On Vision and Building a Cathedral

It is unfortunate that I am not finding enough time since last couple of weeks to blog! This is also a reason why last few posts have been crisp and short. Till the time I find more time again (or manage my time better), I would continue to post short blog posts with some interesting snippets of what I read on blogosphere.

I have always loved Robin Sharma’s books, blog posts and now he also tweets. I read this short story at his blog:

Two workers were toiling outside of a huge new structure. The first one was exhausted and disengaged and uninspired. “What are you working on?” he was asked by a passerby. “I’m cutting some stones,” was the curt reply. The other worker was then asked the same question. “Sorry, can’t speak too long,” was the passionate response, “I’m in the process of building a cathedral.”

Day to day grind can be frustrating. It is easy to get carried away by the routine and loose focus. Stories like these help you to regain focus on goals you have set for yourself. Cathedral in the story above is symbolic of vision. Leaders are led by a vision and it is extremely important for leaders to keep their vision always in the sight.

What cathedral are you in process of building?

Have a Wonderful Wednesday!

Great Quotes: Credits of Life!

Read these two great quotes on Twitter and thought of sharing! Without much ado, here they go:

“People are capable of greater things than they perform. They are sent into the world with bills of credit, and seldom redeem them.” – Walpole

“Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot of fun until you get the bill.” ~ Christopher Parker

Have a great Tuesday!

How to set up KRA’s/KPI’s (Performance Management using KRA’s)

“Performance Management using KRA’s” has been one of the top posts on this blog. Well defined KRA’s act as a scale to measure performance of a team member.

Here is an excerpt from my earlier post:

Documented result areas provided us a path to tread. We knew what exactly is expected out of us and we performed accordingly. KRA’s deal with results and not with day to day activities and hence more quantitative the KRA’s are the easier they are to track.

In this regards, one of the readers of this blog, Gireesh Sharma pointed me to his article “Writing SMART Goals (also called KRAs) from Job Descriptions” which made for an interesting read.

Here are 9 steps suggested by Gireesh for setting up KRA’s/KPI’s:

1. Go through employee’s Job Description. If Job Description is not updated talk to employee and his/her Manager or many be manager’s manager also.
2. Try to find out exactly what the employee is supposed to achieve.
3. Based on your reading and discussions, make a list of the functions and responsibilities which are critical to the employee’s job.
4. Categorize these critical functions and responsibilities in two categories:
   1. (4.1) Which can be measured whether in numbers or percentages or yes/no.
   2. (4.2) Which cannot be measured in numbers and cannot be calculated.
5. Ones in 4.1 are the can be be converted to Goals (KRAs).
6. Make a list of all critical functions.
7. Write a self explanatory (1 sentence ) definition of each Goal (KRA).
8. If you plan to follow BSC (Balanced Score Card) Pattern, then categorize each goal into one of the following categories: Customer, Financial, Internal Business Process, Learning and Growth.
9. There after describe each Goal (KRA). Make sure you mention a measurable target to be achieved and time frame for achievement of the Goal (KRA).

The article is very insightful and has very relevant examples to demonstrate how this 9 point process works. Read the full post here.

How do you manage results from your team?

Great Quote: Vincent Van Gogh on Profession and Passion

“Your profession is not what brings home your paycheck. Your profession is what you were put on earth to do with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” – Vincent Van Gogh

I have been using Twitter increasingly to post great quotes – its quick and easy! But this quote was so profound that it demanded a post.

Thanks to Lisa Haneberg to have pointed me to Helping You Succeed blog post on “7 Career Killers“. The post starts with this quote.

Check out by earlier blog posts on similar topics : Great Quotes: Work and Play, Follow your Energies, Passion Power, Actualizing with the self

Have a great Wednesday!

Great Quote: by Warren Bennis – Leadership means being yourself

Last week, I was talking to a group of 15 middle managers in our organization sharing my views on Leadership. One important thing I discussed with them was that leadership can only stem from doing something you really love doing. We can only express ourselves fully when we love what we do. With this expression comes a uniqueness in practice, understanding and learning. Result is excellence. Leadership stems from excellence. In a way, Leadership is all about excellence.

In this regards, I read a great quote “Practice of Leadership” blog:

“No leader sets out to be a leader. People set out to live their lives, expressing themselves fully. When that expression is of value, they become leaders. So the point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself, to use yourself completely – all your skills, gifts and energies – in order to make your vision manifest. You must withhold nothing. You, must, in sum, become the person you started out to be, and to enjoy the process of becoming.” – Warren Bennis, On Becoming a Leader

My key takeaways from this:

• Leadership is a result of doing what you love doing and pursue your calling.
• Leadership is a result of expressing yourself fully in your area of work to achieve excellence. It is about being yourself.
• Leadership without personal excellence is not possible.

Have a great day ahead!

Also read on this blog: Great Quotes: Work and Play, Follow your Energies, Passion Power, Actualizing with the self

Talkers v/s Doers – Interesting Paragraph from Harvard Business

Two years into my career, I had a colleague who was a talker. He would incessantly talk about what he did through the day, how he handled a situation, how he found problems with what someone was doing and so on. You get the point. He was an expert at tooting his horns and exhibit how much he was doing. He would ruthlessly take credits for things others do. Needless to say, people started equating his talk with his deeds. He was soon exposed. His ultimate resort was to really do things and then talk about it.

I am reminded of this colleague (and many other colleagues like him) after reading “Talking vs. Doing” post at Harvard Business by John Maeda and Becky Bermont. The post asks some thought provoking questions which unfortunately has no straightforward answers.

To extrapolate a bit, what she or he was pointing out is that it is a forum that caters to the “talkers.” Taken further, you could ask: What about the “doers” — those who produce great work, and let it speak for itself? Do we all need to broadcast our work?

I don’t think great work needs any broadcast. It speaks for itself.

It further says -

It’s easy for raises to go to those who ask for them, and for credit to go to those who repeat their accomplishments over and over. There’s nothing wrong with this per se, if the talkers are deserving. But how can we make sure we’re rewarding those who quietly produce results as well? What do you do to pull out the hidden gems in your organization and make sure they see the light of day? Must everyone be taught how to “talk”?

The post ends with a million dollar question - Does everyone need to be taught how to talk and exhibit their accomplishments? Can’t there be a system of performance evaluation where real doers are discovered and rewarded?

From a career perspective, it is important to strike a balance between how much you do and how much you talk. But here is the thing – When silent doers produce great results, results speak for itself. “Just enough” communication about it can make those great results “discoverable”.

Here is my takeaway –

• Doing much and talking just enough is the best strategy.
• Doing much and not talking about it (silent doing) is a long term strategy (if you are patient enough not to get frustrated and move on).
• Doing little and talking too much about it may seem rewarding in short term but is not a sustainable strategy for long term career success.

Do you agree with these? What have been your experiences? I would love to explore perspectives.

Personal Leadership – It shines in difficult times

Jack was a “do-as-directed” professional. He used to tell his colleagues, “I am paid to do the work and my manager is paid to think about what I should be doing”. He would never own up anything more than his own tasks and would refrain from even thinking about the overall project. Times were good and he could survive working in that large IT company for 6 years with very average career growth.

Economy changed and company started cutting costs by laying off. Jack was a perfect candidate to be laid off. Post layoff, he was on his own. There was a vacuum around him with no one to tell him what to do. He had to own this situation if he had to survive. His personal leadership suddenly came to the fore. He thought, brainstormed, networked  and worked hard towards getting a new job in a different area. Layoff stirred him from within to initiate something and own it up. For the first time, he looked at getting a new job as his own responsibility. Sense of purpose took over him.

There are similar cases when people take entrepreneurship route, start an NGO or execute bright ideas after they are laid off or subjected to a difficult personal situation.

Personal leadership is within all of us but somehow organization’s bureaucratic structure kills/supresses it. Difficult times like these stir people from within and it is interesting to see how average people take charge of situation (in this case, their careers) and demonstrate personal leadership.

As we know by now that leadership is not about position, title or power. Leadership is a state of mind, it is about doing the right thing and realizing that the focus is on YOU.

Being a Great Presenter

Lets accept it – doing a good presentation is difficult. You stick to your powerpoint slides and you fail to impress. You do it without a powerpoint and you might loose the track. You take more time than scheduled and you loose respect. You speak a little more on same topic and you sound repititive.

From the presentations I have done so far (to clients, prospects, peers, academic lectures etc.) I have learnt how to introduce right, set the stage, build perspectives, be interactive, generate audience interest, relate topics with real life examples, modulate voice for better effectiveness and more importantly – respect other’s time.

Seth Godin (who himself is a great presenter) lists down two most important elements of being a great presenter. He says -

The two elements of a great presenter

1. Respect (from the audience)
2. Love (to the audience)

There are no doubt important evolutionary reasons why this is true, but in my experience, every great presenter earns the respect of the audience (through her appearance, reputation, posture, voice, slides, introduction, etc.) and captures the attention of the audience by sending them love.

I think one of the ways to express your love to your audience is to be passionate while presenting. Usage of right voice tones and being expressive when presenting can go a long way in engaging the audience. Martin Luther King’s “I have a Dream” speech is one of the finest examples of how to speak with passion. His intensity in presentation was strong enough to bring tears in the eyes of audience.

Seth Godin further says -

When you create a presentation, think about what your status will be as you begin the presentation. What can you do to prewire, to earn more respect from the start? How can you be introduced? Lit? Miked? What can you wear? If your reputation doesn’t precede you, how do you earn it?

Don’t apologize at the beginning of the talk. For anything. Don’t hide in the dark. Don’t hide behind a wall of bullet points.

And then, as the talk (pitch/presentation/interview) begins, don’t focus your energy or concern on yourself. It’s not about you. It’s about them. The presenter who loves his audience the mosft, wins.

“Respect and Love” lesson from Seth is going to remain with me when I do my next presentation, hopefully, sometime soon!

Importance of Professional Value and a Great Story About Charles Steinmetz

I wrote earlier about the explicit and tacit value that an individual brings to the organization. But how do you do value-addition?

According to me, one can add value to the organization by 1) Doing things the way they should be done and finding better ways of doing it 2) Solving critical business problems (technical or organizational)

In this regards, I re-read a great story about the importance of value over at Management Stories blog. I read this story long time back, but I reproduce it here because of its relevance in the current time.

Here it goes –

Charles Steinmetz was once called out of retirement by General Electric to help it locate a problem in an intricate system of complex machines. Having spent some time tinkering with and testing various parts of the system, he finally placed a chalk-marked ‘X’ on a small component in one machine. GE’s engineers promptly examined the component, and were amazed to find the defect in the precise location of Steinmetz’s mark.

Some time later, GE received an invoice from the wily engineer – for $10,000. Incredulous, they protested the bill and challenged him to itemize it. Steinmetz did so: “Making one chalk mark: $1,” he wrote. “Knowing where to place it: $9,999.”

GE paid the bill! Charles Steinmetz was a German-US Electrical Engineer who invented Alternate Current (AC) to initiate electrical era in the United States.

It is when you nurture a particular skill to such a level where you can fix a small component (problem) without losing the sight of the complex machine (organizational perspective) that you start generating exceptional value for the organization. That is my learning from this story.

Here are a few quotes from the same man who raised a huge bill for a seemingly trivial task!

• No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.
• I have succeeded in getting my actual work down to thirty minutes a day. That leaves me eighteen hours for engineering. (Talks a ton about nurturing a skill).

Attributes of a Professional – Great List

I read a quote long back which said that a professionals do what’s necessary, even when they don’t feel like doing it. That was the best articulation of professionalism so far for me. But that’s just one.

Want to know 101 attributes of a real professional? Then jump on to Nicholas Bate’s blog title “Business of Life + Life of Business” to learn about 101 attributes of a professional. (Title of the post is “Professionalism101”)

The list is mind blowing and very comprehensive – and here are the attributes I liked the most (and the ones I could easily relate myself with)

A professional

• has a pen;
• Knows what’s important.
• He/she prefers I/we and owning an issue rather than he/she/they and blaming others.
• Thanks people; whether or not the person was just ‘doing their job’;
• Looks people in the eye and speaks clearly, rather than mutter from the depths of their laptop.
• Doesn’t check their phone in the middle of your conversation.
• Leads through skill, competence and attitude not (solely) job title.
• Listens to understand not just to be polite.
• Doesn’t use ‘everybody’ does it’ as an excuse.
• Reads deep;
• Reads wide;
• Knows that leadership is a mindset.
• Its very easy to attack/destroy-
• Much harder to build, augment, be a help and think abundant
• Says sorry;
• Says how can I help you?
• Knows it takes years to achieve over-night success;
• Is inspired by all kinds of sources;

Read the full list here.