Happy Independence Day 2025

 

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

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.

Action from Leadership Quotient - Emotional Intelligence Workshop

Here are some glimpses of Workshop on Leadership Quotient - Emotional Intelligence conducted for the leaders of a Mumbai-based large organization.

There were 2 days of two separate batches of leaders, and let me say that the enthusiasm and curiosity of the participants in both batches really made the learnings more powerful.

We covered how Emotional Intelligence affects the leader's ability to build relationships with their team members and their peers, in addition to naming emotions, and what goes on in the brain.  The participants also went through a facilitated process on how to create positive emotions at the workplace.

Do connect with me on +919820155778 for conducting leadership workshops for your organizaion.

Diwali Greetings 2024

 

5 Things That Separate the Best Workplace Cultures From The Rest

 

Photo Credit : pexels-rdne-8068763

I've heard this line "You have come from a culture? Well, so does bacteria!"

Culture is the make and break of an organization, no matter how brilliant it's people are.  After all culture is defined by the way people work together.  

Let's also not forget that anyone who leads a team at any level of the organization also defines the culture for that team.  This may not often align completely with the culture of the organization. Hence the possibility of conflict and messiness is very real.

Throughout my HR stint, I worked in various organizations in different industries, including a startup.  Each organization had a distinct culture that was driven by those at the top with the most influence on their peers. Some places made it easier for people to work together, others tied up the organization in red tape, and still others had leaders at different levels that made employees ask "who interviewed him / her and what did they see in them that made them select that candidate.

As you can probably tell, leadership and culture has fascinated me for a long time.

Here's a fascinating article that I came across on the things that separate best #workplace #culture from others.

Excerpt - "It's important to note that creating a positive workplace culture is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort and attention. That’s the only thing the best and worst cultures have in common."

Read the rest of the article here.

Photo Credit : pexels-minan1398-1313814

Pics from Stress Management Workshop

 Here are a few pics of a workshop on Stress Management that I conducted for my client in the BFSI space.

The participants from the middle and junior levels from different functions of the organization.  I am thankful for their whole-hearted participation in the exercises and for their insightful questions during the workshop, which made the entire experience wonderful both for them and for me.  

While they identified the causes of stress on their own, I shared with them a guided meditation exercise, and a journaling method  both of which they found very useful.

Participant Expectations

Reviewing the Causes of Stress

Journaling

While they built their action play, they also shared on the sticky wall, specific things they will put into practice.

Learnings that they will put into practice

6 Vital Traits for APAC’s Future CEOs

Photo by Wallace Chuck from Pexels: https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-chair-in-dark-room-3842213/

From the article - "The world is not black and white, and the really good CEOs will need to draw on curiosity and conviction to navigate this,”

For me - more than traits, these are actually things that the future #leader must do pretty much daily, irrespective of their level in the organization. So a lot of skill will have to go into delivering on these areas.

By the way - it wouldn't hurt individuals and aspiring leaders to adopt these traits as early as possible.

Read the entire article here

Stretching Outside Your Comfort Zone

Photo credit - pexels-lisa-fotios-1471991

This picture nearly perfectly describes me in my comfort zone.  

What's discomforting to me? A few things.  Top of the list (maybe near the top) would be dancing. 

Now, I love music, and can find the rhythm of the song and can tap or sway reasonably well to it. Music, like dancing, is a kinesthetic experience. But for me, Dancing involves asking various parts of my body to do things in a particular sequence and coordination to music, at which it seems to rebel since my childhood.  So I have developed some expertise in avoiding dance during parties over the years.

Recently I was asked along with a colleague, Varsha Chitnis, to co-facilitate the morning Plenary session on Day 2 of the IAF Asia Conference of the International Association of Facilitators (IAF) at Hyderabad along with a super facilitator from Japan, Mr. Hideyuki Yoshioka.   We were allotted 45 minutes and asked to energize the group (of only 190 delegates of different ages) and connect it to the previous day's learnings.

During our initial zoom discussions, we brainstormed as to how this session could be energetic and fun.  Among the various ideas we discussed was how to include music into the session.  Hideyuki-san proposed that we incorporate Zumba into the session.  With further discussion, the design took shape to combine learning and the Zumba dance. It was fortunate for us that Hideyuki-san was a Certified Zumba Instructor. While we became very excited about the design, my fear of dancing came to the fore.  I would have gladly taken a back seat rather than be dancing on stage.

As we practiced our moves over Zoom with guidance from Hideyuki-san (he's a certified Zumba Instructor), my discomfort grew stronger. During a practice session, I spoke about my discomfort with dancing and how I was concerned that I might make huge errors and bring down the team. Both of them kindly told me that I have to do this, and not to worry too much.  They encouraged me to keep trying and gave me courage to make mistakes and move ahead.

The result:

Us showing the way

Delegates practicing their dance steps

Delegates getting into the Zumba groove

After our session.

With Varsha Chitnis and Hideyuki-san

There was complete enthusiastic participation from the delegates, which we felt enabled us to go beyond our own potential. We felt the energy in the room shift higher as they put on their moves to the music.  I know that my co-facilitators danced better than me.

The feedback we got was on the lines of "Best session so far at the conference", "we really enjoyed the session", "we loved it", "Awesome".  A personal feedback I got from a couple of people was that it was inspiring to see my  courage in dancing on stage, despite my errors.

After the conference, I reflected on what could have made me do something that wasn't really me, yet get accepted and appreciated by the delegates.  Here's what I came up with:

• I acknowledged my discomfort with dancing to myself.
• I voiced it with my co-facilitators
• My co-facilitators encouraged me to keep trying and not dwell on mistakes.
• Because of their immense  and kind support, I was able to engage my curiosity, use my growth mindset,  to focus my learning instead of my fears, and practice the steps.
• Practice is important - regular deliberate practice even more so. Hideyuki-san made a video of us during a practice session which he shared with us.

I'm extremely grateful to IAF for the opportunity to do this session, and my co-facilitators Hideyuki Yoshioka and Varsha Chitnis for believing in me and being with me as I stretched outside of my comfort zone.

Let me also add that the conference was an awesome experience overall.  It was three days of fun and learning at Hyderabad for which I am thankful to all the facilitators and the delegates.