English: Signature of Mahatma Gandhi. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

You can’t learn swimming in a classroom. A powerpoint presentation won’t teach you how to ride a bicycle. Getting “coached” on how to bake an apple pie won’t complete the learning.

Leadership, is a practice.

It is something you do. It is something that is experienced and felt by others. Leadership is an expression of your life-experiences and the values and beliefs you have developed as a result of those experiences.

Really think those can be developed in a classroom? Think again!

I believe organizations are wasting a lot of time, energy and money on sending batch after batch of leaders to workshops. Leadership Workshops will NOT build skill. They serve a purpose and the purpose is:

• Building perspective
• Building knowledge
• Introducing a concept

So how do you do it? How do you build great leaders? 

Skill-building always has been and will be an outcome of practice and experience. Create experiences and situations that test their skills and raise the difficulty levels of the challenge from time to time.

Some ways you can do this are:

1. Job rotation: This does not mean some namby pamby name change for the role or a 1 degree change that the individual will hardly notice. A job change that challenges skills that have not yet been tested is the most appropriate way to do this.

2. Location change: Managing a team in NY is very different from managing a team in Cincinnati. As is the difference between leading people in North India versus South India, or Shanghai versus Singapore.

3. Situation change: Running a sales outfit in an area where you have leading market-share is very different from running a sales outfit in a region where you are the slacker

4. People Challenge: Get them to lead a team of youngsters. Freshers. Folks who’re older than them. Mixed groups. Cross-functional teams. Each one will develop new skills

5. Context change: Manage a start-up business/project. Lead a turnaround situation. Lead a high growth, rapid ramp-up situation. New territory expansion. New product category.

6. Business change: Manage a not-for-profit

Through each assignment, monitor how the individuals are handling people, decisions, analytics, relationships, intuition, growth, resolution. Elicit in partnership with them, the values and beliefs that seem to be driving their choices and behaviours. Develop high levels of self-awareness, reflection, critical thinking and insight. These are long-term differentiators of great leaders.

Don’t molly-coddle. Allow failures. Ensure that challenges are real and steep. Dealing with failures will build both, Resilience (ability to learn and bounce-back) and Humility.

Appoint mentors/coaches who will hand-hold them through the transitions, so that you enable a support structure that fosters success (instead of a sink or swim). The benefits of Transition Coaching are manifold and derisk leadership transitions for organizations.

Not only will the above process develop leaders, it will also bring a new pair of eyes to a lot of roles and throw up things that will benefit the organization as whole. It will raise the levels of engagement and challenge at work thereby increasing retention. Of course, it will derisk the leadership pipeline and succession significantly.

Don’t delay. Pick a cohort. Even if it is just 4 people. Get the sign off from the CEO, and put this into action. At least 2 of the 4 will make it for sure.

Read the IBM interview down below and discover how IBM is reaping multiple value from following a similar process.

Related articles

• Leadership Can’t Be Taught . . .
• IBM Deploys Talent, Technology and Innovation for Global Social Progress

Human Resources is a Supply Chain Management, Quality Assurance, Accounting and Management Department

Thanks to Randy Glasbergen for a brilliant take on what HR needs to deal with at times.. If you're smiling, you must be from HR!

In my earlier post on HR I had promised a more detailed note on the role of HR and, as I read the Economic Times article on HR this morning, I was once again reminded of the dissonance between HR and employees, and the unfairness of it all inspired me to immediately put this down.

The primary role of HR is NOT to be a people-facing function. There. Let’s start with that.

Just like any other function, HR brings a core competence to the business, which the business must recognize and leverage. The primary problems are:

1. Business is unclear what to expect from HR. As a result HR gets neither credit nor necessary empowerment. And ends up with a lot of blame, because the function with fuzzy, unaccountable goals always gets in trouble. Look at any organization that has a great HR track record and you will realize that in those organizations, Business GETS IT. They GET what HR must deliver.

2. Quality of HR Talent. Trained on and brought up on fuzzy expectations/norms, the HR Talent world is woefully thin. And since most HR professionals themselves are unable to clearly articulate/educate for the business, what they bring to the table. The cycle continues. 

The role of being people facing, of looking after employees’ best interests, of ensuring employees are treated fairly, managed well, appraised effectively and rewarded financially and non-financially belongs to each manager and each function head, and finally the CEO.

HR’s job is to ensure the following:

1. Raw Material supply: Just like an SCM function is responsible for sourcing and bringing raw material in. So also the HR team is expected to help the business bring in the talent and staffing required to run the business appropriately. This is a partnered role, where HR will ensure that key processes are in place, but the final outcome depends on the final interview and assessment conducted by the business i.e. supervisor/function head. It is the role of HR to ensure that there is a well developed capability across the organization to interview effectively and that assessments are consistent across various interviewers. It is HR’s job to ensure that the cost of hiring is within established benchmarks/goals.

2. From Raw Material to Finished Goods or Ready goods for the next process: Once the SCM function has brought in the goods. They are handed over to manufacturing to be processed. Similarly, the goal of effective performance management is to ensure that each employee receives input that enables her to perform at her best, and to grow and develop in resonance with the organizations values and culture. Once again, the primary role belongs to the manager of the employee. HR’s job, is to ensure that there is a clear, well-defined, proven process. And that the manager is effectively competent in the process and skills required to do the above. It is also HR’s job to provide MIS on the health of the process and the health of the talent across the organization.

3. Quality Check and Quality Assurance: From time to time, HR must establish whether the Input-Process-Output is performing as per design and expectations. Hence it must perform the role of Quality Check at key points. And work in the Quality Assurance role, alongside the managers to help them raise their levels of capability.

4. Conscience keeper: In addition to the above, HR plays a vital role in being the conscience of the organization. And for this HR is accountable for Truth-telling. If the organization is going astray from it’s values. If the culture is not supportive of the strategy or if there is a departure from the Mission, HR must speak up. In this role it needs to work closely with the CEO and the Leadership team and must be unflinching in it’s ability to tell the truth.

5. Metrics and other transactional areas: Just like the finance team is accountable for certain core financial processes, so also the HR team is responsible for some things purely HR: keeping compensation benchmarks up-to-date and providing input on how the organization compares. Ensuring consistent and transparent policies are available to employees. And there are a few more. 

I would like to hear what you think. Please add to this note, so we can make it more complete.

I would also like you to comment on the capabilities required of HR professionals if the above are indeed their roles.

Related articles

• Hr (learnod.wordpress.com)
• Ed Lawler: Human Resources: It’s Time for a Reset (huffingtonpost.com)

Gurprriet Siingh's Blog on Life, Leadership and Change

I recently came across the work of Ronald Heifetz, on Leadership and was impressed with the simplicity and power of his work.

Here’s an extract of his work, and some takeaways I had. Hope they hold meaning for you too.

Mustering the courage to interrogate reality is a central function of a leader. And that requires the courage to face three realities at once.

First, what values do we stand for — and are there gaps between those values and how we actually behave?

Second, what are the skills and talents of our company — and are there gaps between those resources and what the market demands?

Third, what opportunities does the future hold — and are there gaps between those opportunities and our ability to capitalize on them?

And this is the strength of Heifetz’ work. Three questions that appear simple and yet hold the…

View original post 242 more words

Gurprriet Siingh's Blog on Life, Leadership and Change

When you fail do you:
1. Reflect & Learn? OR

2. Self flagellate & moan?

One of these attitudes will take you to success!

When you succeed do you:

1. Swell up and feel invincible? OR

2. Appreciate everyone involved & reflect to learn what were the key factors that led to success and key decisions that were taken?

One of these attitudes will sustain success

When you learn something new:

1. Do you apply it at the earliest? OR

2. Plan to apply it and it gets forgotten as time passes by?

When you receive feedback:

1. Do you thank the giver, reflect on your own, go back to seek clarification if required & work on correction/continue the strengths consciously? OR

2. Do you get defensive, justify or start giving feedback to the other person?

One of these attitudes makes you a very irritating person

When your direct report…

View original post 175 more words

As an OD practitioner, this is one of the key challenges, to build a culture of Respect and Inclusion

Gurprriet Siingh's Blog on Life, Leadership and Change

Diversity. Inclusion. Affirmative action.

10 years ago, few people knew these words. 20 years ago, hardly anyone. In the recent past, these words have come to become prominent in organizational literature and have also become key functions in some organizations. 

What gets my goat is when I hear talk about “A business case for Diversity”.

Why?

Diversity exists in nature. Look around you. There are hundreds of different types of trees, many different types of dogs, cats, snakes, human beings even. And among human beings there are various tribes, religions, cultures, nationalities, sub-cultures. The universe is fundamentally diverse.

Saying you need a business case for diversity, is like saying you need a business case for leadership.

So why has Diversity suddenly gained so much prominence?

Thanks to globalization, mobility and the internet, organizational homogeneity has come to an end. Time was (a century and half or so ago), someone opened…

View original post 715 more words

HR

A colleague was telling me today how an employee walked up to him the other day, and said “HR isn’t doing enough to represent the employees”… Maybe this was once the case. When HR was supposed to “represent” the employees’ interest. Not any more.
 
I firmly believe that “representing” employees, being sensitive to their needs, counseling, coaching, rewarding etc. are all the job of the manager. If line managers “outsource” this role to HR, then that organization will never have a powerful employer brand, nor will it be able to hold onto or develop talent.
 
What then is the role of HR? Is that what I hear you asking? 
 
Why don’t you tell me..
 
All that I will say is, anything that can be outsourced to a third party (payroll, leave management) are no longer the role of HR.

 
Leave your comments and I promise to collate the responses, as well as put up what I think is the contemporary JD for HR professionals. But first, I’d like to hear what you think! Leave a comment.

Great Places to Work

Interesting thoughts and insights from the PeopleMatters, Great Place to Work conclave

“	At hire stage (teach for india) applicant has to convince the interviewer WHY s/he wants to join..If they can’t, no job #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Teach for India, clearly using the Visionary Leadership model to attract talent.Follow me and we’ll build the nation. #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Anuja Kishore (Teach for India) talking about "recruiting" volunteers for Teach For India.. Interesting challenge #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Microfin orgs which focus on double-bottomline, need to hire people who have dual goals i.e. Personal and social goals #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Before we hire anyone, they have to spend a day on the field, in the slums/villages. Samit Ghosh CEO/Founder Ujjivan #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	H R heads keep talking about processes. CEOs talk about principles, philosophy and behaviours.. #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Interestingly enough,CEO speakers have spoken more clearly than the H R speakers about what makes a Great Place to Work #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Lack of fairness is the greatest contributor to demotivation and disengagement in an organization #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	Employees are not looking for HR processes, HR professionals are.. *wisdom* by Joyoti Banerjee #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Over 75% employees in corporates today, have less than 5 yrs tenure in present company #GPTW #PeopleMatters How do we manage transients?
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Younger age group employees are harder to engage and retain than older ones. Joyoti Banerjee of #GPTW at the #PeopleMatters conclave..
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Leadership is not something the just the CEO does, but managers, all the way down the line, Sanjay Rishi #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Sharing Best Practices is itself a Best Practice, Sanjay Rishi, AmEx #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Good leaders are those who bring infectious optimism and communicate well, Harsh Chitale, HCL #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	During tough times, ensure you have a compelling vision and communicate ruthlessly, Harsh Chitale, HCL #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Ability to attract n retain talent is a key competitive differentiator today – Sanjay Modi, MD Monster.com #PeopleMatters conclave on #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Leaders’ reputations are not made during good times, Sanjay Rishi, AmEx #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	3 models of leadership 3. Visionary leadership – follow me for achieving this great vision, Sanjay Rishi, Amex #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	3 models of leadership. 2. Negative leadership – if you don’t follow me, something bad will happen, Sanjay Rishi, Amex #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	3 models of leadership. 1. Positive leadership – follow me because good things will happen if you follow me #GPTW #PeopleMatters
	JoyAndLife August 23, 2011

“	Easy measure for engagement- Do ppl come to work charged on a Monday, or do they drag themselves in-Rajendra Ghag, HDFC #PeopleMatters #GPTW
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

“	#PeopleMatters #GPTW As Anuja Kishore speaks, she has already used the term "non-negotiable" several times. Tells … http://t.co/PkPTtgi
	JoyAndLife August 24, 2011

OD insight

I just wrote a blogpost that’s a great example of the kind of thinking, insight and provocation an OD professional can bring to an organization.

Read Center Shift at http://joyandlife.wordpress.com/2011/07/24/center-shift/

Happy reading!

Know thyself..

Image via Wikipedia

As an OD professional. As an agent of change. Your primary challenge will not be systems or furniture or machines. It will be people. And their motivations. And you must posses a DEEP understanding of human beings and their motivations. And you will achieve this only when you have a DEEP understanding of your own motivations first.

The net is a wonderful place for serendipitous connections. I found this absolutely mindblowing blogpost that gave me goosebumps and I hope will give you a moment of reflection and some idea of what I refer to above.

Read. Reflect.

http://unnamedentity.posterous.com/the-isle-of-man

Questions – What you ask, is what you get..

Image by 姒儿喵喵 via Flickr

Continuing on from diagnosis, it is important to understand that a key part of diagnosis is asking questions.

It may sound cliched, but it’s absolutely true and very relevant, that you will only get answers to the questions you ask. Ergo, the completeness and impact of your OD intervention will depend on the quality of your questions. They’re directly proportional!

That’s why I decided to write a post that focuses only on Questions.

As you prepare for the diagnosis dialogs with members of the leadership team, here’s what you need to understand completely: 

The past – The beginning, the legacy.

The present – Current state.

The future – Desired state.

The Whats-

• What is the present state
• What was it like in the past
  
• What is the future likely to be
• What is desired
• What works
• What should not, must not change
• What most desperately needs to change
• What would be nice if it changed
• What is going on inside
• What is going on in the outside world
• What has been tried and has failed
• What has been tried and has worked well
• What should not be attempted at all
• What are the key performance measures of the business. What were the numbers like in the past? What are they today? What is expected in the future? What impact on those numbers is desired as a result of this intervention?

The Why’s

• Why were we successful in the past
• Why are we successful today
• Why will we be successful in the future. Why not.
• Why is an intervention needed
• Why now

Additional questions:

• Who are the key influencers – at each level of the hierarchy, all the way to the bottom of the pyramid
• How will impact be measured?
• How soon is the change required?
• Are there parts of the organization or team that continue to do well or are different from the norm? Are there islands of excellence here? If yes, what is different about them? Why are they different? What can we learn from them and apply to the larger context?
• What are the causes for being where we are today? Both in terms of the good stuff, and what can be better.

Now here’s the interesting bit. Questions can also be used for more than just gathering information. Questions are very powerful when used to provoke thought. A simple example of a provocative question is “Road tere baap ki hai kya?” (Loosely translated, that means “Does this road belong to your father?”) but of course I use the example in jest. This particular question only provokes a response (And sometimes you need that too!).

Thought provoking questions: 

• What if you were to start this business afresh today. What would you do differently? How would you structure/design the business model?
• What if you had to relook at the market in such a manner that what you currently offer as product/services, is only 5% of the marketshare?
• What would happen if you were to walk away from your bottom 50% customers. How would it impact your business?
• If we had to double our production, but reduce our costs by 25% how do we do that?
• If we have to double our marketshare in the next 2 years, what should we be doing?
• What if we were to do away with the Quality department altogether. How would we restructure the way we manage business then?
• So what’s wrong with being an aggressive culture that doesn’t focus on people practices?
• Why should we change?
• Why can’t we continue the way we are? We’ve certainly done well so far.

Image by amanky via Flickr

The objective of this post was to provide an insight into the power of questions, and how you must leverage them as a key tool in your quest to diagnose and design an appropriate OD intervention.

Take it from me. If you haven’t invested at least half a day in building together the set of questions you’re going to ask as part of your diagnosis exercise, you’ve not done a good job.

That’s the level of preparation you require in order to do a deep diagnosis.

Please share some questions that work for you, and leave them as comments. That will add to us all!

Keep reading, keep giving me feedback on how to improve this blog and stay subscribed. I will ensure this series goes on. And there might just be a certificate in it for you ;o)

Aaaah I’m kidding! What the hell would you do with a certificate anyway? That’s the question….

Related articles

• Organization Development – The Process (learnod.wordpress.com)
• 365 Thought Provoking Questions to Ask Yourself This Year (marcandangel.com)
• Diagnosis – The Key to Effective Organization Development (learnod.wordpress.com)
• What is OD? (gautamblogs.com)
• 25 Beautifully Illustrated Thought-Provoking Questions (kozar.wordpress.com)