Conversations that matter

When we are unable to talk about issues that matter, but everything and everyone seems ok, we're on the border of the undiscussables. If we're attentive, we may sense some words not being said, or topics just ignored or parked for later, unnecessarily.

Saying hello to the elephant in the room means acknowledging these realities.

If this is a regular occurance, it means that it's now become a part of the culture.  The organization will have difficulty reaching its goals, and the employees will find it difficult to work together at all levels - a sure recipe for failure. Also, employees will reduce their engagement and top performers will leave sooner rather than later.  The organization will be left with people good at saying 'yes'  and doing the absolute minimum, along with the blame-game and siloed working.

Having worked with a few leadership teams on articulating and transforming their culture, do get in touch with me on +919820155778

Reverse Benchmark?

Photo Credit - Pixabay

In the 80s, 90s and 2000s benchmarking was a big part of organization strategy.  The approach was to copy excellence of the industry leaders and apply them to your own organization. There were mixed results for sure. 

Those who tout the virtues of benchmarking are a kind of copycat.  Most of the time the benchmarking exercise doesn't yield the kind of results that are expected.  That is because of the difference in the key factor - people.  By people I include all levels, particularly the leadership.  While the skills of people from Organization A may be similar to those in organizations that it is trying to benchmark against (even though they are in the same industry), the mindsets will be different, and therefore, the way that variations in methods are applied would be different.   This means that their organizations' cultures would be different. 

This is also the reason why top performers from one organization don't always do as well in another organization they move to, even though the industry and business is the same.

Even if there are positive results, they don't really do much to make the organization stand out i.e. distinguish itself from it's competition.  Customers are not going to be in a hurry to come to you if you are offering services or products that are commoditized.

pexels-maksgelatin-4412924

In the current adoption of AI scenario, we see similar attempts to incorporate AI into the organization without sufficient thought (beyond costs) of the possibilities and probabilities of long-term multiple -layer benefits.  This will eventually lead to the feeling of sameness.  Today, some of us are able to tell when a document (email / report / presentation) has been written by AI.

What might happen if the organization were to reverse benchmark?  Have a look at the short clip  that inspired this short piece.

Definitely food for thought for me- please share yours.

Perhaps this Reverse Benchmarking might help us make better choices when choosing how to apply AI at work or in our lives.

Over half of leaders regret replacing people with AI: Will you be next?

Photo by Vojtech Okenka: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photograph-of-chocolate-cupcake-with-red-strawberry-toppings-1055272/

There's a rush by organizations to incorporate AI in the workplace processes, and also a rush for candidates to gain AI skills through various courses.
However, there are timew when it's felt that they should have taken more time to consider factors, including the future before taking the decision.

For eg., I wonder if those rushing to learn MLL, have considered that one day, they might be made redundant by AI systems that they have created.

Here's a thought-provoking article on why there are regrets for replacing people with #AI.

From the article: "your competitors will buy AI technologies similar to, or better than, those you are using to replace your people. Any first-mover advantage will be quickly lost.".

Read the entire article here

Action from Training for Improving Long Term Performance

Here's the action from a program I did for a group of new employees from sales with varying years of experience (1 yr to 20 years).  The objective was to get them to think on how and why to go about improving performance in the long term.

Some of the topics covered were Personal Brand, Motivation, Resilience, Mindset, and how to develop Power Habits that make one successful.  The time allocated was less than optimum to cover such topics in detail, but I managed to get them thinking with the help of facilitator-led group discussions and processes.

The participants were alert and full of questions and insights that made the workshop fun and interesting and gave positive feedback about me to the organization.

Here's some of the action from the session.

Expectations

Habits that make us unsuccessful

Habits that lead to success

Building Resilience

Learnings of the day

Getting a Team to Leverage their Strengths to Collaborate

I was asked to enable a team to use their strengths to improve their collaboration as a team with the help of the CliftonStrengths assessment.  

Love that thought - especially since I'm a certified Strengths Strategy Coach.

This team were the leaders of R&D and had teams reporting in. So yes - their average experience per person would between 18 to 20 years.

The challenge - covering a lot of content along with reflection and discussions within a short time.  Specifically I was given a day, after a lot of negotiation. There's many dimensions to CliftonStrengths that have to covered before a participant is able to understand how strengths manifest, as well as how they can be triggered, unconsciously and consciously.  This is true for group settings as well as one-to-one strengths coaching.

The base workshop design was from my Signature Workshop "Decode your Strengths", and I included a lot of pre-work and post work - i.e. articles to read and exercises for self-reflection.

The participants were wonderful and invested their time to complete the pre-work assigned to them, in addition to completing the CliftonStrengths assessment.  Their participation during the workshop definitely enhanced the learning experience for everyone.

We covered the 34 Strengths, Great Wall of Talent, Theme Dynamics, how collaboration happens when weaknesses are negated by complementing strengths, and ended the day with short case studies of how strengths, when understood, can be used to manage different situations at work.

What's next? Practice and Reviews.  Let's see how they go.

Here's some of the action from the day.

Building the Top 5 Great Wall of Talent

The Great Wall of Talent

Creating the Team Domain Map

Do connect with me if you wish to build a Strengths-based Team or Organization that can use their strengths to effectively collaborate with each other.

Reflections from IAF Mumbai Hub Session - Springboarding Sustainability through Stories

Pic credit: Dall-E

Conducting a facilitation session for the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) is always a pleasure.  It can also get a bit tense if you try to do different topics using a process that fits the session, but you haven't tried before.

That's what I did last month when I agreed to do a session on "Springboarding Sustainability through Stories" for IAF's Mumbai Hub.  I was blessed with participants who gave their full attention in the session.  There were two CPFs in attendance - Shyam Iyer and Kala Diwanji.

Here's what went well  - a deep discussion on the vast topic of "sustainability" was enabled for the participants.  I learnt that the process "Impact Gap Canvas" can generate deep discussion.  Participants were able to first research sustainability stories and then create some of their own as they discussed how they can make sustainability practices a part of their life.  I contracted with the CPFs to be participants in the session.

What I could have done differently - I could have designed more physical movement during the session for the participants as it would keep their energy levels up.  I also could have spent more time setting the context for the session.

Here are some pics of the action:

Some possibilities of actions towards sustainability

With Parineeta Mehra who willingly supported me with the logistics

The harvest at the end of the session

My gratitude to IAF Mumbai hub for this wonderful opportunity.  

Additional thanks to 

• Parineeta Mehra for her support with logistics.  
• SessionLab where I found the Impact Gap Canvas
• The CPFs for sharing with me a few tips for improving my facilitation skills.
• The participants for giving of their time and whole-hearted attention.

Pics from Leadership Training - Managing for Effective Business

 Here are pics from this workshop of 2 days covering two separate groups of leaders of a manpower outsourcing organization.  In this particular workshop, the focus was on the topics of Risk Management, Decision Making, and their relation to delivering Customer Experience.  We also covered a few tools for innovation including SCAMPER.  

This was another workshop customized as part of the Leadership Learning Journey for this group of enthusiastic learners.  

Here are the pics from Batch One

Batch two pics:

I had a lot of fun and learning while designing these workshops ensuring that they positively and curiously engaged with the content and each other.

Contact me on +919820155778 if you want to conduct similar leadership journeys for your leaders.