Starting My New Journey…

I think I am now getting closer to my dream. The next role I take from here is a mentor and catalyst. This lap of my journey needs lot of hard work. I have to read, write and learn the tools & techniques in this field.
Initial few days of my work here, I remembered my sales tenure, there was only one word called “Targets”.  And, one could command respect only by meeting the targets and this happened every month.
I have enough of realization that it’s not easy, but it’s not impossible as well, because “Someone, Somewhere has achieved that I wanted to be”. I just need to practice & practice.
These lines I have to remember at the start and stop of the day…

And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

My Quotes

The uniqueness of life is that it doesn’t let you to be perfect–Baba Varanasi

Men relish the hard work behind event and women smartly call it success. — Baba varanasi

Insanity and Innovation are different sides of the same coin— Baba Varanasi

Adventures are always met using commonsense.– Baba Varanasi

Look busy, take it easy and don’t volunteer to work!

My war on managers continues, welcome to yet another work related behavior of few managers when the organization restructuring happens. They can’t stand the vibrations and then they induce threat perception within subordinates. The beautiful part of this story is that they say this as its Gyan given by his/her super boss (trust me he doesn’t even speak to them)

The work mantra to aspiring subordinates then remains “Look busy, take it easy and don’t volunteer let someone take action then we will join the crowd”. Most of you have listened to this dialogue in Hindi “Yeh Toofan Say Pheley Ka Sannata Hai”. They act as bottlenecks and hamper upward communication and not let the new leader know other strong contenders of the team. These weak creatures are often successful in concealing images of subordinates and mince words and achievements. Aren’t they highly self centric?

Another timely & strongest gossip mantra is the word RECESSION, it’s said as “Market ka condition iss waqt kharab hai jyada khudo nahi” (meaning-market condition is bad don’t jump). Will anyone be fine if one rubs his fear and perceptions on you? Strange, but bigger the organization, more complex is the organization structure and more safe places for these type of parasites to live.

If any one is undergoing these types of stress, then relax there is a way out.
1.    Take counseling form your employee relation officer, if HR is strong enough in your organization.
2.    Try to reach your super boss.
3.    Avoid talking to your peer group about this frustration, since this information can be used to play politics against you.
4.    Focus your time and attention on immediate learning objectives.
5.    Don’t do ghost authoring of emails and communication on his behalf.
6.    Always consult your boss and then do the work. Make it a formal process. Express this as a process to Super Boss.
7.    Please clearly communicate either formally or informally (or by making him understand read between the lines) that you are fairly independent and want to avoid career suicide.
8.    Do work for your own conscious and not for PEOPLE who assign.
9.    Last but not the least, Don’t Look busy, Don’t take it easy and do volunteer to work 

Do Manager’s understand Ideal Definition of Management and its characteristics?

Definitions on management & managers by gurus like Peter. F Drucker and Taylor are focused towards organization development, productivity people management and output termed as goals.

My question is how many managers understand this? How many managers know the true definition of Manager and Management? What are the characteristics of management? How to use authority & power? What is the meaning of responsibility?

Often managers define responsibility in a philosophic way. They define responsibility as “MUST DO’s” of a subordinate which he or she has never done. I opinion them as the most selfish class of Homo sapiens. They are vision less and don’t have guts to take decisions. They feel they are only programmed for executing tasks which are given to them and monitor people below by showing power (Control).
I wonder why they are not open for feedback and remain as a bottleneck in upward communication. They have power, control and a strong sense of insecurity with them. They are so happy to be called as task masters meet expectations of their bosses and remain as useless mass and source of frustration to people around.

“Advocating Dependency Theory”
Ability to win over others is not power. I have seen couple of managers who exercise their power on people by making subordinates deprived. They call this “carrot and stick” motivation (when will they understand this). The term power is relative. It gives someone the ability to handle problematic situations at work place better. However it’s used to inflict pain, politics and frustration among the subordinates.

These kinds of situations are quite common at work place irrespective of size. However if you are passionate about management practices and have academic interest in theory of management it will lead to serious frustration and depression. I choose to work in silos and advocate meet and council as many young brains and executives to take leadership path and horn their skills thank taking managerial path. I call these types of inefficient people as organizational parasites and disgrace to management.

“Project Management Foresight: Trend Analysis and Evaluation”

I was invited to chair a special session on Project Management by Astrowix on 9th January, one of the internationally recognized PMP Training and consulting company in India. It was a great honor to me and I was excited about this.
I delivered the lecture on “Project Management Foresight: Trend Analysis and Evaluation”. This was a 45 minutes session and had a keynote address by Dr N Vijayaditya, Ex-DG, NIC. The entire event was organized by Astrowix under the leadership and guidance of Cdr.Veerendra K Jaitly-President, Astrowix and Upendra Giri-founder CEO of Astrowix.

This session had a complex mix of audience (people between the age group of 35-50 years). The session was interactive and I have emphasized on the possible synergy between Project Management and its functions with enterprise wide strategic thinking process. I have also given enough emphasis on how to make PMP functionaries from shear Tools & Tasks people to leaders which is the want of current businesses. An interesting anecdote from one Dr. Vijayaditya was that a recent research revels that Indians focus more on self development and certifications.

The session followed with networking cocktail dinner. Here I met with IBM, Reliance, Airtel, Wipro and few more executives of different companies. You can email me on babavss@gmail.com for more information and presentation slide deck.

http://www.astrowix.com/pm_insight/upcoming.html

Employee the center focus of cutting costs.

Everyone knows that cutting costs has a direct impact on an organization’s profitability. Few understand, however, that cutting costs also frees up money that can be used in other areas of the business. A dollar saved is a dollar earned.

The million dollar question is why often at the evaluation and control stage of strategy employees of the organization are subjected to experience severe cost cutting effects?

Let’s discuss few definitions and backgrounder of strategic management to derive at conclusions. However there will be few more questions unanswered.

Strategic management is the art and science of formulating, implementing and evaluating cross-functional decisions that will enable an organization to achieve its objectives. It is the process of specifying the organization’s objectives, developing policies and plans to achieve these objectives, and allocating resources to implement the policies and plans to achieve the organization’s objectives. (wikipedia)

“Strategic management is an ongoing process that assesses the business and the industries in which the company is involved; assesses its competitors and sets goals and strategies to meet all existing and potential competitors; and then reassesses each strategy annually or quarterly [i.e. regularly] to determine how it has been implemented and whether it has succeeded or needs replacement by a new strategy to meet changed circumstances, new technology, new competitors, a new economic environment., or a new social, financial, or political environment.” (wikipedia)

All these thoughts lead to define/set only two objectives as CEO to the company 1. Financial objective (EPS, Operating profit, Quarterly profits, cost effective profitability) 2. Target around market share.

The strategy then finally picked is split into planned strategy and adaptive strategy which becomes actual strategy eventually. Prior to all these exercise any company does either Environmental scanning or does some market research background work.

The strategy which is finally picked is ready to be implemented by most effective communication channels which allow the functional heads to implement to get the desired results.

Here are few un-answered questions:-
1.    The employees at the bottom of the pyramid have never contributed to making of strategy.
2.    No upward feedback is used while devising a strategy.
3.    Employees never know the indicators which affect EPS, Operating profit, Market share.
4.    Majority of times employees at the bottom of the pyramid are subjected to Manager Harassment than leadership cover.
5.    Operational traits are injected in employee community than leadership traits.
6.    Most often managing up is not encouraged by managers at all.
7.    Often we see managers take pride in explaining the lowest level of its employee band that there is a serious cost cutting etc.

There might me few studies to answer these questions, I might as well do the same cost cutting methods if I become CEO or COO to show up my Q4 results.

US recession has India Inc, economists worried (title as in news)

With recession now confirmed for the first time since 2001 in the US – India’s largest market for goods and services – the industry and economists are worried alike, particularly over its impact on exports and stock markets.(source from the internet)

This is viral and it takes just seconds to affect Indian industries. Our industries under this cover of recession will start garb employees without any rational.
It’s important to consult the HR and Research team to understand the internal competency threat it could build. If any company wants to layoff it must do a 360 degree feedback on mid-level and one level below it. This will ensure the companies that they don’t lose competent people.

Since 360 Degree Feedback is a system in which employees receive anonymous and confidential feedback from the peers and subordinates. Most often a mixture of about eight to twelve people fills out an anonymous online feedback form that asks questions covering a broad range of competencies at workplace. The feedback forms include questions that are measured on a rating scale and also ask raters to provide written comments which could be later analyzed for better understanding of leadership patterns existing.

Management thinkers and talent harvesters think about this and get into actions. This will help them to re-build the organization faster and safer.

You are free to post your views on this!!!

Experimental Learning for Group Disucssions

Do you know that you can be gauged whether you have the following personality traits or not while being interviewed by a company HR:-

• Ability to work in a team
• Communication skills
• Reasoning ability
• Leadership skills
• Initiative
• Assertiveness
• Flexibility
• Creative Ability

To discover these many traits companies conduct Group discussions. One has to work in teams, as a member, manager or leader after getting into a company. Therefore it’s important to interact in a team during GD session.

There are critical observations made by the interviewers viz, Leadership & attitude, Content, Group dynamics, Listening Skills, Body Language. Out of these Leadership, content and Listening Skills are most important ones.

The million dollar question is how to get the GD skills mastered overnight? For this you might need a magic wand.

I have at least interacted about 300 students in this quarter. I have observed that most of the students don’t use their precious college time in a planned and effective manner.

The college management should create enough opportunities to the students to form clubs and forums do these kinds of mock programs. They can always invite industry mentors to help set direction. The management should also not make money through these programs. Management, faculty should help the students master these skills through experimental learning.

Anyone can do a simple google search to find out different models available. However, if you need any special program you can contact me at babavss@gmail.com.

Goal Setting!

Do we realize that we are all born with equal talents and potentials? Many, alas, grow up to be mediocre without fully exploiting their talents. This is because they do not set a proper Goal in life. Rather they do not have a goal at all! There are several reasons why students do not have a proper Goal in life. Often they become the product of other people’s opinions, advice and compulsion —a tragedy.