Treating MIND as your first Coachee!

Mind has been traditionally identified as a key element that has a disproportionate influence on the quality of life one experiences! It is a “bad master” and a “good servant” kind of descriptions are attributed to it in our literature and religious books.  Mind is often characterized as restless “nat-khat”, with free-will and a tendency to wander around.

What if you were to treat Mind as a Coacheee, who you have to work with?

While going beyond the master-servant choices, treating Mind as coachee to work along to uplift it to the next stage of evolution could be an interesting alternative.  If in the process Mind gets aware of its playful nature and becomes mindful of its habit of creating confusion and distractions, many new possibilities may emerge as well.   

Like any coaching process, let us cover three crucial WHATS with the Mind ie What is, So What and What next!

Let us start with asking the Mind to share:  WHAT IS going on these days.? Depending upon the mood and tendency, Mind may start with counting the deficits upfront, or may come to them respecting the standard formats of “and-but” or “if only”.  Here comes the chance to push MInd to consider all spheres of life, including health, wealth, family, etc, (using the Wheel of life kinds of tool) to force Mind to take a holistic view of life, than being deficit-focused only.

Next comes the turn to examine So-What?  This exercise needs conscious effort on the part of the Coach ie You, to separate the impact assessment of the gaps and goodies with emotional attachment to them.  Some real work may be required to separate the real and the imagined impact, the latter coming out of assumptions, historical experiences, and willful selective comparisons.  More clinical and factual the impact assessment more is the balanced outcome and realistic sizing of the issue leading to disabuse of disproportionate feelings associated with the situation.  Mind may have to acknowledge that situation is not that challenging or constraining and that some of the helplessness is rather an imagined one.

Finally, Mind needs to decide What Next?  This is where Mind needs most coaching, given its nature.  With patience, it needs to realize the inherent trade-offs that are hidden behind the choices it makes.  Mind cannot ask for a lazy lifestyle and fit body, for example.  There is a need to engage mindfully in imagining the possible outcomes in the future, explaining each scenario by involving visual, auditory and kinetics.  

For each alternative, Mind may also need to focus on things which may not change or may go missing, as part of the trade-off.  It may be worthwhile to give Mind some time to make up its Mind.  Let it gather additional information, seek validation from those it values, and play with risk assessments tools as a run-up to its decision.  As coach, while you allow time for Mind-making, it has to be a time-bound indulgence.  The coach may do well for MInd to be mindful of the hurdles and derailment factors that may come in the chosen path.  

Once the decision is made, it is important to wear a typical project manager hat and ask Mind to define milestones and check-points.  Review schedules need to be agreed to and complied with.  Only during reviews, there is scope to fine-tune or revise the choices made and always in light of some assumptions going wrong.  Else, Mind would not walk the path, but would seek exceptions at the very first hurdle on the chosen path.  Only when the Mind tastes success, its faith in the process would grow - as it learns to move on a goal-directed disciplined path, which is not its inherent nature.

  

A bigger pay-off will indeed come to you, for having first-hand managed a tough client in the form of your Mind.  All Minds are the same, and some are more same than others.  

Having managed your Mind as a Coachee, you would be better equipped and confident in handling others’ (Minds) as Coachees.

 

Do share your experience if you have tried coaching your mind! 

Every Transformation Exercise is essentially a Battle of Narratives

If there are no opponents to the proposed plan, you are not taking up truly a transformation exercise. In every transformation exercise, you would have three sets of communities, those who care for it (YES), those who oppose (NO), and the third community – the fence-sitters (FS). And it is the third community that would eventually decide the extent to which the transformation exercise would deliver results or the exercise is abandoned halfway through the journey. And quite understandably, it is a continuous battle between the YES and NO communities till the majority of FS community declares its vote. 

Experience tells us that the community that dominates the Narrative around the transformation finally wins over the FS community. There are several cases of failed transformation exercises, where NO narrative gained strength over time, while YES team was busy executing the change and gaining pieces of evidence for showing the outcomes, ignoring the weakening of their voice in the minds of FS. 

By the time YES tries to rebound and regain control of the narrative, the FS has made up its mind and enormous effort is required to bring back the positivity around the transformation exercise, through clarifications, explanations and reiterations, but with limited success. 

There are few frequently observed communications tactics that NO community employs, taking advantage of the narrative gaps left exposed by the YES community. 

NO community would:

1.   Raise unrealistic expectations from transformation exercise with misleading potential benchmarks and timelines- YES needs to early on define the expected outcomes from the transformation exercise and calibrate measures of success. Everyone upfront needs to know what a good and excellent success would look like? Otherwise, there is no achievement good enough, as NO community would continually shift the goal post reinterpreting the promises made to suit its narrative.

 

2.   Rake historical association with past failed attempts and draw out parallels with the proposed transformation exercise- YES may reiterate change in context, acknowledge lessons learnt, and how is the present implementation approach going to be different. But equally important is for YES to make conscious but loose association with successful transformation exercises taken-up in the past. In any case, making any strong association with the past transformation exercise, positive or negative, would deviate the conversation and needs to be guarded against. 

3.   Question the priority and sustained commitment towards transformation midcourse- In a changed scenario, is this really important to carry on with the transformation exercise or put it on hold in light of other priorities competing for time, resources and attention, asserts NO community from time to time. It is expected that the operating context and organization may undergo changes while the transformation exercise is still in progress. YES have to not only validate and adjust the program but also reiterate to the FS community the need and relevance of continuing with transformation exercise in the changed scenario, with or without modifications. Just because the change in the context doesn’t impact the transformation program is not enough reason to stay quiet- acknowledge the change and share your impact assessment on the transformation program. 

4.   Use oblique references like heard in the corridor, jokes and stories going around, to convey growing negative perception and disillusionment about the transformation exercise: YES needs to carefully select and expand its set of communicators across segments, that are credible and ready to be identified with the program. Further, it has to use appropriate interaction platforms to refer to stories doing round and bring out the fallacy in the same while acknowledging that any feedback is good feedback. There is no need to explain and debug every veiled reference made to the program, but doing selectively for a few, at the right platform, by a right spokesperson, would do the trick.  

5.   Raise the importance of existing culture and the relevance of prevailing practices as differentiators and worthy of preservation: YES community has to preempt this strategy by articulating how the transformation program is in sync with Values and is essential to the core purpose of the organization. The best way to dent established practices is by leadership conduct and not through verbal convincing! YES communication strategy needs to keep reinforcing what is not changing, as much as the changes the exercise seeks to achieve.  

6.   Reach out to the most- underserved to fill the vacuum and seed skepticism: NO community will quickly sympathize with any stakeholder segment that has not been regularly and adequately communicated with during the whole exercise. They would urge these segments to be vigilant of the precedence setting consequences or unintended collateral impact that may come out of this exercise. YES communication strategy must ensure sufficient and frequent reassuring and intent messages for all stakeholders while creating targeted communications for those directly impacted. 

The above tactics are not the only ones NO would deploy and nor are the suggested tactics by YES the most appropriate one for all contexts. The key is for YES community to be conscious of the importance of winning the battle of narratives and make sure that they control the narrative game by being proactive and preemptive in their communication strategies while being honest and fair to the cause of transformation all along. 

Employees in WFH work harder, but suffer productivity drop! How sustainable?

 Hence when it comes to the overall outcome, there is not much difference between WFH and WFO staff.

This research finding, based on a detailed study of efforts and outcome variables in a large India based IT firm, shared by Becker Friedmn Institute, UCHICAGO, has several ramifications in the way we embed and prioritize WFH as part of our delivery model. 

Study subject includes IT professionals engaged in the cognitive work of solution and application development that involve a fair deal of collaboration and coordination with the team for optimum output.  Further, the measurements are more dependable as efforts are tracked by system app, instead of being self-reported, which may suffer from amplification bias.    

Let us first take note of the summary findings:

1.        On an average IT professional increased his working hours between 1.5 to 2 hrs per day, when in WFH mode in contrast to WFO mode.  These additional hours come from extending the work to non-office hours
2. At the same time, the average productivity of every active hour fell to the extent that overall outcome would have been between 88-94% for the same number of work-hours (say 40 hrs week)
3. Extend of variance between WFH and WFO pattern depends, to a varying degree, upon employee variables like: gender, total work experience, tenure with the company, and presence of children at home. 
4. Employees with children work additional time to compensate for the drop in productivity due to distraction. 
5. Average commute time to the office seems to have not much correlation with the additional hours spent in WFH mode. Another study suggests that employees allocate at-least one-third of time saved from commuting to office work.
6. Male members with greater tenure with the firm and high overall work experience seems to have the least dip in productivity. 
7. Reasons for productivity decline are linked to the increased time spent in communication, coordination, and collaboration activities.  This manifests itself in the form of increased time spent in meetings (MS Teams) and overall Email flows.  Interestingly the number of meetings employee participates along with Manager has seen an increase, while one-2-one meetings and caching conversations seems to have come down.
8. Output levels are seen as more closely related to uninterrupted time (focus time) than overall hours spent at work. And clearly, WFH has lower uninterrupted time than WFO. 

On reflection, what does it mean for those who are considering WFH as a permanent feature?

1. Can we rely on enhanced working hours as a sustainable solution to compensate for the dip in productivity?  Some part of the enhanced working hours is also on account of lock-down restrictions that reduce the appeal and usage options of leisure time. 
2. The tenured experienced staff which is secure and requires little over-the-shoulder assistance and watch are better suitable for WFH mode.  How do we make other segments ready, as they may be more in number? How do we accommodate their personal and professional needs in their work routine?
3. If we have adverse selection during identification of employees for WFH mode, can we really use paired comparison for drawing performance conclusions? 
4. What is behind increased time spent on coordination and communication?  Is it psychological and professional insecurity that is behind WFH employees populating their calendar with avoidable meetings or shooting emails every twenty minutes?
5. Have we made Mangers capable of making their expectations known over the distance and have they developed competencies to deliver feedback online in an unambiguous, secure and productive manner?
6. How are we going to reinforce the importance of uninterrupted focus time among those in WFH mode?  How do we let them know that delay in an email response or not answering call at a particular time is acceptable and not considered being irresponsible.  
7. Are the rules of decision making and opportunity allocations clear and transparent for all to feel secure and engaged and trusted?
8. How realistic and effectively are we using the collaboration tool and technologies to promote innovative thinking, transactional efficiency, and inclusive feeling among all engaged in the process? 

While we will continue to get informed by research work and experiential sharing by fellow professionals, each of us has to define our own strategy to leverage WFH in the most effective manner, given our context, culture, and compulsions!

IF you are Work in Progress, Adam’s advice is a good companion!

Think again, is a book that obviously reinforces the importance of rethinking, and highlights perils of not revisiting one’s ideas and with offers advice on methods, tools, and networks that would facilitate rethinking.  It also REMINDS me of certain biases, habits, and fallacies that ones fall for, if not being made conscious from time to time. 

And that refresher course, provided with a new set of experiments, instances, and evidence, gives the necessary freshness to the read.  Most interesting are cases of prevalent first-instinct choices and counter-intuitive outcomes that may entail. 

Consider the following:

1.       Do you want your opinions and knowledge be made right, or wish (hence claim) that they are right?

2.        Do you wear an advocate and politician or scientist hat when looking at a situation?  

3.       Being competent and being confident are dependent or independent variables? If there is a causal relation, then what is the direction?

4.       Asking HOW helps reveal to the overconfident, his depth/shallowness of knowledge and need to know more?

5.       Only the secure identity harness the benefit of doubt, Can you?

6.       Is your opinion being proven wrong a question about hurt self-identity or joyous occasion of less wrong in the future?

7.       Is the team encountering a relationship conflicts or tasks conflict?

8.       Are you able to keep with the challengers because they care, and weed out insecure criticizers?

9.       Are your disagreements leading to debate or dispute?

10.   The more important the matter, do you rely on presenting more arguments in favor of your side, or few important ones, but explained at length?

11.   To solicit feedback, do u use the rating scale to peg response and seek ways to improve the score?

12.   Do u assume or ask what kind of evidence will allow others to open their position for a rethink?

13.   Stereotypes are rarely questioned by giving counter-evidence but often by asking how do you know? And what would it take to verify?

14.   Do u motivate someone to change or nudge someone to think their own reason to change?

15.   Do u base your motivational speech on assumptions, or actually listen through motivational interviewing?  DO you prefer telling what works for you or ask what worked for them in the past? 

16.   Attending lectures is an enjoyable experience, but does that translate into effective learning? Would active learning help you get better grades?

17.   How often do u present material that is open to iteration, refinement, and multiple feedbacks to come to better shape? Do u teach the patience to invite suggestions or embrace criticism?

18.   How do u marry psychological safety with accountability for results?

19.    Psychological safe teams make more errors or reveal more errors?

20.   How can u differentiate perseverance vs stubbornness in your stand?

You may be sure of the response to some of them, but in the spirit of think again, do validate with your critiques or take the easy route of checking with Adam!