Saturday, June 16, 2007
10 keys to career success
Want to increase your income and be more fulfilled?
Two decades of studying "Winning Edge" entrepreneurs (those in the top three percent of their industry or profession) has turned up 10 keys to their financial and personal success. Using these keys can increase your profits and fulfillment too.
The 10 keys used by Winning Edge entrepreneurs. They:
1. Have a Written Business Plan - A written business plan, including financial projections, is the most important criterion when predicting a businesses' success, according to numerous studies of successful and failed businesses. Successful entrepreneurs invest time in writing their goals, including their financial projections, and how they are going to achieve each. They also have a well versed Chief Financial Officer (or financial coach) to assure they stay on top of their cash flow, their profit after taxes, and in their balance sheet.
Having a written game plan is the most basic tool for maximizing your career success. Make sure yours has a strong financial planning element in it. Write it out and put it where you can review your progress at least monthly. Update your plan, including your net worth, the same time each year. Get a career coach and perhaps a financial coach or advisor, if that will help you do this well.
2. Satisfy a perceived unmet need - Winning Edgers think empathetically not egotistically. They focus on being best at satisfying other's perceived needs, not on what they want to sell to others. The former is a service or giving mentality. The latter is a getting or selfish mentality. Examples include Walt Disney who wanted to give the world's families at least a few minutes of happiness when he opened Disneyland 50 years ago. The Nordstrom family wanted to give superior service to their shoppers, and Jeep wanted to give a feeling of adventure and independence to Jeep owners. Each thought in terms of their customer's needs that they could satisfy best.
Think and talk empathetically. Describe your work in terms of what needs you satisfy. Do the same thing in your resume'. This is a lot more effective than including how much experience you have, or the tasks you have done.
3. Anticipate their customer's needs better than their competition -Wayne Gretzy once told me that his secret to scoring 2,500 points in the National Hockey League faster than any one is that: "I skate to where the puck is going to be better than most players. That gives me a huge advantage." Bill Gates would probably say something similar. Each of these Winning Edgers demonstrates a special ability to anticipate where the need is going to be, and to get there first, prepared to maximize that advantage.
Invest time in developing anticipatory skills and knowledge that give you an ability to anticipate needs better than your competitors. Listen to tapes by futurists like Faith Popcorn, attend lectures by leading-edge thinkers at your local college, or join a mastermind group of people who think "out of the box," to stay on the edge of change.
4. Understand and really know their customers better than their competitors- Winning Edgers have honed their empathic skills and have learned to understand their customer's needs, values, and decision making style better than their competitors. Most Winning Edges with whom I have worked have gotten to know each core customer so well they can speak in terms the customer finds easy to understand and act upon.
They often use behavioral and communications tools to help them understand their customers. A common tool they use is the Meyers-Briggs Temperament Survey. The MBTI helps entrepreneurs understand how their customers prefer to take in information and how they prefer to make decisions. Knowing this about their customers gives Winning Edgers a huge competitive advantage, when convincing them to buy the entrepreneur's product or service.
Become knowledgeable with behavioral tools that can strengthen your understanding of how and why people (including yourself) prefer to behave. Get to know how each of your bosses prefers to take in information and how each prefers to makes decisions. When you do, your communications will be much more effective. You will find yourself better able to get things done, with less effort, giving you a huge competitive advantage.
5. Invest in Their Future - Winning Edge entrepreneurs do not count their profits until they have invested part of their income into: a) learning more about their customers, b) advancing their technology and their knowledge of it, c) strengthening their team and, d) better preparing themselves for the future. They have a written developmental plan with a budget to support it.
Share your written developmental plan with someone close to you and ask him or her to hold you accountable for your achieving it. Then review your progress with them at least quarterly. Update the entire plan annually. Remember that your take home pay isn't yours to spend until you have invested part of it toward further increasing your value.
6. Know their Stakeholders and have each committed to the venture's success - Winning Edgers know the people who have a stake in the success or the failure of their venture and who have the power to influence its outcome. These stakeholders can be a key customer, a core vendor, a critical lawmaker and/or one of the executives in the company's game maker/breaker positions.
Winning Edge entrepreneurs consistently turn each key stakeholder into an advocate for the venture's success.
Make sure each of your top five stakeholders is your advocate. It takes focus and work. The rewards are huge while the risks of not doing so can spell career disaster.
I often have worked with senior executives who have lost their jobs. When asked who their top five stakeholders were in their last position, and what role each stakeholder played in their career being temporarily, or maybe permanently derailed, the executive typically has reacted with chagrin and embarrassment. He then has quickly followed up with a declaration that he will certainly better cultivate his key stakeholders next time!
7. Are Passionate about their business and their role in it - Living with passion is probably the cornerstone to building a successful business. Winning Edgers are some of the most passionate people with whom I have had the privilege of working.
The three-bricklayer story I tell in my workshops demonstrates this concept as well as any I have heard: When asked: what are you doing? The first of three workers at the same construction site answered: " I'm getting paid $15 per hour. I hate my job, and always look forward to weekends and other days off. But I have to work to pay the bills."
The second bricklayer said he was laying bricks until he could really do what he wanted to do: retire and "really start living!" With excitement he described the motor home trip he and his wife constantly talked about. He reported their retirement planning consumed almost all of their conversations. "Just think," he said excitedly, "it's only four years, two months and three more weeks until I can start to really live."
The third bricklayer stood back, took a breath, and with shinning eyes and a peaceful smile said: "I'm helping save lives. We're building a cathedral here. People will come to this building and worship their Lord. They'll find a special peace they'll take home to their families. I love making a difference in people's lives by using my ability to lay bricks." Then, he added with enthusiasm, that when he retired he planned to work for Habitat for Humanity to continue making the world a little better by using his brick laying skills.
Winning Edgers are like the third bricklayer: they find their gift and pass it on to make the greatest difference in the world. They know the word passion is really three words: PASS I ON, and they do that each day. They also know that with out passion, they'll probably be constantly fatigued and risk burnout before achieving their goals.
We all know examples of each bricklayer in our lives.
Manage your career toward your being like the third bricklayer. Find the higher purpose in what you do, or do something else. Finding passion in every day activities is one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself.
8. Have a championship Coaching Staff- Sometimes called a life board, the Winning Edger's coaching staff includes experts with complementary skills who are committed in the entrepreneur's success. Sometimes your coaching staff will meet as a group with you. Often though, they never know each other. My entrepreneurial coaching staff has included the coaches already mentioned, plus a spiritual coach and a marriage coach. They have never met each other. And they have changed over the years, as they and I have changed. Winning Edgers have constantly told me that their coaching staff has added great value to their lives and to the success of their ventures.
Create your own coaching staff. It can be the most powerful concept you can get from Winning Edgers. Coaches are everywhere. Usually they have "been there, done that." Often they are friends, relatives, or retirees. Sometimes you'll want to pay a person to be your coach. Call The Professional Coaches and Mentors Association (714) 220-9431 for more information on getting a professional coach.
9. Well-Honed Exit Strategy- Knowing where he wants to end up, helps the Winning Edger choose the best team and path for the journey. Whether the goal is going public, selling to a competitor, or to a vendor, the entrepreneur's clear exit strategy helps decisions to be made quicker and easier.
Keep your career destination in writing and in your mind. Have a date by which you will have accomplished your "exit." This BIG PICTURE will help you keep short-term challenges in perspective. It will also assure your written career plan gets you where you want to end up.
10. Know Everything Counts - His friends, the clothes he wears, what he reads, the exercise he gets, even what and where he eats, all play a role in the Winning Edger's success ... and he knows it. He also knows the TV he watches, the memberships and friends he has, as well as his hobbies, help or hinder his venture's progress.
Use everything you do to achieve your goals. Your first step is to know that everything you do each day plays a role in your career and your life. The second step is to make sure everything counts toward (not away from) each of your goals being met.
You can be as entrepreneurially competent and successful as your Winning Edge counterparts. Use the Winning Edger's 10 keys to mind your career like it's your business ... because it is.
Friday, June 15, 2007
Why do talented employees leave companies??
The answer lies in one of the largest studies undertaken by the Gallup Organization. The study surveyed over a million employees and 80,000 Managers and was published in a book called "First Break All The Rules".
It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.
"People leave managers not companies", write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue."
If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away?
Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he’s treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.
Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees.
HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job.
When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information.
Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job." Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue.
It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before.
And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons - for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun’s boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you." While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.
There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime.
The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others. Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.
We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee,” Jack Welch of GE once said.......Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it’s bleeding talent, it's bleeding value.
Unfortunately, many senior executives busy travelling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home.
That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.
It came up with this surprising finding: If you're losing good people, look to their immediate supervisor. More than any other single reason, he is the reason people stay and thrive in an organization. And he's the reason why they quit, taking their knowledge, experience and contacts with them. Often, straight to the competition.
"People leave managers not companies", write the authors Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman. "So much money has been thrown at the challenge of keeping good people - in the form of better pay, better perks and better training - when, in the end, turnover is mostly manager issue."
If you have a turnover problem, look first to your managers. Are they driving people away?
Beyond a point, an employee's primary need has less to do with money, and more to do with how he’s treated and how valued he feels. Much of this depends directly on the immediate manager. And yet, bad bosses seem to happen to good people everywhere. A Fortune magazine survey some years ago found that nearly 75 per cent of employees have suffered at the hands of difficult superiors. You can leave one job to find - you guessed it, another wolf in a pin-stripe suit in the next one.
Of all the workplace stressors, a bad boss is possibly the worst, directly impacting the emotional health and productivity of employees.
HR experts say that of all the abuses, employees find public humiliation the most intolerable. The first time, an employee may not leave, but a thought has been planted. The second time that thought gets strengthened. The third time, he starts looking for another job.
When people cannot retort openly in anger, they do so by passive aggression. By digging their heels in and slowing down. By doing only what they are told to do and no more. By omitting to give the boss crucial information.
Dev says: "If you work for a jerk, you basically want to get him into trouble. You don't have your heart and soul in the job." Different managers can stress out employees in different ways - by being too controlling, too suspicious, too pushy, too critical, but they forget that workers are not fixed assets they are free agents. When this goes on too long, an employee will quit - often over seemingly trivial issue.
It isn't the 100th blow that knocks a good man down. It's the 99 that went before.
And while it's true that people leave jobs for all kinds of reasons - for better opportunities or for circumstantial reasons, many who leave would have stayed - had it not been for one man constantly telling them, as Arun’s boss did: "You are dispensable. I can find dozens like you." While it seems like there are plenty of other fish especially in today's waters, consider for a moment the cost of losing a talented employee.
There's the cost of finding a replacement. The cost of training the replacement. The cost of not having someone to do the job in the meantime.
The loss of clients and contacts the person had with the industry. The loss of morale in co-workers. The loss of trade secrets this person may now share with others. Plus, of course, the loss of the company's reputation. Every person who leaves a corporation then becomes its ambassador, for better or for worse.
We all know of large IT companies that people would love to join and large television companies few want to go near. In both cases, former employees have left to tell their tales. "Any company trying to compete must figure out a way to engage the mind of every employee,” Jack Welch of GE once said.......Much of a company's value lies "between the ears of its employees". If it’s bleeding talent, it's bleeding value.
Unfortunately, many senior executives busy travelling the world, signing new deals and developing a vision for the company, have little idea of what may be going on at home.
That deep within an organization that otherwise does all the right things, one man could be driving its best people away.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The Leadership Styles in a Nutshell
By Daniel Goleman, Primal Leadership.
VISIONARY-Moves people toward shared dreams.
· Impact on Climate: Most strongly positive
· When Appropriate: When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed
COACHING-Connects what a person wants with the organization’s goals.
· Impact on Climate: Highly positive
· When Appropriate: To help an employee improve performance by building long-term capabilities
AFFILIATIVE-Creates harmony by connecting people to each other.
· Impact on Climate: Positive
· When Appropriate: To heal rifts in a team, motivate during stressful times, or strengthen connections
DEMOCRATIC-Values people’s input and gets commitment through participation.
· Impact on Climate: Positive
· When Appropriate: To build buy-in or consensus, or to get valuable input from employees
PACESETTING-Meets challenging and exciting goals.
· Impact on Climate: Because too frequently poorly executed, often highly negative
· When Appropriate: In a crisis, to kick-start a turnaround, or with problem employees
VISIONARY-Moves people toward shared dreams.
· Impact on Climate: Most strongly positive
· When Appropriate: When changes require a new vision, or when a clear direction is needed
COACHING-Connects what a person wants with the organization’s goals.
· Impact on Climate: Highly positive
· When Appropriate: To help an employee improve performance by building long-term capabilities
AFFILIATIVE-Creates harmony by connecting people to each other.
· Impact on Climate: Positive
· When Appropriate: To heal rifts in a team, motivate during stressful times, or strengthen connections
DEMOCRATIC-Values people’s input and gets commitment through participation.
· Impact on Climate: Positive
· When Appropriate: To build buy-in or consensus, or to get valuable input from employees
PACESETTING-Meets challenging and exciting goals.
· Impact on Climate: Because too frequently poorly executed, often highly negative
· When Appropriate: In a crisis, to kick-start a turnaround, or with problem employees
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Mind Your Own Business : Book Summary.
A maverick is an independent person who will not go along with the other members of a group (Oxford ESL Dictionary). This book provides priceless stories and insights from a maverick of the business world; an exemplary business leader who prefers not to follow orthodox beliefs in business, nor be eaten by the hyped up ideas of the present. Instead, he chooses the course of action that is appropriate for the changing times.
The Maverick’s Way: New Old Thing
What is effective? This is the question answered by the maverick. He reconciles the good things from both the Old and New times, and focuses on what is really effective in confronting the challenges of 21st century business dealings.
A maverick thinks outside of the bed, knows that it pays to be daring, does not allow technology to tyrannize, finds strength in diversity, maintains balance and harmony among people, sets leadership by example, has a strong ethical base, and values employees and customers. A maverick knows his customers and believes strongly in his products.
To a maverick, a company is a not just a big candy store. It is a living instrument with living human beings. It should have a HEART.
Keys to Leadership
The leader leads. He exercises critical judgment, which will have a great impact on his people.
The leader defines the company. The leader’s responsibility is to explicitly present and advocate the company’s purposes and goals.
The leader inspires. He gives sense and meaning to the job. He makes his people realize, that beyond profit there is an underlying meaning, value, and deeper reason for the work they do.
The leader should be the evangelist. He should be able to exercise his influence, to sell the values of ethical conduct.
The leader must see the company as a coherent whole. He should be aware of the diversity in the company and bring this together to promote the whole.
The leader must know that there is no better way to create a family in the workplace than to encourage the family at home. Harman International introduced the anti-domestic violence program in the company, which reinforces the idea that the company cares.
The leader should never underestimate the value of disciplined hard work.
The leader empowers subordinates to do their jobs. He should institute programs for the guidance and training of his people. He should always keep the lines of communication open.
The leader promotes closure. He should know the right time to get things done.
The leader knows what he doesn’t know. The leader is not afraid to ask clarifications, if he does not understand a particular subject.
The leader knows the meaning of two minutes. He should respect the time of others and that of his own.
The leader teaches.
Above all, the leader develops others. As Lao Tzu advanced: “the leader having accomplished great things, the people all feel they did it themselves…”
The very best leaders go beyond the mere setting of example. He should be able to cause a leap of imagination and faith in his people.
The leader recognizes that people are often at their very best the moment they have been let go. There are times when an employee doesn’t like the work anymore, or he is unable to appreciate how the whole enterprise works- this is the time to set him free.
A Company Must Be Profitable
1. A solid financial base is fundamental.
2. Debt should not exceed equity. A debt to equity ratio of 1 to 1 or better should be the goal, so that a company’s leader and key executives do not spend all their time on mere survival -paying bills, meeting the payroll, and keeping the banks happy- but moving forward and meeting bigger challenges and doing more visionary work.
3. There should be a regular process for annual strategic planning and budget-planning.
The Fundamentals of Profit and Loss
1. Manage expectations, not the profits. Keep the shareholders informed, to eliminate doubts of manipulating numbers.
2. The Chairman and CEO should be financially literate. They should know what the numbers really mean.
3. Good growth and profitability requires the exercise of critical judgment. The leader should make certain that the budget is one the company can live with.
4. In repurchasing the company’s own stocks, make sure that it will add to the company’s earnings.
5. Look into the availability of funds so that the balance sheet will not be compromised.
Make an Edge in the Business World
1. Writing. It is a unique and powerful skill you can use for clarity and persuasion.
2. Public Speaking and Story-telling. Speak directly, and without notes, to your audience. Individuals respond to a well-told story.
3. Thinking. People do not respect sloppy thinking in a leader. Thoughts should be carefully considered then expressed directly, crisply, and clearly.
The Maverick’s Way: New Old Thing
What is effective? This is the question answered by the maverick. He reconciles the good things from both the Old and New times, and focuses on what is really effective in confronting the challenges of 21st century business dealings.
A maverick thinks outside of the bed, knows that it pays to be daring, does not allow technology to tyrannize, finds strength in diversity, maintains balance and harmony among people, sets leadership by example, has a strong ethical base, and values employees and customers. A maverick knows his customers and believes strongly in his products.
To a maverick, a company is a not just a big candy store. It is a living instrument with living human beings. It should have a HEART.
Keys to Leadership
The leader leads. He exercises critical judgment, which will have a great impact on his people.
The leader defines the company. The leader’s responsibility is to explicitly present and advocate the company’s purposes and goals.
The leader inspires. He gives sense and meaning to the job. He makes his people realize, that beyond profit there is an underlying meaning, value, and deeper reason for the work they do.
The leader should be the evangelist. He should be able to exercise his influence, to sell the values of ethical conduct.
The leader must see the company as a coherent whole. He should be aware of the diversity in the company and bring this together to promote the whole.
The leader must know that there is no better way to create a family in the workplace than to encourage the family at home. Harman International introduced the anti-domestic violence program in the company, which reinforces the idea that the company cares.
The leader should never underestimate the value of disciplined hard work.
The leader empowers subordinates to do their jobs. He should institute programs for the guidance and training of his people. He should always keep the lines of communication open.
The leader promotes closure. He should know the right time to get things done.
The leader knows what he doesn’t know. The leader is not afraid to ask clarifications, if he does not understand a particular subject.
The leader knows the meaning of two minutes. He should respect the time of others and that of his own.
The leader teaches.
Above all, the leader develops others. As Lao Tzu advanced: “the leader having accomplished great things, the people all feel they did it themselves…”
The very best leaders go beyond the mere setting of example. He should be able to cause a leap of imagination and faith in his people.
The leader recognizes that people are often at their very best the moment they have been let go. There are times when an employee doesn’t like the work anymore, or he is unable to appreciate how the whole enterprise works- this is the time to set him free.
A Company Must Be Profitable
1. A solid financial base is fundamental.
2. Debt should not exceed equity. A debt to equity ratio of 1 to 1 or better should be the goal, so that a company’s leader and key executives do not spend all their time on mere survival -paying bills, meeting the payroll, and keeping the banks happy- but moving forward and meeting bigger challenges and doing more visionary work.
3. There should be a regular process for annual strategic planning and budget-planning.
The Fundamentals of Profit and Loss
1. Manage expectations, not the profits. Keep the shareholders informed, to eliminate doubts of manipulating numbers.
2. The Chairman and CEO should be financially literate. They should know what the numbers really mean.
3. Good growth and profitability requires the exercise of critical judgment. The leader should make certain that the budget is one the company can live with.
4. In repurchasing the company’s own stocks, make sure that it will add to the company’s earnings.
5. Look into the availability of funds so that the balance sheet will not be compromised.
Make an Edge in the Business World
1. Writing. It is a unique and powerful skill you can use for clarity and persuasion.
2. Public Speaking and Story-telling. Speak directly, and without notes, to your audience. Individuals respond to a well-told story.
3. Thinking. People do not respect sloppy thinking in a leader. Thoughts should be carefully considered then expressed directly, crisply, and clearly.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
Add Value to Your Business
The purpose of creating a business is to sell it. When it comes time to sell, you want the success of your business to be dependent on systems and not on you. Therefore, you must work on your business as well as in it. You always want to keep the big picture in mind and not get immersed in the details. How do you approach this? Develop systems to enhance it.
There are just four ways to grow your business:
1. Increase the number of customers of the type you want.
2. Increase the frequency with which they deal with you.
3. Increase the average value of the sales transaction.
4. Improve the effectiveness of the processes in your business.
Remember that one of the four reasons for being in business is to have fun.
Your business is there for your benefit; you are not there for its benefit.
What you can measure, you can manage. If you are not measuring a process, it is almost certain that you are not managing it. Think about your business and what makes it profitable. Are you measuring these processes?
• How many customers do you have?
• How many new customers did you get during the last month and the last year?
• What was the source of these customers?
If you and your team are doing activities that you cannot measure, then the chances are that those activities are adding no value. If they are adding no value, why waste your time doing them?
Build your Unique Core Differentiators (UCD’S). This information bulletin is part of our UCD’S. What have you got?
Look for a second dimension in selling your product. Extended warranties, companion selling, etc.
Learn to really listen. Don’t prescribe a solution unless you really understand the problem. Cutting the price is the easy option - but there is often a better way. It will be harder, but you will earn more money and add more value to your business.
Lower the barriers to doing business with you. Some businesses still do not accept credit cards. (Have I hit a sensitive nerve here?) Should you be taking debit cards?
The more specific things you can tell, the more you can sell. What are the reasons your customers deal with you? Tell these reasons to others and see if you gain new customers.
Avoid changing horses in midstream. If you have tested or measured a system or a process and it works, stick with it until you develop an improved system or process.
Know the power of one. Direct your efforts to one customer or to one prospective customer who requires your service or product; don’t direct your efforts to those who don’t require them.
Learn the value of discovering key frustrations.
Systematize: have a specific way of doing every thing.
Set performance standards: have a best way of doing things.
Invert your pyramid and empower your team. The team you have in place can solve most day to day problems. They can do it faster and more effectively than you can. You just need a way of identifying the solution and applying it. Give them the skill and the authority.
Don’t just reverse the risk, remove it. If you give guarantees, you must have systems in place so that the only result will be the one where you will meet your guarantee.
Give your team a clear and detailed action plan. Be pro-active in following up on orders.
Create offers to add value and to encourage faster responses. If offers increase responses considerably, why run an advertisement without an offer?
Add a 3rd dimension to marketing your product. Consider a Host Beneficiary program. Who else is serving your customers? They want access to your customers. You want access to theirs. Find a way to work together to benefit both.
These ideas will only work if you implement them. As the Nike people say, "JUST DO IT!"
There are just four ways to grow your business:
1. Increase the number of customers of the type you want.
2. Increase the frequency with which they deal with you.
3. Increase the average value of the sales transaction.
4. Improve the effectiveness of the processes in your business.
Remember that one of the four reasons for being in business is to have fun.
Your business is there for your benefit; you are not there for its benefit.
What you can measure, you can manage. If you are not measuring a process, it is almost certain that you are not managing it. Think about your business and what makes it profitable. Are you measuring these processes?
• How many customers do you have?
• How many new customers did you get during the last month and the last year?
• What was the source of these customers?
If you and your team are doing activities that you cannot measure, then the chances are that those activities are adding no value. If they are adding no value, why waste your time doing them?
Build your Unique Core Differentiators (UCD’S). This information bulletin is part of our UCD’S. What have you got?
Look for a second dimension in selling your product. Extended warranties, companion selling, etc.
Learn to really listen. Don’t prescribe a solution unless you really understand the problem. Cutting the price is the easy option - but there is often a better way. It will be harder, but you will earn more money and add more value to your business.
Lower the barriers to doing business with you. Some businesses still do not accept credit cards. (Have I hit a sensitive nerve here?) Should you be taking debit cards?
The more specific things you can tell, the more you can sell. What are the reasons your customers deal with you? Tell these reasons to others and see if you gain new customers.
Avoid changing horses in midstream. If you have tested or measured a system or a process and it works, stick with it until you develop an improved system or process.
Know the power of one. Direct your efforts to one customer or to one prospective customer who requires your service or product; don’t direct your efforts to those who don’t require them.
Learn the value of discovering key frustrations.
Systematize: have a specific way of doing every thing.
Set performance standards: have a best way of doing things.
Invert your pyramid and empower your team. The team you have in place can solve most day to day problems. They can do it faster and more effectively than you can. You just need a way of identifying the solution and applying it. Give them the skill and the authority.
Don’t just reverse the risk, remove it. If you give guarantees, you must have systems in place so that the only result will be the one where you will meet your guarantee.
Give your team a clear and detailed action plan. Be pro-active in following up on orders.
Create offers to add value and to encourage faster responses. If offers increase responses considerably, why run an advertisement without an offer?
Add a 3rd dimension to marketing your product. Consider a Host Beneficiary program. Who else is serving your customers? They want access to your customers. You want access to theirs. Find a way to work together to benefit both.
These ideas will only work if you implement them. As the Nike people say, "JUST DO IT!"
Monday, June 11, 2007
Great Expectations Get Great Results
Remember the Gulf War? Remember "Stormin' Norman" Schwarzkopf, the American general who became a hero? Many interesting things came out of that, not the least of which was stories about some techniques Schwarzkopf used. They are the same techniques you and I can use to get things done.
One of the most succinct examples concerned Stormin' Norman and his experience when taking command of helicopter maintenance early in his career. He'd ask how much of the fleet could fly any given day, taking into account maintenance schedules. "Seventy-five percent" was the reply. Wondering why it wasn't 73% or 74%, but always 75%, he decided to set a NEW standard. "I don't know anything about helicopter maintenance, but I'm establishing a new standard of 85%," he announced. Sure enough, in very quick time, 85% operability became the norm. It's interesting isn't it? People perform to expectations. If you set low expectations that are what you get. Set them high, and it's truly amazing how your new level has a way of becoming reality.
Creating benchmarks - for your people and yourself - has an uncanny way of coming to pass. Let me give you a case in point. John Mitchell is a pharmacist in Stirling, South Australia. John simply set benchmarks for his team. Was it some complicated selling process? He developed a checklist to help his people identify up-selling opportunities. He gave the checklist to his team and then put up a white board where they would "chalk up" every successful up-selling transaction. It became a fun challenge for them to beat the others and achieve the highest tally for the week. His only cost for this incentive was dinner for two for the winner on his team. His reward was (and is) incredible and far-reaching! To his utter amazement, putting a performance standard on cross-selling now accounts for 50% MORE SALES value from every transaction. As he put it, he wouldn't have believed it until he saw it happen. (His profitability increase, of course, will be much, much more.)
Now take the case of Ian Stathie of Wray Owen Funeral Directors. He sent us an article from a US funeral industry magazine. In it is the most comprehensive set of performance benchmarks you can imagine, benchmarks that allow the members to strive for excellence AND measure their commercial prosperity. For example, they carefully monitor such things as the total number and value of "pre-need" insurance sales, total number of deaths that were pre-funded, percentage of embalming to total calls, percentage of casket to total calls and so on. Morbid? No, it's just sound and professional business practice.
They DON'T pay lip service to setting standards and benchmarks. They DO it and then monitor it. As the article says, "These are people who want to excel, people who want to give every family they serve extra value for their dollar - these are people who look at everything with an open mind." The truth is, too, that these people understand this great truth, "What you can measure, you can manage." Again, what you can measure you can manage. Put another way, if you are trying to manage something that you're not measuring, you've got a snowflake's chance - well, you know the rest. You have very little chance of managing it effectively.
One of the most succinct examples concerned Stormin' Norman and his experience when taking command of helicopter maintenance early in his career. He'd ask how much of the fleet could fly any given day, taking into account maintenance schedules. "Seventy-five percent" was the reply. Wondering why it wasn't 73% or 74%, but always 75%, he decided to set a NEW standard. "I don't know anything about helicopter maintenance, but I'm establishing a new standard of 85%," he announced. Sure enough, in very quick time, 85% operability became the norm. It's interesting isn't it? People perform to expectations. If you set low expectations that are what you get. Set them high, and it's truly amazing how your new level has a way of becoming reality.
Creating benchmarks - for your people and yourself - has an uncanny way of coming to pass. Let me give you a case in point. John Mitchell is a pharmacist in Stirling, South Australia. John simply set benchmarks for his team. Was it some complicated selling process? He developed a checklist to help his people identify up-selling opportunities. He gave the checklist to his team and then put up a white board where they would "chalk up" every successful up-selling transaction. It became a fun challenge for them to beat the others and achieve the highest tally for the week. His only cost for this incentive was dinner for two for the winner on his team. His reward was (and is) incredible and far-reaching! To his utter amazement, putting a performance standard on cross-selling now accounts for 50% MORE SALES value from every transaction. As he put it, he wouldn't have believed it until he saw it happen. (His profitability increase, of course, will be much, much more.)
Now take the case of Ian Stathie of Wray Owen Funeral Directors. He sent us an article from a US funeral industry magazine. In it is the most comprehensive set of performance benchmarks you can imagine, benchmarks that allow the members to strive for excellence AND measure their commercial prosperity. For example, they carefully monitor such things as the total number and value of "pre-need" insurance sales, total number of deaths that were pre-funded, percentage of embalming to total calls, percentage of casket to total calls and so on. Morbid? No, it's just sound and professional business practice.
They DON'T pay lip service to setting standards and benchmarks. They DO it and then monitor it. As the article says, "These are people who want to excel, people who want to give every family they serve extra value for their dollar - these are people who look at everything with an open mind." The truth is, too, that these people understand this great truth, "What you can measure, you can manage." Again, what you can measure you can manage. Put another way, if you are trying to manage something that you're not measuring, you've got a snowflake's chance - well, you know the rest. You have very little chance of managing it effectively.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Career Warfare
"10 Rules for Building a Successful Personal Brand and Fighting to Keep It"
It is a tough and competitive business environment you live and it is getting more and more difficult to achieve your goals। You have to stand out among your colleagues and competitors। You have to work hard for career advancement, and better compensation.Whether you are a senior executive, an entrepreneur or an employee, this book will show you the best way to succeed, accomplish your personal and career goals, outshine your competition and differentiate yourself from the pack. David F. D’Alessandro shows you how to stand out from the crowd by developing your own “personal brand”; and provides valuable lessons in the etiquette of reputation building.What is Personal Brand?You need to realize that success does not only come from hard work and appropriately playing the part. To be successful in business and in your career, you must be able to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack - you need to develop, build and defend your reputation.Personal branding is a way you manage your career or business. It is a way of communicating that makes you different and special. By using these qualities you can distinguish yourself from your peers so that you can expand your success.There are 10 rules you can follow for building a successful personal brand and keeping it:
Rule 1: Try to Look Beyond Your Own Navel - The biggest obstacle in building a positive personal brand is your own ego. In order to develop an attractive personal brand, you need to have self-respect and you need to respect the people around you.
Rule 2: Like It or Not, Your Boss is the Coauthor of Your Brand - You must realize and accept the fact that early on in your career, your boss will reap most of the rewards for ideas you give, money that you brought in, etc. This is how the corporate world operates. Do not fight the power structure. Instead learn how to play and live by it.
Rule 3: Put Your Boss on the Couch - Not all bosses will help you. It is best that you recognize what type of personality your boss has so that you would realize what advantages and disadvantages this person can cause to your brand.
Rule 4: Learn Which One is the Pickle Fork - Good manners are crucial in developing and enhancing your personal brand. Manners are about consideration and respect, knowledge and patience. Practice good business etiquette.
Rule 5: Kenny Rogers is Right - While it is important for you to seize the opportunity to build your brand, it is equally crucial to know what battles to take. Know when to keep on fighting and when to move fold.
Rule 6: It’s Always Show Time - You must realize that reputations are not usually made by big events - sometimes it is those big events that smear your brand. What builds your reputation is your day-to-day behavior in the business setting, such as how you deal with people, how you make decisions, your work habits, etc.
Rule 7: Make the Right Enemies - The best personal brands include courtesy, fairness, tolerance, self-respect and having good and proper manners. However, a small amount of ruthlessness is good for your brand. Your reputation will not suffer much if you fight your enemies, but it will suffer if you lose your self-respect.
Rule 8: Try Not To Be Swallowed By the Bubble - Once you are successful in building your brand and is rising in the ranks, do not lose sight of the forest. Do not be too full of yourself that you will be swallowed by success. It is bad for your humanity, and bad for your career.
Rule 9: The Higher You Fly, the More You Will Be Shot At - Everybody makes mistakes. The higher you are in the ladder of success, the more likely that your mistakes will be highlighted. Accept the fact that bad press comes with prominence in any field.
Rule 10: Everybody Could have Been a Contender; Make Sure You Stay One - Set yourself to be distinct from your peers. Since you are constantly being compared to your peers, don’t be afraid to offer something unique or distinctive. Don’t give up easily. Don’t throw in the towel immediately because of a setback or two. Learn from your mistakes and turn it into an opportunity. Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Be cautious of the reputation.
It is a tough and competitive business environment you live and it is getting more and more difficult to achieve your goals। You have to stand out among your colleagues and competitors। You have to work hard for career advancement, and better compensation.Whether you are a senior executive, an entrepreneur or an employee, this book will show you the best way to succeed, accomplish your personal and career goals, outshine your competition and differentiate yourself from the pack. David F. D’Alessandro shows you how to stand out from the crowd by developing your own “personal brand”; and provides valuable lessons in the etiquette of reputation building.What is Personal Brand?You need to realize that success does not only come from hard work and appropriately playing the part. To be successful in business and in your career, you must be able to distinguish yourself from the rest of the pack - you need to develop, build and defend your reputation.Personal branding is a way you manage your career or business. It is a way of communicating that makes you different and special. By using these qualities you can distinguish yourself from your peers so that you can expand your success.There are 10 rules you can follow for building a successful personal brand and keeping it:
Rule 1: Try to Look Beyond Your Own Navel - The biggest obstacle in building a positive personal brand is your own ego. In order to develop an attractive personal brand, you need to have self-respect and you need to respect the people around you.
Rule 2: Like It or Not, Your Boss is the Coauthor of Your Brand - You must realize and accept the fact that early on in your career, your boss will reap most of the rewards for ideas you give, money that you brought in, etc. This is how the corporate world operates. Do not fight the power structure. Instead learn how to play and live by it.
Rule 3: Put Your Boss on the Couch - Not all bosses will help you. It is best that you recognize what type of personality your boss has so that you would realize what advantages and disadvantages this person can cause to your brand.
Rule 4: Learn Which One is the Pickle Fork - Good manners are crucial in developing and enhancing your personal brand. Manners are about consideration and respect, knowledge and patience. Practice good business etiquette.
Rule 5: Kenny Rogers is Right - While it is important for you to seize the opportunity to build your brand, it is equally crucial to know what battles to take. Know when to keep on fighting and when to move fold.
Rule 6: It’s Always Show Time - You must realize that reputations are not usually made by big events - sometimes it is those big events that smear your brand. What builds your reputation is your day-to-day behavior in the business setting, such as how you deal with people, how you make decisions, your work habits, etc.
Rule 7: Make the Right Enemies - The best personal brands include courtesy, fairness, tolerance, self-respect and having good and proper manners. However, a small amount of ruthlessness is good for your brand. Your reputation will not suffer much if you fight your enemies, but it will suffer if you lose your self-respect.
Rule 8: Try Not To Be Swallowed By the Bubble - Once you are successful in building your brand and is rising in the ranks, do not lose sight of the forest. Do not be too full of yourself that you will be swallowed by success. It is bad for your humanity, and bad for your career.
Rule 9: The Higher You Fly, the More You Will Be Shot At - Everybody makes mistakes. The higher you are in the ladder of success, the more likely that your mistakes will be highlighted. Accept the fact that bad press comes with prominence in any field.
Rule 10: Everybody Could have Been a Contender; Make Sure You Stay One - Set yourself to be distinct from your peers. Since you are constantly being compared to your peers, don’t be afraid to offer something unique or distinctive. Don’t give up easily. Don’t throw in the towel immediately because of a setback or two. Learn from your mistakes and turn it into an opportunity. Don’t lie, cheat or steal. Be cautious of the reputation.
Friday, June 8, 2007
Extract of Mr.Narayana Murthy's Speech during Mentor Session:
I know people who work 12 hours a day, six days a week, or more. Some people do so because of a work emergency where the long hours are only temporary. Other people I know have put these hours for years. I don't know if they are working all these hours, but I do know they are in the office this long. Others put in long office hours because they are addicted to the workplace. Whatever the reason for putting in overtime, working long hours over the long term is harmful to the person and to the organization. There are things managers can do to change this for everyone's benefit. Being in the office long hours, over long periods of time, makes way for potential errors. My colleagues who are in the office long hours frequently make mistakes caused by fatigue.
Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday. Another problem is that people who are in the office long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them. Such behavior poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another. As Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office. First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves on time. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding groups e-mails with a time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday. Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives.
For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:
1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3) Go home.
4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc
5) Eat well and sleep well. This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2. Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts.
They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them. In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest son. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep, no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was. He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep. By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out. Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don't want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life!! Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap. Things will happen while you're asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake.
Correcting these mistakes requires their time as well as the time and energy of others. I have seen people work Tuesday through Friday to correct mistakes made after 5 PM on Monday. Another problem is that people who are in the office long hours are not pleasant company. They often complain about other people (who aren't working as hard); they are irritable, or cranky, or even angry. Other people avoid them. Such behavior poses problems, where work goes much better when people work together instead of avoiding one another. As Managers, there are things we can do to help people leave the office. First and foremost is to set the example and go home ourselves on time. I work with a manager who chides people for working long hours. His words quickly lose their meaning when he sends these chiding groups e-mails with a time-stamp of 2 AM, Sunday. Second is to encourage people to put some balance in their lives.
For instance, here is a guideline I find helpful:
1) Wake up, eat a good breakfast, and go to work.
2) Work hard and smart for eight or nine hours.
3) Go home.
4) Read the comics, watch a funny movie, dig in the dirt, play with your kids, etc
5) Eat well and sleep well. This is called recreating. Doing steps 1, 3, 4, and 5 enable step 2. Working regular hours and recreating daily are simple concepts.
They are hard for some of us because that requires personal change. They are possible since we all have the power to choose to do them. In considering the issue of overtime, I am reminded of my eldest son. When he was a toddler, if people were visiting the apartment, he would not fall asleep, no matter how long the visit, and no matter what time of day it was. He would fight off sleep until the visitors left. It was as if he was afraid that he would miss something. Once our visitors' left, he would go to sleep. By this time, however, he was over tired and would scream through half the night with nightmares. He, my wife, and I, all paid the price for his fear of missing out. Perhaps some people put in such long hours because they don't want to miss anything when they leave the office. The trouble with this is that events will never stop happening. That is life!! Things happen 24 hours a day. Allowing for little rest is not ultimately practical. So, take a nap. Things will happen while you're asleep, but you will have the energy to catch up when you wake.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Guarantee Your Reliability
Let's begin with a question: How could you dominate a market?
One key to doing it is to ask yourself, "What frustration(s) do people experience when dealing with people in my industry or profession?" Find the answer and then go for it. Make solving that frustration your own Unique Selling Proposition.
Take trades people or contractors as an example. The almost universal frustration is that they are unreliable. So, a firm that sets up its operations to reverse that and be totally reliable is bound to win. That's particularly true if the firm guarantees what it does. For instance, "When we say we'll be there at 10 o'clock, if we're not, the first half hour of the job is on us."
As one client said recently, even to get a tradesperson to quote a time would be a major breakthrough, never mind guaranteeing it. The FIXZIT people in Brisbane, Australia are a good example. They've built a franchised chain almost solely on solving the frustrations that people feel. They carry it through with wonderful thank-you cards and performance guarantees. Their thank-you card serves a dual purpose; it also surveys their customers.
So, what is it for you? If we went out in the marketplace and asked customers of your industry or profession what the biggest frustration is that they have dealing with this particular industry, what would they say? If you knew, you could take the idea and make sure they never experience that frustration when they deal with you.
Let's take a simple example. Hairdressers, or if you like, doctors. Every single one of us has been kept waiting by these people. So, a hairdresser or a doctor who advertised similarly will reap significant rewards: "The only hairdresser in ABC town who is professional and caring enough to make it up to you in a big way if you're kept waiting for longer than two minutes."
Importantly, we need to understand, too, that doing things this way not only gets you significant new business, it also can get you significant price gains.
One key to doing it is to ask yourself, "What frustration(s) do people experience when dealing with people in my industry or profession?" Find the answer and then go for it. Make solving that frustration your own Unique Selling Proposition.
Take trades people or contractors as an example. The almost universal frustration is that they are unreliable. So, a firm that sets up its operations to reverse that and be totally reliable is bound to win. That's particularly true if the firm guarantees what it does. For instance, "When we say we'll be there at 10 o'clock, if we're not, the first half hour of the job is on us."
As one client said recently, even to get a tradesperson to quote a time would be a major breakthrough, never mind guaranteeing it. The FIXZIT people in Brisbane, Australia are a good example. They've built a franchised chain almost solely on solving the frustrations that people feel. They carry it through with wonderful thank-you cards and performance guarantees. Their thank-you card serves a dual purpose; it also surveys their customers.
So, what is it for you? If we went out in the marketplace and asked customers of your industry or profession what the biggest frustration is that they have dealing with this particular industry, what would they say? If you knew, you could take the idea and make sure they never experience that frustration when they deal with you.
Let's take a simple example. Hairdressers, or if you like, doctors. Every single one of us has been kept waiting by these people. So, a hairdresser or a doctor who advertised similarly will reap significant rewards: "The only hairdresser in ABC town who is professional and caring enough to make it up to you in a big way if you're kept waiting for longer than two minutes."
Importantly, we need to understand, too, that doing things this way not only gets you significant new business, it also can get you significant price gains.
Sense of a Goose
When you see geese flying along in "V" formation, you might consider what science has discovered as to why they fly that way:
• As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.
• When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.
If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.
• When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.
• Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
What messages do we give when we honk from behind?
• Finally ... and this is important ... when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.
If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
• As each bird flaps its wings, it creates an uplift for the bird immediately following. By flying in "V" formation, the whole flock adds at least 71 percent greater flying range than if each bird flew on its own.
People who share a common direction and sense of community can get where they are going more quickly and easily because they are traveling on the thrust of one another.
• When a goose falls out of formation, it suddenly feels the drag and resistance of trying to go it alone, and quickly gets back into formation to take advantage of the lifting power of the bird in front.
If we have as much sense as a goose, we will stay in formation with those people who are headed the same way we are.
• When the head goose gets tired, it rotates back in the wing and another goose flies point.
It is sensible to take turns doing demanding jobs, whether with people or with geese flying south.
• Geese honk from behind to encourage those up front to keep up their speed.
What messages do we give when we honk from behind?
• Finally ... and this is important ... when a goose gets sick or is wounded by gunshot, and falls out of formation, two other geese fall out with that goose and follow it down to lend help and protection. They stay with the fallen goose until it is able to fly or until it dies, and only then do they launch out on their own, or with another formation to catch up with their group.
If we have the sense of a goose, we will stand by each other like that.
Bill Gate's rules.
Bill Gates recently gave a speech at a High School about 11 things they did not and will not learn in school. He talks about how feel-good, politically correct teachings created a generation of kids with no concept of reality and how this concept set them up for failure in the real world.
Rule 1: Life is not fair - get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won't care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won't be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your
Grandparents had a different word for burger flipping: they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it's not your parents' fault, so don't whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren't as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you thought you were. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent's generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools, they have abolished failing grades and they'll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn't bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don't get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually
have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you'll end up working for one.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Stretch people and they perform..but
Managers who think that the only way to let a team perform better by pushing them to stretch are wrong.
To make a sustainable performer out of every team member the Manager must look at the personal side also. People who spend quality time with their family outperform on the long run. A person who spends less time gives an output which diminishes with every passing day. A happy employee at the home front is an asset.
We all claim to work for our families but we forget to ask the family memebrs their needs. Most cases we feel that money would buy all their needs but their major need if checked would be quality time and not the most expensive item we buy for them.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Monday, December 25, 2006
Success.... A wonderful definition of success. By Subroto Bagchi
Address by Subroto Bagchi, Chief Operating Officer, MindTree Consulting to the Class of 2006 at IIMB campus to the new batch on defining success.
I was the last child of a small-time government servant, in a family of five brothers. My earliest memory of my father is as that of a District Employment Officer in Koraput, Orissa. It was and remains as back of beyond as you can imagine. There was no electricity; no primary school nearby and water did not flow out of a tap. As a result, I did not go to school until the age of eight; I was home- schooled. My father used to get transferred every year. The family belongings fit into the back of a jeep - so the family moved from place to place and, without any trouble, my Mother would set up an establishment and get us going. Raised by a widow who had come as a refugee from the then East Bengal, she was a matriculate when she married my Father.
My parents set the foundation of my life and the value system which makes me what I am today and largely defines what success means to me today.
As District Employment Officer, my father was given a jeep by the government. There was no garage in the Office, so the jeep was parked in our house. My father refused to use it to commute to the office. He told us that the jeep is an expensive resource given by the government - he reiterated to us that it was not 'his jeep' but the government's jeep. Insisting that he would use it only to tour the interiors, he would walk to his office on normal days. He also made sure that we never sat in the government jeep - we could sit in it only when it was stationary.
That was our early childhood lesson in governance – a lesson that corporate managers learn the hard way, some never do.
The driver of the jeep was treated with respect due to any other member of my Father's office. As small children, we were taught not to call him by his name. We had to use the suffix 'dada' whenever we were to refer to him in public or private. When I grew up to own a car and a driver by the name of Raju was appointed - I repeated the lesson to my two small daughters. They have, as a result, grown up to call Raju, 'Raju Uncle' - very different from many of their friends who refer to their family drivers as 'my driver'. When I hear that term from a school- or college-going person, I cringe.
To me, the lesson was significant - you treat small people with more respect than how you treat big people. It is more important to respect your subordinates than your superiors.
Our day used to start with the family huddling around my Mother's chulha - an earthen fire place she would build at each place of posting where she would cook for the family. There was no gas, nor electrical stoves. The morning routine started with tea. As the brew was served, Father would ask us to read aloud the editorial page of The Statesman's 'muffosil' edition - delivered one day late. We did not understand much of what we were reading. But the ritual was meant for us to know that the world was larger than Koraput district and the English I speak today, despite having studied in an Oriya medium school, has to do with that routine. After reading the newspaper aloud, we were told to fold it neatly. Father taught us a simple lesson.
He used to say, "You should leave your newspaper and your toilet, the way you expect to find it". That lesson was about showing consideration to others. Business begins and ends with that simple precept.
Being small children, we were always enamored with advertisements in the newspaper for transistor radios - we did not have one. We saw other people having radios in their homes and each time there was an advertisement of Philips, Murphy or Bush radios, we would ask Father when we could get one. Each time, my Father would reply that we did not need one because he already had five radios - alluding to his five sons.
We also did not have a house of our own and would occasionally ask Father as to when, like others, we would live in our own house. He would give a similar reply, "We do not need a house of our own. I already own five houses". His replies did not gladden our hearts in that instant.
Nonetheless, we learnt that it is important not to measure personal success and sense of well being through material possessions.
Government houses seldom came with fences. Mother and I collected twigs and built a small fence. After lunch, my Mother would never sleep. She would take her kitchen utensils and with those she and I would dig the rocky, white ant infested surrounding. We planted flowering bushes. The white ants destroyed them. My mother brought ash from her chulha and mixed it in the earth and we planted the seedlings all over again. This time, they bloomed. At that time, my father's transfer order came. A few neighbors told my mother why she was taking so much pain to beautify a government house, why she was planting seeds that would only benefit the next occupant. My mother replied that it did not matter to her that she would not see the flowers in full bloom. She said, "I have to create a bloom in a desert and whenever I am given a new place, I must leave it more beautiful than what I had inherited".
That was my first lesson in success. It is not about what you create for yourself, it is what you leave behind that defines success.
My mother began developing a cataract in her eyes when I was very small. At that time, the eldest among my brothers got a teaching job at the University in Bhubaneswar and had to prepare for the civil services examination. So, it was decided that my Mother would move to cook for him and, as her appendage, I had to move too. For the first time in my life, I saw electricity in homes and water coming out of a tap. It was around 1965 and the country was going to war with Pakistan. My mother was having problems reading and in any case, being Bengali, she did not know the Oriya script. So, in addition to my daily chores, my job was to read her the local newspaper - end to end. That created in me a sense of connected ness with a larger world. I began taking interest in many different things. While reading out news about the war, I felt that I was fighting the war myself. She and I discussed the daily news and built a bond with the larger universe. In it, we became part of a larger reality. Till date, I measure my success in terms of that sense of larger connected ness.
Meanwhile, the war raged and India was fighting on both fronts. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Prime Minster, coined the term "Jai Jawan, Jai Kishan" and galvanized the nation in to patriotic fervor. Other than reading out the newspaper to my mother, I had no clue about how I could be part of the action. So, after reading her the newspaper, everyday I would land up near the University's water tank, which served the community. I would spend hours under it, imagining that there could be spies who would come to poison the water and I had to watch for them. I would daydream about catching one and how the next day, I would be featured in the newspaper. Unfortunately for me, the spies at war ignored the sleepy town of Bhubaneswar and I never got a chance to catch one in action. Yet, that act unlocked my imagination.
Imagination is everything. If we can imagine a future, we can create it, if we can create that future, others will live in it. That is the essence of success.
Over the next few years, my mother's eyesight dimmed but in me she created a larger vision, a vision with which I continue to see the world and, I sense, through my eyes, she was seeing too. As the next few years unfolded, her vision deteriorated and she was operated for cataract. I remember, when she returned after her operation and she saw my face clearly for the first time, she was astonished. She said, "Oh my God, I did not know you were so fair". I remain mighty pleased with that adulation even till date. Within weeks of getting her sight back, she developed a corneal ulcer and, overnight, became blind in both eyes. That was 1969. She died in 2002. In all those 32 years of living with blindness, she never complained about her fate even once. Curious to know what she saw with blind eyes, I asked her once if she sees darkness. She replied, "No, I do not see darkness. I only see light even with my eyes closed". Until she was eighty years of age, she did her morning yoga everyday, swept her own room and washed her own clothes.
To me, success is about the sense of independence; it is about not seeing the world but seeing the light.
Over the many intervening years, I grew up, studied, joined the industry and began to carve my life's own journey. I began my life as a clerk in a government office, went on to become a Management Trainee with the DCM group and eventually found my life's calling with the IT industry when fourth generation computers came to India in 1981. Life took me places - I worked with outstanding people, challenging assignments and traveled all over the world.
In 1992, while I was posted in the US, I learnt that my father, living a retired life with my eldest brother, had suffered a third degree burn injury and was admitted in the Safderjung Hospital in Delhi. I flew back to attend to him - he remained for a few days in critical stage, bandaged from neck to toe. The Safderjung Hospital is a cockroach infested, dirty, inhuman place. The overworked, under- resourced sisters in the burn ward are both victims and perpetrators of dehumanized life at its worst. One morning, while attending to my Father, I realized that the blood bottle was empty and fearing that air would go into his vein, I asked the attending nurse to change it. She bluntly told me to do it myself. In that horrible theater of death, I was in pain and frustration and anger. Finally when she relented and came, my Father opened his eyes and murmured to her, "Why have you not gone home yet?" Here was a man on his deathbed but more concerned about the overworked nurse than his own state. I was stunned at his stoic self.
There I learnt that there is no limit to how concerned you can be for another human being and what is the limit of inclusion you can create.
My father died the next day.
He was a man whose success was defined by his principles, his frugality, his universalism and his sense of inclusion.
Above all, he taught me that success is your ability to rise above your discomfort, whatever may be your current state. You can, if you want, raise your consciousness above your immediate surroundings. Success is not about building material comforts - the transistor that he never could buy or the house that he never owned. His success was about the legacy he left, the mimetic continuity of his ideals that grew beyond the smallness of a ill-paid, unrecognized government servant's world.
My father was a fervent believer in the British Raj. He sincerely doubted the capability of the post-independence Indian political parties to govern the country. To him, the lowering of the Union Jack was a sad event. My Mother was the exact opposite. When Subhash Bose quit the Indian National Congress and came to Dacca, my mother, then a schoolgirl, garlanded him. She learnt to spin khadi and joined an underground movement that trained her in using daggers and swords. Consequently, our household saw diversity in the political outlook of the two. On major issues concerning the world, the Old Man and the Old Lady had differing opinions.
In them, we learnt the power of disagreements, of dialogue and the essence of living with diversity in thinking.
Success is not about the ability to create a definitive dogmatic end state; it is about the unfolding of thought processes, of dialogue and continuum.
Two years back, at the age of eighty-two, Mother had a paralytic stroke and was lying in a government hospital in Bhubaneswar. I flew down from the US where I was serving my second stint, to see her. I spent two weeks with her in the hospital as she remained in a paralytic state. She was neither getting better nor moving on. Eventually I had to return to work. While leaving her behind, I kissed her face. In that paralytic state and a garbled voice, she said, "Why are you kissing me, go kiss the world." Her river was nearing its journey, at the confluence of life and death, this woman who came to India as a refugee, raised by a widowed Mother, no more educated than high school, married to an anonymous government servant whose last salary was Rupees Three Hundred, robbed of her eyesight by fate and crowned by adversity - was telling me to go and kiss the world!
Success to me is about Vision. It is the ability to rise above the immediacy of pain. It is about imagination. It is about sensitivity to small people. It is about building inclusion. It is about connected ness to a larger world existence. It is about personal tenacity. It is about giving back more to life than you take out of it. It is about creating extra-ordinary success with ordinary lives.
Thank you very much; I wish you good luck and Godspeed. Go, kiss the world
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