What Got You Here Won't Get You There By Dr. Marshall Goldsmith

This one makes for an interesting read. Book is 'bout what one needs to do, to be successful in the knowledge era, i.e. the current era of the knowledge worker, where the true assets of any organisation lie entirely and solely in its people.

Goldsmith is an eminent executive coach. Through his own experiences of working with number of leaders from various companies, he brings out a laundry list of 20 bad habits that hold people back and provides a seven step plan for recouping from them.

Forget 'bout being here, getting there, elsewhere etc., just felt if we stopped doing any of the 20, the work place shall become a much better ecosystem to be in.

Over to the list of 20 bad habits. Some of these are effortless and could be unintentional, meaning you needn't have had consciously cultivated and practiced the habits. For eg. speaking while angry or withholding information. You just didn't forward a bunch of official emails to your team ( which of course was not about your own stock option details or pay check or any such super confidential information) and you've actually withheld information. Or you didn't pass on the summary of a meeting you attended to your direct reports. Sounds effortless to do. On speaking while angry, author suggests couple of things - one is just to remain shut up while angry. When you're angry, if you just keep quiet, no one would actually know you're angry and that's just fine. Alternative is to have a ration or toll between what is in the mind to what you speak, instead of you wanting to be spontaneous even while being angry. Before speaking anything, take a pause to think whether what you're going to say is going to be of any help to the person having to receive it or even to yourself. Sounds quite simple. Practicing it, well, might depend on our abilities :-).

And check-out the list of 20. Some of them are awfully bad and the rest, well, anybody can be a prey to them, needn't necessarily be only the bad bosses :-).

1. Winning too much: The need to win at all costs and in all situations. 
2. Adding too much value: The overwhelming desire to add our two cents to every discussion. 
3. Passing judgment: The need to rate others and impose our standards on them 
4. Making destructive comments: The needless sarcasms and cutting remarks that we think make us sound sharp and witty. 
5. Starting with “No,” “But,” or “However”: The overuse of these negative qualifiers which secretly say to everyone, “I’m right. You’re wrong.” 
6. Telling the world how smart we are: The need to show people we’re smarter than they think we are. 
7. Speaking when angry: Using emotional volatility as a management tool. 
8. Negativity, or “Let me explain why that won’t work”: The need to share our negative thoughts even when we weren’t asked. 
9. Withholding information: The refusal to share information in order to maintain an advantage over others. 
10. Failing to give proper recognition: The inability to praise and reward. 
11. Claiming credit that we don’t deserve: The most annoying way to overestimate our contribution to any success. 
12. Making excuses: The need to reposition our annoying behavior as a permanent fixture so people excuse us for it. 
13. Clinging to the past: The need to deflect blame away from ourselves and onto events and people from our past. 
14. Playing favorites: Failing to see that we are treating someone unfairly. 
15. Refusing to express regret: The inability to take responsibility for our actions, admit when we’re wrong, or recognize how our actions affect others. 
16. Not listening: The most passive-aggressive form of disrespect for colleagues. 
17. Failing to express gratitude: The most basic form of bad manners. 
18. Punishing the messenger: The misguided need to attack the innocent who are usually trying to help us. 
19. Passing the buck: The need to blame everyone but ourselves. 
20. An excessive need to be “me”: Exalting our faults as virtues simply because they’re who we are.

And the seven step plan Goldsmith proposes to fix the bad habits includes steps such as  Feedback,  Apologizing, Telling the World, Listening, Thanking, Following up, Practicing "Feed forward". The book deserves a read if you'd like to go over details of the above steps.

So, what's your score out of 20 :-). Keep it a secret until you get to reach 0 on that.

Best wishes if you're on mission 0 out of 20 and happy reading..

The Art of Catching Elephants...

Finished reading Subroto Bagchi's 'The Elephant Catchers'. The author recounts his experiences in growing Mindtree from being a start-up to growing it to over 10,000 employees strong organization to going public. In other words, book covers how Mindtree Minds transformed themselves from being rabbit catchers to elephant catchers. Have recounted a couple of interesting snippets that might enthuse you to read the book and pick a lesson or two in catching elephants :-). If you're charged with growing business, be it in any industry, am sure this book would offer you good insights. If you're in the outsourcing industry, you wouldn't want to miss reading the book.

Why should you scale : 
One day, during the early stage of Mindree, the Chief Strategy cum Marketing officer, shows a poignant slide to the leaders in the organisation. The slide plots the money that would be required to pay the future salaries of its employees, considering annual pay increases for next 5 years against the rate increases that Mindtree was able to manage in the past with its existing customers, extrapolated to the next 5 years. Message comes out loud and clear - Mindtree would very soon run out of business. This brings in the realization - What was needed was not the short change deals - the 5, 10 or 20 people projects that would last for an year or two, but large annuity deals that would deliver revenue stream for many years to come. Short change deals wouldn't even be sufficient to pay for the average annual pay increases in the company, leave alone investing in building new capabilities and such needed for growth.

The beauty of the 'Nothing to lose' concept : 
In the early stages, Mindtree had worked for a small Dutch firm and had a credible relationship with the organization. Down the line this company gets acquired by another company, and that one in turn by a further bigger one - KPN. Net effect, Mindtree lost its business with the firm as a fall-out of the acquisitions. KPN happens to issue a large RFP to the two big players in india for outsourcing its 'Infrastructure Management' work. Now, Mindtree wasn't known to KPN folks. Infrastructure Management was an area that Mindtree had only recently got into, and the RFP process was already in progress. The Mindtree sales person was persistent and had got a meeting with the Vendor Management contact at KPN for the RFP. Now, in the meeting Subroto mentions, "it was the dog that fetched you newspaper daily, but when it was time to feed milk, you're instead looking for the cat" :-). This served as an ice-breaker and as the vendor management person sought to understand the relevance, Subroto goes 'bout explaining the history of Mindtree's relationship in the past and why they deserve to be invited for the RFP. Customer gives them a chance, and a solid proposal turns around and eventually Mindtree wins the deal with KPN. Moral being, go on, keep trying, you have nothing to lose :-)

Diversifying into newer domains : 
This is the most common challenge that every company goes through at some time or the other. Here is how Mindree seems to have managed it for diversifying into insurance vertical. Sales persistently tries and gets AIG's RFP, Proposal response follows, though at this point, Mindree only had the technology capability and not really the Insurance domain capabilities. Mindtree demonstrates its learning process, builds an Insurance 101 course, demonstrates how it will build partnerships with experts who know the domain. AIG - impressed with Mindtree's technical capabilities & convinced of ability to build domain expertise, agrees to support Mindtree with the domain expertise until Mindtree built it in-house. AIG goes on to become a large customer for Mindtree. Persistence pays. To get into the banking space, they just seem to have requested the CEO of a bank during a meeting, if they would be their first angel customer in the banking domain for Mindtree. And it helped to open and pursue the dialogue and eventually the bank did sign-up as a customer.

While these are just a sneak peek, the book offers a volley of insights into many challenges that organisations go through during their growth phase and lessons from Mindtree's own experiences. Makes a wonderful read.

Happy reading..

Empowering women to Lean In to their careers

This is one book that every woman, be she a career woman or otherwise might want to read. And not just women, but men too for the benefit of their women colleagues and friends, daughters, siblings and most importantly their significant other. 

Here is why, for one, Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, has looked at why the ratio of women in leadership positions in organizations is dismally lower than that of men in such positions. She traces this back to why women, either aren't aspiring for leadership positions or are not able to grow to such levels in organizations. In doing so, she looks at the cultural angle, research backed data on women's traits and its impact on their careers, shares her own experiences at various stages of her career and life and draws out recommendations on what can enable women to Lean In to their careers.

The language is lucid, experiences and recommendations candid, writing laced with humor, keeps the reader glued till the finish.

Here are a few random snippets from the book, that might enthuse you to pick the book next. While all of them might not relate commonly to all readers, certainly helps gain a perspective of the wider phenomenon.

• Culturally for men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life, whereas for women, the basic assumption is, it can only be either this or that and trying to do both is difficult if not impossible. Whereas a university research shows, women playing multiple roles, do stand to gain in terms of better mental well being, stable marriages and greater life satisfaction. In bringing out such messages, the author has kept the tempo extremely balanced, without offending either side of the sections - career women, and women who have opted to stay home and nurture their family, given that's an extremely personal choice that deserves a lot of respect.
• When you don't feel confident, sometimes it just helps to fake it. Say, when you have a lousy day, force yourself to smile and just after sometime of forced smiling, you're likely to feel better. One study has found that, when people assume a high-power pose, say by taking up space by spreading their limbs, even for two minutes, they're bound to feel more confident, less stressed and in control of the situation. So, fake it, whenever needed :-).
• Opportunities are rarely offered, they're mostly seized. In today's world, not many bosses have the time to evaluate all applicants for a job and much less have the time to convince reticent employees to play the role. Typically opportunities come from someone springing up to do something, then that something becomes his job. Interesting. Its hard to visualize someone as a leader if he or she is always waiting to be told what to do.
• By and large women tend to negotiate less than men. For the same job, its quite likely that a women is paid lesser than a man.
• Learning to withstand criticism is a necessity for women. Apparently Mark told Sheryl "When you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress"
• Women need to be more open to taking risks in their careers. Look at your career as a Jungle-Gym and not a ladder. Be open to picking up jobs in different functions that offer growth. The only criterion that should matter while picking a new role/job is fast growth. Facebook, promotes the culture of risk-taking among its employees. This is reflected in the posters hung in FB offices, the best of which reads - "What would you do, if you weren't afraid?".
• Success and likability are positively correlated for men, whereas when a woman is successful or pushy, people of both genders tend to like her less. 
• Employees who concentrate on results and impact are the most valuable. Taking risks, choosing growth, challenging ourselves, and asking for promotions are all important elements of managing a career. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
• Anyone wanting to scale the corporate ladder will need to find both mentors ( people who would advise) and sponsors (people who will use their influence to advocate). Today, with more men in leadership positions, and with men naturally seeing their own younger selves in junior men, tend to mentor junior men than women. Junior women and senior men often avoid engaging in mentoring or sponsoring relationships out of fear of what others might think. This needs to change.   
• Authentic communication is the basis for all successful relationships, both at work and at home. Effective communication starts with the understanding that there is my point of view (my truth) and someone else’s point of view ( his truth). Rarely is there one absolute truth, so people who believe that they speak the truth are very silencing of others. When we recognize that we can see things only from our own perspective, we can share our views in a non-threatening way. 
• Asking direct feedback has many benefits. Solicit ideas from every corner.
• Humor can be an amazing tool for delivering an honest message in a good-natured way. A recent study has found that “sense of humor” was the phrase most frequently used to describe the most effective leaders.
• Most women believe, and research suggests- that its not a good idea to cry at work. But that’s okay. Sharing emotions builds deeper relationships. Motivation comes from working on things that we care about and working with people we care about. Emotion drives both men and women and influences every decision we make.
• Being professional needn't mean keeping the personal life separate and not talking 'bout it at work. Professional decisions are indeed influenced by personal lives.
• Just the way we need more women to lean in to their careers, more men need to lean in their homes. Men need to be more empowered at home and with children.
• Trying to do it all and expecting that it all can be done exactly right is a recipe for disappointment. Perfection is the enemy. You cant do it all. Decide what matters the most and be a perfectionist in only such things.” Done is better than perfect”.

While these are just to get you started, the book itself makes a wholesome, engaging and enlightening read. 

The Power of Habit – By Charles Duhigg

Read this book recently after hearing rave reviews ‘bout it and ended up liking it quite much. The author talks ‘bout what a habit is, presents interesting real-life habits of individuals, organisations and communities, analyses how they have been formed or changed and finally provides a framework for habit change. It’s an engrossing read given almost all of the content is real-life case-studies. As an added bonus, you find several pearls of wisdom jump out from the book as you read through, though simple ones.

Here are some of the interesting tidbits and pearls of wisdom from the book.

More than 40% of actions we perform daily are not decisions, but habits. A habit is essentially, a routine that we perform upon a trigger – a cue, and at the end of the routine is a reward. To change a habit, we need to identify what cues trigger the routine and what reward we are craving for at the end of the routine, then substitute it with a new routine. Have a plan for substituting with a new routine and follow it through.

Habits such as nail biting, snacking at work/ weight loss, yelling at kids, depression, smoking, gambling, anxiety and other behavioural problems are apparently commonly treated through such habit reversal therapy.

Interesting Real-life Case-Studies:

• Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), the de-addiction organization has changed lives of multitude of alcoholics by substituting their drinking routine with companionship. The trigger to drink for alcoholics predominantly is depression, stress and pressure and the reward they crave for through alcohol is relief from these and an emotional high. AA has volunteering sponsors for each member who he can meet and talk to or attend a group gathering when there is an urge to drink. Companionship offers the stress/pressure/depression-relief that alcohol creates.   
• A middle aged woman – a chain-smoker and a prolific drinker who has been obese for most of her life, going through divorce and subsequent depression,  transforms into a physically fit woman running & winning in multiple marathons periodically, treks up the Egyptian pyramid, turns out highly productive at work and gets re-engaged. She achieves all of this by focusing on a single ‘key-stone habit’ of hers, i.e. smoking. She replaces that with jogging, and many other positive habits automatically follow, resulting in her all new elevated life.
• Claude Hopkins, a prominent ad-man of America in the 1900s, launches an ad-campaign for an all-new toothpaste product - Pepsodent and ends up propelling the % of brushing population there from a mere 7% to a whopping 65% within a decade of the launch of his campaign. His campaign says, the paste would get rid of the thin off-white film lining the teeth and promises a beautiful-bright-white smile as the reward. Additionally the toothpaste has ingredients ( citric acid, mint oil etc) that leave a soft-tingling sensation in the gums and the tongue – both of which ( smile & tingling sensation) the consumers naturally crave for and the product becomes a hit.
• P&G lands up with a chance invention in its labs – a de-odorizing spray that takes away all bad-odour when sprayed. Company tries to sell it to smokers and pet-owners and ends up realizing, people who stink seldom realize they stink and hence the product remains a dud. There is no cue for such people to buy the product. With further investigation P&G realizes anyone ( not just those who stink, even normal people) would rather crave a pleasant-smell than scentlessness. They add more fragrance to their spray and re-launch the campaign and the rest is history. P&G ends up creating a billion $ revenue making product-line with that product.
• A new CEO (Paul O Neil) of the largest Aluminium Company in the world, Alcoa ( Aluminium Company of America) in mid-80s, when the company was in rough waters with declining profits and employee satisfaction, takes over and regains the coveted position for the company by focusing on and changing a singly ‘key-stone habit’ in the organization. He sets ‘zero employee injuries’ at work as the goal for the entire organization, and ferociously follows-through on this seeking his team to report any injury in their groups within 24-hours from the incident to him, along with associated details on what went wrong, what could’ve been done to avoid this, what corrective actions are in-place to prevent such incident in future and so on. This meant the entire hierarchy under him had to be in close touch, right up to the shop floor. They had to constantly listen to ideas from the employees, leading to open communication channels. Any unit president running into a repeat injury in his group that he could have avoided was fired. Such focus and drive to achieve ‘zero-injuries’, apart from improving worker safety, brought about better sense of belonging, employee satisfaction, better productivity and quality products.
• Starbucks’ training program teaches its employees how to live, how to focus, how to master their emotions, how to be on time and most importantly builds their will power. With such training even children of drug addicts and high-school drop-outs who couldn’t hold on to any job for reasonable period, grow to be successful multi-store managers at Starbucks. Employees are given a clearly written down instruction manual on how to deal with situations that otherwise pull down their willpower – say a yelling customer, long line at cash register and many more that counter staff need to deal with. Employees are trained rigorously on these routines until these routines get automatic and hence Starbucks is able to offer coffee to its customers with a constant smile at the counter which happens to be the prime reason for the phenomenal growth of the company.

Simple pearls of wisdom:

• When people start exercising habitually, even as infrequently as once a week, they start eating better, be more productive at work, smoke less and show more patience with family and colleagues, feel less stressed. Exercise triggers widespread positive change.
• Families eating dinner together, raise children with better homework skills, higher grades, greater emotional control and more confidence.
• Making your bed every morning is correlated with better productivity, greater sense of well-being, stronger skills at sticking to a budget. These initial shifts start chain reactions that help other good habits to kick-in.
• Schultz (Starbucks owner) who rose from a government housing community with humble beginnings to owning up Starbucks, the global coffee-chain – recollects what kept him driven – his mom always asked told him – ‘never quit, you’re going to make us all proud’, and asked him Questions – ‘how are you going to study tonight, what are you going to do tomorrow, how do you know you’re ready for your test’ and so on. This trained him to set goals in life. If you tell people that they have what it takes to success, they would always prove you right.
• When people are asked to do something, that needs a lot of willpower – if they know the background to why they need to do it and are given the autonomy to do it, it is much less taxing for them to do it, as against being ordered to do – in which case it drains their willpower muscles. Similarly in organizations – simply giving employees – a feeling that they’re in control and have genuine decision-making authority can radically increase how much energy and focus they bring to their jobs.
• Retention in any organization is driven by emotional factors – Say in a gym, club or any membership organization, factors such as whether employees knew members’ names and said hello when they walked in go a long way in retaining the members.
• Socially connected people, with friends cutting across multiple strata, who give more back to the community and the society possess the power to trigger societal movements. An ill-treatment extended to one such person in the US in the 1960s triggered the widespread anti-racial movement.  People hate to see ill-treatment extended to a selfless friend than to a stranger.

And here goes the best of the takeaways from the book:

When one of the Starbucks employees starts crying after a customer screamed at her, the store manager takes her aside and says, “Your apron is a shield. Nothing anyone says will ever hurt you. You’ll always be as strong as you want to be”. Manager has picked up the lecture from Starbucks’ training program that continues through-out the career of an employee.

Overall a refreshing read.

Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill

Recently finished reading the book – Think and grow rich by Napoleon Hill. Here is a quick review.

Book talks about the secrets to success (be it financial or otherwise). The author had studied some of the world’s wealthiest people over a 20 year period, and has brought out the secret formula that has worked for them in attaining financial success. Though the secret is drawn based on financial success, the same is said to be the secret to attaining any form of success, as confirmed by some of author’s world-renowned subjects.

The formula is covered through multiple steps, replete with real life examples and instances – book also includes reference to Mahatma Gandhi’s ability to influence 200 million people towards a single purpose. Such parts make for interesting read.

Now, coming to what exactly is the success formula as brought out in the book – here are few that I could connect with –

1. Have a written down definite goal, this should say what you want to achieve, by what time frame you want to achieve and how you plan to achieve this. You have to develop a burning desire/ obsession to achieve your goal. Build a definite plan to achieve your goal and persistently follow-through with each step in the plan until the goal is achieved.
2. Imagine yourself as being successful – visualize yourself as the person you want to become
3. Form a master mind group – this should be your trusted group of friends/ally with whom you’d harmoniously work together, be of mutual benefit to each other, for attaining definite purpose.
4. Knowledge is not power all by itself. Its about our ability to organize it and use it in achieving a definite goal.
5. Build your character through traits of people you admire.
6. Stop worrying ‘bout what others might say / give away the fear of criticism

And there are some more in the book.

A wonderful poem that he references & reiterates –

“If you think you are beaten, you are; If you think you dare not, you don't. If you'd like to win, but think you can't It's almost a cinch you won't. If you think you'll lose, you've lost, For out in the world we find Success being with a fellow's will; It's all in the state of mind.
If you think you're outclassed, you are: You've got to think high to rise. You've got to be sure of yourself before You can ever win a prize. Life's battles don't always go To the stronger or faster man, But soon or late the man who wins Is the one who thinks he can.”

― Walter D. Wintle

He also talks ‘bout few other aspects such as the major attributes of leadership and the major causes of failure of the same – here is the list for quick glance –

• Attributes of leadership - Unwavering Courage, Self-control, a keen sense of justice, definiteness of decision, habit of doing more than paid for, pleasing personality, sympathy and understanding, mastery of detail, willingness to assume full responsibility, cooperation
• Leadership failures - Inability to organize details, unwillingness to render humble service, expectation of pay for what they know, than what they do with what they know, fear of competition from followers, lack of imagination, selfishness, intemperance, disloyalty, emphasis of authority and title.

Overall makes a fairly good read – for anyone who is still to be as much organized/focused as he advises to be :-). 

Happy reading if you happen to read.