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.)

Recently, I was speaking to my client who was evaluating options for design services -he was planning their annual report. During the conversation, he mentioned the words ’selection process’ several times and alluded to the difficulty in making all design houses and agencies to agree to a common method of evaluation. He thought that designers’ individuality and ego were the culprits.

I asked him some questions (his answers in brackets)

-how often do you need to use this method? (once a year; I am doing it for the first time)

-when was this process established?(I decided on this process last week)  how many times has it been used? (never)

-do you expect repeatable output (design) of the process ?  (how can design be repeatable? -he was sensible!)

-is the process of actual design defined? standardized? (no, no)

I told him that the word ‘process’ is causing confusion. In the strictest sense of the word a process and other processes connected with it must be standardized to produce repeatable outcome.

For something like ‘design’, you may have a general sequence of steps with workarounds or iterations. That can hardly be called a process with strict norms. Such kind of work often requires that someone takes a call without waiting for all information and standardization.

Indeed, such situations can also arise in deciding on features of a new product.

A leader’s role is to take a call and not hide behind questionable processes.

Hemant

The only things that surpass the printing of currency by all major governments are

-human misery particularly of those who lost their jobs and livelihoods

-amount of text written about the lessons, conclusions, and cures. Many of them are wrong.

Here I will talk about the wrong lessons

1. Solution to bad loans is to give more loans to those who gave bad loans or played on them

2. It is ok to spend much more than you earn indefinitely particularly by governments

3. Spending is an unquestioned virtue. You are a traitor if you do not prop up economy by spending

4. Globalization is bad because it is the same as capitalism and free markets and both them have failed us.

5. Governments and quasi government institutions can pull us out of trouble when their failure to regulate markets (inability honor contracts) caused the problem in the first place.

Many such lessons will be seen around…..

Hemant

The predictable aftermath of Mumbai Terror Tragedy 26/11 is on now. Shivraj Patil, has resigned as home minister in India’s central government. Few more will follow.

We are so relieved to see the back of these people that we forget that a resignation is hardly a punishment for a serious dereliction of duty.

Facts on the Mumbai Tragedy have been collaboratively collected on wikipedia.

One should read these facts to learn how the ‘failures’ have taken place.

Should not one prosecute the people responsible for criminal negligence of duty? Should we not seriously implement leader’s accountability?

Though most of these quotes are from the US, the lesson applies to other countries as well…read the full article…

Paulson Bailout of Freddie, Fannie and PIMCO Translated :: The Market Oracle :: Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting Free Website

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleFinancial Institutions Must Be Allowed To Fail

Paulson: “Homeowners should not anticipate a government bail-out. Banks should not expect to be bailed-out by government, despite intervention by the Federal Reserve in the near-collapse of Bear Stearns in March.”

Translation: Critical banks and GSEs must not be allowed to fail.

Paulson: “For market discipline to be effective, market participants must not expect that lending from the Fed, or any other government support, is readily available. For market discipline to effectively constrain risk, financial institutions must be allowed to fail.”

Translation: Expect the mother of all bailouts at taxpayer expense.

When, in India, the Finance Minister says that growth will be on track and the we shall meet budget deficit targets…..

It means that economy will slow down even more and that the budget deficit will worsen beyond what we believe…

Hemant

I like Wikipedia. It represents collective knowledge and wisdom. Equally important: Its straightforward language and economy of expression. I chanced upon this on “strategy”

QUOTE

Strategy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A Strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal, most often “winning.” Strategy is differentiated from tactics or immediate actions with resources at hand by its nature of being extensively premeditated, and often practically rehearsed.

UNQUOTE

Now how does one express this long term plan of action?

In my opinion, through some specific projects and processes which when executed (projects) and managed (processes) will help in achieving the goal(s) (strategic).

Many organizations attempt strategy implementation through “deployment” in departments or units. This does not work!

It is necessary to take the crucial second step (projects and processes).

Hemant

These are buzzwords any CEO can not miss. There are umpteen studies and reports on why they are important. But how does one get employees committed and engaged?

Signs of employees’ commitment to the company- Corporate Dossier-Features-The Economic Times

In the best organisations, people take great pride in being a part of that organisation and that membership is an important part of their identity. When you ask them, What do you do?, they say, I‘m with Apple, instead of, I’m a software engineer. That is what is meant by commitment.

The other driving force is engagement. Engagement is how valuable a contribution people think their work makes to something that really matters to them. Commitment and engagement are the two very powerful engines of enthusiasm and involvement.

My take: It is leadership. Leaders who set an inspiring agenda, live by values, and stand behind implementation of their strategies engage and get people committed. How to develop such leadership? Well, we have some program-based coaching to achieve just this at www.learning-leadership.com

Hemant

The financial system in the US and, God forbid, that of ROW seems to be in for Black Swan events. Even if you and I may not agree with the dire predictions, it makes sense to hedge our situation as far as our financial assets are concerned..read this piece.

FT.com / Columnists / Martin Wolf - America’s economy risks mother of all meltdowns

Recently, Professor Roubini’s scenarios have been dire enough to make the flesh creep. But his thinking deserves to be taken seriously. He first predicted a US recession in July 2006*. At that time, his view was extremely controversial. It is so no longer. Now he states that there is “a rising probability of a ‘catastrophic’ financial and economic outcome”**. The characteristics of this scenario are, he argues: “A vicious circle where a deep recession makes the financial losses more severe and where, in turn, large and growing financial losses and a financial meltdown make the recession even more severe.”

I can not resist quoting from Lucy’s column again! Please read this entirely.

FT.com / Columnists / Lucy Kellaway - Accenture’s next champion of waffle words

Next comes the business rationale for the change. “With the rise of the multi-polar world, the task of finding and managing talent has become more complex, turbulent and contradictory than ever before.”

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Many people think that managing creative work is different. After being exposed to creative agency work, I should know. It is not that different. Every company is different, but similar lessons apply. Read this piece from Lucy Kellaway, my favorite myth and jargon busting columnist.

FT.com / Columnists / Lucy Kellaway - No way to manage a bleating luvvie

The first big mistake is to think there is something called an artistic temperament that dreary suits need to tiptoe around. In fact creative people are born just like everyone else. If my brother-in-law and I are even remotely typical, three things motivate us. We need to make enough money to support our families. We need some recognition for what we do. And, ideally, we’d like to get a bit of satisfaction out of the work itself. It is all pretty basic.

One could argue that creatives are different as we are more insecure than, say, accountants but I don’t accept this. We simply articulate our insecurity more loudly – something that is made even easier if you have a newspaper column like this one.

The rot sets in when creatives start to be successful, and when their managers start telling them they are wonderful every two-and-a-half seconds. Praise is a mind-altering drug and needs to be prescribed in ever larger quantities to get the desired effect.

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