The Two Twins Of People Management

Earlier last week I had written about lessons on creating Team-A. I had also promised to share some of my notes on people management. So here they are:

There are two fundamental confusions in entrepreneurs and managers that lead to much of the people problems. And these are what I refer to as the ‘Two Twins of People Management’

While everyone complains about their juniors not taking as much responsibility as they would have wished, there is tremendous silence when you ask the seniors about authority that they have divested.While responsibility is shared to a large extent (though not taken up), authority rarely gets distributed. It stays in the firm clutches of the manager or the entrepreneur.  At least the sharing of responsibility and authority do not proceed in the proportional way. If responsibility and authority do not travel hand in hand, people problems are almost an assured reality.

The other complaint of managers is that people do not take feedback in the right manner. Team members do not seem to have the required amount of maturity to take in the given feedback, which after all is for their improvement.  And the managers and entrepreneurs spread their hands in frustration – how can one improve if one is not willing to take feedback?  However, the reason for this is often the inability of the manager to separate the person from the issue.  When the person and issue are not separated clearly in the articulation by the manager/entrepreneur, what the manager may evaluate, criticize and give feedback on could be the issue, but it is received almost always by the person as something at the individual level.  For example when you have to indicate to an employee, him coming late is having an impact on completion of work, instead of focusing on the impact of delay of work – the feedback almost starts off with a sermon on punctuality and discipline.  The discussion of issue should lead to correction of a personal trait as a remedy. But discussions on personal trait may not always correct the issue at hand. It is the manager’s responsibility to split the person and issue, and then discuss the issue while handing over the feedback. And when the feedback is being given, it has to be with the intent of seeking a resolution to the problem and not reforming a person. Managers and entrepreneurs not doing this has led to loss of great amount of talent in numerous enterprises.

So the next time you are put in charge of managing people remember to be aware of the two twins that are seemingly inseparable  and indistinguishable at play!

The rigor of the entrepreneurial experiment

This Tuesday’s write-up on start-up and experiments has initiated some interesting conversations. I have had some ask me if I meant that everything about a startup should be left to chance? Am I against process around entrepreneurship? Some even indicated some of my earlier writing and my book were contradictory to the view that startups should adopt the attitude of experiments.

When I mentioned start-up to be akin to experiments, it was not meant to be taken as an approval for the teams to just do whatever they feel like leaving the results to chance. Infact,  an earlier write-up that may give more insights on the meaning of experiments in an entrepreneurial context http://rajshankar.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/entrepreneurs-are-not-cow-boys/

Experimenting is not adoption of a devil-may-care attitude. Experiments imply taking intelligent risks with the inbuilt aspects of agility and resilience. When you look at the development of science, you will understand immediately the power of experiments. Every invention came about when the new generation scientist took on to explore the unknown, standing on the fundamentals built by experiments and efforts of the previous generation.  The rigor of scientific enquiry is in its disciplined approach to the undefined. Ask any researcher or any scientist on the level of attention, level of detailing and level of planning that is involved in a serious experiment.

Experiments have to evolve. So every generation of entrepreneurs conduct experiments, and the next generation standing on the ground prepared by them, takes it forward.  The spirit of experimentation coupled with the rigor and the process of conducting experiments is what sustains the thrill of the journey!

Start-ups and Experiments

During one of my recent workshops I moderated a small panel discussion in which we had a very senior and experienced entrepreneur in the panel.  His parting advise to the group of young entrepreneurs was “Expect everything to go wrong”

Post the panel, I was wondering over what that statement could mean to us and why a senior entrepreneur would share that as his parting words. In a very round about way  what he said just meant “Experiment!”

When a group of people come together with some common expectations and assumptions, and venture into the unknown together, they are called entrepreneurs. There is risk inherent in the expectations and by nature assumptions are anyways risks. Hence Startups are basically experiments.

When you start an experiment you don’t have specific expectations in mind. You normally tend to have broad directions and hope to be surprised. As you keep experimenting anything that arises other than what you know becomes a finding. A moment of surprise. Pursuing these findings unearths the hidden. Finding them gives you wow!

If we look at a startup from this angle, the journey of entrepreneurship could become fun and enjoyable. The moment we try and bring in detailing to our expectations, the surprise does not lead to AHA moments. Anything that deviates from the expectation is seen as a risk. Achieving the expected results is seen as the only yardstick of success.

When you perform an experiment you are curious as to what could be the actual result. When you perform an experiment you are agile to the results of your experiments, adapting, changing and modifying your next attempt. When you perform an experiment you are resilient to the instant of failure, only to experiment again. When you perform an experiment, you are energized by the instant of success only to plod further on.

It is this attitude of experimentation that start-ups must have.  And only this attitude will allow the start-ups to bloom into the next stage.

Enjoy Early – At what cost?

This write-up is inspired by an interaction that I had this afternoon with a young energetic chap in his mid-twenties - who when asked what he wants to do replied “Retire by 40!”  After he left, this answer lingered behind for a long time. What also hit me was the fact his fitness seemed far from supporting this intention!

Today a lot more youngsters are falling prey to lifestyle diseases. It looks like economic development has this silent side effect! Slowly and steadily we are falling prey to this silent epidemic. The sad part is there are a lot of enabling factors in the ecosystem that is also encouraging this trend. Food is one of the main culprits! Quality of food is dropping. Food options are increasing – not all of them truly healthy! Fast food almost means we end up accumulating a lot more fat. Eating also has become a break, a reason to get up from the uncomfortable office couch!

The next is orthopedic issues (back, joint, neck, arms, etc). The increasing number of clinics in this space and the numerous paramedical solutions are only an indication of the growing problem. Why is this happening? Simply because we are all working really hard. Working hard sitting at our seats doing so called knowledge work! Think again!

No doubt that our economic returns are increasing by this aggresive approach, but it is also increasing the pressure to enjoy early in life. This leads to people doing things that they could have done over 40 years in 10 years. Hastening life and everything in life is causes stress.

Why not stop for a second and look at what’s happening? As Nandan Nilekani shared during his Ted talk – let us not lose focus and turn out greatly spoken about asset (youth) into a huge liability!

Think! That’s really what’s needed if we are relying on the Gen Next to take us places…

Health and Productivity!

I have been indisposed for the last two days. It has been bothering me and its had its impact on what I do. I have had to reduce my work and over a couple of days one feels that one’s output has come down significantly. So on days like these I reflect upon the good advice that elders give me – take care of your health. Health comes first!! And more…

Since I have been conducting workshops on growth over the last few months and will be doing a few more this month as well – I began wondering if this would apply to firms as well. Absolutely! Wouldn’t it?

If the organization is not healthy how can it perform? But who cares about organization health? And for that matter who is even bothered about it as they press the pedal on performance? Who takes the time to understand it? Is my organization healthy – how do I know?  Lot more questions than answers, and understandably so..

To continue the post – the same applies to the entrepreneur as well. Especially during the early years. The entrepreneur is going to be overworked during the formative years of the organization. The stress levels are also going to be high during these years. Though the health of the entrepreneur at this time begs attention, it is not the one that is on top of his mind.

The last few days have reiterated that entrepreneurs need to ensure they don’t lose sight of their health during these years. They need to spend time to exercise and relax, eat healthy food and especially ensure their sleep habits are in place. If these are not taken care of, the journey may be intense but will become a sprint , not a marathon. The idea of many sprints also requires one to know when to stop sprinting consciously – not to stop when you can’t go further. When one stops driven by exhaustion  restarting becomes very difficult.

Think about it. I shall also share some posts during my Sunday curation on health and lifestyle tips from some experts.

You Don’t Get an A-Team!

Yesterday I shared with you my firm belief which has been proven time and again, that the success of an entrepreneurial venture is significantly dependent on having an A-Team

During the last few workshops we had some local entrepreneurs who have been successful come and share their experiences as well as answer some queries of the early stage entrepreneur aspirants. When it came to the question of people – the one thing that came out very clear is that they were not able to find those talented boys and girls as well. They seemed to have suffered the same challenge. Its what they did after that, which made all the difference.

When they could not recruit their A–Team, they went ahead and created that A-Team. So my biggest take away from these panel discussions with so many successful but less celebrated entrepreneurs is that “creating an A-Team” is the solution to “finding an A-Team”. I shall look up my notes (I made some detailed ones) and share some of the tips and tricks that they used to create talent when they could not find them.

But in the meantime currently in India as entrepreneurs and small business owners need to scale their enterprises, they need to find talent – right talent. Without the right talent most businesses are going to remain where they are! This may sound like a doomsday prediction, but truth has always been bitter.

The solution is converting people into the talent that we need. It is a tough job, but as one entrepreneur shared, it is probably one thing that you will pat yourself for when you look back after many years. I am also sure it is the single most satisfying thing one may every end up doing in the process of creation of wealth – the process of creating talent..

The Power of ‘We’

Last couple of weeks I have been intensely engaging with entrepreneurs and small business owners through workshops on growth for early stage companies . One thing that invariably comes up for discussion is the challenge of finding the right people!

We discuss tools for opportunities, vision, business models, finance and all others – but the singular stumbling block we hear from entrepreneurs is: but who is going to execute all these? Don’t be perplexed at this question! Doesn’t the answer seem too obvious – the entrepreneur (that is you)!

No! I always share the fact (not my opinion) that, companies in India never grow beyond a certain size simply because of this attitude – the attitude of the entrepreneur keeping most of the important portfolios (if not all) with himself. Almost always he/she takes pride in the fact that they work so hard to handle multiple activities. They also make it amply clear that they will not get people as passionate as themselves (audacious / arrogant)! The reasoning is that if anyone did have it, they would have become entrepreneurs themselves.

These above opinions have almost become widely accepted half-truths! People are asked to come to terms with it. You will have to learn to multi-task, one will not find passionate talent, etc.,. But every single instance of a successful company (be it India or anywhere else in the world) displays the power of a group. The power of a group of people coming together to achieve a distant dream!

How did these successful entrepreneurs find a quality A-Team? From where did they get these passionate people? Who are these people who seem to understand the entrepreneur’s vision and partake in the journey? These and associated questions are simply brushed away by saying these entrepreneurs were “plain lucky” to get such team members. Very sad indeed!

If only each of us a leaders of our businesses, take the effort to identify the changes that we need to bring in ourselves and our system to attract and create such an A-Team; and muster the courage to go ahead and share the control  and dream; the ‘I’ in no time would become the ‘We’.

So what’s your plan for your A-Team?

Making Businessmen Out Of Engineers

I happened to teach a group of engineering students at IIT Madras this semester on business design. Helping technocrats commercialize their innovations is always fun. They are so much rooted in their product designs and the technical feasibility, that it takes a lot to make them appreciate the so called soft side of business. Absolutely – for technical entrepreneurs, business design is like learning soft skills.

Its always the soft that is hard!

But in a short set of interactions I was happy to be able to get them thinking about their business and look at commercial feasibility as well. The best part was that they were able to pick and choose the elements that mattered most to them based on their products. I am very positive that when they get to the stage of actually kicking-off their businesses, they would explore the softer side of the business in much more depth and detail.

While there is a lot spoken on the difficulty of getting engineers to think business, it is still a lot better than getting pure business oriented people to think products. In the former the problem is getting them to cross the technical aspects and make them see the customer and the market side of things; but in the latter, it is much tougher to pick up technical skills. There is a huge need for technology entrepreneurs in India – no, I’m not referring to technology enabled entrepreneurs. We need more product companies and they are bound to come from application of fundamental sciences. The area of biotechnology, bioinformatics, knowledge management, farm mechanization, etc are all green field areas for budding entrepreneurs.

However difficult it may be I don’t see MBA as an alternative to teaching engineers, entrepreneurship. It is better to convert them into entrepreneurs right after engineering education rather than having them move on to do an MBA. Because in most cases after an MBA, the engineer is almost always lost…

So that’s why I enjoy teaching engineers business and entrepreneurship, however daunting the challenge may be. I wish all the students of the current batch who underwent the course at IITM the very best to take their products, convert them into commercially viable business and kick-start their enterprises as soon as they complete their courses. India needs a lot more job creators and they are all sitting in colleges today.

Happy Teaching…

Strategic Time-Out!!

Indians have always been cricket-loving people. Even roadside cricket draws attention from a limited audience. Then one needs no explanation as to why IPL has caught the nation by storm!

What actually caught my attention more than cricket initially was the way companies were using it as an opportunity to launch brands, establish brands and re-establish brands. The mobile handset space was probably the most noisy and competitive with newcomers & incumbents apply marketing concepts and marketing strategies – all for one thing: a little attention of the audience.

But then a chance remark from my wife led to a totally different stream of thought.

As we were watching one of those closely fought games, my wife remarked, “I like this phrase strategic time out”. Though it was a pun she was making at her strategy consultant husband – it sparked a series of thinkets!

Why was the word “strategic” used along with the “Timeout” and not anything else at the IPL?  Why not “Game Timeout” or “IPL Timeout” or even just plain “Timeout?”

And what could really be so strategic about a two and half minute timeout – when the game is going on at its full pace?  Can a strategy be actually evolved or even refined by a bunch of people in these few minutes amidst a high pressure game?

If you look at the timeouts in most games – there was the quick huddling of players in the middle where they were to be making and breaking decisions that will supposedly define the course of the game. Did most matches take a different route post the timeout? – a question for which I may have to see number of those matches again.

While whether “Strategic Timeout” helped the cricket teams can be left for later – I feel it leaves a singular strong message for an entrepreneur, small business owner, or a person at the helm of driving a business.  You need to “Timeout” once in a while and think “Strategy”!

Most small business owners complain when they have to stop and take a quick look at themselves and their organization from a fresh perspective. Quite understandable.  Do you think many of those players in the middle would have wanted to take a timeout when their adrenalin surge is highest?

They would want to continue with that one ball or that one hit always believing it could change the course of the game. It is difficult truly in the game of cricket or business to stop and take stock.  But it is required and almost always it is one thing that looks good in hindsight.

When I go around and attend conferences, events and other community get-togethers, what strikes me strongly is that there is a much greater sense of entrepreneurship amongst people, but what hits me even greater is that there are still way too many institutions which have scaled to their full potential. Reasons a plenty! But then I would place my bets on the lack of adequate “strategic timeouts” as the strongest contender in the reason list

While execution & action is the most dominant need of the hour – let us introspect to evaluate if they are alone are enough to push your growth field.

Most often you will s note that if you truly wanted something, you work more than your known capacity and achieve it – what’s the reason? You know clearly what you wanted and hence action / execution happened.

In business as in the game of cricket, dynamics are changing faster than ever making many of your current plans redundant and ineffective. They will no more lead you to the goal that you have chosen.  So re-calibration of your current plan to check if it will take you to your goal and sometimes re-validation of the goal itself is a must.

This then requires us to sit necessarily outside of operations, by taking those needed timeouts, and make them strategic so that the next bout of operations is meaningful, focused and targeted at a clear goal.  It is then important to note that timeouts for strategic discussions and re-thinking are important and essential.

Many of us (entrepreneurs / small business owners) need to stop, take a break and use that opportunity to re-look at some of the basic questions about the business – periodically!  The periodicity depends on the rate of change taking place in the company or similar to that of an IPL match, at a set stage of the game.

Whichever way it is, the “time out” is more important than the questions around when, where and how of the time out. The depth and degree of the ritual itself can vary depending on the stage where the institution is in its evolution, but conducting the meeting will require some predictability, periodicity and discipline.

There may have been nothing “strategic” in the “timeout” at the IPL except that it sounds great and catchy, but in business there is just way too much a rational behind this activity. So instead of asking “What’s strategic about a time out?” I think it is only fair to say “Everything’s strategic about a timeout!”

Over Talented But Under Satisfied

Every one of us is good at many things. Infact with every passing generation the number of things we are good at is just increasing. What somebody used to study with difficulty at the graduate level, is now being easily understood and cracked at higher secondary level. But is that not how evolution should proceed?

With every one of us becoming more talented – and most often over talented – why is it that majority of us remain dissatisfied over our achievements? Why is it that most of us still seek tools for prioritization, take self-assessment tests to figure out areas of focus, read self help books and tools to remain motivated?

Why is the over talented 21^st century human being is not even as happy as his 19^th century pre-industrial era counterpart?

Over the last two weeks, during many of my mentoring sessions, I observed this interesting pattern amongst my mentees. They are all talented, high performers. They are all extremely successful by many standards. When they come to meet me we discuss how they can be better. The one thing that gets asked is ‘ How can i get more done in a work week? Do i need time management? Prioritization? Motivation? Or is there something else? I just don’t seem to be doing enough of the right thing…”

The dissatisfaction seems to be stemming from the fact that the effort is not coherent and coordinated in a particular direction. While a lot of actions is being done, lots of things are being achieved and that too with great efficiency, the question of satisfaction and resultant happiness keeps cropping up at regular intervals.

I am beginning to think that the solution rests in just two simple steps. First. understanding the areas that we are good at but don’t enjoy doing. Second, just dropping them.  Dropping them at the cost of efficiency, dropping them at cost of returns and results.

I leave the above as a trigger for your thoughts. Would be glad to receive your inputs on this too…