Have you heard team leads and managers lament about today’s young employees not being passionate, not having the functional depth, the eye for detail, the desire to pursue excellence? I hear a lot of that constantly.
One can dismiss this away as some generational stuff, but I realize that these are not senior leaders lamenting – these are managers just one generation removed.
Having thought about it for a while, I have a hypothesis to offer. I seem to believe that what people are saying is symptomatic of the fact that the process of pre -socialization and socialization into professional life has weakened significantly over time.
What is pre-socialization for a professional? It is the journey that someone goes through right from college until they start working, through which they understand and internalize the skills, the mindsets, the values and norms of the profession they are entering. It is about figuring out what it will take to be an effective professional.
Why has this process has weakened over time?
For several decades, those in technical and professional fields went through a hands-on apprenticeship or internship process. And this was not just another term for low-cost labour but an intense period of pre-socialisation.
This is when the young employees looked up to someone and learnt from them by just observing and watching, learning by doing it under close guidance. I think we have lost that whole spirit of apprenticeship or internship.
Second, organizations had a genuine training period. That was meant to be a help one understood and absorb the norms and values and expectations of being a professional. In the interest of cost and pressure to on board quickly, we have pretty much done away with traineeships. One is expected to arrive pre-socialized!
Third, managers most managers and leaders have little time for the young people who join them today, to impart the functional fundamentals and the informal insights. Online resources cannot make up for what a manager can and should do.
Fourth, finding one’s first job and establishing oneself with pride and credibility was something that was eagerly awaited and celebrated. There was anticipation, excitement and a deep desire to do very well. For a variety of complex reasons, the innocence of the first job is lost.
And finally and most importantly, for many large organizations, employees are part of their manpower supply chain – raw materials, work in progress and finish goods. The whole focus is on making the supply chain efficient rather than producing good professionals.
Therefore, when someone says young employees do not seem to fully understand what it means to be a professional, there is some truth in that. But the finger needs to be pointed inwards.
Do you have an operating manual to live your life?
Hard question. But the truth is – all of us are guided by our own operating manual in our head.
Our operating manual provides us with a sense of certainty, a sense of structure and helps us carry on our everyday living with certainty and clarity, and devoid of confusion. So, we do have an operating manual.
Now, where did we get the manual from?
Everything from our personal choices, our career choices, our life styles, our habits and values are guided by this operating manual. We will say with certainty that “this is the way I do it”.
Many of us might have inherited it from our families including our parents. Some elements form our early educational experiences and some from our early organizational experiences.
Some of us might have challenged what was given to us and written it all by ourselves.
The early days in our life are especially very crucial in helping us draft our operating manuals.
Here is my second question.
When is it that you last revisited and revised your operating manual?
This is a difficult question because quite often we tend to be wedded to our operating manual. We tend to be fearful about the consequences of making constant changes in how we want to live our life, how we want to make career choices, what we think is right and wrong. We may even be superstitiously attached to our operating manuals.
But not many are open to revisiting it.
In this festive season, may I invite you to think of your own operating manual and deeply reflect about one thing in it that you may want to rewrite.
I tend to agree with Elton John when he said sorry seems to be the hardest word.
I was in a hotel recently in Bangalore. I was in the shower and waited for a good 10 minutes and there was no hot water. I tried every possible trick, gave up and had a cold water shower and came out. As I was checking out of the hotel, I pointed out to the person in the reception that there was no hot water.
All I expected was just an apology. “Sir, sorry for the inconvenience”.
But he said, “Sir did you call engineering?”
Imagine, If you are in a shower waiting for hot water, would you call engineering?
As I reflect on my recent experiences with any service provider, be it a clinic, a hospital, a retail outlet or a restaurant, I seem to find that frontline employees mostly do not apologize. As I think about it quite deeply and ask myself what is behind this condition, I come up with a hypothesis.
If apologizing and saying sorry is a sign of empathy, obviously there is a significant deficit of empathy among people who are providing service. One possible explanation for that is, they are not experiencing empathy from others on a daily basis. People around them are so unforgiving of their mistakes that they just don’t feel like apologizing.
Therefore, if we want to create cultures where people are ready to accept their faults and difficulties and inconveniences caused to others, it might be necessary for them to experience a similar level of forgiveness from the people who depend on them for that service.
But today we are in a culture of escalation, of rating and ranting on social media and taking people to task. We are all so unforgiving.
Therefore it is not uncommon to find bouncers in hospitals and Bots on websites. It is almost impossible to talk to a human being on any of the ecommerce or technology enabled service business sites. Every service provider is doing everything they can to protect themselves from all forms of anticipated abuse. That even applies to internal service functions.
I seem to believe that unless the level of empathy in society, in organisations and even in our homes increases, there is neither going to be apologies nor forgiveness.
Personal branding, a concept that can be traced back to 1997, is relevant to you irrespective of your position in the organization. But the question that is often asked to us Coaches by our Coachees is ‘If I do a good job, I will be seen as a performer. And automatically I should become a strong personal brand. Why should I bother to do anything more’. As an old saying goes if one ‘keeps one’s nose to the grindstone’ we will achieve our results. And it may be logical to extrapolate and say that our personal brand will get built on its own.
If you are seen as a performer, someone who delivers his results, should you even bother worrying about what your personal brand stands for? Who has the time anyway?
As I was discussing this with Prof Janakiraman Moorthy at SPJIMR where I am an Adjunct Professor of Marketing, he suggested an interesting 2 by 2 matrix [competency vs personal brand building]. Take competency; he said you can be very competent or you can be not so competent. Looking at personal branding; you can be good at building your personal brand, or you can be poor at building your personal brand. We end up with four nice quadrants.
Let us take the first one. You are not so competent but you are also not good at projecting your personal brand. You become a survivor. You manage to survive by escaping notice. On the other side you are competent but ignore the importance of building your personal brand. You are complimented for your skills but you get the recognition, the promotion, the increment strictly based on seniority. Then come the next quadrant, you are good at personal branding but are not all that competent. You get discovered and may be reassigned [if you are lucky] or god forbid even asked to leave the organisation. Finally, there is the sweet spot: you are competent and you are also not shy about projecting your personal brand. If you are able to get into this quadrant, your career will progress at a fast clip.
Obviously the 2 by 2 matrix is an oversimplification as most 2 by 2 matrices are. But it makes an important point. In the workplace there are people you are competing with, for promotion, for that prized posting. Who is going to get that? A person who is competent. Or a person who is competent but is also able to project his personal brand.
Now being competent in your job is not an option in business or corporate life. I can argue that being conscious of your personal brand, crafting it and projecting it is becoming equally important.
Author – Ambi Parameswaran, CFI Coach
About the Author
Ambi Parameswaran is a CFI Certified CEO Coach and a best selling author of 12 books. His latest book ‘All the World’s a Stage’ is a personal branding story.
What are you paid for
“I am paid for my decisions, not for the hours of work.”Said the man of few words, patted on my shoulder and drove off.
As a Coach when I meet the sponsor to understand the coaching need, one of the most often expressed needs is that the leader is not strategic. The problem is strong when young leaders are groomed to take up senior leadership roles. It may be expressed in various ways like “He has been managing the operations well, but he needs to shift his perspective” or “She is all the time running around managing operations, she has no time to sit down and think”. Being strategic has multiple dimensions like long-term thinking, understanding complex business scenarios, anticipating changes and a lot more. It encompasses a broad spectrum of ways of thinking and behaviours.
But when I talk to the Coachees, they will be genuinely puzzled. I would hear “I have been strategizing to make the software release this quarter itself“, “I have been strategizing to influence the customer and win the project in our favour“,etc. Strategy is one of the often misunderstood and misused terms.
I was in the same boat early in my career, when I was a first-line manager, managing a team of about thirty people. We were developing software for a product that was close to consumer electronics. The business cycles were fast, new product launches or upgrades were done almost every year, and there was so much pressure on the margins and tough competition. Project schedules would be unrealistic, requirements would be changing continuously, and there would be a cap on number of people to be deployed. Yet the expectation was to have successful product launches on time and within cost.
The only way the projects were managed was by working overtime. It was an unwritten norm that the project teams would work late hours every day. The day would start at 9 am and would go on till 9 pm. Though everyone cribbed initially, it became a habit. We used to proudly say that we were delivering complex projects and that required us to work long hours. The malady advanced to a level that if there was no pressure or escalation, we would feel guilty about leaving early. We would organize meetings and spend time till night. We revelled in the stressful environment.
Being manager of the team, I used to stay back and be with the team. We used to take coffee breaks often. Typically, around 6 pm would be one such break, where we would chat with a cup of coffee in front of the office building, gazing at the setting sun, watching birds returning to their nests and people leaving from office. That was a relaxing ritual that helped us to recoup and pull on for a few more hours.
I used to watch another ritual at the same time. That was the time when our head of the software division would be leaving for home. His driver would come and park the car in from of the building precisely five minutes before six. He would go up and fetch a bag. Our leader would come out at six, wave at us, exchange a few words and happily drive away to home.
One day as I was watching, he came towards me.
He said, “I know what you are thinking. You must be thinking that we are all slogging here till late night and this guy is happily going home at six every day“. I could not respond except for a sheepish grin.
He continued “Young man, do you know what am I paid for? “I could not catch the drift.
“I am paid for my decisions, not for the hours of work,“ said the man of few words, and he patted my shoulder and drove off.
I stood there for a long time. That was one of the best coaching moments that I had.
That is the precise challenge that the young leaders face. They are caught in operations. They have to manage the show. They must deliver under stressful situations. They have to keep customers satisfied. They must solve problems. They need to keep people motivated. The list is endless.
But is that what the leaders are paid for? If leaders dedicate time to think, understand customers, track trends, anticipate changes, understand causes of repeated stress, make strategies to cope with that, fix problems at the root cause level, prevent fires than firefighting, develop people and delegate work, there would not be any need to stay late hours every day. The journey starts with introspection and reflection, what are we paid for?
I respect those words of wisdom, even today after a few decades.
Author – Sri Krishan, CFI Coach
About the Author
Sri Krishan is a leadership coach and innovation catalyst focusing on digital transformation and facilitating start ups.
Building Corporate and Team Culture – Leaders’ Perspective
“ I witnessed significantly more effective team functioning driven by shifts in the trust quotient, interpersonal relationships, and prioritizing team goals over individual goals.”
Culture can be defined as underlying assumptions, shared values/beliefs, and norms that shape employee mindsets and behaviours. It is the personality of the group. And it is leaders’ responsibility to define, shape and sustain this personality. Peter Drucker famously declared many decades ago that “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” During my work experience I have learned that managing corporate culture is critical for business success.
Articulating the culture lies with the company leaders
There are innumerable ways that leaders exert influence on their teams. These translate into opportunities for them to articulate, develop and sustain the desired team/corporate culture.
One of my early experiences of leading cultural change with my sales and marketing team was of slow evolution, taking time to build awareness, and reinforcing correct behaviour. After trial and error, we decided to focus on a few critical behaviour patterns such as open-mindedness for different perspectives, asking for support, and being accepting of the fact that we are okay to make mistakes. Our experience of deploying informal leaders to propagate and support the formal leaders to facilitate the adoption of new behaviours worked wonders. These actions resulted in team members feeling more respected, leading to improved ownership, and enhanced their sense of belonging to the organization.
The challenge of going past personal to team goals
Another challenge that we face as leaders is how to ensure that employees make choices/decisions in line with the defined company culture rather than their personal preferences. It was after many iterations that we were able to conclude that the company culture is better able to guide employees’ daily decisions when leaders focus on values which employees can easily put into action at crucial times. For example, exhibiting integrity and respect as a value statement was difficult to implement as it stood for a lot of intangible things. Instead values of openness, sharing information, and speaking your mind, were much easier to implement for the employees.
While working with the sales team as a team coach, I emphasised upon similar simple yet profound actionable values, and witnessed significantly more effective functioning by the team. This was chiefly driven by shifts in the trust quotient, building interpersonal relationships, and prioritizing team goals over individual goals.
Bringing last man forward can have pitfalls
The desire to leave no one behind used to be another value close to my heart. Consequently, I focused on supporting underperforming team members by scheduling many meetings with longer meeting times (including one on ones) to give everyone a sense of progress and to improve their involvement. However, in this process, the high performers were demotivated as they were spending more time in finding solutions to various issues of their colleagues. Despite best intentions of supporting a strong value system, the chosen actions must be evaluated carefully to avoid unintended outcomes.
It maybe pertinent to mention here that efforts by leaders sometimes do not yield desired outcomes and what we end up with is toxic culture instead of a healthy one. An example, based on my personal experience, of toxicity is when people prove their intelligence by tearing down others instead of using their intelligence to build others up. Another example is when knowledge and expertise are weapons to wield rather than resources to share.
In conclusion, investing in and managing organization culture is a key responsibility of leaders and determines business success as well as employee fulfilment.
Author – Mukul Sinha, CFI Coach
About the Author
Mukul Sinha focuses on bringing about a change in leadership abilities to manage problems and develop their unused potential. He brings a holistic, humanistic, and coachee- centric approach.
Who do I talk to?
The very sad incident of the young CA fresher at one of the Big Five has triggered a churning of the Ocean of Workplace Culture. Among the various things emerging are some voices – brave? or foolhardy? – that point out that these are realities we need to accept. Hard work is a reality, pressure is a reality, stringent deadlines are a reality, high expectations are a reality, aggressive managers (and customers) are a reality. Clearly, these things are not exceptions.
I have heard comments like these so often:
My manager simply does not listen
There are so many games and politics playing at work
I do not feel appreciated, rather every single miss (small and big) is made a mountain of
My team mates are all fine, but at the end of the day it is every person for herself/ himself
I believe I am doing a disproportionately high amount of work; others get away doing much less – and nobody notices all this
I ask them What have you done about it? – typically they absorb all this as a reality to be dealt with, and/ or vent it out with equally helpless teammates.
Others have slightly different experiences with stress and overwork. A coachee recently shared with me, “I face similar pressures as that girl did – work-wise. The big difference is that the culture in my organisation is positive and supportive. That’s a good thing, sure, but I am still overloaded and stressed. Saying ‘no’ is still difficult – not because my manager doesn’t listen, but rather because I feel guilty saying it!”. But the question What have you done about it? Is just as relevant.
Loneliness is everywhere, and expensive
At the end of almost every coaching engagement, I have the client telling me the biggest value was that this was a space where they could talk freely about such things. There is no one else to have such conversations with, they told me.
There’s an old saying It is lonely at the top. Today, in a post-pandemic world, it appears it is lonely everywhere. There is no generation that is feeling loneliness as much as Gen Z – hyperconnected in the virtual world and isolated in the real world of people.
Ignoring this state of loneliness, arguing that these are all things “we went through when we were young, and we figured it out – so they can too”, or glibly quoting Nietzsche What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger to justify doing nothing – these are all extremely expensive options. Employee disengagement is expensive – it results in lower productivity and lower quality of outputs, at the least. There is compelling evidence that this problem needs attention and solutions – from a business point of view, if not just the human.
Paths forward
1. The first and most important action to recommend to anyone with a problem/ concern/ issue/ stress – talk about it. Not venting, but talk to someone who will listen, a shoulder you can cry on. Do not attempt to just absorb it all in the hope that it will go away – it won’t. Find a friend, a mentor, an elder, a sibling, a parent … someone who can listen to you, sit with you while you cry.
The larger question in my mind, however, is – What can and should organisations do (and why) to support individuals who have work-related concerns, issues, problems, questions, troubles?
Here are three paths that organisations can take – and individual managers too:
2. Pay attention to the intangibles
Organisations and managers get hung up on the saying If you can’t measure it you can’t manage it. Often, they take this to mean they should only manage what they can measure. Excellent leaders, though, are known to manage the ‘soft’ stuff as rigorously and with as much business focus as they do the tangibles, the business numbers.
The starting point is to ask How can we consciously and systematically manage employee concerns, issues, problems? There are many solutions out there – from researchers, consultants, practitioners and so on. But to find, you first have to seek.
As an individual manager, you could get your employees together and facilitate a brainstorm asking for solutions. And prepare to be amazed.
3. Weave support into employee experience design
I was involved with a tricky situation few months ago: A young woman – fresher – was inappropriately touched by her manager, making her extremely uncomfortable. At first, she did not know who to speak to … and reached out to a mentor outside the organisation. The mentor was well-connected, and ensured the message reached the office of the CEO. Eventually, the problem was resolved – full enquiry conducted, one erring manager fired, another (less guilty) moved to a different city, and the young woman chose to move to another department and get on with her life.
Some opportunities for the organisation to support the employee (and others) through such a scenario are:
How do we ensure everyone always knows who to contact in such situations? (Yes, the info was shared during onboarding – but who pays attention at the time?)
She is going to a different department. How can we help her to re-engage with the job, colleagues, managers and other key stakeholders?
How can we help the erring manager?
How can we help the not-so-guilty manager who is now re-starting in a different city?
How do we help the stakeholders – new peers, new manager(s), new reportees and so on – accept and work with the person (the victim, also the not-so-guilty manager)?
This is one example. There are so many other situations where an employee may have concerns, questions, problems. For organisations – the most effective sustainable solution is to carefully design the employee experience to have such scenarios built in to the process.
For individual managers – just ask them. Be proactive. Get people to sit down, and brainstorm “How can I support you to move forward?”. And follow through by building these solutions into the team’s culture and DNA.
4. Build coaches, coaching competence
Organisations are increasingly realising that coaching is a key competency for managers and leaders, and can make a huge difference to performance and business outcomes. [For example, at Australian company Canva employees have coaches, not managers (and with appropriate job descriptions).] Reach out to someone like Coaching Foundation of India (www.cfi.co.in) for help with building coaching competencies in your leaders and managers.
But leaders and managers need not be the only ones with this competence. There are many individuals at relatively lower levels in organisations who can become effective coaches and mentors to their colleagues – juniors, peers, and maybe seniors too. Organisations and individual managers would do well to build a cadre of internal coaches – people that employees can turn to, talk with, get support from when they have concerns.
Author – Mr. Anand Kasturi, CFI Coach
About the Author
Anand Kasturi is an award winning Consultant Trainer and Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience specialized in areas of customer centricity/services management. He has run workshops in countries spanning Asia-Pacific, Australia, UK, Germany and the USA. His work has impacted organizations like Oracle, Vodafone, Deutsche Bank, Accenture, Aon Hewitt Consulting, Texas Instrument, Avaya, Phillips and ABB.
The Art of Letting Go: Enhancing Team Performance with Effective Delegation
“Delegation vs. Effective Delegation – What does it mean to delegate effectively, and why do so many leaders struggle with it, making it a persistent issue in leadership development?.”
Vikram (name changed for confidentiality), a senior leader at a large multinational corporation, was known for his stellar business performance. He consistently delivered results, regardless of targets or market conditions, and was considered a ‘star’ leader with high potential, on the fast track to top leadership roles.
As Vikram’s responsibilities grew, so did the pressures of his role. Constant travel, managing teams, and ensuring customer satisfaction began to take their toll. Yet, his desire for recognition and the accolades he received gave him the impetus to keep pushing forward.Identified as potential CEO material, Vikram was assigned a coach to prepare him for future leadership opportunities, with a focus on team development.
Vikram and I hit it off well, and I found him to be very forthcoming about his journey and challenges. However, he didn’t think that ‘team building’ was really an issue for him and felt that the organization’s agenda for coaching was somewhat misplaced.
During the 360-degree feedback with the team, it became clear that while Vikram’s team admired his ability to deliver and saw him as an empathetic and kind manager, they also viewed him as very directive and top-down. As a team, they felt underutilized and lacked ownership. They were merely executing his vision and plans, which left even senior team members feeling demotivated. Conversations between him and his team were mostly tactical, focusing on targets and numbers.
When I discussed these issues with Vikram, he was taken aback. He believed he had a strong rapport with his team, knowing them and their families personally. He spent a lot of time with them, had great camaraderie, and was very approachable.
However, on deeper probing, he admitted that his approach to team development was rather self-centered and came from a place of “I know what is best,” a style he had inherited from his manager, who believed in the same philosophy. Vikram maintained tight control, believing it necessary to uphold his high standards and reputation. This meant assigning tasks based on his priorities, and closely supervising them with excessive follow-ups, and course-correcting the assignees—stifling his team’s confidence and creativity.
Realization and Shift
As our coaching sessions progressed, Vikram began to recognize how his need for control and the spotlight were seriously hindering his ability to let go. He realized this approach was unsustainable and detrimental to team development. He needed to shift his focus from individual achievements to team performance, aiming to empower his team and enhance collective success.
Delegation vs. Effective Delegation
This is not just Vikram’s dilemma. Every leader will readily acknowledge that he/she is only as effective as their team. It’s perhaps a leadership lesson 1–0-1. This also translates into leaders admitting, in principle, that delegation is a key part of team development.
However, in coaching, it comes up as the most frequent coaching need for leaders, no matter their seniority level. The inability to delegate effectively shows up in various ways, impacting a leader’s capability to manage their team.
This raises an important question: What does it mean to delegate effectively, and why do so many leaders struggle with it, making it a persistent issue in leadership development?
The difficulties in practicing it can be broadly categorized into:
Skill Issues: The manager or leader’s lack of experience in managing mid- to large-sized teams.
Mindset Issues: Self-limiting beliefs, a desire for control, and a need for recognition are predominant issues that prevent leaders from letting go and empowering their teams.
While skill-related issues are often straightforward, mindset-related challenges—like the one Vikram experienced—can be more complex. But once the leader becomes aware and is open to change, the gains are immense.
Vikram’s Journey from Self to Team Performance
Determined to make a change, Vikram decided to engage more effectively with his team, empowering them to feel valued and develop a sense of ownership. Here’s what he did:
Identified and Assessed: Vikram assessed tasks based on criticality, urgency, skill level, and confidentiality. He spent individual time with his direct reports to understand their strengths and developmental needs and the unique strengths that each member brought to the table.
Played to the Team’s Strengths: He assigned the right tasks to the right members, provided clear instructions, and set specific and measurable goals. He provided the necessary tools, information, and support while encouraging the team to perform without fear of being let down.
Empowered and Trusted: Gave his team enhanced autonomy for decision-making thereby encouraging ownership of work. He regularly checked progress but didn’t micromanage, which helped create a climate of trust.
Acknowledged and Celebrated Successes: He gave credit where due and publicly recognized the team’s achievements.
Visible Gains
Over time, with some hits and misses, Vikram’s shift from focusing on self-performance to team performance led to:
Enhanced Team Productivity: Effective delegation balanced his workload and boosted team productivity. This approach allowed team members to develop new skills and take on more responsibilities, contributing to their professional growth.
Increased Team Morale: Empowering the team and recognizing their contributions significantly improved morale and engagement. Team members felt valued and motivated.
Strengthened Collaboration: The collaborative environment fostered better teamwork and innovative solutions to challenges.
Personal Growth: He could focus on strategic priorities and high-impact initiatives, leading to professional growth and greater organizational impact.
His transformation from a personal performer to a facilitator of the team’s growth and success significantly improved overall team performance and morale, enhancing organizational outcomes. The organization recognized this shift, rewarding him with a promotion and role elevation ahead of schedule.
Vikram beautifully summed up his coaching takeaway as his “understanding of the difference between delegation and effective delegation, and how it was not just about words but a mindset change that turned out to be the game-changer.”
Author – Saroja Kannan, CFI Coach
About the Author
Saroja has worked extensively with C-Level Executives across various verticals, including Financial Services, IT, ITES, Education, and Digital Marketing. She has built powerful, high-growth brands.
Human Well-being, Olympic Medals, and Workplace Productivity: What is the Common Thread?
“Performance assessment is no longer solely based on on-the-job skills, whether for a sportsperson or a corporate executive.”
The Olympics has just concluded, an event the world eagerly awaits every four years, for which the top athletes train for many years. In every edition, we witness numerous world and Olympic records fall, as men and women push the limits of their bodies and minds to reach new heights. The 2024 Paris Olympics was no exception. However, a notable development in this edition was the attention participating countries paid to the mental health and fitness of athletes, on par with their physical fitness.
The withdrawal of top gymnast Simone Biles during the Tokyo Olympics, citing mental health challenges, had a significant impact on how athletes and the countries they represent address mental health issues. According to Fortune Health, the U.S. Olympic team, which topped the medals tally, had more than 250 healthcare professionals, including clinical psychologists and certified mental performance consultants.
The Indian support staff included 26 psychotherapists and mental conditioning coaches for its contingent of 117 athletes.
Performance assessment is no longer based solely on on-the-job skills, whether for a sportsperson or a corporate executive. Simone Biles’s withdrawal made headlines, but the growing number of corporate employees who quit their jobs or take leaves of absence due to mental health issues often goes unnoticed. As stated in the 2024 Economic Survey, “Mental health problems affect the quality of life and constrain the realization of an individual’s potential. At an aggregate economic level, mental health disorders are associated with significant productivity losses due to absenteeism, decreased productivity, disability, and increased healthcare costs.” Moreover, individuals aged 25-44 are most affected by mental illness—an age group that forms the backbone of any organization.
It’s clear that human well-being must be prioritized in organizational policies and practices to close productivity gaps. As a society, improving our nation’s overall well-being and happiness index may even help us win more medals in future Olympics.
One of the world’s largest global professional services groups, where I worked for nearly two decades, recently created a new position called the “Chief Happiness Officer” (CHO). The CHO sits on the Core Executive Management team, signifying the seriousness of this initiative.
I recall my own experience with mental health challenges in the workplace. A young professional in his late 20s, a top performer on my team, was highly competitive but often faced breakdowns due to his “always wanting to beat others” attitude. One day he decided to resign unexpectedly. During a conversation I had with him, he revealed that the recent loss of a parent had left a void in his life, and he had no one to confide in or seek guidance from, either personally or professionally. It became clear that his struggles were rooted in mental health, and I encouraged him to take advantage of the internal counseling services. Thankfully, we were able to retain him.
Building Employee Resilience – the many ways
Today, many top corporations have introduced comprehensive mental health support systems. In the IT sector, companies consider the industry’s specific needs, such as long and irregular hours, periods of inactivity, followed by sudden surges in work. These companies have begun focusing on four key pillars to build employee resilience: physical, emotional, social well-being, and safety.
Programs that address all five aspects of wellness—physical, mental, spiritual, financial, and social—are proving effective. These services are available not only to employees but also to their families. One innovative support system involves a “trained friend,” a confidant co-workers can approach during personal or professional crises. This allows employees to share their pressures with a trusted peer and eventually find solutions.
Key Insights on Enhancing Employee Well-being and Resilience
1. Having someone to talk to, combined with professional help, can effectively address mental health challenges. 2. It’s crucial to address employee well-being systematically and proactively. Organizations must follow through with appropriate practices, not just demonstrate intent. 3. As growth is driven by competitive service industries, well-being programs must focus more on mental health, not just physical safety. 4. Companies should increase engagement with families and peer groups, rather than solely focusing on individual employees. 5. Coping mechanisms—such as counseling, coaching, and workplace behavior training—are key differentiators and should be central to company well-being plans. Winning rewards in the workplace or winning medals at the Olympics now requires resilient minds alongside exceptional skills. We must invest in preparing resilient minds as much as we invest in developing skills. Our future depends on it. Author – Sachin Paranjape, CFI Coach
About Sachin Paranjape
Sachin Paranjape is a strategic thinker and has vast experience of working with multiple clients, across several sectors, on risk management, internal controls, and governance. His forte is building teams, nurturing talent, and developing people networks.
The under 40 Did Not Show Up Awards for Men
Are you aware of the Under 40 Did Not Show Up (DNSU) Awards for Men?
Well, truth be told, there is no such award!
I coined this fictitious award to make my point. For that, let me share my personal story.
The year was 1991 and we were expecting our first child. As the date for our baby’s arrival neared, I informed my then Manager Noble Powar about this and the fact that I will need to take some leave. That is when he told me something very touching. He said and I still remember, “Ganesh, I was not there with my wife when my son was born and I still regret it. So, don’t make that mistake. Take all the time you need to be with you wife and the child. Work will always be there”.
He supported me in my decision to take a full month off and that was such a wonderful period. When my second child was born, I took another month off too.
Noble in many ways reminded me that there was no Under 40 DNSU award waiting for me!
For several decades many men competed fiercely for the DNSU awards. (not showing up for the family when it matters – be it child birth, a parent teacher meeting or visiting the doctor when the kid is unwell, pitching in for elder care, supporting the wife when she needs to try and get back to working and so on)
Good news is that things have changed quite a bit over the decades and more and more men are choosing not to compete for these awards. They are showing up. More so after the pandemic. However, a lot more needs to change.
Do men continue to believe that the price they are paying by not showing up for their family and personal needs when it matters will somehow be rewarded and recognized? Or do they believe that it is inevitable? Are organisations quiet about it and encourage or even demand it? These are questions worth pondering about.
Among the several implications, the effort to support women build sustainable careers, is an important one. Unless more and more men stop competing for these DNSU awards and actually show up, women will not be able to sustain their career aspirations.
I wish more and more men talk about this and tell their male team members that there is no such award. In the manner in which Noble Powar did, encouraging their male team members to show up when it matters.
I also wish more and more organisations clarify that there is no Under 40 awards waiting for men who make these sacrifices.
While men of today are certainly changing and are different from the generation before, it must be remembered that the changes needed are very significant and unless the world around men changes the narrative, men will struggle to change.
Personal branding is a concept that was first written about in 1997, almost 30 years ago. But some of us may be under the impression that personal branding is of importance only to the CEO of a company or to film stars. Why should a senior manager who rarely meets the media be worried about his or her personal brand?
Yes, if your job involves interacting with the media or with industry bodies or with government authorities your personal brand will come into play. Obviously media will treat you differently if they are aware of your achievements. The same could be said of industry bodies and government officials. But if you don’t have any such role, does personal branding matter?
You may also be thinking personal branding is important to customer facing roles. I am an EPC person. I deal with vendors and partners. I don’t need to sell. I am often buying. Why should I be worried about my personal brand?
The truth is that irrespective of your level in an organization, you are a personal brand. You may have done nothing to build your personal brand, but it exists. In the words of Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.
Everyone is a personal brand, irrespective of their own reservations. Look around you in your office. Are all your co-workers seen in the same light? Why is it some of them seem to be on a fast track, while some of them are plodding along? Did they do something special? Or did they create the right impression where it mattered? I am not talking of political jockeying for power.
Having a strong personal brand will help, in whichever role you may be playing in the organization. By a strong personal brand I mean that you are seen as a person who stands for certain values. You are genuine in what you do. And so on.
Being a strong personal brand will pay off in many ways. Even if you don’t have a media centric role, your personal branding will help you create a better impression with key vendors. If your personal brand is strong it will help you attract the better talent to work with you. You will have the best to pick from. In a service organization like an ad agency, or a consultancy or a CA firm, the stronger personal brands will attract the better talent. If better people want to work with you, want you to mentor them, this will have a beneficial effect in you’re the results you can deliver for your organization.
You are a personal brand, even if you have five people reporting to you. You are definitely a personal brand if you have a outside facing role. How to start understanding where you are, how to start managing your personal brand?
In this series specially being written for Coaching Foundation of India, I will be exploring the many myths that surround personal branding and present some simple steps to build your personal brand.
Ambi Parameswaran is a CFI Certified CEO Coach and a best selling author of 12 books. His latest book ‘All the World’s a Stage’ is a personal branding story.
– Ambi Parameswaran
Personal Branding 1 – The Origin
When we coaches speak to our coachees that they should think about their ‘personal brand’ we often get a blank stare. ‘What has personal branding got to do with me? I am an engineer with 25 years of experience managing a P&L of a thousand crores…. Isn’t that good enough?’ are the kind of thoughts that are probably going through their mind. Also they sometimes ask ‘Isn’t this personal branding a new new thing? Why should I be bothered by this new thing that seems to have grown after the advent of social media?’
Is the term personal branding just a shiny new toy in the hands of coaches and mentors? Or is it something that has been there for a long time?
The first article on the topic of personal branding was written by Tom Peters. It was a cover story or a cover feature in the Fast Company magazine. The year: 1997. For those who may not be aware, Tom Peters is a former McKinsey consultant who, with his colleague Robert Waterman, wrote the global best seller ‘In Search of Excellence’. So when Tom Peter writes, the world takes notice.
In the article titled ‘A Brand Called You’ Tom Peters explained that ‘like a brand you are making a promise to your stakeholders… you are selling’. Tom Peters explained that you will benefit tremendously if you know what you stand for, in the eyes of those who interact with you. By understanding the current perceptions, you can take control and ensure that you are perceived the way you want to be perceived. Just as a brand has a play book to ensure that it is perceived in the right light, you too should be conscious of this.
To come back to our early doubts, the concept of personal branding was first espoused as far back as in 1997, almost three decades ago. Personal branding was first written about the same year that also saw the release of the movie Titanic and the first of the Harry Potter books. If you are under the impression that it is something new that has grown on the back of social media posts, you are mistaken.
It is however true that social media has enabled every one of us to amplify our personal brand presence. But if you equated personal branding to social media posts, you are sadly mistaken.
For the last three decades numerous articles and books have been published on the topic of personal branding. Harvard Business Review had a cover feature on personal branding in its May-June 2023 issue.
Now that it is clear that personal branding is not a new fad, how does an executive understand and build his or her personal brand?
In this series specially being written for Coaching Foundation of India, I will be exploring the many myths that surround personal branding and present some simple steps to build your personal brand.
Ambi Parameswaran is a CFI Certified CEO Coach and a best selling author of 12 books. His latest book ‘All the World’s a Stage’ is a personal branding story.
– Ambi Parameswaran
Personal Effectiveness – Beware the Jekyll and Hyde Effect
“The aim to be effective in the workplace is laudable. If, however, the investment this requires – of time, energy, bandwidth and attention – is drawn from the family vault, then it is a problem.”
Jayant was the Head of Legal at a client firm; I was engaged as an executive coach to help Jayant maximize his effectiveness at work. Feedback from important stakeholders is usually sought – and I insisted that he include his wife’s name in his list.
Everybody at work – peers, reporting manager, team members – perceived Jayant’s biggest strength was his ability to remain calm under stress, to remain gentle and non-confrontative in all interactions, his emotional stability. As Head of the Legal function, he provided dedicated and consistently strong collaboration and support to others.
His wife, however, had an entirely different view. He is keen to respond to all emails immediately – but that leaves no time or space for himself or our children or me. Also, he gets irritable and impatient, and loses his cool very easily at home. He has a lot of latent stress. I was taken aback – was it the same Jayant she was talking about? The calm, cool and collaborative professional at work turned out to be an altogether different kind of person at home.
The aim to be effective in the workplace is laudable. If, however, the investment this requires – of time, energy, bandwidth and attention – is drawn from the family vault, then it is a problem.
Family does not get time, attention, bandwidth from the ‘bread winner’.
“20 years from now the only people who will remember how hard you worked will be your family that you did not spend time with”. Hard work is important; people who take extra effort usually are very noticeable in their teams and organisations. But there’s a finite number of hours in a day … and overspending in one area will mean underspending in another!
Questions: Do you prioritise family time? Do you schedule it in your calendar? Do you treat it as a ‘big rock’ (Stephen Covey’s beautiful phrase)?
Actions: Spend time. Calendar it. Block off periods. Be there for important stuff.
Behaviour at work is unauthentic, and is compensated for in dysfunctional ways at home.
Workplaces ask – explicitly and/ or implicitly – that people behave in some specific ways at work. These desired behaviours typically sound positive and constructive – for example, ‘friendly, engaging’ or ‘calm, emotionally stable’ and ‘collaborative, team player’. The problem arises when individuals have to either make an effort to behave ‘on demand’ in ways that may not be authentic for them at that point, or are expected to always demonstrate a particular behaviour. This requires huge effort – and individuals get tired and exhausted, and “take it out” on themselves and the family. A person who is calm at work becomes irritable at home. A friendly person chooses to withdraw, be asocial. A collaborative person doesn’t pull their weight with household activities, tasks, or chores.
Questions: How do people see you at work? And how do family see you at home? Are they similar? Where are the differences?
Actions: Make a list of how people see you at work (start the list yourself, then invite colleagues) … and separately, a list of how family members see you at home.
– Look for opposites (“cool and calm <=> irritable and angry”, “great listener <=> doesn’t listen at all”, “articulate, good communication <=> silent and withdrawn”).
– Talk to a coach or counselor about these opposites, and get help to resolve them, be more authentic and consistent.
Family is not formally involved/ engaged in one’s growth and development.
People resist including personal relationships in their list of stakeholders for 360º feedback. “They are not familiar with my work context”, they argue, or “That may not be honest/ candid feedback” … and even “They will bias the feedback.” For the most part, this is nonsense. Family knows the individual well enough to give very useful feedback – which they usually do with candor and empathy. By not involving them, the individual potentially loses out on a very powerful supportive factor in their growth – their family.
Questions: Do you formally seek and work on feedback from family? Do you involve family formally in your personal growth and development programmes?
Actions: Identify and work on effectiveness parameters for your role at home too – as a mother, or father, or sibling, or child…and there are so many more too.
– Ask for feedback from people at home, discuss it, work on it.
– Involve family in formulating, actioning and supporting your improvement plans.
In one study the top three regrets people expressed on their deathbeds were:
I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I didn’t work so hard.
I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Beware of over-optimising your work-self, at the cost of your human self.
Author – Mr. Anand Kasturi, CFI Coach
About Anand Kasturi
Anand Kasturi is an award winning Consultant Trainer and Executive Coach with over 20 years of experience specialized in areas of customer centricity/services management. He has run workshops in countries spanning Asia-Pacific, Australia, UK, Germany and the USA. His work has impacted organizations like Oracle, Vodafone, Deutsche Bank, Accenture, Aon Hewitt Consulting, Texas Instrument, Avaya, Phillips and ABB.
Buzz words and responsible semantics
Friends, let’s talk today about buzzwords and responsible semantics.
I was introduced to the idea of responsible semantics by Rick Carson, a renowned and seasoned counselor and executive coach from whom I learnt the Gremlin Taming Methodology, a fascinating piece of work.
Today, I use the phrase responsible semantics in a slightly different but related context of leaders who ask of their people a certain kind of behavior.
Supposing you are a leader, and your Manager were to tell you:
You need to have a growth mindset
You need to improve networking
You must be a great storyteller
You must have executive presence
You need to be strategic
You must be ambitious
You must have passion
You must influence without authority
Sounds heavy right?
Unfortunately, that is what the average leader gets told on a daily basis by senior management, urging that they demonstrate newer and newer behaviors but more importantly read their minds because only the leaders who ask for this may know what exactly they have in mind when they use these terms.
Responsible Semantics as Rick Carson says does not rely on verbal crutches. Responsible semantics are accurate semantics. It presents our intentions and expectations in simple words and sentences and in a simple language where what we say is coming from our true self and not what “I read” or “I picked up” or “what I have in mind” and “you know what I mean?”
It is one thing to say to your team member, “You need to have executive presence”.
It is an entirely different thing to say, “When you are in a meeting with senior management, kindly develop the ability to read and assess how the meeting is proceeding and then decide what you should say, when you should say it and if you should say it at all. Should you be diplomatic, or statesmanlike or candid is a matter of good leadership judgment.”
So, the next time we would like any of our leaders to demonstrate a behavior that they are not demonstrating, or they are demonstrating less of, it would be useful for us to use phrases and terms that are specific, that make clear our authentic intention.
Why is managing other people very hard in today’s time?
Lets take a somewhat empathetic view about the real difficulties of managing other people, in today’s times.
The truth is that not many are really enjoying managing other people and that joy seems to be diminishing by the day.
Why is it so?
There might be at least five personal truths that people hold about the teams they manage which might be influencing their views about managing other people.
The first personal truth is that it just does not pay to invest in building relationships with the people I manage. Why would someone come to that conclusion?
Over a period of time, people may have had many not so pleasant experiences in trying to hire people, in trying to retain them, motivate them and pushing for their progress. The people they banked on may have left or did not contribute and they finally were left to deal with the consequences. That may have led them to the conclusion that it just doesn’t pay to invest in building team relationships.
The second personal truth is that I just don’t understand the people I manage. Harsh as it may sound, it is true that managers often struggle to understand the lives and times of the people they manage – how they live their lives, the choices they make, what they value, their priorities, their interests, their world views and so on. They might say this, especially about people who are younger than them and people who are different from them. How am I supposed to manage them when I don’t understand them, they might say and that’s quite true.
The third personal truth is that I don’t have the time. That I am so overwhelmed with the task demands placed on me that I just don’t have the time. Given these overwhelming demands, managing other people seems like an interruption to doing what is expected of them. As a result, Managers are seldom available to their teams.
The fourth personal truth is that It seems to be more convenient to use processes, technology, digital aids and everything else to manage my relationship with my team. So, I have WhatsApp groups, I have Zoom calls or team calls, I have KPIs, I have goal sheets, I have incentives and other means to manage performance and secure results. While it was intended to free up manager time to actually engage in deep conversations, that is not the reality.
The fifth personal true and maybe the most difficult one is people managers say that they just don’t have the mind space for others. They might say that they have their own issues and challenges to deal with and beyond that, they just don’t have the mind space for others right now.
If we want our managers to enjoy working with other people and manage them well, we will need to engage with them on these and other personal truths that they hold and help them arrive at a more balanced view and attitude towards their people.
Can captains of teams in organizations also play the role of coaches for those teams?
It is natural to expect the leader of a team who is like the captain, to perform some of the functions of a coach as far as that team is concerned.
Ideally, the leader of the team should be able to assemble all members of that team, onboard them, co-create the vision and strategy, have the benefit of strong relationships and lived experiences of a reasonable tenure and operate in a reasonably stable environment. The leader should also be gifted with a reasonable amount of skills to read the team climate and facilitate the right team processes and also promote candour, build trust, surface conflicts and enhance awareness of team behaviours.
If all of these conditions are met, then it is fair to say that the captain of the team can also be the team coach.
But look at the context today. The shared tenure of an intact team is often extremely low. Team members are coming in and going out. Team leaders themselves are coming in and going out. Expectations from teams are often steep. Teams are also often filled with competent and competitive individuals who want to win.
Given these emotionally charged circumstances and the fact that the captain of the team is “inside the bottle” it is very hard for him or her to “read the label of the bottle” so to speak – to sense and know how much everyone is open? How much does everyone trust each other? How well does everyone communicate? How does the team make decisions? How well do they hold each other accountable? How healthy is the team environment for it to give great results?
It is under these circumstances that it is becoming not just useful but necessary for team leaders to rely on some form of outside perspectives and support. Someone who is “outside the bottle and can read the label.”
A team coach is typically a skilled practitioner with a strong business background as well as training in individual and team coaching with the specific ability to understand and intervene in the group processes.
Such a team coach is available to the team and its leader over a reasonable period of time so that while the captain of the team performs the task of getting the team to move forward towards its vision, the coach assists the captain and the team members to look at themselves, look at how they are working and make changes to their behaviours to make the team more effective.
Such a team coach can effectively complement the outside help that team leaders currently tend to rely on – from consultants, facilitators, board members, advisors and so on.
Yes, I think in today’s context every team captain in a business context should seriously consider working along with a coach especially when the stakes are high and the setting are less than perfect.
The latest issue of our quarterly journal explores the evolving landscape of Indian manufacturing and reflects on the leadership pivots and mindsets that will enable it to realise its ambitions.
