Category Archives: Management

I wish I could mentor more women …..

Priyanka stood up and shared how she had gained so much confidence in the past six weeks. She is a young girl studying at Delhi’s Women Technical Institute, which she joined after class XII. About 70 girls had gone through a Selling Skills programme under ‘Light Up A Life’ initiative by Brisc Carr Group Inc., of which I am a member. The programme objective is ‘Helping Underprivileged and Underemployed Youth in India Achieve Sustainable Livelihood’.

I was at the WTI last week, to handover the certificates of completion. As I interacted with them, the girls spoke up one by one ….. what a difference the initiative had made to these young lives !! While they were learning vocational skills at this institute, the six weeks intervention acted like a catalyst that was to transform their personalities and prepare them to lead better personal and professional lives.

“We can face the world with a lot more confidence”. “We learned how to listen to and understand others’ needs”. “We know how to ask open ended probing questions”. “ We will be able to interact with our employers, friends and relatives better”. “We will be able to deal with our family issues more effectively”. They went on enthusiastically.

The display of India’s Women Power in the Republic Day parade today showed possibilities of what can be achieved if almost half of India, that is women, is equally empowered !!

While narrating her transformational story, one of the girls forgot the points she had diligently noted earlier. I took out my own scribbles from my coat pocket and showed her that even I had made notes to refer to for my talk to them later on and that she could also refer to her points. An amazing ease and calm dawned on her immediately. She reached out for her sheet of paper and rattled off all her thoughts.

Later on, while casually chatting with the girls, they said that they were nervous before the event, but our informal interaction made them feel at ease. I shared that before that interaction, even I was a bit tense as to how it will all roll out. With a roll of laughter that followed, I asked myself a Justplainandsimple™ question ….. “Who is helping whom here ?”. I was also gaining a sense of calm and confidence through the interaction with them !!

The way these girls had prepared and gone through the entire course was amazing. It reinforced my belief in the strength, grace and meticulous nature (among many other qualities) of the female gender. And there was so much for me to learn from and improve myself. Warren Buffet had once said that he was so successful because he competed with only half the population. Imagine the power that can be unleashed if India’s women are adequately educated and empowered. They will not only uplift their own families, but the entire society and the nation.

Most talks and meetings that I go for, I have my standard blue, grey, black, brown, white combination of colours to choose my clothes from. That day, I took out a combination of a ‘green’ jacket and sweater and a shirt with green stripes. The whole experience, I realized, was giving me a lot more joy, colour, brightness, confidence and fulfillment than probably for these young girls.

I have always told my daughter that ‘She is The Best’. That she should make herself capable enough to be able earn and lead a comfortable, healthy and happy life on her own. That she should speak up whenever and wherever needed. That Values are important. That the social programming of girls to be submissive is wrong ….. That day, I was able to share the same with so many more young girls

I could feel that my family had expanded ….. from being the boundary of my life it had expanded to include so many bright young souls ….. adding Grace to myself in the process !!

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MS Dhoni : A Viewpoint

(Views expressed in this post are entirely my own)

The picture on the left is after a World Cup Final Win !! Noticeable by his absence, is the captain, MS Dhoni. And this is a pattern that gets repeated so often. He could have stolen the limelight at innumerable occasions that came up for him, if he was an egoist.

But some people say he is an egoist;

And they are honourable men….

He hath brought many laurels to Indian cricket,

Which is definitely at an elevated level now than then …..

Yet, after Dhoni’s recent decision to retire from test cricket, certain sections of media, society and sports criticized him for his ego. And these are ‘honourable men’ !!

With the best of leaders,

When the work is done,

The project completed,

The people all say

“We did it ourselves”

(Tao, 17)

As a student of Leadership, I follow the continuous debate on MS Dhoni with great interest. While theories on Leadership abound, with a personality like Dhoni, the discussion becomes even more intriguing and exciting. A Justplainandsimple™ patented view on leadership is :

Leadership is like an exhaust fan; creating An Energy Flow quietly on the side^TM

This, I also found to be quite an apt description of our Captain Cool’s leadership style.

The recent two test losses (and many previous wins) in Australia have brought in a lot of flak for him. At the same time raised more debates ….. of the type ‘Is Dhoni more successful than Saurav ?’ Can there be a comparison with Gavaskar and Kapil of the 80s ? ….. and so on ….. While some of these may not be valid, as eras and circumstances have changed a lot, others may also be of a speculative nature.

But one thing is certain ….. Dhoni definitely HAS built further on the successes of earlier giants. Also, when he took over as captain the team had really strong players like Sachin, Sehwag, Dravid, Laxman, Harbhajan et al. And to sustain and build further on existing strengths is surely VERY VERY CREDITABLE !! Over the shoulders of giants …..

A study on successful Indian CEOs, conducted some years back, highlighted key characteristics exhibited by these people in various business situations. It is quite relevant in this discussion due to commonality of Indian mindsets, social contexts, ecosystem etc. ….. and topicality

I bring up the characteristics again at this point in time.

The ones that I want to highlight, are those characteristics that were displayed by business leaders in ‘Improving a Business’ situations. I list these below for comparisons with our hero of the day :

M : Maturity : Emotional Wisdom and Intelligence to respond to others and embody the aspirations of the organization. Captain Cool is calm and composed in both praise and criticism, describing these as being ephemeral. In a country where emotions run extreme, he maintained the same equanimity after World Cup wins and defeats in England and Australia.

S : Transcending Self & Inner Strength : Courageous dedication to the super-ordinate goals; doing what is right and what will make Indian cricket great. We’ve seen him exhibiting ‘edge’ ….. an ability to face reality and to champion tough decisions.

D : Driving Change : Leading the organization to implement and embed sustainable change. Enough evidence in decisions related to strategy and people.

H : High Energy Team Leadership : Inspiring and protecting the team, enabling excellent team performance. His inspiration to the team and ability to lead by example. Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, R Ashwin, Bhuvneswar Kumar, Ravindra Jadeja, Cheteswar Pujara and Praveen Kumar all flowered under him.

O : Ownership and Empowerment with Accountability : Delegating authority to allow others to act with purpose and accountability. In extremely testing circumstances, Dhoni has come up with brilliant performances himself and has also empowered the team and youngsters with enough confidence and a free hand.

N : Networking & Organisational Awareness : Reaching out to an extensive network for ideas and problem-solving; understanding how things get decided and done in a particular organization. He sure has found his way around very gracefully and effectively.

I : Stakeholder Influence : Using customized strategies to influence specific stakeholders. In his own way, with poise and equanimity, we see his influence creating magic.

A point to keep in mind though, is that leaders are human beings. So if Dhoni does have a bad patch, it is quite normal. Leaders can slip, leaders can make mistakes, leaders have bad days, leaders change their minds, leaders are you and me. Good leaders are ordinary people who want to get better than ordinary results. They are not happy with getting by because they know that the world is constantly changing, evolving and what worked yesterday might not work today.

Leaders are on an adventure with an uncertain future, more so in today’s VUCA world. Leaders are not better than followers, leaders are not gods, gurus or prophets. We shouldn’t put them on a pedestal and worship them, for two reasons ….. (1) they will forget what it’s like in the real world and a leader living in yesterday’s world is a train wreck waiting to happen (2) it stops us, the rest of us, from trusting ourselves and doing the hard work .

In short we all need to be ordinary people who work together to get better than ordinary results ….. like this boy from Ranchi has demonstrated !!

The wise leader knows When enough is enough.

Stretch a bow too far And it will snap.

Sharpen a knife too much And its edge will not last.

Fill your house with gold and jade, A

nd you cannot defend it.

Exalting in your success Invites a certain fall.

When your work is done, it is time to move on.

(Tao, 9)

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Strategy, Communication and Values : Alignment in Execution

Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.

I used to own a relatively premium brand of car. Good branding and technology focus !! However, fewer service centers (a function of numbers I thought) made access inconvenient. I finally switched due to the company’s apathetic approach to after sales service.

So I settled in for a ‘less’ premium brand. My Justplainandsimple™ decision was based on the company’s strong communication on ‘Customer Orientation’, ‘Trust’ and the assurance of a huge service network. The experience of regular initial free service, with pick ups and drops by the very ‘competent’ service centre, was quite satisfying, I must say. Continue reading →

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Healthcare setups that tripped ….. 2

How is it that certain teams achieve extraordinary excellence, day after day, year after year and manage to stay committed to each other, their customers and their organization’s mission ?

Tripped 2

A healthcare start up ….. successful doctors, experienced healthcare professionals and a seasoned healthcare entrepreneur got together. Hired people with rich experience in healthcare. Much excitement and hope !! Great Aspirations …..

The only issue ….. aspirations were on different vectors.

Six months from start, issues erupted. Differences on ‘What to do’?; ‘How to do ?’; ‘Who does ?’ ….. Everything.

Difference of opinion should be welcome and healthy discussions throw up agreed and effective directions.

Instead bitterness creeped in; operations stalled; could not see/talk to each other. All within one year.

Reason : Each of the ‘promoters/founders’ joined in with a different agenda, thought process, assumptions. On the surface all looked ‘Rosy’ ….. A new start up healthcare business in the age of healthcare, by people experienced healthcare.!!

The core was never discussed. A ‘Shared Mission’ was never there.

Reasons to get together were as many as the number of people who got together ….. valuation in ‘X’ years, gain startup credentials, clinical excellence, long term business, more leisure time ….. and so on

The mission was aborted within 18 months and all went their own ways …..

In another well run set up, absence of a shared sense of Values and Direction created a severe deadlock, stalling all operations for a long period of time, demotivating the team, forcing many to leave.

The fact is that while all teams are groups, not all groups are teams. A group becomes a true team only when its members support and enhance each other’s performance and contributions … when they work together to achieve results that are bigger and better than those that could be realized individually

Build a team of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable ~ team definition by Katzenbach/Smith

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Healthcare set ups that tripped ….. 1

Tripped There is so much buzz surrounding healthcare today. And rightly so. Healthcare is on a growth path.

All eyes are focused on the healthcare success stories. For gaining valuable learnings and for valuation gains !!

Lost somewhere in the melee are stories of slips that can give equally significant insights.

Without disclosing the identity, here is one such case …..

A new unit, started slow and steady with one healthcare speciality and progressed well. Led by an enthusiastic entrepreneur, full of passion and ambition, ready to take risks. All the correct ingredients it seems.

The enthusiasm led to related diversification into other healthcare verticals.

Two years into this mode, growth started slowing down and profits started getting eroded.

Good brand equity, doctors, patient satisfaction, advertising spends, infrastructure ….. nothing seemed to be wrong.

Root cause analysis brought up a peculiar core issue, generally very difficult to accept by any business leader ….. that the leader lacked the ability to handle multiple business operations.

Adaptive Thinking, Empowerment with Accountability, Execution Excellence, Networking and Executive Maturity were the development areas that the leader could have sought help in and built on, to Realise Business, Professional and Personal Potential.

More cases …..

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