Dynamics of Human Resource Management

HR department automation by Comindware Tracker

2011-10-03T05:34:00.000+04:00

Resources Management has never been easy from any point of view. Tired of endless paperwork, the same manual processes repeated over and over, we decided to take a look at how it was possible to change this situation.

It turned out to be so that many versions of different HR software are available now on the market to automate every process we daily perform within our department. Yet mostly one application stores data, another one can process it and all of them cannot be integrated within other automation systems of the company. Also, all the steps of the process are disconnected, as well as the HR department is isolated from other departments. Comindware Tracker solves this problem within a single application.

First good thing we learned about it is that it is aSaaS solutions for HR with user friendly web interface. Means, all the information about the employees is kept within one application and is available from anywhere as it is stored within a cloud. The web application spares from desktop disadvantages such as long time of connection to the server and transferring data. Then, of course, it’s possible to store all the info within an Excel file but in this case whenever you need this information for any document, you need to take it manually from the file and put it into the document proper fields. And this takes time, tires and leads to inevitable mistakes. This problem is also solved with Comindware Tracker.

Comindware Tracker is a new product designed to satisfy the growing SMB and Enterprise needs in business process modeling and automation. The Semantic Data Storage™ technology provides you with an extremely flexible business layer that spares you from sophisticated process programming and enables quick and easy integration with any existing automation systems you have already implemented within your company.

Comindware HR Workspace enables you to automate your HR department work in no time. It is a set of Workflows for all the necessary HR department activities, such as Hiring, On-boarding, Vacation request processing, Quitting\Firing\Redundancy.

You probably already use some of existing HR automation software for keeping and reporting data. Comindware HR Workspace offers quick integration with existing 3^rd party automation systems and provides quick and easy data migration.

Keeping data is not enough: it is to be processed and better if it’s processed automatically. For instance, when you have to submit a Vacation Request, you can just submit an Item ‘Vacation Request’ and it starts to run through the Workflow scheme by itself. The tasks are assigned to the responsible specialists and the request is processed automatically. No need to search for names and people, the right order is already installed and all the necessary information is being gathered by the Workflow. Employees get notifications at each step of the process so that your request cannot be left aside, inappropriately submitted or remain unprocessed.

Comindware HR Workspace comes with a default set of templates that can be customized to your appropriate needs. The templates set cover main activities that usually take place in an HR department everyday working process.

Comindware Tracker release is due in October 2011. By now it’s possible to sign up for the release list and get notification when the product is available. We are looking forward to seeing it and trying it out.

I will talk to the Boss / Boss Has Told Me…

2011-04-04T11:43:00.002+04:00

I will talk to the Boss / Boss Has Told Me…

“Boss has told me” or “I have spoken to the boss” are some of those phrases that are excessively used in the corporate world.

Who uses it: This is a group of people with below average IQ level. Predominantly, these people are immature, uninformed, less-knowledgeable, incompetent, and usually non-performers. They are big bullies. In a common language these people are also referred as sycophants.

Why they use it: They are attention seekers. Nothing is easier to get the attention of your colleagues than to demonstrate your pseudo closeness with your boss. They try to hide their incompetence and non-performance by demonstrating unwanted and overtly care towards their reporting managers and diverting his or her focus from the core performance issues. In an attempt to demonstrate their closeness to the key-person(s) in the organization, they try to create various power-centers in the organization by exuding the message, “come to me, I will get your work done”.

If we look into the behavioral psychology, these are the kind of people, when they were growing-up they used to bully their siblings at home by saying, “I will tell Mom” or “I will tell Father” and later in school they began to use the phrase, “I will tell the teacher”. Therefore, it is obvious that these people when they moved to workplace, they rephrased it to “I will tell the boss or boss has told me”.

Let’s discuss more about it with a few elaborations.

In an organizational setup, one gets an opportunity to see and interact with all kinds of people. Some are attention seekers and will do anything to be visible (sometimes even an irritating and ridiculous act); some are rebels (they always do what they are told not to do); some are hard working and some are hardly the working kind of people; some are calm and many are very vocal about everything that they see, hear and feel; some always share their problems with everyone that they meet in the office and the rest are the frontrunners in giving free advises; so on and so forth. And then there is this category of employees who do not miss any opportunity to flaunt their proximity with their bosses. Every time they start a discussion; it begins with one of the following:

“I will tell the boss”,

“Boss has told me”,

“I have spoken to the boss”

“I had discussion with the boss”

“Boss has asked me to get ______ from you”

In this write-up we will throw some light on “I have spoken to the boss” kind of people. I do not remember the exact date or time, however, I believe that I began to observe and notice this category of people in the workplace and their behavior in the second half of last decade.

First Incident: The first time I came across such scenario was during the time when Mr. Ashish N. was my reporting manager. Or I must say that I was reporting to multiple heads at work location and in corporate office. Mr. Ashish has had good rapport with many senior managers more than that of the Head of HR, primarily because of the fact that he was one of the long-serving HR professional in the organization. Every time we have any discussion on any subject, he always used to begin with, “I have discussed this with the HR Head” or “CEO Sir has asked me to get this done” or “Mr. VP Operations want you to do this”. Initially, I never countered or cross-checked and on many occasions, during our weekly meetings he reversed his stand and put the blame on the others. Later on I began to cross-check his every instruction with the concerned person or department head and I realized that on many occasions, there was a huge communication gap. His communication with that person would always be different from his communication with me. What the other person would like him to get it done and what he communicates to me would always be different. On observing his behavior more closely, I realized that he has a sense of insecurity. He was of the opinion that if he won’t do what he is doing and if he don’t behave the way he does, he might lose his image. Probably he wasn’t aware that in his absence, people crib about him, bad mouth him and most importantly use him as a tool to divide the team and the department for their own benefit. When your seniors know that you are not a performer but rather a sycophant they begin to treat you as one and you begin to lose your own ground. You begin to doubt your own capabilities and skills.

Second Incident: When I met second such person, I was technically and logically prepared to face and counter such people. He was my colleague Mr. Ashish K. I believe it was the first time in his career, when he realized that probably, he is dealing with a difficult HR Department Head that he cannot con, intimidate, bully or use for his own advantage. As soon as he joined, he began to show his colors. On first occasion, someone from his department applied for leave and he directed that person to me. I said to that individual that as per the company and HR policies, he can take the leave; however, HR cannot approve his leave. His leave needs to be approved by the concerned department head, which is responsible for his deliverables and project deadlines. Later on, Ashish came to me to tell that he do not want to approve the leave of this person, however, he do not want to communicate it to the concerned person but rather want HR to communicate it to him. The reason that he gave is he does not want to spoil his relations with his team-members. He was planning to build his own team and inculcating team-spirit at the cost of HR. Now, because he knows that I am a difficult HR to deal with, so, every time that he would approach me, he begins the communication with, “I have already spoken to the CEO and CTO” or “CEO has asked me to inform you that”, etc. I told our CEO that this person is selling your name on the floor for his own advantage and that may affect the image of the management. Mr. CEO asked me to be careful in dealing with the requirements of Ashish.

Shared Responsibility (To be held accountable): As I grew in the company and in my career, I realized that the best way to handle such people is to make them accountable for everything that they say. In pre-economic reform era, companies have used memos to ensure proper flow of information and to enforce accountability. In an era when emails became a major mode of communication, it become a norm to not to accept any verbal or oral instructions or directions. If anyone comes and says that X, Y, Z has asked him or her to get something from you or to direct you to do some work for him or her, just ask that person to drop-in an email with copy to the concerned person. It has been observed that whenever you ask someone to send an email or give it in writing and make them answerable, many of them change their mind. Most often, people want to take a free bite and use the name of a senior and an influential person to get their work done. They want you to do the work for them and at the same time take the credit for the work done by you. Here, I like to share one more example. “Manager A” asked “Employee B” to do a certain work for him. “B” tried to do it for several days and when there was only ONE day left to submit the report to “A”, “B” asked “Employee C” to do it for her as she could not do it. Both “B” and “C” reports to “A”. “C” asked “B” to send an email to her with a copy to “A”. “B” refused to do so. It was apparent that “B” was trying to hide her incompetence and failure by passing on the responsibility to “C”.

Personality Analysis

It has been observed that those who use the name of their influential and fearsome seniors to get their work done are usually incompetent and indecisive people. They are non-performers and they have a sense of insecurity. They feel insecure about their job, and losing their reputation. They do not want to be held accountable and answerable for any of their decision or act; however, if the act gets a favorable response, they want to take credit for their initiatives, foresight and the success. Such people do not grow in their career and definitely cannot be an Entrepreneur or SBU Head or Member of Board. Boards need performers with a track record of outstanding performance, decision makers and risk takers to head important business units and profit centers.

Corporate Analysis

Companies that inculcate and encourage such culture and do nothing to curb it are the ones that crash-land before taking the flight. Such companies lack proper flow of information and the channel of communication become blurred.

This write-up is based on my personal corporate experiences, observations and research of last 10+ years. I believe that people should take responsibility for their work and be held accountable and answerable for everything that they take-up. Responsibility can be shared but the accountability lies with the concerned individual.

Kindly share your thoughts and opinion on this write-up.

From the desk of Sanjeev Himachali

Email: ss_himachali@yahoo.com; Sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com; http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://diaryofsanjeev.blogspot.com/

Disclaimer: This write-up is based on true incidents. All Names, and characters, are either the product of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Job Satisfaction Interpreted

2011-03-18T11:13:00.010+04:00

Job Satisfaction Interpreted

Job Satisfaction comprises of two words “Job” and “Satisfaction”. Before we define the phrase, it is important to understand the word “satisfaction”. Satisfaction is defined as the fulfillment or gratification of a desire, need, or appetite. Gratification is a state of being gratified or satisfied. Therefore, one can conclude that “satisfaction” is an internal feeling and no amount of external pleasures or comforts can satisfy you unless you want “to feel” satisfied.

Wikipedia has defined job satisfaction as a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job; an affective reaction to one’s job;and an attitude towards one’s job.Weiss (2002) has argued that job satisfaction is an attitude but points out that researchers should clearly distinguish the objects of cognitive evaluation which are affect (emotion), beliefs and behaviors. This definition suggests that we form attitudes towards our jobs by taking into account our feelings, our beliefs, and our behaviors.

Gone are the days when people used to join one company and retire from the same company after spending their entire life in the company. Relocation for job was not the norm. However the introduction of economic reforms in early 1990’s has changed the way of people’s outlook towards their career and professional life. Thinking small or thinking less becomes unacceptable. People begin to think that thinking little is a crime. The kind of money and comforts that people got exposed to was something unrealistic and unimaginable by the previous generation. All this has contributed to the greed of human being. Companies begin to offer numerous benefits to their employees’ such as pick-and-drop facilities, mobile, high-tech cafeterias, fully subsidized houses, financing for their higher education, stock-options, opportunity to work on-site, in-door games, and in-house entertainment, option to work from home, so on and so forth. Has all these facilities and benefits contributed towards the job-satisfaction of employees? No, it hasn’t. It has only contributed to expand their greed. Doesn’t matter what you offer to them and how you keep them, the moment they get any better offer, they will leave the company. So, how and when does an employee begin to feel satisfied in his job?

I define job satisfaction as a perfect state of mind that can be attained only then when either a person gets tired of changing jobs at regular intervals or companies get fed-up of hiring a recurrent job-hopper. One may move from one company to another and may change 7-8 companies in a span of, say, 5-6 years (I know people who have achieved this goal in lesser number of years). In every company, they found similar kind of comforts, benefits and perks and now that they have become tired of changing jobs and hence they thought of “begin to love their current job and feel satisfied in the current environment”. Other reason for being satisfied in their current job is that they have hopped so many jobs and companies in last few years that the companies have begin to ignore their profiles. If there is no job in offering, you will love what you have.

I believe that all these job satisfaction talks and surveys are wastage of time and resources. Just like the way, no one can motivate you or make you feel passionate, if you do not want to; in a same way, no one and nothing can make you love your job or feel satisfied in your job, if you don’t want to.

If you're looking to improve the quality and completing rates of your company's employees try finding solutions with performance appraisal tools from Halogen.

Kindly share your thoughts.

Composed By: Sanjeev Himachali

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com; http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ and http://diaryofsanjeevhimachali.com/

Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com

You have a Job to do

2011-02-22T11:08:00.000+04:00

You have a Job to Do

“You may be President or Prime Minister of a country or a C-Level Executive or Management Expert of a company, however, you are what your position or job has made you. You exist in a system because of your position and role and not the vice-versa. ”

In our lives, over the span of our professional phase, there comes a time when we find ourselves at the cross-roads of our professional commitments or limitations of our job and our ethics, principles and values. Choosing the one becomes a compulsion, however, which one to choose becomes a ploy. Let me share two scenarios.

During the second term of the former President of America, George W Bush, he was disliked by not only people from the Middle-East, Arabic Countries and others from the international community but he also faced protest and hate of his own countrymen particularly those who were against the President’s move to initiate war against Iraq at the cost of the country’s economic growth and prospects. However, irrespective of the personal displeasures, hatred and abhorrence, the security officers always protected the President against any possible external threat. They did not allow their personal opinion and judgment to influence their job responsibilities and duties.

On 31^st October 1984, the then Prime Minister of India Smt. Indira Gandhi was assassinated by her own on-duty bodyguards. Someone who was entrusted to guard the Prime Minister killed her brutally because those bodyguards were influenced by their religious obligations and couldn’t differentiate between their professional duties and personal or religious compulsions. As a body-guard of someone, it is the duty of an individual to protect the person he is entrusted to guard. How can he let someone else or anything external to him, deviate from his job responsibility or duty?

The circumstances and scenarios discussed here are two extremes, however, in our day-to-day life, we often find ourselves in a situation where we find it difficult to choose between professional commitments and personal choices. When you are at work, you are definitely not the person of your own choice, rather you are a person related to the position that you are occupying and you are expected to honor that position and role. Whenever we take any job or get promoted to a new position, doesn’t matter if we are required to take an oath or not, however, silently we all pledge to ourselves to be honest to the role entrusted upon us. The pledge signifies that “I do solemnly swear that I will use all my talent and abilities in the discharge of the responsibilities undertaken by me. I will defend the office against all enemies, internal and external; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; That I will not allow my personal interest to influence my official conduct or my official decisions; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office in which I am about to enter and that I will not directly or indirectly communicate or reveal to any person any matter which shall be brought under my consideration or shall become known to me as may be required for the due discharge of my duties”.

Doesn’t matter if you are a C-Level Executive or a lawyer or a doctor or a management expert, your position and role is above your personal self. You may be a driver in a bus or a gardener in a public garden; it is your duty to ensure the safety of your passengers and to take care of the plants respectively without being prejudice and getting influenced by opinions and thoughts of others around you. Though it is not abnormal to find yourself at such a cross-road, however, what we choose or the choice that we make decides the kind of person that we are. It is very difficult not to get influenced by the thoughts, opinions and views of people around us and not to let our emotions control the outcome of our decision, however, the true test of a person is to take a decision that is clear and conscience and something that you won’t regret at the later stage of your life.

Kindly share your thoughts and views on this subject.

Take very good care of yourself.

Composed By: Sanjeev Himachali

Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com; http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/ ; http://diaryofsanjeev.blogspot.com/

Human Resource (HR) Professionals – By the Company, For the Company

2011-02-10T10:34:00.001+04:00

A misconception and a myth has been very persistent in the Corporate Sector across the globe as well as in talent and job market that the companies set-up Human Resource Departments and hire HR professional (called by any name) to ensure career development and growth as well as welfare and well-being of its employees. In reality, a HR Professional is hired to safe-guard interests of companies and to ensure that “human” resources are optimally utilized. As a company grows, its employees and all other people associated with it grows and not the vice-versa.

Employees are sent for Training and Development programs not for the reason that the company thinks about their development and growth but because it is easy to spend X amount on Training and Development than to hire a new employee with required skills at 3X or 4X the amount. Of course, it provides an opportunity to an employee to enhance his skills and learn something new and opens up new avenues for growth; however that is not the primary objective.

Benefits and Perks of all kinds are extended to make certain that an employee gives his best and be more productive and not to ascertain personal happiness and comforts of individuals. For example, a mobile phone is provided to ensure that you attend all official calls; transport services and cars are given to and provided to employees to ascertain that they could reach office at any time that they are asked to come. Houses are provided not to ensure that employees spend more quality time in their houses and relax but be in the office for longer period or take the work to home. Employees are sent for onsite projects and are given overseas promotions not to show them different countries and cities but to make sure that the assigned work is done on time and at a reasonable rate.

At the time of crisis (economic slowdown, antagonistic market, stiff competition, mergers and acquisitions, take-over’s, etc), it becomes apparent for the HR team of an organization to save the company, which may include but will not be limited to cost-cutting, lay-offs, etc. Not only at the time of crisis, even in good times HR teams have protected the company against unsuccessful attempts by some people to create hostile workplace atmosphere and that of non-performers.

HR Professionals are hired by the Company and it is their responsibility to ensure its growth and prosperity. They are hired by the company, and for the company. To safeguard the company and its interest and to ensure its growth is the primary responsibility of HR Professionals of any company. For the purpose of this write-up, “Company” is a separate entity and it is over and above all individuals associated with it. In spite of all the above mentioned responsibilities, tasks, objectives and purposes, the HR Department is nothing more than a “Service Department” of the company.

Kindly share your feedback and give your comments.

From the Desk of Sanjeev Himachali

Email: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com;

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Perception and Truth

2011-01-17T13:39:00.001+04:00

My Perception, My Truth

The word "perception" comes from the Latin words perceptio, percipio, and means "receiving, collecting, and action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses. What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including one’s culture, and the interpretation of the perceived.

In the case of visual perception, some people can actually see the percept shift in their mind's eye. Others, who are not picture thinkers, may not necessarily perceive the 'shape-shifting' as their world changes. The question, "Is the glass half empty or half full?" serves to demonstrate the way an object can be perceived in different ways. Just as one object can give rise to multiple percepts, another object may fail to give rise to any percept at all: if the percept has no grounding in a person's experience, the person may literally not perceive it.

Preconceptions can influence how the world is perceived. The processes of perception routinely alter what humans see. When people view something with a preconceived concept about it, they tend to take those concepts and see them whether or not they are there. This problem stems from the fact that humans are unable to understand new information, without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge. A person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth, because the human mind can only contemplate that to which it has been exposed. When objects are viewed without understanding, the mind will try to reach for something that it already recognizes, in order to process what it is viewing. That which most closely relates to the unfamiliar from our past experiences, makes up what we see when we look at things that we don’t comprehend.

We obtain information from the external world, from our senses: taste, hearing, smell, touch, sight. Then we somehow integrate and analyze perceived information and make our decision. Decision is an “outcome of mental processes (cognitive process) leading to the selection of a course of action among several alternatives. Every decision making process produces a final choice”. How do we make a decision, or even better to ask what leads us to make a decision? All our decisions are directed by our instincts, unconsciously. The basic human instinct is self-preservation or, in other words, survival and reproduction. But the decisions, which we make according to our instincts, are different. That’s because of the upbringing, different moral values, and our ability to analyze behavior and learn. We always behave in order to maximize our instinct requirements, our ability to survive, preserve ourselves our family or our kind. This way we have three basic levels of perception - Obtaining information, integration and analysis of information, and reaction. Our five senses is the input of information, while our actions and decisions are the output. The source for the input information is external world, while the output is our process of thinking based on our instincts. The understanding, which role instincts play in our life, is crucial. Instincts is the foundation of human society, is the only one thing that all humans have in common.

Let’s discuss a few illustrations.

A glass filled to half of its capacity with a colorless liquid was presented to a group of five people and asked to give comments. First one said, “The glass is half empty”. The second one took some time and replied, “The glass is half full”. The third person echoed the views of the 2^nd individual and the fourth person echoed the views of the 1^st individual. The fifth person took more than five minutes to make a conclusion and he said, “The glass is not half-filled but it is full. The bottom half is filled with water and the second half is filled with air”. These five individuals were then described by a panel of psychological analysts as pessimistic, optimistic, optimistic, pessimistic and over-optimistic respectively.

All these individuals were then asked to take a sip from the glass and explain what it is. The first one came forward and took a sip, gave numerous expressions on his face and said, “I do not know what it is but I am certain that it is not water”. The second person took a sip and said, “It tastes like a cold-drink but I do not know which one is it”. The third individual from the group came forward, took a sip and said, “It is liquor. However, it is not a local or DESI liquor; it’s English or imported liquor”. The fourth one in the group said, “It is Vodka mixed with a Cold-Drink”. Last person in the group, who was looking very impatient and a bit tired, came forward and took a sip and said, “It is Kauffman Luxury Vintage Vodka. It is a Russian brand of Vodka. The word vodka comes from VODA, the Russian word for water”. After the second round, the panel of intellectual analysts described these candidates as Innocent, Ignorant, Informed, Educated and well versed (and probably experienced), respectively.

Later on in the final stage of the assessment, this group was shown a picture of a woman and was asked to describe the picture and support it with suitable reasoning. The first person from the group who was 24 years of age described the woman in the picture as “Old and yet beautiful”. The second individual had a look at the picture and described her as “most beautiful woman that I have ever seen; she is attractive and her eyes are awesome”. The third person in the group described the picture woman as “nothing astonishing or worth commenting; an average looking woman”. Fourth one in the group took a closer look, as if he is trying to search something in the picture and he described her as “the ugliest woman I have ever seen”. He said that he have seen and been with many beautiful women and she is no where closer to them. In fact, with her facial expressions, she is looking cheap and vulgar. The fifth person in the group, a 45 year old guy, described the woman in the picture as, “a young lady from a rural community, trying to adjust with urban culture and willing to learn”.

To elaborate more, let’s also discuss about some of our sensory organs and their role in perception. A curry or an eatable can be tasty or tasteless and spicy or plain based on the kind of food that you are used to or have been eating in the past. A particular type of music can be soothing or melodious for one and noise for someone else. One kind of aroma can be a scent or a fragrance for a person and an obnoxious smell for another. A touch by the same person can be hard or soft for two different people. In each of the above four scenarios, we have mentioned about two extremes of responses. Within these two extremes, there can be numerous other variations. Hence, the perception of each individual becomes his moment of truth.

Let’s discuss some more examples of perceptions. Four people, at lunch time, sitting across dining table and having serving plates and bowls in front of them. An outsider can perceive this, as if all four of them are having lunch; whereas, in real they may not. It is possible that one or two of them are giving company to other two. In an another incident, a male and a female of same age group, going out together on several incidents, may be perceived as a couple having romantic interests and links.

If you notice, in all these examples, none of the expressions, or perceptions was wrong. They all were correct and true. All these perceptions were influenced by the past experiences, knowledge, social exposure and family culture of each one of them. Every individual is different and so are their circumstances, situations and experiences, which in turn sway their outlook and their perception towards external things, nature, incidents, and events.

I would say our perception of reality is infinitely more important than reality itself. It isn’t that reality is not important, since reality is what we base our perceptions on, but that perceptions are the ones that can make reality real. When we don’t believe in something, how can it be real? Until we start believing like we can, we can’t.

Let’s discuss. Kindly share your thoughts and opinions.

Composed By: Sanjeev Himachali

BLOGS: http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com; www.sanjeevhimachali.com; and http://diaryofsanjeev.blogspot.com/

Email: ss_himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com

Skype: sanjeevhimachali

Twitter: sanjuhimachali

Easy Way Out

2011-01-13T13:44:00.000+04:00

Easy Way Out

If given a choice, we as Human Beings, are very fond of picking-up easy activities or tasks or assignment or projects, at least till the time we are pushed to or are left with no other choice but to breach the comfort zone. For example, we don’t like any assessment of our knowledge or work but we want people to believe that, “I and only I am the best”; and we don’t like to compete, rather we try to ignore the completion but we like to be declared as a winner. There are many such examples and incidents where we have demonstrated that we like “the easy way out”. This article is an attempt to highlight some of the things that we love doing and few other things that we conveniently try to ignore or avoid and rather find it difficult to do. Let’s first discuss easy things.

1) Complaining: We love complaining about almost everything around us. We complain about our government, our legal system and education system, our bosses and colleagues, policies about our organization / company, and almost everything that comes across our way. Complaints are our excuses for our non-performances, non-productiveness, our current state and almost all problems that we could figure out. “I cannot work in the day because my skin will get tainted and I cannot work in thenight because I am scared of darkness; I cannot work in summer because I feel hot and my body gets dehydrated and I cannot work in winter because I feel cold and my body becomes numb”.

2) Finding Mistakes: We are very good in finding mistakes too. You give us an excellent piece of work and we will still find a mistake in your work. We can find mistakes, even then when we do not know how that work has been done. We don’t know the A, B, C, D of painting or music or any creative work and yet we can find mistakes in that work to an extent of criticizing it, ridiculing it and rejecting it. We do not know how to cook but we can find mistakes in the food cooked by others.

3) Gossiping: We love talking about others and want to get entertained at the cost of others. We gossip and laugh on the way people walk, talk, eat, and dress-up, their mannerism as well as their behavior. We laugh when someone falls. We have hearty laugh on the failure of others. We laugh at their problems and sometimes on their pains.

4) Blaming: We are too good in blaming others, external factors and sometimes even God for our failures and problems. Isn’t it easy to blame others rather than accepting and taking-up the responsibility and accountability for everything that happens in our life? “I couldn’t deliver my project on time because X member or sub-team didn’t complete their portion or tasks of the project”. “I believe that the God wants me to go through all these problems”.

5) Giving opinions and unwarranted advices: Just because our opinions and advices do not hold us accountable for the outcome of an activity or task, we give them a lot, often and many times unwarranted and unsolicited. We are very assertive and many times aggressive in giving our opinions and advices. At the end, however, we shed away from any responsibility by saying, “It is your decision. I don’t want to interfere”.

6) Giving-up: When we hit the rough patch in our life and when going gets difficult, we find it easy to give-up. When uncertainty looms and carrying-on becomes difficult, we just give-up. Whereas, had we held the front for some more time or had we continued for some more time, the result could have been different. We do it in our love life and as well as in our professional life. People commit suicide because they find it difficult to carry-on, whereas, had they carried-on, the worst thing that could have happened is that they would have died. Isn’t it easier to carry-on and give all that you have and then die rather than committing suicide without even trying it.

7) Taking the credit: “I am or we are successful because of my hard-work, my talent, my vision and my luck”. Doesn’t it appear like a known or heard statement? In fact, it is. Whether we work solely or in a team or even than when the public or the audience is involve, we take credit for all good things and all the success; however, we shred away all responsibility that might have caused failure. Isn’t it easy? It is.

After having discussed the easiest tasks of our life and something that we all do, let’s touch upon some of the most difficult tasks of our life, something we ignore and prefer to avoid.

1) Appreciating Others: “I am good”; “I have done a great job”; “I can manage any situation”; “I am a terrific performer”; “I am a person of all seasons”; all these are feel-good statements. These statements help us to motivate ourselves and boost our self-esteem. Does it mean that I cannot fail? (Getting Complacent). Does it mean that others cannot perform well? Do we appreciate people on their achievements and successes or do we envy them? Very often we get so engrossed by I-ME-MYSELF syndrome that we do not see the good work done by people. If they are above us, we try to pull them down and if they are beneath us, then we try to push them down but we do not give an honest and sincere appreciation, even if the work is awesomely good. Even in their success, we try to find, “what is there for me”.

2) Making / Taking Decision: As it is we do not want to do anything that puts the accountability and responsibility of its outcome on us and when it comes to making a decision for others we always try to escape. We do not make decisions for masses; however, we can ridicule the decision made by others. Although, we were not in the capacity to make any decision at that point of time but most of us ridicule or criticize decisions made by our parents, elders and historians. We look for all kinds of information that may be required to make a decision and then we sit on that information. I have witnessed this on numerous occasions in my previous jobs.

3) To carry-on or to begin from Zero or to continue after set-back or failure: You lost everything that you had saved or created for yourself and now you have no other choice but to begin from zero, can you? It isn’t easy to make a new start; many people consider their crash-down as their early or forced retirement, only few people have the courage to make a new beginning. Giving-up is easy; reconstructing from the scratch is difficult.

4) To Accept the Truth: They say that one needs to have lots of courage to speak the truth. However, one needs to have more courage to accept the truth. We are not perfect. We have our weaknesses, limitations and areas of improvement. To accept the truth and to embrace our weaknesses is difficult. We cannot do everything. We cannot be aware or knowledgeable about everything. Why pretend to have known everything? Why promise to do something that you know you cannot? Why is it so difficult to face the reality or accept the truth?

5) Handling success and fame: I read it somewhere; don’t let success to get into your head and failure or criticism into your heart. We all want to be successful, rich and famous but what after reaching there? Handling applause, appreciation, success and fame is one of the most difficult things to do and most of us are not prepared for it. Most of us succumb to the pressure of success. Instead of moving on and doing a better job to keep the applause coming, we begin to consider our good phase as a permanent phase and try to live our entire life in that one moment.

This write-up is a summary of my experiences and interactions with various people from different walks of life, society and cultures. From a kindergartner kid to a CEO of a company, everybody knows how to find mistakes and complain about the current status. From someone who has won a lottery for the first time to a new acting or singing sensation to a seasoned performer and a first time manager, many of them mishandle success and fame and thereby doom downward.

We welcome your comments and feedback because that’s been very crucial for us. Feel free to contact us for any clarification or professional assistance.

Have a great day and take good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com

Twitter: sanjeevhimachali

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

Taking Strategic Advantage

2010-10-28T11:57:00.006+04:00

Taking Strategic Advantage

Many wars, battles, whether in its literal sense or otherwise, such as games, negotiations, competition, success of products or services, etc. has only been won by people with strong mind and not by those with strong muscle or physical power.

So, what are these mind games; how are they played and what are the associated rules for playing these games? Let’s try to elaborate this phrase and discuss in detail.

The basic objective of playing mind games is to force your opponent to make errors, mistakes and even blunders. Not everything that you do qualifies as mind game. Threat, bullying, cheating, lying, and misrepresentation, does not qualify as tactics or rules of mind-games. The following tactics succeed as part of mind-games:

1) Highlighting past failures: - Many people do not want to talk or discuss or even refer to their past failures. If you could find and highlight something of a similar nature that would distract your opponent and put him or her on defense, then you can use that time to your advantage.

2) Fake Appreciation OR placing the person on high pedestal: - Whenever they get overexcited and overconfident, people are bound to ignore the fine details and make mistakes to the magnitude of blunders. One of the easiest ways of taking them to that level is to say good things about them, even when you don’t really mean it. Compare them to the greats. Make them feel special and admired. It is different to go home with the feeling of being admired, appreciated and compared to greats of the profession but it is entirely different to go out THERE with that feeling of admiration and appreciation and perform. One needs to be matured to handle appreciation and admiration. The higher the place, harder he will fall.

3) Hurting the self-esteem / ego: - Irrespective of their gender, age, or nationality, for every individual their ego or the self-esteem is of utmost importance. If you hurt their self-esteem or challenge their ego, then you are most likely to distract the concentration or focus of your opponent and push them to commit errors. Who can forget the famous headbutt of Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Final in Berlin that France lost to Italy.

4) Sledging, Nagging or Irritating: - Nagging or irritating is some of the other ways to distract the concentration of your opponents and force them to make mistakes. Unwanted but personalized comments and noises, denial, slowing down, etc are some of the on-field tactics used in many sports to play the game of mind.

5) Sting Operations: - At some point of time during the day, each one of us goes off-guard and indulges in things that we really like, without caring about the society and/or world. We take out our social mask and try to get into a state where we don’t really attempt to hide or cover or go defensive about our weaknesses. Unfortunately, we all have our weaknesses. Our weaknesses can broadly be classified into three categories – Wealth Creation, Hunger for Power/control and Sex (one can give different names and connotations to these traits/qualities). Catch your opponent off-guard and then publicize it; either he will leave the field or go defensive about his act. This will give then you plenty of time to gain your ground and take advantage and move ahead. One of the recent incidents that may fall in this category of mind games is the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Swedish officials have revived a rape complaint against Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileaks whistle-blower website. However, Mr. Assange has said that sex crime charges are part of an effort, possibly led by the Pentagon, to smear him and damage the credibility of WikiLeaks. He faces one charge of rape and others of sexual coercion and sexual molestation. Mr. Assange and WikiLeaks have been fiercely criticized by the US government for plans to publish 15,000 classified military field records from the war in Afghanistan. WikiLeaks published nearly 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan on July 23, and earlier this year, published a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq. (Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7975702/Wikileaks-rape-complaint-revived.html)

6) Spreading rumors: - In corporate and business environment, spreading rumors is the most basic way to play mind games. If properly structured, administrated and communicated, one rumor can bring down the share price of the company of your opponent and bring them on their knees. Also, when it comes to war of talent, this tool comes very handy.

7) Making people feel insecure: - Sense of insecurity makes many people go weak. If forced into varied range of inappropriate behaviors and acts, they commit mistakes and blunders. Whether I will get a place in the team or not? Who will get this multi-million dollar contract? If I will get promotion or not? Fair Competition and raising the expected level of performance are few of those tactics to make people feel insecure.

Conclusion

Some people call them as strategic games and many others call these as psychological-games or mind-games. Whatever is the phrase or term, the core objective and purpose of playing these mind games is to put your opponents on back-foot and go defensive, force them to make mistakes/errors and then, if required, attack. If they love to fly then bring them on their knees; if they love to run then make them crawl; and if they are planning to attack then force them to go defensive. These mind games are not illegal and does not promote or justify cheating but rather these games are tests of mental strength of an individual and that is where strong leadership comes into picture. Age, gender, race or nationality of an individual does not ensure his or her mental strength. Any person who knows the ways to handle success, criticism, appreciation, failure, etc. will be able to fair-play these games.

We welcome your comments and feedback because that’s been very crucial for us. Feel free to contact us for any clarification or professional assistance.

Have a great day and take good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com

Twitter: sanjeevhimachali

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

Layoff – The Boardroom Story

2010-10-19T09:43:00.002+04:00

Layoff – The Boardroom Story

We are all aware of various ways by which an employer and an employee can terminate the contract of employment. Just to clarify for all readers that the “letter of appointment” and “contract of employment” are the same. In both, an employer and an employee agrees to come together on certain mutually acceptable terms and conditions. The contract of employment can be terminated by employer for various reasons such as non-performance, misbehavior, theft, misrepresentation, layoff and etc. An employee can also terminate the contract of employment for diverse reasons. Although, in many western countries, such as US and Canada, it is mandatory to specify in the contract of employment, if the employment is “at will” or not but in many other companies, “at will employment” is implied. This employment at will relationship exists regardless of any other written statements or policies contained in the Handbook or any other Company documents or any verbal statement to the contrary. In the doctrine of “at will employment”, the Company does not offer tenured or guaranteed employment. Either the Company or the employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice (we will discuss about this doctrine in one of our future write-up). In this article, we will discuss in detail the inside story of layoffs.

Let’s first understand the terminology:

As defined by various dictionaries and institutions, Layoff is,

The act of laying-off an employee or a work force - wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

The temporary suspension or permanent termination of employment of an employee or (more commonly) a group of employees for business reasons, such as the decision that certain positions are no longer necessary or a business slow-down or interruption in work. - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Layoff

A dismissal of employees from their jobs because of tightened budgetary constraints or work shortage (not due to poor performance or misconduct); In football, a ball that has been rolled in front of another player for them to kick - en.wiktionary.org/wiki/layoff

Separation from a permanent position because of lack of work, or lack of funds; a layoff shall also include any reduction in hours of employment or assignment to a class or grade lower than that in which the employee has probationary or permanent status, voluntarily consented to by the employee. - www.tusd.org/PersonnelCommission/Publications/ClassifiedEmployeeHandbook/Chapter1/tabid/344/Default.aspx

Wikipedia has further explained that the term "layoff" originally meant a temporary interruption in work (and usually pay). The term became a euphemism for permanent termination of employment and now usually means that, requiring the addition of "temporary" to refer to the original meaning. Many other euphemisms have been coined for "(permanent) layoff", including "downsizing", "excess reduction", "rightsizing", "de-layering", "smart-sizing", "redeployment", "workforce reduction", "workforce optimization", "simplification", "force shaping", and "reduction in force" (also called "RIF", especially in the government employment sector).

…and thereafter they lived happily

There are many stake-holders of the revenues generated by a company, such as investors, shareholders, and government officials (Income Tax, Sales Tax, Service Tax, Wealth Tax and etc). Another major cost center is the business operations, cost that is mandatory to run the business smoothly (rental, deprecation, production cost, distribution cost transportation cost, and etc). Most of these costs cannot be compromised with. And then there is employee cost (compensation, benefits, welfare, perks, bonuses, and etc). Once the revenue money is distributed under various heads, company drives the profit. For a business or organization to sustain, it is important to make profits. This is the idealistic situation when year after year; the company manages to run smoothly and also keep its stakeholders satisfied. A small problem or a hiccup here and there is proficiently managed without inversely affecting the flow and ensuring smooth sail for company ship. Everybody enjoys and celebrates; after all they have contributed to make it a success.

…and then the ship of the company hits an iceberg

Suddenly the inflow of money into the company begins to get delayed, shrink and then marginalized. As the company goes through all these stages, it becomes apparent that the company is not keeping good health and something needs to be done. Before we proceed further, we need to touch upon a few relevant concepts and theories.

CEO as a bridge between Board of Directors and Operations: - CEO is appointed by the Board of Directors and, therefore, is accountable and answerable to the Board and Investors. It is the money of shareholders and investors that facilitates the smooth running of the Business Empire and hence, it is one of the core job responsibilities of the CEO to protect their vested interests. That is why, on the one hand CEO shares the credit of the success of business with all the employees, vendors and business partners but at the time of crisis, he/she accepts the responsibility to ensure the survival and sustainability of the business. Hence the phrase, “I am the Captain of the ship”.

Types of Information: - All the information that circulates at the workplace is not meant for everybody. Information can be classified as – Generic, For Your Information Only and Classified / Confidential or Sensitive Information. The last type of information is not meant for everybody and gets filtered at various levels.

Role of the Company Management: - People who run the company affairs and operations (C-Level Executives and Senior Managers) are entrusted with a responsibility of not creating panic in the market, industry and within the company. Creating panic affects the company inversely. It gives advantage to competitors, brings down the share-value and keeps the prospective investors away. Being hopeful is a general nature of mankind. And therefore, even at the time of crisis, just like any team of hopeful people, company management also feels that they will be able to manage everything and things will improve with time.

At the time of crisis or then when business begins to run in the south, cost cutting becomes apparent and necessary (money saved is money earned) but employees are not the first one to go out. No management wants to do that but rather; they want their employees to manage their houses and families. At the same time, they expect their employees to be supportive and to understand the gravity of the situation and yet, not to create panic. The first few things to go are bonuses, perks, and benefits. And the next thing to go is employees. Among the employees, the first one to be churned out is non-performers, followed by people in “specialist” roles, support functional executives and senior but new managers. And if the company still couldn’t survive then it is the last one to go. Either it becomes bankrupt or gets taken-over / borrowed by a bigger player at a scrap rate.

Transparency in the System: People may be curious to know that if the management of the company was aware of the inevitable then why they were not transparent or honest about it and shared the information with its employees? And my question to them is, “how could that have helped the company to survive”? What you would have done had you been aware of the situation or the health of the company or had access to the inside information? I think that the only thing that you would have done is to search and secure a good job for yourself; intentionally or unintentionally help in creating panic among employees and also in the market and that would have resulted in top performers to leave (a bunch of people that the company could have retained at any cost); drop in share-value of the company and a hostile bid to take-over. If in normal circumstances, the company that would have taken 9-12 months to sink (and who knows if in that time span, they could have managed a turnover and revive the fortunes of the company) would have sunk in 2-3 months.

Conclusion:

This article is an attempt to share glimpses of “Classified Information” and the inside story of Board Room that goes around whenever a company hits an iceberg and begins to sink. We have also made an attempt to discuss about various stakeholders of the company. Under normal circumstances and even during crisis, for as long as it is possible, every company likes to retain its employees, particularly its top-performers. The captain of the ship loves to share the growth, prosperity and profitability of the company and won’t mind giving you the credit of its success but whenever the company is in crisis or its very existence is on the verge of sinking then he has no other option but to take control and do everything possible in hand to keep it floating.

At the time of crisis - economic, political or financial, what you would you have done had you been the CEO or investor or Senior Manager of such company??? What would have been your strategies to revive its fortunes and save 100’s of jobs? Your thoughts and feedback is important for us and help us to improve the quality of our content.

Kindly share your views.

Take very good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com

BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

Applying Game Theory in Talent Retention

2010-10-05T07:31:00.002+04:00

Applying Game Theory in Talent Retention “If you will fail to retain your Vibhishana’s (Character from Hindu Epic Ramayana; refer: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vibhishana) because of your egocentric and supercilious approach; and if you will also fail to bring Krishna’s (One of the most popular deities in Hinduism; refer: - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krishna)onboard) onboard because of your ignorance, lack of understanding of required skill-sets & competencies and basic flaw in your recruitment and selection process, you will continue to lose the war on talent. Your loss will be gain for others and their win”.

Last 18-24 months were not so great for the business world across the globe. Many countries saw steep increase in percentage in unemployment rate. North America and Europe found itself in the midst of crises but even Asian markets couldn’t remain untouched. Even in this turbulent phase, where on one side tens of millions of jobs were curtailed and people became jobless, those few companies that were hopeful and farsighted were busy in retaining their key people - the core talent pool of their company at any cost; whereas many companies were prepared to start all over again, for them survival for the moment was the key. They knew that once those dark clouds would shred away, they could immediately start their forage into the market and begin to do what they are good at – profitability, increase in market share, growth and sustainability.

Do you know what the greatest loss is for any company? It’s not marginalized market share or shrinking margins of profitability or dipping share rates but losing its key people and talent. That loss becomes exponentially high when they lose their talent pool to competitors. It is this fear of losing talent that gives sleepless nights to many CEOs. Your ability to retain your talent pool could be the key difference between success and failure of your business; between survival and soaring profits; between being a developing and developed nation. It is not that those companies that retain their talent pool do not hit the rough patch, they do, but they recover fast and return to the stream that they belong to and stay ahead of others.

So, what is the key to talent retention? What do these companies do to retain their talent? How do they develop the talent pool in their organization? We will discuss these questions and many other related questions in this write-up.

Identifying Key Roles with Key Skills

First thing first, no company retains or even tries to retain all the people that it hires. That is absolutely absurd and unwanted. Its 20:80 ratio or in some industries it can be 30:70 ratio and can never be more. It also means that these 20-30% people of the company are those pillars on which the company actually stands. Further this ratio is passed on to each Department, Business Location and Business Unit of an Organization. How do you hire this people and on what consideration? You cannot hire family members, friends or relatives to occupy such a key position but rather a professional with a proven performance record. Remember that you do not create roles for people but rather hire people for roles. Also, you don’t bring in skills and competencies and then look for appropriate use of each of those but rather you identify the right skills and define the right set of competencies for a role and then bring in the right individual. Once you identify KEY role and positions for your Organization/Department/Business Location/ and Business Unit along with right SKILLS and COMPETENCIES then you hire and retain that person.

Retaining the Key Talent Pool of Your Organization

It is an irony of our advancement, growth and our ability to solve complex problems that we have forgotten our basics. Employee Retention is not as complicated and troublesome as we have made it. It is only that we are overlooking our basics. Having taken more than 500 Employee Exit Interviews in last 10 years, I have prepared a list of factors that were highlighted by them as their reasons to quit the organization. Unfortunately, employees don’t wish to list these issues and factors in their official Employee Exit Information Form as they are scared that it may hamper their Exit process and Future References.

1. Fairness - Irrespective of our geographic location, industry, growth stage and size of the company, let’s accept the fact that we differentiate and discriminate among our employees on the basis of our race, creed, religion, language, comfort level and emotional closeness. Consciously or unconsciously, we have been unfair to our people. All employees want fair treatment at workplace.

2. Feedback – At times, some employees came to me and said, “Sir, I am not getting any feedback of my work” or “I did something 6-7 months back and now my manager is saying that my work was not good enough and because of that I will not get an increment”. Employees want “honest” and “timely” feedback of their work. They are matured enough to understand that they can’t be excellent and perfect all the time and hence they also look for corrective measures, advices, suggestions and coaching from their reporting managers to improvise their performance.

3. Appreciation – There is an old saying, “Appreciate your employees publically and criticize them privately”; even now also it holds true. It doesn’t take much time to say, “Well Done; Good Job; Great Performance; your work was Incredible; Your Suggestions and inputs on this assignment were of great use and etc”. How much time does it take to say these words? But these can do wonders to motivate your employee and boost their confidence level.

4. Open and Timely Communication – Communication is a key for employee retention. Honest and timely communication can do big wonders in setting-up integrity, credibility and trustworthiness in work relations. On the contrary, if you lie in your communication; do not keep your words and promises and delay communication then there are chances that your employees will not trust you and leave the organization at an appropriate time.

5. Trust – Trust at workplace is a two way process. You give trust and you get trust. You trust your employees and they will trust you. It plays an important role to increase team cohesiveness and bonding. It fetches your respect and credibility. But, if you say that you don’t trust your employees and you want to police them then they too will not trust you and will be suspicious about everything that you may say or do and this will not work well for any of you.

6. Career Growth Plans and Career Advancement – Everybody wants to grow in their life, both professionally as well as personally. Therefore, if you are providing growth and career advancement opportunities to your employees than there are chances that your employees will not leave the organization but rather be committed to stay there for a longer term. Employees like to see what lies ahead of them and also how they can reach there.

7. Opportunities to Learn, Get Trained in New Skills and Development – We are living in a very dynamic world where technologies and business permutations and combinations changes and gets upgraded every other quarter (in not month). New technologies get introduced and older ones become obsolete. Employees of an organization also want to keep-up with the pace, learn new skills, upgrade existing ones and grow within the organization. They look forward to training opportunities and sponsorship from the company. Some companies are spending millions and billions of dollars in their training and development programs for their employees and whereas many others are not even willing to spend a single penny. People are likely to leave those organizations that do not take care of their development and look for those that can.

8. Freedom of Expression – At workplace, you do not communicate your ideas, strategies or policies rather you sell them. Your team-members and subordinates may not agree with everything that you may say and they may like to discuss and debate about it. They may question you and seek your clarifications. You may be required to prepare a sales pitch and may also be forced to rework on it. This should not be seen as rebelliousness, defiance, or insubordination but rather as an opportunity to buy the confidence and dedication of your team. Employees should not be threatened of dire consequences for questioning your idea or policy. (It took President Barack Obama more than 12 months to SELL his healthcare plan to the Congress).

9. Clarity in Performance Goals, Performance Measurement Criteria’s and Associated Rewards – Time after Annual Appraisal is the time when many employees leave their organizations and look for other opportunities. The main reason for this is that employees are not satisfied with their appraisal. Many times, employees came to me and said that they don’t know what has been measured and how; there was no clarity, neither in performance goals nor in criteria’s for performance measurement or associated rewards. This has been one of the key concerns in many organizations. Performance Reviews and Appraisals are seen as one of the annual (or bi-annual) exercise and not as an opportunity to figure out performance concerns, benchmark best performances and associated competencies, and list out ways to improvise the performances through coaching or mentoring.

10. Competent and Knowledgeable Reporting Manager – This may be one of the concerns in small or mid-size or family organizations where key positions are given to those who are either family members of the management or has close relations with the management rather than skills and competencies. In large organizations, one can move up only if they have required amount of experience, expertise and competencies. However, it is a common observation that many Team Managers or Department Heads lack the People Management and Leadership Skills and need to be trained and coached for the same.

In addition to the points discussed above, companies are expected to extend more comfort, give more freedom and provide highly challenging roles to their Senior Level Key Employees to ensure their retention. As mentioned in one of my previous discussions (Ref.: http://www.sanjeevhimachali.com/?tag=managing-senior-employees), your senior and experienced employees are not looking for more industry experiences or technical expertise; they have already gained that. They are also not looking for very huge salary hikes but something to match with their experience and expertise. At the stage where these senior people are, they look for challenges that can test their knowledge, experience and expertise. Challenges that are associated with:

1. Mergers, amalgamations, acquisitions, take-over’s, increase in market-share, increase in revenue, venturing into new market, introducing new product line and consolidating the market position excites them

2. Creating something new (new company, new market, new product or service line) or initiating /executing changes are few other things that excites them.

They like to get involved in strategic decision making process and power, along with accountability and responsibility, to manage day-to-day functionality and operations of their department or SBU or profit/cost center is other factor that these senior managers look for. They do not want to be spoon-fed and certainly don’t like to be micro-managed. Developing the Performance Culture You may not only be interested in retaining your talent pool but also like to promote the culture of performance and improvise the productivity and in turn the brand value of the organization. Here are a few suggestions to accelerate that culture.

1) Get rid of those Sycophants – Human nature is such that we always like to be wooed away and flattered. We like to listen to good things about us. We feel nice when someone appreciates our belongings or things that we do. If you like this then it’s a common-sense that your bosses and reporting managers also like this, particularly new boss and new managers. There is nothing wrong in this attitude but that is not what you must be doing at workplace and that is certainly not what you are paid for. Get rid of those sycophants. They are using sycophancy as a tool to cover-up their incompetence and non-performance. Your new tie is good and your new laptop is excellent and very advanced and also your son is looking so cute in that picture but we are not here for that. I didn’t wake-up this morning at 5 AM to flatter you in the office.

2) Uniform execution of policies, rules and procedures – I am a big advocate of uniform execution of policies across the company. In my experience, I have noticed that, in general, employees don’t hate policies or discipline in the organization; they hate it when those policies, rules and procedures are not uniformly executed. You use one scale for A and another for B. For the same offence you punish one person differently from another person. Exemption to the rule or procedure must be on the basis of performance and achievement rather than your proximity, comfort-level and emotional closeness to certain set of people. Another thing is that you make policies and then you make exemptions, you don’t make your exemptions as policies.

3) Chase-away those bullies - The main and the foremost purpose of bullying are to hide inadequacy, incompetence and inefficiency. Bullying has nothing to do with managing etc; good managers manage and bad managers’ bully. Management is managing; bullying is not managing. Therefore, anyone who chooses to bully is admitting their inadequacy and incompetency, and the extent to which a person bullies is a measure of their inadequacy. Chase-away those bullies or they will chase-away your talented, dedicated and intellectual high-performers.

Conclusion

Points that we have covered and discussed here are very crucial and helpful in retaining your talent-pool. We have not discussed about salaries and compensations because we have noticed that not many people leave the organization for higher packages (we assume that you won’t be paying peanuts to your employees but rather a competitive set of compensation and benefits). Cost of losing one employee is much more than the total amount of salary paid to him and if you happen to lose your key employees to your competitor then you cannot even imagine the actual lose caused to you. We welcome your comments and feedback because that’s been very crucial for us. Feel free to contact us for any clarification or professional assistance. Have a great day and take good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali
LinkedIn Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/sanjeevhimachali
Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; ss_himachali@yahoo.com
Twitter: sanjeevhimachali BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com and http://sanjeevhimachali.blogspot.com/

Professional Suicide – II: The Conversation

2010-09-27T15:51:00.003+04:00

Part - I

Q: You rightfully written in your article…" And although we know indicators of “Professional Suicide”, yet we cannot do anything to stop people from doing this. Every day we will see people committing this professional sin but cannot help them because only they can help themselves.

My query is "If the HR People could not counsel such people, then is there any likely "Out of the box type of solution "to this problem?

Is it because such professionals may be going through some personal --temporary /Long term problems in their life ,which is not getting pinpointed or coming into open during day to day office environment ,not getting probed enough?

I am a Psycho-Social counselor and trainer for Stress management and Anger management, (behavioral) So I want to ask further, are such employees given the opportunity of going through departmental counseling or by any outside counselor by HR personnel of the company or there is no such policy in many organizations yet? (I read full article on the blog).This aspect is not clear to me from this article. , would like to throw some light on it for me? I believe that the consequences of such behavior (professional suicide) are grave and by some efforts this phenomenon should be avoided for the sake of their families. - Dr. Rekha Deshmukh, Psycho-Social Counselor, Human Geneticist.

A: Let me explain to you the entire process of Selection and Performance Management in companies that have cultivated, developed and promoted “Performance Based Organizational Culture”.

A person is hired for a specific role. He is expected to possess required skills to certain degrees of expertise. He is asked to self-evaluate himself on a given scale. As the person has applied for a job, therefore, he or she is anticipated to have inflated the degree level by certain percentage (For example, rating themselves 8 in a scale of 1-10; whereas his actual level of expertise is 6.5). Therefore, in the interview process they are re-evaluated by a panel of experts for the required skill-sets and measured against benchmarks set by the company. Once they get selected, the company extends an offer and gives a choice to the candidates to accept or reject the same. On the day of their joining, new employees get escorted through the Induction Program to assimilate them with the company culture and give them a preview of the kind of career, growth opportunities, rewards and perks that they should expect. However, one thing goes unspoken and that companies find their new-employees to be matured and intelligent enough to understand that those benefits, perks and growth opportunities will not come free and that they need to earn them. Later on, the company places them in assignments and projects that they have been hired for. The complexity of their given role is based on their demonstrated level of expertise of required skill-sets and past experiences in the similar assignment or project. Some people manage to meet the expected level of timeline, dedication, determination and quality in their work but many are not. Those who fail to meet the expected performance level are counseled in their quarterly performance review and are asked to pull-up their socks. They are taken through performance coaching sessions. Every possible help is extended to make them work to their potential. Many of them show visible signs of improvement but non-performers and people with fake-attitude either begin to confront or start giving excuses for their non-performance. Many of these excuses are external in nature, such as, lack of proper infrastructure, family problems, accusing the manager for being biased and etc. They murmur within and say, “Oh shit, I need to work and perform to get all those perks, rewards and bonuses that they mentioned about in the induction program. Oh Jesus, I thought that was free. This company is also having the same culture and problem as my last company was having. That precisely was the reason for me to resign from my previous job”.

In many companies, the Performance Reviews are done on quarterly basis, and then scores of these reviews are compiled to get the final score for an annual appraisal. However, in many cases, non-performers are the first ones to complain about appraisal scores and they make it sound as if some conspiracy is planned to keep them out. They want their appraisal scores and rewards to be at par with the best-performer. Then, this frustrated lot of people, either begin to look out for new job opportunities or stay in the system and spoil the culture. They begin to write against the company and its policies on public forums and BLOGS, spread rumors and thereby, take their first step towards committing “professional suicide”.

Every day, I get emails from 10’s of people, saying, “We have absconded from our company for X, Y, Z reasons. Will the company take any action”? From the above mentioned, you might have noticed that performance is the only key and parameter to GROW in any company. In big companies with 1000’s of employee, non-performers and people with fake-attitude manage to survive for several months but however, in mid-size and small-size companies, they get exposed. Companies go out of their way to retain their top performers, even during the difficult phases, such as economic recession, mergers and acquisitions etc. It is good to be ambitious and have dreams or have aspirations to improve the life-style and get access to comforts but one needs to work towards it and “earn everything that they think they deserve”.

Part – II

Letter to the Author:

From Manish Jaiswal (<dearmjaiswal@yahoo.com>) with inline response from Sanjeev Himachali

Manish Jaiswal is having more than 15 years of work experience, I have worked both at the developer and managerial levels for the Online Content, Learning, E-learning, Instructional Design, Training, and Knowledge Management divisions of leading global and reputed organizations, such as, Accenture Learning, Reuters Knowledge Management and InfoPro India Learning.

(<Sanjeev Himachali - In spite of all the experience of Manish Jaiswal, through his thoughts and views, he came across as a fresh graduate in the market. This implies that he seems to have reached the level where he assumes to have known and learned everything and have no scope to learn anything new. >)

Well, I pity your understanding about revenue and profit and looking within. It is not my plight; I am much well-off but I know of many excellent performers whose contributions do not get recognized.

As you put baseless allegation about various hard working employees and how their walk-and-talk differs…don’t you think that the BIG-mouth corporate companies need to look within?

(<Sanjeev Himachali - Induction Programs: The perks, benefits, growth plans, career or succession plans and etc, as promised in the Induction Programs are “Performance Linked” and goes to “top-performers” of the company. Everybody in the company is paid a salary to do the job that they have been hired for within a given timeline with more than 90% of quality level. Does any company need to pay “bonuses or rewards” for it? Bonuses, rewards and growth is given to those who go beyond the set target or quality level and repeat their best performances over the period of time and not just bask in the glory of one odd performance or achievement. >)

I said both companies and employees should look within. If one employee sacks a company (companies/employers have coined the term 'resignation' to tone down the reality of their being sacked by an employee), it can be an error in judgment; if ten people sack a company in 2 months saying it does not recognize employee contributions, then my dear friend, it’s time for that company to look within. There are many such BIG-mouth companies that get sacked by at least 10 employees every 2 months.

(Sanjeev Himachali - Sacking / Termination versus Resignation: Sacking and Termination is a right vested to the person with power; the one who invests or buys. You must have read, “Customer is the king”; that’s preciously the reason. The one, who buys or pays, takes the decision to sack or terminate. The other party can only make a request (or resign). In corporate culture you are the seller who has sold his skills, experiences and talents and company is the buyer. >)

(Sanjeev Himachali - Retention and Attrition: Who said that companies are expected to retain their 100% employees? They are not. No company is expected to retain their non-performers, below-par performers and problematic employees. Over a period of time spread over several months, these people, “friends of Manish Jaiswal”, either they leave on their own or they are asked to leave. Many high-performing companies retain their top-performers. During difficult times, such as economic recessions, mergers & acquisitions and etc, “friends of Manish Jaiswal” are the first to be churned out. Companies can go to any extent to keep their top-performers. Sporadic doses of good performances are neither recognized nor rewarded. One must to able to repeat their “best performances” over a period to of time to get growth and rewards. >)

You are mixing charity with business. True professionals also work to generate revenue and profit for themselves and their families. Smart pros first think of themselves and then the company; stupid pros do the other way and keep working for the same company for years and years and see themselves struggling during economic slowdown. Stable employees do personal life suicide because more than money (revenue), they look at their job roles and designations and feel happy about it.

True professionals decide their own growth and have their own revenue, profit and more importantly, SAVING targets. They decide on the CTC they should be getting by the end of 2011 or 12 and so on to lead a particular standard of life. Nothing wrong in such ambitions. They do not wait for the company to provide that CTC to them in 2018 when it is possible to achieve the same in 2012 itself by investing his/her time, skills and energy in some other company.

And to achieve such targets, you do not need to start your own company. There are enough good and SMALL-mouth companies that take care of employees in much better way than most of the BIG-mouth MNCs.

(<Sanjeev Himachali - Ownership and Career Planning: You don’t make the company (unless you own one). And your contribution in the growth of a company is less than 1% (assuming that you are working in a company with at least 1000 people). However, the contribution of the company in your life is more than 100%. If you are out-of-job for several months or for an infinite period, you will not be able to survive or take care of your family for too long. You need the job more than the job needs you. So, don’t you f*** up with your own career. Yes, everybody has right to plan their own future and grow. But they need to sincerely work towards it and not try to be a parasite on something. There is no short-cut to success. One needs to have determination, passion and patience. Those who move around in search of opportunities, growth and rewards, live in the glory of one odd or few sporadic performances to boast about, get stuck in the middle-level of the hierarchy. Those who perform and give their best at all times and in everything that they do, move up the hierarchy. Choice is yours.>)

Please stop taking companies' side all the time; "look at the attrition figures of a company to understand how good or bad it is."

You echo the views of those HR professionals who have no f****** idea about an employee's state of mind when he/she sees the contribution not getting recognized. Most of the times, the supervisors take the credit in most BIG-moth companies even though they just keep doing an FYI mail forwarding.

(<Sanjeev Himachali - Compensation, Rewards and Growth: Compensation, rewards and growth are not given on the basis of your personal needs and fancy dreams and neither it is given on the basis of your past achievements. Your productivity and the quality of your work decide your growth. Sporadic doses of good work will not take you anywhere. At all times and in everything that you do, you must be able to outshine and overshadow your own performance of yesterday. Who will decide if your work is good enough or hold any commercial value? It is but obvious that you will not decide the usability or worth of your productivity. The buyer will decide. In this case, the company is the buyer. There is “NO FREE LUNCH.”>)

[About the Author: Sanjeev Himachali is a HR Professional with over TEN years of experience in various facets of HR and has worked across national and international cultures.]

Professional Suicide – How People Ruin Their Careers

2010-09-23T07:36:00.012+04:00

Of late, I am seeing many people committing professional suicide and I am sure that you might have seen or at least have read about it. What is this form of suicide is all about? Is it committing suicide at workplace or is it committing suicide for work related issues? It is neither. Professional suicide can be defined and understood as a series of demonstrated behavior, attitude, acts and actions of arrogance and any other activity that you wish you couldn’t have done or something that you regret doing, which ruins the career of an individual and stops his or her professional growth. Let me share a few common incidents and examples that you can relate to.

First Incident

In one of my previous associations, we had one employee by the name of VIKRAM SUNDER. He was a blabber, which was interpreted as good verbal communication skills and had some theoretical knowledge about the subject. In fact, two of the reasons for hiring him were his knowledge about the subject and the fact he was coming from one of the competitor’s camp. After his joining, he began to give excuses for his non-performance and most of the time those excuses were external, such as, reporting manager lacks the knowledge or the reporting manager was rude or personal issues or sickness or lack of proper and complete infrastructure or issues related to hierarchy and etc. The management of the company could understand the problem with the person and they developed a strategy and a way to deal with him. All his tactics or the so called art of not working were beginning to fall on deaf ears. He knew that either he needs to pull-up his socks and perform or else he will be out. Under the improvised and no bull-shit kind of work environment, he could only manage for a few weeks and then he decided to abscond.

Upon absconding, he begins to write a pseudonymous BLOG against the company and its policies, which were framed to discipline him and others like him and made them work and deliver as per their roles and things that they said in the interview that they could do or perform. He was warned to rectify his acts and behave like a matured and educated person but he couldn’t understand. While we were handling him on the BLOG issue and helping him save some grace and reputation, he had joined another company and was repeating similar acts and activities that I have explained above. In the mean time, as VIKRAM refused to understand and was arrogant enough not to foresee what is coming towards him, the company used its right to file a defamation suit against him and involving his family and parents into the entire process. He had to cough out a few hundred thousand INR to save him and his family more moments of embarrassment. A Few months later, he met the similar fate in the other company. Soon he found himself out of job, out of industry and out of his domain. He became unemployable and was forced to change his profession.

Second Incident

ASHISH KANUNGO was working as a Head of the Department. He was a bad conductor of information. His approach towards work was that he should have access to all the information or be aware of everything that is happening in the company and yet not held responsible or accountable for anything. He was excellent in passing on the responsibility and the blame and keeps the credit. By behavior, he was an unsecured Manager and usually used to hop around companies with a bunch of his selected few favorites / sycophants. His work approach towards others was such that actually minimizes cross questioning or cross verification. For example, he will come to you and say that he has been advised by the CEO or CTO or CFO or any other C-level executive to get X information or get the Y thing done. Certainly he was not the one who could face a problem or a conflict head-on. Just like VIKRAM (as discussed above), he too had readymade excuses for his non-performance and he too had external factors to blame for. His reasoning and logic was very bad but was very convincing for ignorant bunch of people.

Because of his convincing skills and ability to present a lie as a truth, he was instrumental in planning and masterminding the exit of many people, who were more skilled and talented than him and he considered them as a threat or potential threat for his stay in the company. To counter such people either one must have thorough knowledge about the industry or domain; or one must play with the same coin. He was also countered by and then sidelined by someone who was even more convincing. He was ignored in all major meetings and his suggestions were avoided. His reporting structure was changed and he was asked to report to a person, who was hired as his junior. Message from the seniors was loud and clear, either you do whatever you are asked to do and the way you are asked to do and in addition to that face moments of embarrassment and insult for what you have done in the past (which is equivalent to committing suicide everyday) or resign.

How to identify prospective cases of “Professional Suicide”????

Whenever a person begins to think about committing suicide, one can notice various changes in his conduct and behavior, such as fear, anxiety, tension, lost in thoughts and etc. Those are warning signs for others to notice and take appropriate steps. Similarly, in cases of professional suicide one can notice a few visible symptoms. They are:

1. Body Language – Not many people are aware of it but the fact is that your eyes and your body movements speak faster and louder than what you could say. So, if your words, facial expressions and body movements are not in sync than it implies that something is really wrong with you. For some people it may only indicate your lack of confidence but there has to be a reason for lack of confidence. Either you are not sure about whatever you are doing or saying or you are engulfed by the fear of unknown and unseen.

2. Big Mouth and non-performers – Only talks and no action. There is this breed of people who talk a lot and talk loud but their talks do not hold any substance. Through their words they can build beautiful castles and do the impossible but when it comes to action or execution or performance, they don’t even get any closer to their words. They find excuses for their non-performance.

3. Lack of commitment and accountability – They are not willing to make any commitment. They prefer not to have deadlines or final dates for delivery or any targets. And when asked to finalize a date or an execution plan, they make an excuse that their work is difficult to quantify or control or their work is influenced by external factors. They believe in, “I will work and I want to work but I will work only then when India will become corruption free country”.

4. Unwillingness to accept responsibility (Blame Game) – “I did this or that because of X, Y or Z and hence I should not be held responsible for the outcome”. “I want to be a Team-Lead or a Department Head but I am no where responsible for the failure of the team”. “Reasons for my failure are out of my control”. These people do not accept responsibility and in a worst case scenario, they even blame external factors for their failure.

5. Lies and Dishonesty – They are chronic liars. They lie about anything and everything. They are fraudulent, deceptive, as well as corrupt. They cheat to get through their way. It doesn’t really matter what profession you are in or what you do but one needs to be honest and true.

6. Arrogant (I know everything) and Egoistic – Oh, then there is this breed of people who knows everything and everybody in all the industries. They pretend to have known everything. They find themselves to be too big to learn anything. And as they know everything, they have little scope to learn new things and because they cannot learn anything new, sooner or later they are likely to commit suicide.

Conclusion

This write-up is not revolutionary or any kind of break-through. Everything that has been discussed here is already known to most of the people. And although we know indicators of “Professional Suicide”, yet we cannot do anything to stop people from doing this. Every day we will see people committing this professional sin but cannot help them because only they can help themselves.

Your feedback and comments are very valuable and helps us to improvise. Feel free to write to us and share your thoughts and views.

Disclaimer: All characters and names appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev@onecybertech.com

Related BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com

Skype: sanjeevhimachali

Twitter: sanjuhimachali

From the Desk of Sanjeev Himachali – Random Thoughts & Philosophy of Life

2010-09-09T12:32:00.005+04:00

Expressions on this page are my thoughts based on my thinking-process, emotional whirlpool, perception and outlook towards the external world. These thoughts are my way to talk to myself as well as to the external world.

03^rd September, 2010: A statement, "I have realized that if I want to grow and be successful in my life then I need to kill my fears. I can kill my fear by doing things that I am most scared of or afraid of or fearsome about. I have also realized that if I will let my fears to overpower me than I will never succeed and may die living a mediocre life".

24^th August, 2010: A statement, "Either you PERFORM or PERISH. In this journey, we are not carrying FREE baggage".

24^th August, 2010: You can GROW as big as you could THINK. It needs passion to reach there.

23^rd August, 2010: A good strategist is the one who can instantaneously and seamlessly customize his plans/strategies to address the need of the hour or market and as per the external circumstances and situation without pausing. To succeed, one must always have plan B.

11^th August, 2010: I realize that the freedom to do your job independently and to take decisions of mass implications comes with lots of responsibility and accountability.

28^th July, 2010: It's a normal calculation, Extra + Ordinary = Extraordinary. That means, when ordinary people show willingness to walk for an extra mile to reach out to their dreams; when ordinary people put extra dedication, hard-work and passion to reach their goals then they become extraordinary people. However, the word "extra" is... not defined. It only means - a bit more. :) :) :)

23^rd July, 2010: Everything that is difficult to understand is not useless. Also, everything that is easy to do is not rewarding.

16^th July, 2010: Winning is not always important. Sometimes you need to lose something to gain something bigger. Life is all about gambling.

03^rd June 2010: Shyness is like that costly jewelry that you wear in appropriate amount at appropriate time and place. Excessive and unwarranted shyness can deter your personal as well as professional growth. You are not supposed to or expected to know everyone and everything and there is nothing to feel shy about in admitting your ignorance and learn.

2^nd June 2010: My opinion about you is based on my experiences with you and not what others have told me or how others have tried to influence me.

1^st June 2010: It’s a beginning of a new journey that I need to take for next 24 months. I am aware that the journey will be difficult and there will be distraction and confusion and chances of blinking my eyes are very high but I cannot afford that. It is nothing less than getting transferred in a war zone where missing the target or …any kind of lethargy can be fatal and destructive.

1^st June 2010: Sometimes we do certain things not because we want to do it but for the reason that others think that we cannot do.

31^st May 2010: “Right then when you thought that you have circled me and have left no passage open for me; in the midst of that uncertainty and improbability I vow to create my own way”.

31^st May 2010: Everybody can succeed when circumstances are favorable. It is more fun to succeed when you do it in the presence of problems, weaknesses and hostile situations.

30^th May 2010: If you cannot motivate yourself then no one and nothing can. Self-Motivation is the only motivation that stays there forever. Everything else is negotiation and ways of expressing greed.

29^th May 2010: It actually hurts when you get appreciation, recognition, and love from outsiders and not from people known to you, and your own people.

28^th May 2010: The mode that you may choose to say goodbye, today, will also determine if at all, when, how and under what circumstances you may or may not cross your way again.

25^th May 2010: Life is an illusion. What you see is not something that is actually there and sometimes you get things that you don’t even imagine. (What you see is not there and what is actually there, you cannot even see).

23^rd May 2010: Love knows no boundary. It doesn’t follow any religion, race, caste and political views. It is beyond any listed and recognized language. It doesn’t distinguish age differences and skin color. It is beyond and above everything.

22^nd May 2010: Life is not worth living if you don’t have anything worth dying for.

21^st May 2010: If you have dreams and goals and if you are passionate about them then you are also likely to beat all odds and overcome all obstacles and setbacks to achieve them.

12^th May 2010: There are two types of people – those who are stupid and those who pretend to be stupid. Those who are stupid, they are basically ignorant, innocent and harmless and sometimes you make fun of them. But those who pretend to be stupid are very clever and smart. They actually make fun and mockery of you.

10^th May 2010: Love is a blessing. Those, who do not find love in their life, are very unfortunate. More unfortunate are those, who do find love in their life but tend to lose because they don’t recognize and respect it. They keep their eyes and arms closed. They are the real losers.

1^st May 2010: Relations are like those astonishing architectural masterpieces that we see around us. It does not matter how beautiful they look from outside but they need to have strong foundation to withstand any external stress, strain and pressure (and pressure of expectations of one another and that of others). If the foundation… is weak, doesn’t matter how beautiful they look, they will fall one day or another.

18^th April 2010: Usually your one act of bad behavior, lie, fraudulence, untruthfulness, dishonesty, and cheating is enough to overshadow your hundreds of acts of goodness, truthfulness, honesty, kindness, compassion, humanity and integrity.

17^th April 2010: It’s time to give it back. In life, one must be a good borrower. One must return back everything (love, care, affection, respect, etc) that they receive from others and that too with high interest rate.

16^th April 2010: No time to regret. It is always good to control your actions and be thoughtful before letting those words out than to work on damage control and regret what you have done. (If world is a stage and we are artists and if there is no possibility of giving retakes then why not give our best all the time?).

15^th April 2010: I cannot control what other says about me. I also cannot control how you react to it. I can only control how I respond to it.

10th April 2010: In life, some people will love you, some will hate you and many will ignore you. Some people will bring flower bouquets for you and some will throw stones and bricks at you. In fact, I have made my house with stones and bricks that others have thrown at me.

9^th April 2010: Your reputation and public image is one of your biggest assets. It must be managed and maintained by you or in your guidance. You are taking a big risk by letting someone else manage it for you because no one will get you the acceptance, love and respect that you will get yourself.

07^th April 2010: Many wars, games and battles of life are not won by weapons or physical strength but by mental strength, strong will-power and determination. And one who wins at the end is the one who is mentally strong and an intelligent thinker and strategist.

06^th April 2010: Good people always get good things in life and not-so-good people cannot keep good things for too long. Honest people get honesty in return and dishonest people get dishonesty.

05^th April 2010: We are living in the world of imperfect people. There is no person who has never committed any sin or who has been absolutely clean and perfect in textbook sense.

04^th April 2010: Irrespective of what profession we are in or what we do in our day-to-day life, we all are salesmen and we are selling.

03^rd April 2010: Unlike in mathematics, in real life two negatives do not make one positive. Two incompetent people cannot make one high-performing team and two incompatible people cannot create a happy family.

02^nd April 2010: Certain Fundamental basics of Life: You cannot gain happiness by hurting others; you cannot earn respect by insulting others; you cannot find love by hating others; and you cannot gain and sustain success by stepping over others.

01^st April 2010: Life gives us many experiences. There are many things that happen for the first time. There is always a beginning point. Whatever it is, but the fact is, that it is never too late to experience something new. It is never too late to begin something new.

31^st March 2010: Injuries caused by words are more severe and deeper than physical injuries caused by accidents. Injuries caused by words are not only more difficult to heal but always leave a scar behind.

30^th March 2010: What you will do today, will determine, how people will remember you tomorrow.

27^th March 2010: If husband & wife, respect, understand, trust & appreciate each other then they can be a very strong force that can face any challenge or problem & come out victorious all the time. On the other hand, if they don’t understand each other and if they find it difficult to trust each other than their relation itself becomes a challenge & a problem; they find it difficult to survive & become a free entertainment for the rest of the world.

26^th March 2010: He is watching all of us. People call him by different names, Jesus, Allah, Nanak, Ram, and many other names. Whatever you are doing, good, bad or ugly; right or wrong, the God is watching and he will prepare your balance-sheet before you bid adieu to this world.

25^th March 2010: Irrespective of the type of profession you are in or the work or activity that you do or get indulged in, as long as you stick with the basics and fundamentals, you will succeed in everything that you may do. Only then when you look for shortcut or try to manipulate or muddle with basics that you fail.

24^th March 2010: To love is to celebrate every moment of your life. To love is to accept each other the way they are; care for each other; understand each other; and be together with each other…emotionally, mentally as well as proximately. To love is to be sincere with each other; honest to one another; and to trust one another. To love is to replace “I” with “we” and “your” with “our”.

23^rd March 2010: Although it seems like a NEED but LOVE in Life is not a necessity but a LUXURY. There are many other things (Social and Materialistic) that one must have to live a comfortable and happy life. To make it simple, if you are hungry, LOVE cannot buy you three times food.

Your feedback and comments are very valuable to us. Feel free to write to us to share your thoughts and views.

Thoughts and Philosophy of: Sanjeev Himachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev@onecybertech.com

Related BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com

Skype: sanjeevhimachali

Twitter: sanjuhimachali

…and Let your Hairs Wave in the Air

2010-09-07T07:09:00.005+04:00

…and Let your Hairs Wave in the Air

A lot has been written and said about ways and processes to handle failure, depression, criticism, stress and other negative emotions and feelings but little has been written or said about ways or processes to handle success, glory, fame, limelight or appreciation. Probably, many thinkers and philosophers considered the latter as positive emotions and therefore didn’t feel any need to have a process to handle it. If you look around you will find many people who live their entire life gasping and celebrating one moment of glory or one successful act or outcome. There are many others who begin to grow reversely or begin to move backward after they taste success and feel those moments of glory and fame. One major reason for this is the inability of those people to handle success or appreciation. They are not matured enough to handle success and appreciation or probably they begin to feel that all the glory, or fame or success, or appreciation that they are getting is a permanent fixer of their life, whereas the fact is that, that moment is a time which will pass away. Certainly that is the one thing which is common between good times and bad times that it is not permanent. It just passes away.

So, does that mean that one should not celebrate the success or should not feel happy about all the good things that are happening in their life? They certainly should but at the same time one should not lose the focus. Remember, the basic rule of our world is that the one who is successful is celebrated and admired and if you want the celebration to continue and if you want to continue to bask around the fame, glory and appreciation associated with your name then you must continue to get results or continue to do acts that gave you your first glimpse of fame, success and appreciation. As they say, it is very easy to be successful and famous and also hear people singing rhymes of appreciation and admiration but it is very difficult to sustain that or continue to get that, day after day, month after month and years after years. That is why I say, “Keep your feet firm on the ground and let your hairs wave in the air”.

…when you taste the success

1) Be humble and thankful – Accept it humbly, with kindness and thankfulness. It is always important to be thankful to all the people, not only those who are appreciating or admiring you but also those who helped you to reach where you are. Not all those people might have helped you positively and many might have criticized you or demoralized you but in one way or another they helped you to become whatever you are. So, be thankful. Let the credit go where it belongs to and add doing so will not discount your hard-work, determination and passion.

2) Don’t lose the focus – Growth in life is a continuous process. Although you may have a vision for yourself and dreams to follow and therefore it doesn’t matter what you have achieved, there will always be more to achieve. There will always be new avenues to cover. You have just taken that first successful step towards your goals and dreams, journey is still pending. There are always three stages of growth and success – Local, National and Global. Don’t let your miniature achievement distract or divert you from performing at a bigger stage and achieving more.

3) Keep yourself prepared for the tougher competition – As you will begin to climb-up the ladder of success, fame and glory, you will realize that though the crowd around you is filtering out but the competition is intensifying. As discussed above, there are three phases of journey, local, national and international and your competitors at every level will at least be as skillful and competent as you are. Keep yourself prepared for the same.

4) Don’t let your new friends pull you down – In your journey, you will meet different kinds of people, some will walk with you for a while, some will be pulling you down and many will be pushing you down. The one who were with you at one point of time will be jealous of you for your achievement and success and will try to pull you down, maybe by pretending of being nice to you. And those who are above you will be scared of you and your arrival and therefore will try to push you down, maybe by their acts of pseudo glorification and appreciation, so that you lose your focus. I won’t say that one must identify right kind of people to stay around because that in itself is a very time consuming process but rather keep your focus on your goals and dreams and don’t let any negative thought distract you. After all, it is your journey and you must take it.

5) Don’t undermine those who are less appreciated or not as successful and famous as you are – I agree that you are better than many other people because what you managed to achieve they couldn’t but that doesn’t give you any right to look down at them or insult them. Do remember that though they are out but they have not lost yet. Tomorrow, they might turn out to be better than you. Losers are those who quit accept the defeat not the one who keeps on trying. Remember that story of the Hare and Tortoise?

6) Tomorrow will be a new day – Whatever you did today or you achieved today, you got appreciation for that, and were paid in the same coin and you celebrated it too. However, tomorrow will be a new day, new tasks and new rewards and do you think you will be able to repeat the feat again? Doing it once could be a fluke but repeating it again and again over the period of time is an achievement and success in every possible sense. Don’t just sit and bask in the glory of your past achievement or successes but repeat it. There are many artists who stopped working after creating, what they thought was their masterpiece because they were too scared and they thought that probably they couldn’t be able to repeat what they have achieved yesterday.

7) Keep a check on your ego – There is nothing wrong in being proud of whatever you have achieved, after all you worked hard for it but don’t let that feeling of pride outgrow your own size or the size of what you have achieved.

Conclusion

If you look around and pick any country or any profession be it sports, business, entertainment, research, art, or politics etc, you will find many people who rise like a storm but the very next moment they fall flat on their face kissing the dust and this happens because they were so engrossed in celebrating their first few moments of appreciation, fame, and success at higher level that they just could not see anything beyond. Therefore it is important that “Keep your feet firm on the ground and let your hairs wave in the air” and keep your focus on the goal.

This write-up is an attempt to discuss various ways to keep you focused and let nothing distract you from your vision and goal. We believe that this will be of immense help to those youngsters who are taking baby-steps to a competitive world and want to be successful in their chosen field. Appreciation, admiration, fame, glory, and rewards and by-products are of your extensive hard-work and it only means that you must be more responsible and give more than 100% to continue to get what you like the most. You are as good as your last performance.

Your feedback and comments are very valuable to us. Feel free to write to us to share your thoughts and views.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev@onecybertech.com

Related BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com

Skype: sanjeevhimachali

Twitter: sanjuhimachali

Six Myths of Effective Communication

2010-09-01T07:14:00.002+04:00

Communication Process or Effective Communication or Communication Skills are such subjects that has been properly researched and many authors have filled volumes of pages to explain all the nitty-gritty involved in communication and to explain to the world how one can and must communicate with others or group of people. A simple Google search for “Effective Communication” generates 44 million pages. Yet, I believe that the communication process as a whole is governed by certain myths and misnomer. We are preparing this write-up to touch upon some of those myths and provide clarity.

Myth 1: Language is critical for effective communication process - In India; we speak more than 18 recognized languages. Have you ever wondered how does a Kashmiri local communicate with his fellow citizen from Southern part of India or our Marathi Maanus (local from Maharastra) communicate with other country men from Eastern India? They don’t use common language to communicate with one another or to express their thoughts. Yet, they communicate effectively, if not efficiently. Your ability to read, write and speak any particular language or list of languages comprises only 10% of communication process and the balance of 90% of communication process consists of your body-language, facial expressions, message, context, complexity or simplicity of the message (words, terminologies, and jargons used in the message), listening, perceiving, interpreting and giving feedback. How efficient or inefficient you are during the 90% of the communication processes makes the overall communication process either effective or ineffective.

Myth 2: Effective communication means your ability to communicate in English Language - Do you know how does the Premier’s of world’s top three economies (President of China Hu Jintao; Prime Minister of Japan Yukio Hatoyama and President of USA Barack Obama) communicate with one another on world forum? Mr. Hu Jintao and Mr. Yukio Hatoyama have very limited understanding of English language and Mr. Barack Obama is not known for his proficiency in Chinese or Japanese language. It is an irony for our generation to use “effective communication” and “proficiency in English language” as synonym. You cannot make a defense by saying that the English is a widely used language for communication, because it is not. Chinese is the widely used [add language] for communication purposes, followed by Spanish at number two and English at number three. It is also interesting to note that the number of people that use Chinese for communication outnumbers the total number of people that uses Spanish and English combined. There are many prominent people, head of states, historians, and other celebrities who are very effective and influential in their native language, be it French, Italian, Hindi, Arabic or any other language, but they are not good with English language. Does this mean that they are not effective communicators or they have deficiency in their communication? English is not the only language used for communication but is one among many other languages used for the purpose.

Myth 3: Ability to write and speak proficiently qualifies you as an excellent communicator - If you write well in any language then you can become a writer and if you speak well in any language then you can become a good speaker or orator but that doesn’t qualify as an excellent communicator. What will you do with your ability to write flawlessly and speak fluently when whatever you write is a piece of irrelevant nonsense and whatever you speak is senseless rubbish? Communication is not just about speaking and writing. It is about understanding the message, context of the message and time of communication.

Myth 4: What you communicate is not as important as how you communicate - There is a difference between being a communicator and being a spokesperson and the key difference is related to the ownership of the message. When you communicate, you know what you are communicating, you take-up the responsibility and you also provide clarification, if required. Subject matter expertise is important. Verifying your facts and figures is important. Taking up the ownership is critical. When you are a spokesperson, you pass-on the message prepared by others and are not in a position to provide any clarification and enhancement.

Myth 5: People holding command over two different languages cannot communicate efficiently - Language is one of the modes to communicate and fortunately, it is not the only way. While communicating, your message, body-language, facial expression and confidence level, should sync to make it an effective communication. Recently, I went to a laundry shop to check the cost. I can communicate in three languages but the shop-owner didn’t know any of those three. Yet, we communicated, verified our message, gave feedback to one another and gave acknowledgement of acceptance of message. Communication across languages and cultures is possible, provided we minimize our self-constructed hurdles. If I decide to not to understand or accept the message then doesn’t matter what language or mode of communication the other person uses, I will never understand. It has a lot to do with the willingness and desire of both the parties involved in communication process.

Myth 6: “No communication” is good communication – In our personal life as well as in work-life we ignore or curtail many requests for communication. We assume that it is good to not respond to a particular message. We hold the information which is meant to be passed-on to people up or down the hierarchy. “No response” or “No communication” or “No feedback” is not considered as good communication but this in turn strangles and complicates many workplaces as well as family relations that actually require frequent exchange of messages for its very existence.

Key elements required for effective communication

1) Know what you are communicating – Knowing what you are communicating is very critical. While communicating, one must correlate his or her own thought process with that of the sensibility of an individual or group of people that they are communicating with. Communication is not a onetime process but involves many to and fro motions and rounds of clarifications, and feedback and hence subject matter expertise is crucial. If you fail to provide the required clarification then you may risk losing your credibility as a communicator.

2) Know the size and composition of people that you are communicating with – It is important to know the composition, size of group (One-to-one or One-to-many or Many-to-one) and cultural background of your audience and based on that you may be required to either level-up or level-down your communication style. If you couldn’t level-up or level-down your communication style based on the need then either you will be considered as incompetent or an idiot.

3) Credibility, Sincerity and Trustworthiness – Do you walk your talk? Are you a reliable and serious communicator or are you an entertainer or publicity seeker? How honest are you in your communication? Are you a habitual liar? Are you authorized to communicate or are you the right person to communicate on the subject or matter that you are discussing or debating about? What’s been your background? All these affect your communication process and your credentials as a communicator.

4) Time of communication – Delay in communication or communicating the wrong message at right time is as good as receiving no communication at all. For example, you could have saved your relation or you could have retained one of your high-performer or you could have brought onboard a very talented candidate but you missed it because you mistimed your communication. There is a right time for every communication to be passed on and for every discussion but unfortunately, the right time is not when you decide it to be right. Just as depicted in one joke between a doctor and a patient.

Doctor: I have good news and a bad news to communicate to you.

Doctor: Good news is that we have been able to prolong the life of your father by one day and the bad news is that I forgot to communicate this to you yesterday.

Good communicator knows the right time to communicate.

5) Precise and simple – Complexity and Longevity of Communication Process kills the essence and effectiveness of the message. Message needs to be simple, straight and accurate. At this point, I remember one of my Department Head. When asked to provide highlights or summary of a concept, he sends across a document of 75-100 pages and of which 99% of text and data would be irrelevant.

6) Feedback – Feedback is very important as it ensures that the message has been understood and accepted in the manner it should have been and that there is no conflict of understanding between the sender and the receiver.

Things to avoid

There are few things that one must avoid to ensure effective communication.

1) Assumptions – There are further two issues that are related to assumptions.

a) Communication between sender (s) and receiver (s) should not have any space for ambiguity. Message must be clearly stated and understood by both the parties and should not be left anything on fancy assumptions. Any such assumption can be fatal for the execution or follow-up of the message.

b) In a relationship between boss and subordinates, among team-members, between employer (or representative of employer) and between any two people that share emotional proximity, miscommunication or lack of communication or misrepresentation in communication leads to assumptions, and gives space for gossip and rumors which in turn distorts the relation, trust and reliability.

2) Common Lingo – In group communication, it is critical to communicate in a language that is understood by everybody else in the group to avoid any conflict of interest, to ensure fairness and transparency. Setting-up a common lingo with one or two or a set of people within a group, which in a way eliminate others from the communication process and make them look embarrassing, not only shows you as disgraceful, disrespectful, scandalous, and despicable but also put questions on your credibility, honesty and communication skills. I was staying with one couple and to keep me out of their discussion, they used to communicate, not privately but right in front of me, in a language that they thought I cannot understand or conversant in. Least did they know that not only I could pick-up few words in that language but their tone and body-language was loud and clear enough to pass on the message. In a group situation, such things need to be avoided or else these put us in an awkward and embarrassing situation.

Conclusion

Tell us what you are going to tell us, tell us, and then tell us what you told us; that is the essence of communication process. Good communication requires clarity of thought, precision of language and empathy with your intended audience. People will interpret your message differently based on their level of education, past experience, familiarity with the topic, fluency in your language, etc. A good communicator has his audience’s best interests at heart. They concentrate on the message, not themselves.

We do not talk TO people, we talk WITH people.

We welcome your comments and feedback because that’s been very crucial for us. Feel free to contact us for any clarification or professional assistance.

Have a great day and take good care of yourself.

Composed by: Sanjeev Himachali

Emails: sanjeev.himachali@gmail.com; sanjeev@onecybertech.com

Twitter: sanjeevhimachali

Related BLOGS: www.sanjeevhimachali.com

Dynamics of Human Resource Management

HR department automation by Comindware Tracker

I will talk to the Boss / Boss Has Told Me…

Job Satisfaction Interpreted

You have a Job to do

Human Resource (HR) Professionals – By the Company, For the Company

Perception and Truth

Easy Way Out

Taking Strategic Advantage

Layoff – The Boardroom Story

Applying Game Theory in Talent Retention

Professional Suicide – II: The Conversation

Professional Suicide – How People Ruin Their Careers

First Incident

From the Desk of Sanjeev Himachali – Random Thoughts & Philosophy of Life

24th August, 2010: A statement, "Either you PERFORM or PERISH. In this journey, we are not carrying FREE baggage".

24th August, 2010: You can GROW as big as you could THINK. It needs passion to reach there.

23rd August, 2010: A good strategist is the one who can instantaneously and seamlessly customize his plans/strategies to address the need of the hour or market and as per the external circumstances and situation without pausing. To succeed, one must always have plan B.

11th August, 2010: I realize that the freedom to do your job independently and to take decisions of mass implications comes with lots of responsibility and accountability.

23rd July, 2010: Everything that is difficult to understand is not useless. Also, everything that is easy to do is not rewarding.

16th July, 2010: Winning is not always important. Sometimes you need to lose something to gain something bigger. Life is all about gambling.

…and Let your Hairs Wave in the Air

Six Myths of Effective Communication

24^th August, 2010: A statement, "Either you PERFORM or PERISH. In this journey, we are not carrying FREE baggage".

24^th August, 2010: You can GROW as big as you could THINK. It needs passion to reach there.

23^rd August, 2010: A good strategist is the one who can instantaneously and seamlessly customize his plans/strategies to address the need of the hour or market and as per the external circumstances and situation without pausing. To succeed, one must always have plan B.

11^th August, 2010: I realize that the freedom to do your job independently and to take decisions of mass implications comes with lots of responsibility and accountability.

23^rd July, 2010: Everything that is difficult to understand is not useless. Also, everything that is easy to do is not rewarding.

16^th July, 2010: Winning is not always important. Sometimes you need to lose something to gain something bigger. Life is all about gambling.