Monthly Archives: April 2012

In my coaching sessions, I ask executives to behave as if they are the CEO of their lives. As a CEO you need to:

1.     Develop yourself as a product or service that people desire

You are multiple products to multiple markets depending on the role you play. When you act as a subordinate, you need to convince your boss that you are an ideal product and he should keep you. When you act as a boss, you need to convince your subordinates that you are the best boss. Being the best means being the best product or delivering the best service.

2.     Market yourself to all customers, internal and external to the organisation

3.     Run your finances i.e. reduce costs and increase revenue to more than costs

4.     Create your own motivation and recruit people to help you (network)

5.     Use technology to make their processes more efficient

You need to improve all the above processes by using the right technology – be it blogs, a rudimentary CRM system, a list of birthdays in your calendar and your to-do list.

I typically do not differentiate between personal and professional life.

This article by Gibson talks about the same thing with reference to empowering employees to act as CEOs.

To quote Gibson, “Giving everyone the responsibility to set their own agenda, prioritize resources, and pull in the right people has also made our office more efficient.”

I had mentioned some time ago about the distaste with which people regard sales.
I wish to reiterate the reasons why Sales is necessary in a career

1. During the placement process, I have observed a direct correlation between the ability to sell and the impress to impress the recruiters.
2. These are uncertain times. All companies are looking to retain market share and revenues. Sales is king.
3. We need to face our fears. Else, the fear remains in our mind and we somehow create the very situation we wish to avoid. It would, therefore, make sense to not to fear sales.
4. You’ll learn to negotiate.
5. You’ll learn to close.
6. You’ll learn persistence.
7. You’ll learn self-discipline.
8. You’ll gain self-confidence.

The last five has been mentioned in the following article by Jeff Haden.

The story of the Great Indian Crab Syndrome is well known. In essence, Indian Crabs do not need to be locked up as one crab will prevent others from escaping.

But let us be fair. This happens everywhere. I have worked in the far East and the Far West, fairly North (but not south of the equator). Trust me, at least in the northern hemisphere, it exists everywhere.

I consider it a natural process. Consider this.

1. Commoditisation
   This is a process of making one product indistinguishable from another product. In other words, the opposite of product differentiation. So where a crab pulls another crab down, it is not trying to make the other crab indistinguishable, so that it does not become a ‘run-away’ success?
2. A Survival tactic?
   After all, differentiation prevents unity. Commoditised products create cartels so that they can collectively bargain. When one product thinks it is different and can command a different market share, the unity is broken.
3. Conformity
   This is important for the sanctity of a group or an organisation. When we join the corporate world, we go through the induction programme, where we are taught conformity (read culture). We are given a conflicting message – employees are our greatest assets, we value innovation and creativity, but when we try to exercise this value, we are asked to conform.
4. Low self-esteem?
   If I am jealous of someone who is better than me, I would bring him down to my level. Any person who I perceive to be better than me can differentiate and command a better price!
5. Stop striving for excellence
   Differentiating  is taught as a lesson in marketing, and all the books about corporate heroes tom-tom doing something different (even illegal), treading the road less travelled, ignoring the barbs and the taunts of the other crabs.
   We all start off by with stars in our eyes, working hard. We gradually succumb to bare minimum work and rationalisation.Why do we look at each other, and if we see others not working, we too stop working?
   We do not let others work, and we ourselves do not work.

So, who is the Indian Crab? Not the other people – but our own mind. 

I am invariably asked this question from my mentees, “Should I change my job?”

Reasons for Quitting

When I probe deeper, I find that the reasons are broadly:

1. An expectation mismatch between the manager and  the mentee. The mentee typically blames the organisation, the management, the boss, the super-boss, the colleagues, the politics, the salary, the travel time, the office hours…this list is endless.
2. Perception that life has been unfair. The perceived unfairness has another perspective, “I did all the work that was allotted to me, I fulfilled my targets, I did better than others…how come I did not get what I deserved?”

Promotions

I have said this earlier and will re-iterate. If everyone fulfils their targets, everyone cannot be promoted, unless it is a bureaucratic / government job and even there, after a certain level, only some persons can get promoted. We cannot all become CEOs in the same organisation at the same time.

So what determines who will be promoted?

The answer is simple – ‘Whoever the promotion committee feels should be promoted.” Why should the committee feel that you should be promoted?

1. The boss must be promoted, so that a space is created for you
2. Out of all prospects, your boss will recommend you if:

• He trusts you to do his bidding
• You make him look good

None of the above have anything to do with your work. Your work is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for your promotion or increment.

Managing the Power Play

You need to know the following:

1. Power equations in the office (who determines promotions)
2. What they want
3. How you will benefit them (give them what they want).

If what they want is unacceptable, then you need to determine why is it unacceptable.

It may be that you would not want to compromise your beliefs. But the beliefs of the bosses matter, not yours. So you have the following choices:

1. Change your beliefs
2. Change your job
3. Change the beliefs of your bosses
4. Determine that you love your job and you do not want the promotion / increment
5. Wait until a boss comes whose beliefs are the same as you.

Most of us believe that theory is a waste of time.

Take the adage, “Give a man a fish and he is not hungry for a day; teach a man to fish and he will not be hungry ever!” what we want is the fish, not the theory behind catching fish.

When I ask some one for help in a particular situation, and he gives me theoretical answers and asks me to figure it out, I feel impatient and betrayed. I want a quick pill that will help alleviate the symptoms.

Theoretically, once the symptoms are gone, I can do a root cause analysis to prevent recurrence. But this rarely happens. We do not revisit the doctor if the symptoms are gone.

Let us take the doctor analogy further, should we go to:

• A doctor knows the theory of medicine?
• A person who has not attended medical school but has assisted a doctor in his rounds, say, a nurse?
• Other persons who have some past experience in similar symptoms?

The answer is logically obvious:

• no assistant or non-professional would have come across all the cases and variations and therefore
• cannot guess or set up the right tests to understand the root cause of the problem.

But emotionally, we do it the reverse way –

1. Other persons first, then
2. some one who has had similar symptoms, then
3. a quack and finally
4. a doctor.

Even in corporate life, we try the old tested ways based on the experience of the employees. Sometimes we hire consultants because like doctors, they are detached from the problem and they have learnt more theory.

Only a doctor trained in root cause analysis would ask the right questions and recommend the tests to find the cause of the fever. A good doctor has the following characteristics:

1. He has learnt the theory of analysis and possible method to derive the root causes
2. He knows how to apply the theory – this requires creativity
3. He has the experience of some of the applications

A quack, on the other hand, know only point 3 above: some experience and a smattering of bookish knowledge form the most convenient layman book available.

So, why read theory?

1. It is the distillation of the thoughts and experiences of other persons and their perspective.
2. Healthy scepticism is necessary. It is not gospel truth, it is simply a theory and a perspective.
3. If we do not understand the author’s perspective and then, more importantly, do not argue in which situation it will work and in which it will not, we are believing that the theory is a law of nature. That is incorrect. It is the argument about the theory that creates experience in our mind.
4. We need to apply the theory to our life to see the situations where it worked or not. We need to analyse why it worked or did not work.
5. It creates a discipline of collecting and managing knowledge and sorting it in our mind for quick access – during exams or in real life. It is a misconception that due to the advent of the internet, we can get any theory whenever we want.

Students sometimes decide that they would rather have practical experience and case analysis, because

• they do not understand the theory,
• cannot apply it,
• dislike the book,
• dislike the professor.

A case or a practical experience is only a subset of the topic, not the whole topic. Cases and practicals are a partial application of the theory, not a replacement.