Strategy

Strategy -  is a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. Strategy deals with the how part rather than the what -source Wiki
The how part oftern defined by a mission statement too..

Strategy is required in every field, whether it is Business, Military or Sports in order to "Win".

"Strategy is the direction and scope of an organisation over the long-term: which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a challenging environment, to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations". Source -Tutor2U

Strategy - is can be defined for short term (1-2yr), medium term(2-3 years) and long term (3-5 yrs) to acheive organaization vision and goals.

Let us look at key elements of defining the strategy for organization.

• Environment : Industry conditions, market dynamics, legal & statuatory requirements, Goverment controls  and external/internal elements need to be ascertained.
• Playing Field: Based on enviornment organziation needs to fix its playng field Ex. Small medium business segments or Large bx segments or consumer etc.
• Stake holders : Expected earnings, Investment options, equity/cash flows options etc. need to be planned.
• Competition : Competition strategies, strengths and weaknesses must be known to create a plan for competitive edge.
• Customer: Their profiles,  buying habits, expectations etc should be considered while drafting the plans to minimize the gaps between delivery and customer.
• Compliments : What compliments or substitutes available for the product or services in the market.
• Suppliers : who are the suppliers, supply demands, availbility & proximity  etc.
• Resources: Important is to know organization capabilities and resource requirements such as facilities, competencies, assests etc. to deliver the product or services to its customers.

Well strategy can be defined at various levels, operational, business unit or Team level and can leverage various tools defined by management gurus like Peter druckers 5 force analysis or SWOT analysis / BCG (Boston Consulting Group)matrix etc.

Some companies during the recession periods turned to quartely life cycles, in my view its a short sighted strategy and very cautious approach.

Look at one of the famous GE Matrix used for portfolio management

Market Attractiveness is defined by Size, profit levels growth etc and while competitive strengths can be decoded based on Market share, Cost Base and Brand equity, customer loyalty.

Understanding Interplay between strategy and execution is important and requires a complete analysis.

 Let us look at 2 x 2 matrix which explians interlock between strategy and execution.

a Sound strategy and a sound execution can take an organization to newer heights.










A great strategy can be successful if organziation plans equally a great execution. ( Read execution in my blog)

The Lost Treasure

Influenced by Dan Brown, Thought of researching on Indian alchemists, Indian Sages, Indian ancient culture and Indian Mysticism.


Ancient Indians possessed great knowledge and applied them for the benefit of community in all areas of human development. But over the periods of transformation of human kind, this precious knowledge is lost forever.

Before that let us remember the day December 21st , 2012 is the predicted day of holocaust or the day of enlightenment for the human beings. The day indicates the end of this era and start of a new era…in other words of Indian mythology end of Kali yuga and start of Kritha yuga (era). Per ancient hindu mythology god protected the ancient knowledge which is in the form of Vedas and carried the only living man ( Manu) and 7 saints to safe and made sure the new world born again with the knowledge. Lot written or talked about this day in the media recently. Well whether world is going to end or not, one thing for sure, world should change or enlighten about human kind by the time.

The four vedas are
1. the Rigveda, containing hymns to be recited by the hotṛ or chief priest;
2. the Yajurveda, containing formulas to be recited by the adhvaryu or officiating priest;
3. the Samaveda, containing formulas to be chanted by the udgātṛ.
The fourth is the Atharvaveda, a collection of spells and incantations, stories, predictions, apotropaic charms and some speculative hymns. (source :Wikipedia)

The hymns used to be started by Hindu’s sacred symbol “AUM”.. so symbology is as ancient as human kind. The start of “AUM” used to prepare the human body to be in abolsute control. When taken letter by letter, A-U-M represents the divine energy (Shakti) united in its three elementary aspects: Bhrahma Shakti (creation), Vishnu Shakti (preservation) and Shiva (liberation) Shakti. Its all about concentration of energies (shakti) to do a particular act. Infact some neotic sciences believe that just a thought of human being can change the physical world.

The knoweldge  said to be preserved also in Upavedas/Upanshads; which taught us tremendous deeper knowledge.

The term upaveda ("applied knowledge") is used in traditional literature to designate the subjects of certain technical works.The Charanavyuha mentions four Upavedas:

• Medicine (Āyurveda), associated with the Rigveda
• Archery (Dhanurveda), associated with the Yajurveda
• Music and sacred dance (Gāndharvaveda), associated with the Samaveda
• Military science (Shastrashastra), associated with the Atharvaveda

But Sushruta and Bhavaprakasha mention Ayurveda as an upaveda of the Atharvaveda. Sthapatyaveda (architecture), Shilpa Shastras (arts and crafts) are mentioned as fourth upaveda according to later sources

The following list includes the eleven "principal" (mukhya) Upanishads commented upon by Shankaracharya who is considered as Adi guru and accepted as most Hindus. Each is associated with one of the four Vedas (Rigveda (ṚV), Samaveda (SV), White Yajurveda (ŚYV), Black Yajurveda (KYV), Atharvaveda (AV));

1. Aitareya (ṚV)
2. Bṛhadāraṇyaka (ŚYV)
3. Taittirīya (KYV)
4. Chāndogya (SV)
5. Kena (SV)
6. Īṣa (ŚYV)
7. Śvetāśvatara(KYV)
8. Kaṭha (KYV)
9. Muṇḍaka (AV)
10. Māṇḍūkya (AV)
11. Praśna (AV)

The Aitareya Upanishad is a short prose text, divided into three chapters, containing 33 verses., it’s a sheer coincidence that human spine consists of 33 bones and also 33rd number is very important no for free masonry. As I articulated earlier in my religion blog, all the ancient knowledge seems to be originated from a common stream irrespective of the religion.

I can go on unearth just from Wikipedia itself the enormous knowledge our forefathers possessed.

Let us look at a famous sloka in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

Asato maa sadgamaya

Tamaso maa jyotirgamaya

Mrityor maa amritamgamaya

Ōm shanti shanti shanti

Translation:

Lead Us From the Unreal To the Real,
Lead Us From Darkness To Light,
Lead Us From Death To Immortality,
OM (the universal sound of God)
Let There Be Peace Peace Peace.


Lord Krishna also mentioned about dual world. In other famous known holy book called Bhagavadgita… as said in Latin " Jeova Sanctus Unus" - One True God who is with in our minds....that is where god infact given two minds to acquire knoweldge.

Then  most of that what we are inventing is re-invention or re-learning of what our predecessors already discovered.

However…I just wanna close this sayng if Human thought can change this materialistic world…be it..but let us discover the lost treasure...

May be the Dec 21st 2012, Human being should know how to acquire peace in this world, otherwise could be real end of the world.

A Confession - in what got me here!! and whether It will take me there

"What got you here, won't get you there" -by Marshall Goldsmith...a Good reading and a great delivery from leadership coach.

I must thank Barry and Dave Hare for presenting this book to us in July at Symantec seminar!!

When I was reading this  book, thought that none of the 20 Habits stated below are applicable to me. But I must confess that most of them I do consciously or unconsciously. When we advance in careers, behavioural changes are often the only significant changes we can make

Here is my confession!!

"Telling the truth is difficult than the death or reaching God"...today being Gandhi Jayanthi( Birth Day)...I must tell the truth whats on my mind...

Let us look at 20 flaws most successful people are also not immune to.....so you must change................and I must change...

Winning too Much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations – when it matters, when it doesn’t, and when it’s totally beside the point.
I am proud of being part of the team, who set the industry trends (Like  first email network, first Call center Network, IT Managed services so on....),  self styled successful leader...When I Joined symantec.. Wanted to win again...not sure at what cost...but I do wanted to win every time... I had few failures in my life too!!!
Failed in Integrating Tandem Disk Systems in Sprint and  I failed once again in integrating FAX Sevice to new ATM Network in GE while launching. ofcourse we fixed it and lot of learning from failures...
 If the need to win is dominant gene in our success DNA -the overwhelming reason we're successful-then winning too much is a perverse genetic mutation that can limit our success

Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion.
I am  proud of growing from Technical to Leadership...used to challenge my team that I can even now fix any problem...probably not understanding their point of view or not estimating their skills. Used to be impatient with them on not  grasping few steps which I used to skip while communicating. Trying to fix the micro problems by understanding the logic and using the logic. Even I did at home with My daughter...when I ever she used to ask difficult Maths problems...I used to solve them and pose look I solved....ofcourse those are school maths....
But the higher up you go in the organzation, the more you need to make other people winners and not make it about winning your self.
Passing Judgement: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them.
This has been again and another unconscious ...with MY DRs...I used to always judge them in mind and constantly used to rate them....and ofcourse imposed my standards.
One must be cautious in grading people's answers- rather than just accepting them without comment-makes people hesitant and defensive

Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty.
Another one..I did with my assistant (EA), whenever she used to make mistakes, the comments I made probbaly would have hurt her, not thinking that there is a huge expereince difference.
The fact that a destructive comment is true is irrelevant i.e. is it worth it?

Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.”
This is the most difficult thing one can avoid...I tried one day myself in office not to say these...I could avoid NO....but (see again) could not avoid "But and However".... These are three words  switche off most of the people, particularly while you are giving feedbacks.
When you start a sentence with the above words or any variation thereof, no matter how friendly your tone or how many cute phrases you throw to acknowldge, the message to other person is "you are wrong".

Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are.
Normally I cut short some body in normal conversation start telling them how we used to do same thing in my previous organization(GE)...not listening to other point of view...again experience and expertise dominates!!!
Being smart turns people on, anouncing how smart you are turns them off.

Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool.
I would say little differently, need not be angry but even putting faces for some things I would not like to listen.
Emotional volatility is not the most reliable leadership tool, when you are angry, you are usually out of control
Negativity or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked.
This one is probbaly again from old traits of 6 Sigma,,,every thing looking from Risk Managerment (FMEA) point of view. Some times getting dominated by old experiences.

Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others.
I am more opening my self as how these are applicable...need not be in exact same words...in the competitive world we try to win over and again wants to win every time...this will drive us to withhold some ideas unconsciously and share in front of wider audience to get the credit.
We do this unintentionally or accidentally with hold the information or may be we are too busy to share some valuable information with some body or forget to include some one important or while deelgating tasks donot take time to explian how things need to be done.....think it over.

Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward.
I am biased for people with high performance and is winning always...I kept my recognition to valuable contribution...I initially started saying thank you and good job for every thing...over a period of time started feeling that director's recognition should be reserved for highest achievement!! I must think about this.
TIP: write down all important people names in your professional or personnel lives and review weekly or monthly to see if you recognized them ever.

Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success.
This is some thing I thought that I try giving credit..but in a recent incident I faltered..My team made a photo frame with all my different poses and presented to me on my birthday..I thrilled at their affection...said thank you..but...said to my assistant that same idea I thought some time ago... hum!!! too bad!!
If you know how you feel as a victim, you should know how people feel about you for doing the same
I must confess here if I am successful in my life, it is becaue of  my gurus and ex bosses..( Parents, Mohan, Raja and Warun)

Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behaviour as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it.
This is probbaly a bad habit for me especially at home....I do give all sort of excuses for coming late...not remembering the things and what not....and making statements that I never did these house hold duties in my life...and my parents & grand parents brought me up in that way...... Still my wife not divorced yet...
Next time when you hear your self saying, " I am just no good at.... ask your self, why not?"

Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past; a subset of blaming everyone else.
I counted our success on the past mistakes done by the leaders before me...quoted the issues to old cultures..and feeling like cleaning the mess... well clinging to the past too much...let us just get this baggage out of window... I must state that we should implement best practices from the past shamelessly, but based on the context and the applicability to present and future.
There is nothing wrong in accepting the past, but if your issue is changing the future, then just understanding will not take you there.
Playing favourites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly.
I did get feedback in my 360 that I am biased...well as I stated that I am favouring performance, but in the sheer passion of winning and favouring winners...I did not notice that on the way I am hurting few people, expecting them to win everytime...
It's amazing how leaders send out subtle signals that encourage subordinates to mute their criticisms and exaggerate their prasise of the powers that be.

Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit we’re wrong, or recognise how our actions affect others.
I normally picturised my son as an aggressive person and always at fault. Lot times I shown my anger on him with out much listening to him, even when he was not at fault.... I used to regret, whenever  my wife pointed out this to me...I used to say sorry to my son... but the damage had already happened.... :-(
"Buddhist philosophy says that what we reap what we sow"
Benjamin Franlkin believed that "To gain a friend, let him do you a favour"
We feel that apologizing forces us to cede power or control -actually the opposite is true.
When you declare dependence on others, they usually help you and during the course of making you better person, they invariably try to become better people themselves.

Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues.
As I articulated in my other blog, this is most common disorder you find. I was furious on few team leads attrition and wanted to speak to them. I was ready with all my weapons....but luckily I just covered this habit by the time. So I decided to listen to them rather than speaking , ask them what is their challenge and how could I help them....I feel that turned out be great!!
People will tolerate all sorts of rudeness, but the inability to pay attention holds a special place in their hearts-perhaps because it's something all of us should be able to do with ease.

Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners.
Best  way of connecting people is by their first name or last name...every time I meet a person,  I ask that person about his full name.....so that I can remember...
While taking feedbacks, thank the person and keep reminding your self that "I won't learn less"...means you learn every time, but not lose any thing. Expressing gratitude will let go of our overwhelming need to win, to be right, to add value and to come out on Top. Gratitude is a skill that we can never display too often, fro some reason we are  cheap and chary with it.
Like apologizing, thanking is a magical super gesture of interpersonal relations. It's what you say when you have nothing nice to say and it will never annoy the eprson hearing it!!

Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually only trying to help us.
When you say you have trust around, when some body walks to you and can deliver a bad message or tell you that  behaviour of yours hurt them. When a person delivers a bad message, we see the person  as cribber....but not understand what is the context or behaviour you need to fix.
Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves.
This is another unattractive personal habit.... when was the last time some body said " we love you as a great leader, but we donot like this behaviour" ...One of my direct report walked to me and said one of the team lead is having high attrition or they donot know about a program recently launched.... who to be blamed....oops... its me and you!!

An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.
This one I must confess truly...An excessive of me "GE"... I am impatient...likes speed..likes results...so on....its all about 10 years excessive of GE.
The real problem is your self limiting definition of who you are. You define phony as anything that isn't...me! When you do something, you are thinking, "That isn't me or that is me." 
It is an intersting equation: < (less) me; > (more)  Them = Success


GOD!!! speaking truth is really like releiving from the pain....I hope successful people become more successful...after giving up these behaviours...and get where they want to go!!

Execution

4 Es - Jack's famous words - Energy, Energize, Edge and Execute...are essential traits of leadership and Jack Welch chosen Execution a core part of Leadership.

Most of the CEOs think that their job is to do strategy, planning and delegation, but often ignore that

• Execution is a discipline, and integral part to strategy
• Execution is the major job of the business leader
• Execution must be core element of an organizations culture

Prof.Ramacharan and Larry Bossidy explains in their book called Execution
Its all starts with leaders behaviours, a Leader must

1. Know their people, their business and customers
2. Insist on realism
3. Set clear goals and priorities
4. Review and follow-up
5. Reward the performance
6. Develop people
7. Learn and Unlearn

to build an effective execution culture in the organization. Leader must set a framework for cultural change , a change in set of behaviour or beliefs or set of values governing the organization.

Ram and Larry advises strongly that one must not delegate having right people in right jobs... Interesting observation is that some leaders do reference checks them selves for key posts to ensure they hire the right person.
Most often, we try to design the organization around the people whom you have currently; but one must design the organization structure, roles in order to embrace the change and then hire/fit the right people in the right jobs.
Another essential part of Execution is to express influential authority, as you got to manage sideways and one must have ability to take tough decisions.
Three processes are identified as core processes
1.People process 2. Strategy process 3.Operational process

The people process is more important than either the strategy or operations processes says Ram and Larry, after all in an organization, people make all the decisions around changing markets, create strategies based on their judgements and translate them in to actions. If you do not get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business.
Organizations think developing people is not a good Return on Investment, but fail to understand developing a leadership pipeline through continuous improvement reduces the business risk.
Strategy process...well Short Term, Medium Term and Long Term all are important to develop Actions, Programs , Vision and Mission for business success. I hate to live in a Quarter life in an organization, these businesses just take care of Balance sheets and P & Ls...but not sustained business growth. One of the key question one must ask during the strategy process is that what competition is thinking of and can this organization execute the strategy.
Finally the Operational process must make a link with the strategy and people, by building Quarterly plans, key goals and review rigors in order to execute seamlessly.

Managing Sideways

Managing sideways - a Book written by Price Pritchett, gives a different perspective to Management. Most people often think management means managing top to Bottom, i.e. Bosses, Subordinates, Stake holders, customers...all people..but never look sideways...i.e. managing horizontally.

Indeed when we look at sideways you also find other functions which are not line functions such HR, Finance, Sales, IT etc etc...; which enables the business operations. When we shift by 90 degrees, we also find no of processes which enable peoples job.

This gives new way of looking sideways and lead to Process oriented culture, this book is guided by "Rummler-Brache Process Methodology" .

Most of the process failures are decoded to be "Hand-Offs" failures between process steps, we often do not see the white spaces between them. There no of ways to identify these process improvements such as 6 Sigma, Lean, Kaizen etc etc...to eliminate non value added steps or improvise the hand-offs. Price advises that one needs to rethink their role as manager, one got to unlearn old practices and learn new ways to manage the white spaces.

This would improve the flow better and gives enough room for the people to think and do bigger complex jobs aligning with the bigger job, instead of wasting in transactional flows. ultimately leading to job satisfaction and higher retention.

Interesting definition, you come across here....think people are reporting to customers...then all fall in place and align towards customers. It suggests that the value seen by customer should be the process perspective and often we focus on quality of our products but not on quality of our processes. That is where you see the best turn around companies in the world like GE, Motorola, Toyota are successful in producing quality processes thus quality products.

Processes require measurement systems..right measurement system tells you how to drive your processes and people.

Focus on fixing the environment rather than people, I agree and I add that most of the time culture drives the behaviours and behaviours drive outcomes and we must fix the behaviours in people to produce good results.

Process improvements require to manage the change and we enough learnt in my other blogs how important change is in an organizational life.

Indisputably all these needs a robust communication patterns and balancing all process sub components. The best way Price puts it " Plan, Perform, Measure and Manage" .

Management & Leadership

“ Gandhiji is a true leader – who lived by values; developed many leaders; put his life at stake and led the country to freedom by creating a possibility called Ahimsa. "

In a recent training, when Nathan from insignium took an example of Gandhiji for leadership innovation, I thought several times to to capture my learning in to these words about Gandhiji.I highlighted few words which truly describes the leadership traits and we would throw more light in the following statements.

Let us first start what is management,

A Manager is typically manages others work and a manager Enables & Empowers others work.
Empowerment is taking an idea faster & efficiently, coupled with accountability and by taking intelligent decisions to reality.

Mgmt job is to produce results that wasn’t going happen anyway beyond expectations fm Bx. as usual by drift. Only one thing that produce results is Action and action is a correlation to world occurring. Ofcourse action is not what you think doing and it is perception which is linguistic.

Possibility is a linguistic phenomena and possibility exists only as a correlation. Possibilities exists only when it is said to exist in speaking and listening.
Hence medium of work is explained by conversations (communication) and manager communication is a set of conversations about 4W-H (when, where, why, who and How).

So great manager manages the perception (world occurring) or manages the Action (possibilities) in order to produce results.

Having learnt what is management means....let us see what is leadership means ...

•Leader leads only those people who got a stake in what he is trying to lead.
•Leader “listen” to those leading.
•Leader aligns the team to common goal instead of bringing agreement .
•Leader creates the possibilities, where none currently exists.
•Leader invents actions that express & realize the context (thoughts behind)
•Leader manages the context not content and context is decisive
•Leader communicates a set of conversations for accomplishment, which u do not know how to do.

Basically what we can summarize that leader is in front room and Manager is in the back room. Leader needs walk by the talk and be true innovator.
At certain times, we need to have managers and leaders both in the organization and also some times play different roles based on the situations. Some times, you could be just a sergeant, who is executing a leader's directives. Leader & Manager both need to be change agents and display a great team work.

We all truly regard Gandhiji as a leader, who walked the talk.... "Satyagraha, Ahimsa" etc weapons invented to get the independence to India. Millions followed him in this endeavour putting their lives at stake towards one simple goal.

India independence day is just a two days away.....this is in respect to a world leader called "Gandhiji".
Jai Hind!

Change is the essence of life - need of the hour

Living in status quo is more dangerous than venturing in to unknown, It is easy to start the change when there is a crisis, but it is tough when everything is good.

So in life, change is a constant process, for a recent seminar, I have read few articles, here are some excerpts and my thoughts.

Change is good and should be faster and rapid, the idea is that by changing fast, you're able to beat the cycle of change outside and effective change requires "fast and ruthless execution.

Recently in NY times Craig Barrette (former Intel chairman) said in his speech -

"Use the recession or this adversity as an advantage to fuel the innovation which lasts for years, Open to Global Talent Acquisition and Create opportunities to start new business like Microsoft/Google "

While driving the change, we need to cope up with different status of an organization

1.Stagnation -people are looking for a change, Bad results might drive the change, however some will be against the change or some initiate the change

2.Preparation - Some people are relived that some body initiated a change, but some could be anxious about the change in the fear of losing the comfort zone.

3.Implementation - During the change implementation, there would be lot confusion of living in two worlds, one pre change era and post change era and both exist at same time.

4.Determination -encounter initial hiccups....resistance...hurdles..

5.fruition -when change drives some +ve results, it would inspire lot of people align to the change, however one must exercise caution not to lead to complacency.

During the implementation of change, one could encounter lot of resistance, but it is an art if you could decode the resistance.

- Do not shoot the Bad Messenger
-Resistance is an opportunity and resource, do not see it as a push back or hurdle

-Explain the need for a change, be clear that change takes longer time

-Elicit ideas, look for Pitfalls and uncover the past
-Boost awareness, if some body drifting then return to the purpose
-If you find the change being implemented is not beneficial, do not hesitate to change the change
-Build participation and engagement and complete the Past

Having learnt coping with change dynamics and decoding the resistance, let us look at how we can Lead the Change
- Establish sense of urgency that change is required today or now....
- Bring coalition and alignment of the teams, use different minds to align to same purpose
- Creating Vision and constantly communicating the Vision helps to align and accelerate the change process.
- Empower people to take decisions, set some short term successes and you constantly remove any hurdles in the change journey.
- It is good to celebrate some short wins, so that you inspire people to execute the change constantly.
-Consolidate the improvements and maximize the change
- Institutionalize the new processes, so that change being executed is in full control.


"Change is all about execution of set actions or discipline of getting things done towards the shared vision"

Change is implemented by a team of people with complimentary skills and committed to common purpose or goals, approach for which they hold a greater accountability .

Goals help keep track of progress and broader purpose/Vision will supply meaning
and emotional energy
team must feel " we hold accountability vs Boss holds the team accountable"

Leadership should focus and demand on the teams, the team basics ( technical competency, Problem solving, Decision making skills and Interpersonal skills) and the performance results

Building team performance is important for a successful change process. let us take note of change agent 10 commandments.
1.Create urgency and Set direction
2.demand performance standards
3.Select members by skill not by personality
4.Pay attention in the start and actions -involve
5.Set clear rules for behaviors
6.Set some short term goals
7.Challenge status quo or feed regularly facts/information
8.Spend together -Create team bonding
9.Exploit the Power of +ve feedback
10.Reward & Recognize performance

To summarize the change is essence of life, be it personnel or organization and need of the hour when there are difficult times. It all depends upon how well change is executed with the discipline.

One Minute Aplology - A Powerful way to make things better

Once again my fav author Ken Blanchard enthralls in his book called " The One Minute Apology" with his simple style and good companion to his earlier book "One Minute Manager".

He waves a young man (EA to CEO) story to convey the secrets behind the apology and tells us how he saved his boss and his company.

The toughest part of apologizing is realizing and admitting that you were wrong, Ken begins his book.Let us talk about some of his key messages " The power of the one minute apology is just deeper than words", i.e. saying just sorry does not mean any thing, it has to come from within and show your commitment and win trust of the person whom you hurt.

How many of us really wants to face the truth, pl, tell the truth to every body what you feel and think and see how difficult it would be to live. Ken says One minute Apology begins first with surrender and ends with integrity.

Surrender begins with introspection, and has two parts to it, first is all about you and coming grips with what you did wrong. The second is making sure the person you have harmed feel that you know you made a mistake. To surrender, the fundamental concept is " one minute of being honest with your self is worth more than days, months or years of self deception"

In the story the One minute manager warns every body that "The longer you wait to apologize , the sooner your weakness is perceived as wickedness"

The relation between Honesty and integrity are not mutually exclusive, Honesty is telling the truth to ourselves and others; while integrity is living that truth.

Integrity is all about who you want to be, who you want to be known as forever, even after your death. Nice story ken recalls about Alfred Noble, who invented the Bomb and happened to read his obituary news in the news by accident. He stunned to see what had been written, he was portrayed as destroyer. Since then Noble decided what he wanted to be known as and today we associate him with only Noble prizes.

you have integrity,

• When you recognize where you failed or did wrong and is inconsistent with what you want to be known.


• Reaffirming that you are better than your poor behaviour and forgive your self.


• Recognize how much you hurt others


• Make commitment to your self and others not to repeat this behaviour.

very powerful statements from Ken and one more statement I liked most

" NATO" Not Attached To Outcome..

which reminds me our holy book "Geetha" taught by Lord Krishna "Karmanye vadhi karesthe" Which teaches Do your Karma (do right things you supposed to do) and never think about the phal (fruits of what you did= Outcome). Apologize not for the out come but bcz you know your were wrong and it is right thing to do.

Why one Minute Apology helps because "when you honestly express your feelings with some one you care about you show respect for your self and the relationship"

People with humility don't think less of them selves, they just think about themselves less, hence expressing apology do not demean your self, it in fact raises to your esteem respect .

I strongly recommend to read his books, if you are serious about winning the hearts of people you lead..

Listening to People

"Effectiveness of spoken word", say Ralph and Leonard in Harvard business review, "hings not on how people talk, but mostly on how people listen".

I attend lot of meetings and find generally people lack the listening skills, people start discussions even before a presenter makes his point. So one has to decide, when people want to be a crocodile (speaking with loud mouth) and a rabbit (listening with long ears).

However, as it is put by the authors, " communication is all about listening to some body or some one listening to you".

A poor listener is not necessarily an unintelligent person, to be good listener, some one has to apply their experience and training.

As we all know there is a huge difference between hearing and listening. Hearing is all about the sound waves travelling in the air and reaching your ears. Listening is effectively hearing, processing in mind and understanding what other person is saying.

Well a basic human being can speak 125 words per minute, however our brain can process the words much....much faster than speech. That means we have lot of spare time to think and that is where we wander, while listening.

The basic medium of thought is language, that is also some times influenced by so called "mother tongue", means your effective listening can vary based on the comfort of your language skills.

The authors say, from various research they found four mental ways to be practiced for effective listening for an effective communication between individuals.

1. Engage mind to think ahead of the listener, trying to anticipate where the discussion is leading to and what conclusions will be drawn.
   
2. Weigh the evidence used by the talker, whether it is complete.
   
3. Periodically review what you listened and summarize in the mind.
   
4. Listen between the lines i.e. simply pay attention to "non verbal communication"

One must understand, a human being always swayed by his emotions, which in turn effects the ability to listen or act as filters.

well while you are engaging your mind on the above four effective activities, but remember the following to tide over the filters.

• While listening withhold your evaluation of speaker, means judgements and decisions should be reserved at the end of the conversation.
  
• Do not hunt for negative evidence, means trying to prove what you believe is correct or to prove what you are listening is wrong.

As we all understand, communication plays a major role in a organization and in our social life....you can make enemies or friends based upon what you talk. As a there is a proverb, which says...." If you slip your leg, some one can correct, but if you slip your tongue, it is difficult to correct".

Leadership Communication

Most of us know, the role of communication in an organization or life to be successful person. More over, a Leader's communication can create a positive or negative impact on employees and can create an image around the personality. Quite often you can communicate easily with authority, but difficult when one needs to influence others.
let me share here some of my learning.
Especially a leader communicates in various roles and at different stages of organization life cycles.
Most often these communication change its styles and frequencies based on the level of maturity of the people. When you deliver the message, pl, pay attention to non-verbal communication apart from verbal;People pick faster through non-verbal than verbal.

A leader can be a Community Architect; this could be initial stages of laying out vision for an organization or at the beginning of a project. A leader needs to communicate effectively his vision, by creating a shared need for employees and connecting them to big picture (goals). this speech is more motivational and meaningful to employees.
Lot times leaders depend upon nice stories, I learnt this from my previous bosses...I used to use video clips from my favourite movies like 300, Nemo, Rambo, Lagaan etc....

for example in my organization, the vision is simply centered around 3 numbers, Customer Satisfaction, Employee Retention and Productivity, every single member in the organization understands this.

Its like a Navigator on a ship, leader should be able to set the direction in which the ship should sail to reach the destination (goal of the organization). Leader should be able to link every employee's contribution to the organizational vision/goal. Its all about sailing together, decides at what speed you would reach the goal. I always use the phrase of " let us sail together, those who can not peddle, can be out of the boat".

Most of the times, leader should be able to answer the "how" part in a broader sense, at least so called 30,000 feet level. This is the stage, where leader should convert his vision/goals/thoughts in to actionable plans.

A Leader should play a role of Renewable champion by constantly assessing the progress of a project while in execution mode. He/She can employ a certain frequency to review the progress to revitalize or to keep on the rails. This rigor is so important that the leader should break in to various levels based upon what he/she wants to see " at a quick glance", "High Level" and "Deep Dive", for example it can be daily, weekly or monthly reviews.

It some times the last minute race...how much you energize and drive people to stretch beyond the expectation.

Thought Leadership would be at test for the leader at this stage, how many innovative ideas he/she could bring depends upon ones expertise and experience to fuel the speed of execution.
Learning from mistakes and keeping the blame-game out of the context, work on only process failures makes a leader the most acceptable and rallied around.

Shiva - Adiyogi

God Shiva is one of the three top deities, who believed in Hindu mythology existed before the "Big Bang" or universe creation. The Three God Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva are tasked to create, maintain/protect and destroy (balance) the universe respectively.

God Shiva being responsible for balancing the universe (destroying when necessary), possessed and controlling the five elements - Fire (in the form of Third Eye), Water (Believed to be Ganga in top of his head), Earth (in the form of Ash on his body), Sky and Air. He controlled five elements and considered to be powerful among all Gods, as his son Ganesha is also the leader of God's Army and Shiva's wife Parvati, who is god of Strength.

But Not sure many know.... Shiva is actually the first saint who practiced the art of Yoga and responsible for parting the knowledge to all earthly human beings/ Gods. Though as people feel yoga as Aasanas and some twisting the body..but what shiva also taught on pranayam, dhyanam and reaching the ultimate happiness through Yoga.

He is also who is responsible for bringing the dance forms to the earth, hence people adore him as "Nataraja" and his famous dance form is known as "Tandava".

Shiva's life actually shows simplicity, he lives in Himalayas, always in dhyana mudra, snake around his neck and sitting on tiger skin. "Rudrakhas" are his ornaments, uses Three prong weapon called Trishula.

Shivs birthday is celebrated in India by fasting (or eating only advised diet, which healthy) and praying throughout the night. Hindus believe that post mid night the planet position creates lot of Positive energy, so whoever keeps awake and prays...would bring good health.

"Om Namashivaya"

Slumdog Millionaire

I watched yesterday Slumdog Millionaire Movie....Well I liked the movie bcz it is successful in bringing up exploitation of slum children in India and hopefully it helps for NGOs in gathering more funds for Slum development. Moreover, I expect Govt also does their bit in the fire.


The message is very clear...a Slum boy learns every bit of his answer to the question from the life...it is like just using your common sense and life lessons you can be a millionaire one day.



But coming back to the Oscars and whole movie....a bit I did not like the way movie is getting reviews and ratings...

By the time this is read by somebody...the movie might have got the OSCAR. Well the AR Rahaman is a great music director...but I did not find any thing special about Jai Ho... I personally admire ARR, but he has made many songs from Roja to Jodha Akbar and there are many songs far better than the Jai Ho.

Similarly, The movies which knocked the door from true Bollywood like Lagan and movies which mesmerized us "Tare Jameen par"....are much superior to this movie.

Not sure what helped...may be the language...but surely just an above average movie.

Indian Cuisine

Indian Cuisine is as diverse as India and influenced by its rich culture. Largely you can define this in to 4-5 segments.. 1. North Indian (which can cover all Hindi Speaking States) 2. West Indian (Gujarath, Maharashtra etc), 3.South Indian (all Southern States) 4. East Indian (Bengal etc.)

Well North Indian food is largely influenced by the last rulers of India, the Moghuls...it has lot of Tandoor and Grill Items. the Famous Kababs, Tandoor chicken, assorted breads are from this part of the world.

West Indians -Particularly Maharshatrian food varies with in its regions....the Goans food is more spicy than Marathas...Jowari Roti, Vada Pav,Bhel Puri etc...are famous out here.

But Gujarathi food is dominated by Sweets....you might find Jilebis first to eat than rotis..

Similarly South Indian food is dominated by Rice, Sambar, Idly, Dosa, Uttapam etc.... Hyderabad bit again differs because of Nizam influence... the moment you remember Hyderabad...you remember Hyd Biryani.

Well When comes to East India....Bengali food inspires every body from Fish curry, Rasagullas etc..

But Indian cuisine can be broadly divided in to three varieties ..One Main Course, Break Fast/Snacks and Sweets.

The Oil used also different from each state...like Bengalis favours Mustard Oil and Keralites prefer coconut Oil...But health freaks force sunflower oil to their homes.

The primary cooking style also changes from region to region.... Tandoor Style, Deep Fried style, Boiled style, Tawa style etc etc...

The Spices are also used widely in India.....adds to better digestion and health.

But end of the day like Indian culture its food also placed a special mark on this blule planet.

My Ambitions ??

A Few Flash backs....................

If I had not become an Engineer, I would have become an Air Force Pilot.... Very interesting turns and twists in my life...

Inspired by my father, I always wanted to become an electronic engineer, but some where I wanted to become a leader... My childhood favorites are Chatrapati Shivaji and Swami Vivekananda.... Shivaji is known for an aggressive leadership, Swamiji is known for his progressive thought leadership.

After 10th Std...I had got rank in JNTU Polytechnic in ECE, hailing from Nirmal, a small town in northern AP, it was like dream coming true. But you laugh, we could not reach on time for admission counseling, bcz of traffic jam.

It was a god sent....I had to try hard for Engineering....when we got our ranks close to 500...unbeleivable...lot of people in the town adored us study kings .....well from there life never looked back...

After completing engineering, I was looking for Jobs..however, inspired by NCC, I wanted to become a AF pilot....almost cleared the SSB...but fortunate or unfortunate..got a job in CMC and missed serving nation in the Air Force.

But This time also God helped me to be part of writing a new chapter, which helped my country.
I am proud to say today.... I was always lucky enough to be part of pioneering a private X.25 Network, First email in India and First Call Center in India.

Now I keep an ambition of getting to politics......despite...I hate this profession bcz of too much mud slinging on personnel issues, But somewhere, conscious tells...if we do not go...we ourselves helping to criminalize the politics. May be the time comes....god allows me to rewrite some other chapter in life.

God is invisible.....but keeping faith in his eternal energy...never disappoints you.

Hey Ram...Masha Allah.....Jesus....whoever you pray...keep faith my friend.

Focus for Year 2009

We are living in recessionary economy..not for India...for the rest of world, but definitely its gloomy for us, despite posting yoy 6-7% GDP growth. Well India poised to grow at least 6% in this current situation too just below the china. However, Indian consumption is increasing day by day. Despite more than a Billion people, US consumption is far higher than India, because of its value of $$. While Indian consumer market still has shine, but Industrial and services will definitely get a hit with this.

Every organization is focusing on cutting the costs, improving operational efficiencies and increasing the productivity. Need of hour is to completely live frugal life and abandon the lavish expenditure.

But also this the time for acquisitions /Investments in the business to strengthen the portfolios or expand the customer base. Help customers to cut costs, by consolidation etc. and improve margins, thus make them buy more. Focus should be developing the people, so that they can be more productive.

Hope this turns around by at least Q3/Q4 of this year... government pumped money, should yield some results.

But those will survive, who are the fittest.

One year completion in Symantec

11th Feb, 2009...I complete one year in Symantec... It was a pleasure working here.....12 months ago when I took over...lots of things to do...that gave the kick and challenge.

What I liked here is the Empowerment, Independence, Accountability....... Lot of things what I learnt in GE paved the way for success. Again....i keep saying here.. working for GE is nothing less than IIM, Wharton or Harvard. GE shapes people so brilliantly and develops thought leaders, 6 Sigma fuels this development.

Any way, My team supported me very well over here in Symantec.. I am sure, I won their Trust. The culture change we brought, will help us in sailing through high tides. Despite the economic situation, our team is doing fantastic job.

End of the day I thank my team.....and all My Gurus....

Living with Customers

"Connecting to customers" is an old way of interacting with customers..the New Buzz word is ...."living with the customers"..

How many of service delivery people visit customers and stay in their offices for certain period of time and experience real time issues.......face to face

Another example for "living with customer"

Airlines collect survey forms from customers and analyse...report customer satisfactions...

Instead if an Airline Director/VP sits in middle seat in a airline...interacts with the customer during the journey...gets loads of feedback and also gets the first hand customer experience.

Can any of the Railway minister or officials travel along with Passengers in 2nd class...will get loads of improvement ideas...

I believe one of the world famous stores (*$#) used to send their general managers to store fronts to learn from them and interact with customers.

Even in ancient days...Kings used to go and live with the public to get the gross root issues; except for a change they would take care not to get recognized. 

Many examples....... those did not survive, who neglected front lines, public at gross roots...

" Live with customers".........to survive....

Happy Republic Day

India,  a largest democracy actually become republic on 26th January, 1950 and is celebrating its 6o years of completion. 1 1/2  Billion people coming together under Tiranga,  its mighty display of military  power, Gallantry, achievements, different cultures etc etc... are true replica of a republic.... for the people, by the people and of the people.

Ruled by  Woman president, woman party president, woman chief minister in two states (Delhi and UP)....a true example of woman empowerment in this country. Good to see a lot of this displayed in the republic parade.

A Muslim vice president, a Sikh prime minister, a christian defence minister at top of the government shows how diverse is our republic.

Rich by its missiles Akash, Nag, Prithvi and Brahmos...establish a forte of defence.

60 Years India is becoming a self sufficient and self reliant by achieving in many fields, despite the challenges. Today is a proud moment for every Indian.

Jai Hind.

AR Rahaman

AR Rahaman is one of the prodigy Indian cinema produced, though we can not claim full credit to Indian cinema for Slum dog to millionaire being nominated for OSCAR. But definitely this is another phase for Indian cinema after LAGAAN and Range de Basanthi getting closer. Moreover there are two more documentaries nominated and lot of Indian work has been at nadir.

As AB said, OSCAR is not ultimate testimony for Indian Cinema..but definitely a moment of pride.

Jai Ho Rahaman for hoisting Indian flag high on the blue planet.

Swami Vivekananda

12th January was Swami Vivekananda's Birth Day, disciple of Ramakrishna Paramahansa. He is the only monk, who taught world what actually Hindutva means...His famous address in Chicago was a mesmerized one.
Let us see some of his teachings.....
"If you really want to judge the character of a man, look not at his great performances . Every fool may become a hero at one time or another. Watch a man do his most common actions;those are indeed the things which will tell you the real character of a great man".

"Truth, purity, and unselfishness - wherever these are present, there is no power below or above the sun to crush the possessor thereof. Equipped with these, one individual is able to face the whole universe in opposition".

"Three things are necessary to make every man great, every nation great:

• conviction of the powers of goodness.
• Absence of jealousy and suspicion.
• Helping all who are trying to be and do good.

"Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work or worship or psychic control, or philosophy -by one or more or all of these -and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms are but secondary details".

Let us pay a great homage to a saint..who stood as true Indian...

Culture - A way of life

Culture plays a major role in one's life, be it in professional life or personnel life.

What is culture?

It is displayed in behaviours, beliefs, verbal language, customs, attitudes and practices by a group of people, be it in a organization or society, simply it is a way of life. The characteristics of culture are governed at center by core values set by an organization or society.

India is rich in culture, it varies from state to state, varies from region to region. Culture adopts changes over a period of time, it gets influenced by dominant factors in life. Indian culture is very ancient and influenced by many like Aryans, Greeks, Romans, Moguls...who ever ruled India left marks on the Indian culture. Now a days the political or super powers are governing the culture, like we are influenced by many western cultures today.

Organizations would like to set its own culture. General Electric co. set its values to imbibe culture across the organization .... known to be high with integrity, Trust, openness, boundarilessness etc... Their Slogan Mark used to be "Good things to life" in Jack Welch times and changed to "Imagination at work" now by Jeff Immelt.

Same way Symantec defined its values around Innovation, Action, Trust and Customer-Driven with a slogan mark of " Confidence in connected world".

Longevity in a organization transforms a person to possess its culture, when you change organizations, you may experience culture shocks.

It is important to find out the organizations culture, before jumping in to an organization or you may not stay long time or not succeed.

Time Management

In recent times some body asked me, how do you manage your time. There are lot of books written around this, but believe me it is all about what you think a priority to do now vs. non priority. A simple example....a person went to a friend's city and took time to call his friend and told him that i do not have much time to visit to you in person. His friend replied back to him saying, "do not say you don't have time..it is 24 hours as defined...say you have other priorities to attend to"...

You need to decide in a day what you want to do......some things you need to plan ahead...some things you need to think ahead.....again based on the priorities in your life and profession....

there is no rocket science....it's very simple indeed.

Srisailam - a Temple Hill

Happy New Year ...This is the first blog in new year after a looooooooooong break. I was in Hyderabad and visited Srisailam - LORD Shiva's Temple. This is one of the 12 famous (Dwadasa Jyorlingas) Shiva Temples in the country. Some of them are Kashmir -Amarnath, Somanath (gujrat), Kasi etc...  It is almost 80KM hilly and ghat road drive, about 200Km from Hyderabad. A very nice location surrounded by hills and a small dam. I also liked  the Shivaji memorial, which is built there, believe Shivaji the Maratha king visited this place and blessed with a sword to fight the invaders.

The river Krishna enters Andhra Pradesh from its birth place mahabaleshwer after travelling through Karnataka.