The year is ending a lot better than what many of us had prepared for. We were expecting worse. Isn’t it? Thank you God!!

The year began inauspiciously with the mother of all corporate scams. We – shareholders, employees, believers in our great Indian corporate leadership - received a letter which shocked us all. The letter from Mr Raju left us all aghast. Riding the tiger and not knowing when to get off by Mr Raju damaged the lives of many and created a distrust of the corporate leadership. Fortunately, we saw one of the swiftest actions from our government in true PPP - private public participation mode.  The company was salvaged in time. Many predicted that there were similar skeletons in many a corporate cupboard and it was only a matter of time before they would come out. Thank God there were no more (a)satyams during the year as some were expecting.

In the last few months of the last year it was a few and then the numbers kept increasing. That is the lay offs in some form or the other.  Companies were laying off people left, right centre, across companies and within companies at junior levels, middle and senior levels (for once there was no discrimination). Bad news kept pouring. Bosses were sending off employees during the day and were in turn being sent off at the end of the day. The last quarter started getting better. We were back to newspapers enjoying the daily dose of “so-and-so will be hiring 150 in the next six months”  kind of news. Thank God hiring is back.

Around the middle of the year the nation sat glued watching all those TV channel beaming scores and latest tallies from across the country and experts and some overnight experts of all kinds.  The mornings started with the latest score as the headlines. Swine flu did what political leaders have forgotten to do – unite the nation. We all watched the latest score the victims of the flu and went into panic mode if a colleague sneezed. (He was lucky, he was sent off from office, granted paid time off). The Swine flu lost interest or energy somewhere in between and let us get back to watching political discussions from the medical ones – the former is what we are best at, next only to cricket of course. Everything else is an unwelcome distraction. Thank God swine flu flew away without much damage done.

Thank God we have a government. Yes, we have one. We were all prepared for many months of no government. We were prepared for a divided mandate. We were prepared to see flip flops in the sides our leaders would take. We were prepared to watch the trading of a different kind happening. Strange are the ways of God. None of this happened. We had a government within a few days of the elections. We were denied of the tragic comedy. We all felt so relieved that this happened. Thanks God the formation of government went off smoothly.

Thank God it was not one more year when we got numerous calls during the day from the banks pestering us to take loans, credit cards, insurance and what not.  Good that the banks had run out of money or were not willing to part it. There was so much peace. (At times I did felt bad that I did not getting those calls. Lesser calls made me wonder at times if my value has come down. Self pride was hurt.) In general lesser of those calls was a relief.

Honestly it has been a lot more peaceful year than what it augured to be in the beginning. Thank God!!!

We do so many tasks during the day. In our job we are assigned projects that need to be carried out. We set out to plan for these projects and assignments. We prepare assuming things will happen they we plan. But more often things do not happen the way one plans. Good operations personnel understand this and have ways to overcome such unpredictable situations and deviation from the expected.

There was this colleague of mine who I worked with. He was a phenomenal guy in terms of making things happen. He had many behavioural traits which were his strength but then there is something I learnt and have tried to build in my own ways of working. It has helped. It could help others too.

The practice is of having backup or even better, backups.

We are talking of situations where we are doing the planning and not about those that we cannot or do not. Those situations are different from the ones we are considering. For example, one day we start to our office and take the route which we normal take to commute to the office but unusually we find that the traffic has got choked because of some accident. This situation is different. Take the case of something different. I am planning to go for an important customer presentation. I have worked for days and think I have made a world class presentation. I am really charged up to make the presentation to the customers. The morning started off well with nice cool breeze blowing. I walk into the room set my laptop. Suddenly the file would not open. Something has happened. I am fighting hard. The clock is ticking and my heart is beating fast and I am sweating badly. What was supposed to be an exciting day has turned out to be a nightmare.

What could have been done? I believe that I should have taken some kind of backup to carry my presentation. I could have carried the presentation in a pen drive or could have sent it the day before to a colleague to carry it with him or cut into a CD. Maybe it would have eased the whole thing.

 There are many instances in different areas such things do happen. Order from one customer is delayed. Approval which was expected to come has not. Material which should have arrived has not. Sample test which was expected to come has not come. Budget approval has not come for 100% of what was expected; only 90% of what was expected has been approved.

This happens often, sometimes on small and sometimes on large scale, sometimes at minor level and sometimes as highly significant level. Planning is not just about expecting things to happen the way we expect or want it to but to plan for contingency. What if? Let’s prepare ourselves thinking not just “Yes, it will happen” but also “What if it does not happen the way it should”. In one sense, i.e. psychologically this acts as a shock absorber in case we hit a road bump. Since we have factored the “what if”, we are not caught unawares when something untoward happened. Thus it helps us face the situation better. In another sense, i.e. practically this ensures that things move on. We after all have a backup to take care of the situation. Of course how many backups can we have? No hard and fast rule. But I would give a thumb rule of three. Think of two alternatives to “what if”.

Adapting to something unforeseen is being smart. Planning with assumptions that something will not happen the way it should is being smarter.

Lets get smarter. Lets have backup.

There are questions I dread. One of them is ‘Which organization should I join?’ Students [doing MBA] often ask me that question when the placements begin.

Their problem is real. The students want to have some rationale for making a choice. It is a different matter that very often the placement committee does not give you any choice at all; particularly if you have got a PPO – Pre-placement Offer. They get uncomfortable that the rules for making choice are not clear to them. They study for fifteen years that everything is ‘cause and effect’; when it comes to making the most important [and the first career decision] in life, they are unable to consider relevant factors that would guarantee a good job and career. I have always felt that our academic system teaches planning but not enough emphasis is placed on ‘exploring’. Ambiguity makes all uncomfortable, but more so to the young.  

Girls often reconcile to the fact that their parents will ask them not to take up a job elsewhere except the city of their residence; and I think that is somewhat unfair to them, and unfortunate. But that settles the rule for her – ‘I will take up a job that requires me to work in Mumbai’ she says and automatically limits the choice. In a not-so-happy way the selection is to be made by her among few organizations.

There are in my opinion, two aspects that students must appreciate. Firstly, every employee experiences the organization in a different way. Perhaps because they get different boss or relate differently to him/ her even if common. And secondly, growth and not money should be the criterion for freshers to select their employer. Working in a good organization we tend to grow as a professional and as a person too. There are certain organizations where a person experiences growth, unlike others. This is akin to plants growing well in their natural habitat. A Christmas tree survives in Mumbai but blossoms in Himalayas. A coconut tree would not give highest yield in Himalayas but in Mumbai. So our search must be for our ‘natural habitat’.

There is, therefore, no alternative to exploring. We can find out how ex-employees have experienced an organisation and that could be a good thumb rule to go by.

But all said and done, we must appreciate that, like [arranged] marriages, the employee has to make his stint with an organization rewarding and successful, it usually does not ’happen’ automatically. For students, for whom everything is decided by their institutes, that is quite a change and first demand for being proactive.

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

There are some statements that we make without realizing the damage they cause. [I must confess here that I too have made those, but recovered in time!].

‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ is a statement I made as a student so he is punishing me by making me hear it from some of my students! When I joined the corporate world I graduated to even better one - ‘How can my boss appraise me?!’

Needless to say that these statements serve no purpose. The author of such statements is aware of the bungled up performance, but it is nice to hide it under a big statement that protects his self-image. Repeating it many times, people who make these statements start believing them to be true!

The problem does not stop there. What they prevent themselves from understanding is that the equation p = P – i is a very powerful equation with a deep meaning. Small p represents performance, capital P represents potential and i represents interference. The problem is that the make-believe statement prevents people from examining the interference, or the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings that come in the way of delivering performance to the full potential.

For several years the Indian Cricket team failed to win matches, and lost those which had a win almost in their hands. Jana Novotna loses Wimbledon finals to Steffi Graf when she is all set to win it. Sharad Pawar, a great leader himself, fails to reach the heights of his mentor YB Chavan and has given up hopes of becoming India’s Prime Minister. Sehwag undoubtedly a great player, but he does not achieve the consistency of Sachin Tendulkar so the overall achievements fall miles short of the Little Master. Vilasrao Deshmukh, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra goes to Taj after 26/11 with film makers instead of reaching out to people. Why does this happen? The power of i [interference] is tremendous; it prevents you from giving your best.

When you say, however, that ‘My marks do not reflect my potential’ you prevent yourself from examining the ‘i’ [the recurring patterns of thoughts and feelings] that will keep interfering in your performance; what can be more destructive than that?

There is nothing like keeping one’s mind open. But people must learn the hard way, like me! People tolerate your nonsense because they are not interested in you and they are tactful. They smile as if approvingly, when you utter the big statement about your performance not reflecting potential, and some even would readily nod in agreement. That makes us happy! But beware of such people, and beware of your own attitude.

‘“Tact is the ability to tell a man he has an open mind when he has a hole in his head” somebody has said. Actually, ‘very well said’ I would say!

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

I have always been intrigued by the trainees’ dilemma.

When you nominate participants to behavioral training, the first question they ask is ‘why me’? If his/ her boss has nominated the participant for the program then ‘Does he consider this to be my weakness?’ is a question that the participant will not only not ask but take it as answered! Obviously in the affirmative!

If you are sending an employee’s nomination for an ISABS course, then this question comes up without fail, with greater force, unless the participant is an HR professional.

I have always felt that behavioral programs are like a glass of whisky; people want to enjoy it but they do not want others to know it.

For many managers training is equivalent to repairs to a car by a motor mechanic. That’s the real problem. If the boss notices a problem, he says “He needs training, [read: Ask trainer to fix it]”. There cannot be a more mechanical view of human beings than asking for training to address a behavioral problem.

This matter gets further complicated when the HR Manager does not realise the fallacy of this approach. He not only conducts training for the employee, which means he spends money, but he is at a loss to understand why they same manager complains of ineffectiveness of training. That often does not tally with the ratings given for training by participants.

Training does not result in change of behavior. People do not become more assertive, manage time [or themselves] better, learn to manage conflicts effectively, develop stronger inter-personal equations when they leave the training room.

Learning people skills is akin to learning to operate software. One has to be alert, explore, check ‘handbook’, reflect on what works, and discuss with others to gain quicker understanding. I said ‘reflect on what works’ because we tend to use people skills with different levels of effectiveness with different people. And in different situations.

The trainer cannot go beyond placing the ‘software’ in our hands.

Pre-program discussions with participants give good understanding to a trainer about expectations of participants. The HR Manager would be more effective if [s]he has a discussion with the recommending manager before a nomination is accepted. This ensures that clear expectations are set before the training begins.

But exception proves the rule. If you nominate an employee for an ‘Out Bound Training’, nobody complains. There are perhaps no expectations of change in behavior. In fact, you will notice enthusiasm. Being one with ‘nature’ is important. ‘Nature’ does the trick! Do you get me?

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences.During his 33 years career with Asian Paints where he was its HR head at the time of retirement, he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

Three months back my brother and a couple of other people from the neighborhood decided to start a Sunday Vedic class in the mutt (temple cum community hall) next to my property. I enthusiastically joined in as it was a long standing desire coming true. I should confess I had tried doing some self learning in the last few years with audio aids but wasn’t too successful. The accuracy of pronunciation eluded me and the length and complexity of words in some of the Sanskrit shlokas (verses) stood in the way. The only thing I managed with some degree of success thanks to the internet and the English translations so easily available now, was understanding the meaning of quite a few of the shlokhas.

For someone associated with learning in a corporate scenario in various contexts over the last 16 years. it has been a different experience. As it is too early to come to any generalizations and conclusions I am just stating a few facts in this write-up.  

A teacher teaches a group of 18 students 18 every Sunday for  1 hr 15 minutes. The composition of the learner group is as follows: 10 children between the ages of 8-15, 6 adults in the age group of 35-40 and two elders above the age of 60. My son aged 10  is also part of this  group , though he refuses to sit with me , instead sits with his friends.

The teacher, who is an independent financial consultant by profession, refuses to take any fee. In fact ,he has been encouraging the group to have more classes every week to speed up the learning process, and is ready to offer his time whenever the group wants.The premises are in the local community hall and anyone is free to join.The teacher chants a few words once aloud all the while focusing on the clarity of pronunciation and the intonations, and this is followed by the group chanting the words loudly twice, and this teachning-learning continues. The teacher repeats the earlier words again in case he feels people aren’t able to pronounce/intonate it perfectly. This is done even when he feels a couple of people are out of sync. He is able to follow the chants of each one in the group and able to identify when some one is out of sync. He stops to help the individual chant it right. Every session is broadly divided into 2 parts. The first part lasting around 30-35 minutes is spend on chanting  what had been learned in the earlier sessions, and the second part focuses on new verses.

The session ends with an exhortation by the teacher to continue individual practice during the week.

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The author Sriram is a Director and Partner with Aventus Partners, a HR firm providing executive leadership solutions.

Please check out his profile in Training Orbit at http://www.trainingorbit.com/Person/345/sriram

It was a catch 22 situation! If I did not do it I knew that the job cannot be done; if I did it then I knew that I was trading into an unknown territory where risks of failure, I feared, were not exactly modest.

Let me not talk in riddles, and explain it to you. I was planning a program for a client company where VPs and GMs were invited to attend. They were successful individually, but they worked not as a team, but in compartments. In my pre-training session they recognized it as the biggest organizational issue. I proposed that we must attack it first since it was the biggest pain area. They agreed.

While planning the session I realized that the trick was to get them to talk about the issues between them and their role in building invisible walls. But it does not take great intelligence to realize that they would shy away from it, they would not talk about it unless we somehow created an environment conducive for it. That was a tough call.

I began my session presenting ‘what I had heard them say’ in which I reproduced verbatim the statements of VPs and GMs about the organizational issues. Lack of teamwork and integration figured as the top issue, very predictably so. The group decided that it must be sorted out.

It is at this stage I introduced to them the Peter Block’s formula called ‘Conversations for Change’. Put briefly, it says that we should get people to stop having the old conversation. Tell them to talk about the agenda but ask them to have conversation they have never had before. If the conversation is not new, ask them to stop it and be silent. The group got into ‘new conversation’ cautiously and then with a lot of energy. The result was that they had demolished the invisible walls between them.

Try it. My experience is that it never fails!

I am happy that I took the bold step to experiment with a new approach; I am delighted that it worked so well. Somebody has said ‘Every great inspiration is but an experiment and every experiment, great inspiration!’ I now know, it is true, I have experienced it.

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By Vivek S Patwardhan

VSP as we call him, is an Executive coach and HR consultant. He is also a visiting faculty for the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He had a 33 years career with Asian Paints where he played a vital part in shaping the careers of many while shaping the organisation itself.

Please visit his website: http://www.vivekvsp.com

Source: The Economist

Link: Heat Count

Given the rising awareness and activities to curb the rising temperature, cutting down on card dioxide and conservation of energy, there is an opportunity emerging in a big way for software industries as this article points out. Already the big players such as CA, IBM, Oracle, SAP etc have moved into the area. The softwares can help monitor and manage energy consumption, emissions and waste generation.

While the above article throws light on the emerging opportunity in IT, the following one raises questions on whether information was badly managed in the banking industry contributing to the crisis in the financial industry. One of the points which emerges is that the information systems helped in increasing the speed but not transparency in the information processed.

Source: The Economist

Link: Silo but deadly

There number of choices to fulfill our interests are increasing yet we are bored. What's happening?

In the last one week I heard two kids saying that they are "bored". One is 10 years old and the other is 15. Made me wonder what's causing this boredom when they seem to have everything one could wish. If I were to reflect back to the choices available to us 10 years back or 20 years back I am overwhelmed by the choices that are available today. Then there was that one Vividh Bharathi from Akashawani which we were glued to. Then came the generation of the soaps. The entire country used to come to standstill at 9 when the the week's episode of Mahabharath unfolded. The entire family sat together and watched that one channel DD. Telephones rang when they were in mood or rather when they worked which was at the whims and fancies of our state run telephone department. Maruti replaced our old fatso Ambie to become the only choice of car and which for many Indians was a dream to have fulfilled after years of toil in ones career.

Come back to today and we have all those choices for us - channels in TVs aplenty, channels in radio aplenty, cars aplenty, telephone providers aplenty, social networks aplenty, toys, books, travel, entertainment, name it and we have the choice.

But then why this boredom?

Is it because of the number of choices itself? Is it that the choices are confusing people? Is it that the choices are dividing the attention of people and so are not able to enjoy any one thing fully? There is so many to choose from that we do not know what all we can do?

Is it because of the addiction to new? Is it because we are used to new things coming sooner and sooner that we get bored with anything that lasts more than a while? We need newer actors. We need new channels. We need new soaps. We need new phones. We need new games. Is it that something which is even a little old is a bore?

Is it because we are not nurturing any one interest deeply? Is that we are jumping from one thing to the next that we are unable to enjoy any one thing in its full? Even before I could get connected many of yesteryear friends through Facebook, I have twitter and tweeting to find my followers and be followed.

Is it because of we are moving faster into the zone of self actualisation? Is it that we are testing, tasting and going beyond the sensory stuff faster and moving into the realm of self actualisation where these things do not matter?

Is it that we are being pulled in different directions at the same time that we are becoming numb at times? System crashing because of too many applications open?

Or is it because we are no more in control of our self or are even not able to attempt to control?

What's happening? Oh, I am bored of trying to figure this out. Can you?

I attended the National HRD networks National Conference held at Mumbai between 25-27 th Nov 2009. It was a  very professionally organized conference, with strict adherence to timelines and briefs .Importantly there were hardly any no shows/replacements from the published list of speakers . There were around 700 delegates predominantly from the HR profession who attended. For those interested to know more visit the website   www.nhrdnconference2009.com

A few things that struck me were   

1. The presence of leaders from Indian Industry and government in an HR conference. You had Anand Mahindra, Kumaramangalam Birla, Omar Abdullah (CM of J&K), Indu Shahani (sheriff of Mumbai)  among a host of other leaders .
2. More important than their presence was their preparedness to address the sessions agenda and the universal acceptance of the role that people and their management are to play in their future plans. It didn’t sound like lip service anymore. Seemed more like a basic given.
3. There was optimism about the Indian growth story mixed with caution . People like Ms Rama Bijapurkar and Ramachandra Guha spoke about the demographic and the other challenges that the country faces.

For us HR and development professionals and those  working in organizations delivering services in these domains the following is food for thought .

Developing and managing people professionally and in an aligned manner  is not just an imperative for businesses, but has become a fundamental driver in the plans of government as well as voluntary organizations.  This opens a huge space hitherto unserviced by us.

It is not just any more about carrots and  sticks  , more autonomy , opportunity to develop ones skills and  potentials but a sense of purpose and pride that makes talent tick . What do HR professionals need to do to foster and sustain a sense of purpose and pride in people and organizations that they serve.

Todays world is defined by paradoxes and apparent contradictions. What processes do we deploy to help individuals and organizations thrive in this scenario.

In an era where organizations themselves don’t promise guaranteed life time employment, is there a responsibility that we have in keeping our workforce employable.

Generation Y (those born after 1980) are increasingly becoming the dominant segment in many an organization. There is a lot that the earlier generations in the work force can learn from them. Are we and those in our organization doing this and benefiting from it?. Heard of reverse mentoring - seems to be becoming a reality today.