‘Their Work’ Versus ‘My Work’

When you work in an organization or within a team, you can think of it as ‘doing the work for someone’. For the company. For the manager. For the client.

Or you can think of it as ‘doing your work’. There is a big difference.

Our work is a way to express ourselves. A programmer expresses himself through code. A dancer through her dance. A writer through her words. A leader through his actions. In that sense, our work is our statement. It carries out stamp. It tells something about us.

When you say, “I am doing my work”, you make it personal. It is only when you take the work personally that you can stamp it with excellence. Thinking that you do the work for someone else, you generally do it for the sake of doing it. Simply getting through it. It does more harm to you than you can possibly think of, in a long run.

So, the next time you ship your deliverable to someone (a client, your boss, your peers), think about the statement that your work makes. The stamp it carries.

This Monday, you have a choice. To stamp your work with ‘mediocrity’ or with ‘excellence’. This choice and how it is exercised consciously everyday determines your future and the difference you will make to the organization, team and society.

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Friday High-Five: Posts I Loved Reading Last Week

Friday again - time to share some of the most profound posts that I loved reading last week. These brilliant posts hit the point and leave us with some excellent lessons. A big high-five to these amazing folks.

• Six Thoughts About Middle Management - by Lisa Haneberg
  Lisa says, “Management is a social act. Conversations are your currency to generate excellence and bring out the best in others. Erode relationships, erode results.”
  
• 10 Things: Addressed And Your Awesome Potential Will Be Unleashed- by NICHOLAS BATE
  Professor Bate says, “Believe in Yourself. You don’t have to be liked by everybody to do great things, to live the Life you wish, to change the world. AGREE THAT WITH YOURSELF.”
  
• How to Discuss an Employee Performance Problem - by Dan McCarthy
  Dan reminds us, “Knowing how to sit down with an employee and have an effective conversation about a performance problem is one of the hardest things for any manager to do, new or experienced, and should never be taken for granted.” He also offers practical tips to handle a performance problem.
  
• Three Years of CO - by Kurt Harden
  Cultural Offering blog completed three years and Kurt ruminates on the journey so far. He says, “That is the deal that is blogging. You take a shot at it. Put some thoughts down. Words to sentences to paragraphs, all to hone your skills - writing, reading, thinking. Sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss. But over time there are more hits than misses.”
  
• The performance value of total concentration - by Tim Sanders
  Tim Sanders posted a small and important reminder that working on one thing with total concentration has tremendous performance value. He also reminds that we can’t excel at all things at a time. Must read if you are struggling with your productivity.

Have a Fantastic Friday and a refreshing weekend!

Excellence: Lessons From Anupam Kher

I have believed that most good things in life are either free or inexpensive. A good walk, a great hug, a few moments spent together, a long drive, a free lecture, time spent with friends and so on.

I write this because over the weekend, I experienced some of these. Monsoon is at its best. Cool weather and Friendship Day on a Sunday!

I visited an interactive session with one of the greatest Indian actors Anupam Kher at Ahmedabad Management Association (AMA) as a part of “Face to Face with Achievers of Excellence” program. Anupam Kher needs no introduction to the Indian audience, but for the others, Anupam Kher is one of the best actors in contemporary cinema who has worked in over 400 films and 100 plays winning a number of awards including Padma Shree.

Anupam talked about excellence – as he sees it. He delivered some simple yet powerful messages on excellence while narrating the tale of his life and career. Here is a quick summary of those powerful lessons:

• Be your own enemy: We get too bogged down by comparisons and competition. On the road to excellence, you are your own benchmark. You have to be your strongest critic.
• Remain curious: We are born curious, but as we grow, we loose our sense of wonder along the way. Never stop dreaming.
• Failure is overrated: Schools and colleges sell the fear of failure. In pursuit of excellence, failures make you better. Failures bring us closer to ourselves and makes us do more. World does not stop if we fail, so do things you love doing, and if you fail, learn from it. Consistent success can sometimes become boring. Henry Ford said this, “Failure is the opportunity to begin again, more intelligently.”
• Be comfortable with self: Most people spend their lives trying to become someone else. Be yourself and be comfortable with who you are. You can only excel in life when you are happy with who you are. (Read my piece on self-actualization)
• Don’t stop trying: When you see your goal clearly, the hurdles become invisible. That does not mean hurdles are not there. They just become insignificant. When faced with hurdles, don’t stop trying. Anupam shared a great quote, “When you try, you risk failure. When you don’t try, you ensure it.”
• Honesty and hard work: Once you know what you are good at, you need a lot of honesty (with self and with others) and hard work. I would add that persistence is equally important.

These lessons (and more) were nicely wrapped in powerful personal stories that engaged the audience. While all these things were known and read somewhere, a lecture like this with successful people helps a great deal in reinforcing them to your belief system.

I am inspired on this Monday morning, and you too have an upbeat start into the week.

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P.S: Jason Seiden at “Fail Spectacularly” blog has hosted the latest Carnival of Leadership Development featuring my post “5 Ways to Build Trust” Lessons from a Conversation)” along with a host of other GREAT posts on leadership and executive development. Check it out – some great ideas waiting to be explored!

Enjoy The Process

We live in a hyper-competitive world. Students are anxious about their annual results. Professionals are anxious about their next appraisal. Business owners are anxious about their bottom lines and so on. You get the point.

This anxiousness does not allow us to enjoy the process. Sure, goals are important and attaining them is even more important. Ultimately, our results drive us to do more.

My point is – if we constantly keep our goal in perspective (and get overwhelmed by it), we become less efficient. Anxiousness (and sometimes fear) kills creativity. We rush through the process to see if our efforts are delivering results. Quest for instant gratification can result in sub-optimal outcomes.

Watching television can ‘sometimes’ be good – I was recently watching an old episode of a musical reality show. I loved the viewpoint of one of the participants. The host of the show asked, “Do you think you will win this competition?” to which participant responded -

“I am not here to win the first spot, I am here to enjoy the process of being with such great mentors and learning the music. I only focus on my next performance (and its preparation) without getting anxious. I know that if I deliver great performances one after the another, the final outcome will take care of itself”.

That is a great way to look at our work.

Focusing on the moment, on task currently on our hands enables us to fully express ourselves. One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to enjoy the work while we are doing it (being in the moment) – and expressing our skills fully. It is both gratifying and satisfying.

Think about it!

Focus on Relationships and Tale of Two Leaders

Consider the following tale of two sales leaders who wanted to be successful:

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In his quest to achieve his sales targets, Peter was overly focused on "closing the sale". When in front of a customer, he often focused on what the "next steps" would be. He sold from the mindset of "What all can be sold to this customer out of all my services?" and tried to maximize his sales. He would constantly try to fit his services and convince customer that they really needed it. He believed that sales was all about selling ice cubes in Antarctica! He danced in joy when he closed a sale - and would then focus his energies completely on next sales closure. Peter was successful on a short-term, but his success was often short-lived. He wondered ‘Why?’

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Jack, on the other hand, believed in "building a relationship". When a sale was closed, he considered it as a beginning of a relationship. When in front of a customer, he mostly focused on "understanding/listening" what customer had to say. He sold from the mindset of "What are your problems and how can my services solve them?" and tried to map services with real problems. He believed that sales was all about building relationship through delivery of "value". Without getting overwhelmed (or overjoyed) about the sales closure, he focused his energy to communicate and align people for success. Jack was considered ‘slow’ initially, but he knew he had built a foundation of great relationships for a long term.

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The difference between Peter and Jack was that of the mindset - of purpose and of clarity. Jack knew that business happens and reputation is built only when you solve "real" problems of your customer. For that, first step is to understand and carefully listen. That is the starting point of all relationships. The difference between their mindsets is same as the difference between "hearing" and "listening", between "watching" and "seeing".

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Note: This post is a continuation of my first post “Focus on Effectiveness and Tale of Two Managers” – written on same lines, but with a different message. Check it out if you haven’t read it yet!

Are You An Artist? A Review of Seth Godin’s LINCHPIN

Seth Godin's Linchpin

Over last couple of weeks, I was reading and re-reading Seth Godin’s remarkable book “Linchpin”. I have been following Seth’s blog and books since last 4 years. This book has brilliant ideas that can change the way you work, how you work and most importantly, why you work.

Linchpin urges us all to be artists – to be the best we can, to take our work to such a level that it is viewed as an art. Seth says that manufacturing world required cogs – people who follow the instructions, were compliant, low-paid and replaceable. New world of work needs people who care, who are original thinkers, risk-takers, provocateurs – Linchpins, who are difficult to replace.

Linchpin is about being remarkable – being different and being original.

On being an artist – Seth says:

‘You can be an artist who works with oil paints or marble, sure. But there are artists who work with numbers, business models, and customer conversations. Art is about intent and communication, not substances.”

This book also introduces us to “Lizard Brain” – a little voice inside our head that prevents us from being different. This voice convinces us to stick to old ways of doing work – because doing it differently is a risk, of failure and embarrassment. Lizard brain thrives on our strongest emotion - fear.

Organizations need more linchpins to deliver more value – and for people, their jobs are a platform to deliver value, to be generous, to express their unique skills and be an artist.

The book also made me realize that doing “emotional labor” is extremely important to be a linchpin. Emotional labor is the task of doing an important work, even when it is not easy. It is about walking that extra mile, when you don’t feel like doing it. A larger part of work involves doing things we don’t particularly love doing. But unless that is done, art cannot happen.

The book is a GREAT read (also a NY Times bestseller), because it drives important points home with brilliant examples and stories along the way. I specially liked the diagrammatic representation of ideas – making it simple and easy.  A blog post is way too short to express the profoundness of messages this book encapsulates.

Most people don’t know about their unique gifts – their art. It sometimes takes a lifetime to discover what their art really is. This prompted me to ask a question to Seth. Here is the question and Seth Godin’s response:

Tanmay: Being a Linchpin is impossible without actualizing with one’s gifts (that we are all born with). How does one discover these gifts and unwrap them for the world?

Seth Godin: To use your analogy, if you want to find gifts, you have to look under the tree. And if you don’t know which tree, look under all of them. Too many people want a promise that the effort will be instantly rewarded. It won’t. Fail frequently. That’s the only way I know.

Tanmay: Thank you so much. “Fail Frequently. Ship Early. Ship Often. Realign” that is my takeaway and probably the only way to discover your gifts.

Seth Godin: Thanks Tanmay! Keep Shipping.

Thanks Seth, for that insightful conversation through your book and your response.

Linchpin is a wake-up call – to stop being ordinary and compliant and start being remarkable. Life – as Seth says – is too short not to do something that matters!

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P.S: Check out Carnival of Management Improvement at Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog by John Hunter – fantastic collection of posts on leadership, improvement, lean and quality. Carnival includes my post “Building a Culture To Promote Differential Thinking“

The Rubber Meets The Road 15

The rubber meets the road when you, as a business leader…

1. deliver real business results to customers (not just deliver an excellent pitch with an impressive powerpoint)
2. start executing relentlessly (not just define your strategy on paper at an off site planning retreat)
3. implement improvements in your processes (not when you create that good looking document with improvement areas)
4. pick up the phone and talk to that frustrated customer (and not get into a chain of email exchange)
5. lead by example and live your values (not just pass instructions for others to follow. Not just document your values on the website)
6. act on your customer’s feedback (not just collect it through your customer feedback program!)
7. start treating your people like “humans” (and not just “resources” or “capital”)
8. “do” equal to or more than what you “say” (and not the reverse)
9. start thinking about “preventing” problems (not just “correcting” them after they happen)
10. work “on” your business (not just “in” it - easy to get consumed working “in” the business)
11. communicate and share feedbacks often with your people (not just in their quarterly performance review)
12. start looking at ways to solve problems (rather than finding someone else to blame)
13. stay lean, flat and accountable (and not let your growth turn you into a bureaucratic, heavy top-down structure)
14. understand that excellence is everybody’s job (not just a single department or a few people in the team)
15. only speak when you completely, totally mean it (and not just throw clichés to please them now)

P.S: “Where the rubber meets the road” is an idiom that refers to the tyre of a vehicle on the surface of a road, meaning “where it really counts.” It is used to represent the defining moments or focus on real actions.

Bonus: My post “15 ideas To Ensure That Trainings Effectively Deliver Value” was featured in HR Carnival over at  i4cp PRoductivity Blog - along with a host of other brilliant posts on talent management, general HR, managerial advice and career advice. If you are a people manager or HR professional, this carnival edition is a MUST READ!

Also download (PDF) 100 fantastic insights that will help you become “BRILLIANT At The Basics of Business” - from none other than NICHOLAS BATE. Visit him for this and tonnes of other great resources - I am sure you will admire his generosity as much as I do.

Survival Mindset, Abundance and Leadership

Here is a quick question: “Can a leader make a big difference (through a great team, organization or product) operating in a ’survival’ mindset?”

You guessed it right if you said No. They can’t. Here’s why:

To make a big difference, a leader has to operate from the zone of “abundance”. Zone of “possibilities”. Leadership, as we know, is about expressing yourself fully through your work. Leaders can seldom express themselves completely when they are in “survival” mindset. It is a bad state to be in. In the anxiety of survival, they only do things that directly or indirectly help them stay afloat. When they start focusing on doing those “necessary” things, they loose focus on doing the “right things”. They try to protect, avoid risk, enforce and create barriers.

Seth Godin, in his book Linchpin says that “anxiety doesn’t protect you from the danger, but from doing great things.” - the state of anxiety limits your thinking, pulls you down and keeps you from thinking abundant.

Abundance mindset is totally opposite - it acknowledges the constraints and works around them to create possibilities. To think about better ways of doing work. To see/solve those impending problems. To deliver more than expected. To move from ’satisfaction’ to ‘delight’ to ‘wow’. Abundance mindset sees opportunity where scarcity mindset sees problems. It is about thriving - not only surviving.

Bottomline: Mindset matters when you are set out to make a big difference. Napolean Bonaparte said this - “A leader is a dealer in hope”. Hope comes from thinking in abundance and possibilities. To make a bigger difference, leaders have to move from “survive” to “thrive” - from “scarcity” to “abundance”.

Bonus:

• Read this amazing story of two shoe salespeople - and what it means to have an abundance mindset.
• My friend and fellow blogger Utpal Vaishnav wrote “Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision! – which is a story about a Leader Beyond His Title who lead to create a win-win-win situation for the organization, the client and himself. It was also featured in a number of blog carnivals and round-ups. Great story - must read!
• Stay tuned for a review of Seth Godin’s book Linchpin - soon!

Friday Reflection: The ‘Real’ Powers!

This morning when I was praying, God again appeared. HE gently put His hand on my head and said -

My Son,

Most people live with an illusion that real power is in wealth. In degrees. In material.

They spend most of their lives looking for power “somewhere out there”.

I have “gifted” each human being with great powers that lie “within” them.

The power to think. Imagine. Visualize.

To choose your battles.

To choose between mediocrity and greatness.

The power to understand, listen and relate with other human beings.

To see the best in them.

The power to read. To grasp. To learn.

The power to walk. Talk. Choose your words.

The power to change your perspectives. Shape your attitude.

To focus. To concentrate. To direct your energies.

The power to smile. The power to love others.

You can create whatever you decide to.

Ability to decide - that is your supreme strength.

So, look within. Not outside.

That is where your real powers are.

I have gifted you – will you care to unwrap these gifts?

Also read: An earlier conversation with God - “The Focus is on YOU”.

Photo by Tanmay Vora: Core of a flower at Esplanade Park, Helsinki, Finland

Thriving By “Initiating”, “Creating” and “Improving”

The most memorable things in our career are the ones we initiated. People love saying, “I was the one who started the NY office” or “I defined the testing processes here” or “I bought our first consulting assignment” or “I started it from scratch”. During the hiring process, I encounter a number of people who cherish what they had built at their previous assignments.

We, as humans, crave for meaning. Our deeper satisfaction comes from “creating” something, “improving” the stuff and making a larger difference to the organization or people.

What it means for business leaders

• Identify people who are keen to make a difference.
• People who demonstrate active thinking about work.
• Involve them in strategic and tactical initiatives (either as a part of their primary KRA or as a part-time initiative).
• Explain them the importance of that initiative for the organization.
• Train them, if needed, to think from a ”possibility” standpoint”. (Read this GREAT story)
• Review progress and ask open-ended questions to provoke thinking.
• Let them run with those initiatives, but stay in loop to do course correction when needed.
• Validate the person and his/her thinking process.
• Recognize and reward the participation.

What it means for you as a “personal leader”

• Look at the current gaps within your organization.
• Gaps in operations, gaps that directly impact your work or areas where nothing exists.
• Those are your opportunities to initiate something meaningful.
• Talk to your immediate peers about what you can do to fill those gaps.
• Discuss, ideate and brainstorm with your immediate superior. (You can also find a workplace mentor to help you.)
• Take charge and commitment from the senior management.
• Draw out a plan with ideas, possible constraints and approach.
• Validate your plan with others – seek support.
• Execute the plan and review the progress.
• Track the impact of your initiative.

Bottomline:

The degree of our satisfaction depends on the degree of our contributions to the organization. By simply “doing-as-directed”, you may survive at best. But to thrive, flourish and grow, you have to think beyond the obvious and see possibilities. Initiate things. Follow them through. Deliver drastic improvements. Fill in the gaps. Bring about a big difference. Be memorable.

Have a great start into the week!