What is state of your mental Health? A self-check toolkit.

 While we go for regular physical health check-ups, even if otherwise ok, we seldom do mental health checkup! Authors cum practitioners  like Alain De Botton, Dan Arley, Adam Grant, Jordan B Petterson and Browen Berne, do share some insights which can often be collated as barometer for self-checking the state of ones’ mental health. I wander what would a self-check mental health barometer looks like!  

Shy of asking Chatgpt or google, here is my list:

1 Are you able to consciously edit various thoughts emerging in your mind, to select the empowering ones and discard the debilitating ones?  It does not entertain thoughts that reminds us of our unworthiness or fuel the feelings of regret, remorse, resent or conceit.               

2 Are you able to retain the general trust in goodness of humanity and reconcile with selfish acts at the individual level?

3 Can you resist the temptation of comparisons to others, either to feel good or bad?

4  Recognize the unreasonableness of cheerfulness as the only desirable end-state state, and any other as sub-optimal?  “Worldy” people are likely to be less happy than they seem. 

Albrecht Durer (1493)

5 Realise that every explanation that looks plausible may not be real, and that randomness could as well be the real reason?  Not every unsuccessful man is so, because of laziness or stupidity.

6 Able to compartmentalize thoughts and emotions and maintain sense of proportionality of response to the situation.

7 Able to recognize fear as state of being and mange it through recognition and additional dose of curiosity. 

8 In quest of seeking more, not to undermine what is already there.  Recognize that Every situation has the possibility of being worst! Can you express gratitude to crashed pillow that ensures good night sleep.   

9  Once in a while you remind oneself of transience nature of being, and its insignificant presence at cosmic level.

10  Are you comfortable with laying boundaries in relationships and can utter warm sounding but definitiveno, without affecting prevailing level of affection 

11 Appreciate the role of genes, parenting, and early childhood experiences in shaping us, but not hold to these convenient factors to defend your learnt helplessness or laziness.

How much you score and what is the ranking criteria- I cant say- but may be there is some realization where to focus to strengthen our mind!

MBA 101 in action: Running business - the HUL way!

Sudhir avers that it took him only 4 months to type the book although it took 20 years to write. In similar vein, it does not take long for most organizations to appreciate the advantages of running business in line with management principles taught in business schools- mostly under 101 courses, but most organizations may take lifetime to practice these  principles in letter and spirit. And this is the where Hindustan Lever has got the edge.

Most of the book lessons may not be new, but how Hindustan lever implements them come live through experience and practice sharing that Sudhir has brought out very effectively. Most companies, especially operating in developing economies, profess focus on growth, cost consciousness, meritocracy, differentiated workforce strategies implemented in sensitive and humane manner, grounded leadership, and importance of balancing character and competency while defining their definition of desirable talent.

Given the richness of experience Hindustan lever managers have in FMCG space- across all 4Ps of marketing, any conclusions or suggestions coming from their side merits deliberation. Defining marketing process as understanding customer needs and solving customer problems defined in-terms of Job to be done, is powerful way to differentiate it from its components, including publicity, advertisement or sales.

Some interesting insights that are worth reflecting, to understand their relevance in one’s business context includes:
1. Buyers are far more similar in behavior than you think- avoid over-segmentation
2. What matters is the quality the consumer gets and not quality designed in the laboratory
3. It is easier to get consumers adopt new category than to get them increase consumption
4. Price discounts do not recruit new consumers, encourage existing consumers to buy more
5. Lower price point is more important than cheaper price per kilo for low-income consumers
6. Build portfolio of brands at different price points to be resilient in times of crisis
7. Sales is a cost and not a revenue centre
8. Ensure availability of stock and not depth of stock- keep stock refilling cycle short.
9. Spend more on advertising deployment and not on advertising creation.
10. Look for reach than repetition in media plan- whisper to as many

Among my favorites is the practical suggestion of ensuring that decision has both the right and left brain backing – as Sudhir mentions that decisions are often created in inebriated state and validated and firmed up in sober state.

 Book full of insights that are real contradictions that become  obvious in hindsight!

“Hunters for credit” meet “Bosses that love fan clubs” – A convenient nexus that hurts!

Let me recount an interesting story my friend shared last Sunday. He leads a team of analysts and managers, who team on short term client engagements and multiple initiatives across the whole group. My friend shared an observation which seems to be worrying him. Some of his managers seem to be having tough time engaging analysts to work with them on volunteer initiatives, while some others always have more volunteers engaged in the task, then actual requirement (adding more to confusion than effectiveness). In his assessment, those managers that failed to engage were not particularly that bad in human relations, teaming or emotional intelligence, nor the other category of managers spectacularly better in those aspects. But the outcome was clearly underperformance on volunteer initiatives that were essential for group’s sustained prominence.


So what explains this phenomenon? Title provides the hint. Yes?

Here are few questions I asked my friend?

1 Do you ensure that in all team initiatives, whole team is invited as a norm, and that the decision to choose who attends and who doesn’t is not left to Managers? (Assured Airtime with the leaders)

2 Do you ensure that in collective work, the individual level contributions are clearly called for and accounted for? (Social loafing)

3 Do you seek Manager’s reasons for team composition and size that seems to be disproportionate (and skill-wise inappropriate) to task at hand, as per your estimate? (Building fan clubs)

4 Do you ensure that you praise progress, BUT reward only outcomes and impact?

5 Do you ensure that all your managers know the difference between GOOD (fit for purpose), EXCELLENT (better, faster) or EXCEPTIONAL (radical and beyond)? , and use same barometer (consistent language) to evaluate performance? (Demonstrate by example)

He has agreed to consciously try to apply above measures and demonstrate appropriate behaviours to see if situation improves. My hunch is it should work.

What do you say?

Being Creative by Design

Everyone agrees that we need to be more innovative in our recommendations to clients to create greater impact.  However, despite rightful intent and efforts, there seems to be great variation in the quality of outcomes.  Some practitioners by experience or intellect are able to provide wider perspectives than majority.  So what does the majority do besides blaming education, experience or IQ?

I believe that conscious and rigorous employing of seemingly contradicting perspectives on any context can help us widen the universal set of possibilities leading to potentially better advice.  This is what we reckon as “being creative by design”.

Listed below are some of the perspectives (about objectives, strategy and execution) put forward by gurus that although contrarian to established thinking seems to be true as well in specific contexts.

1.    Stakeholders get motivated differently

• What motivates a professional manager may not motivate the owner of the firm.  Economists have always insisted on goal alignment between owners and professional managers under principal-agent theory. There is considerable debate on whether shareholder wealth maximization or stakeholder value generation should be the key objective functions of an enterprise.
• Further, managers and employees may get motivated differently.  Even in the same group, individuals may stand at different levels on the Missionary- Mercenary Orientation Continuum. 
• Off-course, there is need for an overarching objective that collectively reflects the aspirations of all stakeholders. But, for the message to engage, it should be able to connect to individual level legitimate aspirations as well.

Implications : Do not assume! Ascertain that every stakeholder’s priorities and expendables are well understood and the look towards achievement of Pareto Optimality.

2.     Selective Strategic Views are standalone traps

• Strategy formulation is essentially a creative exercise, an art that is being continuously scientisized through different frameworks, each approach providing a specific view towards strategy formulation.
• Unconscious of single view limitations, consultants often pick specific approach (framework) as favorites and apply it in all situations limiting the options.
• Ansoff matrix provides a sufficient framework for us to explore both the competitive and innovation orientation, provided we do justice to all the quadrants.  Return Driven Strategy framework is another broad encompassing framework.  

 

Implications :  It pays to consciously apply different views of Strategy Formulation to a situation to come up with diverse solution set.

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You may like to further add to this list. 

Leaders : Reboot your approach

Hi,

Thanks for reflecting your views on the previous post. Here are some of my reflections. 

I think, the difference lies in the approach towards some of the key leadership functions.

Lets take some examples:

1. Approach to “being accepted”: Leaders can no longer rely on Hierarchy to get acceptability. It is leader’s personal expertise and recognized excellence in an area of business value, which followers believe deserve respect and worthy of providing platform to lead. 
2. Approach to “being heard”: Directive style memos don’t work anymore beyond minimal compliance. Two way dialogue, that is authentic, persuasive, consistent across channels while being open to questioning with leader as facilitator and final integrator of views seems to work. 
3. Approach to “getting things done”: It is no more about detailed instructions about “how” it is to be done, but greater focus on telling “what needs to be done’ and “why it is important?” 
4. Approach to “getting best out of those led”: Traditional means of Motivating them to do what they are not convinced about, wont work. Connect work to their passion and then work relentlessly to avoid organization bureaucracy, and politics act as de-motivating distractions. 
5. Approach to “handling failures”: Instead of being criticized for being careless and unprofessional, leaders are expected to emphasize upon lessons learnt and may celebrate the well intentioned experimentations.

What other approaches need to change?

Lets Reflect!

What enable leaders to sustain relevance in the new world?

Leaders sustain their relevance till the time they continue to sustain dependency of the followers on them. This is achieved by leaders providing something followers’ value and are seen as the most preferred source. Seen this way, leaders’ sustained relevance depends upon their ability to continually understand their followers and provide Value they seek.

Apart from seeking reward, recognition or objective resource allocation (which falls more in Managers’ domain now), followers used to look towards leaders for problem solving. For this, leaders required sufficient technical finesse to design appropriate solution and guts to execute the same. Demonstrable outcomes reinforced their credibility and thus help sustain their leadership. No less demanding task, but a lot simpler as long as problem had knowable dimensions and followers relatively aligned expectations.

Given the complex operating context and growing influence of multiple stakeholders in decision making, these days followers look towards Leaders for Sense Making of the prevailing "chaos with dynamically shifting patterns". Leaders challenge is to define the context, and communicate the relative importance of various trends at play and define action program, in a language that is simple but sufficiently sophisticated (to convey complex set of interdependencies) and boundary-spanning to connect with diverse followers set.

While in earlier world, followers leaders' confidence in proposed action and surety behind the proposal, now they look towards leaders ability to accept tentativeness and risks but still convince that the proposed action is the most suitable and appropriate option. While earlier having contingency plan was a good management practice, now leaders need to convey ability to adapt and allow for mid-course modifications as essential part of their confidence winning proposals.

What additional other traits do you see leaders of the new world need to learn?

Do you see anything yesterdays’ leaders need to UNLEARN to sustain their leadership in the New world?

 Lets reflect!!!