team.)

You must be coming across this phrase often, particularly if you are a business leader who tries to keep in touch with the current research and thinking in the fields of leadership and management. There is always some new thinking. You read an article, attend a leacture and pick up new thoughts. But before you have had any time to apply this to your business, you are either neck deep in your urgent business matters or there is a newer idea.

And then whatever happens to ‘old’ ideas and concepts? Does something gets useless just because it is ‘outdated’? Consider these, for example:

Core competence

Blue Ocean \ Red Ocean Strategy

Disruptive innovation

Six Sigma \ Lean Sigma for process improvements

360 degrees appraisal

Values based leadership

One can list many such concepts which were ‘in’ once upon a time.  But these concepts still present useful perspectives  if applied to specific situations. An intelligent leader can exploit these to check if any new insights and strategy points can be obtained by using these.

Learning Leadership programs and agenda generating workouts incorporate powerful principles behind various frameworks and ‘theories’ and give an opportunity to the leader to apply them to specific situations. Learning Leadership’s executive coaches assit the leaders in this.

Leaders sharpen their thinking and develop their agenda using the above and many more powerful principles throgh carefully designed executive coaching programs.