"Apprentice" Style Interviewing - Not a bad approach to recruiting

There was an opportunity created for a newcomer in my department recently. After considering my requirement HR department forwarded four candidates. One of the candidates was not up to mark and was rejected outright. Irrespective of my gut and first impressions, I decided to test them with a short essay challenge. Each individual had his/her merits and demerits. However even after going through all three essays, I wasn't convinced of the right candidate.

I did something totally new for me, something I haven't done in an interview prior to this. I decided to put them them through an 'apprentice' style project. Together with my colleagues we decided on a project which requires the candidate to go through an assignment where (s)he will have to,

- Draft a questionnaire based on a brief

- Find his/her own transport to reach a designated outlet

- Conduct interviews on the supermarket floor by talking to shoppers,

- Come back to office

- Based on the response to the questionnaire to conceive a creative idea

- Brief the creative agency on the requirement

- Work with the agency to finalize the concept

The first candidate went through the process today. My team went about the task of managing the candidate well. I will not comment on his/her performance today given it is an ongoing process. But truly believe it is very good way to conduct interviews. Let the best person get the job!

Taking a stock of your life

Second day of this year was the day a very close friend tied the knot. This wedding was nostalgic for several reasons. For starters my kids were the flower girls for the occasion and event was happening at the same venue where I had my wedding several years ago. The DJ who played at the event was a classmate of mine and the photographer was another kid (meaning several years junior to us) from the same school! It brought together several of our friends and made me review progress we've made almost after a decade of leaving school.

As it is the case with all the people, we too had various types of characters at school. The studious types, not so studious types, the never studious types, extra curricular types etc. Well almost all who came for the wedding seems to have settled down in one way or the other in terms of careers with varying degrees of success. There were several academically brilliant lots who continue to do well in their chosen fields such as banking, academics etc. Then of course the there are few who were academically very good but who seems to have achieved average in their professional careers / ventures for the last dozen of years! Then there are others who were average, were in to many of the extra curricular activities be it sports or otherwise and who seems to do well in their chosen fields be it business or professions!

One thing is for sure, while schooling definitely molds a person's character and then paves the necessary foundation, it is up to the individual beyond that to write his own script of success!

Building Teams - Part 1 - Assuming Leadership

I've been fascinated with 'teams' for a long long time. I've also been a student of the subject for the past nine years. Building corporate teams is bit different although there are more similarities with other teams such as sports teams etc.

The Key difference comes in the form of voluntary vs paid team members! Just that cause is bigger than the paid incentive! (This is more true in the case of Generation Y ers)

There are plenty of times where we've read that story about the legendary CEO coming to the rescue of a company, streamlined staff, got rid of 'excess baggage' through voluntary retirement etc. and then turned around the company from red to green. While these stories are motivational and moral boosting, most of us who fall into the category of 'rest of the leadership team' as department heads, rarely will have that sort of luxury or free way.

In big corporate structures, many of the critical elements of remunerating employees are beyond the individual discretion of a department head. For instance, salary structures and other perks cannot to be offered to an individual just the way you want. Various other factors such as equality, fairness etc relevant across the organization do play a significant role in determining those. Especially during difficult times such as these adjustments to salaries could be even more difficult.

So how do we go about building that great team with all the typical issues, any department head has to counter.

There are multiple methods of developing teams and it very much bottle downs to the individual style of the team leader.

If you are a leader who assumes a new role as a department head then, you very much inherit an existing culture among your team members. You need to be mindful of the repercussions and complications of the existing culture before you go about trying to align the rest to your way. One needs to identify and understand aspects of the existing culture which can compliment the new culture you intend to inculcate in your team. One should go about speaking to as many employees as possible taking a stock of their point of view on the existing modus operandi. However these discussions must serve as feedback sessions and not to indicate any form of opinion. Also many 'politically inclined' employees might attempt to win you over and as a new boss you need to be extremely mindful on this fact.

Depending on the size of the team and the magnitude of the change from the existing statusquo you need to go about announcing such changes. However prior to that one does need to identify several key alleys' among the existing staff. This is not to politicize the process but to ensure you do have ground level assistance and feedback. Key to any change is the credibility you develop along the way. Changes may be tough for all involved but as long as you are consistent to your vision and align all your actions including reward and punishment, I think people will live with that.

Remember your superiors play a pivotal role in this whole processes, prior to engaging any activity one needs to 'sell' your new vision to them. It is paramount that you do have 'C-Suite' sponsorship and endorsement for your action. Failure to do so will lead to detrimental results.

One needs to give every employee every chance possible to change for the better. One needs to set expectations right from the beginning and give candid feedback along the way. One word of caution though, you don't have to be democratic in every endeavor, but do listen to people all the time and then make YOUR decision.

Something that has worked for me all the time with all sorts of people is the genuine one to one dialogue. You tell them your expectation and check with them whether it is possible.

One of the greatest reward capacities that you have in your disposal as a departmental head is your ability to give them opportunities to perform tasks. Do not undermine this. It is a major tool you have, provided you use it right. Check for their aspirations and also try to identify personal gaps, meaning personal developmental needs of your team members. Some companies have a policy of only developing 'requisite' technical skills. This is not a smart move at all. Now as much as possible develop them for their full potential. It pays for the company and adds value for the team as well. Speak to them regularly about their gaps and more importantly about the progress they are making if any. Give them assignments and projects, allow them to make certain mistakes. Seek their feedback regarding important tasks and acknowledge good suggestions and reward such initiatives through pubic praise. People do respond to this and it creates a want to be part of a team.

Well these strategies have worked for me. I'm sure there are plenty of other methods some of you would have tried. Feel free to share!

To be continued..........

Internships - Best way to get your ideal job

For the past couple of years I had the opportunity to work with many interns. For common understanding, an intern is essentially a person who is just out of college, university or who formally wants to spend sometime in between academic years in an commercial environment to acclimatise themselves with the corporate world. I've worked with 16 year olds who come for a week to 24 year olds who come for several months.

There are multiple ways of landing with a good internship job. Some companies advertise for certain limited positions, but more often than not it is your personal contact which gets you the job. All those who have come to work with me belongs to the latter. So make sure your have your contacts worked out!

While I never had the good fortune, I firmly believe this is the best way for someone to find their first job in the corporate world. Let me explain how.

As an apprentice if you are very clear and specific about the type of job you want to take up as a career then you would request for an internship in that particular department(Finance, Marketing, Sales, Procurement, HR, IT, Operations etc). If not you would try your hand at couple of departments before deciding on the ideal. Just a word of caution, to make the internship more meaningful, make it at least 4 weeks and if not a lot more.

Here's what you get a during an internship. Be ready to go through the worse the job can offer. Pretty much like the hospitality industry where a hotelier starts his career from the kitchen, peeling bags full of vegetables. Request you to be given the lowest level of work. If it is a sales job, make sure you get on the field!

Remember during internship you will understand and begin to appreciate a lot about the industry itself. Make sure your internship goes beyond the usual work hours. Spend extra time understanding the business further. Request extra work within the department. Whereever you have the opportunity, engage in inquisitive discussions about the business with the respective department head. Apart from learning a lot, with your 'non brainwashed mind' you might be able to add real value to the organization in the form of useful observations. As much as possible ask for specific projects with surefire deliverable.

While at work try to identify and study successful people in that company. Watch them carefully and try to model their successful traits. It's not about changing who you are, but rather it is about identifying and applying those traits.

Remember as an apprentice you might "not find the most accommodating boss all the time. But be sure to learn whatever possible under various circumstances. Checkout my July 09th blog posting on http://www.dassaonline.com/2009/07/story-of-x-apprentice-career-is-about.html

As much as possible try to receive feedback from your superiors (the person who is assigned as your mentor or even the department head himself). Ask them to be blunt with their feedback. Tell them you prefer the truth about how you are fairing and make sure that they treat you like an equal and not as a 'kid'.

Pay special attention to the soft skill gaps of yours. You are bound to come across those whom you would rate as excellent be it in dress sense, public speaking, mingling with people, negotiations, leading etc. Identify their levels and more importantly identify your gaps. You will not be successful in bridging the gap, but it is worth a million to know the gap so that slowly but surely you could work towards bridging that. Ask your colleagues to give candid feedback in this regard.

Most young adults tend to look for the best paying internship or the comfortable internship when considering one. This is dead wrong. Money should not be a consideration point ever.Greediness for couple of thousand bucks could make you miss out on an opportunity which is priceless. Ideally you should do it FOC!

I always make it point to stretch interns to their maximum limits. I've given them projects with total financial responsibilities and to date none of them have failed me. In fact their projects have been up to the mark, novel and more importantly successful. I've also come across people who are excellent in their technical skills but lacks very important traits such as credibility. For example the playful types sometime bring on board with them their bad school habits! Staying back home without informing for several days and not keeping up to their words etc.I'm glad they are on internships and not on a paid job because if they had been in a proper job, they are destined loose big time.

Now why should someone go through all this trouble?

Well to start off with having couple of projects under your belt will give you an edge over other competitors in your ideal job interview. Your limited grooming would project you as a 'mature' person compared to the others. Once landed with the job it will make your acclimatisation much faster which enables you to perform quickly. And, may be, just may be, that your internship organization would be happy with your work that they may just decide to hire you immediately or subsequent to your studies!

What criecketing partnerships teach us about corporate meetings and negotiations

When following Sri Lanka's 1st test with India in Ahamedabad it brought me home to one universal truth, sports has a lot to teach us.

At the end of the day it was one of those dull draws. However the lesson that I'm about to share is one that could make or break careers for some people.

Great cricketing innings are built on parnerships. If you take a partnership, be it 50 overs or test match cricket their is a universal pattern. When one batsmen is going at great guns the other just compliments and does not try to out do the one who takes the initiative and vice versa. In cricket there are 'passages of play' when one batsman takes over the lead role in scoring runs. Best partners then just rotate the strike! They do not try to match their partner with every storke.

When a partner finds it difficult to face a difficult bowler or to score runs, great partners take it upon themselves to face that bowler. They take over the dominance or they start negotiating the bolwers, minimizing the burden on the other batsman.

Now this sort of approach will both help us in making meetings more productive and negotiations more successful. Lets see how.

Haven't you come across countless situations at meetings where people go round and round the same thing without making any progress.What a waste of time! The point is that you can simply acknowledge the fact that you agree with whats been said AND add ONLY something new to the whole conversation. Next time around when you sit for a meeting, just observe of this fact. Besides when you absorb whats being said and then when you make your constribution to the conversation there is defenetely more value in it.

Group negotiations are ideal situations where this tactic could be practiced with good success. Say you are representing your company in a negotiation with another party. Your colleague is making an obvious point across to the other party which they vehemently arugue against. Rather than trying to join the band wagon you could stay quite analyze their reaction and then work your argument accordingly and present. Given it is a 'silent'voice waking up, they are bound to listen to your point of view.

My enemy's enemy is my friend

I was watching Robin Hood season three and above was the title of the eleventh episode. This is a line said by Guy of Gisborne to the fellow Robin Hood men when they question his motive of joining them. This made me wonder how this becomes true in a Corporate platform as well.

There are many instances in corporate politics where those who play politcs become friends with people whom they feel are undermined by their 'political' foes. Again this happens at a peer and subordinate level.

Let me explain the first scenario,

At a peer a level say at department head level, lets assume that Head of Department A has some professional issues with Head of Department B. Let us assume that A is a guy who plays corporate politics and B does not.

To confront B, A might start getting extra friendly with C,D, E & F who are fellow depatment heads. He might increasingly start spending more time with them building relationships both during and after office hours. With all on his side A might launch his attack on B which could have a severe impact on B.

Scenario two is where A uses a close subordinate of B to get at him. Lets assume X was a close confidante of B and since of late due to few mistakes on X's part or various other circumstances B has been critical of X. It is one of those passages in employement where X will have negative impressions about B. A siezes opportunity and becomes friendly with X and uses him to build a case against B.

I'm sure many of the readers must be familiar with these scenarios. Sometimes you would have used such tactics to your own advatge while some others would have been victims of such tactics or would have been pray and drawn to such political game play.

Those who are part of the corporate world and specially those who have just started out in their corporate lives need to be very concious of this fact. One needs to be minful of the motives of others.

While this does not mean that you refuse any type of friendship offered to you by a colleague of yours just be mindful when your new found friend(s) attempt to undemine a third party. Remember this does not happen bluntly. Be on the look out for patterns of discussions which slowly but surely targets individuals.

You might be draged on to Corporate Politics by those who cherish on such game play. More often than not until you are deeply in it, you just don't know it.

Building a Knowledge Economy - Lessons from the Silicon Valley

This was the topic at the 9th PIMA Public lecture held at PIM on 14th October 2009.

Speaker of the day, Prof. Hilton Roots (a academic from the Stanford University) shared his experience on the evolution of Silicon Valley. According to him Stanford University was the main reason for the valley.

Interestingly there appears to be two main systems within which technology revolution in the USA.

1. Technology development based on Massachusetts area. This is in the East Coast in America (Boston)

2. Technology based on Silicon Valley located in the West coast of the USA.

Interestingly both these localities house some of the best known educational institutions in the world. Boston (Massachusetts) house MIT, Harvard. Silicon valley revolved around Stanford University. In fact the most of the land where the initial valley developed was lease land of the university which was given to high tech companies. (in the form of an industrial park)

One of the key cultural aspects which fueled Silicon valley innovations was the weak social ties prevailed in the society. This lead to many facets including regular job swapping by employees which lead to exponential growth in knowledge sharing. It wasn't uncommon for a person to work in 10 or so companies by the age of 30 in Silicon Valley. The social institutions were the very fabric which fashioned the valley culture.

Probably what determined commercial success of most of these companies were the unique breed of venture capitalists who developed themselves in the valley it self. Apparently by the year 2000, lead up to the dot com burst they were pumping the valley with funds worth 103 billion USD for a year. More than the money these VC firms brought about unique performance driven culture in t Valley organizations where the start ups had very little option other than 'some how make it happen'.

Prof. Roots also cited multitude of examples from his experience in countries such as China and India where prolonged attempts to developed such places with billions of dollars worth of funding. However he was quick to point out such initiatives have failed purely because they tinkered the winning formula. Such tinkering came in the form of government intervention, control and excessive controls over profit taking.

So the question was asked whether developing countries such as Sri Lanka should create their own 'valley' model. Prof. Roots strongly felt that the incubation should happen in the valley and he went on to categorically mention an attempt to create a home grown solution will lead to failure. He also suggested that those countries such as Taiwan which replicated the winning formula, based their model and more importantly gained extensive experience in the valley before replicating the successes in their own country (Taiwanese spent considerable time in the Valley before coming home and setting up operations in their own country).

Madu Rathnayake from Virtusa fame who was a panelist echoed this sentiments by saying that they launched their big operation in the US in Boston which helped them to find Venture Capitalists and other 'necessary' skills and resources which fueled their expansion which enabled them to grow up to the level of being listed on NASDAQ.