Donald H Taylor, chairman of LPI, LSG & the Learning Technologies conference explains how Learning and Development Departments need to change their attitude to risk in order to keep pace with the rest of the business in today's modern world. He describes 4 quadrants in which L&D departments fit: Learning Leadership, Unacknowledged Prophet, Comfortable Extinction and The Training Ghetto and explains how and why all L&D departments should join the quadrant of Learning Leadership.
Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Leadership. Show all posts
A great post by David Small on Dan McCarthy's blog Great Leadership about serving your team with honesty, even when it’s uncomfortable.
"How often do we have members of our team that we say “good job” too, even though we know they could be doing better? Did you know you could be doing more harm then good by not pointing out their shortcomings? Here are four tips to build up your team without giving them false positives."
Read the full post False Positives.
"How often do we have members of our team that we say “good job” too, even though we know they could be doing better? Did you know you could be doing more harm then good by not pointing out their shortcomings? Here are four tips to build up your team without giving them false positives."
Read the full post False Positives.
Author bio:
David Small is the author of the bestselling book The Wandering Leader. In this book David explains how leaders don’t need to be perfect, but they should get things done. He focuses on seven areas of leadership that everyone can grow in; career, financial, social, physical, spiritual, intellectual, and family. David has been a professional ice hockey coach for over a decade and is an officer in the army reserves. David has guest lectured and been a keynote speaker at leadership events around the globe.
I feel there are many life management lessons to be learned from the series. What do you do when a peer becomes your boss? What do you do when a junior becomes your boss? How do you handle situations where you don’t get what you are aspiring for? How to build self-realization of own capabilities or the lack of them, for certain roles? How to fuel the hunger to continue to become better at what you are doing without worrying about the position within the organization structure? How to keep your ego aside in these situations and continue to focus on becoming better at your job?
It is hard to be in these professional situations. And painful too. It hurts our pride, our ego, when we are in these situations. It is interesting to see in the series how leaders provide clear feedback about capabilities and skills without getting personal. And the ability of the professionals in the series to take the feedback and deal with it on face value without making it personal.
I have seen some of these situations closely in my professional career. Some of these have been extremely painful and messy. As a leader I have messed up giving feedback for the fear of losing the person. As a professional, my ego has been hurt at my position in the organization. And so I strive to be the leader and professional like the characters in the series.
About two years ago I had pondered over the question of who is a better leader for business. Is it someone rooted in delivery and operations or someone with a sales background ( http://manishmo.blogspot.in/2011/01/delivery-led-or-sales-led.html)?
I think for a business to really grow, the leader has to be sales led. Having a sales oriented leader is all the more critical when the organization is in the business of service delivery. Perhaps in a products business where the product is evolving, a delivery oriented leader who is entrenched in product development and vision of the product might be better. But in most cases, it makes sense for the business to be sales led.
Storytelling: Transforming through tales!
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While I missed the initial part of his session, here are the notes from that parts I attended.
- Storytelling can create the culture you like.
- We are all seeking meaning. Nature will not give you meaning. To nature we are all the same. We are all animals. To nature, man is no different from cockroach.
- Purpose of storytelling is to give us meaning.
- As leaders, we should tell stories. Stories make us believe.
- Advertising tells a story.
- If you empathize, you will be better story teller.
- Stories:
- Give me Hope
- Give me Security
- Give me Identity
- Be Sensitive to my fears
- Don’t invalidate my imagination
- Make me the Hero, not you or the product
- Human beings are frightened. Leaders should help people get out of fear.
- Tell honest stories. Show vulnerability but not weakness.
- Listen to your customers’ needs before telling your story.
It was great listening to industry leaders in this year's NASSCOM India Leadership Forum. One of the sessions I enjoyed was listening to Vineet Nayar and R Gopalakrishnan. While the session was titled Cross Border Leadership, the discussion was not limited to that.
The session was lively and racy. My notes from the session:
Vineet Nayar is Vice Chairman and Joint Managing Director of HCL Technologies Ltd., a $4.3 billion global information technology services company and author of the highly acclaimed management book “Employees First, Customers Second".
R Gopalakrishnan is an Executive Director with one of the largest Indian business groups - Tata Sons, a holding company to one of the largest Indian business groups The Tata Group.
The session was lively and racy. My notes from the session:
- I learned that there is thing like Upmarket
FDI. That's when India invests in developed countries.
- While companies are going global,
nations are becoming more border conscious.
- An interesting reflection about entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur have to deal
with ambiguity. If they cannot, they would be bureaucrats.
- We should not be too critical
about India. All countries have challenges. Nothing unique about India.
- In the context of effect of cultures in managing cross border organizations, one point of view was that footballers don't think of
cultural differences while playing in a club game. Why should we worry about cultures when
running a business? Focus on business goals and strategies to achieve them.
- Indians are the only managers
who think in English but act in Indian. We are very self aware
and can adapt easily.
- The younger generation doesn't
think about cultural differences much. This is the connected generation using social media.
- Unions are becoming obsolete
to protect rights of workers. Social media is a lot more powerful to
protect the interests of the workforce. Reputations can be destroyed in seconds on social media.
- Cash is plenty and human
capital scarce. HR is going to be central to business. Finest leaders will
be the ones who are people motivators.
- Corporations should act out of
their own will rather than being mandated, e.g. CSR mandate by govt.
- Why do people work for you?
Why do people go to temple or mosque on Sunday, spend money and feel
happy. And yet they feel troubled coming to office on Monday and get paid
for it. How can leaders build vision for something larger?
- Make managements appraisal
done by employees and make results public.
- We are moving into an age of
conscience in business.
We mostly hear how hard it is to give negative feedback and fire people. I have been wondering about this. Yes giving negative feedback is hard and firing people is harder. However come to think of it, actually this is a easiest thing. We are all critical of others and so giving negative feedback comes naturally. We more often than not, find it easier to find mistakes rather than appreciate what's going on well. And if a subordinate isn't working out, firing is an easy way out. The work pressures are high and we can't afford a non-performer on the team, right. Actually, that is the easy way out. What's really hard is to make the non-performers succeed. That is the true challenge of leadership.
I have been wondering about this for a while now. What’s better for a business – to be delivery focused or to be sales focused? Who’s a better business leader – a delivery focused leader or a sales focused leader? I know of companies bracketed as being sales focused or delivery focused. Sales led/focused companies are known for their aggressive attitude towards grabbing business, at any cost, at any promise, irrespective of its delivery capabilities. Deliver led/focused companies are known to be more focused on selling only what they can deliver, known to be risk averse but perhaps more predictable in their ability to deliver. Do customers prefer one over the other? What’s better?
I have never come across a post that talks about getting your boss promoted. So this post by Dan McCarthy is a refreshing change. We don’t seem to like our bosses, managers are always complete nincompoops, idiots who seem to have gotten where they are because of anything but competence. Everyone rushes to the ‘rescue’ of the poor worker from the clutches of the incompetent ‘manager’.
So why would you even want to think about getting your boss promoted? Dan provides useful insight. He says:
I’ll bet when you worked for a successful manager you had:
- More resources
- More credibility
- More meaningful, value-added work
- More development and career opportunities
- A bigger slice of the merit increase, bonus, or commission pie
He goes on to say:
Now think about when you worked for a failing manager. …you probably experienced:
- A lack of resources; your team was always at the end of the line when it came to budget, office space, equipment, headcount, etc….
- No matter how good you may have been, you carried the stain of your manager’s bad reputation
- You worked on low priority projects that didn’t seem to matter
- You didn’t get much coaching, and maybe not much development (failing managers are usually threatened by ambitious, high achievers)
- A lack of career growth opportunities – because your manager was stuck in place, and didn’t have the political clout to be an advocate for his/her people
Here’s how you can get your boss promoted:
1. Be damn good at your job.
2. Support your manager behind his/her back.
3. Give your manager credit for your own successes.
4. Nominate your manager for an award.
5. Show confidence in your manager’s potential.
6. Make development suggestions on how to be better prepared for larger opportunities.
7. Give feedback to your manager.
Sometime back I had written about how to become a thought leader in three easy steps. Dorie Clark takes it a step further in detailing it out. She provides some useful tips on how you can share your thoughts and be publicly recognized as a thought leader. She recommends following the six steps to jump-start your thought leadership:
- Create a robust online presence
- Flaunt high-quality affiliations
- Give public speeches
- Appear on TV
- Win some awards
- Publish a book
Read her full post on HBR Blogs.
During a recent organizational development workshop that I attended, the facilitator talked about changing context. It was an interesting discussion that got me thinking about my changed context. I could recognize a few that I have experienced in the last couple of years.
About two years ago my context as a manager and leader changed about the way I was managing my teams. I moved from
"I have to do everything and I have get everything done” to “I have to enable people to do their jobs"
This significantly changed my approach to tasks that I and my team are responsible for. I would like to believe that this has actually made me more effective as a manager.
Since I started my blog and being more active on the social network another interesting context changed for me. I have gone from
“You are an expert because you know something” to “You are an expert because you share what you know” and “You are also an expert because you know who knows”.
Truly gives meaning to the phrase “the more you give, the more you get”
People retention and recruitment is a big challenge. I have tweeted in the past how I came across resumes of people who’ve had far too many job changes in their career. Now when I am recruiting, I am looking for if the person will stay in the organization for around 2 years. My context changed from looking for
“Longevity in an organization” to “Will the person stay in the organization for about 2 years”
While it is too early to know about the specific hiring decisions but at least I find it easier to hire now.
What context changes have you experienced?
Three easy steps to become a thought leader:
- Have a thought. You can’t be a thought leader without a thought. Have a point of view about everything, be opinionated.
- Share your thought. It’s all very good to have a thought but it is quite useless unless you share it. To be a leader assumes you have followers. You can’t have followers if no one knows what your thoughts are. It’s easy to share. Share more at workplace, be a node of reference, start a blog, don’t pass on an opportunity to present, be available, be visible.
- Make sense. It is good to have a thought and to share it with others. But ultimately it needs to make sense and resonate with others. Otherwise you are just opinionated. This is the toughest part of being a thought leader.
So there you go… becoming a thought leader in three easy steps.
Another great post by Dan McCarthy on 12 development goals for leaders. He is spot on for the 12 development goals for leaders. There are additional ones suggested in comments on his post, but I quite like the 12 he lists. Thank you Dan. Head over to his post for more.
- Strategic thinking
- Listening
- Coaching
- Financial acumen
- Cross-functional knowledge and perspective
- Industry, competitive, and customer knowledge
- Leadership presence
- Change leadership
- Remote management
- Collaboration
- Talent management
- Time management
Catching up on reading blogs I follow, I came across the Leadership Development Carnival on Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog. Head over there to read 50 outstanding posts on leadership. I am still going through the links on his blog. Great post to start of 2010.
5 Reasons Why You are Not Being Promoted
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Career,
Change management,
coaching,
HR,
Jobs,
Leadership,
performance management,
Promotion,
Supervisor,
Tips,
Work
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I came across Dan McCarthy’s blog recently. Dan is a practitioner in the field of leadership development for over 20 years and is currently the Manager of Leadership and Management Development at a Fortune "Great Place to Work", "Training Top 125", and "High Impact Learning" (HILO 80) company. He has a great blog on leadership that I would encourage you to subscribe to.
Dan wrote a great post Head’s Up – You are About to be Promoted or Fired where he shares why you might get promoted or fired. I think there’s also a third script: the status quo script. While you may not be fired for things you do (or don’t do), you may not get promoted either. Here’s what the script might be why you are not getting promoted:
Status Quo script:
I have some good news - you are keeping your job. Unfortunately we aren’t promoting you. Here’s why:
- You are not seen as a leader amongst your peers. You do your job well enough. However you don’t inspire others, either within your team or amongst your peers. People respect you for doing your job with the best intentions and spirit but don’t really look up to you for taking them to the next level.
- You don’t take initiatives. If there is a new opportunity, you don’t volunteer. You don’t seem to have new ideas. You usually wait to be assigned tasks and you are happy to do what is assigned to you, which you do well, no doubt. Perhaps you are content and satisfied with your current role.
- You are not adding value to your current role. For example, your role is not just to create and present the report, but also work towards improving what you are presenting.
- You are not visible. You don’t participate in company initiatives. You avoid official social gatherings. You don’t participate in cross functional teams. You shy away from taking credit for the good work you or your team does. You rarely share what you know, people don’t really see you as a node of reference.
- You resist change. If there is talk of changing process or tools, you resist it. Your first reaction to initiatives is that it can't be done. It is too hard to convince you about the new ideas or changes and too much time needs to be spent with you to onboard you. People see you as an impediment to new ideas.
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What Type of a Leader Are You?
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Lists,
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people management,
Reflection,
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It’s happened to me a few times now. We are going somewhere and I am asked to follow someone else’s car. I observed three types of leaders:
1. The Highly skilled but somewhat Self-Centred Leader: The driver in the car ahead of me just zooms past leaving me to figure out the way myself. They are usually very skilled at manoeuvring through the traffic themselves. You will usually lose them at a traffic signal that they go past leaving you stranded waiting for the light to turn. They are nowhere to be found after the light turns green for you and you are left to find your own way.
2. The Spoon-feeding, Risk-Averse Leader: The driver in the car ahead of me treats me like a first time driver. They don’t realize the driving skills I already have. They go very slowly and cautiously so as to not lose me but in the process make me lose interest and want me to overtake them. Their slow pace could also be because they themselves don’t know the way or are new drivers themselves.
3. The Leader who you gets you to destination smoothly: The driver in the car ahead of me defines the pace I go at. They always keep an eye on me in the rear view mirror and make sure they don’t lose me. At the same time they don’t let me slow down too much, pushing me to speed up when they do. They are always waiting for me to catch up in case they lose me on a traffic signal.
So what do you do when you have someone following you, in a car or otherwise at work? Do you show off your skills and leave the followers behind to catch up? Do you consider their prior experience and leverage that or challenge them with a faster pace? Do you make sure you don’t leave anyone behind while ensuring that you maintain speed to reach your goals?
In my second case study, we look at a situation when one of the peers is expected to take on the leadership position amongst the team. Looking forward to your responses to learn what we can do in situations like these.
A meeting alert window popped up on Ajay’s computer reminding him of his meeting with Sangeeta, his boss. He clicked the snooze button and continued making last minutes changes to the spreadsheet he was working on. He was compiling performance data for his team that would be discussed in the impending meeting. The alert popped up again. Ajay disconnected his laptop and looked for a pen.
Sangeeta beckoned Ajay through the glass door and Ajay walked in her office without waiting. Ajay’s team had grown significantly and Sangeeta felt that all projects were not getting due attention. Also not all team members were getting the coaching that Ajay was capable of providing because he was spread too thin.
“I feel you need a Team Leader in your team Ajay. Have you got any suggestions?” Sangeeta started. They had recently discussed the growth of Ajay’s team and the related issues.
“Well, Archana and Rahul are the two key players in my team. Both are equally capable.” Ajay said as he opened his laptop.
“Who is more capable of leading a team? I understand that both are equally capable of executing projects, but we are really looking for leadership skills here.” Sangeeta said.
“Rahul is actually very good in customer communications. His work is also always very good and gets approved in the first round itself. And Archana is equally good. Rahul likes to be sure of what he is planning to do and bounces things off me while Archana goes ahead and takes decisions on her own.”
“And are her decisions wrong?” Sangeeta probed.
“Actually she has a good instinct. And she usually backs it up with well thought through strategy.” Ajay explained.
“What about the team? Which one of them works better with the team?”
“Rahul is just great with the team. He’s a great listener, practically an agony aunt actually. He almost never says anything negative to his team members. The team loves him. Archana’s also good with people but she’s more task focussed. She shows the team a vision and a goal and then helps them achieve it.” Ajay felt good that he had thought through strengths and weaknesses of Rahul and Archana.
“Seems like Archana probably will make a better Team Leader don’t you think?” Sangeeta asked.
“Most probably… but Rahul’s really good too. I don’t think we can ignore him. I wouldn’t want to lose him.” Ajay was beginning to look worried. He knew Archana was more independent and stronger and more capable leader of the two and yet was worried about what Rahul might feel about reporting to someone who has been his peer.
“Ajay, only one person can be the Team Leader, you know that.”
How do you think Ajay should handle the situation? How should he communicate to Archana and Rahul about the new Team Leader position?
How will Rahul take the news? What do you think he should do now that he will need to report to his peer?
How can Archana make Rahul more comfortable as a Team Leader? How can she graduate from the peer relationship to a supervisor relationship?
When I first started this blog I wasn’t sure specifically what I would write about but I knew it would be about my area of work. And so I named the blog to cover almost everything: ‘Life, the Universe and Everything about eLearning and Content Development’.
About year into blogging, I realized that I was writing about more than just eLearning. And so I dropped the ‘e’ and renamed my blog to ‘Life, the Universe and Everything about Learning and Content Development’.
A few months ago I created a Wordle of titles of the posts on this blog. I wrote mostly about Learning. However I didn’t write often about content development. I do write about blogging, design, networking, innovation, workplace, leadership, change, corporate, salary, web, trust, performance and tools amongst other things. This coupled with the fact that the blog name was just too long, not really lending itself to a meaningful acronym, I am rechristening my blog once more. My blog will now be “Learn and Lead”. For one, the name is shorter and hopefully easier to remember. I believe it also lends itself better to the topics I write about. So wish the new name good luck.
You can also subscribe to this blog or comments on the posts in an RSS reader by clicking on the links below.
Employability, the biggest challenge
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In my second part in the series, I share what Manish Sabharwal spoke at our annual strategy input conference. Manish Sabharwal is the Chairman and co-founder of TeamLease. Manish wanted to start a new company that was profitable, fun, and good for India. He co-founded Team Lease, a staffing company, and in six years his company has grown to 80,000 employees and $250 million company. It was great fun listening to Manish again this year.
According to Manish, vocational training has to come with a job. There has been an employment failure. No one is really willing to pay for training. The employers are not willing to pay for training but for trained candidates. Candidates are not willing to pay for training but for a job, and financers are not willing to lend for training but to a candidate with a job.
Manish is working towards making labour markets more inclusive. The labour market has seen many transitions lately:
Commenting on the economic conditions, he says while there may be a slow down but there is no shutdown. Manish’s company still finds it difficult to find people for jobs. They have more than 4000 open jobs on any given day that need to be fulfilled. The problem is not that there are no jobs, the problem is that the workforce is not employable. And rural India doesn’t have the same choices as the urban India in terms of the jobs they might qualify for.
- Farm to non-farm
- Rural to urban
- Unorganized to organized
- Subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment
- School to work
Commenting on the economic conditions, he says while there may be a slow down but there is no shutdown. Manish’s company still finds it difficult to find people for jobs. They have more than 4000 open jobs on any given day that need to be fulfilled. The problem is not that there are no jobs, the problem is that the workforce is not employable. And rural India doesn’t have the same choices as the urban India in terms of the jobs they might qualify for.
The way he sees the current situation, in the immediate term the immediate strategy is that of Matching, which is matching the workforce to the right jobs. Medium term the strategy is to reduce the mismatch. He calls this ‘Repair training’, skilling the existing workforce to close the skill gaps. And long term, the strategy is to build the pipeline, preparing the workforce for the jobs. He calls this ‘Prepare training’.
Manish laments to the poor education regime in India. There is low penetration of education, low returns to education, uneven quality of education, and while the system is accreditation heavy the outcome is light.
Manish also talks about the poor employability and employment regime. He describes the entry and exit gates (e.g. IIT, CA exams) in the education systems not meeting the requirements of the employment available in the market. He feels the current assessment systems are just not suitable and cannot really identify the right candidates. In spite of various assessment systems, the actual performance at workplace still seems to be the luck of a draw. Manish would really like to see more apprenticeship, more learning by doing, and the government policies current don’t encourage that.
Manish talks about lopsided GDP. Very few people contribute to a large part of India’s GDP and he would like more people employed and contributing to the GDP. He also feels that we are missing the middle – there can only be a hero or a zero. He wants us as a society to accept the ‘middle’. Not everyone is a hero and not everyone is a zero.
It was also interesting to know that employment exchanges in India are in a really bad state. There are 4 crore people registered and only 2 lakh jobs provided across India. The Delhi employment exchange gave 500 jobs last year at the cost of Rs. 2.5 lakh each! (1 lakh = 100K, 1 crore = 10million)
For building a pipeline, Manish feels quantity comes first and then quality. He feels we should get the critical mass and then refine the process/delivery as we go along; the good is not the enemy of great, e.g. not looking for Einstein for Front Office Sales; we are not trying to be right, we are trying to be successful. He urges the education system to include softskills and communication skills in schools and colleges.
It was interesting to hear him say that knowledge of English language is a must. He says English is like Windows, it is an operating system. We can like it or hate it, but we need it.
According to Manish, we can’t have employment and employability conversations independently. To increase employment, we have to improve the employability. Skill deficit is worse than the infrastructure deficit, and an unemployed or unemployable India is not free India.
Finally let me leave you with this interesting quote:
Entrepreneurship is the art of staying alive long enough to get lucky
Last year I reduced my weight by about 16 kgs. It was an interesting journey. In the process I learned many things that could be applied to the corporate world, especially when one is required to bring about changes in the organization.The biggest challenge in losing weight was to have determination. And my wife was very determined that I lose weight. When bringing about major changes in an organization, it is important that senior management is determined and committed to making things happen.
I tell my friends that the first step towards losing weight is to get a digital scale. Measurement is critical when you want to bring about changes. And accuracy of measurement is very important. It is imperative that you measure and monitor progress. Measure and plot on a graph of your progress. I measured my weight around the same time each morning, trying to wear just about the same number of clothes. Try to keep the parameters that impact what you are measuring constant. This helps provide a better measure of progress.
One of my colleagues remarked sometime back that she discussed this weight loss tip at home. Her husband told her that he will get her five digital scales if it makes her lose weight. So of course, only measurement is not enough to bring about change but a very critical first step.
I discussed my journey over last year with my wife. Determination and measurement helped get the program off the ground. My wife told me that the most difficult thing for her was to get me to eat alternative food that would be equally exciting and yet help me reduce weight. My body and mind was so used to certain eating habits that it is very difficult to change. The alternative had to be equally exciting so that the mind and body doesn’t keep reverting to the old habits. In organizations, we are used to our old processes and ways of doing things. The change has to be equally exciting for people to adopt. Bring about change is difficult, and it helps if the new processes, tools, structures etc. has things that will be exciting for everyone.
It seems the hypothalamus needs about one year to adjust to the new weight and start controlling the food intake. So the new weight needs to be maintained for at least one year before the body will completely adjust to it and you will not gain weight again after losing it. In an organization change initiatives will die a natural death if they are not continued for a period of time. We will revert to our old processes and ways of working if the changes are not in place for a sufficient period of time.
I have slowly started gaining weight again. I think senior management needs to revitalize its determination to keep the weight under control :-).
Image courtesy: Lusi at Stock.xchng
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