Dassalessons @ dassaonline

The Worst Question a Salesperson Can Ask - Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson - Harvard Business Review

2011-10-08T10:14:00.000+05:30

The Worst Question a Salesperson Can Ask - Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson - Harvard Business Review

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

The Steve that I understood

2011-10-06T17:37:00.007+05:30

It's just amazing as to how a person so remote could have such a dramatic impact on your life. His authority as a visionary has well been documented. We all love the products he invented. For the record he invented the "personal" computer, the GUI, mouse, designed master piece computers (Macs), the iPod, i phone, i pad and i tunes, great software such as Mac OS, iOS and of course the animated movie industry with Pixar.

To me he was a lot more. He was the best showman of our time. His method of presentation was a game changer. It set the standard for modern presentations.

He was indeed the Michael Angelo of our time. He was also the Edison of our time. Probably the only man ever to combine both the left and the right hemispheres of the brain to that extent!

The tenacity in which he pursued his passion has in it's own right created an impact around the world unlike any politician of our time. It was he who was instrumental in the concept of "designed in California and assembled in China". Todate they have a very successful model for this new world order.

Many say he defied marketing principles. He was famous for saying that consumers do not know what they want. Contrary to the popular belief he was indeed inline with the basic principles of marketing. He was probably the only person who could see, envision and anticipate so many game changing products. No doubt he was the best contemporary marketeer!

However his greatest legacy is none of the products he helped invent but probably the greatest institution of our time. Many feel with demise of Jobs Apple will be doomed. However the greatest second act of the history of modern business was all about creating an organization that could think 'Steve Jobs'. He was instrumental in putting together an all star executive team. As an avid Apple follower we know that he put together several initiatives to institutionalize the Apple way of thinking for future generations of Apple employees.

As always the real test for Apple as an organization will come after 4-5 years when the current lineup of products will see the daylight.

Steve's ultimate success could be measured on the success of variety of products they might launch 5-6 years down the line. Time will tell. Till then we wait.

Goodbye Steve. We'll surely miss you!

(Picture : courtesy of www.wired.com)

Droping the ball at the most crucial time

2011-09-30T11:58:00.002+05:30

You choose a bank for variety of reasons. You become a member of their proviledged banking service with certain expectations. Organizations use marketing communications to reinforce the product positioning in the minds of their target audience. When you are dealing with one of the largest in the world, you expect certain base minimums.

Here's the context. They call themselves the world's local bank! You deal with them thinking that they could offer certain benefits that other local private banks cannot offer because of their own netwrok and reach especially overseas.

My requirement was simple. I wanted to withdraw certain amount of money exceeding the daily withdrawal limit on the ATM network of the said bank. So I spoke to the Sri Lankan call center which confirmed to me as a special case I could walk in to any local branch of the said banking network and make a request and they would verify my credentials and other formalities with the Sri Lankan branch and honour the transaction.

However I was in for a shok the next day as I walked in to their local branch! So called Customer Support Executive aftermaking me seated for 15 minutes simply said that I cannot withdraw money over the counter. I requested that I be taken to the manager in charge since it is a special request. The guy simply said that If he cannot solve my issue the manager cannot do either! He even refused to take me to another senior officer! Talking of attitude !

Then I made a call to the Sri Lankan call center of the said bank and expalined my plight. After asking several questions and keeping me on hold for over 13 minutes I simply gave up on the call. But the best part is after knwoing my plight and knowing that I was stranded in a foreign country and also having my raoming contact details the call center simply did not bother to call back.

I have made a formal complaint on the matter, lets see how they respond this.

What's the point if they cannot serve you when you need them most!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Not knowingly losing customers

2011-07-17T12:09:00.000+05:30

Probably retail is the industry which has the highest frequency of repeat business and also the one of the highest level of interaction with consumers. In retail, supermarkets focus on two things, basket value and footfall. You improve which ever the variable and you'll improve top line. Product availability is a key for the success of any supermarket because of it's impact on basket size and customer satisfaction.

Since of late I've come to realize that a supermarket outlet that I frequently use to visit is increasingly running out some of the items that I would shop for on weekly/monthly basis. While these items might not the basic essentials they would fall in to the category of items you would look for in your weekly shopping trips.

Here's the consequence. After lack of various products for the past several months I have started to go for competition outlets which I have not done for a long long time. I would call myself a loyal customer of the previous chain. However loyalty is bound to have limits. Running out of products, let alone essentials occasionally is not an issue. But when you come across situations where product unavailability on regular basis you would look else where.

The other danger is that organizations even will not know the parting customers or the reasons for it. There we two others that I know personally who have moved to other chains from the same chain of supermarkets I am referring to. However they have made no attempt to even leave any kind of feedback. I generally do make it a point to provide feedback. Because I believe in brands that I shop with, be it food, clothes etc. But when you don't see much happening after serveal feedback sessions you give up.

Well my current supermarket has lost it's weekly big basket customer in me, but I will use the place for my top ups. With top ups at roughly 10% of the basket value it's quite obvious the wallet share loss. May be I'm the exception. I only know two other people who have abandon the chain under similar circumstances. Interestingly the initial switch happened not because the competition was significantly better(at least we were not prompted to think that way), but because of the bd 'experience'.

Best part is that no body in the organization knows that they've lost a customer!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Service Recovery - Traders Maldives Way

2011-07-17T08:18:00.001+05:30

In one of my previous posting I wrote about bad service at Traders Hotel Male'.

http://www.dassaonline.com/2011/03/management-blindness-and-loosing.html

Upon my return I provided on line feedback on the incident and revved a personalized note from the GM herself assuring me of better service and non recurrence of similar experiences with a request to keep her posted with my next travel plans to Male'.

Couple of months later I did make another trip to Male and I certainly dropped a note to her about my travel.

As expected this time it was different. There were Traders personnel awaiting my arrival at the Male airport. Without any delay I was taken to their speed boat to be transferred to the hotel. At the hotel I was greeted by GM herself, Ester Marcaida who apologized for my precious experiences and assured me of best of service this time around. They gave me a sea view room which was also an upgrade to the usual deluxe rooms we take up. Staff were much more attentive and for all practical purposes they were at my service at the drop of an hat.

At the room there was this personal note from the GM.

All in all it was quite obvious that they've made a successful effort in recvoring from a service mishap. I suppose it was the initiative of the experience GM, Ester Marcaida which assured them over 15 room nights last time and probably a whole lot more as I have advised all my colleagues to stay at the same hotel.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comment

Making the most of the situational leadership opportunities

2011-07-16T13:05:00.001+05:30

Some gain leadership positions by context. While they may not be the appointed leader, given the circumstances and their technical competencies it creates a scenario for them to assume leadership roles.

However these moments could be an acid test for their true mettle as a leader. Those who observe them will watch them closely to evaluate the softer aspect of their leadership style which is so crucial for the longterm assignment of the leadership roles.

Such individuals would do well for themselves if they consciously step out of their obsession on technical competency focus. While technical competency is crucial the leadership in the longer term is really about bringing out the best in others and providing direction, which is much easier said than done.

So if you are assuming a situational leadership role be conscious about the true aspects of leadership as well.

Leadership - You have to earn it

2011-06-17T23:23:00.000+05:30

How careful and thoughtful one should be when taking over a team for the first time?

Simple answer is plenty.

The level of thinking needs to be much greater if the manager comes from an individual contributor background previously.

While every manager wants to stamp their authority and mark in the team they need to be very careful in the manner they go about it. Initial interactions are the most critical. If you mess it up initially it is indeed an uphill task recover from that point onwards.

One needs to be extremely careful in understanding the EXISTING team dynamics prior to making any changes necessary. While changes could be an absolute must in line with new leadership thinking, one needs to get their subordinates buy in to that thinking. A subscribed approach is always good if there are strong existing team dynamics while prescribe or stick approach is also appropriate if the leader has clear set of deliverables. Eitherway communication and regular communication becomes paramount in that regard.

Even with the stick approach it is advisable that the leader depending on the capacity should have one to one chats with the subordinates where (s)he should understand there expectations out of him and also his expectations for each individual. Many forget to spend quality time in this regard and most of the time those who do it fail to do it sincerely.

It's paramount that one understands that a leader's success is as good as the success of his/her team!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

What magazine purchase can teach you about opportunity scouting

2011-04-07T15:24:00.000+05:30

There is this regular business magazine that I purchase on monthly basis during my shopping trips to the regular supermarket that I shop at. For past 4 weeks I have been on the look out for the March edition of the magazine every time I stood at the cashier counter for the grocery payment. Couple of times I've made casual inquiries and the cashier staff response was "sorry sir it is not available".

Since it was not one of those do or die things I did live without it till today. However during my usual walks down the crowded streets of Colombo to my surprise I came across a pavement hawkers who was selling newspapers had not only the March issue but also the April issue. I ended up buying both. But reflections on the incident over lunch reinforced an important lesson.

On most occasions we miss potential opportunities in business and in life because they are not visible from the path we usually take similar to my weekly supermarket trips. While it is the regular usual path we always take it makes lot of sense to deliberately "take a walk down the road less travelled" to identify opportunities.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Be Open to feedback

2011-03-17T22:46:00.001+05:30

Today I had my skip level and it was indeed a glimpse of the 'master class' to come going forward.

As mentioned during the previous postings, I very much wanted to walk my talk in terms feedback in an industry and in an role where I am a complete beginner. My survival would depend on as to how much I would factor in the feedback I receive.

First few months were bit disastrous as I virtually did no sales. Then two of my colleagues did provide me with feedback which was a reality check.

While I have not done any wonders since then, I certainly have made decent progress ever since.

Given we are 15 days in to the last quarter of the financial year there is so much to do during the next 2 1/2 months.

Today's skip level feedback session was indeed very useful in that regard.

Let see what progress I make after this.

Come first June I'll let you know.

All the facilities in the world cannot make up for service deficiencies

2011-03-09T05:55:00.001+05:30

We were shopping at a newly renovated and expanded supermarket recently. The place looks excellent, it carries the almost the full range we want. We certainly did our weekly shopping at the place but it was obvious that something was not right about the place.

It all came together at the point of checking out. It was indeed the service. There were newly recruited cashiers at the checkout counters. The manner in which they punched your bill you lose faith of the accuracy of the bill.

Supervisory staff and other staff at the checkout and elsewhere in the store did not have any kind of orientation towards customer service. It was as if that the supermarket chain was doing us a favor by selling goods! The manner in which they look at you, the urgency within which they attend to things such as weighing and finding goods for you and above all the feeling that they show that we the customers are a bother was just extraordinary.

Let us draw parallels with another outlet of belonging to the same chain which is smaller in size, carries less range. I've always realized that my basket size is 20% less there but we have no issues in shopping at that place. It is the complete opposite when it comes to service. There is much greater sense of sincerity at every point of customer contact right from the security.

Here's the thing. We decided that we would not return to the newly expanded outlet again but will stick to our known location.

However in the process the chain of supermarkets will loose 20% of our weekly basket value which will go else where. Given the special counters that they had at the newly renovated outlet such as bakery etc they definitely lost out an opportunity to up sell to our family and increasing the share of our wallet at least by another 5%.

Point is that might be smaller absolute amount to have lost out from ours as an individual customer.

Just work out the lifetime value that they loose from us. We as a family would continue to shop for at least another 20 years minimum and basket values will continue to grow.

Just to work out the math.

20years * 52 weeks = 1040 times of weekly shopping!

Now multiply that by the amount!

I only wish the staff on the ground realize this.

Like us I'm sure there were others who would have walked out from the place thinking never to return.

Now it's obvious that they have a serious problem.

Lessons learned from a Juvenile Correction Centre

2011-03-07T18:59:00.001+05:30

Recently I was in the Maldives and I was fortunate enough to pay a visit to a close by island which houses a JCC or Juvinile Correction Centre. They've started operations less than a year ago.

Children brought to this island (yes it is an island surrounded by the Indian ocean, with depths of 100-600ft deep sea) are ranging from 12 - 18 years. They are the most notorious with criminal background. Largely they do not posses basic literacy.

It was heartening to see the skills acquired by these kids in areas such as art and craftsmanship. Some of the oil paintings are of the highest order. Thats after 10 months of training. I was also encouraged to hear that two such inmates have successfully launched a commercial painting career.

Here is a successful model that has been puttogether by Police personnel based on a decision taken overnight.

It is interesting to see the level of softskills that could be imparted to the future batches going forward. Arme with such skills the inmates would be in a better position to take on different challenges in the real world.

Hats off to the police officer in charge of this center for a job well done.

Management blindness and loosing customers

2011-03-02T03:19:00.001+05:30

Traders at the Maldives do have customer feedback forms just like any other hotel. But what's the point if you do not act on the feedback. How tolerating the customers would be and for how long before walking away.

Not too long...at least only until a proper alternative arrives.

Traders at Male in the Maldives offer complimentary speed boat service from Male international airport to the capital Male which is roughly a 5 minute ride.

Now imagine this. You make a booking and specifically communicate with the reservations department regarding your flight times and request for a prompt pick up.

Situation becomes even more critical when your flight lands in Male at midnight, 00.30 to be exact.

Ok, they are not there waiting for you although far away resort islands have sent their boats for pick up. So you call them and remind them that you are there!

1.00Am local time they are still not there and you remind them again. You call them again at 1.15Am they still don't make it. What is an hour in the Maldives one might argue. Not if you are on a business trip with morning meetings the next day morning and not of you are the only tourist in the airport!

Fair enough, but how did they try to win back me as a customer?

Obviously I was mad but the guy who came to pick me up was arguing that I should have come in a earlier flight. The lobby manager and his staff (who were there on 2nd morning) acted so so dumb and clueless and simply said sorry.

No recovery plan at all.

On my account I have asked the manager who appears to be a career hotelier to speak to me tomorrow morning. Let's see in his capacity as to how is he going to handle my situation.

Be careful with what you dream

2011-02-16T07:11:00.001+05:30

Dream is a powerful tool at the disposal of any individual. Many are familiar with the definitions of day dreamers and traditional dreams at nights.

On many a occasion night dreams are negative and frightening for most. While I am no psychiatric to decode this phenomena, my guess is that it represent a scenario of a vivid representation of an individuals deep thoughts, hidden in mind.

It's a proven fact that human mind cannot distinguish between what's real and whats imagination. Physically we react to vivid imagination the same way we react to reality.

While one may think this us dangerous and unrealistic, you can in fact use to your greater advantage as well.

Why not use vivid imagination to dream and experience about success you want to achieve in life. If done right with persistence the human body will start reacting to your thought process and you will start making progress in that front.

Try dreaming for a different purpose hereafter. But make sure you allow you body to react to the feeling as well. Last you want is your subconscious mind telling you that's not going to work!

Happy and Prosperous 2011!

2011-01-01T00:21:00.002+05:30

New year rituals are common for most. However goals alone means nothing unless they become an absolute must where we take massive action.

On most occassions these resolutions are things we wish to have, we think we should have or things which are nice to have. On most occasions they do not become part of what is must to achieve.

So the challenge is to make a resolution (or few) which is (are) must to achieve this year and work our hearts and souls toward the same.

May each of you achieve goals setout for 2011!

Happy new year!

It's time to walk the talk in the new year

2010-12-30T07:16:00.001+05:30

With the heralding of the new year there are two challenges before me which requires actioning every bit that I have talked about in these forums.

First is to regain my health situation. Need to bring down my cholesterol levels further and reduce 10 Kg in the process. Challenge is greater as it is expected be done without any 'exercise' and only with diet control. Given the strict diet control and my daily work life that is one tough ask.

Second challenge before me is to act upon the feedback I received and get my new career in swing. Again in order to achieve the annual objectives for June this year, I will have to complete the basics by mid February again.

All in all it's time to walk the talk. Let's see the progress.

"Secret - It actually works"

2010-12-25T05:04:00.002+05:30

I was the rarely the superstitious type. However I had this belief that it was time to getting in to a job which allows me to travel to various countries and also gain experience as a sales person with the number pressure to deliver.

Was I eyeing something specific? Absolutely not. But I had this strong desire for that. On paper I would have had the worse possible qualifications for landing with such an opportunity. My experience was in the field of proper marketing and my natural progression if at was either getting in to general management, hierarchycally grow in the current role I was in or may be to move in to another multinational for a similar role in the field of marketing.

If you asked me back in May if I knew as to where the opportunity would be the answer would be a big No! I and I alone only knew about it. As a prolific reader there was renewed focus on reading about international cross border transactions, more about Fortune 500 companies and international sales etc.

I was envisioning, visualizing myself playing a role of an international sales person, doing travel etc.

Then all of a sudden I was asked by a friend of mine as to I would like to "have a chat regarding a marketing opportunity" at a Fortune 500 IT company operating in the country. Without any serious expectations in mind I thought I should just have a chat. In preparing for the discussions I started updating my CV.

Once I updated my CV I did send it to the respective referees for their reference . Low behold one of them called back and said as to whether it is ok if he send my CV across to his company as their is an internal role which has become vacant. When inquired further guess what the role was all about. It was essentially a territory corporate sales management role which requires me to handle the home country and a another country. Further it too was a Fortune 500 IT company.

Here I am today doing a job very much in line with what I was envisioning 5 months back and enjoying every bit of it.

The best part is that yet again my career change has taken a completely different turn to a totally new area. Career wise whether it was the right thing to do was always questionable. But my decade old corporate history I've always made conscious choices to gain completely different experiences. I suppose only time will be the kiddie of that.

Getting feedback

2010-12-24T22:59:00.002+05:30

At times it is quite obvious that you are not doing something right. You know you are not getting the desired results but you just don't get what you need to do differently. You have the desire to achieve success but something seems keep you away from it. In cricket at times the best batsman all of a sudden go through lean patches. That is when a coach or a mentor will pitch in get the batsman to make that slight adjustment to his technique.

Having a mentor is so critical for a simple reason. The coach, the mentor could see the obvious mistakes one makes. Those mistakes could be simple but yet critical in the final analysis of achieving result.

Today I received suchVehicle servicing feedback on my new job from a colleague of mine. Reflecting on simple observations he made me realize what I have been over looking for the past 4 months. I just realized how powerful the simple observations would be. I've given myself till end January to act on the rectification areas. Will be glad to share the progress with you in February.

Irrespective of whether you do good or bad at work, reach out and seek feedback. It van only help you.

Blog status update

2010-12-02T08:33:00.000+05:30

It has been a long time since I have written something in my blog. I hav been going through a career change and is in the process of settling down. I have spent the last couple of months orienting my self to the new line of work and also travelling a lot by my usual standards. There is a lot of experiences to share interms of walking the talk of how to adapt to change and about the "secret". It does work!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Raising the bar with a new hire

2010-12-02T08:26:00.000+05:30

Hiring a new person for an existing position is always interesting. Hiring a person who is a Team Lead or a Department Head is even more interesting for various reasons. But one thing is for sure. You always look at raise the bar in terms of what the new person bring to the table.

However this becomes highly contextual. Common phenomena is to benchmark against the person who left to see for similar qualities in better packaging. That might be a recipe for disaster. Irrespective of how well one performs one to one match will and can only ensure continuity. While continuity might look stable in some instances it rarely raises the bar.

So what should companies do?

One needs to align the role in the context of organizational strategy and see what sort of a a person is required in terms of both technical competencies and soft skill set.

Also it is important to focus on the softer side of things more as the person is inheriting an existing culture. While the new head is certainly within his rights to create his own culture, how s(he) goes about doing it could very well make or break the team. Companies need to find some level of comfort about the cultural adaptability of the new hire as well.

Technical brilliance could mean nothing in an environment which requires a lot of team effort for the regular running of the business while certain situations demand technical brilliance more than anything else.

Having said that there are occasions companies would look for complete and overall re-hauling of departments!!!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Post 'Some One' Era - The real test of leadership

2010-08-08T16:34:00.001+05:30

When the dust settles and all is said and done about a person leaving an organization the real question will have to be asked,

How is his team performing during post 'that person' era?

This is important in many facets.

Firstly, the real mettle of an individual's leadership capabilities could be judged in this scenario only. This becomes even more important in the context of the stage of the team the person has developed or s(he) is leaving behind. Some teams could be matured, others could be a mixture of new and old, while the third extreme could be a relatively young team.

Judgement too should come down contextually.

Is the team allowed to perform independently or is there conflicting peer pressures from other elements in the organization?

Level of influence of the new leadership for the degree of the current team performance?

The real judgement will come in the form of what each individual and collectively as a team they bring on to the table. Most likely the key decision making power will lie elsewhere (meaning with a another senior executive who looks in to the affairs or with the new leader). The ultimate results the team produces will and shall be determined and influenced heavily by the decisions made.

As a leader there are those who achieve results through sheer individual brilliance where the team becomes mere executors of orders. Others choose a different path of providing opportunity for the team to develop even at the expense of short term drawbacks. There is notihng right or wrong here. It depends on the stage of the organization and also it's immediate requirement. I've seen many during my corporate life who belong to both types. Most of them do belong to the 'individual brilliance' types. Their achievements are conceptualised, strategised and lead by the person him/herself only. (There are those who do not belong to either of these as well)

However there is only one sustainable approach to organization development. I think that is quite obvious.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Go the Distance - An essay to my team

2010-07-10T02:23:00.005+05:30

Yesterday, emotionally would have been one of the toughest days in my corporate life. Last evening I told the team about my departure plans from the company. I knew it was tough to break the news to a team who've been bloody close with me and who gave 200%. I almost broke out, lost my voice and was lost for words. While understandably my team found it both shocking and sudden, in my mind I made this decision sometime back and I was fully prepared. However irrespective of all self mental conditioning, sitting in front of my team was lot tougher than I thought. I purposely chose Friday evening to break the news giving all of us couple of days of recuperating time. After the news they were all speechless. Dialogue was not an option.......

A person is judged by his deeds and in my case I've strive hard to groom a group of people who'd be self sufficient in their own right. I was a firm believer that as a leader you are as good as your team put together. In many fronts I think I was successful in this regard although I could have definitely done better.

However for me the greatest test lies ahead. As a leader your efforts, your legacy is not determined only on what you did but rather what you've left behind. The capacity and capability of your team to continue at minimum and better if possible in their efforts at work that they have to do is the greatest tribute one can expect. In your aftermath if things fall or should effort dilute and does not stand up to the mark, you've failed as a leader!

Change is the only constant in life! You cannot run away from it, you cannot hide from it. You cannot avoid it nor neglect it.

Adaptation is the only way forward! It's an universal truth. You cannot fight it! And you shouln't!

These can be confusing times for my team. I'm sure there'll be plenty of questions regarding this decision. However one needs to come to terms with realities in life pretty quickly. One needs to sum up the situation, take a stock of ground realities, be able to see the new opportunities and move on with life. Men are separated from boys at these sort of junctures.

There are times when one needs to do the complete opposite of what is generally expected in a given situation. That is the only way to move forward with life in a meaningful way. Change in leadership can be a situation (especially in this context ) where everyone around would naturally expect you to drop your shoulders, loose focus, loose sense of direction and above all expect you not to perform to your true potential. A person's character will be determined by how quickly they'll be able to move on with life. We all have a choice, we can worry about things that happened for along time or we can choose to act in a manner that is mature and realistic. Lets be wise with our choice.

One needs to have inner strength, character and resolve to counter this. I believe my team constitutes of people who posses these qualities in abundance. Take the road less travelled.

During the last several years we worked together to crystallize dreams and goals in corporate life. Individually were meant to be down the passage of time. However we are all travelling down an unknown road to embrace our fate. As in this case the road may wander but somehow you need to see it through. You cannot look back you need to stay on track.

As I've always said we can only be prepared to for the opportunities and evantiualities coming our way. Trust me this is one eventuality they've been groomed for, for a long time!

Look beyond your current feelings, it is the hardest part, for a hero's strength is measured by his heart!

Go the distance!

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Building Teams - Part 2 - Approach and Results

2010-06-24T09:24:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I was having a lengthy chat with a colleague of mine regarding some soft issues that individual was facing at work and dealing with people in general. It's the kind of chat I enjoy most and reflection of the same made me write this entry.

Let me quote the last para of a previous blog entry....(http://www.dassaonline.com/2009/12/building-teams-part-1-assuming.html)

"One of the greatest reward capacities that you have at 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. 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 public praise. People do respond to this and it creates a want to be part of a team."

I just cannot reiterate how true this has been and it's wonderful to see this approach being successful on two others as well. It's a great feeling.....

As a leader one needs to work on his or her people. That's probably the most important job at your hand. Some feel insecure in doing this thinking that their apprentices might outshine them or out perform them. Guess what you should be the happiest if that happens! You've been successful in what your suppose to do!

While tasks or projects provide new colleagues with the opportunity to learn and grow, on most occasions the growth predominantly revolve around technical areas relevant to the job. While that has become a given, in today's context the requisite soft skills have become paramount to the success of the individual. It's not just the traditional soft skills such as presentation or negotiation skills. One needs to groom them on handling people, situations and even yes corporate politics!

Importantly it is not about trying to mold the person to your way of thinking. Dialogue has to be regular and contextual. While invariably you need to share with them your take on the matter it is also important you explain the rationale behind your judgement. Further you should also highlight the other options you considered and highlight as to why you preferred what you thought in this context over the others.This allows them to make their own judgment regarding the situation without being forced to do so. Be open to their questions and create and encourage a culture of candor where they ask questions regarding 'silly' soft issues. That's the speedy way to groom them.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Life is always about choices

2010-06-20T07:42:00.000+05:30

Life's choices are certainly not the easiest. Wish they were more straight forward. But then again they'll never be.

Situation becomes even more complicated when the entire world perspective becomes the complete opposite of yours. Ultimately one needs to back your instincts because ultimately you own your decisions. It's much harder when some of those you respect most on continuous basis tend to logically see why you should not make that decision.

There are always options. You are a fool not to consider them. But what if the options are plenty. Do you wait for the ideal? After going through life for a meaningful time, I've come to realize that there are times you need to make a call, with given information at hand. At times you might have all odds stacked against your belief. But if you see things differently with facts (obviously based on certain assumptions that the others do not agree) and something inside you strongly tells that you need to just go ahead and do it. If it is successful its great. If you fail at least the decision is yours and you are more prepared to face the consequences.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Good to be back

2010-06-03T05:32:00.000+05:30

I've been fairly quiet for almost 5 weeks. It's been 5 weeks of tremendous experiences on the move. There are many project's I'm involved and I'm loving every minute of it. Lot to be written being a student of life! Stay tuned

What vegetable growers can teach you about risk management and stock market

2010-05-19T03:43:00.028+05:30

Recently I made a trip to Nuwara Eliya in Sri Lanka to meet some of the farmers who are growing vegetables to supply to our chain of supermarkets. Speaking to all of them and also the office bearers of a farmer cooperative society made me realize one thing.

Depending on the price they fetch for a certain type of vegetable, the farmer communities tends to grow that vegetable during the next season. You know what? At the time of harvesting the particular vegetable is in abundance in the market thus driving down prices resulting some farmers making losses.

According to the co-operative officials month after month it is a similar trend and a result they see irrespective of the farmers being educated about the trend. So what drives them? It is their emotions. When confronted with this question one farmer said irrespective of any logic when the potential to earn higher is available to you they tend to take the risk. When confronted with a subsequent question on why repeat the same mistake he just shook his head. Isn't this all too common in everyday life too and specially when you are dealing in the stock market?

Another method of managing such a risk on perishable items is to grow the same vegetable but segregate the area of growing and grow it at different intervals with slight delays. For example instead of growing the identified vegetables across your entire land extent you could divide it into several blocks (number depends on the size of the land) and then grow the veggie in each land plot with fortnightly gaps in between. This would result in harvesting being spaced out and mitigating whatever the sudden price drops in the market because vegetable prices fluctuate on a daily basis in the local market. However, I was told that even this method is difficult to practice among the farmers. They tend to maximise profits and nine times out of ten face detrimental price situations due to over supply. Food for thought indeed.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Apprentice Update

2010-05-19T03:42:00.002+05:30

Happy to note that the candidate chosen did start work and thus far turning out to be a very good member of the team. Given our foray in to several hectic projects in the last couple of weeks the person concerned was tried under real life circumstances.

Feel free to share your thoughts or feedback on this posting under the comments column

Take the rough road to sharpen your skills

2010-04-19T05:49:00.001+05:30

This weekend I took a longer route on my regular biking endeavor. Although the root was long and it had its fare share of mini hills to tire me out, it also was a carpeted road for half of the journey. Couple of KM in to the journey I realized my level of sweating was low and further it was a smoother ride as well. Now my purpose of riding is to exercise myself better and experience more of a rougher terrain. I'm not an exercise expert but as far as I'm concerned (I may be completely wrong) when I take on a rougher terrain it gives a better feeling and really feel the workout on my arms!

With the carpeted road to ride, I made a conscious choice. I decided to take the gravel side of the road which was uneven and with plenty of potholes. Instantly the ride became rougher and I consciously enjoyed every bit of that 13 or so KM because I knew its going to give me better exercise.

While I was doing that it made me realize, in life in general and corporate life specifically, you should make sure you take the rough road when needed to, although an easier path is available. After all, at a certain stage in your career and in life, its better to take the rougher road because it will groom you for bigger hurdles in life!

Goal Attainment - Yeah I got my Cholesterol levels under control

2010-04-18T09:00:00.000+05:30

I've got some personal achievement to celebrate. My latest reports indicate that I have managed to bring my cholesterol levels within the acceptable range after trying it for over 6 years!!

Yes for almost six years I've been trying various things to bring it under control but all efforts didn't result in any meaningful progress. It was always higher than the maximum tolerant levels. Last December when I went for my annual check up, I got a red flag like never before. was told that my risk levels are even higher because of its hereditary nature as well.

With home front pressure being enormous I decided to take some drastic action. The very next day I went to bicycle shop and bought a decent mountain bike and I peddled 14 km to reach home that evening. Ever since on average I've done1-2 trips, spanning for almost 22- 31 km per trip, every weekend. When there were holidays I made it point to do an additional trip. I also exercised on the obitrek for almost 30 -45 minutes a couple of times a week.

The other major change I forced my self in to was moving away from rice and curry and getting in to a steamed vegetable and fish chicken diet for lunch. It's tough on the home front to do it everyday, but for my sake they do it. Its not a vegetarian diet.

While I have controlled excessive junk food and fizzy drinks, I haven't completely moved out of them as yet.

Having tasted success after 6 years on something that I have not been able to do, I am more than determined to improve on my results further. I have continuously exercised (biking and obitrek) for the past 4 days. I'm determined to keep the average hereafter at 4 days a week (minimum) with attempts being made to take it to 5 if possible. I also want to control my diet further.

Let's see how determined I can be!

Corporate Training, What's wrong with it?

2010-04-14T22:31:00.000+05:30

This is a posting inspired by an ongoing discussion in one of the Linkedin discussion threads.

Every organization today is spending millions of dollars on an annual basis to train its staff on a variety of skills. Companies have come a long way in the field of HR and specially training. There is a lot of science and technicalities behind the subject. How comfortable are the senior management and HR with regard to the effectiveness of training or the money spent on training?

One of the contemporary and strong arguments with regard to training is that it should be linked to KPIs and competency based performance appraisals. While this is well and true, as the age old saying goes there are multiple stakeholders in this process and lapses by any of them could lead to failure in realizing the intended requirements of training people.

Main actors include the trainee, the supervisor, affected parties through manifestation(peers, direct reports and direct contacts), organization (as the funding authority) and of course the trainer.

Bad or a wrong trainer is a no-brainer and we don't need to talk about it.

Most structured companies follow a process where individual training requirements are identified as part of an annual appraisal process and/or based on ad-hoc specific skills requirements. During the course of the year the candidate is nominated to relevant training programs, either external or internal that come up. Should the numbers be large for a similar program, the company might organize a special program for the organization.

Generally companies have a variety of methods to institutionalize and measure individual training. These include on the job assignments to test new skills learned, to simple examinations.

Thus with all this what is wrong with the approach ?

The basic requirement of training is to develop a person's competence for a required job. Now here's the interesting part. Competence refers to requisite knowledge, skills and attitude.

Note attitude. While it is relatively easier to impart both knowledge and skills through a training program, it is difficult to transform the attitude of a person. This is where many training programs go wrong. If you expect the trainer to take a 100% ownership of transforming the trainees attitude, well you are just wrong! It's not going happen. Period.

So how do we overcome this issue?

Here's what has worked for me.

As a boss or a supervisor you need to take responsibility with regard to the training of your direct report. You need to tell the individual with specific examples (remember it has to be specific examples from his own behaviour /work which he can relate to) as to why you feel you are sending him for training. Now this should be done in a very constructive, sincere and candid way. You also need to tell him/her as to how bridging this gap would help him/her personally both at work life and may be in personal life as well. (What is in it for me???) .He needs to have total trust in you and what you say. Once you show him the gap, you need to explain to him as to why it is important to bridge this gap. (This is important for all but more important for soft skill gaps). Also give confidence to the person that you believe in, that he could make vast improvements after this training. (Work on the attitude of the person both towards the training and the subsequent application of the new knowledge and skills)

If it is a training which takes more than one day, make sure you keep a tab of their progress. Take genuine interest in finding out how he/she is faring in this regard. Should there be difficulties offer help in whatever the way you can.

Once training is over receive feedback as to what the participant thought about training, specific learning points etc.

But most importantly ensure you give the individual an assignment(in case he needs to apply this learning in regular work assignments, not required) to demonstrate his upgraded competence. You've got to take time to give feedback as to what you personally think about the progress he has made with specific examples again.

Now as a boss if you are responsible for larger divisions how do you make this happen. Well, you need to do this to your immediate reports and get your immediate reports to follow the same path. Some may argue as Department Heads, CEOs there is more work to be done. Or that this this something for the HR Departments to sort out. I'm afraid time taken to develop people is some of the most productive uses of your own times as been demonstrated by companies such as GE.

Some other companies do use methodologies such as bonding people when they are sent on expensive training and getting them to train others on the skills that they learn. These methods are more effective for highly specific techincal skills training one has to undergo.

So what do you think? What are the methods that have been succcessful that you follow? Share your thoughts as a comment.

Be open to learning everyday

2010-04-11T20:02:00.000+05:30

I was doing another round of cycling this morning. Today, consciously I took a different route around the neighborhood where I explored some of the territory previously unexplored.

Not only I figured out several byroads around the neighborhood and the suburb that I could take in case of an emergency or to avoid traffic but also it gave the opportunity to see some of the scenery and development that I haven't seen before. At the end of the 1 1/2 hour ride I was enriched in terms of what I knew about the particular area!

As I reflect upon this experience it makes me realize that as humans we come across thousands of exposures and interactions everyday. Only if we were conscious about this fact, our learning opportunities will be enormous!

So next time around when you meet someone or see something just be conscious of the fact as to what I can learn from this experience.

Polarized Service Experiences

2010-04-10T04:53:00.000+05:30

With everything going around, one should not be surprised if decision makers in companies take services for granted. There are waves after waves of various management topics that hit different countries and after sometime, corporate public (meaning working people!) tend to think it is well understood. It seems, on most instances the understanding is confined to the surface!

Service aspect of the business is one such thing that seems to be talked less these days. Two recent experiences clearly depicts how true this phenomena is and why one cannot take this element for granted! Essentially it differentiates between owning and loosing a customer. Lessons to be learned for every business.

Let's start with the bad example.....

There is this new Chinese restaurant by the beach which is considered to be a major hit among Colombo (Sri Lanka) crowds. Everything you hear about the place is fabulous. We too decided to check this place out. True to its reputation we found easy, protected parking at an area which is notoriously known for difficult parking. Security guys were very helpful.

We went there for dinner and to enter the premises you need to walk on the beach(sand) but first sight from a distance was absolutely superb. We were welcomed by a gentlemen(seemed to be the owner) who was very professional and courteous. Once the table was offered one of the waiters assisted us to choose food from the menu. It was the owner looking gentlemen who came again to take the order. He was almost down on his knees when he was taking the order. Needless to say the experience was extraordinary, right royal.

Food was really good. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Once everything was done it was bit late and we wanted to sign our cheque and leave early. I told one of the service boys to get me the bill. Five minutes on, nothing happened and I again inquired from another boy regarding the bill. He too rushed backed and did not turn up. By this time we could see the owner and the manager servicing so many other guests and we were trying to get their attention using every decent way possible. After 25 minutes since I first inquired about the bill, I stood up and walked towards where most people were with the hope of getting the attention of the owner or the manager. To my utter surprise none of them took notice of me. Finally I had to "excuse" myself a bit louder to get the attention of the manager. When I told him that I've been waiting for over 25 minutes he just rushed back and send another boy with the bill! When I completed the procedure and got up to go he just came towards us and said "sorry, the computers were not functioning".

Not too sure whether the hardworking owner even knew what had happened. Never the less the last billing incident screwed up what could have been a very good customer experience.

Now to the good example...... They call themselves the world's local bank, yes I'm talking about HSBC. I've been banking with them for well over nine years now. Problem with them is that everything is system driven and there are occasions where you feel you talk to officers who go by systems to provide service which you sometimes feel is below par. With all that, I continue to bank with them because my experience with other banks have been even worse.

For the last couple of credit card billing cycles I have only been able to settle the due amount in full only on the due date itself. But the problem is, for the bank to recognise the payment on that day you need to make the payment either physically or on-line before 3 PM on the due day. On both occasions I have been only making the payment after this cut off time. However as a long standing customer of theirs I demanded that I be not charged the interest which they levy against the total amount(which comes up to a sizable amount).

The officer who handled the issue previously suggested that he would reverse the interest charged against my card but to make the payment before the due date and time to avoid being charged again. He also said that I could call and inform the call centre in case there is a several hour delay with the payment receipt number to avoid being charged. However this time around due to unavoidable circumstances I could only pay 90% of the due money before and could only pay the balance on the due date after 3PM. Thus I have been charged total interest again.

When I brought the matter up with the call centre staff they were of the view that it is beyond their powers and that I talk to their supervisor. A detailed chat with the supervisor resulted in him reducing the amount to 75% of the original amount. After further deliberations he completely reversed the interest charged and also addressed the root cause to the problem. He changed my billing cycle to fall to 2nd of next month which suits me well which also gave me sufficient time to make the payments.

Trained people still make a world of difference!

Cycling - what it can teach you about endurance

2010-04-08T21:22:00.001+05:30

Further to my previous post on 9th February under the title Endurance – Lessons for business life – Intro(http://www.dassaonline.com/2010/02/endurance-lessons-for-business-life.html) thought of keying in the following thoughts.

Not too sure how many of you out there are bicycle fans but I'm sure most of you at some point in your life has ridden one. So may be just may be you guys might be able to relate to my story here!

I did like cycling all my life although I must admit for the past 12 years or so it has been quite minimum. Almost five years ago I did buy a bike wanting to renew and revive my passion but ended loosing the bike to a group of thieves who broke in to our garage and took away not just one but two mountain bikes (the other belonging to my bil)

However a recent visit to a doctor created an opportunity to enter into cycling again. There I was, a proud owner of another mountain bike.

Ever since I got it in mid January I have been doing on average 55KM every weekend (each day I do about 26 - 32KM approximately in 2 - 2 & 1/2 hours). With couple of milk breaks that amounts to average 12KMPH.

Now, for as a person who did not exercise regularly, this was a bit strange for my family members. When I think about it, it all bottle downs to endurance.

First day I rode the bike I did almost 14KM given that I had no other choice in bringing the bike home. However, when I went on a ride the next day, I did roughly about 7-8 KM. But then I made a concious choice about the distance that I will go. I worked out a route in mind. This was an area that I wasn't too familiar with and I was interested in exploring. I did the broad round in my vehicle to check the distance. It was 27.3 KM. The next day, I took the bike and completed the journey. The whole journey took me little over 2 hours with couple of breaks in between.

So next time around just make up your mind, plug in some music and just go ahead and do it!

You're hired

2010-04-04T05:27:00.000+05:30

After going through 6 candidates we've finally chosen the newest addition to my team. Happy to say the person is scheduled to start work on 19th April.

The candidate chosen probably had the least work experience among the seven interviewed and 5 who went through our "Apprentice" style one day practical workout with us.

While the basis within which the person was chosen is highly situational to my team scenario I want to highlight few points in general that we were looking at.

a) Capacity to do what you have to day in day out (both technical and soft skills)

b) Ability to learn and expand capacity to take on bigger projects/roles within the team

c) Cultural fit to the team (More importantly are there any disconnects that might lead to team synergy) and this should be mutual. A day out tells you a lot more than controlled interview environment

d) What the person brings to the table to add value to the team! (Skills, style etc)

e) How comfortable is the person with the work set up and people the person will work in the future (from office set ups to lunch rooms and toilets the person will have to be comfortable!)

The process becomes much easier if you share your expectations with the prospective candidates. Before asking them to come for a 'day work out' with us as part of the third stage of the interview I shared with each one of them why we're doing it and the importance of the same. They too become comfortable with the process as it gives them an opportunity to evaluate to a greater extent the 'fit' in their own terms. While the work they might have to do might be structured in such a way to represent a typical day in the life at office, as much as possible avoid stage drama!

Apprentice Update

2010-03-16T22:28:00.000+05:30

After going through four different candidates, I'm glad I used the Apprentice style interviewing. So far it's 4-0. I found one participant to be in line with my expectations but I believe that person preferred otherwise for financial reasons. There was one that came through well during the interview but ended up being a 'cultural misfit'.

In many ways this approach seems to work both for the interviewer and interviewee. I had a chat with another candidate today and I will take that person through a similar exercise. I think its worth the wait for the right candidate than rushing for someone for the sake of it. Like they say hire slowly and fire fast!

Opportunity Never Knocks Twice - A session by Nahil Wijesuriya

2010-02-18T22:43:00.000+05:30

It was a pleasure listening to Nahil Wijesuriya, a Sri Lankan business magnate who could be classified both renegade and unorthodox at the 30th LBR LBO CEO forum this evening.

I've heard a bit about this businessman but what was dished out was never expected. He was both candid and blunt with his views.

I walked in to the room when he was explaining how he used legal framework to create never seen opportunities by many. For example long years ago when government owned Petroleum corporation had a monopoly over oil bunkering in the country, he went ahead with his own bunkering operation from a barge in the sea. His rationale was that according to the law the territorial boundaries of Sri Lanka for bunkering purposes was confined to 11KM from the shores of the country. Thus he started operating his business with a barge anchored (according to him in 3KM deep sea you cannot anchor a barge )11.5 KM from the shores of the country!!!!

In another example he was explaining his appetite towards taking on the big guns in the business world and giving a good fight for them. He detailed out how he took the fight to the largest corporate organization in Sri lanka on two different business issues. One was regarding a oil bunkering business and the other was a condominium issue for which he took the lead. When the interviewer asked the inevitable question of as to why he loves to pick a fight with the biggest, his answer was he just liked it.......(Later on as a another friend mentioned, reminds her of Branson type of Psyche)

Another key aspect which dawned upon me was that all businessman of this caliber tends to size up situations very quickly and just go ahead with some of the deals (as oppose to countless number of evaluations performed by regular corporates) seemingly with their gut. He explained a formation of a freight forwarding and clearing business where one of the employees of a supplier who approached him wanted him to start up a business in this particular line. Instead of him starting on his own he suggested to the guy to come on board as a shareholder of the company. When the guy said he only had small amount of cash (Rs. 16,000 (approx 97 USD) , he told the guy to throw in that money and that he would contribute the same while inviting another 3rd party to contribute a similar amount. Apparently he organised a deal for the the guy on the same day which gave them a profit which was several times over the equity of the firm. So he says the business began to blossom. This reminded me of Robert Kiyosaki where he says "Tie up the deal first and then we'll work out the money" (in his book "Before You Quit Your Job")

According to him he does not carry any emotional attachments to any of his businesses. He would get in to a business if he likes it and he sells when he gets bored with the day to day activities of it and if the price is right. This guy has done this many times over!!!!!!

According to him many pass over business opportunities because they are afraid of the seemingly difficult and complex laws surrounding them. But according to him that is where the opportunity lies for the true entrepreneur. He says one needs to scrutinise the relevant laws very carefully before giving up on a particular opportunity. "More often than not you find a loophole or a work around to suit your requirement", he opined.

When asked about his family life he said you belong to one of the extremes, which is either you are an extremely family oriented man or as in his case you are a business junkie!

When the interviewer asked about the failures in his business life, he could only recall one instance where one of his companies had to be liquidated by him. Not a bad track record for a guy who keeps taking on new business challenges.

Reflecting upon the discussion it dawns upon me that he is very much the local version of Donald Trump or a Richard Branson! Out spoken, renegade types who thrive on money and other things in life! (Trust you know what I mean)

Having said all that it was an hour's business master class no doubt.

Endurance – Lessons for business life – Intro

2010-02-10T08:38:00.000+05:30

I was attending a dinner yesterday at a colleague’s place and the conversation revolved around one of the guest’s plans to do an expedition to the base camp at Mount Everest. He was talking about the preparation for the event and not being able to practice under similar environmental conditions at 1/3 of the normal oxygen levels.

The expedition is expected to take roughly 16 days to reach the base camp while the return journey is expected to take approximately 5-6 days through a different route. The expedition party consists of a majority of men and few women who are in their mid forties to mid fifties!

The individual I was talking to was a professional corporate trainer cum coach and he was telling us that from a journey point of view the hardest part would not be the 16 day ascend to the base camp but rather the 5 day descend! While the journey on your way up is expected to push all your physical boundaries and wear you off the way back is expected to be doubly tough with your then existing physical condition. Another colleague of mine endorsed this fact by drawing parallels with his experience in climbing the Adams peak!

The point that hit me most was when he said in spite of all odds, it is more in the mental rather than the physical game that you loose out. According to him there are many youngsters who fail the expedition in their over enthusiasm and personal pride. (Apparently there are many Chinese and Japanese who fail this because of personal pride superseding ground realities). Many people fail due to momentary lapses in concentration which leads to making minute mistakes like a wrong footing etc which leads to serious injuries. He was also citing one of his recent experiences in Sri Lanka where during the final stages of an expedition through a local mountain range how people began to take things easy and loose concentration and thereby failed to complete the effort through injury etc.

Driving back home yesterday I was thinking about the relevance and impact of this subject in our day to day business life. I hope to dedicate a future blog entry on some of the reflections in this regard.

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

2010-02-08T21:20:00.000+05:30

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

2010-01-25T00:44:00.001+05:30

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

2009-12-26T06:21:00.000+05:30

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

2009-12-13T17:04:00.000+05:30

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

2009-11-21T11:38:00.000+05:30

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

2009-11-08T10:19:00.000+05:30

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

2009-10-15T21:59:00.000+05:30

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.

Be blunt with feedback

2009-09-25T23:09:00.000+05:30

Inherent nature of the Asian culture avoids blunt and candid feedback. By nature asians would avoid any form of confrontation which is deemed inappropriate. How does this impact professionals and especially those in their early and mid careers.

Time and again I've seen plenty of mid career professionals (and some big bosses for that matter) making scores of grammatical and spelling mistakes in their writing. I think e-mail has a lot to do with it. That's not all they make obvious language mistakes when they talk. People talk about these mistakes behind the person's back on most occasions.

Unfortunately many of the bosses refuse to confront these mistakes promptly. They feel it's best to let it go. On most occasions they feel the recipient might feel intimidated.

This doesn't help the individual at all. In fact at a later stage in their careers it will become a hindrance for career progression.

Fundamentally, younger generations who study in their mother tongue and learn English as a secondary language believe mastery of the language is way beyond them. However with concentrated effort one can master the language over a period of 3- 5 years (up to a respectable level in the corporate world).

Trust me, the typical class room learning can do very little to bring a person up to speed with the language usage. (Those of you who believe sending some one for a English course would solve the problem, you are dead wrong!) Its all about application and application in real life situations where you need to rectify yourself.

So what stops people from learning the language properly during their adulthood?

From a receipient's point of view they need to do two things.

a) They need to accept the fact that they can make mistakes when it comes to the language and more importantly it is ok to make mistakes as long as you don't repeat it.

b) They (the recipient) need to proactively indicate to the boss that they seek feedback and they appreciate the same. (You need to have the urgency to up your game!)

From the boss's point of view they need to commit the necessary time and energy on constant basis to give feedback. And when they do they should focus on the issue and not on the person while ensuring it is one to one.

So next time around when one of your subordinates make a mistake, ensure you give prompt feedback. If you haven't done it before, talk to them prior to giving feedback and tell them why you are doing it.

Driving - What it can teach you about focus and attaining goals

2009-09-25T21:22:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I had to attend an event which was 116Km away from my home with a colleague of mine. Throughout the journey I took the liberty to drive. I do enjoy driving. It was a pretty good driving machine as well (a 2008, Toyota Allion).

Prior to our eventual destination we had few planned stoppages to visit some of our outlets. As for the goal, yes I knew it exactly. It was about eventually reaching the destination on time. usually with typical traffic and road conditions it is a 3 hour drive up the hill. However as a driver you aim at attaining short goals. My goals were two pronged. I was keeping the main towns at the back of my mind. Knowing that with each town that I reach I was that close to my end destination.

There was another more important aspect to my driving. I was focusing on the vehicle immediately in front of me. One vehicle at a time, I started overtaking. This to me was more important than the feeling you get when you cross one of the pass by towns.

On my way back it was purely the vehicle in front. Driving in the night and when you've travelled down the same road on plenty of occasions before it makes it easy for you to focus only on the vehicle in front. I must confess during my return journey I made it a point not to look at the time. Well guess what, there was less traffic comparatively on the road and I made it home within 2 1/2 hours.

So the lesson is for those of you who find it difficult to focus on things, take the wheel and drive a little bit!

Service Excellence - Beyond the Script and FAQ Culture - The Story of Singapore

2009-08-29T14:45:00.000+05:30

First impression you get when you visit Singapore is one of excellence right from the time you land at the Changi airport. There are excellent systems and facilities in place at the airport. On almost all the occasions it is a race against the time to pick up the baggage from the belt. The country has achieved such excellent levels of service delivery quality through their systems.

Staff at the airport are excellent and "friendly" and there is an aura of pleasantness about them. This small country of some 700 odd square kilometers have come a long way for the past several decades. Many attribute such levels of advancement to the culture of discipline instilled upon people by the visionaries such as Lee Kuan Yew. Discipline has been an integral factor in the Singaporean lifestyle. I suppose no other nation in Asia can boast of such disciplined behaviour as a nation that we see in Singapore.

Beyond that facade however is a story which is worth exploring in detail.

If one comes across a situation or makes a conscious effort to test their (Singaporean) responses under different scenarios only one would realize how scripted these people are!

Naturally Singaporeans are not the most friendliest people in the world. A walk down Orchard Road or at a mall and definitely in the MRT you will find people whom you think cannot get those jaw muscles to move in such a way to construct a smile. (Coming from a country where smiling is so natural, I find this difficult to stomach!). The good part about it is that they certainly do mind their own business in public places!

On the road if you ask them for directions etc, some do their best to tell you where things are. However higher percentage simply snap back at you and say 'Nuh'.

Let me explain using few other examples.

In one of the beaches at Senthosa island we wanted to find out as to where are the changing rooms were. There was this man selling ice creams in a permanent sales hut and since he was the only local around we went and asked him where the changing rooms were. He just shook his head and in an arrogant way said 'nuh'. Thinking language might be the problem I started using multiple gestures and pretty vividly explained our requirement. He wasn't bothered about it and after sometime with some angry reaction said "nuh' "nuh' with gestures towards us to the effect go away. When everything was said and done and we were waiting for the 'beach tramp' to pick us at the tramp station we saw the changing rooms. It was right behind the ice cream stall on the other side of the road!!!!!

Say you go to a restaurant and make some queries about the dishes from the Steward serving you. He would be perfectly prepared to answer 6 -7 questions that he has been trained for. However say that you have a genuine problem such as wanting to find out whether a particular dish might be too spicy for a person who finds normal Singapore dishes alright to digest. Trust me you are in for big time trouble. Let me explain.

We went in to this restaurant at the Toa-Payoh hub for dinner with our hosts. Ushering to settle us down was prompt and very good. They said all the 'typical' words you are expected to communicate to your guests at a restaurant. In trying to decide what to order I wanted to find out whether a particular dish would be too spicy for small children(We had two 4+ kids with us). I asked the waiter showing the two kids whether it will be too spicy for them because usually they do not like it when it is spicy. The stewrd responded with a big smile. When I repeated the question again, he simply showed and said the particular item number of the menu item. After reading it again I simply couldn't figure out whether it was spicy, so I asked again by saying I'm from another country and I have not tasted it before, so which is why I wanted to know whether this is spicy. He gave me an embarrassed smile! I asked for his boss who simply snapped back and said 'yeah'. But I must confess, their salads were one of the best I've had.

From visits to public attractions to shopping trips to most places or dining experiences at other fast food restaurants the experience was no different. The country also welcomes some 23 million odd tourists on an annual basis. There're splendid products are targeted at these tourists whilst the country as a whole seems to be geared to service the tourists. Just as the famous Mc Donald's system, they seems to produce service encounters of identical response's. It is a perfect script that they play into.

However beyond the script, it is a different world altogether.

There were signs of the Singaporean govenrment taking certain steps towards addressing this problem. For example there were campaigns on the streets encouraging parents to allow their children to be creative. Probably the government has understood that people need to play beyond the script. May be, just may be, it is a matter of time!

Story of "X" - The Apprentice - Career is about choices and actions

2009-07-23T17:45:00.000+05:30

These days we have performance feedback sessions in most companies. Last year (2008/09)was one of those years which was difficult by most standards. Sri Lanka's economic situation was not only difficult because of the global financial crisis and its ripple effects, the country also had its version of financial crisis and the year also saw the war coming to an end with expenses costing the country a colossal amount of money. (How ever it was a wise investment given the unprecedented growth we are bound to experience)

Given these macro conditions, most companies had a rather difficult year. Performance evaluations of both companies and individuals reflected the same. In times like these, ratings below expectation does not mean those individuals are considered a burden to the company.

Story of "X" is open to debate. The views expressed are spontaneous and in the hindsight these thoughts may be proved wrong.

"X" was a bright young boy in the final year of his Bachelors studies. He recently completed his professional studies in marketing as well. He was a smart, hardworking and a quick learning individual. An ambitious individual he put in lot of effort. In his own words he put his heart and sole to his work. He was loved by all around him.

His primary job role was to increase sales partners under the stewardship of his immediate superior. During the year under review given the prevailing economic conditions the company which he was working for did not meet its annual targets including requisite sales partners. Being an university graduate, in his first job he was exposed to probably one of the least appreciated jobs which teach people possibly the best life skills. Sales! For many sales is not an easy job. However it also provides a person to gain speed on so many aspects in life. Sales gives you the all important confidence, ability improve multiple softer aspects of your life including presentation, negotiation, people handling etc.

"X" was getting himself groomed very fast and his refinement in all aspects mentioned above was clearly visible.

The company evaluated the performance of "X" in the same manner as the rest of the team and he received a below expectation rating. However as opposed to any other year, the company made it a point to reiterate that the below expectation was more based on macro circumstances than anything else. The Company also made a policy decision not to give increments right across the board irrespective of individual performances given the uncertainty surrounding future business prospects. However the company did offer performance bonuses for the past year.

"X" handed over his resignation immediately after the announcement of no increments and the issuing of bonuses. In his own words, he was bitterly disappointed with the fact that he received a meager bonus let alone the company policy regarding increments.

The readers are encouraged to comment on the decision made by "X" in the context of his own career and future.If one were to analyse the situation objectively following would have been the options available to "X".

While monetary benefits play a pivotal role in our lives, one needs to be very very careful about exposure he or she gains. First couple of years in your job determines your corporate value system, your approach to professional life and quintessentially who you become for the rest of your life.

Like Napolean Hill says in his famous book, "Think and Grow Rich", one needs to acquire requisite skills through necessary apprenticeship, even at cost. That serves well in the longer term.While only the time will tell whether the decision taken by "X" is the right one in terms of his career, we will continue to observe the the progression "X" makes throughout his future endeavors.

The story is based on a real life situation.

Dress sense - Is it worth being concious

2009-06-13T13:21:00.000+05:30

Many people do not give proper emphasis to their regular clothing. Should one pay special attention to this subject at all?

They say clothes maketh the man, this could be equally true for women as well. However in general, women seems to be more apt towards what they wear compared to men. So the question is, is it worth the trouble?

Well, in many instances the answer will be, that it depends.

There are those who believe it has an impact both in their personal and professional life. However, people do form opinions about others on regular basis based on what they see. If one considers his or her daily encounters, it is clear that we meet or comes across variety of new people. Thus it makes sense for one to focus on dress code.

Males should focus on their wardrobe more carefully. For example one should not purchase garment items on adhoc basis, because they come across a sale etc. You should personally configure your wardrobe. One should not allow a spouse or a friend to "purchase" their garment items. Some feel that they do not have the knack or the taste required. This is simply not true. With conscious effort anyone can develop this "taste". So my advice is work on it.

It's always good to get independent advice. Sometimes we could falter with particular sizes etc of the garment. For example a big made person who wears a size 17 would find customizing shirt with 16 1/2 body and 16 3/4 collar size would give him a completely different appearance. (Someone who is slightly fatter, would find himself marginally slimmer)For most people customizing shirts could be essential. Lets accept the fact. It's just a handful who can boast of a an ideal physique. Most of us are part of the norm rather than the exception. SO it makes perfect sense to customize both shirts and trousers.

Most men do not give due emphasis to foot ware. Remember, it is not something one can take for granted. You may think that they are not noticeable. But most people do notice them and they do make form opinions about you with your foot ware more often than not. One needs to plan this out with formal and casual foot ware which COMPLIMENTS their garment items.

Its all too strange sometimes you find enough and more people wearing some contrasting colour combinations to work and other social situations. Black pants and creamy brown shoes is definite no no (Last week I saw one person wearing this combination). Colour mismatching in belts and foot ware is all too common still. (Black shoes and brown belts or vice versa).

Those who are innovative and like bright colours always need to be mindful when wearing the maroons, the bright yellows of this world. Unlike the conventional sober colours such as white, grey, blue etc they do not match every skin colour.

Be - Do - Have

2009-05-15T23:04:00.000+05:30

This is a great principle to follow in life and everyone must put serious effort to follow this path.

It's a paradigm shift alright, but it's fully worth the trouble. Trust me it allows you to reach success. There are many who assume that by having a thing (such as more money and time) will allow them to "do" things (such as taking up a hobby, starting a study program, reading a book) which gives them the opportunity to 'be' what they ultimately wanted be. For most people "having" something, an achievement or 'being' comes as the last result in their efforts. However just try to live the life or the person you want to be after achieving the result and see how it actually helps you to achieve your goal. This is something I have constantly tried to drill in to my colleagues and certainly myself as well.

This is a universal truth which is relevant for everything in life be it money, career achievement or relationships.

The core issue is that we as members of the society was brought up in an environment which strongly encouraged a Have - Do - Be culture.

Examples include,

- If you Do study hard at school, you can Have a good job, and you'll Be successful.

- If you Do eat the right food and exercise, you'll Have a healthy body, and you'll Be happy.

This mentality grooms us to take life path down DO -Have - Be. However the problem with this approach is that it is very difficult to motivate one's self do it and only a few who have the courage to see it through.

With the new approach of "Be-Do- Have" gives any person greater chance succeeding in their goals in their lives.

Lets take my favourite example from the corporate world. Every person who gets in to the corporate world expects to be successful. However very few people realize (or very few are made to realise by their superiors) that they need to start "being" at the level they aspire to be and the road to glory will be successful. This means they need to identify the qualities and attributes of those who are already in those positions and see how best one should adapt while keeping one's identity intact. Learning curve becomes shorter, more effective and you tend to practice what you learn. Idea here is not to copy some one or be someone else's replica. But instead it is about identifying qualities which made them successful. And then Adapt!

There is a way successful people approach problems, how they carry themselves, how they talk, how they behave in different situations, their dress sense and so much more. One needs to carefully study these good attributes and see how best s(he) should adapt the same in to their lives.

After all this is neither new nor it is rocket science. For thousands of years people have done this. When one step in to adulthood he or she is shaped and moulded by the first few years of his or her experience. At offices, trainees and 'just out of schools' behave and dress in a very amateurish way compared to most of the experienced colleagues. (how they put the tie knot, how they tuck they shirts, types of trousers and colours they wear etc). However with time you clearly see the transformation of most of them. The corporate value systems have 'deep impact' on how they go about thereafter. They learn from their bosses and peers etc.

This is just one example and this approach is both practical and relevant for any aspect of life.

So BE- DO - HAVE approach certainly helps one to succeed in their own endeavours.

True life lessons work and they can be translated to many different areas in life!

Marketing Challenges in the New Millennium

2008-10-02T10:39:00.001+05:30

This could be viewed from multiple perspectives.

Two of the developments have made marketers world over rethink their strategy, execution and the very existence of the profession in significant proportions.

Globalisation

This has brought about novel challenges to marketers both from domestic markets and going global perspectives. For instance gone are the days when marketers have to contend only with fellow local companies who have accessed to similar resources. As a result of globalisation many foreign companies come to domestic markets bringing with them wealth of resources. Communication material to processes are of world class in nature. They maximise synergies through development of communication material etc which could be used across markets with minimum changes. Local marketers have also raised the bar in this regard. The kind of TV adverts in Sri Lanka between Signal (Unilever) and Clogard(Hemas) is a strong case in point.

With many local companies going global local marketers also face the challenge of getting their mix right. Culture adaptivity probably place the most crucial role here.

1. Communication

10 -15 years ago there were limited channels of communication where public(consumer) seek information. In Sri Lanka during the early to mid 90's there would have been 2-3 TV channels and about 4-5 radio stations in each language and may be 03 main news papers which people read. Fast forward to 2008, and you find there are over 14 terrestrial TV channels, several Satellite TV players who expose consumers to over 80 or so different channels and you find Western Province alone having 30 odd Radio stations with many regional Radio stations while newspapers and publications have also mushroomed in significant proportions.

Given this scenario it is clear that consumer communication channels are fragmented. Those days to reach your core target audience a company had only to focus on running adverts on may be couple of TV programs, radio programs and several papers. However to reach the same audience a marketers have to choose among equally competing programs in multiple channels. Whilst the process and industry has grown to cater to this demand it is fair to say that no single company has mastered this art of optimising given the present levels of fragmentation.

New media such as Internet, e-mail and mobile phone based have also evolved which are also in the process of establishing methodologies. However given the rate at which obsoleting happens in these spheres marketers find it difficult to keep abreast of efficient methods of using such technologies. For example when Internet penetration levels are becoming worthwhile in Sri Lanka world is moving past typical banner advertising to more web 2.0 driven methods such as blogs etc which are considered more relevant in todays era.

2. Profiling the customer him/herself

Modern day consumer who is exposed to many things as a result of this exponential technological advances which is never seen in the history of the mankind is becoming more and more educated, matured by the minute. (S)he is evermore so demanding. Armed with knowledge the consumer is seeking customised product / service offering in every encounter. They are willing change service providers with slight failure to do so. shifting has become so much easy. Thus the marketers have a unique challenge of making use of technology to understand shoppers individually and catering to those requirements.

3. Regulatory developments and legal barriers

Legal framework has never been so stringent. From a global point of view legislation such as privacy laws, intellectual property laws create significant pressure on making use of technologies such as internet, SMS etc and also creativity.

Even in Sri Lanka recent developments such as NATA bill have made both tobacco and alcohol industries curtail their marketing operations. Industry professionals world over who are faced with these challenges are compelled look at various other alternatives and it had changed marketing focus dramatically from unusual methods such as societal marketing etc.

Similarly laws and supreme court judgements regarding noise or sound pollution have pushed marketers abandon some of the most successful execution methods that they've been practicing for ages and go in search of alternatives which are yet to be found. Further these have created significant pressure on budgets.

4. Pressure on accountability

Whilst the phenomena is not new, there is increased pressure from various stakeholders and especially shareholders that marketers should be more accountable for their budgets. For example they seek tangible results for every marketing activity/ expenditure. Whilst it is indeed a step in the right direction it has challenged marketers to tangibalise their action in such a manner which is acceptable to various stakeholders.

5. Evolving organizational role

Marketing is being embraced more and more as a business philosophy across the board which creates even more challenges to maketers on their evolving role. From a mere division which had specific role to play like anyother division now they are required to establish themselves in a new world where everybody in the company is a marketer with their marketing ideas.

Bringing up a champion! (The Sangakkara Story)

2008-09-13T09:48:00.000+05:30

Having had the opportunity to read the award acceptance speech of Kumar Sangakkara at TOYP 2008, made me think few attributes which could have assisted in making this world-class performer.

But before I analyse this aspect, let me quote Kumar on his aspirations for the future,

"One of the most valuable lessons taught to me is that the only cruising you can do in life is downwards. To be truly successful you must be willing to push yourself out of your comfort zone."

"It is a lesson I have tried to apply everyday as my ambition is to not to be a good cricketer, it is to be a great cricketer"

This clearly explains the kind of perseverance, determination and above all passion which drives this amazing individual. The kind of stuff which takes you from good to great! Who would argue that he is not on his way to greatness!

So what are the facts which points out towards the making of this champion during his early days.

To quote Kumar again,

"I was fortunate to have parents that always pushed my brother, sisters and I to pursue excellence in all that we did. We were encouraged from an early age to be ambitious and positive"

"Even today, my father is both my most ardent supporter and hardest coach. he watches my cricket closely and is always quick to point out areas where I can improve , even if I score a century. I am very grateful for his support and encouragement"

There would have been many things that would have contributed the making of this man. However this sums up parents contribution in this whole equation. The kind of values that was instilled upon by the senior Sangakkaras on their children.

This again is nothing new in our Sri Lankan society. All the parents want their children to achieve 'the world'. To me the difference in allowing children to choose what they wish to do but importantly inculcating from a very young age the importance of being ambitious and positive. Once the precedence is set and those two important values are stamped in to one's system it drives what he or she does in what ever they do. Contrary to this most parents choose what they think is best for children probably against the wish of the child and then push down this path in different avenues. But instead your basic value system needs to be instilled upon the child for him to apply that in any situation (s)he wish to do so. As parents one needs to set the ground rules and not force the issue with the choice.

Whilst I do not know what Kumar's bother is doing, I remember the time his sister being Sri Lanka's number one tennis player. Those were the days when I too tried my 'raqueting' abilities with my bother at SLTA. During that period she was considered probably Sri Lanka's best. From what I heard Kumar too enjoys a game of tennis. But two children to achieve national accolade and one to reach international honours on regular basis the parents would have played their part to the fullest.

You can clearly see what Kumar profess in certain other areas as well. For those who are regular readers of his column on Cricinfo is must be quite evident that he is one of the most eloquent writers of the game. His articles are treat to read on most occasions. (He has drawn some criticism from certain quarters for sharing too much of game secrets in public). Never the less he has certainly made his mark already in cricket journalism and he is getting better like wine by the day.

Dr. Uditha Liyanage, Head of the Panel Of Judges at the TOYP explained the criteria by which they selected people. According to him people carry both capability and ability. Capability he defines as what you bring with you(your talents). Ability he defines as the "do ability" or ability to transform in to action, in search of results. According to him to achieve significant things in life this transformation needs to happen it is propelled motivated by the rewards.

In Kumar's case, the terminal reward is obvious. He wants to be a great cricketer! Probably the best in the world!

Stepping up to the plate when required

2008-09-13T06:01:00.000+05:30

When I received an invitation to be part of the TOYP 2008 I was in two minds to attend or not to attend given that it would take up what ever little time that is left for me to study for the upcoming exams. However given my association with Junior Chamber and specific request by a very good colleague of mine, I decided to be there.

TOYP - The Outstanding Young Persons of Year awards are organized by Junior Chamber International Sri Lanka on annual basis to felicitate men and women below 40 who have accomplished things in 10 disciplines. They started the program way back 1980 in Sri Lanka and every year it is becoming better.

The event was very well organized from the outset. Once I was comfortably seated my friend walked up to me and said he wanted to talk to me. He took an envelope out of his jacket and said one of the recipients, Kumar Sangakkara, to be exact, who have won the most outstanding sports person of the year award is in Australia nursing an injury and that there was a lady that has come to accept the award on his behalf and for me to read out the acceptance speech.

Now, reading up a piece of paper is no big deal, but doing it under spotlight and camera is totally another thing all together with few minutes of notice. (There were reasons for me not to walk up to the stage which are beyond the reasoning of this thread).

Two things crossed by mind at that point. My friends had great faith in me that I would do justice to the man who won the coveted title in his absence. Secondly it was an opportunity try something out which I like to do in real life.

Hope I did justice to the man and his speech by reading it out the way it should......those at the audience told me it was good......seeing the clip would tell me how I fared within that 1 -2 minutes under spotlight.

Incremental Vs Breakthorough Thinking

2008-03-22T03:12:00.000+05:30

It's just amazing how some groups are driven by incremental improvements when there is enough capacity and opportunity for breakthrough thinking!

For those of you still confused, let me explain.

In personal life and in business, constantly we are confronted with challenges. Increased targets, raising the the bar continuously. Day by day due to all sorts of productivity requirements we constantly work on this aspect. Except for those who fail, others somehow hit the required targets thereby ensuring continuous growth. Now that's good compared to most who fail to "hit" the numbers anyway.

BUT, those who achieve incremental improvements tend to be very comfortable with what they achieve. The incremental syndrome can be very alarming for individuals and companies and in general for society at large. It's a question of what is possible? The actual potential. After all it is those breakthrough ideas which become runaway winners which brings in more money to the companies and greater rewards and satisfaction to the individual better way of life for people in general.

In technical terms it requires paradigm shift in thinking. You need to change the rules of the game. Same playing field with same rules give same results. Those who play the game in a different ground will achieve breakthrough thinking.

What are the symptoms.

- Companies and people need to sit back and should take a stock of the situation when they achieve numbers or goals/objectives year on year when the bar is raised. (On periodic basis and not necessarily YOY). Whilst it might be a great thing that they do hit their numbers, it should bother them that they're setting for a particular pattern.

- Alternatively in process improvements and business improvement exercises we tend to focus on incremental improvements. We must be conscious that while we are going on incremental basis, some competitor somewhere must be working on a breakthrough idea. They just might change the landscape of the whole ball game after all. Music players were improved by many on incremental basis until Apple came up with the iMac.

- When you are on a role with incremental mentality there is a great momentum built around it. Leaders must be conscious about this fact. The momentum tend to crush any kind of questioning on what has been already successful. (Even though such questioning might lead to incremental breakthroughs!).

- Some of the typical silent voices will never be heard! The leadership in the group should make a conscious effort to get people to listen to others. It's very tough when you are doing something right. Almost all the time we do have time bound pressure looming large to meet the deadlines.

I have seen enough and more groups who does this in test scenarios and in real lives. Some of them become super efficient at incremental improvements they simply refuse to accept the fact that there might be another option which exist!

So next time a around when you continuously "hit" your numbers, pause for a while and think, "Is there a breakthrough option available?"

Management : It's not about you!

2008-03-15T03:54:00.000+05:30

The argument continues, Are the managers born? or Is it a skill that is learnt? To me it's a bit of both. I'd fall to the latter. You can teach people almost anything. Management certainly falls within that realm.

But when someone puts lot of effort to do something, many think they were born with it. Such is the power of practice!

Different people have different styles of management. However what is the fundamental purpose of being a manager? It's an attitude game where the right attitude prevails.

Are you the right management material? According to management expert David Maister answer this very simple question

"Can you get satisfaction by making other people succeed?"

(or do you have the need to score all the goals yourself?)

Key is, it is not about your ego, your name etc. You should be able to build something and allow others to win contracts, businesses, achieve things etc.

Management is very similar to coaching. Every successful team has a great coach. From individual greats such as Pete Sampras and Tiger Woods to great teams such as All Blacks, Australian cricket team there had been a great coach who had been performing behind the seen.

Those who reach the management status should keep this in mind. They need to have "parental instinct", ability achieve satisfaction from seeing the growth of the others.

I've come across many managers who are mostly self centered. They have survived the test of time so to speak. But that's because those who appointed them and those who are above them have all got it wrong!

When star performers are made managers they need to understand that they need to shift gears. You are itched to do things your way, by you. Trust me I know the feeling. BUT that's exactly what you should avoid. One might save sometime in the short term by performing things on their own. Remember it's detrimental in the long run.

If you fall on to the category of people who would want to do things on your own, "to be a rainmaker" all the time, it's not bad at all. You need doers as much as you need managers in this world. There's nothing to manage without doing anything!

Doers are very much part of the success. Just that doers might not always be the best management material.

Good luck and get your act together as a manager.

Interview Jitteriness - Simple mistakes candidates make

2008-03-14T21:26:00.000+05:30

Today I interviewed six candidates for call centre jobs. These were their final round of interviews and as expected they were young, brash and bit jittery.

Following are some of the things which I thought they should have paid more emphasis at the interviews.

- Most come up with a standard set of answers for questions. For example they tell you all the right things (in their opinion) that you want to hear. That's no good. Any interviewer is quick to pick these up. I was blunt, I told them that I know that they are programmed. I think people should act natural and answer the questions on their merits rather than being pre-programmed.

- Relaxing seems to be the biggest problem for most. That's of course understandable considering their age and this being one of their first interviews. But people these days are much more matured than say what I was 10 years back. Surely they could put up a better show!

- Interviewers ask probing questions and unless and otherwise you are very good at bluffing you should not say anything which is contradicting. Haven't seen many finding their way out on that. Experienced interviewers pounce on these types of people. Be honest, they'll appreciate that! I do. And most often they give valuable advice.

- Career aspirations? My favourite question! Most get it wrong by practising this. Most think they need to align something in line with the job. Well, not always! For instance in this call centre jobs, I know these guys are not going to stay more than 18 months. That's like the maximum. But almost all tried to impress with all the right things they thought about call centre jobs. Again I was blunt.

- Sometimes attitude could make you a looser. One girl did today. She was ok material and I would have hired her for sure If not for her attitude! She was more like tit for tat! That cost her the job.

- Most didn't have proper dress sense except one boy. At entry level and specially for call centre that is not all that important to me. However first impressions do matter. Good interviewers are cautious about that. BTW I did confirm the smartly dressed guy. He was good. Good overall material.

Medicare - Make or Break

2007-12-31T23:06:00.001+05:30

Early December my children fell sick both had to be admitted to the hospital. One was hospitalised for 05 days while the other was hospitalised for three days. Add to it my wife was there for two days.

Coming out of hospital I was wondering how on earth an average Sri Lankan afford decent health care, given the humongous amount of of money required to stay in hospital!

In many ways people in this country are use to free health care. However now adays more and more government hospitals are running out of capacity and the existing ones continue to function inefficiently.

When my child was admitted to the ICU there was another crowd who brought in an elderly patient who was pronounced dead after several minutes. I was really saddened to hear the last few hours of that patients life. She was first admitted to one of the primary government hospitals. However due to a strike by the minor staff no body had attended to the patient for well over 03 hours. The family decided to move the patient out and bring her to a private hospital with the greatest financial difficulty. In no vein!

I think many of the generations Y people should seriously start thinking about medicare. That will be one of the greatest assets we could have just like owning a home!

Adios 2007!

2007-12-31T22:55:00.000+05:30

It's been bit over month since I've updated these columns. Just that my trade is as such that the month of December becomes the most eventful/ action packed month for the year. As I write at 11.01 AM I am on the phone coordinating some activities.

However there have been several interesting lessons which I learned during this period. Shall be sharing those one by one in the next couple of blog posts.

May I take this opportunity to wish all my readers a prosperous 2008 where each of you will continue to learn, experience and grow!

Doing more than what you've paid for

2007-11-29T04:16:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I was travelling with one of my suppliers who re-confirmed the aspect of "doing more than what you've been paid for" which was coined by Napoleon Hill the famous author of Think and Grow Rich among many other books.

Many people do not realize this. But it is a sure fire way to get rich, progress in career, win business etc.

In many ways we as employees or entrepreneurs are blinded by the short term orientation syndrome. Our span of thinking is very very short term. Mostly we are there to make a quick buck! This is what Steven Covey calls short term withdrawals from your emotional bank accounts!

Most employees loose enthusiasm thinking they are paid less (there are many occasions even I've thought the same!), many entrepreneurs confine to deliveries that has only been agreed upon thinking that they loose by going the extra mile. Financially, yes they do loose in the long term. But what is more important is their ability win BIG in the longer term.

Let me illustrate;

Take a guy who works for a company with his heart and sole who might feel that he is underpaid at the next annual increment. But the fact is, if he is actually doing things beyond his prescribe scope which adds value to the organization, it will be a matter of time before he gets rewarded.

The same is true for many small time business owners. When they approached clients, they tend to be very careful in their deliveries. They are very fussy about accommodating expanding interests of the clients. Because they see how margins might erode by doing the extra thing or two. I know it's tough when you are an entrepreneur! But as they say you might have to bite the bullet and do it! Clients will offer you more business, make good referrals and above all a happy bunch of customers which is your biggest asset.

Developing leaders

2007-11-14T23:29:00.000+05:30

Another key aspect which Mr. Welch highlights is the “continuous coaching” which they use to do at GE. A recent article series on Fortune magazine refers to how some of the companies groom leaders. Article goes on to explain how companies such General Electric, Proctor and Gamble, Nokia, McKinsey, Hindustan Lever, IBM (Fortune survey with Hewitt Associates and RBL Group) creates competitive advantage for their own organizations through breeding leaders. One of the greatest responsibilities’ of leadership is to develop other leaders.

As a manager who is responsible for two separate teams the author believes that his primary role was to develop those who were under his supervision. With the correct guidance and encouragement they’ve always come up with trumps when and where it mattered most. Author always encourage people to work on developing themselves and on regular basis work with them to chart out their progress in identified areas such as technical competency development and soft skills development. Coaching effort is indeed an investment which carries rich dividend.

Creating culture of candor

2007-11-11T14:45:00.000+05:30

Jack Welch in his famous book “Winning” stipulates how he created and used a culture of candor at GE during his tenure to create high performance. This should be taken in to consideration by all practicing managers. Sri Lankan managers tend to give soft feedback with the intention of not “messing up”. While creating a culture of candor can be difficult from where we are, it must be understood that once it is created it is easy to operate. People will not only provide candid feedback but they will be ready to receive as well. However one needs to be culturally sensitive in this regard.

As a manager when the writer took over a new division he made it clear to the new team about the candid feedback and more importantly took them through a process of acclimatizing through regular dialogue. Initially most of the dialogue revolved around how they perceived the writer and their expectations vis-à-vis actual performance on weekly basis. The subordinates were encouraged to give feedback about the writer on continuous basis. When candid feedback was given to them they were made to understand to why it is important to receive such feedback for their own long term benefit. When team members acted upon given feedback it was acknowledged and rewarded where it was deemed appropriate.

Giving an “A”

2007-10-29T02:26:00.000+05:30

Omar Khan in his book “Timeless Leadership” refers to many interesting leadership traits of which the writer decided to pick and practice a unique feature. It is called giving an “A”. He refers to the famous Boston Philharmonic orchestra conductor and renowned speaker, Benjamin Zander.

“Zander gave all his students an A on the first day of the class, and told them that their job together was to learn how to maintain it. They no longer had to gain it, it was now only theirs to loose. The students became radiant with possibility”

When the writer took over a small size organization as it’s manager operations reporting directly to the CEO, he was entrusted with a group five individuals. The writer used the method of giving an A and the team responded amazingly well with above par performance by their normal standards. The writer also came to the conclusion that by giving an A, you create sense of camaraderie among the staffers and give them greater hope towards achieving something larger. It could be concluded that leaders belief could convert in to a powerful force which ignites physical and emotional trust within each subordinate.

The writer carries positive experience of transforming a person who has been considered under performers by using the method of “giving an A”. The subordinate not only started being efficient in what he was suppose to do but also attained a liking towards taking of out of scope projects and he is now poised to be promoted as an executive after working as a non executive for over 05 years.

There have been plenty of instances where the writer has been on the receiving end of "receiving an A" from his bosses. It creates more commitment to the task as you would find it much more difficult to loose what you already have!

After all we all know that getting there is difficult, but maintaining your level at the top is much much more difficult.

So try out next time around by "giving an A" to a colleague, subordinate,a waitress, a super market helper or anyone whom you want to get something done.

EmergentLeadership during the time of Crisis

2007-10-02T23:29:00.000+05:30

Our discussion topic today at the MBA class was Transformational leadership and it was based on a paper presented by our lecturer at an international conference.

Theme was based on first hand involvement of the institute and the lecturer during the famous and closer to the heart December 2004 Tsunami.

Accordingly there were four types of leadership identified during the course of the presentation.

1. Transformational leaders

2. Transactional leaders

3. Emergent leaders

4. Appointed leaders

During the Tsunami and it's aftermath all four types of leaders were surfaced.

The story begins with the Tsunami itself which was never heard of in this part of the world prior to 26-12-2004. (The writers own account of the first hand experience with the Tsunami could be read in a future article to written with photographs for the 3rd year anniversary of the Tsunami)

When the wall of water swept away the coastal belt of the island nation people were clearly dumbfound. Srilankans by nature are people who are use to emergencies with the two decade long ethnic war and continuous fighting. But this was disaster of unimaginable magnitude! Research was based upon the immediate aftermath of the Tsunami.

Emergent Leaders

This refers to leaders who are surfaced out of no where who assume leadership role during a time of crisis. Generally they are low key, unknown prior to the crisis. Specific examples include those who saved many lives during the Tsunami at times risking their own lives while many of us running towards safety. Further it included people who were unknown before who assumed duties at camp sites taking leadership roles and getting things organized, directing people etc. Interestingly most of these people have not taken part in most of the common village activities let alone leadership positions!

Somethings in them ignited and they started assuming these roles and on most occasions they were very good in their new found roles!

Interestingly during the time of crisis you find the traditional structures going disarray and appointed leaders such as Government Agents etc becoming dysfunctional. Their systems go hey wire and they cannot perform. According to the research this is because the traditional system works perfectly through systems, procedures which are properly documented. Crisis situations trows all that over the window and the appointed leadership structure find it difficult to work in a chaotic scenario!

That is when the emergent leadership qualities surface of various individuals.

Interestingly the research also found out that these emergent leaders either take a back seat or disappears altogether when things staring to settle down or system comes back where traditional leaders assuming leadership. This was a unique observation!

Another classic example was quoted by the lecturer where he explained a scenario where a beggar who was assuming the role of a traffic warden and directing traffic during 1996 central bank bomb blast in Sri Lanka when all the others were running for their lives!

I suppose sports is a great example in this regard and cricket more specifically There have been countless number of times when a side is not doing well where a lower order batsman(a cricketer who's there to BOWL) comes to the crease and plays an innings of his life to win the match for his team from the jaws of defeat! Then you expect the same or similar performance with the bat from the same guy and continuously fails!

More about Transformational

Ancient Wisdom - LBO Coverage

2007-09-29T07:14:00.000+05:30

Ancient Wisdom
28 September 2007 11:48:03
Sri Lanka's business community explores links between religion and management techniques

Sept 28, 2007 (LBO) – Five traits described in Buddhism which do not help achieve goals in life are also well suited for business and management, a top Sri Lankan management professional said.
Restlessness, arrogance, procrastination, indulgence and doubt are traits that cloud one's mind and judgment when trying to achieve goals.
"These five are described in a very advanced spiritual development context in Buddhism. These are five design defects in human beings," Deepal Sooriyaarachchi, managing director of Eagle Insurance said in what was seen as an unconventional presentation at the LBR-LBO CEO forum.

The case study which Sooriyaarachchi described was his own and how he failed his Advance Level examination owing to the five traits.
"I can see I bring these five reasons to my management life," he said.
"We are not focused sometimes, we do not want to hear the bad story, we kill the messenger and we always look for evidence to convince ourselves of what we know." These, Sooriyaarachchi said, are traits of restlessness and arrogance.
Postponing meetings or work schedules at a business shows procrastination.
Low productivity in organization because too many people are employed than needed to complete a task is indulgence.
"Doubt means you do not have confidence in the strategy."
He said there are roughly four ways - ethical, prescriptive, interpretative and intra personal view (spiritual) - to approach religious or ancient wisdom to use with business.
In the ethical view, you are told not to do something bad, mainly due to fear of the consequences which is quite popular and widely practiced, Sooriyaarachchi said.
The prescriptive approach is the way religion can be used in a regulatory view in business.
The interpretative view, Sooriyaarachchi said, is how wisdom in Buddhism that was not mentioned in the context of business situations can be used in organizations.
The definition of prosperity in Buddhism is called atthi sukha (happiness of ownership), bhoga sukha (happiness of having wealth) anana sukha (happiness of freedom from debt) and anavajja sukha (happiness of blamelessness).
"This was not for business people. This was written for lay (normal) people and we use this definition when we motivate our sales agents," Sooriyaarachchi said.

A Direct Report Wants To Resign

2007-09-22T21:22:00.000+05:30

So what? One might wonder! But wait, What if the person is a star performer of yours? How should you react?

Well, at least I've been a witness to the 'many' nasty handling of the same. Most bosses think it is the ultimate in betrayal! They take it very personally. People go to great lengths to stop the person from moving, tries make life miserable for him/her and some times tries to talk to the party whom the person is trying to join and tries to bad mouth them.

What is the fuss all about? I know it very difficult to stomach the departure of a star performer. After all if you played any role in grooming that person. But I feel that's exactly where you can be happy sincerely.

There is one school of thought which says most of the time people leave bosses and not their companies. While agreeing with the argument on most instances, must say there are many instances where it is not the case.

What if from a company point of view you've treated them well and as a boss you groomed the individual to a greater extent. What could be the reasons for him to leave? Obviously he would have got a better break with better prospects. Then what would you do?

Well this is what I did.

When I first heard of the notice, I was completely shocked! Wasn't expecting it in my wildest of dreams. But then again it was real. Gave some time for things to sink in and then had a chat with the guy. It was evident that he had applied for this position long time ago. Perks were better and the position was better according to him. He had already made up his mind and decided to take up the position. I wished him good luck and went on to help him arrive at a plan for him to exit our company.

My rationale is simple. While his departure will create great havoc for me, this is in this person's best interest and as boss I should not be in his way. In fact I believe I should help him out to the fullest for him make swift transfer. Afterall we might be able to attract the same person at a later date who is much more enriched.

Well he will leave during the course of next two weeks. I'm happy that one of my colleagues are moving ahead in life and I wish him all the very best!

When Career Choices are Many

2007-09-05T21:55:00.000+05:30

Many would have come across a situation where you are doing well (in many ways, except remuneration may be!) in your current job and there you go you are offered another opportunity. What if the other opportunity was in a completely different field than what you are doing now? Situation makes even worse if the new opportunity gives much quicker career growth prospects! What would you do?

Well, it's lot easier said than done. How do you sum up your situation? I suppose each situation is unique and there are many facets that needs to be looked at. Let me summarise few as it crossed my mind.

Any new opportunity should be looked primarily in three angles.

Firstly, How does it impact your career progression? What opportunities does it bring to the table? While the new opportunity may not necessarily be in the same area that you are working currently, it must be realised that particular experience you are expected to gain could be valuable in the bigger picture. This is more suitable for those with generalist ambitions(People who would want to run companies). There are many who aspire to go up in a particular field and they should at all cost must avoid shifting fields even for greener pastures. However if you aspire to run companies like me, it's best that you gain overall exposure in areas such a sales and marketing, HR, operations etc.

Secondly you need to look at how it impacts you personal life. You might come across the best of career breaks sometimes which comes in the collision path with you personal interests or life style. Some would require you to change your way of doing to a greater extent. Well for some it works. They adapt themselves successfully to the work requirements while other find greater stress levels in their new found work. Thus far I've picked what was appropriate to my lifestyle all the time.

Thirdly, one needs to look at how it impacts your family life. Most people tend to miss this point. There are instances where I myself tend to do a reality check on this subject. Well you might have the best of career, best on personal interest but it might be conflicting with your family priorities in terms of wife and kids. I'm quite happy that I made the right choice in this regard on several occasions. On two occasions I was offered a job which required regular overseas travel which would have had a impact on my relationship with my wife and children at critical stage in their development. Salary mind you was triple than the little what I am even getting now. I decided not to take any of the options. Don't regret the decision I made.

I think should one carefully weighs pros and cons on all three aspects one might ended up with a decision one would rarely regret

Avoiding new boss syndrome

2007-09-01T06:06:00.000+05:30

When you take over a new function there is a tendency among your team mates clarify everything from you. While it gives you an opportunity to understand your scope of job better, it essentially is a time killer.

One needs to quickly sum up the capacities and capabilities of your team members and start delegating most of these tasks other than real things which require your intervention / attention. This is a tricky one. Most of the time you would find they are not up to your ideal standard. (They don't do exactly what you want!). Thus you might get in to micro management. One needs to avoid this at all cost.

Once you assess the capability of different individuals, you need to start working with them to help them achieve what you want them to achieve. You need to give confidence to those people that completely believe in them to deliver! That is a powerful way of motivating staff. Only thing is you cannot just pay lip service to it. You really need to subscribe to it. Whole heartedly.

It's important to understand that people will make mistakes or do things which are not up to your standard. You need to convince them that they are on the correct track and more importantly appreciate their efforts. Then and only then you should talk about improvements and again you need to give candid feedback.

Growing up in the corporate structure

2007-08-25T05:57:00.000+05:30

GROWING UP IN THE CORPORATE STRUCTURE

Recently I was asked to take up another challenge back at my work place. To take over the marketing operations for the second largest super market chain in the country. Well, there were no back and forth thought processes, just took it up. Also in the process I kept my current responsibilities as well.

How do people grow up in the corporate structure? While there could be numerous ways including unethical types let me focus on the method which I've realised over my little career spanning over 07 years.

Fundamentally at the core, one needs to take more responsibilities. I'm a great believer that just because you are an expert in what you do does not mean you should be promoted to the next level. While there is no question that you need to know your "onions" and know them well, one needs to be able to show the 'capacity' to take more responsibility and take them well.

Capacity is a concept that has been misinterpreted by many. None of us, I repeat none of us are born with great capacities. It is a process you go through to expand capacities. Just like any change the process of expanding capacities is a painful one. When you stretch beyond your comfort zones you would start feeling the pain. This is where most people faulter! They put an end to that process of expanding capacities to avoid temporary pain! This is the short sighted approach. Those who realize the total picture moves ahead with it, bearing the temporary pain.

In most companies great bosses, whom I would call coaches does this quite brilliantly. They push you to limits beyond your perceived capacities. Yes, by doing that the companies too benefit no doubt. But more importantly you learn endurance! When you show great endurance then people know you are ready take up bigger challenges.

Architecture at work place

2007-06-21T22:43:00.000+05:30

Do you believe the office set up, the architecture does help to bring up a whole new dimension to the way people work and to bring out the best in them? Or are you of the view that it is immaterial and irrespective of where you work from you'll do your job?

Well there has been quite a lot written about this subject and the expert seems to be of the view that there is something extra which the architecture brings to the table in terms of creativity / productivity of people at work.

Topping the list are undoubtably the software companies. The "campus" environments at places like google, microsoft in the states and Wipro and Infosys in India are indeed case study material! (yeah...... you wish you could work at Google where they have signature dishes available in more than 8 different free restaurants!)

Even in Sri Lanka Millennium IT could fall in to the same category. The whole custom built environment is suppose to be built to improve and assis creativity of the software developers. (By the way they too have some real cool stuff such as Gyms, Pools, Cricket Grounds, Roof top terrace, TV rooms, rest rooms and yes also a creche!)

All that is fine for IT guys. What about typical corporate people like us! Who comes to work daily to a "typical" office environment which has some form of universal similarity. When designing offices the architects are "suppose" to put lot of thoughts about various stuff including "human movement, ergonomics etc.

Has this actually helped you? Or does it actually matter?

I would think it will matter! But then again I would not know. Why because I have very much been part and parcel of the typical set up throughout.

In a typical corporate environment is this possible

Generation Y - A Sri Lankan Experience

2007-06-13T20:09:00.000+05:30

Generation Y or popularly known as Gen Y in the west specifically in the US can be confusing as there is no proper definition of who they are. Scholars are equally confused! The periodical Amercian Demographics classify Geny as those who were born 1976 while the famous writers "Howe and Strauss" define hem as class of 2000 or those who were born after 1982. The market research agencies consider 1978 - 2000! So you can get a feeler as to what a relative term this could be anyway.

But widely accept norm on the subject is that Generation Y follows it's more logical Generation X. (Alphabetically, certainly it does). Some defines Generation X as those who were born between 1965 and 1980. Again most are confused in this regard!

Any how the young generation those who were born after 1980 seems to be having their own traits. Even in Sri Lanka they could be considered as a TV generation who were brought up with quite a few TV and radio channels.

At work they don't seems to care much about the norms etc at the work place. Naturally they are out spoken. Seek independence in everything they do. They have least regard for the company that they work. (Meaning in terms of relatively long term employment! Say 3-5 years).

They wiil be easily lured to new offers. Constantly on the look out for new opportunities.

So as managers and companies how do you manage these people?

Well, probably one needs to take a stock of the shoter timeframes these people work on and accordingly have mid term plans for them. Take one year at a time and offer challening tasks for them. Should they find that to be interesting they'll continue. Remember they seek to learn, experience and grow more than anyone else. So create ample opportunities for that!

Also help them see the world in it's entirty. Meaning at times they can be blinded by just one aspect of a opportunity. Then do your bit to explain 'the other side'. But make it very clear to them that you are only giving another opinion. BUT THE DECISION HAS TO BE MADE BY THEM.

One last thing, once they decide to move on, help them as much as possible.

Shave your head!!!!!

2007-06-09T17:40:00.000+05:30

I did an interesting thing today. I shaved my head! Yes that's right, just thought I should do it and simply went ahead and did it. My wifee is furious. (She promised she'll refuse go with me any where till I grow my hair back!!!!). My mother thinks I'm totally nuts! (Well I did have few grey hair, but did not shave my head to get rid of it!!!!!!!)

I did another interesting thing. I tok a picture just before I cut my hair. Another one just after. Looking at both must admit I as a person probably look much more presentable with hair.

My point is there are things in life where other people do probably know what's best for you. But you should go ahead with what you want to. Well on numerous occassions before I felt like shaving my head. However various things kept me away from doing it. But today it was different, I just went ahead with what I wanted to do.

Monday morning when I reach my work place I know there'll be people going all "gaga", "what have done", "Oh my god" kind of things. Hey, I just wanted to experience this and I simply did it.

Locus of control has been an interesting subject. Cutting out most of the crap it is all about are you driven by YOU or are you influenced greatly by external factors. Today I was quite confident thatI proved my self that my locus of control is internal.

Do you actually need an office?

2007-06-05T22:50:00.000+05:30

I was reading "The Gig" by Nadira A. Hira on http://www.fortune.com/ where she questions the necessity of an actual office and that made me write my own piece about my Sri Lankan experience.

Well the job that I'm involved is not one of those journalistic or software related thingy where you might be able to work from home. It involves much human contact, certain amount of fire fighting and lot of team interaction.

However I fall in to the category of having a PC at home and a "home ADSL connection". So technically I'm wired compared to most people in my country. With that background here's my take!

There were few days this year where I was either sick or due to some other home affair where I could not make it to the office. On each of those days I did manage to work on many forward looking projects which I simply was not able to perform during my 'regular' office hours. Well here the other difference. I did not spend what ever the time getting my self ready to go to work. I did not spend well over an hour on the road just to commute to my self to work (where I cannot do anything meaningful other than answer the occassional phone call and listen to radio). All in all I managed to clock in 1/12 hours of "quality morning hours" in to good use. And all this while I was wearing my good old "sarong".

While we all are trained corporate 'creatures' use to the office attaire, I sure given a choice in the context of home based work many people would prefer to wear non office clothes. (I'm a firm beleiver of good dress to work and other places)E-mail was the main for of communication between me and my colleagues although I did use IM to a certain extent with people who have it. Made less than 8 phone calls for the entire day and yet managed to complete more than what I usually do.

Because I was at home I could attend to some of the house matters while it made my wife and children very happy to see me around. I certainly had discipline to focus on work!

Well, I guess I'm lucky to have the infrastructure in place to perform the task. I know for most other people it could still be a luxury. However come to think of the cost I think it's feasible. As with anything there is cost benefit and it is up to you to benefit out it.

Must admit though that there had been quite a few occassions where I've been frustrated because the ADSL internet connection has been annoyingly slow!

Even over here I have heard quite a few people saying they either come to work very early or stay till late or come on during a weekend just have do some work without being disturbed. With that sort of thing you tend to wonder what this fuss is all about when you actually can allow employees to work from home may be couple of times a month.

Journey of a thousand miles start with a very small step.

Position based Vs Interest based Negotiation

2007-05-31T22:54:00.000+05:30

It is interesting to note that negotiation is a life skill which all of us practice which we do not attach much science to. Since the day we were born we've been negotiating and mind you we've been good at that. We learned craft when we want mother's milk and subsequently we mastered it where we use accomplish many things by simply crying for things.

A typical negotiation ends up on most occasions with a win loose situation. Each party "come to the table" with their own position. That sets the tone for the rest of the activity where in dog eat dog world each party tries to overwhelm the other. Rationale is simple. If I walk away with anything less from my original position I have lost something. I have compromised. So let me do what ever within my power to either defend my position at a minimum or may be get more than I want. Obviously this leads to win loose situation. Those who give in most will loose while those who gain will win. Position based negotiations on most occasions become personal matters. Let me share with you the story of the genie,

Once upon a time there was this man who was walking in the beach where he came across a different bottle. For curiosity the man opened up the lid and out came the 'genie'. After thanking the man genie volunteered provide the man with anything he wants as a gesture of goodwill. However it said that what ever the wish the man is granted with the neighbour will get double of that. First the man wanted a mountain of gold and then he realised his neighbour will get double of that amount. So he gave up the idea. Then he was thinking of a place for him to live but the idea of his neighbour having two he could not live with. He racked his brain profusely and finally said to the genie, "OK , take one eye of mine".

Sometimes the competition we have is against someone else for no reason. Who cares what your neighbour gets if you are way better off than you are. Whilst it is obvious when confronted with the situation our competitive nature tends to take over common sense.

Compromise is another popular misconception. There is a school of thought that both parties needs to compromise to arrive at a workable solution or a win win situation. But in actual terms a compromise leads to a loss of something either one party or both parties have originally wanted. Thus it is not a win win situation.

Better way of negotiating is the interest based. Rather than holding on to positions if you ask the question "why" you are at that position parties have the opportunity to transcend in to another level from where they are. The best way to mov from position based negotiation in to interest based negotiation is by asking the question why?

For example let us consider a scenario of two children a mother and an orange. The two girls were arguing that want the same orange. The positions are fairly clear. Each party wants the organge and they would go all out trying to get that. However as story goes mother decided to cut orange in half give both children. Ince she did this both girls went to the kitchen and one girl made juice out of the pulp and drank and threw away the peel while the other girl took the peel from her half and used it for marmaleade while trwoing away the pulp. At that point the mother realised had she asked why she could have made two oranges out of one and allowed each daughter to have a "complete" orange!

Stamp your own team identity in an Eco System

2007-05-30T21:34:00.000+05:30

When you are part of a large oraganization one tends to climatise accordingly. While agreeing that you need to adapt to the culture, it is not the case all the time.

Today we celebrated the b'day of one of our team members, and true to the style we made a big buzz about it. We had to take little bit of our precious office time to blow the baloons, decorate etc. Another one of our colleagues in the same premises only few desks away (not part of our team) also celebrated her b'day. However there was no such do's around that table. While there were no comments made yet, it reminded me about a previous experience.

For Christmas my team wanted to decorate the place where we are seated so I gave the go ahead for decorations. After all it was the spirit of season they wanted to celebrate! However there was an obvious mismatch once our area ONLY was decorated. there were certain comments about us being fairly selfish, self celebratory etc. While I was little uncomfortable at the outset I just realised this is our team culture and it is this that keeps us going as unit. While we are part and parcel of the larger company culture such activities should not be discouraged as it straighten our own unit.

Well for my own b'day there was lot of noise made by my team to the extent even I felt very embarrassed. Subsequently I realised that I'm blessed to have a bunch of "energetic" people to lead.

So I think while such activities my shake up the eco system a bit, still it's good stamp your own class since you have the opportunity of both setting trends and doing whats best to keep your team going.

Office Game - Part II

2007-05-29T22:42:00.000+05:30

Moving forward from where I left,(read COACHING.....THE OFFICE GAME) similar to a coach a manager too needs to deal with different types of team members. Probably certain managers will have to lead much larger teams than most coaches do ever in their careers. However to me the fundamentals remain the same.

A common expectation of a coach is to assist players iron out their technical deficiencies and to be technically correct. According to cambridge dictionary "a coach is someone whose job is to teach people to improve at a sport, skill, or school subject". For instance in cricket the coaches use to work with players on different aspects of the game such as batting, bowling, fielding etc. They work out game plans, keep players fit and strong with scheduled practices etc. Similarly in the game of basket ball the coaches work on different aspect of your game from shooting to dribbling and to going on the offence to your defence. This is the case in almost in all the sports.

However another aspect of coaching has emerged since of late in the sporting arena. That to me has made a profound impact on sports than the fundamental definition of the coach. Take for instance some of recent comments made by Mahela Jayawardene of Sri Lanka about Tom Moody. According to MJ, "Moody brought in something special to us. He made us stretch our selves in to limits which we never thought was possible. He challenged me, he challanged everyone including all the senior players and that helped us to raise our game" The likes of ponting echoed similar sentiments about John Bucanon the Australian coach.

I beleieve this ability to work on players mental aspect is what really differentiated boys from real men. (Like Jim Collins says Good to Great, where good is the enemy of great).The likes of Pete Sampras arguably one of the greatest players in the history of tennis use to talk about the impact of approaching each grandslam final together with the coach. The coach brought about relevant mental platform in to each game. (Infact he won a record 14 grandslam titles in his career).

So what's the similarity with the corporate environment? To start with a manager's role is very much similar. While he is there to iron out and rectify any technical defeciencies of any surbordinate he has a much bigger role to play o the mental side of the person. Similar to the coach working with each player to raise their game everytime and raise the bar as a team a manager too needs to identify competencies of each individual and work on growing him beyond his current role. Different strokes for different folks!

Many a times managers make the cardinal mistake of a task based relationship. However I feel to be a successful manager one needs to work with the individual to stretch him to that individual's capacity limits. Assignments will certainly be a part of it. How many of the manager's work on growing on the mental side of an surbordinate to prepare him for much bigger challenges. Mostly managers are only short term results driven.

Like every great coach a manager needs to learn to work on the background. It is the team players who needs to get highlighted! Well none of you will know who was h coach of Pete Sampras or for that matter it is the Ponting's, Jayasuriya's and Tendulkar's who are in the lime light and not their coaches.

Afterall they know they become much soughtafter after every assignment. And that's how they grow in their roles!

Coaching..... The Office Game - Part I

2007-05-29T22:40:00.000+05:30

Coaching..... The Office Game

The outgoing Australian coach John Bucanan turned down several cricket coaching assignments among them a high profile assignement from India and he said he wish to move in to a mentor role next. He specifically talked about coaching in the coporate circles. Surely, having seen what he has done with a high performing team like Australia from it's dominant position where it was to what it is today where they have raised their game in to levels un imaginable, he'll be a cracker coach in demand no doubt!

It's interesting to note that most of the people in the corporate sector who are performing managerial or team leading roles are expected to do more or less the same. It's common to see most corporates having "annual appraisals" and some of the others are having "mid year reviews" adding to that. At many places that seems to be a very formal process. All of a sudden superiors are talking about how people performed during the year under review and more often than not they also discuss 'one off' career progression plans.

One tends to wonder whether this should be the case. GE's Jack Welch in his book winning talks about two page written summaries for his direct reports which list down goals for the previous year, a candid feedback on the performce, and objectives for the coming year and they discuss gaps if any. However that document is closely monitored many times during the course of the year and candid is the key word for regular feedback sessions. That seems to have worked very well during his tenure looking at pipeline of leader's they produced and continue to produce.

Interestingly I think we can all learn a lot from Sports and specially from cricket. A cricket coach's role could be wide and varied. He's a mentor, he's a guide, he teaches where required and he puts his foot down above all for the betterment of both the individual and the side.

A typical cricket squad which comes under the purview of a coach is very similar a team under a normal manger at office. To start with a squad will have seasoned campigners, the senior players the likes of Mc Grath's, Mahela's and Jayasuriya's. Then they'll have to deal with larger than life demi god figures like the Ponting's, Tendulkar's and Lara's. Not to forget the likes of Sangakkara's and Flemin's who read the game so well. Then they'll have to work with budding players, semi sesoned ones etc. Now, isn't that similar to what most of us encounter in the office environment?It sure is, and in some of the future postings let's examine how best we could transform cricketing knowledge in to 'office field'.