The Nervous Parent and the Confident Child

"Dad, I can handle this. Don't worry." I still remember saying this to my dad in 1984 as I left India. This was my first visit abroad and I was going to work for a chartered accounting firm. I was going away for a long time. He had come to Mumbai (from Bangalore) to send me off. I remember that it was his wedding anniversary but he had decided to come to Mumbai with me. My dad was clearly worried but I told him that I am old enough to handle this.

I was at the airport few days ago sending off my daughter to Mumbai...her first travel alone by air. Was I worried? A bit...But, then, I rewound to 1984 in my head and things settled down.  I was talking about this to a friend of mine who sent his daughter recently to the US. Her first travel alone. He told me how the connecting flight from London to Phoenix got delayed and had to land somewhere else. This meant she had to deplane, clear customs elsewhere, board another flight and reach Phoenix. Whenever she was confused, she used her smart-phone, got in to a video call with someone, cleared her doubts and made it through safely.

Is this a major problem in today's world? Absolutely not...technology has helped in a big way. However, we are all human beings...and as parents, there are anxieties despite all the technology and the assurances that our children give us. This is probably because in our mind's eye we find it difficult to see our little children grow to become adults. My mom says even today, "You may have grown up, but for me, you are still the little child."

 

I would like to take this parallel to the workplace. If people have worked with us for a long time, we find it difficult to imagine them having grown in the job and knowledge levels. So, despite us getting promoted or moving up, we struggle to see the next few levels growing up and being ready to take on more senior roles. That is why we see many leaders hiring from outside for senior positions instead of promoting from within. I have firmly believed that if a person is even 60-70% ready for a role, as leaders we should be able to take a punt and give him/her the role unless there are other issues.  We are prepared to take risks with someone who we have interviewed for an hour or more but not willing to do that with a person who has worked with us for years. This is because we know all the flaws and in our mind's eye this person has really not "grown". 

 

The other issue this behavior gives rise to is that leaders suddenly think themselves to be the "parent" equivalent. This can trigger off huge issues in an organization. I faced a situation where a team manager would land up for any social gathering individuals in his team called him to and at whatever time of day. I had heard of him turning up for weddings at 2 am!!!  However, his team felt that it was difficult working with him because he behaved like that "difficult dad" who you would dare not go against. I called him and coached him. He continued to struggle and so we had to take him out of the managerial role. However, given his domain knowledge we gave him a role of a subject matter expert. He enjoyed his new role and loved the interaction with the team, though not as its manager.

 

A leader clearly needs to avoid these pitfalls. What I have done is to measure myself on few parameters. How many of the roles falling vacant in my teams have been filled internally? Further, I have also tracked meticulously how many "Ready Now" successors we have created across all levels in the whole organization. In one of the organizations I led, we had reached a situation where we could fill a position falling vacant anywhere in the world within few hours. If we put in this rigour as leaders, we will end up with highly engaged teams.

The King is dead....Long live the King!!!

When I was in school we played inter school tournaments in various sports. The winning school would get a large trophy which they could keep for a year. The next year, the trophy went to the school that won the tournament. I asked our Coach one day, "Why cant they give a new trophy every year so that the School gets to keep it forever?" The coach told me how expensive it was to make a trophy and that's why it is handed from school to school every year. He told me something else that I remember to this day, "Ravi, the trophy is like a revolving chair. You are sitting on it now and when someone else wins, you are out and that person is sitting on the chair. It is like an old king dying and a new king taking over...The King is dead...long live the King!!!"

At work, we find leaders face this problem. They confuse themselves to be that chair rather than the person sitting on it. This results in them not knowing how to get out of the chair. It is essential not to confuse our individual self with the position that we occupy.

Over the years, I have managed to move away from getting confused on this aspect. But it took me a while. When it did happen, it was a wonderful feeling. It was like watching yourself at work as an outsider. It gave me a sense that I term as "detached attachment". I would be laser sharp focused on the job. However, I was never stuck to it. Till I had the job, I would give better than my best to it. Once I moved on, I actually moved on...there was no looking back.  This has at times made my colleagues feel that I am cold but over a period of time they have recognized that it is the best thing to do. I believe it also gets you to be professional too.

I remember that I had moved out of a role once and there was a period when the new leader took time to figure out and announce what she wanted to do. In the meanwhile, the team started getting jittery. One of them called me one day and said that others are jittery and they have started maneuvering in an attempt to please the new leader and figure out what is in her mind. I told the person that she is welcome to call me anytime but not on this topic. I told her that I have moved on and the new leader must be given a chance to succeed in her own right. The person who called was a bit upset at the beginning but after few weeks she called me and apologized. She said that she was very upset with my response but having thought about it, she felt that it was one of the most professional responses that she had ever received in her life. She felt that this was a new lesson in leadership that she had learnt. She summarized it well for me - "You are not the chair on which you sit. When you move on, give the next person the chance to take the organization to the next level from where you left it."

It is often these small things that everyone notices in leaders and learn. I know of a person who was the Managing Director of a company. He was one of the best leaders of those times in India. As he started getting closer to retirement, there was a lot of unease in him. I noticed that he was struggling to handle the fact that someday people who respected him for the position he held could possibly ignore him. The first few months after his retirement was an absolute struggle for him. If his ex-assistant did not pick the phone when he called, he thought that she was ignoring him. The last I met him was almost 10 years after his retirement. Even then, he would refer himself as the Ex-Managing Director of that company rather than just introducing himself by name. He could never come to terms with retirement. He could never see himself as an individual. He was always the MD or the Ex-MD of the company. The seat had got to him.  What I also noticed was that he would try and talk to people who had worked with him and were still there in the company to find out what was happening. He hardly had nice words to say on the new leaders. Over a period of time, he lost respect and people just avoided speaking to him.

I have always believed that our time will come. When it does, give it your best shot. Once it is done, just move on. Don't look back, except with really fond memories. Wish your successor the best in your heart of hearts....this will go a long way in helping you wean yourself away from that chair.