Until Valentines day, love was in the air. Soon after, we find that fraud is in the air.

Maybe its time for HR professionals to ask if they have any role to play, in preventing employees from committing fraud. (Needless to say, HR professionals should themselves stay out of trouble first.)

While there is audit and vigilance and other mechanisms, I believe that some simple policies framed and implemented well by HR can go a long way in preventing fraud or at least making it difficult. While this is true for organizations of all sizes, I am especially concerned about small and medium businesses which are often dependent on a handful of trusted employees and some outsourced support and any fraud can cost them dearly.

Sincerity is the greatest ploy – don’t fall for it

Think about it. An employee who wishes to commit a fraud needs time, privacy and uninterrupted access to information, lots of personal authority and a reasonable tenure. How does one secure all of this? There is only one way to do it – by winning the hearts of people around, by being least suspected, by being very efficient and ever helpful, by being below the radar, sincere, hardworking and going beyond the call of duty.

The unsuspecting and trusting boss will soon feel blessed to have such an employee and literally and figuratively had over the keys. In other words, the right to commit fraud is hard earned, over a period of time.

Mitigating risk

I am not going to belabor the point about hiring right. Of course it is important to hire right but that is no guarantee to preventing fraud. People change, get influenced, fall into bad company and end up doing what they should not be doing.

The ideas and suggestions I present below are neither original nor breakthrough in nature. These are based on what I have witnessed, experienced or heard. These ideas are especially relevant for small businesses which may not have access to expert resources and assistance.

1.      All employees who have any financial role to play in any function, be it accounting, procurement or vendor management SHOULD go on mandatory leave at least once a year for two weeks. No one should have the authority to waive this and this must be audited. Someone else at random must be assigned their work during this period. This is a practice that an international Bank I worked for used to follow. Only when someone in a sensitive position goes away on leave will the organisation have a fresh pair of eyes to look at the person’s job. Employees and their managers who protest this rule or find excuses in implementing it or seek waivers must of course be called to explain their cause.

2.      Employees in any role with financial and commercial sensitivities should not be given single occupancy of the premises – in other words they cannot be allowed to work alone. There must be at least two of three people in the premises and if the number comes below, the premises must be closed. Being alone is a great setting to commit fraud.

3.      Employees handling any kind of financial transactions should never ever have to work overtime or stay back late on a perennial basis. It can lead to errors or fraud. It is better to have more staff and have them leave on time. Employees working late perennially should be seen as a potential risk rather than as a sign of sincerity.

4.      Having a policy of rotating employees across roles, functions and geographies is most critical. No one in any role with financial implications should be in the same role and location for over a certain period of time. Such continuity can be a clear breeding ground for fraud.

5.      Diversity is very healthy in all such functions. I must admit that very very very rarely have I come across women commit fraud at the workplace. This is a fact. Having a good distribution of men and women might certainly help. 

In God we can trust. All others must take leave, go home early, not work alone and rotate jobs and locations regularly.

Now is the time of the year when managers sit with their employees to discuss and sign off their goals for the year. Now is also the time when HR gets busy with the onerous task of ensuring that the process of goal setting is complete and the paper work is done, quickly. Now is also the time when leaders travel the length and breadth of the country to hold town halls to communicate and sell their annual operating plans to every employee in the company.

In the drive to create a strong performance oriented culture, more and more organizations are doing everything possible to make performance count, hold employees accountable and of course design systems to manage consequences – positive and negative. (We find that a reasonable amount of pay is linked to the achievement of these goals and operating plans.)

From a time when performance management was such an imperfect process it is indeed great that we have come a long way. Unfortunately, overdoing anything which is good brings with it unintended consequences. So, what is the unintended consequence of a formal performance management process, of clearly defining goals and linking rewards to such goals?

Well, the fundamental cultural shift of formalizing and institutionalizing ownership and accountability is that leaders and managers end up surrendering their skills and motivational prowess and good judgment to a system. It is now the system that will determine what goals employees set, what measures are assigned and therefore what consequences emerge.

Especially in medium to large organizations where managers have large teams and the process of signing off goals become onerous and there is an automated system to assist, employees can end up setting “safe and achievable goals” – goals that will ensure that they are more or less assured of their variable pay. This is especially true of functions that are business enabling rather than revenue generating or operations oriented. (of course many sales professionals are also experts at sandbagging). It becomes very hard to challenge the employee about such a process of lowering the bar.

Even more dangerous is the trend of setting goals that are easily measurable rather than goals that really matter to the business but are harder to measure.

At a time when businesses are facing disruptive changes and innovation and creativity and thinking beyond boundaries and collaboration are the things that matter the most, the trend of setting safe goals is indeed dangerous.

So what are some of the things that we can do to reverse such a trend?

For one, we must guard against principal accountabilities creeping into one’s goals. In other words, we must ask ourselves if employees should be rewarded with bonuses and performance linked pay for doing what they are paid to do? 

We must ask if the organizations would rather have employees who play safe and achieve “safe goals” or would encourage employees to pursue audacious goals and fail or fall short. In other words, how do we capture and recognize great efforts in the right direction?

We must ask ourselves if in the interest of fairness and objectivity, leaders and managers are fighting shy of relying on their good judgment to pick real winners.

Of course, we should also ask ourselves if we are relying excessively on the system to secure performance and are not relying on the manager as much to train, motivate, support and set people up for success.

Beyond all this, employees will need to ask themselves lf if in trying to set goals that meet company standards, they are punching below their weight and falling short of giving their best.

Mark Twain once said, “We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it – and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again – and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.“  

In trying to manage consequences, we should not prevent employees from just trying hard!

Image credit: agame-fitness

The impatient executive

Imagine this conversation between a Coach and his client, a hugely successful but impatient executive. “Hi Raj, do you see the 360 feedback. Every respondent is pointing out that you very very urgently need to become more patient!”

Well, sound like a funny conversation and the urgency around patience bit almost sounds like an oxymoron. But the truth is that for such a large number of very successful senior executives, being patient is such an urgent developmental need. It is urgent because the collateral damage of their impatience is so huge and mostly experienced by peers and team members who protest that it is almost impossible to deal with this person.

So, what are the typical visible behaviours of an executive who has a problem with patience?

He (mostly male) would have a huge difficulty waiting for any work output from anyone, be it peers or team members. It could be some data, some presentation, some report, or some response.

The person also has a difficulty waiting for things from the system or from the boss or top management. This could be approvals, decisions, clarity or recognition and rewards.

The person would often see others as huge hindrances to his speedy success and progress. Timelines and deadlines are not just non-negotiable. Delays have almost near fatal consequences in their minds. Not having something when the person imagined that he would have it can send him into a tizzy.

Such executives may often find meetings, discussions and consensus building efforts a complete waste of time. Why discuss on and on? Why don’t people get it? Why do I need to explain things? Why should I suffer fools are some of the questions buzzing in their minds.

The executive would believe that he knows what needs to be done and all efforts other than acting are an utter waste of time. Waiting of any sort is almost impossible. And those causing delays would be seen as villains who must be summarily punished.

Reactions would range from angry outbursts, frustrated emails, slamming of doors, rude phone calls and so on. They would imagine catastrophic consequences to not getting what they want or not getting them at the time they want. The world would seem to have conspired against them to make them miserable.

They would be constantly wired up, constantly ready to battle, should people or things come in their way. It can start with the morning newspaper arriving late to the drivers with a poor driving sense all around them to the secretary who dialed into the call 2 minutes late, to the team members who have too many coffee breaks. The list goes on.

The making of the impatient executive

There is a lot of research around what might have caused these almost neurotic conditions in otherwise successful executives. Early childhood experiences, certain self-limiting beliefs around unreasonable expectations of self, others and the world, fears and anxieties of losing out or missing out or failing or the view that things must happen the way one imagined it.

The competitiveness that was nurtured in our educational system, the premium placed on speed even in aptitude tests, the pressure to come first, the shortages that some of us might have experienced in our childhood, the fear that we may not have enough and of course the unending need to be competent and perfect all add to this state.

Organisational performance and reward systems also contribute to people having this constant need to win the race, come first, and get promoted quickly. I remember, in one of the organisations I worked in, Assistant Managers took either 30 or 33 or and 36 months to become Managers. The one who took 36 months was seen as an absolute loser – imagine just 6 months behind!

In the early years, organisations actually love executives who are always in a hurry. Add to this popular literature and management ideas that celebrate paranoia, urgency, speed and agility. These behaviours actually get rewarded.

It is only when the same executive becomes senior and needs to think more than act, needs to sell than tell, needs to inspire than instruct, needs to guide and not goad, needs to cheer and not chase that problems begin to arise. First, the employee engagement scores might falter. Then the 360 results might look worrisome over two or three rounds. Then come the battery of psychometric assessments which confirm all of this in technical terms. It is also likely that by this time, grown up children in the family have begun to protest, push back or give strong and direct feedback or just disconnect.

By this time, the whole organisation sees the urgent need for patience – except the executive. That is when the coach comes in.

Embracing patience

In my experience, feedback and enhanced self-awareness is not adequate in helping executives at this stage. Suggestions that they should practice meditation and yoga might also be misplaced. Pushing for surface level behavioral changes may also be short-lived.

Coaches will need to help executives uncover the story behind the story – help executives look at ways in which they are coming in the way of their own happiness. They need to spot their mistaken beliefs and unhelpful thinking styles, habitual responses to situations that are unhelpful; self-talk that is causing them misery and so on.

They need to see such help as important and not as one more hindrance that will slow them down.

Once executives become more aware and catch themselves engaging in these unhelpful thoughts and behaviours, they may be able to come up with more balanced actions and responses. With some good taste of success and their worst fears not coming true, they might be encouraged to actually be more patient. Some are also able to leverage their spiritual orientation and get some perspective about themselves and the larger life and the world around.

It has been my experience that the journey is long and arduous and fraught with chances of relapse. Of course, for those who do manage to make sustainable changes, they discover that at the other end of impatience is their real self.

The song Chingaree Koee bhadake sung by Kishore Kumar for the film Amar Prem raises some philosophical questions.  I find one particular verse very significant:

duniya jo pyaasa rakhe to madiraa pyaas bujhaa’e (If the world thirsts, then wine will quench it.)

madiraa jo pyaas lagaa’e use kaun bujhaa’e (But if the wine thirsts, who can satisfy its need? )

If HR professionals are expected to secure the motivation of their workforce, it would be a matter of concern if the HR professionals themselves are not motivated.

Am I implying that HR folks in India are not motivated, you might wonder? The picture is not entirely encouraging, I must confess.

Despite everyone proclaiming that HR is the profession of the day, despite people problems keeping CEOs awake at night, despite HR professionals being paid extremely well, despite media paying significant attention to the people side of Organisations’ stories, I am afraid there is a fair amount of disenchantment among the HR folks.

While attrition and worryingly short tenures is a clear indication of the problem, the greater worry is the negative spiral effect. Less engaged HR folks are less effective and are under greater fire from their internal customers and greater the fire, greater the disengagement process.

While some of the HR professionals seem to be able to adapt to the needs of their organisation, accept the realities, carve an identity for themselves, enjoy their work and make a difference, many others do not seem to be so fortunate. What then are the reasons?

The 3 Cs of Motivation

I see three factors influencing the motivation of HR professionals. I see these three factors arranged in a hierarchy as depicted in the diagram above.

Competence

At the entry level, most of the demotivation is clearly a result of lack of competence. An HR professional without the competence to handle the demands of the job ends up either being ridiculed or ignored. Lack of competence forces such professionals to lead a life of isolation, low connect with internal customers and a tendency over time to get engrossed in transaction.

Part of competence is the faith that one can reinvent oneself in the face of restructuring, automation, outsourcing and other disruptive changes.

HR Leaders who are supposed to develop organisational talent quite often ignore the talent development needs right under their nose.

On the other hand, competent and passionate HR professionals know what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to do it. They innovate, take ownership and influence the brief. Their competence gives them the courage to deal with employees assertively but also empathetically.

Culture

At slightly higher levels, the culture of the organisation begins to act as a source of motivation or demotivation for the HR professional. While culture affects everyone, it affects HR’s work most directly.

Organisations that operate based on well articulated values give the HR professional great clarity on the “hows” that will govern people management. 

On the other hand, when the organisation adopts an exigency based approach, changing its stance in response to market needs unmindful of the people impact, it ends up creating a bundle of contradictions that the best of HR professionals find hard to deal with.

Organisations which accord HR a high centrality and involve and include HR in all important decisions end up creating the right culture for HR to feel involved and valued. In such organisations, the HR practitioners are willing to take a clear stance, confront the inevitable contradictions, seek resolution and progress and therefore remain motivated.

 Chemistry

At the HR leadership level, it is the chemistry between the HR leader and his function and the CEO that determines everything.

This is perhaps the most significant determinant of HR motivation since it has a spiraling effect on the other two determinants. This is also the area that needs most attention.

If they are able to see eye to eye on key issues, influence each other, inspire each other and respect each other, motivation is high.

Where the CEO is unclear about his expectations from HR or worse has only transactional expectations, the HR leader feels stifled.

Many CEOs are unable to give their HR leaders a clear brief about their expectations because their own familiarity about HR is quite limited. Some tend to be so transactional in their expectations that the HR leader’s daily experience of the CEO is uninspiring and demotivating.

 The last verse of the same song best explains this:

ma.njhdhaar me.n naiya Dole to maa.njhii paar lagaa’e  (If in midstream a boat rocks, then the sailor can cast it ashore.)

maa.njhii jo naav Duboye use kaun bachaa’e (But if the sailor sinks it midstream, who can save it?)  

If HR is most central to the organisations of today, it is time we paid attention to the motivation of HR folks! 

In the last few weeks my office assistant who is updating my contact list has been asking me to take a look at the large number of business cards I have accumulated over time and sort out the ones that are still current.

When I finally got down to doing this, I was very quickly carried away by thoughts around the many stories behind all those business cards, the people who gave them to me and the organisations they represented. These stories raised deep philosophical questions about organisations, people and life in general while also stirring up a wide range of emotions.

As you can imagine, most of those business cards were outdated. As I looked at the large number of outdated business cards, the first and most obvious question came up – have business cards outlived their utility? Will the world do away with business cards? Will business cards too face defeat in the hands of technology?

Well, we have our phones, we have the cloud, we have backup, we have contacts on all our devices but we seem to continue to have business cards. I believe that the business card is like the wrist watch. We have clocks all over the place and yet we like to wear a wrist watch, not for telling time but as a cool fashion accessory. Similarly, the process of exchanging business cards is an important part of business customs, a way of breaking ice and presenting oneself. It is not really to share contact details, I thought. It is also an emotional record of a meeting too.

My mind soon starting moving to much more serious questions about the business card.

I had no way of saying if the vast majority of business cards I had received from one-off interactions in meetings or conferences were at all current or not. Except for the exact name, everything else might need validation. So, if your do not remember who gave you that card, it was of little use.

A large number of corporate executives I know very well, I realized had all moved jobs, not once but a few times. Some I am in touch with and some I am not. Some I know are doing very well and some I don’t know. That seems an inevitable reality.

Sadly, quite a number of the organisations in which people were working when I met them and exchanged cards no longer exist. They have either shut down or have merged with or acquired by another organisation.

Also, quite a few people who gave me their cards a few years ago have retired and are now doing other things. A few are sadly, no more.

Interesting, the ones whose cards remain current even after several years are promoters or owners of businesses. (the non-VC backed ones, I must hasten to add!). They continue to hold the same titles and do the same things, albeit bigger and better in most cases. It is their executives who have moved on.

At an emotional level, some business cards brought back happy memories because of some great work I did with those people. Some evoked mixed feelings because of things not going as well.

Of course, I also realize that for a large number of people I work with and engage with quite closely today, I don’t have or don’t even need business cards. In a way therefore, transcending the need for a business card seems to be an indicator of the strength of a relationship, I thought.

Finally, I began wondering how people might feel or react, if I sent them a picture of their old business cards. Cards they gave me several years ago, when I met them in one of their old avatars? Several possibilities came up. Some might feel proud about the role they played at that time. Some might be reminded of the great times they had. Some might feel disappointed about missed opportunities at that time. Some might feel anger about what those jobs and those organisations did or did not do to them and for them. Some might have unpleasant memories that they feel are best forgotten.

So, here is a question I have for you: if you were to receive pictures of some of your old businesses cards, what kind of emotions would they evoke?

Every organisation of some standing has some form of a shared leadership platform or forum. These forums are called management committees or executive councils or leadership councils or executive committees. Typically these forums consist of the CEO and his or her direct reports.

At one level, belonging to such a form is a badge of honour. At another level, making such a forum really work is at most times an uphill task for its convener, typically the MD or CEO. More about this in a moment.

The purpose of these forums

Boards and business leaders realize that leadership is seldom a solo act. To align the entire leadership team, to get the organisation to benefit from the collective minds of all leaders to solve critical problems, to influence and include them, to co-create the future and to make the best decisions and shape the right strategies such a forum becomes the foundation.

In operational terms, these forums discuss and shape organization effectiveness, its goals and priorities, annual business plans and financial budgets, review progress against these plans, discuss a wide range of issues impacting organization effectiveness, review talent and other matters relating to people. Needless to say, these forums are expected to stand together and deal with the many inevitable problems and challenges faced by the organisation.

These forums especially serve as important platforms for enabling functions like HR, Finance, Information Technology and so on to get support or draw attention to matters that transcend functional and divisional boundaries.

Simple functional organisations which roll up to the CEO tend to find it easier to secure alignment in these forums  as opposed to organisations with business division structures where the head of one business division may find little interest in another business division other than getting to know or keeping others informed or sharing scarce resources.

Current Realities

A lot of my organisation Development work is to do with making such leadership groups work better! That says a lot about these forums, doesn’t it? We often witness either substantive or interpersonal differences among team members in these forums. While some groups do manage to move from forming to storming to norming and performing, small changes in their constitution including the entry of a new member or two or even worse a new leader can throw things out of sync and send them back to forming and storming.

While some will accept that they have difficulties in making these forums effective, many tend to live in denial and depend on a formal structure and the bureaucracy of the process to keep these forums barely functional.  But in reality, many of its members just don’t enjoy being in each other’s presence.

Beyond all this is the larger question – in the age of agile working, rapid and disruptive changes, globally diverse teams and the advent of collaborative technology platforms, what purpose do such forums in their physical form with all the ceremonial trappings really serve?

Factors that impact effectiveness

If these forums are really so important, why is that many don’t work as intended? What comes in the way?

Decision making style of the CEO

If the CEO who in many ways is the convener of the forum is autocratic or at best consultative in style, he is unlikely to bring issues to the forum for real discussion or even worse have predetermined views on how things should be done and can make the forum look like a pointless charade.

Many CEOs seldom have the human process facilitation skills needed to make such groups self-sustaining.

Lack of trust and interpersonal comfort

Quite often, members of the forum struggle to get out of their role boundaries and connect with one another as human beings and individuals. Members may feel unsafe and uncomfortable to open up.

Lack of openness

Members may also not speak freely and openly or may not debate and disagree openly. They may also believe that it is best not to intrude into the territory of another peer lest he takes him on when his turn comes. ‘Why mess around with another’ might be the attitude.  So, real discussions may not take place.

Lack of ownership for decision made

Often times, decisions may be made in these forums but not carried through. So, the same issues get debated again and again, making team members feel frustrated. Everyone might agree to do something while they actually don’t feel convinced. As a result, results are seldom evident.

Interdependence

Team members may not ask for help or offer help to their colleagues. Everyone may have the need to come across as self-sufficient or ever competent and not show their vulnerabilities. There may also be a sense of competing and winning.

Form overtaking function

Finally, the whole procedural demands of having meetings every month and filing reports may overtake the real function of shared leadership.

The good news is that these situations can easily be reversed should the CEO accept that there is an issue and have the will to set things right. The field of OD is full of methods, tools and frameworks to help in such situations. CEOs can also be coached to promote shared leadership.

Modern organisations in modern times

My real worry is not about making existing Leadership or executive councils effective. The real worry is whether these forums serve any real purpose in their current form. That might sound quite an audacious statement to make but let’s examine it.

At a time when digitization is radically changing the way information is processed and decisions are made, what purpose can a forum that meets once a month with a packed agenda really serve?

In other words, are leaders in these forums leveraging other real time technology based collaboration platforms to exchange views and ideas, debate on issues, brainstorm, take decisions, communicate with one another and truly demonstrate shared leadership?

In my view, the typical monthly meetings will need to transcend their current purpose and serve to build bonds, enhance trust and have deep conversations. On the other hand, these leaders will need to leverage technology to make their forums and councils truly real time and virtual and ensure that information, support, debates and discussions are real-time.

Of course, members of these forums will need to learn the fine art of having great conversations – an art form that is almost forgotten.

If these don’t happen, these forums are likely to look and feel like the way many boards do  – become ceremonial occasions.

The original title of this article did not have the parentheses.

I hastily added it because I thought many would consider the question presumptuous and prefer to ask the more fundamental question first – does an entrepreneur really need coaching?

In all fairness, it is necessary to answer that question first before answering the question “when” and then maybe “How”.

The best way to answer that is by offering a quick quiz to the entrepreneur (start-up or scaled up). Here are ten questions that will hopefully help the entrepreneur decide if he needs to engage in any kind of developmental or helping relationship.

(I am using the term “developmental or helping relationship” deliberately to give a broader meaning and scope to what we are talking about rather than use the term coaching which may have a rather restricted view. We see such a relationship as being skilled helping in a business context focusing on helping or developing the person rather than solving her or his problem)

It may include a coach who can help the entrepreneur find answers and solutions or plan actions to achieve his leadership development needs or a mentor who can provide insights or answers to some of his business related questions or offer advice on matters relating to strategy, fund raising, products, markets, customers, investors, board and so on. Both of them create a safe space for sharing, exploration and even ventilation of their issues and concerns.

We are of course leaving out consultants who can offer their expertise in specific areas like HR, Tax, Compliance, Technology, Branding and so on. Of course, we will come back to these sources of help and their value soon.

We are also looking specifically at entrepreneurs who started a business fresh out of college without any significant organisation experience. These could include those who have not raised external capital and those that have.

Do I need to engage in a developmental relationship?

Please answer the following ten questions using the following three point scale:

3. Strongly agree;                           2. Agree;                             1: Mildly agree;

1. I would consider emotional intelligence my strength (the capacity to be aware of, regulate and express one’s emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically and through all of this experience well-being.)
2. I would consider myself reasonably self-aware (aware of my strengths, my values, my preferences, my areas of development)
3. I enjoy a trust-based working relationship with my co-founders
4. I enjoy a great productive working relationship with my leadership team
5. I am able to manage my stress well and enjoy the process of doing what I am doing
6. I fully comprehend the dimensions of my role as a leader and its distinction from my role as an entrepreneur
7. I have a managerial style that makes me productive and empowers my team and drives performance
8. My leadership style has a positive influence over the culture of my organisation
9. In the last one year I have taken concrete steps to enhance my competencies in line with the changes in all the dimensions of my role as a leader and entrepreneur
10. I have access to trusted confidantes whenever I feel alone, or in a dilemma or struggle to find answers or get fresh perspectives

If your honest response is a “1” to 3 or more questions, you may benefit from engaging in a developmental or helping relationship.

Why entrepreneurs need help

Having offered a quick quiz to promote some reflection, I would now like to present an empathetic view of the entrepreneur and why he or she so urgently needs the support of a helping or developmental relationship.

The best way to do this is to compare the entrepreneur’s leadership journey with that of a corporate executive.

According to the Centre for Creative Leadership (CCL), any experience that is developmental in nature (as opposed to an ordinary experience) contributes to the development of any leader.

The ingredients of such a developmental experience according to CCL are assessment, challenge and support.

Assessment is all about having formal and informal data on a real time basis about oneself and on that basis know where one stands.

Challenge is about being pushed out of one’s comfort zone and being stretched and forced to look beyond what one has the capacity to do.

Support is about feeling safe and helped to face those challenges.

CCL adds that some of the most typical developmental experiences that are rich in all three dimensions are formal training that is feedback rich, formal coaching, informal mentoring, 360 feedback, hardship and the content of the work itself.

Let’s now compare a typical corporate executive with a typical entrepreneur to see how these dimensions and experiences pan out as they progress in their careers. (for ease of understanding we are looking at a typical profile. There will certainly be exceptions on both sides)

You can see that the average corporate executive is high on assessment and support and medium on challenge. What does this mean? Please note – High on assessment and support and medium on challenge. Support mostly matches challenge.

That means, the corporate executive works in an environment where there is a system of regular performance feedback in addition to the opportunity to periodically participate in formal assessment processes keeping development in mind. It also means that these executives have the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of level appropriate development programs in addition to access to formal coaching and mentoring.

On the other hand, except for a few executives and except for certain difficult business times, the kind of challenge they face is never completely disproportionate to their level or capacity.

The entrepreneur is on the other hand high on challenge and medium on feedback and low on support. What does this mean? Please note – High on challenge and low on support.

The most potent developmental experience in Coaching Entrepreneurs is his or her job challenge and a huge dose of hardship. Often, these hardships and challenges come in at an age that is often too early and when they are too unprepared. In that sense, these experiences are hugely developmental.

However, these experiences are also like being thrown into the deep end of the pool and being expected to swim.

They have very few opportunities for formal feedback, opportunities to enhance self-awareness and obtain external benchmarks on their competencies and style.

They also lack access to timely support from programs and people.

Now, here is an added complexity – central to the so called entrepreneurial spirit is the trait of setting out to do things unmindful of limitations in resources, internal and external. That is what propels entrepreneurship.

That in many ways sums up the unique context of the entrepreneur and why support in the form of any helping or developmental relationship will be invaluable.

What kind of developmental relationships will help?

It must be clarified right away that any such help cannot be a one-time fix. One of the common perceptions about coaching or mentoring or any other support is that it is like a vaccination you administer to infants, once in a life time.

Like corporate executives, coaches will need access to different kinds of developmental relationships at different stages in their journey of growth to address different agendas.

This is where those in the helping profession and the entrepreneurs seem to miss the point.

Here is a model that I would like to suggest as a way of looking at a range of helping relationships combined with developmental experiences at various stages of the entrepreneur’s journey. Specifically, this model looks at a combination of assessment and support, given that challenge is available in plenty already.

Mentoring

Mentoring is an invaluable source of support at a time when entrepreneurs are ideating about starting a business. In addition to the obvious mentoring support on aspects of business, they need mentoring on the emotional and interpersonal dimensions and get a sense of what to expect. This would be in the form of guidance, shared personal experiences, role models to emulate and even some tough advice.

Such mentoring support can often continue for a long time and from different sources, each from one lens and one vantage point.

Assessment

Entrepreneurs need critical development feedback to understand their strengths and some of their potential derailers. Co-founders who were great hostel mates can get entangled in bitter irreconcilable differences simply because a social relationship does not sustain in a business setting. Such assessment needs to come as soon as they get started rather than later.

Such assessment support must almost be like an annual health check-up serving as indicators for the present and the future.

The very nature of such actionable assessment will necessitate perhaps an executive coach with contextual knowledge. Someone who can not only assess but also de-brief with care and then support in coming up with simple actions.

Coaching

As the entrepreneur begins to scale and the issues of organisation and leadership surface, he or she will need support in developing those muscles and facing the road ahead. That is where a coach can become invaluable.

Who is suitable to coach and mentor and what should be the nature of the engagement?

This is where entrepreneurs can go terribly wrong. They are often not clear about what to look for in whom and end up embarking on a search that is designed to fail. “There isn’t anyone who exactly understands my unique situation and has been there and done that exact thing and so no one can understand me and help me and I have to do it alone” is what they would often tell themselves.

It is fair to expect mentors to have strong business and domain and contextual know-how. It is also fair to expect such mentors to be available on tap for spontaneous support. That is why mentors are more suitable in the early stages. However, such mentors need to have a certain level of training to uphold the true spirit of helping and not be seen as tormentors. They should also refrain from excessive advice and creating dependencies and aim to empower.

On the other hand, coaches should not even be from the same business because they will then be tempted to “solve the problem” and not “help the person”. They only need to have significant executive experience; have held senior positions and have a fair understanding of current business contexts but fully understand the tasks and demands of business leadership.

By setting up criteria that is unreal and unnecessary, entrepreneurs can end up deceiving themselves and coming in their own way of growth. By seeking help early, they can grow and enjoy the journey.

The role of investors

Investors (VCs and PEs) are in a unique position to be the sponsors for such developmental relationships. Those that enjoy the trust and have earned credibility are able to sponsor such a relationship by not just making an introduction but preparing the ground, setting the context and staying connected.

Such sponsors can play a crucial role in reducing resistance, creating readiness and encouraging participation and offering perspectives.

Without a sponsor the accountability to seek help and make changes may be somewhat muted.

For that to happen, VCs could also may benefit from getting educated about how such helping relationships work, what to look for, how to sponsor and so on. They can also take the time to ask the right enabling questions in their Board meetings.

The world has seen several business cycles, economic ups and downs. In the throes of each of these cycles, the inevitable question is always asked – “should investment in development be part of the things we cut in order to optimize costs and conserve cash?”

Over the years, more and more businesses have begun to take a rather long-term and wise view about such developmental investments.

They have managed to focus on cost but also make available budgets for developmental investments that matter, thereby signaling that pay and benefits are a matter of economics and pay philosophy and people development is a matter of future development and driven by their people development philosophy.

However, the current pandemic seems quite different. The situation is far from stable and the decision making process is also far from simplistic. The fact that the Indian economy has contracted by over 23% in Q1 says it all.

I spoke to a cross section of thought leaders, consultants and business and HR leaders within organisations and asked them why developmental spends across most organisations seem to have come to a grinding halt? Why were even those organisations which traditionally took a long-term visionary view to such investments, cutting back quite significantly?

Organisational philosophies as driving forces and Business realities as restraining forces

On one side are the philosophical orientations of organisations in terms of commitment to development and a track record of having taken a wise and long-term view to development on previous occasions. These are the driving forces.

On the other side are the hard business realities where businesses are battling serious crisis and are fighting to stay afloat and conserve cash. These are the restraining forces.

In the past, organisational philosophies did positively influence developmental investments in quite a number of instances. One would imagine that like in the past, organisations with a strong philosophy would have continued to take a long-term view.

My own research tells me that the situation this time around is quite different. My first and rather unfortunate conclusion is that business realities beat philosophy, at least this far.

It appears that even organisations with a very strong commitment to development are struggling in the face of hard business realities and are cutting back on their usual development spends.

Hard decisions

Conversations with business leaders reveal that many of the businesses which have been deeply impacted and are staring at unprecedented Q1 losses and grim prospects for most of the year have had to take many harsh decisions and actions to conserve cash. They have had to lay off employees, implement a variety of pay cut programs in addition to stopping promotions and implementing other measures to conserve cash.

Of course I did find exceptions to this rule. I found organisations avoiding pay cuts and resisting layoffs.

The flexible staffing program implemented by many organisations does not seem adequate. There is a need to go beyond this and look at the permanent workforce. Why this was the case and what struggles they are going through to get the flexible workforce back is an entirely different subject.

Don’t waste a good crisis

Then, there are organisations that may or may not have been impacted deeply by the pandemic but may be using the opportunity to implement some of the long pending rationalization measures like rationalization of structures, roles, layers, changing promotion policies or just shedding excess staff.

The two logic bubbles

Clearly the view of those looking at organisations form the outside is quite different from the views of those actually running organisations and understandably so. Let me say, they are operating from their respective logic bubbles and both appear very valid. (A logic-bubble, according to de Bono, is that bubble of perception within which a person is acting. When one person’s perspectives are different from the other, it does not mean they are wrong. It could be that their perspectives are as well-founded as the other’s when considered within their particular logic-bubbles.)

Those viewing the situation from outside seem to take the view that Pay and Staffing is a matter of economics whereas, development is a matter of investing for the long-term. Their view is that it would be unwise to halt real developmental investments because this is the time when leaders and managers and employees need the most support to succeed.

Those from within maintain that they are implementing pay cuts, are shedding jobs, are looking at every small opportunity to conserve cash all across and in this context, spending on high profile development programs just does not look and feel right. Some of them also maintain that they have opened up a plethora of online courses and resources and employees are free to access and use them. The belief is that these resources are an immediate substitute to the erstwhile development.

The real nature of development

Having explored the current pandemic and its impact on business and development from a few vantage points, it is now time for us to understand and define the nature of developmental investments that really matter. Unless we do that, we will not be in a position to determine if such investments can be deferred or are needed now.

Way back in the year 2011 ,in my book titled, “Creating a Helping organisation – five engaging ways to promote employee performance, growth and well-being.” I had asked the question, “Are today’s organisations able to promote employee performance and business growth along with employee well-being or is the pursuit of performance and growth taking its toll on employee well-being?” Even back in 2011, I felt increasingly concerned about the unintended consequences of performance and growth impairing employee well-being.

Today, the situation is so complex, so challenging and so uncertain that more and more in the world of business are experiencing this reality of imbalance on a daily basis.

While everyone is battling the physical threats of covid – 19 on a daily basis, they are battling an even more serious threat every single day. That threat has to do with the huge mismatch between the demands placed on them to perform against all odd and the resources at their disposal to deliver such results.

More and more experts are seeing an unprecedented mental health crisis looming large among people young and old given the challenges of living; leave alone the challenges of working. With no vaccine or cure in sight, employees are facing huge uncertainties in their personal lives. Add to this the business uncertainties and add to that the demands placed on them.

If organisations wish to secure break-through results in such a context, it is my view that they will need to embrace an entirely new and fresh approach to leadership and people management.

Leaders and managers who are themselves battling their personal challenges and uncertainties will need help and guidance to learn and embrace a new way of managing their teams – a way that is built on a humanistic foundation.

Given the current situation, I see six critical imperatives for leaders and managers to manage their teams in the days to come:

1. Focus in the face of ambiguity
2. Resources in the face of shortages
3. A flexible style in the face of pressure
4. Relationship before task
5. Asking when it is easier to tell
6. Deal with the issue and not the person

Against this backdrop, it is my view that developmental investments in the current context need to go beyond form and fancy. They need not be expensive long-term programs based on complex competency frameworks. We do not need more assessment and development centre results to tell managers and leaders what ails them.

If we believe that the world has been disrupted and altered in an almost irreversible manner and the way we live has also begun to change, it is but natural that the way we manage and lead has to change. That is where developmental investments need to be made.

Now, it will call for more than wisdom to make those decisions. It will call for the courage to swim against the tide of common opinions to make the decision to invest in empowering managers and leaders so that they and their teams can embrace the emerging new world, in an all new way!

As more and more individuals contemplate becoming a coach and more and more contemplate opening institutions to train coaches and others contemplate building a coaching based leadership development or personal development practice, there are searching questions being asked about whether we have too many coaches and we have too few opportunities, whether the commoditization and price wars have begun and of course if this is worth all the effort. Worse some are picking up worried questions being asked around the world – is coaching broken.

Having become a coach in 2001 and co-founded CFI, a Leading Leadership
Coaching institution in India in 2006 , I believe it is important to try and answer these questions in as accurate a way as I can.

First, coaching in India is currently well poised – it isn’t broken for sure. What we do from now on will determine its future.

How many coaches are there in India?

It is my own estimate that CFI, ICF, CCL and a few other institutions put together may have contributed to the creation of not over 2000 trained and certified coaches in India. Add to this a small number of coaches who might be coaching based on their sheer professional credentials and personal reputation without a certificate as well as some international coaches operating in India. So, lets take 2000 as a good number for our discussion.

I am excluding from this, those certified in in-company programs as coaches as a part of a leader as coach or Manager as Coach program to build a coaching culture. I am also excluding those who attended a skills program but did not do an internship and practice that was supervised.

Of this number of 2000, it is my view that not over 25% – that is 500 coaches might be in active executive coaching practice. The remaining 1500 are unable to find opportunities or never tried to find opportunities or lost interest or just did it as a part of their personal development.

Also, unlike in other countries, many of these coaches don’t JUST do coaching – they do other things too – consulting, advisory work, training, teaching, counseling, healing, sitting on board and so on.

How many executive coaching opportunities are there in India?

This is an interesting question. It is my estimate that in a year there are about 1500 classical executive coaching opportunities. Does this number surprise or shock you? Yes, that is the number according to me. Remember, executive coaching is offered only at the CXO levels and most often an executive who is a coachee does not seek coaching more than once in a very very long time.

Now if you put the two together you might see an interesting picture emerging – 500 coaches and 1500 opportunities – some successful coaches doing multiple assignments in a year and some doing one or two in a year or two.

It must also be remembered that most executive coaches also have a “salience period” – a period when their professional credentials are valued and their coaching skills sharp and their practice thriving. It is like a cricketer in form. With age, some coaches do lose the energy and interest and the edge. Some of course keep marching on with great energy and zest.

Now considering the fact that the number of coaches has grown maybe seven-fold in the last 5 years, an extrapolation will make the next 5 years look challenging. If India were to see about 10,000 coaches in 2026, will they have on an average at least one opportunity per head per year?

What will be the shape of coaching in the years to come?

The answer to this question is complex but it will depend a lot on the way coaching will evolve in the years ahead.

It is my view that the classical executive coaching model that we have seen will continue to grow but not grow in large numbers in the years to come.

On the other hand, it is a firm reality that executives in corporate India need help and support to manage their work and their lives and they need it urgently. However, such help will need to take much more innovative, flexible and more nimble forms.

Institutions and individuals who are able to come up with development solutions that have an individual coaching element built into them creatively will be able to meet these fast-emerging needs. More importantly it will create a huge ground swell of demand for coaching talent, albeit in a different form.

The right time

Now is the right time for India to consciously shape the next stage of evolution of coaching based on the experience of the last two decades and ensure that the integrated and holistic Indian coaching model shows the way to the rest of the world.

Now is also the right time for India to get its coaching practice right before it runs into either commoditization or price wars to unethical and inappropriate application or sheer proliferation.

Institutions that are training aspiring individuals to become coaches need to pay attention to quality and relevance and not just sheer numbers. We all recognize that coaching is like any other professional practice (lawyers, doctors, architects). It is not the credentials that matter – it is the competence. The focus must be on competence building and not sheer credentialising. The deeper focus must be on the “being” of a coach”. (being empathetic, being congruent and offering unconditional positive regard without being judgmental, in the words of Carl Rogers).

Individuals wanting to become coaches need to seek good counsel before making a choice – certainly not imagine this to be a lucrative profession because it certainly is not.

Leadership institutions need to be innovative in the manner in which they embed coaching into their development solutions. Given our demographic profile, coaching must reach younger employees sooner and not be burdened by “entitlements” and “rank”. They are going to run corporate India very soon if they already are not.

Existing coaches need to recognize that continuing professional development is critical to their sustained success and this will call for some selfless service to fellow professionals in aiding their journeys of development.

Clients and sponsors would do well to invest in their own literacy about these aspects so that they can make well informed choices about the right solution and the right partners.

In all of these decisions, the coachee must be at the very heart of the matter – we need to be truly coachee centric in order to get this right!

Given the early trends in the industry and of course going by what we at CFI have been doing, I remain optimistic about the next five years! The Indian model can lead the way!

Our first brush with enhanced self-awareness through feedback was perhaps in school when our teachers wrote something about us in our progress reports or our friends wrote something about us in those lovely autograph books! Many admit that whet they dust those little documents and read them, they are amazed that many of those comments are still true!

 My teachers consistently remarked in my progress reports that my hand-writing was horrible. They alerted me to the risk that despite knowing my subjects, I would score low because those correcting my papers would get frustrated trying to read them.

Several decades later, I must admit that my handwriting continues to remain bad. However, I applied my feedback quite religiously when it mattered the most – during my exams, while filling up forms or writing out checks!

Over the years, all of us accumulate a lot of feedback – through college, our first job, our second job and so on. Such feedback emerges from our performance reviews, off-sites, critical incidents that go well or badly, reviews of the functions or businesses we manage. We also receive feedback from our siblings, our spouse, our friends, our bosses, our customers, our colleagues and countless others in our lives.

In recent times, organisations have begun to invest in generating and sharing feedback through scientific and structured tools and processes like Assessment & Development centres, 360 degree tools and psychometric instruments.

So, there is no dearth of feedback.

Given this feedback abundance, most employees will tell you that they are extremely self-aware, that they know who they are and that the open area in their JoHari window is quite large. But, does all this self-awareness result in positive change?  Not really.

In other words self-awareness ≠ change

So, what does it take to convert the huge inventory self-awareness into positive change?

I call this skill “Applied Self-awareness”. In fact, applied self-awareness is as critical as self-awareness itself.

So, what are the essential ingredients of applied self-awareness?

Having a taxonomy around self-awareness

To make all the treasure trove of self-awareness related information usable, we must be able to classify and store it in our heads in a way that is easy to retrieve and apply.  I call this the self-awareness taxonomy.

For example, we must be able to see awareness about one’s visible behaviours as different from awareness about our personality. Clarity of this nature will help us see our hard wiring and its manifestation in our external behaviours.

It also helps to appreciate that the purpose of enhanced self-awareness is not to change personality but to pay more attention to those aspects of our personality that we have not paid attention to or is less developed. 

 Knowing where application matters the most

Self-awareness is of little value unless we are acutely aware of its contextual application value.

We must be aware of the various contexts in which our self-awareness can be of immense value. That way, we can understand how effective we are likely to be in each of these contexts and see what we need to do differently in order to more effective.

Problems and opportunities: A good time to draw upon our reservoir of self-awareness is when we encounter a problem or are presented with a great opportunity. It will help us recognise our contribution to the problem or what it will take to make that opportunity a reality.

Role transitions: Another very major context in which our self-awareness can become extremely useful is when we are making major role transitions. It could be transitioning from being single to getting married or becoming a parent or moving from a campus to a corporate setting or moving from one organisational role to another or taking on significantly larger and more complex responsibilities. During these transitions, our self-awareness can give us a realistic picture of the strengths that will support us as well as the areas that are likely to derail us.  

Relationships: Whenever we have difficulties with certain relationships, our self-awareness can warn is about the possibility of things going wrong. It can also tell us what about us and our beliefs and habitual behavioural responses are contributing to it.

Social and cultural settings: Many new social and cultural settings tend to challenge us and put our intelligence to test. Out self-awareness can forewarn us about this and help us prepare ourselves to handle it better.

External benchmarks

Finally, it must be remembered that when we look at ourselves and our awareness against our own standards and benchmarks in terms of performance, behaviours and values, everything will look fine and nothing will seem like needing change.

Applied self-awareness is about applying our awareness about ourselves against relevant external benchmarks and then seeing what needs change.

For example, a Finance professional is likely to evaluate his role through the filters of his professional values and norms and on that basis, believe that he is doing fine and that it is others who need change. Only when he learns to look at himself against the benchmarks of what is expected from him by business or his internal customers will he begin to recognise the need to do things differently. Similarly, a CEO may need to recognise that his own standards might be different from the standards and benchmarks that his external stakeholders are using to evaluate him and his effectiveness. Does he need to respect and value these external benchmarks when looking at himself – absolutely yes!

So, enhancing self-awareness is only a good starting point. There is a lot of hard work called for thereafter if one needs to get the most out of such awareness. So, welcome to applied self-awareness!

From the 38th floor of the St. Regis Hotel the view of Mumbai was romantic. However, the three panelists including Madhavi Lal, Dr. Santrupt Misra and Judajith Das and the distinguished audience including several senior Talent management and Learning professionals and CFI (Coaching Foundation India) Coaches on the 38th Floor were candid to concede that the task of growing leaders from within was not as romantic.  The power of the theme, “growing leaders from within – challenges and strategies” and the quality of panelists and participants made the CFI round-table around breakfast a grand success.  

After two hours of soul searching reflection and debate several meaningful insights emerged.  Here are some of these of the insights presented in the form of reflective statements. I am sure you will find these thought provokingly useful!

Our view of Leadership : The biggest challenge of growing leaders from within emanates from the rather narrow and rigid view that we hold about who a leader is and what it takes to qualify as one. Our pre-occupation with traits and characteristics of great people on one side and our temptation to over-engineer our leadership competency framework on the other side has resulted in the leadership job seeming almost impossible to fill. In a world where business is so complex, so demanding of expertise and innovation and so diverse in contexts there is an urgent need to make our notions of leadership a lot more inclusive, simple and broad based.  By making our definitions more aligned to our real purpose we might find more leaders than we do today. In this context the fading preoccupation with engineering and the growing popularity of liberal arts education is a welcome development.

Managing release : At the heart of an organization’s ability to grow leaders from within is its deeply held conviction and value that talent belongs to the organisation and not to the manager – managers cannot hoard talented people. This has to be translated into affirmative policy and programs and cannot be a mere wish statement.

Whether Managers will release or not release their team members will                    depend on how well this belief is translated into action. It is well recognized          that release always leads to disruption for the releasing manager and most            managers do not like disruption and will therefore resist release.

Should release be managed through use of force or should it be managed through social processes of alignment to purpose, dialogue and recognition is often a dilemma. Under compelling circumstances, mandates and force might be necessary but, the dialogue process must keep happening.

Nobody is ready: One of the stark realities of growing leaders from within in today’s environment is that nobody internally is ever completely ready for a job. Even your best employees will never be plug and play. There will always be an element of risk and developmental headroom. The paradoxical situation seems to be that the very same leaders who were beneficiary of others placing bets on them, hesitate to perpetuate the virtuous cycle of placing bets on the people below them. They seem to say that they were one-of-a-kind!

Overvaluing external hires: The odds are typically stacked against internal talent as compared to external hires for the simple reason that we know a lot more about our internal talent and don’t think too well about what we know. On the other hand we know so little about external hires from the brief interviews we do but out of anxiety and hope ascribe a lot more to them than they deserve.

Making talent fungible: Meeting our needs from within requires that our talent must be somewhat fungible across functional and other boundaries. In other words, unless a talented person can be utilized in multiple areas he/she will never be an organisational resource.  This will call for people to be trained to work across functions. We must also avoid the tendency of making jobs so super specialized that no one can fit into them easily unless found from outside.  

Another factor that promotes growth from within is the ability of individuals to broaden their perspectives and world views. This includes the ability to respect other functions and other points of view, adjust to other styles, be able to work with diverse people and so on. This happens only when the individual gets to work with different people and is not stuck with one person for too long a time.

Individual choice: Of course, growth from within will get propelled only when individuals make the choice to offer themselves for such growth opportunities. For this individuals must be willing to take some risks and chances with their careers.  These choice making processes can certainly be enabled through early career conversations.

Recognising those who develop talent: Most organizations seem to struggle to find ways to recognise leaders who nurture and release talent. Most performance and reward programs do not incorporate talent development as an important criterion. What is clear is that unless someone takes that personal interest, the grooming process will never happen. The larger question in many people’s mind is this – will we ever reach a time when leaders will be recognised by the organisation and his or her peers for their role in developing and grooming talent.

Role of CEO: While it appears easy to say that the CEO should champion the policy of growing leaders from within, it may be impractical for the CEO to arbitrate every release process. HR and other senior leaders also need to constantly engage in difficult conversations around this subject for this to happen.

So as you can see, growing talent from within is a deeply human and social endeavour – something that organisations will struggle to get right even though they all recognize that it is good for the long term.

Every new CEO in today’s world will acknowledge that “people” and therefore Human Resources management is one of his or her key drivers for business success.  Given this conviction, they embark on or champion a series of interventions in this area.

The manner in which they go about doing this gets me thinking about how these new CEOs developed their views, perspectives and visions about HR as a function. What career experiences and through that frames of reference shaped these CEOs orientation to the HR functions they oversee, I wonder?

This question becomes very relevant because few CEOs are formally trained in or educated about some of the key HR processes leave alone the larger science and art of HR. As a result, many even start with the premise that “anyone can do HR work”, much like Head Chef Auguste Gusteau’s motto (in the movie Ratatouille), “anyone can cook”.  

Having worked closely with hundreds of CEOs, as an HR Practitioner, Consultant and Coach I am beginning to form certain hypothesis about this subject which I am now venturing to share!

Concepts as a frame of reference

A large number of CEOs approach HR with a certain conceptual frame of reference. This might be as dated as the “OB” course they studied in B. School or as current as the latest bestseller they read on a global corporation’s cutting edge HR strategies or a master class they attended as a part of an executive education program.

Depending on their learning style, some use it as a source of reference and inspiration while others get wedded to it. Some sadly have great disdain for HR concepts because of the mistaken belief they developed on campus that the best brains focussed on Marketing and Finance, not HR.

First person experience as a frame of reference

Let me share an example here. In one of the global corporations I worked in, I was told that the Head of the Asia Pacific region hated HR guys. Here is why: When he was a young management trainee and was relocating from one city to another and wanted to ship his only prized possession, his scooter, the HR guy quoted company policy and disallowed it. From that day on, his experience of HR as a bureaucratic bottleneck got so indelibly etched in his mind that liberating employees and Line managers from HR became his mission statement.

As I think of this possibility, it scares me no end because a large majority of today’s young employees hate HR. I wonder what view they would take about HR when they become CEOs.

Partnering experience as a frame of reference

When these new CEOs were in middle management positions, many would have had the need to partner with HR professionals to address many of their people management needs and challenges. This could be on issues ranging from large scale hiring, large scale downsizing, turbulent union situations, attrition, morale, productivity and so on.

If they got to work with competent and credible HR professionals who were able to help them solve these pressing people problems and support their success, they would have developed a very healthy respect for the person and the function in general.  This sense of respect gets further reinforced if they grew up in organisations which invest in building and implementing robust HR processes to support these professionals.

On the contrary, if they failed to receive such support and had to do things in a manner they know best, they may have ended up believing that such expertise is just not available or even necessary.

Industry and organisational culture as a frame of reference

The kind of industry one grew up in or the kind of organisations one worked in also shapes one’s frames of reference about HR. Certain industries and organisations are more mercenary, materialistic and  even agentic in their view to people. Others tend to be a lot more value driven.  Depending on where the CEO spent his or her formative years, a certain kind of HR Schooling is likely to have taken place.

Personality as a frame of reference

Beyond all this, one’s personality including one’s beliefs, preferences, character strengths and values plays a huge role in shaping one’s orientation to HR.

So, if you are an HR leader, it might be important to understand your CEO’s HR Schooling – the frames of reference that seem to be influencing his or her view towards you and your work and your function.

If you are a young HR professional, think twice before you turn down that request to ship the scooter – you never know how such a singular act is likely to come back to haunt you and your co-professionals for life!

My wife and I were visiting our relatives who live in a fast developing suburb of Bangalore. Their home like most modern and affluent Indian homes has all the amenities and gadgets and is tastefully done up. Our relatives are doing work that is cutting edge, and are globally integrated given that both their sons are living abroad, working for global corporations. They live in an extremely well maintained apartment complex. It has all the amenities that one would yearn for. The neighbourhood square with its malls and fountains and restaurants was truly amazing. We were really impressed with the global quality of living inside.

It was soon time to leave and head for the airport and catch our flight. That two and half hour ride completely destroyed all the sweet memories we had – traffic jams all the way and the constant worry that we will miss our flight. Once inside the modern airport, it felt truly global once again.

As a consultant and coach my work takes me to the campuses, offices and factories of several large and leading Indian and global corporations. These are always such wonderful experiences. Smart security and reception staff who greet you because they have been informed of your arrival, outsourced housekeeping staff who are constantly polishing the floor and cleaning the rest rooms, liveried staff who serve you endless cups of coffee and tea and hot meals from a long list of options, brilliantly designed office spaces and high-tech conference rooms.  Add to this some manicured lawns, patches of green, great food courts, cute looking delis and it feel great. Not to forget the brightest and best minds inside these offices and factories that are doing transformational work with great earnestness. I am always excited about these truly world class experiences.

As I leave these premises and step onto the road, the reality quickly hits me.

I realise that our roads are bearing the brunt of this disjointed model of development. The roads are used for parking scores of vehicles – those in good use and those abandoned. Add to them mounds of garbage that could not be cleared, the homeless who are living there, the hawkers and the traffic snarls and you can imagine the mess. Add a dash of rain and you have an absolute disaster outside.

Having seen this pattern again and again – greatness inside and pathetic conditions outside, I have come to call it “the doorstep development model”. Inside your doorstep – at home or at work or in a mall or a supermarket or Hotel, we are truly world class. Outside your doorstep, the infrastructure from a safety and convenience and cleanliness and environmental perspective could rank among the worst in the world. As a consequence, the problems and associated stress of everyday living is alarming. Getting in and out of any doorstep is an ordeal. Inside the doorstep is an oasis of peace and pleasure.

While I am an optimist I must confess that I do not see this doorstep model changing unless we take radical steps. I do not see the inside and outside existing in harmony anytime in the near future  in most of the cities that we believe hold great promise in terms of wealth creation – Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Chennai, Hyderabad and so on. The recent rains and flood in Chennai, my city has only convinced me that this is the way it will be.

All this raises a few thoughts, wishes and prayers for the years ahead.

 Climate change touches my life

Until recently, I frankly saw climate change as an event that is attended by heads of states.

Climate change has now touched (actually rattled) my life.

While global dialogues will keep happening, I now realise that it might be useful to get better at disaster preparation. This struck me hard when the city of Chennai seemed to have run out of candles and batteries and Dettol. Maybe every apartment must have a boat! 

I am certainly committed to integrating climate consciousness into my everyday living.

Does work in progress (WIP) mean inconvenience?

In the hope that things will be great in the future, I have had to live with a lot of work in progress over the years: hope of great airports, great roads, world class metro rail systems, flyovers, expressways. I try and tell myself that at the end of all the inconvenience will be some great outcomes. My question is this – if WIP is an inevitable part of our life, can it be done without huge and visible inconvenience? I am sure many nations have figured this out. That is my prayer for the years ahead.

Beauty and aesthetics as a state of mind

One of my friends used to live in a wonderful residential complex in a suburb in Mumbai. However, to get to work he had to navigate through roads and neighbourhoods that were not so pleasing to the eye.  I asked him how he managed to live with this contradiction and he said he simply wore dark glasses as he navigated the roads. I am sure many of us crave to live in a city which offers beauty and aesthetics – a lot of greenery, a lot of cleanliness and beauty in the way our modern buildings integrate into nature. This state of yearning gets heightened when you return from an overseas trip!

It is my wish for the years ahead that I succeed in my quest for inner beauty and aesthetics and learn not to sweat the “small stuff”.

Exit, voice and loyalty?

In his book Exit, Voice and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations and States, Albert O. Hirschman argues that there are two types of response to unsatisfactory situations in one’s firm, organization or country. The first is “exit” or leaving without trying to fix things. The second is “voice,” that is, speaking up and trying to remedy the defects.

He argues that Loyalty can modify the response, causing one to stand and fight (voice) rather than cut and run (exit).

India has seen several of its brightest minds choosing the exit option.  However, that is still a small minority when viewed in a national context. For most of us, we are loyal to the cities we live in – this is where we belong. It is my hope and prayer for the New Year that we learn to voice our concerns, become more collectivist in a constructive way, find ways to engage with the Government and administration and together find ways to alter the doortstep model that we have descended into.

 The manner in which the city of Chennai responded to the floods gives me that hope. I somehow believe that we will discover in us our deep loyalties to our cities and use that to voice and bring about progressive changes.

That indeed is my earnest wish for the New Year!

Given my involvement with the field of executive coaching, I receive several calls from professionals who are seriously exploring coaching as a career and therefore looking at a coach certification program.  Quite often I end up dissuading them from their decision to quit their corporate jobs to become a coach. 

It may sound strange that as the co-founder of India’s leading executive coaching institution I should be saying this, but, it is true – the process of becoming a coach might look extremely romantic and glamorous. The whole idea of helping someone and impacting their development feels quite heady. However, beneath all these romantic ideas lie several misconceptions, over estimations and under estimations.  

So, if you are considering investing in an expensive Executive Coaching Certification program to become a Coach and hope to build a remunerative professional practice around it, here are a few things you might like to know, especially in the India context.

1. A coaching certificate is a necessary but not sufficient condition

You don’t become a coach merely because you have been certified. You earn the right to become a coach because you have proven professional credentials, because you have been there and done that fairly successfully and for a reasonable period of time. If you are a 30 year old L&D Manager, it is natural that you are excited about coaching.  It is a certainty that you will be able to master all the coaching skills and processes and be able to have a good conversation. But the bitter truth is that no one will hire you – certainly not for executive coaching.

Here is the hard reality – there are a large number of young professionals who have spent time and money to get certified but are not getting to do even an hour of paid coaching work and are naturally feeling frustrated. On the other hand, when someone with deep professional credentials obtains a coach certification and approaches the profession for the right reasons, she or he stands a very good chance of succeeding.

1. Aspiring to be a full-time coach may not be wise

It appears that many in the West are full time coaches. In other words, their day job is coaching, very much like a therapist’s day job is therapy.  I see many in India attempting to set up a professional practice entirely out of coaching. I am not sure that this work for two reasons. 

Firstly, it does not seem realistic for most coaches to hope to be able to win and execute enough executive coaching assignments in a year to meet all their economic needs (except of course for iconic coaches who are in demand and can charge a handsome fee).

Secondly, it may not also be a great idea for someone to do only coaching work. A coach is in demand only when his or her contextual knowledge is current.  In other words coaches need to have a current and contemporary understanding of business issues and challenges, of organisational realities, of leadership concerns and so on. Unless they do other work with organisations like consulting, or training or sitting on Boards, they may not be able to remain current in terms of this contextual knowledge.

All things considered, it makes sense for a coach to do other things too.

1. Building a coaching practice ground up takes time.

It is not easy for someone to quit a corporate job, get certified as coach and then set up a thriving coaching practice immediately.  Having been in a corporate job, these individuals may not have access to the coaching market.  They may also fight shy of promoting themselves. So, it is important to be realistic about this dimension. On the other hand, if someone already has a training or consulting practice and an existing client base, it is far easier to add coaching to their array of offerings. Similarly, if someone is well networked or has assured demand from his or her last employer or current employer (once he or she retires) things can become easier.

1. A non-commercial approach helps

When I look back at a large number of coaches who have been effective in their work especially in the Indian context, one common characteristic has been their ability to view this as a noble profession rather than as a lucrative career option.  As a result, these coaches do not watch the clock and give their time freely. They don’t charge by the hour. They are happy to do whatever it takes to help their coachees succeed. They often operate below the radar and are happy with private victory. On the other hand I worry about commercially minded coaches who take on too many assignments, push themselves to complete these assignments fast even when their coachees are not ready, or flash too many testimonials and claim too much credit for things that their coachees actually did.   

1. So, who is most suited to become a coach?

 Having read thus far, the question in the minds of many would be this – for which segment of professionals is coaching as a career a winning value proposition?

 Keeping in mind the Indian context and the current state of evolution of coaching, it is best to approach coaching as a sustainable profession with rewards beyond money. It is best viewed as a professional offering which when combined with other things that one does can make it fulfilling.

 It is for these reasons that coaching is emerging as an outstanding option for anyone looking to establish a second career. These professionals are likely to have met their financial needs and would want to do something fulfilling and through that self-actualise.  Coaching fits perfectly into this need.

 Coaching also fits perfectly for anyone who is a consultant, advisor, trainer, facilitator and wants to strengthen his or her practice with coaching. 

 Of course coaching as a competence would be hugely value adding to any leader who wishes to enhance his or her style of leadership. It is extremely relevant for anyone in HR who is expected to integrate coaching into their leader development efforts.

 So welcome to the world of coaching but tread with caution and with a sense of realism.

In my post of March 25th, I spoke about the gap between functional excellence and service quality.

Using the Service Gaps model articulated by Zeithaml, Parasuraman & Berry in their book “Delivering Quality Service” (adapted for this HR context) I would like to present one possible framework by which HR professionals can bridge this gap.

The authors had identified four gaps which can contribute to poor service quality along with some insightful reasons for the same. You will notice that these four gaps and the reasons are equally true for us in HR.

The first gap is between the real needs of employees and our understanding of these employee’s needs. This gap can exist on account of poor action research, employee sensing, the voice of the junior HR professionals not being heard by senior HR leaders and CHROs and having too many layers or silos within the HR function. The worst cause for this is the tendency to embrace some pop sociology trends like “managing the millennials” without any deep research about what it means to your organisation.

The second gap is between our understanding of our employees’ needs and the manner in which we design our processes policies and products to address these needs. This gap can arise when we don’t really show commitment to meet employees’ needs or we dismiss them as unreasonable or just have an exploitative relationship with our employees.

The third gap can occur on account of the difference between what we have designed and how it translates into delivery on the ground. This can happen because of role ambiguities and conflicts between CoEs, business partners, employee partners the shared services staff and line managers. It can also happen because of the lack of motivation of the HR team. It can also be a result of the HR team not being trained or feeling good about their work. It can also be on account of a limited number of team members trying to do too many things at the same time.

The final gap is caused by the difference between what we promise to our employees and what we deliver. Quite often despite our best efforts to deliver we might leave employees unhappy because of our inadvertent propensity to make tall claims and promises in the public domain or in our employee communications. In a world with an overactive social media, this can become a liability.

As organisations become larger and more complex and the business environment becomes more uncertain and competitive, it is my belief that employer brands and employee engagement will depend to a large extent on our ability to close these four gaps so that what we consider functional excellence does get translated into service quality, in the eyes of our employees.

You are waiting in the plush lobby of a large and reputed organisation to meet someone. As you wait you cannot but notice the Organisation’s values statement, hanging on the wall. Mounted on an elegant frame the values sound very familiar. Your familiarity soon turns into cynicism. How predictable and trite this is, you wonder. You tell yourself that you see the same phrases everywhere – integrity, boundary less, speed, trust, passion and so on.

How such seemingly empty words can inspire anyone, you ask yourself.

Before more scepticism sets in, your host arrives and leads you into her office.

 Sounds familiar? It has happened to me too. Except that my job involve helping teams in organisations articulate such value statements! So, while I am mindful of the risk of such widespread scepticism, I believe in them.

Having engaged with clients in creating, clarifying and communicating organisational values over the years, I have managed to discover some simple truths about communicating values and I would like to share them with you.

Values are universal

Values (those things that an individual or organisation considers important or values over other things) are essentially universal. The world continues to be a good place to live and work in only for that reason. Most organisations and individuals seem to consider more or less the same things as important. So, do not expect some extraordinary truths to be articulated as values. Expect them to be boringly repetitive.

Individual and organisational values in harmony 

The values that individuals in the society abide by are not very different from those that organisations believe in. That is why individuals are attracted to organisations. It is this congruence that gives individuals the sense of harmony and makes organisations worthy of spending a significant part of their waking time. In fact, this personal validation is critical for individual to embrace organisational values.

The meanings are unique

While values might be universal and boringly repetitive, the meanings that each organisation attaches to these values are unique and different. For example, while boundary less or collaboration or respect or ownership sounds universal, the meaning it takes for each organisation is likely to be different and set in its unique context. There are likely to be certain unique reasons for its choice as a value and its importance to the business and its founders. These unique meanings are not often apparent.

 Behind the words are some great hidden stories

When founders, entrepreneurs or groups of leaders or employees come together to define their values, the most natural thing for them to do is to talk about the times when the organisation and its employees did extraordinary things or did things in extraordinary ways. These founders, entrepreneurs or leaders or front-line employees are likely to relive some great moments in the organisation when magical things happened. They will share several stories and first hand experiences that illustrate these values – stories and experiences that often become part of the organisation’s folklore.

So, you see, behind those seemingly clichéd words are some fascinating stories of times when the organisation was at its best – times when people chose to live by the values.

As Organisations grow, founders, entrepreneurs and leaders wish that such legendary stories happen all the time. They are keen that they retain and reinforce the value system on which the organisation was built. Their intention of inculcating and communicating values is therefore noble.

The question is, how do you execute this great intent? How do you help the new employee who walks into your door to understand, appreciate and live your values?

Certainly not by framing your values and hanging it on your walls or making screen savers out of it. That does not really help because these employees will see it as empty words.

On the other hand, if you can get them to go behind the words and discover those legendary stories,  listen to the folklore and feel proud about the times when the organisation and its employees  did extraordinary things by living the values, you would have inspired them to live the values too.

This is what I often try to do when invited to work with Organisations and their values.

That is why I say, “Vales values on the wall, the hidden stories do tell them all”

Now coming back to the visitors in the office or the website. Communicating values to them is meaningless. What your customers and visitors need are first hand experiences of the fruits of those values – like great service, great products, wonderful treatment, ease of doing business and so on. That way, they can add to your folklore rather than mock at what is hanging on the wall.