Mantras For Being A Successful Manager

Last week, I had a post on "Mind Management". In this post, I'll share my thoughts on few more subtle behavior aspects related to managing a team.

"Practice makes a man perfect". No one is born as a manager. It is only his perseverance, focus in the right direction along with a flair of management that makes him equipped every day. One of the golden rules to follow is

"Be assertive and be like a rock if you know you are righteous in what you say; at the same time accept any mistake immediately and be humble if a mistake has happened from you"

It is not easy to cultivate this in you unless this is natural to

Significance of Emotional Quotient In Communication And Decision Making

There is only a fine line between flipping from a balanced emotional state in to either getting rude or emotional break down. The so called professional behavior is highly backed by a good emotional stability of a person.

The emotional stability to be able to tackle an issue(particularly people related) very much require a person to rise above the entanglements of feelings and see even his own feelings from a third person's point of view.

One of the techniques I use to take a fair decision is as follows.

When a person approaches me with a people related issue, I approach the same the following way.

• First job for me is to set my mind clear from other issues that I might be handling. This helps me to stabilize myself in the highly responsible role of a good advisor and conscious keeper.
• I start with the assumption is that this person has never tried to see things from the other person's point of view. With this assumption in mind, I take up the devils advocate role during discussion. This helps me to test the person's own conviction towards his view points on the issue that he is facing.
• During the discussion, I verify if the person has already shared his issue with some one in pursuit of some relief. If yes, I do an additional task of delinking the issue from possibly accumulated notions and incorrect resolutions he might have already resorted to.
• I assume that the issue is going to be presented before me with lot of attached feelings; simply because we naturally have a tendency to justify our doings. And the easiest way to justify things is by attaching feelings with it :-). This helps me to unlock the person from his emotions and think wisely and strategically. I believe that a person will clinch on to is feelings only until he gets an avenue to release it. Once it is released, generally people feel very light and free. I try to be the person who can facilitate the same.
• It requires an extreme level of integrity from my side to keep the discussion points to myself.
• After listening to the issue, I give my perspective on how it can be resolved.
• Even though, people seem to react very positively to discussions like this, I still believe, one discussion is too less a time for any one to take some solid decisions. Enough time is given to the person to do his home work to resolve the issue. Hence irrespective of whether person was open to the suggestions or not, I just end the discussion by putting my views and giving him enough time to think over and assimilate and act.
• I do not believe any one can be judged with one conversation and hence I too need time to study the case. While the person goes back to his desk taking his own time to work up on the issue, I also utilize that time to study the case and look out for any better resolution.
• Depending on how the issue resolution progresses over next couple of hours/days, I gear up for the next level of discussion.
• This exercise finally ends where the person has resolved the issue in the best possible way.

Last but not the least, inviting a person to discussion and suggesting solution is not a kids job for me. It is as serious as taking an important decision in my own life. This is because I do not know how much my suggestions influence a person's decisions. Hence I keep a special attention to ensure my suggestion will do the best for the long term benefit of the person ,Team and the Organization.

What it means to take initiative

Taking initiative is Courage to take challenges beyond the purview of our day to day work. Doing day to day work is business as usual.Every individual has his own unique strong points. Taking initiative is giving the best to what you are good at both outside and as a part of your day to day work. For example, if you are a good musician, you can take initiative to build a music band in the organization. It is as sstraighht forward as that.

I believe every new heights made by an organization is a result of initiatives taken by one or other employee in the organization. Extrapolating this theory, if everyone takes conscious decision to take initiative to explore best in self and there by contribute to the organization, the power of organization to scale new heights will be enormous.

The following are some thumb rules/basic lessons I learned from various initiatives I could take.

1. Once started, under no circumstance, one should drop the initiative
2. No reason for backing out can stand before us, if you are strong like a rock. Instead only our discipline will make others feel that the initiative is longstanding.
3. Our commitment to the initiative will be time tested.
4. Our commitment will also be tested by others first before they welcome the same.
5. Keep adding value to your initiative.
6. Take it for granted that there will be criticism. Combat it with the belief that you know the best on what you are doing.
7. Welcome criticism with an open heart, weed out the emotions and understand the core message, analyze if there is any key takeaway for you, do the mitigation.
8. Believe that your initiative will be a huge success.
9. Believe that likeminded people will slowly start accepting you as a leader and will start following you.

Once you have initiated an activity, it is no more an initiative, it is a live program. Hence to keep it alive on an ongoing basis, you need to instigate life in to it by way of introducing new strategies and new people centric sub initiatives.

An initiative has to be nourished and re invented through multiple other small initiatives until the initial objective is met. It is also quite possible that you find larger purpose/benefit out of a small initiative that you have started off. If you ever find it that way, redefine the objective of the initiative there by taking it to new levels.

Last but not the least, an initiative calls for a lot of perseverance from the initiators and support from the beneficiaries. The result of all the hard work will be directly proportional to the gravity of the above 2 factors. It is imperative that one cannot live without the other.

Now step back and we can see that at any point we are always a part of an initiative – either as an initiator or as a beneficiary. Choice on to what extent we should contribute is always with us. But doing the same with awareness is highly important and is mandatory.

Driving the change - Being the leader.

An interesting thought that came to my mind when I thought about leadership..

There can be three scenarios in our professional life to chose from.
1. Creating and driving a change for others to follow
2. Being with the change a leader has created
3. Resisting a change




Of this, There is nothing better than we creating and driving a change. And that's nothing but leadership.

Leaders always brings the change. You need not hold a title to emphasize your leader ship always. All what is required is to choose 'leading and bring about creative things in what ever small things you are already doing' over 'just being an executioner of your day to day activities'

On the extreme, if you happen to be resisting a change, then you are in wrong foot. Better change yourself or look out for more accommodating space for your career. May be you are in a wrong job.

If you are happy being with the change, may be it is time for you to run faster than the change and start leading the same.Which means, you are in the right decision, but will always be one leg short off the destiny, resulting in a life long chase. your wanting to be a leader can change this. It is just a paradigm shift.

Now you chose how your career need to be - A RACE where you CHASE? or a RACE where you LEAD.

If it is latter, better gear up to create changes.

A Chase is always a chase, always behind your target. But when u lead it u are in driver's seat. U encourage others to chase your success points. You keep creating new success bench marks and keep travelling. For a winner, chasers will always be to follow him. And they will call you - The leader.

I relate the same reason for which personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Sri Sri Ravisankar, Steve Job, Abraham Lincoln, Bill gates, Narayana Murthy and many other are always adored as people's beloved leaders. All have one thing in common. All of them brought innovation and sustainable changes in what they did/do the best.

Lets bring in a culture of leadership across the organization. Start with simple changes. Lets try doing things differently, bringing in a sense of change in the organization. Faster we do this, faster we globalize our organization.. in all sense.

Let's work together.. Together WE'r strong..
Happy working days!