I still remember the fascinating time I spent at the cafeteria in my first job. First, I was not even sure if it was okay to join a bunch of seniors who were sitting and chatting. Slowly, I gained the courage to join the table where my immediate supervisor was seated. Once at the table, the conversations were so much fun and so fascinating. Most of the time, they were busy sharing stories about what some of the leaders did – some were stories of leaders who showed bravery and valour.

Some were stories of great decisions and actions. Some were stories of leaders who did silly things and some were about leaders whom everyone hated and so shared stories about their acts of insensitivity. At that time, all these leaders appeared to me like characters out of a comic book.

This ritual continued in my second and third and fourth job. The only change was that as I grew older, I was telling the stories too because I had experienced some of the leaders first hand! Of course as the stories got murkier, the location changed from the office cafeterias to pubs and other informal settings!

As I reflected about these fascinating stories, I often asked myself – did these stories only serve the purpose of comic relief and entertainment? Did it also help teach me and others about culture and leadership? I had more serious questions – did these stories reach decision makers? Did they pay attention to these stories?

The most important question I ask myself now is this (and that is the focus of this post) – do leaders’ careers get built and destroyed based on the stories that go around about them, especially among decision makers? Asked differently, in the ultimate analysis, what really counts for a leader – his or her performance rating or his or her stories?

The place of ratings

I think ratings are important to keep one’s job, especially in the early days of one’s career. In other words, a good rating is like escape velocity – the minimum performance needed to get out of the gravitational forces of failure and be seen as contributing and remain in the reckoning.

Beyond ratings

However, beyond that, it is not the ratings that count for being considered for that big job. What matters is the kind of stories and folklore that go around about the leader.

What new things did she do? How well did he do it? How much courage did he or she display in a tough situation? How innovative was she? How empathetic and charming was he? Of course, stories that are not so flattering also find their way around. Unfortunately, even if these stories are not validated (they seldom can be) people tend to believe them out of abundant caution.

Who passes on your stories and how?

Every employee is a potential story teller. The more senior the person, the more his version of the story is believed and also counts.

The Board, the nomination committees or the CEOs are often seen quoting stories and folklore (and not ratings) to support or not support a leader for a job. A single board interaction can create a compelling story – good or bad.

Search firms and head hunters often quote stories and not ratings in support of their panel of candidates. This person did this here, he solved that problem there, she achieved this at that time and groomed these people at this place and so on.

Even the media writes about folk lore, it does not quote the leader’s ratings. The use of social media can only make story telling easier and even make them go viral.

The most powerful stories are the ones where the story tellers were there to experience the events unfold first hand and were beneficiaries or at least became raving fans.

So, what are the stories about you?

If you are a leader, what you need to worry about is not your rating but about the kind of stories that are going around about you – in your present organisation and from your past organisations.

A leader needs to have the self-awareness and the availability of a few trusted people so he or she knows what kind of stories are doing the rounds.

It is inevitable that not all stories will be great. However, it is important that there should be more good stories than bad stories about you. There must be more acts of kindness and heroism and fewer stories of failures and bad behaviour.

It is also important that these stories are shared by all your stakeholders. It is not good enough only for your team to have great stories about you. Even your Board must have listed to or have been part of some great stories.

Now, is there hope for someone who has a few strong bad stories about him? I think there is. Leaders can always work hard to change the perception of their team members and peers by creating new stories that get added to their story book and hopefully some of the old stories will be forgotten.

Unfortunately, the trouble is at the top. Top management is often too isolated and has access to too few stories. Given their position, ego and attention span, they often have most difficulty in remaining open to new stories and through that changing their position and view about a leader.

They may continue to believe their old stories, even become attached or fall in love with it and therefore fail to recognise that a story is a story – that there can be two sides to it, that there can be a twist, that there can be change and that there can be a new story or perhaps even a story behind that story. Unfortunately, the stories they hold matter the most!

For several decades, management thinkers and others in the field of human psychology and leader development have led all of us to believe that it is an individual’s magnetic qualities that inspire followers to follow. They have led us to believe that it is an individual in the position of leadership who rallies his or her troops, gives them a sense of purpose, creates passion and hope and leads them into a greater future or helps them get what they want.

To me, that notion of leader as a person is under peril. I have been witness to a series of events in the past decade which has led me to question this overemphasis of the individual or even glorification of a single person as the cause for leadership.

A few recent events (especially in the city of Chennai, India) have convinced me that it is the cause and not a person that provides real leadership or inspires followership.  

In December 2015, the city of Chennai was ravaged by the century’s worst floods. Citizens witnessed unimaginable misery and hardship. In the midst of this calamity, the city discovered leadership. This leadership was not in the form of a politician, a social worker from an NGO, a Member for Parliament or anyone else. It was the “cause of flood relief” that moved thousands of people to demonstrated exemplary levels of compassion empathy, jump in and participate in the flood relief which was “The cause”. It is the cause of helping people that served as the leader or provided  the emotional draw that no leader could have ever provided. Interestingly, there wasn’t a single person or even group of persons who stood out as leaders at that time and that really helped.

The month of December 2016 saw the sad demise of the then Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, Selvi Jayalalitha.

What citizens and the common men and women of Chennai feared most at that time was violence as an aftermath?

Interestingly, and to the surprise and relief of people, the entire funeral and the transition was completely incident free. No leader stood up and appealed for peace or asked people to maintain calm. The cause of maintaining grace and dignity and demonstrating true respect was so strong that it served to mobilise people to act in perhaps the most civilised manner.

Take the aftermath of demonetisation as another example. How is it that such a large nation like India which is so used to cash lived with such huge misery and hardship for so many weeks without any violence or unrest on the streets? In my mind, it was the cause of fighting black money and the fight against terrorism that silently rallied people – people silently signed up for this compelling cause and therefore showed the grit and determination that they did. The cause was again the leader.

A few days ago, the state saw a huge uprising in the wake of the ban on Jallikattu, a sport which has been an integral part of Tamil Culture. An unprecedented scale and magnitude of protest came to life, thanks to the wholehearted participation of youth in the state, from all walks of life. This is in fact described as the largest people’s movement in the country. There was no leader giving a clarion call, there was no leader delivering speeches. In fact, that was the saving grace and the few leaders who attempted to claim the space were rejected.. The cause of protecting a symbol of Tamil culture and fighting for what was fair served as the leader.

What is true in civil life is true even in the corporate world.

When an airline attempted to remove employees or an IT company did not honour it’s campus offers, employees came together spontaneously and got what they wanted. None of them were interested in forming a Union or appointing a union leader. The cause was the leader.

If the true meaning of leadership is that followers are willing to follow, then my surmise is that it is the power of a cause that propels people to follow, not a particular individual and his or her qualities. Cause is the real leader today.

The ingredients of Cause leadership

So what are the ingredients of cause leadership? In other words, what is so powerful about a cause that it provides leadership and gets people to sign up as followers?

Volunteerism

The most important and defining ingredient of cause as leadership is the true spirit of volunteerism. No force, no mandating or compulsion. Individuals make the choice to sign up for the cause or are moved to join the cause. This is critical.

Emotional appeal

The cause itself is such that it holds a powerful emotional appeal to the person. Such an appeal is either at an empathetic level or at a level of civic rights like justice and fairness or could just be about personal rights being violated or just enlightened self-interest.

Shared interest

This is where the social element comes in. What brings thousands of people together is the fact that they have a simple and sharp agenda in common – that particular cause. There is nothing else. Once that shared interest is fulfilled, the group has no other reason to exist.  

Leaderless

Another important characteristic of cause leadership is that there isn’t a single person who is either appointed or emerges as a leader. In the system of cause leadership, as I see it, the emergence of a leader can actually be a liability.

Take for instance the anti-corruption movement that emerged in India a few years ago. The emergence of a few leaders actually derailed the movement and the leaders themselves lost their credibility and ended up in infighting. The emergence of a leader is actually counterproductive to the spirit of volunteerism and can even trivialise the cause and it larger altruistic appeal.

We see this time and again in organisations. As long as HR tries to provide leadership to programs and issues, it becomes a bureaucratic overhang and never gets off the ground. Leave it to people and their spirit of voluntarism, and things get done.

Implications

There is a growing cynicism about leaders in all walks of life. Very few are willing to believe any leader or trust them in what they say. Today, people know too much to believe what a single person says.

The implications of cause as the leader are huge and hold great potential. Social movements will take place easily. With technology to their aid, organising will become easy. With no leader telling them what to do, people will take high ownership. For teh right cause, people will be willing to go all out.

Governments and organisations alike have reason to worry. Should people see their rights being violated and it matters to them a lot, that will become the cause that will mobilise them like magic.

So also with citizens. They will blog, tweet, post on all social media forums and of course come together in the thousands to get what they care for.

Leaders who thrived for centuries by taking advantage of their position will find it very hard to find a credible place in the world of cause as leadership.

Business leaders who lack credibility will have fewer followers than some of their junior most employees who choose to speak their minds and ignite a cause.

Of course, there will continue be individuals in leadership positions fulfilling some of their responsibilities. But real leadership that ignites transformation will come not from them but the causes that people see for themselves.

The future of cause as leadership is exciting. For now, I am not worrying about its perils. After all, have we all not seen enough leaders who have been perilous too. 

A father or mother wants to talk to their daughter or son about something important. The conversation begins and in a couple of minutes, the daughter or son walk away indicating that the she or he is unhappy with the way it went.

You seek out your friend to talk about something that has been troubling you. Within a few minutes, you switch the topic because you get the sense that the conversation is not going the way you had expected it to.

A Leader calls for a team meeting and finds that despite his best efforts, no one wants to open up and say anything. He finds that there is no conversation whatsoever.

Your boss or your colleague comes up to you to say something. The way they say it is so insensitive that you wait for the ordeal to end.

My work gives me the opportunity to engage with people to help them improve the quality of their conversations. Thanks to this, I listen to a lot of stories about how and why good conversations do not happen or how despite good intentions, people end up killing conversations.

Here is my list of the six most effective ways in which anyone can kill a potentially good conversation.

1. Multitasking

Texting, emailing or other acts of multitasking are sure ways of telling the person in front that there are other things that matter more than the conversation at hand.

After a few attempts, the other person will switch off and realise that the conversation is not going to happen.

In general, multitasking and other ways of showing disrespect are very powerful tools to kill conversations.

2. Sharing a matching story

With much effort, you have chosen to open up and talk about something personal and important to this person in front of you.  Your expectations is to be understood, to receive some empathy and of course some relief as a result. Unfortunately, the other person rushes in to share a matching story, indicating to you that his story is better than yours and intending to turn the spotlight onto him. Sometimes, hidden in the story is the message that his way of handling the situation was superior or that his struggles were bigger or worse. He may also give you the impression that it is more important that you first listen to his story.

That’s a sure killer.

3. Reacting with anger

Reacting with anger and frustration to what someone says is another sure shot way of killing a conversation. Maybe the other person failed to do something, or did something that was wrong or said something that one did not agree with. Reacting with anger and agitation and frustration is a good way to put an end to the conversation.

4. Judging

Let’s ask ourselves this question – what is the very first thing someone says in response to what another person said? The tendency to evaluate the right or wrong of what that other person said or the tendency to  see the fault in the other person’s line of thinking or to point out what they missed or failed to see or did not see tends to come first for many.

This can be another very effective strategy to kill the conversation because the other person feels very defensive and uncomfortable and shuts up.

5. Interrogating

Asking questions that are interrogative in nature can also be another effective strategy to kill a conversation. Such questions tend to quench one’s thirst to know more rather than help the other person to think, or become more concrete and specific. This too can kill conversations.

Giving advice

This is perhaps the most popular conversation killer. Most of us have a prescription pad ready with us at all times. The moment someone comes to us to share something, we spring into action and write out a detailed prescription in terms of what they should do and how they should do it and so on. In addition to making the other person look small and stupid, it also kills all initiative.

So what should one do?

The most common response to such a list is this: “Where is the time for a conversation? Given the transactional pressures, it is not practical to expect anyone to spend all the time to have conversations.”

I agree with that position. There are several occasions in a day where we give instructions, receive instructions, share information, obtain information put out a fire or just do a whole bunch of transactional stuff.

However, there are at least a few conversations moments each day – occasions when it is important to listen, empathise and respond with such empathy and understanding. Seizing those moments can take our relationships with these individuals to greater heights.

It is also useful to ask ourselves this question after each such conversation – How did I do today? In what ways did this conversation help the other person and in what ways did it strengthen the relationship?

Asking myself these questions has helped me shine the spotlight on ways in which I tend to kill conversations.

The training room is ready, lunch has been organised, the trainer has arrived but the participants are missing, at least many of them.

Ask any L&D professional and she will tell you that her biggest challenge is to get participants into the class room.

Ask trainers and they will tell you that they have come to accept a 15% to 25% drop out rate. (The percentage of employees who do not attend a scheduled training program that they have signed up for or nominated to.)

Line managers across levels are seen as the villains of the piece – the ones who say yes to programs but are alleged to have pulled their team members out a day before or in the middle of the program.

Employees find it hard to balance between the need to fulfill mandated training man-days and complete their unending work.

More and more organisations continue to commit more and more financial resources towards training. Given that signing off training budgets is the politically right things to do, most CEOs find it hard to say not to training budget proposals. Having signed off on these budgets, they continue to worry about return on investment. L&D professionals also feel disappointed about their challenges in making training deliver results.

In summary, effectiveness of class room training is a problem that seems to get bigger by the day. 

There are several reasons why the traditional class room training is in trouble.

1. Given the very difficult business circumstances which only seem to get even more difficult by the day, it appears genuinely hard for people to get away from work for two or more days. For a long time L&D professionals have been refusing to accept this reality and that is hurting. Accepting this reality might open up other creative options.
2. L&D professionals have been swearing by the 70:20:10 rule. (That 70 of learning should be on the job, 20% through developmental relationships and 10% through formal learning events.). However, in reality, they are unable to do much, especially about the 70%. As a result, there continues to be an over reliance on class room training despite an intellectual appreciation of its limitations. Most have cosmetically rechristened their function as L&D from T&D, but continue to focus on T and not L. In fact, we continue to use number of man-days of training as a metric for training investment while we swear by 70:20:10 – quite a contradiction. We continue to ask participants to sign training attendance sheets and fill in post-training feedback forms despite our belief that actual results are evident on the job, through the 70% effort. I am told that it is an ISO requirement.
3. Many L&D professionals are so wedded to their specialization that they conduct themselves like academicians. They do little to engage with business, get under the skin of the most critical jobs of the organisation and understand the critical capability needs of organisations and facilitate learning.
4. Professional trainers confess that they can no longer compete with content on-line. They are no longer the ones who have access to never seen before videos or never read before quotes or articles or books. Most participants have seen so many videos and read so many things already. The only thing that trainers can do is engage in conversations, share perspectives or impart critical skills. Truth is that using training programs to deliver content is becoming futile.
5. Attention spans have become extremely short. Most employees, especially young employees are subject to so much of incessant sensory stimulation that it is hard for any trainer to hold their attention for two or three days. Add to this the presence of 25 smart phones and tablets and laptops in a class room and you have absolute chaos.
6. Employees openly question the contradictions between what is professed in the class room in terms of desirable behaviours and what their own managers and leaders practice. At the same time, they value their managers and leaders leading training programs to share functional and technical know-now and perspectives. In other words, the divide between real life and the class room is becoming unacceptable. Where, bridged training works and where it isn’t, it just does not work.
7. Coaching, mentoring, learning communities, peer learning forums and global on-line resources have been able to deliver outstanding value. For trade, technical and professional roles, learning through a system of apprenticeship (especially the nuances and the tacit knowledge embedded in the heads of skilled seniors) has been well established.
8. In a outsourced world where the face of your organisation is not your employee, or in a world where your workforce is around the globe delivering value 24/7, in a world where your employees are so geographically dispersed, the idea of everyone coming to a class room physically to learn how to do their job better seems almost impossible.

So what is the future?

There are at least seven things I foresee.

1. Most job skill learning will be delivered to the employee at his workplace at a time when he or she needs it, not when L&D can mobilise a batch. Such training will be delivered in small doses, consumed when the learner is ready and needs it.
2. Class room training will be used only to impart specific skills, share perspectives and discuss practical issues and learn from peers.
3. Self-learning, learning through on-line resources and peer networks and learning through developmental relationships will become even more popular.
4. Leadership development will be around offering a range of developmental experiences and will move away from learning event centricity.
5. Trainers will reinvent themselves to get wiser and smarter than google and other on-line competitors to earn the respect of participants.
6. The once useful 70:20:10 will get refined and redefined.
7. Fitness centers, yoga classes, cookery classes, pottery classes and a whole host of other things that people fancy will be very well attended because people will make the personal choice and take the personal responsibility to be there! Also, because such learning is fun!

Our honourable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has issued a clarion call to Make in India – to transform India into a global design and manufacturing hub.

Several strategies and actions have been rolled out to make this initiative a success.

My HR consulting work with manufacturing organisations has often led me to ponder about what is and will come in the way of Making in India – of realising the dream of transforming India into a global design and manufacturing hub.

A few things stand out from an HR perspective.

Competing in the labour market

For close to two decades, manufacturing organisations have failed to compete successfully in the labour market for engineering talent in various disciplines. Ask any manufacturing leader and he will display a huge self-limiting belief that “no one wants to be in manufacturing”. Many display almost a sense of resignation that no one wants manufacturing. Instead of reinventing their approaches, many have just given up and have chosen to make do with what they can find.

This does not augur well for building depth and competence in manufacturing and design.

The Indian labour market has become very sophisticated and fiercely competitive. It calls for a lot of innovation and marketing prowess to find one’s meaningful place in the food chain. Sadly, many manufacturing companies have failed to fight and claim their meaningful place in the labour market. The first step in this direction is the belief that manufacturing can compete. Unless that happens, we cannot make in India.

 Employee value proposition

Employees are in many ways like customers- they are spoilt for choice, their loyalties are transactional and their expectations are ever increasing. Finding and keeping employees today and tomorrow is therefore as hard as finding and keeping customers.

For this, employers need to have a compelling value proposition to be able to not just attract but also retain quality manufacturing talent.

The India IT industry has over the years been able to offer a value proposition that has been very compelling – good pay; great working environment; opportunities; global exposure; an egalitarian culture. Little wonder then that chemical engineers, mechanical engineers and even metallurgical engineers have found their way into IT.

Manufacturing companies on the other hand have been struggling to come up with an equally compelling value proposition. For one, most of them have their facilities in remote locations and most metro-centric youth do not want to live there.

The quality of work itself has not been showcased or positioned to attract good talent.

Many manufacturing companies have time based promotion policies which does not go well with young employees who would like to see frequent albeit notional growth.

The quality of physical settings and the basic infrastructure in many manufacturing facilities are quite uninspiring, when compared to modern office spaces and cool food courts in modern IT campuses or even campuses in telecom or financial services companies.

The challenges faced by the IT industry and the consolidation threats in telecom present a golden opportunity for manufacturing to redesign and reposition its employee value proposition and make itself attractive to good engineering talent.

Functional leadership over business leadership

There are deeper issues in many manufacturing businesses. Given business pressures for growth, profitability and cost efficiencies, leadership in these organisations seem to have emphasised business competencies over functional competencies. I am therefore seeing an entire generation of leaders in manufacturing across functions feel proud about their business acumen while other silently laminate that this has been at the cost of eroding functional depth across levels.

This has been exacerbated by the fact that business leadership has been positioned as more valuable than functional leadership. Even pay and rewards might be positioned in that manner. As a result, everyone in manufacturing wants to run an SBU rather than lead a function with pride. This does not augur well for making in India. It is functional depth and functional leadership (in production, quality, sourcing, engineering, design) which will be the true differentiator and we seem to be chasing it away, inadvertently.

Leadership style

Adding to the woes of poor talent in manufacturing is the style of leadership. Many manufacturing leaders continue have such an antiquated view to managing people. They still believe in hierarchy, in telling their team members what they should do, in building dysfunctional silos, in failing to respect and value other functions and in not making an attempt to respect the fact that young employees are different and different from them does not mean bad. Unless leaders in manufacturing embrace a more empowering style, their talent bucket will always be leaking. We cannot make in India if we do not have enabling leadership.

A transient workforce

Last but certainly not the least, concerns about cost competitiveness and business uncertainties have forced manufacturing businesses to adopt staffing model built on the edifice of a contingent workforce. While these may offer the impression of short term cost savings, they also result in creating a transient workforce which leads to lack of depth in skills and consistent quality and productivity in the front line. Many production managers and plant HR managers spend a lot of time just mobilising manpower on a daily basis given that such workforce keeps moving on in search of higher wage islands. Most importantly, we are failing to build a factory on the edifice of workmanship which comes only when there is stability and continuity. Sure, there is a place for a contingent workforce but that cannot certainly form the core of the staffing model. A workforce without skills cannot help us make in India.

To make in India, leaders in these organisations will need to pay close attention to these and other compelling HR agendas.

For the past several months, we have all been reading gloomy reports about India IT services companies laying off in the hundreds if not thousands.

While the more immediate concern is whether the employees laid off will find other jobs or manage to rehabilitate themselves easily, I am asking myself a larger question.

Do employees in the IT industry in general possess skills that are portable or transferrable to other industries or are they of value only to the IT industry? In other words, is the Indian IT industry a wellspring of talent?

I would call any industry a well spring of talent when it produces professionals who are sought after by and found to be of value in another industry, albeit allied or adjacent. It would qualify to be a wellspring of talent if there is demonstrated evidence of cross-industry mobility.

Take the FMCG industry for example. It produced sales and marketing executives who were in great demand in Banks, the financial services industry and the telecom industry.

Take the hospitality industry as another example. Many from the hospitality industry found opportunities in the BPO industry, the Retail industry and the health care industry.

Take the manufacturing industry as a third example. Many from its enabling functions like Finance and Human Resources have found it easy to move across to any industry. Those in core functions like supply chain and engineering have been able to leverage their domain expertise to find opportunities as ERP specialists or in Technology companies that needed their domain expertise. Those in the electronics hardware industry have been able to move into the telecom or software companies or design centres.

In recent times, many from consulting companies have managed to move into e-commerce companies in leadership positions.

Think of organisations like Citibank, HUL, Sankara Netralaya, The Oberois, RPG Retail, Xerox, L&T, Asian Paints, the Murugappa Group. Despite the diversity of these Organisations, each of them had at some stage in their history served as a wellspring of talent that the rest of the industry came to rely upon.

Take a look at the Board rooms and executive cabins of any of the financial services organisations in India and you are likely to find a Citibanker there.

The story of HUL’s and Asian Paints’ and Xerox’s contribution to business leadership and functional leadership, especially in sales and marketing has been told several times over.

 If you wanted to consult a good Ophthalmologist, and found one, chances are high that he or she was trained at the Sankara Netralaya. 

As you read this post, I am sure there are many other such organisations that come to your mind.

Many of these organisations decided to invest in people development at a scale that was beyond their immediate and own needs.

What about the IT industry? Unfortunately, the industry track record has been quite poor on this count. While they were able to consume talent from every perceivable field during their heady days of growth and convert them into IT professionals, they have fared very badly in serving as a source of supply to newer and emerging industries. It might appear that no one wants them.

Even those in the enabling functions in the IT industry like Finance and HR find it hard to move to other industries.

Sensing this challenge, a large number of young technology employees typically with 2 -3 years of experience took loans, paid huge tuition fees and flocked to B Schools with the hope that once armed with an MBA, they would be able to exit the IT industry and join the mainstream so to speak. Unfortunately, their hopes have been dashed and quite a few end up going back to the IT industry grudgingly because no one else seemed to find value for them.

The problem gets even more acute as people spend more time in the industry.

So, is it a structural problem with the industry or is it to do with the way many of the players in the industry approach development?

In my view, it is a bit of both. Many of the IT industry jobs score very poorly on aspects of skill variety, task identity, task significance, responsibility and knowledge of outcomes. As a result, many years of work in a typical IT job does not necessarily end up being value adding.

Added to this is the fact that most IT companies spend very little for the real development of their employees. While they will all claim that they have virtual learning and e-learning and skill certifications and so on, none of these are designed to help the employee remain employable and of value and relevance outside of their campus. That is the uncomfortable truth.

To make matters worse, Indian IT companies have in recent years been relentlessly pursing automation and deskilling, converting their so called development centres into factories. While these have helped protect their margins they have marginalized the developmental aspirations of the lakhs who chose to work with them.

While many industry veterans have been lamenting about wage disparities, I am saddened that they have remained silent about the impermanence and non-portability of skills (across industry) in the workforce that they created.   

On the other hand, many in the manufacturing and service businesses have been setting up industry, trade and technical academies to equip their employees with trade and professional skills that add lasting value.

So, my conclusion is that the Indian IT industry is anything but a well spring of talent. Indeed a really sad conclusion.

Produced by General Electric Theatre (broadcast by CBS radio and television) and aired in 1953 was the episode “The Eye of the Beholder“, starring Richard Conte and Martha Vickers. Produced as a television serial, this has perhaps emerged as the single most powerful, popular and educative video used by the training and education industry to illustrate the subject of perception and more specifically how our perceptions can easily become distorted through beliefs based on our past experiences, fears and expectations. This classic also illustrates the dangers of snap judgment, projection, prejudice, predisposition, preoccupation and lack of appreciation for the dreams, intentions and ideas of others.

Containing all of the drama of a first-rate murder mystery, this video portrays how five people perceive Michael Gerard a painter during a 12-hour period. One sees him as a “lady’s man”, another as a “good boy”, the third as insane, the fourth as a gangster and the fifth as a murderer. 

In the past few days, newspapers, television channels, blogs and of course WhatsApp groups have been busy creating and forwarding dozens of “truths” about the events at Infosys. Through the varied eyes of thousands of beholders, some see the MD & CEO as the victim while others see him as the perpetrator, some see the founder as the victim and other see him as the perpetrator, some see the Board as helpless and others see them as colluding, some generalise and see CEOs as vulnerable and founders as clingy, some see CEOs as irresponsible and founders as betrayed.

C S Lewis the influential twentieth century writer and author of over thirty books said, “What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

I am therefore wondering if what we are choosing to see and therefore what we are holding as the absolute truth is influenced by where we stand – our vantage point. Perhaps the views of each of us are in some ways influenced by our own projections, prejudices, predispositions and preoccupations.

Given our attachments to our pet theories and our versions of the “truth” it is likely that we may find it difficult to see the existence of another possibility, another perspective.

In fact, cognitive empathy as a skill and value is to do with our ability to see things from multiple perspectives, be comfortable in holding more than one point of view in our heads.

If it is so difficult for all of us who are mere bystanders to demonstrate cognitive empathy or be open to other possibilities, I can imagine how difficult it would have been for all the players involved in the situation. Clearly, high stakes and high emotions may have made it very difficult to demonstrate cognitive empathy or perspective taking.

Speaking for myself, I feel very sad for the organisation. I feel very sad for all the people involved – all of them great minds with outstanding accomplishments of a pioneering and transformational nature. I feel sad for the employees whose sense of pride and safety has taken a huge beating.

I hope that with time, tenacity and even temperament, the tide will turn. 

I was with a young working couple in our family a few days ago. They were busy doing something important – they were figuring out the number of long weekends in 2017! They were delighted that there are many in 2017!

From a time when our work defined us and our identity, I see us moving surely and steadily into a time when our identity will be a lot fuller and a lot more meaningful.

Irrespective of age and life stage, getting a life will be a huge priority for many in 2017 and that is great.

For some it is the just the challenges of everyday living in many of our cities that will fuel this need. For others, it might be the uncertainties and frustrations with the world around them. For some others, it might be the stress from their work and for some others it might be the guilt of not finding time for one’s near and dear ones. For some it might just be the meaninglessness of what they are currently pursuing. For some it might be the lack of direction and motivation!

Whatever the reason, getting a life will be a big priority.

So, will you and I manage to get a life in 2017? What will it depend on?

Here are the ten most common questions I see people asking themselves in their quest of getting a life (myself included):

1. Can I travel less in the coming year?
2. Can I get back home early more often and work from home at least sometimes?
3. Can I take more breaks this year than I did last year?
4. Can I liberate myself from my smart phone or other internet additions so I have greater presence for myself and others around me?
5. Can I moderate my ambitions and set more realistic goals? (And embrace the belief that I need not be defined by how much I produce and earn)
6. Can I find for myself that elusive hobby or interest or do something just for fun?
7. Can I be there for my family and my friends when they need me the most?
8. Can I play to my strengths and do things that I like?
9. Can I stay mindful about some of my patterns of thinking and behaving that makes me miserable?  
10. Finally, for the ever growing tribe of youth who are bright but confused and in no hurry to figure out what they want to do in life and drop anchor, I really hope they get a life in 2017!

I really wish, hope and pray that all of us are able to get a life in 2017!

Generations of corporate leaders have taken on new roles, felt their way around, stumbled a bit, pulled themselves up and over a period of two – three years, ‘settled down’ into these roles. Today, at no level in the organisation, do new hires have that kind of luxury. After three to six months, eyebrows begin to rise and doubts creep in. More so for those hired at seven and eight figure salaries, into senior management positions.

Our coaches find that many of their engagements deal with ‘delayed transitions’ – when a new leader is not demonstrating the potential shown during the hiring process. By then, organisations have missed the bus to a successful transition.

Leaders are hired on the merit of their past experience and achievements and what organisations believe they are capable of delivering. What is possibly left unrecognized and therefore unsupported is the fact that the factors that made them stars in their previous organisations are no longer with them! According to a Chief People Officer, experience in a particular role gives one the ability to look around corners and anticipate the curveballs. This is the reason he or she would have attained a certain level of success in the previous organisation.

That same leader in a new organisation with a bigger team, higher salary and more deliverables, is met with an onslaught of fires that need to be put out immediately. In trying to prove themselves, leaders try to handle everything based on past experiences. Sometimes it works but more often, it does not. The other factor that causes disruption, is the loss of one’s network. In the new organisation, one needs to build trust and credibility with all important stakeholders from scratch. This is an arduous exercise as the ecosystem is huge and new leaders could find themselves completely at sea.

A new leader could be inheriting a disaster, or succeeding an illustrious predecessor. The position itself could have been a role that is newly created to pivot the organisation onto a new path. Any of this is impossible to do unless the new incumbent is also able to navigate the cultural and political layers that exist in every organisation. While outcomes and deliverables are clearly communicated, what may not feature on top of the senior management’s to-do list is focus on supporting the newcomer in navigating the intangibles like culture, politics and ways of working. One’s failure to comprehend these aspects, could sabotage the best of experience and ideas being brought to the table.

Surprisingly, the situation is not very different for internal hires who have grown in the organisation or group and have now secured themselves a place in the executive suite. While external hires are dealing with a whole new ecosystem, internal hires are dealing with higher levels of complexity, both in terms of job role and changed relationships. Being from the same ecosystem could end up giving one a false sense of control and comfort. Not recognising that the game has changed, internal hires often get trapped into doing more of what they are experts at, rather than using that experience to contribute more strategically.

Take the case of the Sales Head who moved from handling a particular geography to handling a product nationally. He is thrilled, proud and excited. From day one, he replicates, on a national level, those initiatives that brought him phenomenal success in his region. When hit by one obstacle after another, he rolls up his sleeves and starts getting into the field, talking to distributors and clients across the country. In a matter of three months, he is burnt out, dejected and worst of all, losing confidence in his own abilities. This is the biggest tragedy that could befall new leaders. Not for lack of ability but for being left to figure out the system on their own.

The need for managing transitions is summed up by another leader in the HR field, “There are two reasons why leadership transitions need to be actively managed. Transition to a new role has become more complex because the uncertainties are higher, information velocity is higher, so the need to be prepared is far higher. Secondly, people are getting bigger roles faster, leading to the hurried arrival of the unprepared”.

It is an empathetic organisation that recognises and alleviates the stress of being a new leader. When good leaders are hard to find, organisations need to back up their faith in the chosen individual with a structured and effective process of support to facilitate success.

– CFI Research Cell

BOSCH India’s tryst with Coaching commenced way back in 2009 when a few of their senior leaders from their manufacturing units were offered Executive Coaching from CFI as a part of their leadership development initiative.

The success of this intervention inspired Bosch India to start thinking about the overall leadership style within Bosch and how coaching could help.

They were convinced that their desire to move from a stronger directive style of leadership to a more facilitative style of leadership could be achieved through coaching capabilities and values.

They decided to develop at least 100 of their senior leaders to become internal coaches in a phased manner and through that create a coaching culture across the organisation.

Armed with these capabilities and mind-sets, the senior leaders of BOSCH were expected to take up the role of internal coaches and champion the coaching culture across the organisation.

In response to this need, CFI came up with a unique in-house offering titled “Leader as Coach” for senior leaders of the organisation.

Three clear outcomes were expected from the leaders participating in this intervention:

• Form an integral part of the internal coaching and mentoring resource pool that can address the needs of employees who have been identified for future positions or who are making transitions.
• Demonstrate coaching orientation in their leadership style with their teams.
• Support the organisations effort in creating a coaching culture.

The Program

CFI’s Leader as Coach program for Bosch was a 9-month intervention, designed to encompass learning and application through an internship.

The elaborate design which included a fair amount of pre-work, assessment and enhanced self-awareness had 4 days of class room learning focusing on critical coaching and mentoring skills and coaching process.

This was followed by the internship phase where the participants coached one internal leader under the supervision of a senior CFI Coach.

The CFI team conducted three periodic reviews and finally, the participants were invited to present their case in a closing plenary session.

Outcomes

After a successful pilot, BOSCH decided to sustain the intervention. Today after 4 batches, close to 60 senior leaders are certified as Internal Coaches for Bosch and over 20 are on their way to certification.

These internal coaches have already coached around 90 senior leaders in their organisation.

This programme has gained wide acceptance in the organisation and there is a pull from the senior leadership team to be a part of this initiative.

Coaching is now well accepted as one of the developmental experiences for those identified for development and internal coaches have come to be accepted very well.

Needless to say, this is beginning to change the way leaders lead within Bosch.

It was a worried HR Head of a large Indian Business conglomerate who reached out to one of our senior coaches. Together with the founders they had brought on board Rawal as their new CEO. He was to lead four of their businesses and they were very excited about his past experience, achievements and all that he brought to the table.However, as the days passed, while it was clear that he had it in him to deliver what they wanted, there was a growing disconnect between Rawal and his team.

Added to this was the fact that he just did not seem comfortable in the new location which was also where the group was headquartered. Absorbing and adapting to the culture seemed to bother him a lot as he frequently referred to how things were done differently in his earlier companies. He just ‘didn’t get it’, as far as the culture of this organisation was concerned. His handling of the team did not give them any comfort either as he was developing a reputation for being abrasive. Basically, Rawal was not ‘settling’ down. Neither personally, nor professionally.

The HR Head however did not believe that all was lost. He was hopeful that with the support of a coach, the new CEO could be guided into adjusting better and make this the winning partnership it was envisioned to be. Having got this brief, our coach then had a conversation with the founders who shared their own apprehensions. Rawal had certainly bought into their vision but their paths seemed to diverge when it came to the plan to achieve it. Rawal believed the way forward was through acquisitions.He also believed that the Headquarters itself should move to a more talent rich location.

The founders believed differently.It became clear from these conversations that there were two overarching areas that needed to be worked on:
1. Relationship building with the team and other important stakeholders in the ecosystem
2. Embracing the culture, the new location and making it work for him before considering large scale changes.

When our coach finally met Rawal, the fact that he came from a similar background with rich experience made it easy for him to truly empathise with what Rawal was going through. The fact that they were on the same page helped build a foundation of trust. The relationship quickly developed to a stage where Rawal allowed himself to be vulnerable and shared his background, thoughts and apprehensions. One of his biggest challenges was managing his people. The coach helped him identify strengths of the team and how he could help people raise the bar. With time, while a couple of them left, he was able to build strong supporters in the team and the new hires also settled in satisfactorily. There were times when Rawal turned to the coach for advice.

The coach would then put on his mentor hat and share what he would do in a similar situation while giving Rawal complete freedom and space to make whatever call he thought fit. Another of Rawal’s apprehensions was about a very senior leader (also an important stakeholder) who he believed only spoke what the founders wanted to hear. He couldn’t see himself doing that and could not understand how anyone else could. This affected his interactions with this leader.
The coach helped him understand the importance of having partners inside the system who may not be friends but could still be ambassadors for him when the time arose. He encouraged Rawal to build a relationship with such leaders, having scheduled meetings with them, keeping them regularly updated on both challenges and wins.

By being open and positive and even giving them credit whenever possible, Rawal could see that he was able to build his own credibility while smoothening the way forward for all that he wanted to do. Rawal’s other area of concern was his new location. He was just not comfortable and wanted to move not just himself but the whole HQ to a different city. On deeper questioning, it became clear that the CEO was away from his family and had neighbours he could not connect with. As it turns out, he was just feeling a little lost! Add to this the fact that the new location did not offer the best talent and it seemed like a win-win solution to push for moving the HQ to a better equipped location.

The coach got Rawal to see the pros of being in constant touch with the founders. The high visibility he had working in the same location would only make the founders more comfortable with him and give him far more flexibility than they would be willing to, if he were based elsewhere. Rawal saw the wisdom in this and also started putting in efforts to get good talent to relocate to Headquarters. Finally, there was the all-prevailing culture difference between ways of work in an MNC and working in an Indian organisation. Rawal just could not wrap his head around the overwhelming familial respect that the leadership seemed to demonstrate to the founders.

The coach got him to step back and take another look at why he took up this job in the first place. It was obvious that Rawal would not get this kind of exposure of leading four businesses anywhere else. It was a package deal that came with a certain culture which he was also aware of. So instead of constantly thinking about how things were different everywhere else, the coach invited Rawal to add his own fingerprint to the existing culture and make it work for him. One initiative was creating an advisory board consisting of iconic leaders Rawal looked up to and getting their views on the challenges he was facing. It also gave his new team an opportunity to interact with such highly reputed leaders.

Another initiative Rawal took was creating occasions where he invited existing leaders to deliver keynote addresses in his conferences. The coach also encouraged Rawal to connect with the other CEOs of the group and look for synergies.Over a period of six months, it became apparent that Rawal had turned a corner. The founders told the coach they could see that Rawal was successfully getting the team to come together. He was also displaying a lot more accountability. He seemed to be taking initiative, connecting with other businesses and innovating. The HR Head was extremely happy with all that he was also hearing from the founders and told the coach that Rawal finally seemed to be settling down. Rawal was home.

Note: This is a real life example of the work done by a CFI Coach