"Shining Star" or "Team of Stars" or "Star Team"

During the course of past many years, there has a been a deliberate attempt from my side to emphasize on the need to build healthy-happy-competitive teams.

The billion dollar question - How to build ? The enigma that stinging all the managers , leaders today.

Typical Team patterns -

• A "Star in the team" - We know this for years. There is one or two smart folks, who are the go-getters and trend-setters. They are the go-to-people and very soon become the favorites of their managers. Some in this zone are smart , some in this are hard-working, The smart one's know to play the game and the hard-working one just go about their job. 
• The best example - Our Indian Cricket team in the mid-late 1990's. We had a star player - SRT. The team shines as bright as the star.

• "Team of Stars" - This is the easiest of all, primarily because everyone today thinks they are a born "Star" and best of all entitled to be one. This doesn't promote a culture of togetherness but one of hatred and competition. Everyone argues competition is good, but this is hatred drive one....
• The best example - Our Indian Cricket team in the mid 2000's....where we were a bunch of stars. Hopes of all resting on one star after another...but quite often they shine individually but as a team neutralize each other. 

• "Star Team" - Today's enigma, there is no formula to build , but only sincere effort in getting there. This state is a journey , something that is not achieved overnight but takes ages. Together they shine, each one plays their role and most aptly led by one who puts the team first. Many a times, leaders ask me this question, how do we build it ? The answer is simply "you got to try" and "try to be part of one and not manage it" 
• Again best example - Our Indian cricket team during 2011 cricket world cup era. There was no star player , there were many stars, but the secret sauce, they shone better together. The icing on the cake - Leadership, not only of MSD , but the background muscle provided by Gary. Classic case on the need for coaches who propel from behind and prefer to stay behind.

The first two formations are easy, but are anti-patterns and detrimental....

The last one is a state of culture, the toughest and in many case impossible.....everyone should realize this is a journey, an important one and be at it always....

I also intend to extend this story to highlight an important aspect of coaching. Coaches take great inspiration and examples from sports (and rightly so), but how many prefer to stay behind the scene ....The day coaches decided to front-end and turn leaders....An anti-pattern in the making....

Coaches should be coaches, irrespective of the industry....!!!

Failure v/s Rejection

Paradox, it is...

Growing up during school/college days or even in any professional certifications, when one is unable to clear the assessment, it is said 

"You failed in the exam/assessment" - "You did not clear it " - "You did not make it " etc....

Fast-forward, to our industry (maybe in most). When someone is unable to land the desired job and instead make it really big somewhere else , headlines reads 

"N - number of companies rejected , but lands a plum position in another organization" - Wow, makes me wonder why is it interpreted as 

Organizations rejected the most deserving candidate.

Being ruthlessly honest - It is a classic case of "desired" v/s "deserved".

An important aspect of cultural transformation in organizations is the personal journey every individual has to go through.

Earlier everyone realizes they get what they deserve than what they desire, becomes all the more easy to drive positive changes.

Please from next time, any headline reads "someone rejected me" , it maybe apt to change it to "Maybe someone did not crack"....

The Art of Organizational Agility lies in the "heart" of the management

An interesting thought came up "What behavior change needed in senior management during change especially in context of organization agility? How will you convey all these to them?" from a friend....!!!

I responded "Stop being a manager" :)

Follow up to my response "But why? Someone can manage resources, finance, inventory, facility, vendors, process, quality and many more"

Here is why managers should stop being a manager..

A simpler philosophical view - Our evolution is a manifestation of our past behaviors. We (mankind) have derived our responsibility based on the the role which is logical , but where it has gone haywire is when we started to derive power and positions based on it.

A professional view - Managers was carved as a role to ensure continuity of status-quo and/or also to ensure the status of a new work-item is on track to be completed. Multiple entities have to be managed - resources, finances, inventory, facility, vendor, process , quality and many more as my friend pointed.

Alas, we suddenly feel "manager" is a very critical role. You bet it is. This is the person who should be responsible for all bouquet and brick bats, infact taking a leadership view, he/she should be the person who takes all brick-bats and passes the bouquets to his/her team.

Does this happen in reality ? We are today have reached very far from how the role was

conceptualized.

In today's world, the net effect of our misplaced evolution and priorities wrt to organizational agility over the years gets to the point where -

Managers have to told not to be manager of today, but of yesterday.

Yesterday's manager was a role and today's manager is position of power.

Tomorrow's manager would be a role which is absolutely Thankless and your role is an expectation and not a service to your team, wait who would your team - In every-sense a bunch of dumb-smart machines (including humans), from who all you get is status than and doesn't care a bit.

So managers , please stop soon being one and change to being a worker , who's job is work with entities and not manage them.

To the second part of his question, how you convey to them - It very simple show them their future.....!!!

At a recent conference , an engineer from a leading organization said, if your manager is not understanding the complexity of your work, instead always asks status - simple solution - pull them into your mid-night/on-support/peak-support calls . They don't continue to be a manager but instead learn to manage their work.

Happy Managing, but stop being a Manager!

  

discovering behavior - empathy way

Historically, our workforce has had its fair share of what I call "text-book leaders" someone good in reading out content than being a "laboratory-leader" - one who's practices and also takes pride in experimenting...!!!

being today's leaders is all about -

being there
being transparent
being vulnerable
being the change, that need to be changed

I am fortunate to come across one true practitioner, who is willing to experiment & by virtue of it displays immense leadership qualities...meet "pba"

Sometimes all it needs is one accident/incident to define the persona. Here's one from "pba" -

Global teams are a reality and biggest challenge we are facing is to keep all as a "TEAM". This is possible only when "empathy" is a behavior on the ground than a dictionary entity. 

"pba" during one of his visits to other side of the globe, got a first hand feel of the challenges people face with time-zone, late evening meetings, impact to their personal life etc

A genuine practitioner, he asks himself 

"how he can be there for others" ,

"how he can be the change he is asking others to be"

"how he can be vulnerable and try stuff" 

He doesn't stop there, he evens discovers the answer. 

Once he is back to his home-land, he decides to wake up early, take calls more earlier than before so that his counterparts on the other side of the globe can leave home early

He advocates more video calls, as the human connect is what defines a relationship than audio connects and that is core of everything

Does the above behavior ring a bell, yes you are right , one of the most abused word "empathy"

A practitioner silently graduates without much fuss , another trait of being a leader.

Way to go "pba"

Professional Friction v/s Personal Differences

Few days back, one of my very good friend , raised a point on why there are dysfunctions in team ?

Why can't the team understand they are here for a professional purpose, keep aside their differences and strive for better performance....!!!

An interesting thought, one that provoked some thought in all us....

If at all professionals can accept personal differences, still agree to disagree but then work for greater cause...what an awesome world it would be..

Why do they get converted into personal issues ?

Why should someone build and carry personal issues in a professional environment ?

At the end we agreed that a good percentage of our workforce is unable to differentiate between the two and hence this big thriving opportunity of getting them together....

We all are humans and drawing boundaries are nearly impossible, which means this behavior is here to stay....!!!

And thats the reality.....

Leadership Decoded - Happy to Grow up with Sachin and Age with MS

A controversy in making , but the more I think about it , it doesn't seem to be one

Growing up loving our informal national game (in Indian context).

Sachin taught about , Impeccable Integrity , For the TEAM , Being Flag-bearer and pseudo leader of billion heads , possessing the power of making us dream , persona , charm , controlled aggression and many many more...

Aging with MS has also taught me a lot about circumstantial leadership  , Able to think on the feet , Being humble , A servant leader (I cannot recall once, when MS has stood at the center of any team photograph after a victory, he is mostly hiding) , Respect for TEAM , Leading by example - taking it head-on (when more than 2011 world up final) , epitome of confidence ....gosh the list goes on....!!!

In-fact a dream nursed by Sachin (world cup victory) and finally fulfilled by MS...what a story....

Fast forward to our industry , only make me wonder if the above two persona's gave us more than enough qualities to carry it forward . Its just to easy to be stuck with their game, but they lived beyond it.

The challenges faced with our work-force, all the transformation values, means we may not have to look beyond the two greats who stood for different values.

MS , the leader of a team and knows how to steer the ship - Sachin , the emotional king of a billion dreams, one who took it himself to balance it.....Leadership exhibited....!!!

What better note to end than just saying -
"Happy to Grow up with Sachin and Age with MS" .....

Coach - The "tag" to hide behind ....!!!

Evolution of industry is imminent and with that we evolve.

Onshore and offshore project leads/co-ordinators/managers was the flavor of 90s (more so from services standpoint)

Managers and Pseudo-Technical leads were the flavor of 2000s and early this decade...

To discover the trend for next few years, need not go far - Welcome coaching and coaches.

Its ironic how "All of a sudden" there are tons of coaches, maybe very soon the # of coaches may outnumber the resources to be coached.

The point is not about abundant coaches, but coaches for causes and not coaches driven by passion.

There is no wrong in coaching seen as a pure career option , but to truly succeed as a coach, a state of mind beyond professional role is important.

An interesting story to share - In an interview asked a candidate "why are there so many coaches in the industry" and I loved the answer - "Thats the logical transition from being a resource manager of a technical team" Wow...!!! Appreciate the openness of the candidate.

Ever since, I started wondering - "Is coach the tag, many will hide behind now".....!!!