Control

Just think about it...we all want our lives in control and like to use various tools and methods to get ourselves organized - calendars, watches, reminder systems, diaries, etc. We wake up, exercise, have food, watch TV, attend conference calls, go to office, return from office, pick and drop children, etc. all to fixed schedules. What happens if we miss the schedule - all hell breaks loose and our day comes to a standstill. But, just think about it - what really happens if we miss something...nothing...we just re-organize and get on with life. 

I am sure many of you have fallen ill sometimes and just could not get out of bed. So, what happened on those days - nothing really...you didn't have an inkling the previous evening that you would not be able to get out of bed the next day. But then, it happened and things just moved on. Someone else got things that you would normally do at work done and life moved on. The organization that you worked in did not shut down.

What happens if we die? For sometime there is chaos in the lives of our family members and then life moves on. Do we control time of death? We don't. So, if we don't know what is going to actually happen the next moment, what do we really control? Absolutely nothing!!!

So, why bother and freak yourself out on something that did not work to your plan? Most plans are just that - plans - and things will, more likely than not, never go to plan.  I learnt this lesson from my lovely wife. She plans but lives by the day. So, if there are changes, her first reaction would be, "Okay, things have changed. What do I do next?" There is no fuss or drama "why the heck did this have to happen" or "God, great way to start the day!!", etc. Typically, I would go haywire screaming profanities. Now, I have kind of mellowed down and started thinking "what next?" This has helped me in being lesser of a control freak and more of someone who is willing to take change in my stride.

It is cliche to say "death is the only certainty and that we can die anytime" and "change is the only constant"...but we go on in life on the assumption that is exactly the opposite. And if any of these happen, we tend to believe or think that all is lost.

So, how do we factor these in to our daily lives? Easier said than done. Changes to schedules, etc. are easier to handle than falling seriously ill or death. Both death and major illness have significant impact on lives of others around us. My dad's death was sudden and completely unexpected. It happened in less than 2 minutes and in the middle of the night. Everything was over in seconds. Life changed completely and every plan that we had laid out carefully went straight out of the window. I still remember - I felt lost for the first 24 hours and then knew that I had to take charge of the situation. I did just that and over the last 13 years after his death, have learnt to live without having him around. It was a huge change for my mom and everyone else in the family. At the end of the day, life had to go on and we did just that. My dad had some plans and had discussed that with me few months before he passed away. All those changed. 

So, coming back to what I said before, "What do we really control?" or can we ask the question as, "Do we control anything of significance or do we just believe that these are significant?" Actually, most things that are really significant to us is really not under our control.

I am reminded of a Tamil song which says (my translation is not the best) "you are not able to choose your time and date of your birth or death, your parents, your face at the time of birth...think about it..you can, however, choose how to live as long as you live. So, take charge of your life and be a winner. If we choose to live a life that has smiles, honesty, good habits of living and reduced greed, we tend to make the best of what we have instead of always craving for what we believe is the best in this world...that "best" is always elusive and our greed always pushes us towards another "best". 

I have seen how we try and control our level of happiness. In our struggle to make ends meet and live our daily lives, we miss the woods for the trees. We struggle on work-life balance and, typically, our balance tilts in favour of work. I have seen many families struggle with this and try and live a happy life despite all this. I remember a dialogue in the movie Bruce Almighty where God tells Bruce, "The happiest of men come home stinking to high heavens. They hang their problems in the doorstep and then walk in."

What I have seen work has always been few simple concepts - reduced greed levels, leaving behind worries of work at the Office and developing a habit of laughing with our families. Many of us have even forgotten how to smile. And guess what, we control our smile!!!

Personal Courage in Leadership

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage." Maya Angelou. I have pondered as to what makes a courageous leaders and I believe there are various pieces to this puzzle. 

Leaders need to face and manage situations head-on. Most people prefer not to confront. However, if we do confront reality, it becomes easy to assess the situation and take decisions. It is also necessary to be open and honest in communication and this communication should be both ways. Once honest channels are opened up, it is easier to manage expectations. It is also necessary to hold people and yourself accountable. Great leaders focus on accountability and leave the rest to their team.

One of my biggest learning has been leading through change. It is during such times that things go wrong and sometimes horribly wrong. As leaders, we need stand up to manage the situation, back our teams and ensure that customers are cared for. It is during such change situations that leaders are tested the most. As leaders, we are tempted to pass the buck on to someone down the line. This happens in various forms...from the "he did a lousy job" to "we could have handled this better if he was more attentive". 

A story of facing the heat during change goes back over 10 years. I was leading the Finance & Accounting back office and we had a situation where the unreconciled items went beyond tolerance limits significantly. The worst part is that we had not figured out why. While over 95% of the Operations was humming, it was this one part that hit us really hard. I got a global team engaged but it took us a month to understand the problem and actually take corrective action. During this time, we had a review of the Operations by the Corporate Controller. When it came to my turn, I showed him what had gone well and that we had messed this part up. I took accountability. I told him that we had not identified all the reasons for this issue but that we would by the end of the month and took 2 months time to fix the issue completely. The figure was a staggering $20 billion and there was a genuine worry that it would get picked up by auditors. My manager and his manager let me down in front of the Controller and, in fact, asked me questions in that review meeting. It looked like they were getting to know of this the first time, which was not the case. It was at this time that the name of one of my team members came up. Her absence and the fact that she could not spend time on picking up this issue came up for discussion. I quickly cut the discussion out and said that if there was anyone who needed to take flak, it was me. The Operations came under me. Something, fantastic happened at that time. The Corporate Controller stood up and clapped for me. He said and I quote, "In many years, this is one of those rare moments where I am seeing someone standing up under pressure to hold himself accountable." I walked out of the meeting feeling elated and also breathing a sigh of relief that I had not got the sack.

There are many such moments that each of us as leaders will be able to share. It is important to share these moments so that taking accountability comes naturally to others. It was also the personal courage of the Corporate Controller in my story above that stood out for me. He had to go back to the CFO and explain the situation, which he did. And, took the flak there for me. It is such leaders that make a difference to our lives. It is such leaders that we respect and are willing to support during difficult times.

Another aspect of courageous leadership is to have a team in which atleast 2 people can replace you at any time. It is essential to plan succession. However, it is absolutely essential to have atleast 2 people who are "ready now" successors. This means, you are hiring people who are capable of doing your job. This also means, these will be people who will challenge you, push back and you must have the courage as a leader to handle this.

Many a time we believe that courage is absence of fear. Courage is about overcoming fear. All of us have different fears. Courage is taking these fears head on and overcoming them.

“The greatest test of courage on earth is to bear defeat without losing heart.” Robert Green Ingersoll. This is particularly important. It is not the number of times that you fall that matters. What matters is how fast you get up, dust yourself and move on in life. Personally, I have failed many times but that has never set me back. It has shown I am human and all that is needed is the ability to bounce back.

Life in shades of grey

When the end justifies the means, rot seems to set in. The Indian word "dharma" is out of the window. As they say, all is fair in love and war. And life seems to fall in between black and white...in millions of shades of grey.  Laura Schlessinger said, "When you are the victim of behaviour, its black and white; when you are the perpetrator, there are a million shades of grey." Even law, which is supposed to be black and white recognizes grey and has what is called the "golden rule of interpretation".

As for me, life is colourful. It has black, white, millions of grey and all the colours that you can think of. But, if I stick to grey for the moment, many of us struggle to live in grey and prefer black or white. I was thinking of the many things that have happened to me that are only in the shades of grey. Guess what, I seem to have enjoyed these moments. The more we think we are in total control, the more we realize that we actually do not have any control at all. The world around us is a bit of an "organized" chaos.

I had a situation where a colleague of mine who worked for me was going through a very difficult pregnancy. The doctor had asked her not to commute. Our back office operations needed her presence to ensure it goes on smoothly as there was just too much going on. I discussed the situation with my Manager who said that he wanted her in the Office or she needed to leave. I thought through and decided that I will let her work from home and then cover up for her at office by putting in extra effort. Due to tremendous work pressure, I let that fall through the cracks and ended up in a situation where the Operations got adversely impacted. I still remember the tough times that I had to go through as a result of this one decision. The decision was should I go with the organization that I work for or with the human being that worked for me or try and find a balance. I chose to find a balance with the primary focus being on the human being who worked for me. It went wrong, though for different reasons. But, if you ask me now as to what I would do, my answer will be the same. I will give her the leeway to work from home but will also have someone sitting at office, help her fill the gaps.  Like this, we take so many decisions daily that are not black or white but in various shades of grey.

Another story I can remember is a hurricane hit US and one part of the country got battered. Most parts of various cities in that State were in water and there was no power for almost a week. I had a staff member working there and it took us few days to get in touch with her as all telephone networks were also down. Finally she came on line and said that she had to shift to a hotel and was lucky that she could get a room. She had logged in and contacted us after getting in to the hotel. The policy of our company was that we will help in all ways possible but we would not be able to take the cost. In this case, I decided to go pick up the tab and told her to work from the hotel which she did and we managed to get some important ground covered for us at Office while she got the bills paid for. Yes, the policy did not allow it but that is why organizations have leaders/managers. We are there to interpret these for the good of the organization and the individual concerned and ensure that we do what is best under the circumstances. Here is where common sense and life experiences matter.

I remember another story at the Bank that I worked with. We had issued a credit card to a customer (this was way back in the 1990s before mobiles came in). As the customer was checking out of a 5 Star hotel (in which he was staying for the first time), they swiped the card and for some reason it kept coming back with an error message. The customer called our branch and it was well in to the evening and I happened to be at the branch. I picked the phone and heard him out. I then spoke to the Hotel Front Desk Manager and tried to convince him that we will honour the payment. It did not work. I had to then help the customer by taking out money. I could not draw that much amount through the ATM those days. So, I drew out whatever amount I could, took the permission of the Branch Manager and actually took money from the Bank's Account and went to the hotel to pay off their bills. Even after 20+ years, this customer calls me to check out how things are going with me. He says that he cannot forget that day and he is still the customer of the Bank. I should actually thank the Branch Manager for taking a pragmatic decision in favour of the customer and doing that after getting a good understanding of the risks involved. 

When you go out of the way, grey zones start applying. They put you at risk of losing a job or a relationship or some such thing. They also work like a charm and create ever lasting relationships both personally and at work. Again here, it has a lot to do with applying common sense.

It is living in these grey zones that make our lives interesting. Else, our lives can be replaced by robots because they would do a better job in ensuring adherence to policies or set processes/procedures. As I said earlier, it is because of situations that need use of discretion, common sense and interpretation of policy that organizations have managers/leaders. And, as Leaders/Managers, if we don't use that discretion or common sense or both, we end up losing our value both to the organization and the employee.

Life comes in beautiful colours. We somehow don't seem to notice these colours and would like to live in black or white. More often than not, we need to live in the grey zones for most part of our lives. If we do not recognize grey, we will find it difficult to live. As I always say, the more the straight lines and boxes we have in the way we live our lives, the more the curve balls that life will throw at us.