Speed

The car in front of me was not moving fast enough. I kept muttering under my breath, "Move, move..", but only I seemed to be hearing these words.  Similarly, in life, we find that we move at different speeds to each other. Every day we see a little child scurrying to keep pace with the parent, the man/woman struggling to keep up with the dog that s/he is taking out for a walk, the elderly man tyring to keep pace with the teenager and so on....some are faster than others and we all know that the pace at which someone moves, either physically or mentally, differs from person to person. 
As I listened to the person in the meeting, I knew that he had not got the point I was making. My first thought was, "Gosh, this person has just not got it!"  I reacted by cutting him off in the meeting and carrying on the discussion from where I left off as the others had understood what I had to say. How many times have each of us done this in our lives? I am pretty sure all of us do this in our daily lives, not just at work.

When we are slower than others, we always want the others to wait for us.  However, when we are faster, we seldom wait for others.  I struggle with this and am trying my best to slow down for those who need me to and catch up fervently with those who do not wait for me....I must admit that this has been a struggle for me all through my life. This impacts us significantly in our daily lives.

At work and at our home, we seem to get upset with each other when speeds differ.  This causes tremendous stress in our lives and seldom do we realise that if we are able to adjust speeds, we will do ourselves a lot of good.  At work, I have seen some of the best leaders fail because of this. They run at a speed that others are left gasping.  Further, they have little tolerance for those who are not able to run at their speed. They show this by rewarding only those who run at their speed or just ignoring few in conversations.  While it causes stress to those who are slower, these leaders also suffer from stress at the time when organizations collect feedback from employees on how satisfied they are with their leaders.  Typically, we would see the Employee Engagement Scores not being very good where, as individuals, we are not able to strike a balance between speed, agility and the emotional aspects of working.

This is so true at home too where our elders are not as fast as us.  More so if they are really old.  They want to be involved in conversations, hear only a part of a statement and ask questions.  This really irritates us and we end up saying something harsh that can upset them.  This not only upsets them but they feel cut off and lonely after that.  There is, therefore, a real need to stop, think and act in such situations - easier said, than done.

How do we then get around this?  I have, over the years, come to realise that we get better at managing speed differences as the Emotional Quotient (EQ) in each of us increases.  While, I believe, that most of us know this, we do not consciously try to train ourselves to see how to get more of EQ. We tend to be happy with the IQ bit.  Not that IQ is not important. A good balance really helps. As we grow as leaders, EQ is a must and without that, individuals and, the corporations in which they work, will struggle in the long run.  Most companies have realised this and are trying to get this woven in to their leadership skills matrix, training, work practices and rewards and recognition structures.

John Kotter of Harvard Business School: “Because of the furious pace of change in business today, difficult to manage relationships sabotage more business than anything else - it is not a question of strategy that gets us into trouble; it is a question of emotions.”  This is so true in our personal lives too.

There are rights and rights...

The Right to Information, the Right to Education, The Right to Employment, Right to Privacy...all these are rules and laws that the governments of the day are enacting.  As I was pondering this, I was thinking of the thousands of laws that we have, many of which seem ineffective and some archaic.  The Law I really like is the British Common Law - it is unwritten and is managed in Courts through applying precedents to the current context of society and the case that has come up for a judgement. It leaves it to the conscience of the judge to rule based on basic tenets of society.  I wish these Rights are also given through unwritten laws like the British Common Law so that they can change easily with time.

While hearing everyone scream from the rooftops on their Rights and all this noise around India Against Corruption, I was happy to see that people were ready to come to the streets to join hands to force the government to take some action.  What I have not heard in all this din is our duties and responsibilities as citizens.  Will we accept the government slapping us with huge penalties for say breaking a traffic rule - if it really does this, the government will not run any deficit financing - the daily collection will run the government itself. Will the same people not bribe but accept punishment for any infraction of law that they could have done?  It is good to shout for Rights but it is equally important to understand our duties and ensure that we are committed to them so that we can live peacefully as a society.

In our daily lives we see and do so many things that do not deliver to our duties - speeding, rash driving, cutting across lanes, disrespect of traffic lights, throwing trash all over the place, spitting everywhere, bribing to get our work done, etc.  These are all our duties and we don't deliver on them. If we do not do these, why should we expect anyone to give us our rights only?

This is a two-way street and we need to play ball and then expect everything else from the Government or anyone else.  We should also be ready to face the consequence of non-compliance. As a society, we are poor at dishing out consequences and also facing them.  Why is Singapore where it is today? It is the discipline that their Prime Minister drove through severe penalties for breaking the law and also ensured that these penalties were implemented ruthlessly when broken.  Neither do we have harsh consequences nor do we implement existing laws rigorously.  Only if we do all this, will the common man have a peaceful life.

I read an interview of a young politician on whom the future of India seems to ride quite a bit as of now.  He said that if we want to clean up politics, please don't just talk.  Come in, join politics and help us all clean the system.  He accepted that there is rot but said that all of us are to blame for this. I completely agree with him. If you want change, then, be the change.  Don't expect everyone else to do things for you while you spend your life only thinking of yourself and possibly your family and not bothering about what is happening around you.

I watched the traffic constable braving the 35 degree sun, trying to bring some sense of order in to the absolutely unruly and endless stream of vehicles.  He was doing this relentlessly right through the day, inhaling the dust and smoke. He did not have water to drink or the time to answer nature's calls.  Even if he wanted to visit the rest-room, there was none.  I walked up to him and offered him some fruit juice and water. I also told him that he could come over to my house just down the road and use my rest room when he felt like it.  When you put a person in to this situation, what would you get? Only anger, frustration and a behaviour where he will wait to take out his frustration on some hapless passerby.  What can you do to make his life easy?  You can...just follow the traffic rules!!!  Is this asking too much of you?  Would you like to be this traffic constable? 

Working out of our air-conditioned offices, we sermonize on what needs to be done by everyone else in life except ourselves.  Let us all pause for sometime, think of all the duties we have to ourselves, to our families, to our colleagues, to friends, to the society at large and then demand our rights.  We, then, actually have a right to demand for our rights!!!

Inclusivity

History has told us how countries dominated the world at different points in time.  During my time, I have seen UK and US dominate the world.  As the dominance of UK declined, US took over. Over the last few years, I notice that the US is on the decline.  Each country adapted their style and the methods used to dominate the world. While the UK used firepower (cannons), the industrial revolution and its inventions, language (making English as the only official language, medium of instruction, business and law), brazenly taking away wealth from colonies, the divide and rule policy, etc., the US used economic power, sanctions through International Organizations like UN, World Bank, IMF, etc. as well as military power (significantly better air power) and dominated the world.  Along the way, they have made the US Dollar as the global currency, created multi national corportions that edge out local companies in acquiring wealth and resources in different countries due to their superior economic prowess.

Most countries that try to dominate the globe for resources do so for a period of time but when the decline sets in, it is really difficult to recover.  Decline sets in because something else is more important to the world and this country has not spotted it early enough to dominate the trend.  Decline sets in because the country could have become arrogant about its position and wants to grow at the cost of other countries.  Decline sets in when the country does not want to share its knowledge with other countries in the world. Decline sets in when countries stop innovating.

What is needed is inclusivity.  India was the global power thousands of years ago. The knowledge that was available was not shared with anyone else in the world. This started the decline of India. The knowledge gained over thousands of years stands lost today.  The Nalanda and Takshila Universities (the best known universities in the world in those times) do not exist any more. India prides itself for having known many concepts thousands of years before these were touted as being invented. So much was lost because the knowledge was shared by word of mouth and in coded form only to few and the rest of the world was excluded.

I believe that no single country can survive at the cost of other countries.  Nature has given us enough and we need to know how to use these resources responsibly and to share it with everyone else.  Governments of the day can ill afford to ignore this aspect. They need to plan well to ensure equitable distribution of wealth.  Yet, we do not pay attention to this and over 50% of mankind lives in poverty.  The back office industry is a classic example of how companies can make a difference to different countries by putting their work across the globe rather than just one or two.

The social unrest, the naxalite movement in India, terrorism, civil strife, etc. are all as a result of economic issues that have come about because of inequitable distribution of wealth.  Just like no one country can survive at the cost of others, no individual or set of individuals can live at the cost of others.  We need to remember this and ensure we do something about this actively.

Yet, in our daily lives, we seem to be self-centred. There is so much happening in our own lives that we barely step back and think as to what we can do for others.  It need not always be giving money to help someone.  We can help by giving our time, our knowledge or what ever else that is needed by those around us.  The joy of giving can only be experienced and not explained.  I was at a home for the visually impaired. The children there wanted volunteers who could help read books out for them so that they could write that down in brail and be able to read it when they were studying for their exams. The home did not want my money. It wanted my time to help those who could not see this world as we do.  It was paradoxical.  The numbers who can see and read far outnumber those who cannot. Yet, they don't seem to be helping out their bretheren to come in to the mainstream of life.

I will repeat a story that I have told before. It is about a rich farmer who had bought few thousand acres of corn fields.  His neighbours were poor and were not making money out of their fields because they could not afford to spray their fields against pests and these pests had destroyed the fields.  He had the option of buying them out.  Instead, he decided to spray his field and theirs too.  He did this for 3 years in a row and from the 4th year onwards, the neighbouring farmers could afford their own spraying. However, each one of them then helped some other neighbour of theirs to ensure that those fields were also sprayed.  This helped a huge community to not just survive but also thrive.  And all this started because of a selfless act of one human being.

Each of us needs to work this through in our heads.  There is a need to bring many of us back in to main stream...be that economically or physically or mentally.  The task is on each one of us.  We need to be inclusive.  We may ask ourselves as to how to do it...it cannot be mandated. You cannot force inclusivity through law or mandate...it has to come from within. Each of us needs to be a little less self centred and look around us to see where we can be of use to someone else.  If we can make a difference to even one other person, we would have made a significant difference to mankind.

Let us hope that the next superpower of this world is a country that is much more inclusive in its thoughts and deeds.

A new beginning...

The forest fire ripped through thousands of hectares and destroyed everything that came in its way. As fire fighters fought gallantly, the fire raged on for weeks. As I watched the stories of various people who had escaped the fire, I also could not help notice the thousands of creatures that could not escape the fire. Then, someone said something that stuck to my head, "After every such disaster that looks like everything is lost, comes a new beginning."  The fires had created so much heat that it started raining.  The rains had resulted in a small sprout coming out of these burnt forests. Was this the new beginning for this forest?

The pride of lions (or should I say lioness) hunted down a zebra. While few other zebras initially tried to save the one that was killed, they quickly moved on. There was no time to save a life...they had to run for theirs...it was either to be hunted down or escape. They chose to live...they had to start a new journey in their lives without their friend...and their lives moved on.  The narrator in a famous TV Channel said, "And the cycle of life continues..after every such incident there is always a hope of new life. Nature has its own way of destroying and creating." This is what Indians call Shiva (the destroyer) and Brahma (the creator).

This is so true in our lives too....beyond every "end" as we experience it, there is always a new beginning. Those who have experienced death in their families, will definitely understand this.  As in many things in life, the learning is very much experiential.  When a tragedy occurs, we just get pulled in to it and it takes a lot of time to come out of it...in my life when I experienced death in the family, I was shattered...but, as I told myself, "Life has to go on". I had to take charge of few things in life. While the death caused havoc for me emotionally, there was a new beginning in my life as one chapter ended and a new one was beginning. I had to recognize this new chapter and start working on it and, in fact, scripting the chapter.

As we look back on 2011, there are many things that have happened to us.  Some, that we are happy about and some not so happy.  But, this is what life is all about...a mix of both what is good and what is not so good. What we call the sweet and the bitter. If you see most traditional societies, elders typically give us something to eat as the new year begins. The items given to eat would include something sweet and something bitter. They would tell us to take both in our stride.  Only if we experience the bitter will we really appreciate the sweet. Only when we experience an end is there a new beginning.   

So, while we talk of a glass being "half full" or "half empty", I would say that it is necessary to experience the drink in the glass and ask for the re-fill. 

As 2011 ends, a new year called 2012 has begun.  There is always a new beginning after every end.

Reflective Listening & Collaborating...

How many times have you heard yourself and people say, "Please listen to me" or just "Listen to me" or "Please, let me complete"?  Today, in our daily lives, we have very little time for many things. In a conversation, typically, few people tend to hog the limelight and either continue to speak or just don't let the other person/s to speak.

I have been down with a very bad throat for the last few days and have almost lost my voice. So, in all the meetings, I had to sit in and listen more than speak...it was such a relief and I learnt a lot.  I also believe it was a boon to all those who had a meeting with me these last few days as they could get to say what they had to without me interrupting them.

A leader needs listening skills and this is probably one of the virtues that is least understood in today's world. The world we live in rewards those who are able to speak up and chime in every now and then rather than those who tend to be deep thinkers and speak less.  I believe that there must be a balance. Neither should we keep on talking nor should we be someone who is reticent to voice an opinion.  A good balance is needed between listening and expressing your views.

A skill that is really useful is both listening and reflective listening.  Once we move to reflective listening, then, we move in to the realm of collaboration.  I read an excellent definition of Collaboration that I would like to share with all of you...comes from the Catholic Diocese of Greensburg - Collaboration is "The act of working together through reflective listening and genuine articulation of ideas, in a partnership of mutual respect and diversity."

In my experience, those who are willing to listen carefully during conversations usually make for very good collaborators.  They are genuinely interested in the views of others and anyone speaking to them feel that genuine interest coming through. This encourages people to actively seek out listeners and work with them.

The Global Organization of today needs not just good doers but people who are able to seek out others in the organization and work with them across boundaries to make things happen.  This is the measure of leading with a global mindset.  So, more and more organizations today are willing to pay a premium for collaborative skill sets.

While individual brilliance and hard work definitely matter, collaborative work styles actually get you farther and that is why a premium is placed on this.  It is very difficult to assess this skill in individuals while interviewing and that is why we struggle when we choose people who are either great thinkers or doers but really not good listeners or collaborators.

Apart from reflective listening, I have seen some of the best collaborators actually reach out to others to actively seek out best practice and learning from experiences.  I have seen that they are typically inquisitive and ask a lot of questions. They are willing to discuss issues without being dogmatic.  They are practical people and focus on action oriented, experiential learning. They typically avoid office politics.

So, the next time someone is telling you, "LISTEN TO ME" and in capitals, it is worth the while pausing and carefully listening to what others have to say and reflecting on what they have said....it helps build the much needed emotional intelligence in us.

Taking Accountability

I was reading an email which was on a presentation that was made to me when I worked in an earlier organization.  This was a longish presentation and I had told the person that he needs to keep presentations short and not come with 40+ slides.  When his manager heard that I had made this comment, the immediate reaction on email to me was, "Ravi, did you want shorter presentations? Apologies, xx (name removed by me) has this habit of putting in x number of slides typically. Looks like I have to go through his presentations before it comes to you." 

With this mail, the manager just fell in my eyes.  This was a person who was willing to give up his team member in front of me. One of the most complex parts of leadership is taking accountability.  If you are to be a successful and respected leader, one of the most important aspects that your team will look up on you for is to lead from the front.  You will have to take accountability for the actions of your team.

So, you will wonder, "Gosh, if I have a team of 1500 people, am I accountable for the actions of each of them? Maybe, I do not even know their names". The answer is, "YES..you are accountable for the action of every person in your team, even if you don't know his/her name and have not even seen the person."

This accountability brings in complexities because you now need to be able to influence every one in your team to do things that you have set as goals or objectives and each one should have understood what you have committed upwards to the management team of the company.  How do you do this?

This is where communication comes in.  If you are wondering why people think that communicating clearly, promptly and across the different levels of the organization is important, it is because of this.  Communication is always how a person receives it and not just how you communicate it.  Each person receives your communication in a different way and unless you make yourself crystal clear, it becomes difficult to understand.  This is why face to face communication is always considered the best form so that the audience can actually ask as many questions and get clarifications.  Even after this, there will be people who will understand what was communicated differently.  If you decide to only send out your communication by email, it would be very difficult to get a common understanding within your organization.

Another aspect of accountability is personal courage.  Do you have the courage to accept the issues in your organization, work through those issues and fix them? Or are you a person who would like to point fingers on to others?  True leaders do not have time and respect for those who do not take accountability.  Each one of us needs to own our actions.  I am reminded of an incident where an email from me was sent by my communications team from their mailbox and there was an inadvertent error in that.  I had asked for an apology to be sent to the entire team and said that the apology email will be signed off by me.  The communications team manager walked up to me to say that she did not agree with me signing off the email because she felt that as her team had made the mistake, she should apologize.  While I respected her courage to take accountability for the error, I told her that in the eyes of those who received the mail, the buck actually stopped with me. So, the apology mail will go out but will be signed off by me and it went that way.

In every role that we play in our lives, there will be difficult situations...as a leader in your company, as a husband, as a dad, as a son, as a brother, as a friend...which ever hat you wear, you will be faced with tricky and difficult situations when you have committed errors. It is best to accept the error, apologize, endeavour not to repeat the mistake and move on in life.  The person who is capable of getting up each time he/she falls, dusts himself/herself and continues on the journey, typically wins.  The person who freezes each time he/she falls and is unable to get up and run again, finds it very difficult to get on with life.  Just watch a baby trying to walk.  Each time the baby falls, he/she will just get up again and try...that is the essence of life.  We will never get it right always. If we recognize that we will have to keep trying, then taking accountability for our actions will come automatically.

Sustainable Growth and Quarterly Behaviours

As companies draw to a Quarter Close, there is palapable pressure and tension.  Many corporate leaders stop smiling.  You will notice many of them come out to various business TV channels and speak on what is happening in their companies.  The results may be good but they are still very tense.  There is lot of behind-the-scene activities to ensure that what was committed to the Street is delivered.  The whole world may be falling apart around us, the Industry in which our companies operate may be having a poor business cycle, our customers may not be buying in the market from any company but the Street expects us to perform.  If this is what the Street calls growth, we are barking up the wrong pole.


I heard the Managing Director of one of the top Indian Groups talk on what he understood of sustainable growth. He talked of his conversations with few unlisted, family managed companies that had survived for the last 120+ years.  He said that they managed their businesses based on 4 key principles:

1. Never look at "Maximizing Profits" but rather work towards "Fair Profits";
2. Recognize that your company cannot grow every quarter when the economy it is operating in is going through a down turn - so, do not expect to grow every quarter;
3. Never exploit resources - use only what is needed - the example I could think of was why should companies trawl for fish instead of just fishing to the extent that they can sell. That way, fish can survive and we can get more fish in the long run - we end up killing the Golden Goose in the name of Productivity;
4. Never manipulate the system - i.e. do not bribe the government or do anything that will make money but corrupt the society.

There is so much truth to these 4 timeless principles.  If only we can get companies and the Streets around the world to get out of this short term approach to business, we would have a different world.  Why do we want our companies to share profits better with us (read as higher bonus and more salary) when we are their employees but want them to keep on growing and giving us maximum profits when we are their shareholders?  I can think of greed as an answer...I have written on greed many times but the more I think of it, the more I am convinced that this one attribute of mankind will take it towards destruction.  Budhha mentioned this over 3000 years ago and we are struggling to find a solution to this. We live off this earth and we exploit her. We live at the cost of all other living beings on this earth.  We need to find a solution. Every leader owes it to this planet. Can we start by treating Corporate Social Responsibility not as an activity? We could push our companies to start looking at themselves as part of the society in which they  do business and, therefore, work towards the collective good of the society.