For a change, I happened to be in Delhi the entire months of July and August, 2008 and took an additional responsibility of telling my six-year-old daughter a story every day. Within a week I had exhausted my supply of stories that would interest a six year old. Then I began creating my own new story each day. I noticed that all my stories had the same pattern and patter – the super Hero facing challenges, winning and returning to the village. It reminded me of a book Hero with Many Faces by Joseph Campbell which I read way back. Campbell explained the Hero Myth in this book. A myth is a universal story experienced by everyone in every culture. Campbell said that the Hero Myth always began with a man just living his humdrum life. Suddenly and unexpectedly, either by chance or by choice, man is either pulled out of his ordinary life or chooses to leave his ordinary life to launch into a great adventure, whose outcome is unknown at the beginning.

The Hero journey goes through several specified stages. First, there is the ordinary life of the Hero that changes when something triggers his journey to the unknown. This is his call for adventure forcing him to leave the known, comfortable life behind and move to the unknown, difficult future that might also offer great rewards. There could also be a wise man or a mentor at this stage advising and preparing the Hero for the journey. This mentor could come also as a teacher who gives him instructions in the new skills he will need to learn to successfully achieve his goal. In many cultures and stories the Hero may also have to fight an animal from water. Usually, water represents the unconscious mind and the creatures below the water are the personification of different fears we all have in our unconscious mind. Then comes the final fight of the Hero which is the most difficult one among all the obstacles he faced till now. Finally the battle is won and the whole journey has now transformed an ordinary person into an extraordinary one.

The Hero archetype in literature and cinema is pervasive. Rajinikanth, Amitabh Bachchan, Kamal Hassan and James Bond are some examples. Look at the movie Matrix and see how it is following the steps of the Hero Myth. Watch the Rajinikanth movie Shivaji to see the pattern of the Hero Myth. The fact that most of the popular movies are made in the same formula and pattern shows the power of this archetype deep within each one of us.

How could we then use the power of this universal myth to awaken the Hero, the leader within us? When we take a closer look at different stages of the Hero Myth, we could plot ourselves at various places of the journey. Remember the first stage is the routine, boring, mundane life and the next is a call to do something different, bigger where you will have to stretch and fight the unknown. Are you here, in this stage now? What is stopping you from starting the journey? What happens to individuals before they cross their Rubicon? Are you on a stage where you are fighting challenges and obstacles? What are the resources and mental states that would allow you to cope with this stage of constant challenge? What would be some of the unconscious fears that you need to tackle at this stage?

By being aware of the journey and the steps, we could look for resources and support that we need to move step by step in our leadership and transformational journey. At certain stage we need a wise man to tell us what to do and at another stage we need to fight our inner fear.

In a nutshell the universal Hero Myth is all about ordinary people doing extraordinary things and becoming transformational leaders. Each one of us could use this model, pattern and design to create our leadership journey.

Santhosh Babu heads OD Alternatives focusing on transformations related projects, leadership development and CEO coaching.

You are a ladder for others when you ‘enable’, ‘let go’ and ‘give permission to fail’. Being a ladder is all about seeing people grow without any insecurity. It is the ability to see the inner potential of a person, trigger it, nurture it and facilitate enhancement.

In this fast moving world, we have no patience to experiment. When a person does not deliver, the easiest solution is to change him. True leaders have a different take on that.

Enablement

Look at the ancient gurus. All of them created discomfort zones for their disciples, frustrated them, chided them, but groomed them. That is what we call coaching or mentoring today. The gurus themselves were sometimes not as great as the disciples but that did not bother them at all. They were happy being ladders for the disciples to climb.

In the leadership lessons of today, the end justifies the means. No wonder more CEOs lost their jobs in the last one decade than the cumulative exit of non-performing CEOs in the last one century. The reason their salaries were pegged to the share market did not work always.

Since these CEOs had hefty severance pays and sign-off bonuses, it did not matter to them. Nor did it provide the right leadership to the organization they led.

As things are, leaders’ growth is always linked to top line and bottom line growth and hardly ever to their people’s growth. So whenever a so-called leader quits, there is an exodus of executives. The history repeats itself with the next leader’s exit.

It is important that the growth of every CEO and his direct reports must be made dependent to the extent of 40% for laddering their juniors with effective enablement.

JRD Tata once addressed a team of young professionals at Titan Watches in the late eighties. He did not talk to us about great fundamentals of managerial effectiveness but simple things like “How to use a stapler?” The message was clear and loud. It is all about perfectibility no matter what the task is!

Brand obsession

We have become victims of branding. No wonder people from the best branded institutes command the highest salaries. But the best brands have not yet produced any Bill Gates, a JRD or a Narayanmurthy.

The upbringing of these leaders, their family values and their discomforts made them what they became and not the branded educational institutions. They built successful empires that resulted in scaling by, large employability, economic growth, community wealth and societal prosperity. It is a different matter that they too push their own children to the assembly line of branded institutes.

Let us trigger our originality. Let us not be fooled by the crowd behavior and force our children to sit for entrance tests of these branded institutes. Who our children are is more important than the branding that these institutes will provide.

Laddering

I have had the pleasure to interview some unbelievable leaders who not only had laddered their employees but created wealth for their neighborhoods, for their country and for the society at large even though their beginnings were extremely humble.

The chairman of Suguna Poultry that runs a 500-million US dollar empire is a school dropout and once worked as a porter at Bangalore railway station. As early as the 1980′s he contemplated business process outsourcing and created 45000 women entrepreneurs ‚Äì which no global leader with the best of branded education has ever done.

It was a win-win. He laddered others and became a leader in the best sense of the world. Laddering others is what leadership is about.

When I asked a class to talk about someone they considered a great leader, all of them identified leaders in history, or famous business personalities. Names like Gandhi, Trudeau, and Trump were mentioned. Then they asked me whom I considered a leader.

I said my grandfather was a great leader. In North America, hardly anyone knows my grandfather. But he was a visionary, and he didn’t brag about it. Decades after his passing, we’re discovering how much he’s contributed to the town he grew up in.

Actually, I told them, anyone could be a leader. The organizer of a non-profit organization, a school principal, a small business owner, and even your own mother, can be a leader. You see, it does not matter how famous a person gets, or how high up an organization a person climbs. It is about how the person influences the people around him/her in a positive and uplifting way to expand their awareness about themselves and life as a whole.

So-called leaders like Donald Trump and Lee Iaccoca are always talking about themselves. “See what I’ve done. I’m a great leader.” If they make mistakes, they blame someone else or the environment.

The real leaders don’t even identify themselves as such. They just do what they think makes a difference. They apologize for mistakes they make – they are accountable. They don’t take credit; they pass it on to the people who helped. They don’t call themselves great leaders. Someone else will along the way. Perhaps most importantly, they always choose service over self-interest; they always put others first. My wish is to find and recognize the leaders in our midst.

There were the usual nods of recognition around the table then our friend indicated the woman sitting on her own at the head of the table. It was obvious that this was an office party and the woman sitting on her own was the manager, even before our friend introduced her. Our friend said that she was the office manager, and the rest of the girls were the team who worked with her. The way they had arranged themselves around the table spoke volumes for their work relationships.

The manager sat at the head of the table, obviously because she was under the impression that she was the most important person there and therefore should have the most important seat, even at a social gathering. Our friend was the supervisor, second in command in the office, and therefore had to sit near her boss to show support, but even then she placed her husband between her and the boss so that she was not sitting too close but, as the supervisor, she was still the closest. All the rest of the girls were huddled together at the other end of the table, not a great distance away but far enough to make an obvious gap between them and us.

The manager, appraised of the content of the book turned her hubris up to maximum, demanding to know what right did I have to write books about management when clearly, as a practising manager, she was the expert. The easy answer would have been to explain how dysfunctional her social gathering really was, how that dysfunction was probably a direct result of the way that she managed her team and the relationships that she created at work. Fortunately before that thought had even begun to speculate about the possibility of crossing my mind she gathered her self up and delivered her management philosophy: They think I am a bitch, but that is my job!

I was absolutely gobsmacked.

Here was a manager who, I think not unusually, believed that the job of a manager was to be a bitch to the workforce. It was clear that there was going to be no conversation about how well she thought she was doing as a manager or any expression of desire to become more effective. She was proud to be acknowledged as a bitch and clearly thought that she was doing pretty well at it.

Looking at the cowed fearful expressions of the people she managed I could only agree that she probably was. This was a completely prehistoric management monster who was fully aware of what she was but had built her defences so high that there was no possibility that what she was doing as a manager, or why she was doing it, could be questioned.
She had set herself up as the bitch in the office and saw that as a valid management strategy, to behave like a bitch to frighten her staff into working.

She had not the faintest desire or curiosity to try to figure out if there was a way that she could allow her team to be more effective and therefore impress her own boss with how effective she was as a manager. Worst of all it was probably not even her fault. The ordinary person who spends a large part of their working life on the end of oppressive management practice, when eventually elevated to the position of manager, has no other model of management to copy other than the one that she experienced as a member of the workforce.

Her behaviour as a manager mimics that of the managers that she hated while she was being “Managed” and it is this same behaviour that she will then pass on to the people who will replace her, because they too will have no other behavioural model to work from when they become managers. We seem to be doomed, by our own example, to show each new generation of the workforce the same model of how not to manage people.

To break this destructive cycle of learned oppressive management behaviour we have to find another model. A good place to start might be to Google “Theory Y”.

This other model does exist and has been around for an awfully long time.

1. Strategy and Planning: Strategy is derived from the objectives of a company. Planning is required to implement the strategy. All three of these need to be done effectively. A gap in any of the three will be problematic. A study of the external environment is required and this must include political, social, economical, technological and legal frameworks and institutions. Know yourself, know your competitor and know your customer, and you have won the battle of the market.

2. Surprise: This is the most important element of the attack. Blitzkrieg (German) meaning ‘attack with lightening speed.’ Catch the competitor napping. This will result in them taking knee-jerk reactions. It will compound their problems which are to your advantage. For example, sudden price changes (could be increase or decrease in price), a technological breakthrough or radical cost cutting through a BPR effort.

3. Innovation: The best form of surprise is innovation. Product innovation doesn’t give the competition time to react. It also gives you a first-mover advantage too.

4. Sustainability: Attack prepared for a sustained assault. The competitor is expected to fight back. Thus be prepared for a long drawn battle. Test the patience of the competition. Eventually they will give up protecting their other strong areas or even stop the fight to save money for R&D.

5. Flexibility: Keep a tab on your sales numbers, competitors’ sales numbers, and consumer behaviour. Accordingly change your tactics.

6. Confusion: Keep the competitor guessing on the parameter you are competing. Is it the product, or price or the distribution channel?

7. Competitor behaviour: Predicting the type of reactions the competitor will have to your moves, as it happens in chess. This will keep you one step ahead of competition.

8. Retreat: When you go for an all-out assault, make sure that you back is safe. The enemy should not have a chance to encircle you from behind. This is also necessary in the eventuality that the competitor has gauged you properly and your assault is going to be thwarted. So rather than continuing, it’s better to back-off and live to fight another day. Take the product back from the market or reverse the decision with regards to price.

Being productive is about achieving our goals while making optimal use of the resources at our disposal. However, being productive may not be enough in today’s world! In fact, it is not good enough! Instead, we have to be creatively productive to succeed now! In the corporate world the term, ‘innovation’ is preferred to ‘creativity’ but in practical terms, the end result is the same. Innovation implies action and plans that work. Creativity implies lateral thinking and new ideas but those striving for success will concur that without ideas there is nothing to innovate so let us interlock both terms for our discussion. This will help us to be ahead of the game!

Let us consider the basics of my simple success equation.

Being Creatively Productive = Thinking out of the box + Working smart

Here are four tips on how we can be creatively productive at work:

Remember Change Is Always Happening.

Be aware and constantly watch out for changes in our environment. We must keep focused what our competitors, suppliers and customers are doing and be psychologically ready to embrace innovation by adopting and adapting new technologies to work smarter. The only constant in today’s world is change so mental flexibility in mandatory. Innovations might be resisted for several reasons including cost and a fear of big changes so be ready to consider several options when drawing up your proposal.

Resist The Urge To Be Complacent.

Be resilient and go the extra mile in what ever we do. We must be committed to making the extra effort to satisfy our clients and close the deal. We must resist the urge to expect one successful paradigm to be applicable to all situations. Research and document everything you can find that pertains to your client’s business which may not be included in your brief. Be ready to create uniquely customized solutions that will serve them in the short and medium term. Take time to consider a few unconventional solutions and keep them on file for future reference.

Be Ready To Play Different Roles.

Having a keen eye for continuous improvement by focusing on how we can incrementally enhance our processes and systems. One method is to listen closely to complaints and observations being made by colleagues in the workplace. While some feedback may just be useless whining, some may contain valuable insights about general perceptions and performance shortcomings that you may be overlooking.

A good source of inspiration and information is the blogosphere where many great minds and professionals go to vent and share ideas.

The hallmark of creative/innovative people is their mental flexibility. Sometimes they are open and receptive, at other times they’re playful and on occasion they can be critical. But one constant is that they’re all determined and persistent in striving to reach their goals. From this we may conclude that the creative process will demand that we play different roles within the workplace which are not described in any manual on business management.

Keep Looking In The Mirror.

Keep track of your failures and successes by using an effective performance management system to give focus and feedback. Be certain to set out clear objectives, ideally with quantifiable performance targets. Without continuous and honest evaluation, we will not be able to recognize our strengths and weaknesses and won’t be inspired to realize our enormous reserves of untapped creative potential.

I believe that these tips can lead to extraordinary achievements when coupled with the right mindset. And what is the right mindset? A willingness to express your creativity, a passionate determination to succeed and a positive outlook for now and the future.

The effects of the failure can be observed, for example, on organization, processes, product or service, finances, marketing and sales.

The causes can be related to strategic planning, implementation, management, control, human resources, absence of competitive intelligence and external factors like market dynamics or government regulations.

If we are talking about new ventures or small enterprises with less than two years, the most common reason for failure is related with financial problems. The most common cause of the financial problems is related with managerial faults and a weak strategic planning.

Managerial faults can be rooted in poor organizational control, follow-up, course corrections, the wrong people in the wrong place, underestimation of the target market, unrealistic cost estimation and so on.

A weak strategic planning, or inside the drawer, is one of the key factors contributing to business failure. A strategic plan is a dynamic document. As the enterprise evolves, so does the market. The defined strategy must be updated and in the course of time, corrections must be made to keep the boat on the right course with the right velocity.

Talking in a global context, each cause has its origins in the business environment, the global region and the profile of the entrepreneur.

But all problems usually start with managerial faults and bad planning.

Also, small entrepreneurs usually have a small cash flow, which makes o a “second chance” almost impossible. If a large enterprise makes a wrong investment and fails, it is only a bad investment and shareholders (or the government) will pay the bill. Small entrepreneurs do not have that chance.

Now, if we are talking about well established enterprises and large companies, usually the problem starts with managerial incompetence and expands to financial problems.

Well established enterprises need to have a continuous process of reinventing themselves. They should follow the procedures of learning organizations – always learning and upgrading. They must be in line with market trends, new products, new demands and they must control costs, prices and margins. They must also have an effective process called competitive intelligence.

We are in the ‘Knowledge Era’ and in a globalized world, so the horizon of business changed radically in the last two decades. Companies that do not follow this trend, complacent in the old market share already achieved, will be vanquished by new entrants, new products and new ways of doing business.

Similar thought should be used by new entrepreneurs. They should explore the new technologies, the internet, social networks, blogs, chats, and so on. New entrepreneurs need to create competitive advantages with these new technologies to enter and enlarge their market and exposition. There are plenty of tools at a low cost or even free of charge, already available on the web.

In summing up, be sure to develop a consistent strategic plan, take care of day-to-day operations with continuous follow-up and control. Take time to carefully chose the right people for the right positions. Work closely with your collaborators; hear and understand their feelings, needs and aims. Watch the competitors. Keep close to your clients and be sensitive to their feedbacks and needs. Remember – fortune favours the bold.

The coming months can be decision making times for senior leadership of Indian organisations. Decisions that are vital to the health of their organisations and employees. These decisions then need to be communicated and the entire organisation needs to be aligned with the new decisions. When it comes to taking tough decisions, asking important and difficult questions and taking a stand, most leaders still follow a traditional command and control path, which creates tremendous resistance, tension and uncertainty across the whole organisation in times of change.

Most of the decision making happens at the executive level. Command and control system assumes that the leader has all answers and all he needs is a bunch of people who could execute what he knows. At times like this when the problems are chaotic and complex, depending on the wisdom of the leader or the top team alone is foolish. How could then leaders involve the entire organisations in times of complexities and navigate through ambiguities? The answer is to effectively use the whole system intelligence. This way the leadership team can involve and engage the whole system in the process so that they do not have to later communicate and align everyone to a change agenda.

So the leadership team’s challenge now is in engaging the whole system and tapping into the whole system intelligence for actions that would help the organisation cope with the present crisis. One way of doing this is to use whole system approaches to planning and implementing change and what have come to be known as large group methods.

All organisations and communities are strongly influenced by factors and events that lie outside their boundaries. A shared understanding of these environmental influences – in the past and the present – has been an important aspect of popular large group interventions.

Large group intervention designs that allow people up to thousands to come together to co-create the destiny is what organisations would be using instead of boardroom decision making that then needs to percolate down. Command and control based management practices feel insecure to use the whole system and leaders feel others will not agree to the idea. But the fact is if leaders can involve all stakeholders, tap into the whole system intelligence, the system would be able to see the problem in a holistic way and take decisions that would have an agreement from all.

So, the need of hour for leaders is to create large group intervention platforms where a significant number of people in the organisation can come together to take effective decisions that affect their lives and organisations’ future. Tapping into the whole system intelligence, gives voice to greater numbers of stakeholders, promotes whole system organisational learning, produces faster and more sustainable change, generates higher levels of commitment from organisation members, and achieves business results.

Another common sentence is that you are born a leader, that it is a natural gift.

In some aspects it is. But, there are some attitudes that can be acquired to change that perception.

A born leader – or so called – is an individual with charisma. He has a natural empathy with people and can convince them to do what he wants. He has a global vision of situations and quick answers to the problems. He keeps himself cool when the world is exploding around him. He remembers names and profiles of anyone around him. He is a multi-task professional. He can control different areas of business and even different businesses. He is a natural negotiator, internally and externally, on business environment. He manages people naturally. He evaluates, knows how to choose and attracts the best professionals to work with him. He is a visionary. He is a reference to the novice and also to the professional savvy, and so on.

Wow! Seems an endless list to accomplish!

Actually, those skills can and should be achieved by anyone that aims to have a senior position, to manage any organization, team or group.

First of all, you should make a self-evaluation to know if you want or not to be a leader and have more responsibilities and to dedicate energy to achieve that goal. It is not an easy path, often shifting from success to failure and from failure to success very quickly, and many times it is a lonely path.

Be careful with promises like “10 step to become a leader”. There is no magic, or recipe or formula to transform you into a leader. To be recognized as one it takes a long path and a natural evolution.

But you can prepare your self to, when comes the opportunity, be ready to assume the responsibility.

Below you can find some suggestions to prepare your journey:

To lead you need to have followers, though first thing is to know how to deal with people. Improve your people management skills, have at least three different references or methodologies and techniques to achieve it. Read some books and take some courses, short-time courses with highly recommended or recognized professionals, not the first one that you discover on the web. People management is easy to teach, difficult to practice. You will be dealing with feelings, empathy, motivation, egos, power disputes, accommodations, fears of changes, and so on. Nowadays, also, cultural aspects are fundamental, we live in a globalized economy and connected world, and awareness of different cultures is essential.

You need to know how to make presentations and to speak in public. Related to speech and presentation is also the ability to conduct, control and start and finish productive meetings.

Negotiation is another basic skill. You negotiate internally in your organisation and also with business partners. You negotiate almost every day in many situations and in many places.

Be a strategist. Scenarios development, evaluation of situations and figures, and decisions based on truly reliable information will be a daily activity. Improve your strategy skills. Read Sun Tzu, Mintzberg, Prahalad, Porter, and so on.

Prioritize your activities, organise your agenda and have always a daily moment to new insights and to assess trends. It is important to stop and self-evaluate what you are doing and results achieved, and always to search for innovation and to think out-of-the-box.

Benchmarking is another important activity; learn with other leaders, where they had success and where they failed.

Keep up to date about news, political, economical, and cultural, and business related.

Nurture your networking, professionally and personally. Join the winners, your reputation will be, many times, measured by your links. There is a quote that says: tell me who you know and I will tell you who you are.

Balance your life and work. There is a tripod between work, money and family pay attention to all three. If you have one unbalanced area, it will cause stress in all others. Professional success is not every thing in life.

Nowadays, the time of the “smart guy” is surpassed with all the issues that we are seeing globally with this international crisis – social and environmental responsibility and governance.

To finish, don’t rush. Hurry is an enemy of perfection. Again, as already said, leadership is given not taken. You will need to be prepared and with a broad spectrum of skills and experiences. Anything that comes very quickly also goes. So to have a strong and rooted ascent it needs time, perseverance and self-confidence which only well prepared people will be able to achieve.

–

Mario Luis Tavares Ferreira is a seasoned manager and entrepreneur, with a broad technical background, multi-lingual and multi-cultural experienced, co-founded two high tech start-ups, developed business in half dozen countries and is developing a non-profit project to leverage small businesses and start-up development.

Peter created the “Breaking the Mould” process to make his astonishing results available to clients in all industries, public and private, large and small. Once you have understood the simplicity of ‘Breaking the Mould’ – it will transform your life forever! Visit www.breakingthemould.co.uk.

Now the things have changed. The HR professional is required to play a significant role of a strategic collaborator, of a mentor and a counselor, of an employee advocate and most importantly of a change agent. He contributes to the organizational goals, business plans and objectives. He plays an integral role through his knowledge in coaching, counseling and mentoring of employees and executives. 

In my point of view, FOUR Cs are required to be a “lovable or a competent HR professional”.

1. Communication
2. Care for employees
3. Coaching
4. Counseling

Communication
 
Communication is one of the major competencies for an individual to be a lovable HR professional, either from an employee or from a management’s point of view.

The HR professional is required to organize and express the ideas clearly to the right person in an appropriate manner; and using the best and efficient methods to convey the relevant information to the employees or to the management.

The information is at its most useful when it is “accurate, timely, complete and relevant”.  (Rouse and Rouse 2002)

Nowadays expectations of the employees are diverse and sophisticated. They want to understand organization’s goals, business objectives and missions. They want to be fully aware of the company rules and regulations. They want to be a part of the business decisions, policy making and to be involved in moving the business forward and getting ahead of the competitors. Communication is a powerful tool through which an HR person can fulfill their expectations. Poor communication of an HR person can cause a business to fail.

Care for employees

Employees’ positive attitude is critical for the success of the business. Taking care of employees’ personal issues, grievances and problems makes an HR person a lovable HR professional. He must be ready to support his employees, to resolve their workplace conflicts, to foster their motivation level, to provide them with healthy work environment, to evaluate their performances and to endow them with benefit protection.

“When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creature of logic but the creature of emotions.” (Dale Carnegie)

Coaching

Coaching is a job focused and performance oriented process. It helps the employees to establish their personal short term goals and objectives that are congruent with the goals and objectives of the organization.

In this process HR professional plays the role of a catalyst and a facilitator. He educates, guides, trains and supports the employees to connect them with their passions, principles, plans and values to hook them up to their work commitments and to long term organizational goals.

“Coaching is about making everyone feel part of the team, encourage players to cooperate, keeping them informed and taking an interest in their individual performances.” (Birkinshaw and Crainer 2002)
 
Counseling

Counseling is known by many names like “therapy” or “psychoanalysis”. It is a process to help and to counsel the employees to learn how to solve their emotional, interpersonal and behavioral issues.

Every individual cannot be capable enough to manage the stress of his/her life, at home or at the office. Whether he/she is married or unmarried, he/she cannot escape from his/her responsibilities. This situation causes the stress and then the need of HR counseling arises to cope with this stress and to manage other additional issues of his/her life. The HR professional can be helpful for the management and the employees. He can manage the change easily if he counsels his employees effectively. He does it in a friendly manner to help them take charge of their lives. He helps them to overcome their problems at work, to manage the workload and to resolve the workplace issues.

We may conclude that HR professionals who are good communicators, caring about employees, having the ability to coach and counsel their employees are the most lovable HR professionals and are seen as an asset for the companies. A lovable HR professional adds the value to his/her organization being proactive and persuasive.

–

Result-oriented human resource professional with four years of generalist experience in strategic recruitment, employee relations and employee development, Ghazala is a Human Resource Manager. She is a hobbyist writer and poetess since her college days and her work has been published in magazines.

Since the end of last century we are seeing global changes never seen in recent or old history. The iron wall collapsing and the Soviet Union breaking in pieces are unique events in history because never a large empire disappeared so smoothly. Coupled with what we saw in China, moving from communism to capitalism. Never thought!

Now, with the global warming we are also seeing the burning of trillions of dollars!

Without doubt we are in a special moment of humankind.

What can we learn?

First, nothing is for ever.

Second, we need to have a longer vision and prospective scenarios without greed and special interests, and thinking global and acting global or our children will not have a world to live.

Third, the markets need control without any possible doubt even though many “easy money factories and agents” do not agree.

Fourth, remember a basic strategy: Never keep all your eggs in the same basket, referring to the investment of all your reserves in one economy or market.

Fifth, balanced global power (economical, political and military) is fundamental to a democratic world and the mitigation of inequalities.

Sixth, we are in a changing world, nothing is static, no one is the owner of the truth of the right way of doing thinks, team work and uncompromised actions are more than ever necessary to get things on path again.

Seventh, we are on daily basis learning!

Eighth, this is an endless list.

Now, let’s talk about market control and threats, and put on practice the third lesson. I am highlighting this matter because I just read some news of the World Economic Forum, where an executive made a statement that governments should help the market now and then quit because they aren’t efficient market managers.

I am not so sure that the market works as it should do.

To be clearer it does not work!

Despite all theories and free market evangelists. It needs to have strong regulations! As kids need to know their limits when educating them, the greed and unlimited need to create value to the shareholders and bonus to the board need to be controlled.

And the sixth lesson induces us that more than ever we need to work as a team. 

Small and medium businesses (SMB) have, and always had, a special role in regional economies and employment. To accelerate the turnaround of this international crisis, it is a key issue to leverage globalization and entrepreneurship of small businesses and start-ups.

It is the same strategy of the internet beginning with the military application. Do not depend on one spot only. Divide the intelligence on several servers and geographically separated. So, if one spot blows up the net will continue working perfectly.

Making an analogy with small businesses, if we have a network of small entrepreneurs working and trading globally, the effects of local and global crisis will be mitigated in their businesses, because the connections and relationships worldwide will facilitate new opportunities, the research and discovery of new places where the crisis didn’t have large impact or had less effect.

That’s why I endorse and believe in initiatives that leverage entrepreneurship and support small and medium businesses, and the possible impacts of it’s’ success on people’s life.

–

Mario is a seasoned manager and entrepreneur with a broad technical background, coupled with multi-cultural experience and multi-lingual skills, co-founded two high tech start-ups, and now is developing a non-profit project to leverage globally the business development of small entrepreneurs.

This happens almost daily on many of our arterial roads. The traffic authorities rope in a consultant, a problem analyst, who proceeds to study the “problem” from all angles. He then comes up with recommendations along these lines. Pedestrians to be fined for crossing the road, a fine on drivers who cross lanes, posting of policemen at various points in the road etc. Does this solve the problem? No way. The driver, for example, can hardly be blamed for swiftly changing lanes – after all his is only a reflex reaction to the pedestrians crossing the road. Besides there could be even stray animals, or dug up roads that could cause a driver to take evasive action.

It is in such situations that we need what is called a “solutions focus” which does not dwell on analyzing the problem but proceeds to solution finding through other means. In this case the creative approach would be to observe the periods when there is no traffic jam. This ‘no-problem’ situation happens when drivers have enough time and space to react to other road users, by braking or maneuvering without forcing the vehicle behind to take evasive action and precipitating a jam. This happens when the roads are quiet or when traffic is moving slower and drivers have more time to react. The solution to the problem is to bring in lower speed limits at busy times which paradoxically allows more traffic along the road than faster speed limits!

Traditionally executives are trained to solve problems by analyzing the problem – identifying the root cause and then proceeding to eliminate the root cause – much like the way a doctor diagnosis the disease of a patient. This approach – called the reductionist approach – is necessary and works quite well in many matters. Thus if a computer is down it makes sense to ascertain why it is not working and having identified the source of the problem we could then repair or replace a part for example and thus solve the problem.

However it does not quite work efficiently when we deal with systems, especially involving human beings.

If we are to approach a problem involving people, typically such an analytical approach to problem solving would mean that we would talk to the people and

• Get them to tell us more about the problem
• Say what they feel is causing it
• Identify who is responsible
• Initiate steps to solve the problem

The analysis along these lines takes the form of an inquisition, a commission of enquiry and ends up in blame fixing – counterproductive at the best of times.

The tacit assumption about such an approach is that if we knew more about the problem we would be better placed to fix it. My suggestion is exactly the opposite – if we know more about where it is going wrong we shall know more about what is going wrong, period. What is critical is to know more about what is going right. The more you talk about problems the more difficult the issue becomes, leading to the well known phenomenon of “analysis paralysis”. A new and creative approach to problem solution is to adopt a solutions focus rather than a problem focus.

I was approached by a bank manager to help him solve the problem of customers closing their accounts in his branch. He showed me a questionnaire based study across one hundred people who had closed their accounts and sought my advice on how to initiate action to stop the flight of business. I told him that the uncreative mind can spot wrong answers but it takes a creative mind to spot the wrong questions. I talked about the futility of studying the problem and advised him to conduct a study on what was it that the existing customers found satisfying in the branch that made them continue banking with him despite several options available. This study revealed several strengths in the branch. Building on these strengths was the strategy I recommended and to the amazement of the bank, business actually grew significantly! The existing customers marketed the bank on behalf of the branch staff! The moral of the story – identify what works and do more of it.

A school headmaster approached me with a problem – he tried his best but failed to get parents and teachers together to from an association. I studied the issue and found that the ‘problem’ was the headmaster himself. Parents perceived him to be a person who communicated very well with children but could not do so with adults. Clearly the communications skills of the headmaster were the ‘problem’, the ‘underlying cause’, and the solution lay in training him in that skill. I adopted the ‘solutions focus’ approach and sidestepped the problem. I advised the PT master to informally involve the parents in the conduct of the annual sports meet. The music teacher was roped in to involve parents in holding a cultural event. In two months a parent-teacher association came innocuously into existence! The moral of the story – sidestep the search for causes of problems and head straight to the solution.

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K.R. Ravi is South Asia’s first Dr.Edward De Bono certified public trainer in lateral thinking, and a pioneer in spreading lateral thinking in the Indian corporate sector. For more details, visit http://www.krravi.com or contact him at createravi@hotmail.com.

When we get out of people’s way, they have the space to grow. When we stop thinking for them, they start to think for themselves. And when we stop telling them what our solutions are, they come up with the best solutions of all.

1. Gentle Leadership. Like it or not, the group will turn to the group leader at critical moments in the life of a group…
• to exert authority (especially if someone challenges the agreed rules)
• to be a model of legitimate and compassionate authority
• to be the expert
• to inform
• to adjudicate
• to empower
• to reward
• to provide feedback.

The group leader does not respond to the need for leadership by wresting control back from the group, but rather uses the skills of gentle leadership to help them lead themselves.

“The true leader is always led.” (Carl Jung)

2. Gentle Interventions. Gentle leadership comes from gentle interventions: a gentle frown; a gentle look; a gentle smile; a gentle touch; a gentle nudge; a gentle few words; gentle persuasion.

Other techniques of gentle persuasion are:

• suggesting options but without forcing the group to choose
• posing questions to make people think
• pointing out possible consequences
• making a point indirectly through stories, anecdotes, myth and legends, the way gentle leaders throughout history have always conveyed their message.

“Gentle interventions, if they are clear, overcome rigid resistance. If gentleness fails, try yielding or stepping back altogether. When the leader yields, resistance fails.” (John Heider)

3. 3D Leaders. The 3-D leader is the leader who can lead a group from any of the following three positions:
• out in front of the group
• in amongst the group
• at the back of the group.

The 3-D leader is like the mountain guide who knows when to tell the group to “Follow me!”, when to mix in amongst them to gain their confidence; and when to let everyone climb a cliff first so that he can check their progress and safety from below.

The distinctive mark of the 3-D leader is care; and from caring comes the courage to try bold things.

4. Charisma. Charisma is a quality that belongs to the art of gentle leadership. It enables you to influence others simply by your presence and attentiveness.

One of the most charismatic people ever to have lived was President John F. Kennedy. It was said that when you spoke to Kennedy, you were made to feel that nothing else in the world mattered to him at that moment than you, your thoughts and feelings. That’s the effect of charisma.

The word “charisma” comes from the “Charities” or Graces of Greek mythology. These were three goddesses, Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia, who were reputed to have given humour, graciousness and good manners to mankind.

5. Class. The gentle leader has no need to prove himself or herself to the group. When interventions are made, they are as a last resort; when skills are used, they are always understated.

“One thing that all of us must understand, whether it is in selling, business or in our relationships with others, is not to come on too strong. Many of us tend to do this. We get so excited that our enthusiasm outruns the content of our message. That is, the harder you try, the more doubt you imply to the listener.

There is a phrase that covers this. The object is to be so strong, so powerful, that you can afford to be gentle. As change occurs, as your growth happens from inside, you will become more powerful, more confident. So you can become gentle, at ease and real. Which is another way of saying you will have class.” (Louis Tice)

6. The Leader as Catalyst. A catalyst is a substance that merely by its presence, causes change in other substances.

The group facilitator acts as catalyst when he or she shows the group genuine understanding, offers them recognition, helps them to make sense of their problems and encourages them to be all they can be.

• at the feeling level, she is wooer, charmer, and empathizer
• at the thinking level, he is interpreter, questioner and stimulator
• at the valuing level, she is champion, enabler and nurturer.

None of these roles are played up front as if to say: “Look at me”. They are always applied with a light and gentle touch.

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Eric Garner is Managing Director of ManageTrainLearn, the site that will change the way you learn forever. Download free samples of the biggest range of management and personal development materials anywhere and experience learning like you always dreamed it could be. Just click on <a href=”http://www.managetrainlearn.com”>ManageTrainLearn</a> and explore.

The most important driving force of any successful and contended individual is his or her ‘vision statement’. And this statement can be made by the person at any point in life, by thinking and writing down what he/she thinks are important and priorities to life…on the personal front, family, work, friends and so on. On giving the values and priorities a considered thought, they shall be written down in the form of a ‘personal vision statement’ or ‘credo’.

Once this is done, this will be the beacon that will guide each and every action of the owner of the ‘vision statement’.

The time spent on making a ‘vision statement’ for yourself, will be worth more than its weight, not in gold, but the most expensive metal in the world. Just think of the fact that at every point and step in any facet of your life, you will be subconsciously guided by your ‘vision statement’ of which you and only YOU were the author.

Let me give a simple example of my own case. About a couple of years ago, on reading extensively about the value of personal written vision statements, I just spent about a day thinking of what my priorities in life would be, and what value systems would guide me on-course. Concluding the thought process, this was the ‘vision statement’ written down.

“…will be a successful man who will nurture his family with love and affection, provide them a better and comfortable future. He will embark on any step that will directly or indirectly contribute to this mission. He will live life with integrity, full of smiles, and radiate the same wherever and however he is. His career will be full of creative contribution to the positions he shall hold. He will become famous for his writings.”

Once I wrote this, and kept a few copies of it with me, I went through it time and again, probably for a few months. In hindsight, I can state emphatically that I have been guided by this ‘vision statement’ in all my deeds – be it at home, at the workplace, or anywhere and anything done, for that matter.

Think of what you want to do, what you want to accomplish, what will be your guiding values in each of your actions and steps…. And put down this, in the form of a concise vision statement.  This ‘vision statement’ can change and evolve, and be written and re-written time and again, by introspection.

Write your vision statement NOW. And see success and accomplishment in all you do…success and accomplishment as defined and set forth by you. Because that is what is your command to your mind, body and soul to act on consistently.

So today, and just now, please sit down and think of what should be your vision statement. Consult your parents, your spouse and kids if need be and make sure that you have a written vision statement before you retire for the day.

Make a few copies of your ‘vision’ statement, and leave it in places which you will see it often, may be 2 to 3 times a day. Carry a copy of that in your wallet. Make a public commitment – be it to your spouse, friends, and confidante about your vision.

The result of this easy and simple exercise will be there to see for the rest your life…and you/your family shall soak in nothing but accomplishments, happiness, satisfaction, success.

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Muralidharan is an HR practitioner and a recruitment professional. A strong believer in spreading cheer and positivity, Murali currently works out of Chennai and is a voracious reader and a prolific writer.

The challenges thrown at the entrepreneur are merely tests to ascertain the level to which s/he is capable of understanding his/her business: “Do your homework.”
If it’s a partnership you’re involved in, the VC needs to know if you can gel. The VC needs two areas covered in such a situation – “someone who can build and someone who can sell.”
On the flipside, the entrepreneur needs a number of things of his/her VC. Number one on an entrepreneur’s list of priorities is chemistry. The question must be asked: “Is this someone you can disagree with.” The VC must be the first person you are willing and able to call when you are struggling with a problem. You must be able to ask of the VC if future rounds of financing are safe. Are your operating values soon going to be seen by the VC as operating problems?  These and many other questions relating to compatibility or chemistry must first be answered before jumping to conclusions about how the relationship is going to work.
Secondly, what do you need? The stage in which your enterprise is in and the ability of the VC to understand future variations in revenues depending on the timeline of the business are vital.
There was plenty of debate regarding valuation and liquidation references, but the simple core of their advice was this:  create demand for the product, get people excited in it and you are in the driver’s seat, with the VC riding shotgun.
Of course businesses have different gestation periods depending on the models they use, but as long as you have found a VC who understands the machinations of the industry, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Questions were soon raised about the general fear of ideas being stolen. The panel was quick to retort that the only way to protect an idea is to run with it. Ideas are meaningless without execution. The cost of making and executing the idea must be less than what the customer is willing to pay. And naturally the scalability of the idea depends on the market for it.

Some VCs saw the coming year in an optimistic light drawing attention to the fact that this downturn will result in a lot of experimentation with new business models and constant innovation.
Essentially however the tone was Darwinian at best. “The bar is being raised”, “Survival of the fittest” and other such phrases were designed to assure entrepreneurs that funding would be available to those who adapted to changing situations.

Chairing the special panel discussion titled ‘From Adversity to Advantage: Opportunities for Growth & Investment’, Sonjoy Chatterjee, Executive Director, ICICI Bank suggested that the entrepreneurial ecosystem in India was finding sustenance despite the economic downturns. Atul Punj mentioned that this could also be opportunities for companies to make good acquisitions/investments as the price point of some of the companies would provide attractive upsides in the times to come. Hari Bhartia on the contrary mentioned that cash is king and companies must be conservative in spending cash and use Lean and Six Sigma techniques for process improvements.

In a session titled, “Are you ready for venture capital”, a star panel with varying expertise addressed issues relating both to the availability of capital and whether or not acquisition of that capital is a good idea.
Sudhir Sethi of IMD-IDG ventures that deals primarily with early stage enterprises, spoke about the question being how to expect the funding market to change. Sudhir Sethi is Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of IDG Ventures India, a US$150 million early-stage technology venture capital fund backed by IDG, the world’s largest IT-focused media company. He founded IDG Ventures in 2006 after 26 years in the technology and venture industry.

He classified this impact of uncertain capital markets under the following:

Fund-raising and general partner/team quality

Limited partners, he said, would become very selective as regards the quality of teams they bet on. Few general partners in India, he believes, possess a “full cycle GP experience of deal flow generation, investment, monitoring, exits, and fund raising”. In effect, first-time funds with teams that do not have much chemistry will hit road blocks raising capital. On the other hand, second time funds with a well-planned investment strategy and a “full cycle venture experience”, will find it easier (in terms of adaptability to the market) to gain funds.

Deal flow

Panellists expected a slowdown in deal flow. Start-up venture funding saw a decline, as the number of newer start-ups fell. There appears to be a slowdown in entrepreneurial movement from corporate to start-ups. Expectations abound, in an optimistic VC atmosphere, for the quality of deals to grow.
Tier-two cities such as Pune, Coimbatore & Mysore may also see a piece of  the action in terms of deal flow.

Valuations

Sethi also mentioned having seen falling valuations in deals with early stage ventures. This trend will probably continue.

Exits

Dependence on IPOs will continue to fall as companies are being constructed increasingly to exit by acquisition. Founding teams may be pushed to build significantly tech differentiated models so as to harness greater valuations at exit.

Co-investments

Yet another impact of unstable capital markets discussed at the summit was the increase in co-investments. Sethi quoted the example of his own IMD-IDG ventures where out of 7 investments, 4 are together with co-investors.

–

Some challenges that the industry may face in the near future were addressed. The Venture industry will be seen in the next 4 years to be one where opportunity management is vital.

The industry is however currently strong and flexible enough to support more funds. This was evidenced by fact that IMD-IDG met numerous limited partners who communicated the intention for IMD to continue to focus on venture investments. The difference between first time and second time funds in the near future would be the latter’s ability to raise funds easier and faster.
There appears also to be a healthy trend in terms of greater numbers of disruptive product ventures.
Another big challenge however is that of maintaining the teams they have gathered while private equity firms are cropping up.

Venture funds will face a challenge of retaining their teams with more private
equity funds being formed.

Clearly, there is much to be considered in the coming year. Funding will be scarcer than ever and survival of the fittest will function in its bluntest form.
That is not to say that VCs are now a completely excluding mechanism. If you’ve got the idea, the passion and the vision, coupled with effective execution, funding should not be a problem.

A grand event at the Hotel Lalit Ashok in Bangalore, the TiE Summit brought together leaders in business and budding men and women entrepreneurs eager to switch cards with the big guns.
The speakers covered numerous topics bringing forward solid, practical advice to all present.
Basic questions were asked leading to much discussion that revealed to a great extent, the bare fundamentals of business, and the secrets to success in the field.
Speakers were flown in from all over the corporate world to share their insights with an enthusiastic congregation.

Most points were however prefaced by the doom & gloom of the world economy.
Although there was some talk about this not being the “ideal” time to enterprise, this was quickly followed up by a core fundamental: If you’ve got a great idea, great enthusiasm and great persistence, the struggle for funding will be insignificant.

Innovation was a topic of much discussion. Martin Kleem, the keynote speaker of the second day of the summit, gave his path to innovative success. He introduced the one greatest source of invention as the violation of “Unquestioned Mindsets”. The unquestioned mindsets of the accounting software industry in 1991 were that more features were always better than fewer and that double entry accounting (credits and debits) was the sole supreme market need.
Quickbooks, Scott Cook’s  product had half the features of its competitors, was twice the price, was an unknown brand, had bugs in the software and within 1 month of its launch had 70% of market share.
This shocking success was a result of a change in mindset or rather a challenge to the established mindset.
As Prof. Theresa Amabile put it, “Entrepreneurship is finding and seizing opportunities that others miss.”
Quickbooks saw a large untapped opportunity in marketing simple uncomplicated accounting software. They noticed that many small businesses functioned much like a family where one of the partners took care of the finances without any real accounting qualifications. They needed a simple mechanism to maintain accounts.

How did Scott Cook notice this market and keep it? He “went there and saw”. Scott and his team went to the offices of local businesses, met with the “accountants” to figure out what they were missing. He solved “big customer problems”. And the “delight” that it brought customers was Quicbook’s marketing.

Operating values were a major theme at the summit that almost every speaker addressed. It starts with the employees. Give them a great place to work. They are the driving force of business, the one factor you can count on to give you more, if you give them more. Then come the customers. Give them better ways to live, making life simpler. Both these operating values need a quality that many expounded on: Empathy.
An old Indian proverb was quoted: “Empathy is not just about walking in someone else’s shoes. First you must remove your own.”
The key to being an entrepreneur is the ability to adapt. This was intricately tied in with empathy. The skill to change
Another key operating value that was noted by Mr. Raj Jaswa, President TiE Silicon Valley, was the fact that as an entrepreneur you can write your own rules. You don’t need to follow any rules, not even the values that seemed to have worked for these entrepreneurs. Only when you develop your own values will success follow, says Mr. Jaswa. Mr.Jaswa also recommends that budding entrepreneurs or those who are planning to upscale their businesses must first position themselves in such a manner as to first scale themselves and their skills up to size.
Top class management material available online was suggested. For example, the Million Dollar Club of Insurance Salespeople is said to be chock full of valuable information available online. Remember says Mr. Jaswa, “The company grows after you do.”
K. Ganesh, IIM graduate who founded and heads TutorVista spoke about his own operating values as well. The most inspiring story I heard at the summit as far as garnering venture capital is concerned was Mr.Ganesh’s value creation from $500,000 to $65 Million with no venture capital.
He prescribed a few questions that must be asked before starting to enterprise –
1.    To start or not to start – ask yourself “Why do it at all?”
2.    External capital or bootstrapping
Base this decision on
•    Capital needed to break even
•    Your own risk appetite
•    Non-financial benefits of VC Capital specific to your sector
3.    Profitability vs. scalability
4.    Built to last vs. built to flip
5.    Identify/ealuate greenfield opportunities

Innovation is key, says Mr.Ganesh. Be a pioneer and look for opportunities for a scalable business. Do not try and have a head on conflict with the big players.  His golden advice: Be prepared. Plan for every event.

Will Basil, CEO and founder of FabIndia spoke about the importance of the team.
He expounded on the theory of the “third dimension” in decision making.
“Future business books will be written about the third dimension”, he said.
When building a team, Basil says, it is important to include people with diametrically opposite means of thinking. When this happens and a conflict is seen between the two dimensions, a third dimension, one of a combination of ideas, arises. Again the primary operating value of FabIndia was, “Never bullshit the customer because sooner or later, you know, they can smell the bullshit”.

The retail sector was also a topic of much discussion. The sector was said to be young and the media was blamed for creating a perceptive lull in consumer spending. Mr. Arvind Singhal, Chairman Technopark Advisers, was clear about his thoughts stating that there was “no indication”, that consumer spending had fallen or that consumption was stressed. In absolute terms, he said, consumption would grow at 15%.
The main takeaway from this session was this: A retailer at this stage must not compromise on spending on the customer, because when we come out of this “perceptive” slump, you will have a large and loyal market share. While your competitors were cutting costs with the customer, you stood your ground.
Another important point for retailers – short-circuit the supply chain because cutting supply chain costs reduces the risk of losing customers.
A counterpoint to this suggestion was the fact that this required investment and that this is not necessarily economical at this point in time. It was argued that it would be easier to bring in discipline.
During the growth phase that we enjoyed, retail became prosperous and in effect inefficient. It “gathered flab”. In that regard, the slowdown was well-timed for this sector. There also appears to be a lot of opportunity at the lower end of the retail market with new formats, models, systems and markets.
In conclusion, do not make changes in consumer propositions – keep with it. Do not short-change the customer.

The BPO sector was another topic of great focus. After a barrage of statistics, Mr. Raman Roy concluded that there was still a massive market to be outsourced in the form of companies that were beyond Fortune 1000. Small & medium enterprises represent a large chunk of business that can be outsourced. He called it, “Moving away from dozens of companies worth millions to millions of companies worth dozens.”
Where is the industry? We are still growing at 7% which is a tremendous figure given the state of Europe and the US. Our industry is deep in terms of the number of companies. And our industry is tremendously flexible having gone through numerous downturns in the past and having come out much stronger.
We will see an experimentation with new business models and constant innovation as the industry manoeuvres itself into a revival.
The future however, appears harder to predict. The panel did predict though that the industry for the most part would have a bright future, given its depth.          Getting together at TiE to discuss the future of entrepreneurship provided 1700 budding and experienced entrepreneurs with an opportunity to share ideas, create opportunities and network.

There was a lot of disagreement among panelists at the summit, but there was one sole point that all could agree on.
We are in a remarkable period of economic history with very low visibility where finding funding will be difficult, but if you have the model and the passion, never let the entrepreneurial spirit die.
Those who succeed now, will be judged by history as true “economic warriors” of the 21st century, who fought with the weapons of prosperity.

Enthusiasm, dedication and charisma are some of the more important characteristics of leadership. Leaders are seen as good and evil and take on many personalities and roles, from managers or coaches to world leaders. It is believed that every leader possesses charisma and brings change and success. Thus leadership begins with vision, concern and mentorship.

There are ten important themes that help leadership. It is my belief that by not adhering to the ten traits, leaders not only fail but bring chaos to organization.

L = Listening

Good listening is required in order to understand employee attitudes and motivators. Get to know your employees by asking a lot of open-ended questions. When you ask questions, you have a chance to listen, and when you listen, you begin to better understand employee motivations, body language and issues. Get them to speak of issues that confront them and enable them to find solutions. Offer challenges to corporate issues with solutions. And, provide credit to the employee with a solid reply.

E = Enthusiasm

Employees want to be motivated. This begins with positive energy and positive commitment. Your personal ills and corporate pressures are unimportant to your employees. They are concerned about them. In good times and bad you must always express a positive and energetic attitude. Finish line energy gets finish line results.

A = Awareness

Be aware of issues that are non-verbal. Leaders must have keen sense that denote when employees are happy, frustrated, tired or overwhelmed. You must sense the issue and eliminate it quickly so that you keep organizational harmony.

D = Decisive

Employees loathe procrastinators! They want quick, decisive and meaningful replies. Leaders do not ponder, they make quick decisions to difficult problems and find immediate solutions.

E = Equal

The cliché “equal pay, for equal treatment” is so true. Leaders do not treat employees based on title, age, race, religion. Leaders understand that “everyone” and “anywhere” in the organization is equal. Leaders go by the principle that the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

R = Reward

Adults desire more than just money with work. They desire recognition, and kudos for a job well done. However, in today’s marketplace, employees although happy, are looking for more contentment from their current job. This sense of pride and self-worth is a large issue for most people.

If people feel that they make a difference, they will care about organizational objectives, if not, apathy emerges. In sum, the job affects the person and the person affects the job. So what can be accomplished to gain a better sense of company pride and loyalty? Establish a reward system and watch the attitudes soar!

S = Success

Leaders understand the reasons of having corporate and divisional mission and vision statements. These statements of purpose enable employees to understand, 1) Who the firm is, 2) Where they are going? and 3) How they will get there. True leaders establish missions as a roadmap to future success.

H = Hypocrite

Leaders make decisions and stick with them. Leaders understand that reversing decisions make them a hypocrite. Further leaders take action when they offer action. For example, if a leader decides employees need training, he or she too takes the training. If a leader decides pay cuts are necessary to preserve profits they too take a cut. Leading by example creates a happier employee core and loyalty; contradicting the efforts creates dispassion, disbelief and attrition.

I = Isolate

Leaders believe in team work and team play. Every employee counts toward the bottom line. Leaders do not isolate themselves from the team and do no isolate the team from each other. As the saying goes, “There is no “I” in team”

P = Positive communication

In good times and in bad leaders create positive communication and feedback to employees. Positive and meaningful communication creates loyalty and mutual exchange of ideas and attitudes. When ideas are fresh and positive, profits and productivity soar!

The leader of tomorrow is changing from the top down style of management to a collegial approach where all become counterparts. Working together creates brings productivity that both sides seek. Leaders who have created this style of management have names on the front door such as Cisco, UPS, Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, et al. These leaders are change agents and strive to become not only recognized brand names but also recognized leaders. Employ the ten leadership traits, enculturate these in your organization and watch productivity grow.

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Drew Stevens is a business growth expert. He speaks and consults around the world for organizations that require expertise in leadership and marketing. Visit Drew at www.drewstevensconsulting.com/freestuff and get hundreds of dollars in FREE selling tips.

Leading such teams is indeed very challenging, even stressful. The project leader has to create convergence towards a common goal  when everything seems to encourage divergence: different geographies means little direct contact between team members, different time zones reduce windows of availability for team discussions, different languages increases communication problems and different mindsets mean potential disagreements in terms of what, who, how, when and why.

In my opinion, 3 key challenges must be met by the global manager:

•    Trust: the key ingredient in team success is mutual trust which comes from knowing one another.  Local teams build this trust through day-to-day contact, a luxury often denied global teams. Global team leaders have to be even more attentive to building trust in the team.
•    Cohesion and clarity of purpose: team members dispersed geographically are more vulnerable to fragmentation because they are often caught between the hammer of global objectives and the anvil of local objectives.  The global leader must therefore make special efforts to bond the team to the common goal.
•   Communication: distance and dispersion creates a communication gap which makes global teams more vulnerable to confusion and misunderstanding. Global leaders must therefore constantly make special efforts to maintain clarity of purpose.

Trust, cohesion/clarity of purpose and communication are the key ingredients in making the “glue” which the global leader needs to lead his/her global team. So what pragmatic, concrete steps can a global leader take to build trust, cohesion and clarity of purpose? Here are some suggestions:

Trust

•    Celebrate diversity: diversity is positive so always be open and listen before you speak. Team members will feel more confident and willing to contribute when they feel they are listened to and all are included and can contribute.
•    Trust but verify: Give your trust first but reserve the right to check. People respond to trust positively but organizations sometimes get in the way of individuals meeting commitments.
•    Lead by example: say what you do and do what you say. Team members will recognize that you deliver on commitments and respond positively.
•    Be honest: don’t have any hidden agendas and be up front. Team members will accept mistakes, not being misled or tricked. Always be open and clear.
•    Think win-win: team members will be more willing to contribute when they feel there is a win-win spirit and it’s not all one way traffic. This means understanding that team members have also other commitments which require attention.
•    Demonstrate respect: demonstrate respect at all times. Anger, frustration, behaving emotively contribute little and alienate team members.

Cohesion and clarity of purpose

•    Plan: setting overall objectives with clear individual and shared goals and deadlines for all team members is critical in managing global teams. If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t get there!
•    Prioritize: global leaders need to work with team members to manage the balance between global and local objectives and be flexible when local needs to take precedence over global ones.
•    Monitor performance regularly in a constructive way: a project dashboard capturing collective and individual objectives is even more necessary for global teams so that all can constantly monitor team progress and all can provide mutual support.

Communication

•    Build a communication plan with your team: decide together on how you will communicate as a team within the team and to the organization.
•    Use Technology wisely: the global project leader needs to lever all the different technologies at his disposal to communicate with team members: email, webex, visio, internet, blogs, etc. At the same time, technology is only a support. The global leader must always be available and not rely only on collective meetings via webex. One-on-one discussions are also important.
•    Keep it simple: whatever the communication format, never use slang, never presume others understand, communicate clearly in simple unambiguous words, always reformulate to check understanding and always add personality, enthusiasm and warmth. Remember that spoken words are forgotten, written words remain!
•    Recognize cultural diversity: different cultures have different but complementary ways of getting things done. Be alert to cultural diversity and adapt your communication style accordingly. Some cultures are more task-oriented than others. Some are more relationship oriented. Work with your team to understand the cultural profiles within the team so that all can interact more effectively.

These are only some tips for leaders working globally. However, once the global leader focuses on the 3 key ingredients in bonding his/her team together: trust, cohesion & clarity of purpose, communication, he/she will be well on the way to building an inclusive team culture and the convergence vital to obtaining global success.

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Based in Paris, Josph Noone works in Human Resources, specializing in Organisation and People Development in the aeronautical industry. He is Irish and he has been living in France for more than 20 years. Contact him at Josephnoone@aol.com.

Much of this issue stems from practices embedded within an organizational culture affecting morale and productivity. These include:

•    Leadership not serving as exemplars – some leaders today are narcissists, demeaning and ruthless. More importantly, leaders’ salaries can exceed employee pay by 425 times the average worker. Leaders need to act in harmony with employees and ensure equal treatment of all. Cultures where this practice occurs frequently include McDonalds, Fed Ex and UPS where employees and management are one.

•    Little or no accountability – the United States economic system is currently in financial turmoil and no one is accountable.

•    Career planning and succession planning is null – simply put there is no succession planning. Most CEOs and senior managers join an organization from competitive industries and companies. Whatever happened to the mailroom climb?

•    Too many silos and departmental infighting – companies are in business for one reason – to create clients. End the infighting and focus on the most vital asset! When the fighting ends (and everybody understands their reason for being employed) perhaps harmony arrives.

Causes of low morale correlate to the organization, its culture, and its management. After 25 years of research in this area, we find five factors contributing to organizational morale. A study by the Corporate Leadership Council reveals the tremendous impact managers have on an employee’s level of commitment. It is imperative to note that individuals do not leave companies – they leave poor managers. Organizational mismanagement contributes to negative morale. As recent as 2006 the Gallup Organization estimated there were 32 million actively disengaged employees costing the American economy up to $350 billion per year in lost productivity. Such loss includes absenteeism, tardiness, and poor work.

To dilute the productivity impact, research shows that taking time to build relationships with employees through personal interaction, is a key step managers can take to keep morale high. Employees need to feel trust and respect from their managers. Employees desire feedback from management to understand their work matters.

Ending the morale issue is not easy but there are cures.

1.    Begin with talent acquisition – start with the right people. No firm we work with ever hires on a proactive basis. Most firms conduct employment searches reactively. Seek employees that fit with the organizational culture and with the obligatory skills. Never wait!

2.    Hire for skill – talent is innate. Organizations hire for personality and behavior first and skill second. Skill is not interchangeable, behavior is. A great hire might have a wonderful temperament and lack the skill to plug a socket into an outlet. I recall a five star hotel that sought advice to correct housekeeping flaws. After five minutes, it was easy enough to terminate staff and find those without flaws.

3.    Look at best practices from best people – management focuses on “fixing those that cannot” rather than “improving those that can”. Icons of performance exist in your organization. Discover what they do right and encourage others to emulate it.

4.    Passion –in the 1980’s Sylvester Stallone appeared again as Rocky this time with a theme, “Eye of the Tiger”. What a great metaphor for valuable talent. Seek to acquire talent that truly loves work. Passion too is innate. Employees must love what they do and how they do it. When passion is high, so too is morale.

5.  Focus on the customer – managers, the organization, and the employees must vehemently focus on the customer. Remember Winnie the Pooh, try finding Eeyore amongst staff at Disney; Southwest Airlines and FedEx, all intensely focus on servicing the client.

Lastly, managers must constantly strive to provide feedback to employees. Feedback is not an annual performance review event. It is imperative that daily communication exists for good information and improvement. Coaching, counseling, and mentoring are components of organizational morale. In addition, many attend church and hear the words, “It is right to give thanks and praise”. Many watch professional sports and view coaches coddling athletes. We can learn something here; simple words of thanks and praise constantly improve morale and employee relationships.

Finally, the first item terminated during economic volatility is training. Research finds that employees are assets and require that treatment. Never stop training; this improves productivity and morale at all times.

Issues of low morale and productivity are onerous, volatile, and difficult to control. There is a need for management, the organization, and the individual to assist with success factors. Much is dependent on the desire to change; methods chosen and consistent follow through. However, if you do nothing you still have a morale issue. Take the time, seek remedies, and keep morale high. Doing so, lowers attrition, improves productivity, increases profitability and most importantly- reduces stress.

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Drew Stevens is a business growth expert. He speaks and consults around the world for organizations that require expertise in leadership and marketing. Visit Drew at www.drewstevensconsulting.com/freestuff and get hundreds of dollars in FREE selling tips.

The successful entrepreneur is well-organized.  The more organized the professional the easier the day. The best and most successful understand how to move around the hurdles in a structured manner so that they accomplish more – with less.

I recall many years ago living in New Jersey and commuting to Manhattan, one frequently stopped to pay tolls. These necessities are required for road improvements, etc. yet they become an annoyance and add time to your commute. Tolls create agitation because you need to stop and restart, they frustrate you as you fumble for ways to weave through the longest line to ease your commute and finally, distract you as you watch other foppish commuters.

There are three tolls in your life and your business that disrupt your day. They are:

1.    People
2.    Problems
3.    Processes

Each of these factors contributes to a waste of time, energy and euphoria and manages to throw your days into pandemonium. For you to gain instant organizational momentum you must embark in three ideologies:

•    You must have some selfishness.
•    You must keep in mind moments do not return.
•    You must embrace the issue and make an immediate change.

If you keep these in mind throughout the day your disarray will lead to order.

When we look at organizational skills we need to first understand what gets in the way of efficiency and organization and the most common cause of disorder. Procrastination detains you. When you steer away from confrontational or imperative issues you back up other issues creating a domino effect.

There are a number of major reasons for procrastination such as is a FEAR. The issue takes too long to complete, is too boring or simply is ridiculous and takes time from something else. Yet, research shows that in 98% of instances when procrastination exists, the excuses for procrastinating actually take more time than the issue itself.

If you find yourself not dealing with things, paperwork is piling up and calls unreturned then you must absolutely begin to change you habits. Paperwork, calls and reports do not disappear because of avoidance they grow LARGER!!!

Self-management is simply the result of developing good habits and letting them control you. Another way to look at it is don’t let bad habits control you  – you are in charge – so you make choices. In order to overcome procrastination one must meet it head on. Moreover, there are numerous things you can do to refrain from procrastination. They include:

1. Get the things you hate to do completed first. Stop putting things off until tomorrow or the next day since it will not get accomplished anyway. Get the calls, the reports, the meeting with the nasty client all out of the way first and the remainder of the day is easier.

2. Stop seeking alternatives through email and voice mail. Many individuals hide behind electronics. Refrain from wearisome habits and confront the issue. The manner in which to stop poor behavior is confronting it. This is what you tell your clients, isn’t it?

3. Stop pondering. More time is spent on not conducting the task then physically doing it. When surveyed, 93% of participants stated that blowing off the issue took more time than the physical issue. Pay bills twice per month; make calls and emails first, etc.

4. Prioritize. Most people simply lack good planning and goal setting. The only way to stop sputtering is simply to prioritize. Plan the day and stick with it, do not enable interruptions.

There are also some additional guidelines for sanity and organization:

1. Create time frames – block out times in a day for specific activities and events. Do not enable interruptions during these imperative times.

2. Hold yourself accountable – ensure success by keeping to times and to goals. You hold your clients and relatives to specific schedules why not yourself?

3. Keep only one list – good organizers place information in one place so that they are not distracted. The problem with most people is that they don’t keep a list at all. Others have too many, to remain atop the issues have one list such as a to-do and keep it in a location where you are most apt to view it.

4. Keep a notepad wherever you are – One of the best methods for organization is to keep pen and paper with you at all times, if you are technologically desirous then a recorder. During a single day individuals have numerous thoughts. When was the last time your great idea would place you as the world’s wealthiest person only to forget the idea hours later? With so many distractions interrupting our days it is best to record those precious moments. Keep a notepad wherever you go: auto, airplane, business bag, knapsack, nightstand, bathroom etc. Never lose another thought. Once you create the memory then transpose the idea to your main list for ultimate success.

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Drew Stevens is a business growth expert. He speaks and consults around the world for organizations that require expertise in leadership and marketing. Visit Drew at www.drewstevensconsulting.com/freestuff and get hundreds of dollars in FREE selling tips.