...
+91-80-42023484 contact@sincera.in
How to be a Leader not a Boss – Five Reminders and Quotes

How to be a Leader not a Boss – Five Reminders and Quotes

by | Oct 16, 2016 | Leadership, Management, Managing Yourself, Mentoring, Motivation, World of Work

Being a boss is easy. Said no one. Say it out loud, the word “boss”, and reflect on what it means, what it sounds like, and what it evokes in you. There are only a few words which can double as both a noun and a verb, “boss” being one of them. As an employer, you have infinite potential in you to get the best out of your employees. Alternatively, you also have infinite potential to extract the worst out of your employees. To be a leader not a boss is the key here.

Being a boss and being a leader could mean two wholly different things. The plan is, to show your team that you are very much a part of the team and at the helm of affairs. The best way to manage your people and motivate them to be their best is by being more of a leader and less of a boss. No to imposing yourself, stating through overt and covert ways, “who the boss is”, yes to communication, negotiation, trust and motivation. If you’ve ever been bossed by your boss, you know exactly what not to do. But, even the best of us need to be reminded at times. Here are five reminders and quotes about how to be a leader not a boss.

1. Give your employees the benefit of doubt

A boss creates fear, a leader confidence. A boss fixes blame, a leader corrects mistakes. A boss knows all, a leader asks questions. A boss makes work drudgery, a leader makes it interesting. – Russell H. Ewing

Most corporate environments today are eerily reminiscent of pre-industrial revolution hell holes. Of course that is an exaggeration, but you get what we mean. The work environment can get extremely stressful, and you do not know why an employee made a mistake he made, until you actually feel it is important to know the cause. Breathe, and communicate. Do not jump to conclusions. Giving your employees the benefit of doubt will also help you give yourself scope for improvement. Maybe you need to do something differently to help your employees perform better. Always be open to that fact.

2. Communication is truly the key

The art of communication is the language of leadership. – James Humes

Respond to emails, invest time in meting out detailed feed-back, organize team lunches and dinners, bond. Don’t assume that people know your vision, you ideas or plans. Communicate them often. And remember that two monologues don’t make a dialogue – communication is a two-way street. Take time to listen, to understand, to discuss. Being a boss can be easy at times, but being a mentor never is. But being a mentor is definitely more valuable for your organization in the longer run, than being a boss.

3. Micromanaging only kills productivity

A good boss makes his men realize they have more ability than they think they have so that they consistently do better work than they thought they could. – Charles Erwin Wilson

Not very long ago, we wrote about the importance of delegating tasks, if you have resources and a team at your disposal, learn how to delegate tasks. It will help both you as well as them. Being a control freak always has adverse effects on your productivity levels. It is impossible to micro manage everything. Also, do acknowledge and trust the talent of other people who have been hired because of their skills to handle the particular tasks. By delegating, you achieve two very important things – 1. The Trust of your employees 2. Productivity.

4. Applaud and motivate your People

If you are a leader, you should never forget that everyone needs encouragement. And everyone who receives it – young or old, successful or less-than-successful, unknown or famous – is changed by it. – John C. Maxwell

The importance of motivating your employees cannot be stressed upon, enough. Letting your employees know that you value them for the great work they do, helps them bring out the best in themselves. You know you are a good leader and a good boss when employees don’t want to let you down. It is important to hold slackers accountable, but it is more important to make it a point to applaud your employees frequently, maybe on a weekly basis. Your employees feel valued when you start or end the week by personally communicating one thing you think each member of your team did a good job with. It may not even be something big. Gratitude does go a long way to inspire and motivate.

5. Apologize when you need to

A good leader is a person who takes a little more than his share of the blame and a little less than his share of the credit. – Arnold H. Glasow

Remember that just because you are the boss, does not mean you are immune from making mistakes. Everyone is prone to mistakes and errors. What is more important is putting your ego of being superior aside, and admitting when things go wrong because of something you did, or could have done differently. Most often managers feel this quality makes them vulnerable. In fact, it is the exact opposite. It empowers you to lead your team in a much more productive manner. Humility scores way over hubris – not only for winning hearts but is also great for the bottom-line.

It can be overwhelming to be the person who is, at the end of the day, going to be held responsible or accountable for the way his/her team performs. This pressure to be a leader not a boss, more often than not gets to you. A little pressure, is of course is healthy. But ask yourself this, would you rather be a boss your employees absolutely loathe and detest? Or be a leader who they feel proud to work for. The world of work can never have enough of those kind!

Five Obvious (but Uncommon) Methods to Build Great Teams

Five Obvious (but Uncommon) Methods to Build Great Teams

by | Dec 4, 2015 | Business, Career, Leadership, Management, Office Etiquette, Performance, Productivity, World of Work

Whether it is a strategic goal or an operational mandate, the success of every business objective ultimately depends on one and only one factor – How good is your team? The best visionaries and managers can achieve very little if they don’t have a motivated, energized and effective team under them. Great Teams just don’t fall in place automatically, they are built. It takes considerable effort and strategy to build great teams that thrive on challenges and makes work look like fun and a great adventure.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people ~ Lee Iacocca

In my years of being managed in and managing tiny, large, diverse, global and multi-functional teams, I have learnt along the way that there are some pretty obvious methods to build and sustain a high value team of best performers:

Build Great Teams Method #1: Hire for Attitude

We hear this quite a lot but what does it really mean? To me, it means looking for enthusiasm more than expertise, integrity more than degree and thirst for knowledge more than experience. Skills can be taught but it is quite difficult to change behaviors and attitude. Destructive behaviors are very contagious and a few people with a bad attitude can ruin the performance of an entire team no matter how good the rest are. It is important to filter for the best from the start or prune the bad apples the first chance you get.

Build Great Teams Method #2: Give Autonomy (with Accountability)

People are in their best performance “zones” when they find meaning in the work they do. Work is no longer just a job with a salary in today’s global 24/7 environment, it is significantly integrated into our lives. People need to be deeply engaged and feel that they are making progress every day in their lives through their work. One way to do this is to cultivate the concept of entrepreneurship within teams. Assign goals (and not tasks) to your team and give them sufficient autonomy and authority to work towards these goals. “I don’t know” is sometimes the best answer that a leader can give to promote initiative and dynamism within the teams.

Build Great Teams Method #3: Respect (Lots of it)

Cultivate a culture of respect and be a model for it. Promote mentoring within teams and break silos. The best teams discuss, debate and challenge each other on the way to achieving the remarkable while being respectful of each other’s uniqueness. Celebrate this uniqueness and the value that every member of the team brings to the table. When people respect each other, trust in each other’s abilities soon follows and it becomes much easier to make the right decisions to achieve common goals.

Build Great Teams Method #4: Practice Transparency (Enable Communication and Collaboration)

You cannot expect people to operate blind and still give their best output.  Technology has made the sharing of information and the levels of interaction much easier – use this to your and the team’s advantage to ensure that the right hand knows what the left hand is doing. Free flow of information empowers team to collaborate and enables rapid progress.

Build Great Teams Method #5: Appreciate, Appreciate and Appreciate

Yes, I can’t say this often enough and I am not talking about the carrot and stick approach. Genuinely and sincerely demonstrate that you value your team by thanking them every opportunity that you get. Make it a priority to notice when people are doing things right or are going out of their way to ensure the success of the team. Celebrate this publicly and privately. This lifts people up, it makes people feel safe and that they matter. This in turn frees them up to perform and contribute at their highest levels.

As I mentioned earlier, the methods are pretty obvious but the simplest methods are always the most effective. It surprises and saddens me to see how often managers don’t practice this. Can’t sum this post up better than Tom Peters:

A soaring vision is desirable.

An effective strategy is important.

Super-processes are a necessity.

But in the end, it’s all about … THE PEOPLE!*

*It’s ALWAYS all about

… THE PEOPLE!

What have your experiences been in building and in being part of successful teams? What would you have done better? I would love to know.

Five Outdated Human Resource Policies That Need To Go, Now!

Five Outdated Human Resource Policies That Need To Go, Now!

by | Nov 3, 2015 | Job Offers, Management, Performance, Productivity, World of Work

We spend between 8 to 12 hours of our waking time at a place we call “work”. Some of us have chosen our career options, some of us didn’t really have any choice. Whichever category you may fall into, the one thing common between employees from both categories is that both are “governed” by the Human Resource policies your company subscribes to. The HR policies your company believes in and enforces speaks volumes about how they treat or intend to treat their employees. As an employee, you would ideally want to work in an environment which is respectful and put quite curtly, treats you like a responsible adult. Unfortunately, many of the HR policies which are in practice are extremely unnecessary and outdated. The World of Work has made progress by leaps and bounds, however, it is policies like these that hinder the pace of this progress. If only every organization, every company followed two things J.W. Marriott said, like their bible, and shaped all their HR Policies around them, the World of Work would be such a happier place.  We continue our post on outdated HR Policies that need to be scrapped, in the spirit of these words, by one of the greatest entrepreneurs ever:

“Take care of your people and they will take care of your customers”

“Treat your employees the way you would like to be treated – provide them every avenue to success. Get their confidence and respect. Have them like and be interested in their job.”

These Five Outdated Human Resource Policies need to go and need to go now:

1. The Tedious No Reference Policy: For those of you who have been at the receiving end of this extremely frustrating policy, and have no idea why most companies across the globe follow this as a rule, the story goes like this: “Not very long ago, in the United States, an anesthesiologist was dismissed after he was caught using narcotics at work. After firing him, the company gave him a positive reference, but later, at his next job, he came to work doped, which almost cost a patient’s life. The patient’s family, who sued the new employer, was awarded $8-million USD. That company then turned around and sued the anesthesiologist’s former company, which provided the reference, and won”.

Hence, in order to avoid complications arising from references which can later be used against the company, and also to avoid defamation lawsuits (in case the company gives the employee a brutally honest reference the employee disagrees with), companies prefer giving no references at all. This HR policy is not only outdated in today’s world where networking is crucial, it also means that there is absolutely no trust in the employee-employer relationship. While it is only fair for an employee to get a reference from his/her former employer stating his/her potential, it is equally beneficial for the future employer to have knowledge of the same.

2. The Insensitive Bereavement Pay Policy: This particular policy is outright insensitive. Losing someone close to you is difficult enough, without having to fill in bereavement applications categorizing whether the deceased was an immediate family member or a non-family member, based upon which the companies issue paid leaves. It is these occasions that you as an employer, or the person responsible for the well-being of the employees at the organization, have to be extremely sensitive about. And it is precisely these occasions that characterize employee-employer relationships, which have a direct impact on productivity. However, when your employee loses someone dear, put yourself in his/her shoes and think how you would feel if the place you go to work at objectifies it, in a manner so insensitive. Being human will take you a much longer way than being a capitalist in these situations. Life, after all, is not a balance sheet. Take care of your employees and they will take care of your business.

3. The School-like Attendance Policy: We thought we left school eons ago, however, we were so wrong. Old school attendance policies haunt us to this day, even at work, where we thought we would be treated as responsible adults. Not allowing work from remote location as a rule and clocking arrival and departure time (which then goes on to affect the pay) stringently indicate a deep-rooted lack of trust and  only result in demotivating the employees. How about moving from time-based management to goal-based management ?

4. The Draconian Bell Curve Performance Reviews Policy: One wonders if this is a particularly Indian phenomenon. As Indian kids, we were constantly compared to the metaphorical (and sometimes literal) “Sharmaji ka beta” (the neighbour’s son for our international readers). So we get a job and are finally ready to taste freedom, only to realize, “Sharmaji ka beta” has followed us to our workplace too! Bell curve performance reviews segregate employees according to their performances (high, average and low) by a comparison between the employees, and are completely based on the discretion of the manager. The ones ending up at the bottom of the curve end up being fired to accommodate fresh recruits to make up for the lost performance. This may not only result in unfair evaluation but also in high attrition rates thus having a direct negative impact on the goodwill of the company. Moreover, this format of a performance review makes for an extremely competitive and pressured environment, which any good manager knows, are huge road blocks for productivity. It is imperative to avoid such a divide and conquer strategy in the workplace. On the brighter side, Infosys having made a change, hopefully more Indian companies will follow in scrapping this draconian policy!

5. The Regressive Dress Code Policy: Once again, let’s just try not to keep reinforcing what we all went through at school. Yes, of course there should be some kind of dress code or at least some definition of clothing which may be considered offensive by others, hence to be avoided. However, micromanaging what your employees can and cannot wear is twisting and bending their identities out of shape in a lot of ways. For example, the still ongoing debate on Muslim women wearing head scarfs in France. Let your employees be, let them breathe easy. How one dresses is how one feels, how one feels is how one creates, and every individual has the right to decide that for oneself.

It is indeed sad that in a world as globalized as the one we currently inhabit, we still need to negotiate, on a daily basis, these outdated policies which regulate and control our every day at work. In the longer run, a business which is sustainable and scalable is one which provides an environment to nurture and respect its employees. Like we said earlier, all you need to do is, take care of your employees and they will take care of your business! It has been so long since we have been ‘profit’ oriented, let’s strive for a change to be more ‘people’ oriented. Trust us (and some of the world’s best business leaders) – the profits will soon follow.

Five Must-Dos to Improve Employee Engagement – Transform the Zombies into Humans

Five Must-Dos to Improve Employee Engagement – Transform the Zombies into Humans

by | Jun 30, 2013 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

Did anyone watch any good zombie movies or shows lately? I did unfortunately and the thought running through my mind watching the zombies in there was that we have our own version of zombies in the corporate world. Think about it – some people leave their minds and hearts out the moment they check in at office – put in the hours, do what they are told to do, do their best not to get “committed” and definitely not care…and then there are some for whom work is personal, they care, they come to work to learn and grow, they build relationships at work and in general just have fun.. Employee engagement, also called worker engagement, is a business management concept. An “engaged employee” is one who is fully involved in, and enthusiastic about their work, and thus will act in a way that furthers their organization’s interests. The opposite of employee engagement is a zombie employee. A zombie employee is a disengaged employee that will stumble around the office, lower morale and cost the company money. (Wiki). Valid analogy there, don’t you think? And that brings me to the topic of today’s post – Employee Engagement – Transforming the zombies into humans.

Concentrating on employee engagement can help companies withstand, and possibly even thrive, in tough economic times. Gallup researchers in 2012 studied the differences in performance between engaged and actively disengaged work units and found that those scoring in the top half on employee engagement nearly doubled their odds of success compared with those in the bottom half. Take a look at the table below from Gallup that clearly establishes the connection between employee engagement and critical performance metrics:

So what surprises me is why senior leadership often times just pays lip service to such an important aspect of business performance and growth. One annual engagement survey, a bit of brouhaha over the survey results if they are not good enough against benchmarks, a few actions handed over to the HR teams and then business as usual till the next survey results which of course will not be any different from last year or the previous year.

Employee Engagement initiatives must be enmeshed into the day-to-day operations of the company – I firmly believe that if you take care of the people, the company results take care of themselves. And when I think of the “people” factor of operational excellence, Tom Peters always come to mind. His “Excellence Now” philosophy is centred on People First and I will be quoting him liberally in the must-dos below. He says that an organization is first and foremost a “CATHEDRAL” dedicated to human development. So how do you build and sustain this cathedral on a day-to-day basis? Here are five principles that I have seen work:

Must Do #1: Hire for attitude and culture “fit” –

Adaptive organizations will have workforces which are hired for attitude and character and proven teamwork as much or more than for skill. In all my years of managing people, I have never had to give up on a team member for lack of skills. Skills can be developed, attitudes is another story. Your hiring process needs to build this focus into sourcing profiles; conducting interviews and doing reference checks (get tips in this post). Trust me, one talented terror in an influential position can throw cold water over all the good work done by other engagement initiatives. So, you have done a mistake in hiring or promoting a talented terror (a high performer with lousy attitudes), quick – go undo it fast!

Must Do #2: Be Transparent –

This ties in with trusting people and giving them respect. Build an environment of information sharing and transparency at all levels. Problems – share it across and enlist support. Mistakes – Admit it and gain credibility. Successes – Celebrate sooner rather than later, big or small doesn’t matter as long as everyone’s invited. Ask people the “What DO You Think” question often and then act on the feedback (while letting people know that you are on it) – simple way to show that you respect your team and the greatest source of wisdom for you.  Senior leadership should share a workable plan to support their vision and ALWAYs back up words with actions to inspire confidence and trust. Employees who don’t feel significant rarely make significant contributions.

Must Do #3: Create Policies and Processes with People First philosophy in mind –

If you want to WOW your customers then you must first WOW those who WOW the customers! There are so many ways to provide the best employee experience and not all of them will cost money (though your return on investment here would be much higher than say. capex investments) Offer competitive base salaries linked to value creation (ever heard the idiom, throw peanuts and you will get monkeys?), link variables to achievable business goals, have a great rewards programs that includes both cash and perks, provide tools and technology environment that help and not hamper employee productivity, take feedback from all employee levels when designing pay and benefits programs. CARE and be FAIR, in short.

Must Do #4: Help People Succeed –

Boss Job #1 is serving employees, helping employees not just “do good work”—but helping them succeed  and grow. This one is about people and leadership development and training – about providing career advancement and growth opportunities. Give self- assessment tools and self career management training for all employees so they move to becoming the CEOs of “YOU Inc.”  Build the ABSOLUTE BEST Cadre of 1st LINE MANAGERS … or BUST!   Provide alternatives to job growth ladders and create and maintain an effective and widely accessible internal job posting process. Create a strong mentoring/buddy culture. Design training programs as a game and fun for everyone. An organization can only become the-best-version-of-itself to the extent that the people who drive that organization are striving to become better-versions-of-themselves.

Must Do #5: Connect, Get Personal and Make Work Fun –

This is part of my company’s vision statement and something that I strongly believe in. Each one of us can get this right – it is simple. As Dee Hock, founder, Visa said – “Ph.D. in leadership. Short course: Make a short list of all things done to you that you abhorred. Don’t do them to others. Ever. Make another list of things done to you that you loved. Do them to others. Always.” Need I say more? We just need to keep this in mind in every interaction, every meeting, every communication that we have in the workplace. Give before you get. Appreciate people who do this always and encourage and participate in fun at the workplace. And the more of us who do this, the more this culture spreads getting engagement levels up slowly and surely.

To sum up, here is the leadership/management manifesto for Employee Engagement from Tom Peters himself: our job as leaders—the alpha and the omega and everything in between—is abetting the sustained growth and success and engagement and enthusiasm and commitment to Excellence of those, one at a time, who directly or indirectly serve the ultimate customer.

So what do you think?  Do you think Employee engagement initiatives are a waste of time ? How have you transformed zombies into humans in your organization or in your teams? What do you think I have missed in the points above? I would love to hear back and learn from you.

Five Human Resource Metrics that link People to Business Strategy – Business Operations Performance Metrics

Five Human Resource Metrics that link People to Business Strategy – Business Operations Performance Metrics

by | Jul 29, 2012 | Business, Business Operations, Leadership, Management, Performance, Productivity

The abundance of information – from both internal and external sources – is the richest possible mine when it comes to understanding the employer brand, employee engagement and what employees want and need from the organization. The vital, and apparently missing, step is to transform the data collected into strategic advantage. The use of analytics, seems to be focused on external stakeholders and is yet to be used to its full effect when it comes to talent management. Only under half of CEOs (46%) use analytics to provide insight into how effectively skills are being deployed in their organizations.

This was a key finding in PwC’s 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, “People strategy for the digital age: A new take on talent”, which seeks to understand how businesses are preparing for the wholesale redesign of the world of work.

Clearly the standard HR metrics of Cost per resource, HR efficiency (no. of HR employees to total no. of employees), etc. which primarily help in driving down the costs are no longer sufficient in an environment where talent is the competitive edge for organizations. The need of the hour is HR metrics that are aligned to the current and the future business plans to ensure that not only is there no shortage of talent when we need it but also that we have processes and programs in place to create the right talent for our business.

When we create budgets for the year, we spend a significant amount of time planning where the revenue will come from and how the spend will be distributed across cost headers. In services organization, labour is the biggest component of both income and expenditure. Do we spend the same amount of time in planning how we would attract, retain and develop this big-ticket item so that the business objectives are met? Annual talent strategy planning is a must to develop and harness the potential of human capital – to proactively drive business outcomes instead of reactively responding to whatever the latest talent shortage crisis is. Based on my experiences in resource management and operations, here are the five human resource metrics that I think can help link your people strategy to your business strategy:

Human Resource Metrics #1: Competency Development Spend % – This one starts with identifying the key skills and talents that are necessary to execute on the company’s strategy for the year and create the competitive advantage while providing a platform for internal employees to learn and grow in their chosen career ladders. These could be technical (specialized software or hardware skills), functional (customer service, selling, tools and technology training) or managerial (leadership development, communication, succession planning, mentoring). Assess the current skill levels and the gap from where it needs to be and then draw up the competency development plan with budgets, timelines and desired outcomes for the year. Monitor the spend against the budget periodically (maybe monthly or quarterly) to ensure that there is focus on developing the right competencies that are needed for business success and that the plan is relevant to the current business scenarios.

Human Resource Metrics #2: Employee Engagement – This is the HR Mantra and enough research has been done to show that the EE figures of an organization are directly proportional to its business performance. Falling engagement levels are the precursor to higher attrition, lower productivity and increasing costs per hire. But an employee engagement survey just for the sake of measuring engagement is a waste of time and energy. The survey should be used as a tool to collect information that helps drive better results. Analysis should be done to isolate sincere actionable feedback from the “noise”. For example – what do your best performers think about your organization – does it allow them to perform to their optimum levels and get better every day? Invest and prioritize the engagement feedback that will really have an impact on key employee retention and overall employee performance and build this into your annual plan.

Human Resource Metrics #3: Quality of Hiring – This amounts to determining how a new hire’s abilities and performance varies from pre-hire requirements and expectations and is a metric that is generally calculated from 3-6 months after the hiring. Combined with the cost of hire (external recruitment spend+ internal labor costs) and the speed of hire (time taken to fulfill an open position), the quality of hire metric forms a great basis to measure the overall efficiency of your recruitment function and its processes (targeted sourcing,  speedy reaction time, consistent screening process and continuous improvement). The impact of a wrong hire is huge on the business outcome and we definitely need to spend some time here to ensure we have the right data points and methodologies to ensure that we hire the right people for the right jobs. Some excellent data on this metric here : http://www.ere.net/2009/10/02/quality-of-hire-the-missing-link-in-calculating-roi-part-i-of-a-series/

Human Resource Metrics #4: Resource Utilization % – This is the most common metric used in human resource management and for a good reason. It is the ratio of the resource’s billable work to the total amount of work and hence has a visible and direct impact on a company’s revenue and margins. What I want to highlight here is the need to go beyond this number and look at the underlying reasons for variations in the numbers and focus on them for improvement.  Numerous factors can change utilization rates, including inconsistency in calculations of what constitutes work and billable work, late and cancelled projects, increased training and ramp –up times and ancillary job demands, such as paperwork. Keep track of employee expertise areas and availability status in a central skill database, so that you can the quickly move people into a project and maximize utilization. Cross-train technical staff to respond quickly to changes in client demand. Developing a versatile and flexible workforce keeping in mind future customer requirements reduces idle time. Develop a bench strategy and a robust demand and supply forecasting process to stay on top of the target utilization numbers.

Human Resource Metrics #5: Revenue per Employee – This is a simple metric but the most important one to gauge and measure the success of all the plans and initiatives as outlined above – quarter on quarter and year on year. It also helps to compare the performance of your organization with similar organizations and set benchmarks internally for your HR and resource management functions, the data on total revenue and total headcount of companies being easily available. The revenue per employee should steadily increase leading to expanding margins and improved profitability. This is a number that must feature on all management reviews as it helps keep focus not only on the denominator (costs – and there is only so much cutting that you can do) but also on the numerator (revenue – where are we getting maximum value out of our labour and why – to drive strategy in the directions where it is working).

One size definitely does not fit all when it comes to metrics  – and you may have your own views on what metrics are best suited to drive the talent advantage for your organization. One thing is common though – we need to collect consistent information on our resources, use metrics that enable decision-making and ensure that talent management strategy remains relevant with overall business strategy and contributes actively to business growth. We need to choose the metrics that help the management to make quick and sound business decisions that are based on facts rather than feeling. What has worked for you in this area – I would love to hear and learn from you.