Strategic Thinking

I am at Vaizag, where I offer a course on Business Strategies and Management Control Systems. The students are busy discussing a Case Study on Indus Towers. I am attempting to make them see the shift in Strategic thinking from the older Confrontational or Zero-Sum approaches to a Collaborative Win/Win Approach. Indus Towers is a collaborative venture that tries to combine the strengths of three companies Airtel, Vodfone and Idea that are otherwise fierce competitors in the marketplace. I want the group to

I see a tendency not merely amongst students at B-Schools, but people in general to form an opinion and look for the facts. Whereas, like Sherlock Holmes, they should be collecting all the facts together and piecing together the Whole Picture before forming their opinion.

The opinion once formed generates a tunnel vision that precludes seeing other relevant facts. A strategic framework built on such an incomplete premise may suffer from serious weaknesses.

The Innovative Manager

03.09.2011

I am now at the plant of a leading Tamilnadu-based Automobile Major, delivering a session on Cost Reduction Techniques to a group of bright young engineers. I am trying to make them understand the need for constantly and continuously reducing costs. This demands a Creative outlook. The old algorithimic approaches fail as the challenges from the environment intensify. What is needed today is an attitude of continuous ideation and inventive problem solving.

Being a Manager now does not only involve faultless execution, it also demands continuous innovation in the execution both at the process as well as the product level. This is the Challenge of the new millnium. This is the challenge of change.

Enjoy making mistakes!

I love teaching at Business Schools because it gives me an opportunity to interact directly with the bright young minds that are going to be involved in managing India Inc., in the future. I get to see them here, as it were, “in-process”; in a formative stage. They are fluid; somewhat confused; yet rigid in their confidence in their own inte

lligence.

I tried to make this current group of MBA students at GITAM appreciate the need to be flexible in their approach to resolving managerial issues.

Most engineers as well as finance professionals have passed through an educational system that consistently rewards being right and punishes being wrong. While this approach is perfectly justifiable with respect to exact sciences and like Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Arts like Accountancy, it is dangerous in an MBA program where abstract ideas are being shared and compared.

To demand a right or wrong answer for a case study would be inappropriate. Approaches can be discussed and their pros and cons analyzed or even debated. Reasons can be attributed for success for success or failure of a company. Generic learning should be derived there from.

When a participant in an MBA program sticks to his view as the “only” correct one, he is regressing back to his “Right vs. Wrong” learning patterns that exclude by definition all information that contradicts this view. This could even lead to totalitarian attitude that could be dangerous to the organization if present at the middle or senior levels of management.

During the session, I made an impassioned plea to the students to “enjoy making mistakes i.e. being wrong!” One of the students a smart and vociferous communicator, Indrajit Bannerjee stood up and politely made this point:“Sir, we do things to be right. We don’t do things to be wrong! So you are wrong to say that we should enjoy being wrong!”

This was followed by heavy applause from the class.

I was impressed by his words. I decided to take my own advice and enjoy being wrong! Yes! He is right! You don’t set out to make mistakes and get things wrong. You plan to get things right!

The point is what you do when you are clearly shown as being wrong. Are you willing to listen and see other perspectives to understand where you went wrong or are you busy defending your concept of “Right”? This is the essence of the art of learning from mistakes with joy. How we deal with failure determines our ability to succeed. What you do when you’re wrong influences your ability to be right!

Habits of Highly effective Managers

I delivered a lecture on Habits of Highly effective Managers art St. Jodsephs College of Engineering on OMR, Chennai. The campus, adjacent to the Sathyabama Deemed University is masssive. It looks more like a theme park with beautifully maintained lawns colorful statuary and aeshtetic buildsings everywhere.

My lecture was well received by the students.

General Management Communication Skills

Group Photo with the Batch of Fresh Chartered Accountants

attending the

General Management and Communication Skills Workshop

at the Southern Region Office of the ICAI.

Management Control and a Sleek Ferrari

26.07.2010

I began my course on Business Strategy and Management Control Systems at GITAM Institute of International Business today. GITAM has combined Business Strategy and Management Control into a single paper, thus recognizing that control is merely the flipside of strategy. Further this would enable the student to appreciate that the best of strategy is of no use if the implementation is faulty. Good implementation depends on the effectiveness of the controls.

I used the metaphor of a stylish Ferrari or a Lamborghini automobile to illustrate my point. Of what use is this sleek and well engineered car if it has no brakes or speedometer. Now, the sporty car is like a well crafted strategy while the brakes and speedometer are control mechanisms. The brakes control speed, while the speedometer assists in monitoring the speed.

But, it is the Geo-positioning System (GPS) that truly illustrates the link between strategy and control. You should have clarity about where you are headed. If the direction is clear the GPS can give you alternative route suggestions. You choose one route based on this information and your own perceptions about traffic density. This is crafting strategy.

Once you start your journey the GPS keeps you informed about how near you are to your destination. When you deviate, it can point out that you are straying and help you get back to the correct route. This kind of control can be achieved in organizations through Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions.

TEXMO Program on High Performance Supervisory Skills

30.06.2010

I am in Coimbatrore. It’s quite hot here. But there is a nice chilly wind blowing down from the mountains all around..

I am here to train the supervisors and managers at TEXMO Industry

I ran one of my usual activities which involves participants forming groups and making an article that is both functional and aesthetic. Once the participants were informed that there would be a penalty for drawing extra shhets of card board or color paper, they did these things:

· Planned and decided with clarity what they were going to do and decided how much cardboard they would need.

· Drew resources very carefully.

The MD of Texmo Mrs. Ramachandran took time off from her busy schedule to sit in on most of the sessions lending her views and perspectives on issues and coverage. The participants expressed great enthusiasm during the program. But , the comment that truly made me feel satisfied was the one made by Mr. S Duraiswamy, the Works Manager: He quoted the following Kural in praise of my delivery:

Behold the speech that seeks (to express) elements as bind friends and is so delivered as to make even the indifferent to listen with desire to know more. (Kural 643 Ch.65:V.3)

I have transliterated the Kural here keeping in mind the broad meaning. Surprisingly both Drew and Lazarus and V.V.S. Aiyar (my favorite) use the word “enemies” where I have used the indifferent. In my humble view, enemies would listen with interest to counter us. Those who are bored or indifferent are the real challenge for a good speaker. To make them want to hear us is the real arguably an achievement worth the effort.

Quotables

Our task is not to fix the blame for the past, but to help fix the course for the future.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Ravan again...

18.06.2010

Today I conducted the Management Skills Orientation Program for Company Secretaries. I was speaking about leadership traits and made the point about Ravan being a great warrior and intellectual. His Ten Heads were not actual physical heads but, symbolic of ten approaches or ways to solve a problem. The Twenty arms were twenty different skills. The audience was in agreement with this. One of the participants said that Hanuman is the Symbol of the Mind which is akin to a monkey. The depiction of Hanuman at the feet of Ram symbolizes that success is possible only if we bring the Mind under our control. Great explanation!

The power of Listening in Counseling

Listening is the first of the three crucial skills of a Manager. I discovered that it tops the list of skills required by a good counselor too!

Vasanthi gave this expansion of the word Listening that I liked:

L ook Light travels faster than sound. Catch what he says and what he does.

I nterest Should be in the person and in the content.

S incerity

T otality Listen to the whole message. Listen till the person finishes.

E mpty There should be no filters, barriers or other external thoughts

N eed-oriented

I also liked Dr. Verma’s comment on the issue whether poor listening skills are an issue to be addressed by counseling. He suggested that where the person does not know how to listen he needs training. But if he does not want to listen he needs counseling.

The strength of Irrelevance

Counseling Skills in the Work Place

Today I attended a one-day workshop organized by Madras Management Association on Counseling Skills. The facilitator was Ms. Vasanthi Ranganathan, a senior trainer with a formal degree in Counseling from the USA. While there were a lot of inputs on what counselors do from her, my learning also came from experienced participants like Dr. Sanjay Verma of L&T who sat at my table and gave valuable insights into the topic

Nevertheless, applying the first habit (Be Proactive), coupled with the seventh (Sharpen the Saw) I decided to document whatever I could learn about counseling today. Most of it came from co-participants. Some of it from the materials the facilitator had provided and her sessions which I give below:

What is Counseling?

“Counseling is a process where we enable the counselee to identify and deal with his or her own problems, perceived or real.”

Counseling should achieve the following results:

Counseling should help the counselee accept that they have a problem and enable them to understand the root cause of the problem that needs to be addressed.

Counseling is about creating ownership about the situation. She made a point about India and other Asian countries belonging to collectivistic cultures that shift blame for events outside of the person concerned. She compared it with her favorite country, the USA where Individualistic cultures have enabled people to take ownership of all their actions.

Counseling should create an awareness that options do exist. It should facilitate the identification of various options and help the counselee to choose the most appropriate option.

Vasanthi was very specific about allowing other people to think for themselves. We should not choose for them. She agreed Dr. Verma that using our persuasive skills to influence someone is not counseling.

I liked this comment that she made: Your job is to create people who are interdependent.

Let your people come up with various options. You will add your own, if any. Finally, we enable them to discover the most appropriate solution.

Counseling is a behavior modification therapy. It should not be seen as influencing. The intervention should happen over a longer period possibly, twice a week for 4 to 8 weeks.

Counseling is not about fact, it is about feeling. (Then, why was she so distant and aloof.)

In counseling, we help the person to understand his problem, his perception of the problem and possibly appreciate how other people would look at it. The person is helped to address the issue and understand his feelings about it.

She spoke about “traditional” counseling such as astrologers and crying to Gods in temples.

While, I do agree with her about astrologers (as an amateur palmist, I have counseled many people during a palm reading session!), I doubt if crying to Gods in Temples will qualify as “counseling.” At best, it may promote introspection and bring about catharsis. But to call it counseling would be inaccurate as counseling is essentially external.

The truly traditional counselors were the elders at home, provided they had the necessary sensitivity.

When touching upon counseling after a sexual harassment or emotional torture, she said that “counseling can prepare the victim to handle the situation.

Similarly in marital conflicts and alcoholism, the victim is co-dependent on the problem. Most of us like to be seen as the victim.

Who can be a good counselor

Anyone who possesses the skill can be a counselor. While the immediate supervisor would be a good choice, any bias due to nearness should be monitored.

An experienced peer or anyone who is acceptable within the organization can also be a good counselor.

Even younger persons can counsel. Vasanthi gave the example of Muruga the son of Lord Shiva who taught his own father the meaning of Pranava. But it’s going to take a long time before persons lower in the hierarchy can counsel seniors.

She told us that she would teach us three counseling skills which were restatement, linking and summarizing. But as we had already spent almost the whole of the day, she rushed through it with mock counseling sessions where participants truly had no clue as to what to do and the facilitator kept pointing out mistakes and finally demonstrated her version of counseling which simply allowing the person to talk, repeating what he said and turning away from him to another person and so on.

Ultimate Learning--To learn from people we dislike

29.05.2010

Prof V H Iyer renowned consultant from Mumbai was in Chennai today. He is a senior faculty of the Management Study Centre at Mumbai. We had invited him to our the Centre and he had consented to do so in spite of his busy schedule. We received him today at 11:30 AM.

Prof. V H Iyer is on the board of various companies and Government Depts like Indian Council for Agricultural Research, and is currently Dean of the Prince Welingkar Institute of Management Mumbai. Prof. Iyer is an internationally recognized authority on Materials Management and Lean Principles.

During the chat we had in my cabin, Prof. Iyer spoke about a book that he has conceived and is proposing to write. He is basically from a family of Tanjore Brahmins who moved to Palghat a long time ago. His family had moved again from Nurani, a famous village in Palghat to Burma where prof. Iyer was born and had spent his early childhood. During WW II when Burma was evacuated, Prof. Iyer had had to flee Burma and spent two years in a refugee camp. He is planning to write about his experiences from Refugee camp to where he is now.

The book would not be autobiographical. It would be a document of his experiential learning over a long period and his thoughts about people he had met and worked with.

Prof. Iyer remarked that we can learn from everyone, including people we dislike! He gave the example of an OR Professor in his B School who was so insulting that she was universally disliked. Prof. Iyer says he learnt many tips on ‘how not to teach’ from her!

Difficult Behavior

On 28^th May I attended a “Management Show” at British Council on Handling Difficult People. There were about thirty people. The facilitator divided us into six groups.

She began by asking us to list out as a group various categories of difficult people we meet in the work place. Some of the categories that emerged were Detractors, Deviators, Non-Communicators, Procrastinators and the Manipulative.

(One interesting comment was about a boss who was unfocused. The participant stated t that the boss was focused in many directions!)

We were then asked to answer the following questions:

1. How do you feel when you experience difficult behavior?

It stresses you. It affects your poise. It brings out the negative in you. Sometimes you become a difficult person yourself!

2. Whose problem is the difficult behavior?

It is essentially the other person’s problem but it is ours too if it will affect achievement of the long term goals of the organization or if we have to work with the difficult person to perform our organizational role.

3. Should difficult behavior be confronted?

Yes. But we redefined the word “to confront” and decided that difficult behavior should be addressed suitably through dialogue or counseling. But confrontation should be avoided when it would worsen the situation.

One of the issues we discussed was about the nature of the difficult behavior which could be Cultural, Personilty or Behavioral. The current session dealt only with bwehavioral. We accepted that personality should not be discussed while addressing difficult behavior. What need to be addressed are specific behavioral issues. I added that, ‘we should address what the person is doing, and not what he or she is.’

The trainer thereafter played a brief video prepared by Fenman Management Training. In this video Philip a Management Consultant handles a difficult person, the head of another team who is demanding and incapable of being satisfied.

The video also gave us a four step approach for handling difficult people, which involved assessing, analyzing, asserting and finally formalizing a Deal by assenting.

Due to insufficiency of time and the trainer’s own inability to relate to the essence of the issue, the practicing managers in the audience felt we had not truly got a handle on how to deal with difficult people.

Process Driven Approaches

17. 04. 2010

I conducted a programme on Supervisory Skills Development for the Management Study Centre. I stressed the need for Process Driven approaches in management as against Task Driven Approaches.

Process Driven Approaches are one-off or quick-fix. They rely purely on people and their abilities vis-à-vis the job or task. Process Driven approaches rely on planning and selection. They assume that people will be rotated from job to job and therefore ensure every member of the process Team can take up[ all roles at acceptable levels of performance.

Process Based Approaches facilitate learning, documentation and continuous improvement by feedback and corrective/preventive action.

The day was spent in activities and discussions that helped the participants to pick up the three crucial managerial skills like Listening, Delegation and Motivation.

Future-Proofing your Business--The Ram Charan Way

FIVE POINTS TO MAKE BUSINESS FUTUREPROOF

v Understand Customer Needs

v Have Determination to Serve those needs

v Find the people to create the right Social Engine to carry forward that determination

v Innovate

v Manage the external environment and create more leaders.

Rama Charan, Management Guru

(Source: Indian Management)

Globalization and Continuous Improvement

12.04.2010

One of our clients Avalon Technologies Limited celebrated its Tenth Anniversary. The function at the Park Sheraton had a host of dignitaries: the Consul Generals of USA and Japan as well as the current and formerDevelopment Commissioners of the MEPZ. The companies buyers from abroad were also represented on the dais.

The US Consulate General His Excellency Andrew T Simkin said in his speech that a forward looking company will look to Indian Markets and not only depend on exports to developed countries. He also defined Globalization as creating partnerships across the globe and working together for the benefit of the citizens of those countries.

Mr.Zen Barelka, Director Systech Corporation shared this anecdote about Edward Deming, the father of Modern Quality Management:

Edward Deming’s first job was at AT & T. The first manager who hired him said, “I am not hiring you because of what you are or what you are capable of doing. I am hiring you because I have the greatest confidence that you will improve yourself in the next year, and the year after that and in the years to come.”

Leadership Skills

12.03.2010

Management Skills Orientation Programme conducted for newly qualified Company Secretaries. The participants stated that they were extremely happy. The session was on Leadership and Latest trends in management. I stressed the need for enabling rather than controlling. I also strssed on the need for ownership in ensuring Sustained Superior Performance.

I did my usual geometric shapes activity. The first pair requested time to discuss their strategy for a minute. They used this opportunity to plan a pre-arranged code or semantics in which they used directions like South-west, North-East etc., and managed to complete the diagram well within time.

I also commented upon the essential unpredictability of human behavior and the need for understanding and influencing this unpredictability.

You are Remembered Only when You are Needed

Fact of Life. You are Remembered Only when You are Needed.

A Candle is remembered only during a Power failure.

So, What do you do?

Keep on pointing out situations when people will need you. Keep reminding them of this need.

This is the only way marketing can happen today.

Every advertiser presumes that somebody who needs his product or service will read his advertisement.

Some Advertisers try to create a need which is not felt now.

What is essential is to identify specifically people who need to have a need, tell them why the need it and help them understand why your product/service alone can fulfill that need effectively.

Delegating Accountability

"You can delegate tasks, but you cannot delegate accountability."

This is well known.

But cannot the person Delegating the Task build in an accountability framework within his jurisdiction. Not applicable outside his domain, nevertheless valid between him and the delegate?

This is a kind of Cadence of Accountability that is between the Job Owner and the Delegate.