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

Think and act ‘Beyond The Obvious’

One of the finest qualities of a manager is his ability to 'Not to get emotionally dragged'. The ability of seeing things objectively will highly enhance the management quality in us.

Being in this stage, dealing with 100 different issues at the same time becomes so natural. You will never miss out on reading important mails, on mail reverts, and even attending an evening party while a crucial delivery is happening in parallel on the other end.

Keeping one or more focus in your career is extremely

important to attain this stage. You can decide the number of focus points depending on your multi tasking capability. But it is advised to start with minimum.

It can be things like;

• Achieving you project/unit/company goal in terms of revenue, number of employs
• Achieving client delivery excellence etc
• Achieving your personal goals (But make sure your personal goals are aligned with company goals)
• Achieving a high level of employee satisfaction in your team

Once you have this goal, you are all set to tackle many issues that you will come across on a day to day basis. Having set the background for the topic, let me come back to my topic - 'Think and act beyond the obvious'. Among the many of the issues that you may come across, I am interested in applying the above logic in ‘Team handling' and related issues'.

While handling the team all managers will come invariably deal with - appraisal sessions and related activities.

Going by the guidelines set by the organization without any deviation during appraisal sessions is one way of doing it. It doesn’t require much skill and can be done easily.

But being intelligent and applying logics along with the above will take it one step further and will really help the team perform in future.

At this point you should start 'Think and act beyond the obvious'. There are certain acts which falls in 'beyond the obvious' category - which I would categorize as 'Value adds' while managing. Which means, it doesnt necessarily fall in to the standard guidlines set by the organization.
To make it clear, please see the below chart.

The moment we add more dimensions to the obvious category tasks, the quality of thinking pattern in the team changes. This changes the dynamics of the team. And when team’s thinking pattern is focused and matured, it becomes collective consciousness.

Yes!.. This is the level at which a manager should operate.

It is your capability to make your team think beyond the call of their duty, that makes the difference, ultimately it will lead to a dynamic team.

As a Manager, you should know the depth of your teams capability. If you don’t know where you stand at the moment, you can’t take your ship to the next required port. This is a world that moves on theory of relativity.

The team is as good as the team's manager.

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.

Know your worthiness and dream BIG

Many times we look at Business icons like Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Ramadorai and likes just to wonder how they got to these highs in their career with out even wanting to think about the effort that they have made to be there.

No body is born with 100% skill. Naturally we may have some skills inherited in your genes. This I believe nature has given to us to help us make a beginning. In this challenging world, to expect any thing more than that would be little foolish in my view. Hence I like to believe our natural skill set is just 10%(figure for the sake of putting here :-)) of what in total we can build in our career and in our lifetime. The right perception about our career, focus and hard work pays when it comes to building the rest 90%.

The secret of your success lies in setting the right perception about your career. For this, knowing the below I think will help.

Know your own worthiness at two levels

a. For the current demands in organization
b. For future prospects in organization and your aspirations

Let me explain what I mean by above.
Knowing your worthiness is all about exploring yourself , identifying your core skills and the heights that you can scale in area where your skills and capability match. In other words, your ability to think where you need to be after 5 years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years . If not, no better time than now to do it.

Simple examples of such a chart is

• In 5 years - to be a Project manager, 8-10 years to head a Delivery unit, 15-20 years - business head/VP, 20- 30 years - CEO/COO, 30-40 years Chairman of a company, to be in board of directors etc and so on.
• Or it can be - In 5 years - to be a tech lead, 10 years - to be a solution architect, 15 years - technical consultant and so on.
• Or it can be - In 5 years - to be a Project manager, 8-15 years to be a Business development manager, 15-20 years to be a business development consultant, 20-30 years to be a CMO and so on
• Or it can even to set up a company of your own, create job opportunities and much more

What this exercise does ?

This to me is exactly what we call as setting a vision for ourselves. This exercise quickly sets a structure to your career plan. Subconsciously this also sets correct measure and expectations (with yourselves)for your current worthiness in any role that you may aspire and also in your aspiration for the future roles that you would like to handle.

One of the greatest gifts God has given us is the power to dream. The beauty of a dream is that it doesn’t have any rules or limits. Hence you can dream just about any thing in this world - even things which doesn’t exist in this world.

Every great step starts with one single step.
Every step that you takes builds confidence and positive outlook in you and several such step takes you to higher roles and responsibilities. The small steps you have taken will be your investments for your future. I believe this is the only right way to shape your career. It should be gradual and steady and should align with your capabilities. That means … no short cuts!

However, There is one way you can regulate the speed at which you reach new heights.. by taking those small steps and learning from mistakes more frequently. Imagine you setting your goals on a daily basis and evaluating it at the end of the day there by setting new goals for the next day!.. There is no limit to the heights you can reach.

This means that the entire horoscope of your career path can be drafted by you.

Now the question is , what the first step should be. Simple! Start your first step by dreaming.Dreaming about you and your organization's future, its road map, success and glory.

• If you want your company to grow in terms of number of employee base, start dreaming hundreds and thousands of people working around you along with you
• If you want company to grow in size and spread, start dreaming a delivery centre in every part of the world
• If it is for organization's social cause, start dreaming on how the villages in India are transforming and prospering due to our contribution.
• If it is in terms of luxury, glory, comfort and so called 'status', then go ahead dream of huge glass mansions in your own IT park with Hi-Fi facilities.

Dream big, that’s the only first step to making it real. Lets start with this cash less investment.

P.s. Don’t forget to take the second step immediately.. Dreams with out subsequent effort is good to nothing. Keep performing .. Keep re-discovering yourselves.

Make a smart move - Work for tomorrow, today will be taken care of

There are certain abilities which comes with your own nature, but there are certain other abilities which need to be cultivated. One of the best that I can think of at the moment is the ability to 'work for tomorrow'

Specifically from the organization perspective all it means is to move our working culture from 'fire fighting mode' and enable us to be the 'builders of tomorrow'.

If an organization is growing, definitely it is because of some people who naturally hold this ability. Imagine if all of us cultivate this.

I my view, ability to understand matter well in advance about specific scenarios and make the move to counter or resolve the probable issues or requirements proactively as much as possible holds the key to cultivating this ability. More over, there is fun in doing your job if you are in this state.

This will also enable us to be in the dream state of always being in performance based leadership.

1. Understand managers vision for the team and client and keep doing things in background in advance so that when the right time comes the data is ready or necessary steps are either already taken to tackle the situation or can be taken with immediate effect.

2. Understand what client would want. Provide solutions at least on paper for exactly what he might want in future. The ability to anticipate the issues/hardships the client might undergo in future, letting them know on a timely and professional manner in advance and to seek suggestions from them to whether you would like to give a solution for that proactively is some thing which will client's confidence to highest levels.

These kind of approach asks for lot of proactive measures which will definitely take time from your normal BAU work. But the moment you see these as investments for future, the dimension of this activity takes new shapes and will encourage

There is a joy in working this way.

Hope this blog will encourage some one other than me also to start taking proactive and timely steps towards redefining client's confidence/satisfaction and there by probability of new/repeat business as much as it is already helping me.

Start defining your's and your client's targets.. You dont need to work for every day targets any more, for, your target's will always be medium to long term. Happy working days :)

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!