Power of Observation

“Vision is the art of seeing things invisible to others” ~ Jonathan Swift

Here, I am addressing the often Overlooked and Underutilized Power of Human beings – “The Power of Observation”.

A lot of times I am told that I have strong observation powers. Recently it was re-iterated by some team members when one morning I called for a strategy meet for expanding the customer base for apparel for Fashion @ Big Bazaar. The trigger for this meeting was observation of the street shoppers in Mumbai suburbs. I noticed that the women who were shopping were “middle class”! The kind of women who I would like to have in our stores. The clothes that they were buying were not more fashionable and not cheaper. So, it sparked the question on their motivation to shop there.

It made me think how I started my journey of keen observation. Then, I remembered my baptism by fire. Here goes my first experience leading to learning on “power of observation”

My first job as a management trainee (over two decades back) was in a multinational which also sold Shampoos. Those days for the shampoo category the key task was to increase customer trial and penetration through the sachet route. So, the sales task was to ensure wide distribution of sachet in the kirana stores. During the training period I also worked as a sales officer and my “mentor”, the Area Sales manager was to visit me in the market place. “Dressing up” the market was a done thing. So, I with my distributor made sure that the sachet distribution was wide (on the understanding with the shop keepers that we will take them back after the ASM visit).

During the visit, ASM went through the stores without any adverse remark and I was feeling relieved. In the last shop he said that the sachet were placed only yesterday. I tried to say that was not correct. He proceeded to count the number of sachet hanging on the hangar and said that the shop had not sold any. I hastily added that the sachet offtake was really poor. He then said that the sachet placed there were feeling new. In an Indian shop if they were hanging for a long period then they would have been dirty. I was left speechless.

So, my mantra is that developing the “power of observation” is an easy thing to do – we just need to focus on it. It is more a question of training and habit. I am attempting to put some tips for the same over here.

1.      “Point of view” based Observation : Reality is not very different from the way you would believe it. Having a “point of view” helps in defining the standard and any deviation is fairly easy to observe. E.g. If I believe that excess dust in a store is just not acceptable, I will work on finding reasons for the same. In a particular case, it was not about poor housekeeping but non-functional air curtain. Assuming things will be right is the biggest hindrance in your observation. Observation is done with an open mind and not just open eyes.

2.      Observe Like a Customer: In retail and most other businesses customers are your biggest assets. Can you experience the joys and frustrations of the customers, first hand. I have personally shopped (and observed) in our stores like a customer and have been able to contribute to improvements significantly. For me this is a very special thought.

3.      Observe Small Details : Nothing is too small to be noticed. I have noticed a sticker on a competitive store hoarding on the change of promo dates to finetune my tactics. Or the lights which are not functional in a store or at the fascade. And trust me, these are things that frustrate my team the most. But I am relentless on this.

4.      Prepare yourself to observe : If you continue thinking that things have always been this way and won’t be very different today, you will never be able to observe. Tell yourself that if you don’t observe anything new today, the day was a waste. Even if you decide that you have to observe 5 new things every day, you will over achieve your targets. There are enough things around to tell you something new every day.

5.      Act : Once you observed something wrong, take immediate steps to correct it, even if it’s a fairly small thing. This will further enhance your observation powers.

The "observation" is not just related to stores, but also to data. Think about applying all the above thoughts to data as well! You will find surprising answers. And suddenly, the data starts to speak to you? Have you ever experienced that? Trust me, the numbers talk to me.

Why does so much of what's in front of us seem invisible? Well, perhaps because people only see what they are prepared to see (Ralph Waldo Emerson), and because: what we see depends mainly on what we look for (John Lubbock).

What did Newton have special in him that others didn’t have? Everybody saw an apple falling, he observed. Jack Dorsey observed the people’s interest in social media and the need for updating it real time, what we have with us is Twitter!. Steve Job’s iPod, Bill Gates’ Microsoft, Page and Seargey’s Google – all are results of no extra ordinary powers, but just plain OBSERVATION.

Will you now “Observe” more? Looking forward to your views on the same.

 
 

You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter

What makes you a winner?

This blog is inspired by a story, which in very simple words, told me what makes you a Winner. Starting with the story:

The story is about a TT player who hired a new coach to improve his game. The coach was highly experienced and extremely good. However, the player's results did not improve. As the player got impatient with the results not being good over a year, he changed his coach again. After the coach changed, the player started doing extremely well and winning tournaments. When the media asked the player as to what the difference between the two coaches was, the player said that he had a poor backhand. “All my opponents used to exploit my backhand. So, my old coach worked on my weakness and tried to convert it into a strength. As I was working on my backhand, it improved and it was no longer a weak area. However, my natural flair was towards forehand and therefore backhand could not become my strength. Meanwhile, as I was not working on my forehand I started losing my touch on the same. So, I had no weakness and no strength either. My new coach worked on my forehand and it is even more stronger!”

A lot of us may start by thinking how wrong the earlier coach was. What you need to understand is the contribution made by both of them. I believe is that if the earlier coach wouldn’t have worked on the player’s weakness, the player wouldn’t have managed to win only with his strength. Similarly, working only on weakness wasn’t giving an edge to the player too.

In our professional lives, this story is as relevant. If I were to convert the story into a professional set up, it would come as something like this:

Sia was a budding management professional in the sales team of a software company. She was way too good at handling people and all her clients were appreciative of her. However, her weakness was numbers. As soon as the client started quoting some market numbers, she would get lost, start giving vague answers and finally end up losing the deal. She soon realized that she must do something with her number skills immediately. Then she started studying market figures, did an in depth analysis of costs and got a fair understanding of numbers. Now, whenever she met clients, she started by quoting numbers. However, something  was still wrong and the client conversion rate was still the same as earlier. When she discussed her problem with a friend, she found out that the clients were missing the personal touch that they got earlier. That was when she realized that while she has worked on her weakness, it was her strength that had to be capitalized.

A lot of us, as soon as we realize our weakness, get nervous and start working towards it. And the most common mistake that we do is to try and convert our weakness into strength. What we must realize is that weakness is a weakness because we are not good at it. It is human not to be good in certain areas. What we need to do is “improve” ourselves in these areas. At the same time, we must also be grateful for the things that we are good at. These are the things that we like to do and give us a confidence boost. Therefore, it is also important to keep enhancing our strength and not lose touch of the same while we are working on eliminating our weaknesses. You have to combat one and make the other invincible and then you will emerge as the real ‘Winner’.

Winners are unbeatable in their strength areas and they don’t have obvious weaknesses!

Look forward to your comments. 

You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Do you know your team members?

This blog is inspired from the fact that we put in a lot of efforts in knowing our customers and possibly don't put the same efforts towards knowing our teams. We believe that we interact with them regularly (in person or otherwise), and therefore, with such frequent level of interaction, we know them already. But hold on a minute. Do we? Let’s take a look.

Mr. Sharma and Mr. Jadhav are two senior members of a company. They both handle similar portfolio for different products, and have similar team size and resources. We asked both of them some common questions and let’s see what they have to say:

Q. Do you think you know your team members well?

Both of them reply confidently that they do know their team members well

Q. Do you know about the immediate family members of your respective teams?

Mr. Sharma smiled and said he knew every single immediate family member of his team by name, and also have a record of birthdays and anniversaries of his team members and their spouses.

Mr. Jadhav didn’t sound as confident. He admitted that he has a fair idea of their immediate family members, which he has come to know through various casual chats with his team members.

Q. Do you know the growth path that each one of your team members want to take?

Mr. Sharma nodded and said that company has defined a very good career path for everyone. All his team members wants to get up the corporate ladder in the company and want to follow his or his Boss’ footsteps.

Mr. Jadhav had a different answer. He said that one of his team members Dinesh, always wanted to be a choreographer. He is already into part time classes and wants to take it up full time. Another team member of his, Priya, wanted to start a business of her own and would do that post sufficient experience. Ramesh and Jeet would like to grow professionally in this group only.

Q. Do you treat every team member differently?

Mr Sharma replied that all his team members are equal to him and therefore, he should not ideally treat them differently at all. Rules and Behavior are same for everyone. He does not like to be called “unfair” or “partial” to some people.

Mr. Jadhav answered that he definitely needs to treat his team members differently. Every individual is different and have different needs, also depending on the stage of life they are at.  For e.g. , Dinesh, has a casual attitude and therefore he makes sure that he explains him the importance of every task assigned to him more than others, so that he does not take it casually. Similarly, Priya is dependable and does not need follow ups. Rather, she hates follow ups and thus, he ensures that he assigns tasks to Priya and forgets until the results show.

Q. How do you react when a Team Member of yours approaches you and says that he wants to learn something new (say a different language) and would need to leave early for a couple of days every week?

Mr Sharma says that no one in his team has approached him on something like that. If they do, he would suggest them to learn something related to work (say Excel), so that it helps in defining a better career path for them. If they still insist, maybe he’ll ask them to take out time from their personal schedule.

Mr. Jadhav said that he would encourage his team members to do the same, as it will give a boost to personal confidence of his team member. He said that he would be ready to accommodate the change, provided the individual is ready to take out some time from his personal schedule also.

            Q. How do you tackle various emotional stages of a team member?

Mr Sharma replied that it is difficult to handle such situations. If one person in the team is newly married and is not able to focus completely on his / her work, it also spoils the momentum of the rest of the team. Therefore, he ensures that the person gets equal responsibility as the rest of his/her team members, so that the rest of the team doesn’t get bogged down. He also ensures some extra follow ups with that person.

Mr. Jadhav replied that everyone goes through various emotional stages in life. Every day is not a bright work day, and as a mentor it is my responsibility to accommodate such changes. I ensure that my team works as a “team” and is able to sail through each others’ emotional stresses. This way, I rest assured that I also get my team’s support, when I need it.

And now, comes the real question. If you had to choose a Boss out of the two gentlemen, whom would you choose? And all those, who choose Mr. Sharma, need to write me a mail separately. Jokes apart, as much as we would like to believe we are like Mr. Jadhav, if we introspect deeply, we would discover we are not.

What we really need to understand from the above is that there is a big difference between Technically Knowing your Team and Really Knowing them. If you believe that you know your team member because you know their birthdays and family members, you know Amitabh Bachchan also. Isn’t it? Ofcourse you know his birthday and his family members and also that his daughter in law is pregnant. But that’s not what knowing is. In one of my previous companies, the owner’s wife wished all the senior team members on our birthdays. While the gesture was good, it did look too automated and fake. Therefore, assuming that you know your team members and are taking care of them only because you follow a certain protocol is wrong.

Another mistake that all of us tend do to with our teams, is assuming that the team members are individuals like ourselves only and they emulate our working styles as well as aspirations. Such coincidences happen. You do get members in your team who see, act, behave just like you. But let’s not confuse these people as better. There are others, who work as diligently, just not in the manner you expected them to. Let’s respect the heterogeneity within the human race and adapt a different perspective towards different individuals.

I believe that you will not achieve work life balance by only taking out time for life. You can do that by merging life into work. And that will come only when your team “owns” and not “takes” the work. A responsible individual at work is also a confident and happy individual at home. Therefore, by making people responsible you make them better individuals. And that is the big difference that we need to bring in our teams.

After all, “Kyunki Saas bhi kabhi bahu thi”, oops, “Kyunki Boss bhi kabhi Team Member tha”, and so, because we have had the Best Bosses in the World, or Becaue we have not had the Best Bosses in the World,  we need to ensure that our team members do have the Best Bosses in the World!

Do let me know what you think about it.

PS: You can also reach out to me at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

The intolerable "Chalta hai" attitude

This is a piece I had written some time back, but did not feel like posting it as it did not seem powerful enough. It seemed a bit like a crib. And I dont like to put negative thoughts in my blogs. However, a recent trip to Germany changed my attitude about this article. The discipline and the level of planning in Germany made me introspect about the “chalta hai” syndrome that we suffer from in our Indian Society. So, dont see this article as a negative piece but as an introspection one. Here goes the article.

Let me first define what “Chalta Hai” attitude means. Literally translated, it means 'it walks', but the real meaning is 'it's ok'. basically this means "brushing off things like rules because people think they don't matter”. In other words, thinking that taking some action on something or following a rule is “not important enough”. Do you think you suffer from the “Chalta hai” syndrome? Let’s take a look at some daily life personal and work examples:

1.     Do you jump a traffic signal because you are in a hurry? - Everyone does it. Why shouldn't I? Chalta hai.

2.     Do you throw waste paper on the road? - Everyone does it. Why shouldn't I? Chalta hai.

3.     Do you answer all the E Mails that are required by you to answer? –  “There are about hundred Emails I receive daily. If I don’t answer some of them, Chalta Hai!”

4.     Do you ensure accurate target setting at an SKU level for each zone? – “It’s a trouble working at brand level for the zones, If I pro rate at SKU level, “Chalta Hai”

5.     Do you set the list of your priority work for the day / week? – “I remember things at the back of my mind, why should I write it down, “Chalta Hai”

6.     Do you come on time every day? – “I stay back after office hours, coming late, “Chalta Hai”!

The funny part of the whole Chalta Hai syndrome is in the fact that you represent both the sides to crib. While at one end, you may not respond to the email where someone has asked for some info, on the other hand, you also crib when someone doesn’t answer your email of some urgent requirement. A lot of times, you don’t even realize that how this “Chalta hai” attitude is affecting others. Jumping the red light means accident for someone else, who braked hard to avoid colliding with you. You may not have done SKU level detailing of targets due to other “priority” works, but because of that there maybe wrong inventory stuck in some corner of the country. If this was done to you, would you accept someone’s “Chalta Hai” attitude? Even for yourself, sometimes you may feel that you are smart enough to take care of everything without necessarily “formalizing” it, by jotting it down on a piece of paper, but at the end of it, you mess up by forgetting something very important. When you don’t come on time, you start the day itself with firefighting, not allowing yourself to plan for the day. And that is when your entire schedule for the day goes haywire.

Above are just few of the examples on how “Chalta hai” attitude is so harmful to self, others and the whole organization. Man, by nature , is a lazy creature and needs to be pushed / motivated to work. When one of us display the “Chalta Hai” attitude, there are ten others who easily emulate it assuming its acceptable to be like that. Slowly, it becomes the culture and everybody starts adapting to this mode. This is how we promote “mediocrity” in ourselves and the organization. And then we get caught in the endless cycle of crib and unhappiness.

And this is the most significant difference between a developed economy and a developing economy. We dont even realise some of these issues as they have got ingrained in our behaviour and attitude. This is what has been disturbing me ever since I came back from my trip to Germany. That's why this article has been dug out from the archives.

Gandhiji once said – “Be the change you want to see”. A lot of times, “Chalta Hai” attitude has to be curbed at the senior level more seriously, to pass on the right message to everyone. And this is why, we need to STOP taking things lightly and say to ourselves – “NAHI CHALTA HAI, I will change it!”

Would like to hear your thoughts on the topic.

PS: You can also reach out to me at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Are you a juggler

This management thought starts with a story borrowed from Devdutt.com (Devdutt is the chief belief officer at our group, Future Group).

In South Indian temple walls one often finds a character called Bhringi looking adoringly at Shiva dancing. What distinguishes Bhringi from the rest of the followers of Shiva is that he looks emaciated, just a skeleton in fact. And he has three legs, not two.

The story goes that Bhringi was a devotee of Shiva. One day, he came to Mount Kailas, the abode of Shiva, and expressed his desire to go around Shiva. As he was going around, Shiva’s consort, Shakti, said, “You cannot just go around him. You have to go around me too. We are two halves of the same truth.” Bhringi, however, was so focussed on Shiva that he had no desire to go around Shakti. Seeing this, Shakti sat on Shiva’s lap making it difficult for Bhringi to go around Shiva alone. Bhringi, determined to go around Shiva took the form of a snake and tried to slip in between the two. Amused by this, Shiva made Shakti one half of his body – the famous Ardhanareshwar form of Shiva. This was God whose one half is the Goddess. But Bhringi was adamant. He would go around Shiva alone. So he took the form of a rat, some say a bee, and tried to gnaw his way between the two.

This annoyed the Goddess so much that she said, “May Bhringi lose all parts of the body that come from the mother.” In Tantra, the Indian school of alchemy, it is believed that the tough and rigid parts of the body such as nerves and bones come from the father while the soft and fluid parts of the body such as flesh and blood come from the mother. Instantly, Bhringi lost all flesh and blood and he became a bag of bones. He collapsed on the floor, unable to get up.

Bhringi realized his folly. Shiva and Shakti make up the whole. They are not independent entities. One cannot exist without the other. Without either there is neither.  He apologized.

The story, like all other mythological stories has a lot to tell. Bhringi was the true devotee of Shiva and did everything possible to please his Lord. What he forgot was that his focus on "one" was so much, that he forgot to look at the other.

Have I confused you all through this story? Some of you will be quick to tell me the story of Arjuna who is considered an ideal! The story goes like this:

Guru Dronacharya decided to test his students in their skill of archery. He hung a wooden bird from the branch of a tree and then summoned his students. He asked the first one to aim for the bird's eye but not shoot just yet. He then asked the student what the student could see. The student replied that he could see the garden, the tree, flowers, etc. Drona asked him to step aside and not shoot. He repeated the same process with a few other students. When it was Arjuna's turn, Arjuna told his Guru that the only thing he could see was the bird's eye. This satisfied the Guru and he allowed Arjuna to shoot the bird. The lesson here is the power of focus.

All along we have been told that focus is a good thing and now I am saying please don’t focus or you shall be punished like Bhringi.

Very often in our lives, especially at work, when we focus on something, we, tend to deprioritize everything else and focus on it single mindedly. Can you recall the instances where you have put in all your efforts in one project and ultimately found out that all other projects in your hands are way beyond their deadline? I am sure each one of us has gone through this in various phases of our careers. We make one particular thing so important, that we forget that there are other things too, which make our work and life complete. We forget the fact that success and happiness is a result of all round performance and is never dependent on one parameter only. It does happen in our personal lives too. We chase one dream so strongly, that we completely ignore some others. Imagine putting all your money and efforts into buying a new house, that you have no money for any personal emergency. We often please Shiva and ignore Shakti. And therefore, like Bhringi, we are left with the bones, but we lose the Flesh!

You will argue that by focusing we are being like Arjuna and still being faulted? In my opinion it is incorrect to fault Arjuna for the focus. What we need to do is focus on the project on hand but manage multiple projects. So, you need to be Arjuna for a particular project but remember that you have multiple projects at the same time. What corporate world requires in today’s day and age is a juggler, especially as you rise up the hierarchy. A juggler focuses on juggling multiple balls. Like when you have to deliver on targets, these are measured in relation to topline, margin, inventory and expenses. Do you have the liberty of delivering on only one of them and still ask for a large bonus?

At times, it is definitely tough for us not to pick one out of so many things. With so many options available in our hands, it is natural to pick the one which is most important and has the most visible results to be taken before others. What we don’t realize is that focusing on only one goal at a time, makes us lose on so many other accounts. We should understand that true leaders have 360 degrees approach to any problem we are facing and whilst a few things will continue to be our focus, we must learn not to deprioritize other aspects. Balance between the important and not so important tasks remains the key to achieve your long term goals.

So, you need to be a good juggler in corporate world. Would love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter

Small Steps make a Big Leap!

“It is better to take many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.” ~Proverb

This blog got initiated with a colleague of mine writing in as a feedback on one of my earlier posts. Also, I came across some tweets from Robin Sharma, which made me initiate this topic as a weekend thought. Robin Sharma says, “Think Big but Start Small” and also that “A lot of winning is about the beginning”.  He also states that Great companies are made by a lot of nano wins than a giant win. That, did provoke me to think more about it!

Am starting with a simple, yet very effective quote – “It Takes years of hard work and perspiration to become an overnight success”. We all know that success doesn’t come easy, and yet, as soon as we are made aware of our target destination, we are in a hurry to get there and do anything possible to reach there in the minimum possible time. Often, these bigger steps result in setbacks as we are lesser experienced in the path and the base is not as strong. Through the two decades of my career, and quite a few ups and downs, I have realized that baby steps are the best way to achieve my goal.

Nisha had a busy schedule and found little time for herself. She was an ardent reader, and had a creative and expressive streak about her. So she still felt that she would do good for herself if she gets into writing. And then she decided to work on the big dream of writing a book of her own. After a lot of postponements, one fine day she decided to finally “start” writing her book. She had a couple of topics in mind, but decided to go ahead with “The Independent Woman of Today” as her topic. She started writing and after a few pages, she realized that maybe the topic didn’t have enough content. She then thought that women in India were underprivileged and it would be better if she wrote on that topic. After reading a couple of articles on this topic, she sat down to write again on the new topic after a week. Three pages later, she realized that she is repeating whatever has already been written on the topic so she should find another topic. Finally, in the long process of finding the right topic, she lost the enthusiasm and the Word Document on her comp never saw her again. She had undertaken a large task. However, she had not thought through the intricacies of this large task. As she kept getting into details she realised that the task is unviable.

One day, Manas, her friend asked her what happened to her idea of writing a book. She told him that she did not just have it in her to write a book. And then Manas suggested that why doesn’t she start by writing blogs. The idea made sense and Nisha made a blog id. She then started to write on her favorite topic – “Women of India”, which covered both aspects on women of India – the independent and the underprivileged. As she wrote various blogs, she got feedback from the readers on her writing style, what everyone liked in her writing and what they didn’t. She kept on improving and in the process, also made a number of fans and some good friends who were author of some renowned books. Today, not only has she written a couple of books on different topics, one of her books have also become Bestseller and has won her accolades.

We humans , are hopelessly positive in our subconscious minds. Whenever we move into a direction, we believe that this is the best way of getting this work done and will work out in no time. However, quite often, we stumble back, only wondering what had gone wrong. The worst part of it is, that the set back may result in you completely letting the task go undone as the motivation levels to still carry out the task go for a toss. And therefore, my belief in taking small steps gets strengthened.

Taking baby steps has its own advantages. The biggest one is the additional amount of learning that you get. Small steps are really helpful when you’re unsure whether the path you have taken is right or not. Just like Nisha in the story earlier. You get many small learnings attached to the task rather than only learning that this particular big strategy “worked” or not. Also, baby steps increase the frequency of feedback you receive, because you can bring prototypes to quick meetings. More the feedback, more is the learning.

Another big advantage of taking smaller steps at a time is Risk Aversion.  Small steps allow you to explore multiple direction parallel and you don’t need to have “one” grand idea to reach your target. Therefore, the risk involved in smaller steps are much lesser compared to the big one. Often, Big Bets are also the “Expensive Bets” and small steps are cheaper to pull off, so you end up spending less money per unit of learning, and that learning comes sooner. And it's easier to kill off ideas when they're expressed as baby steps, because there's no huge sunk investment tempting you to spend more time and money in order to save the project or your career. It also helps in taking care of the dynamism in the external scenario, as external circumstances are not constant and also not controllable. These can make any big plan fail.

As they say, “Slow but steady wins the race”, by taking a lot of smaller steps, you make sure that you are making your way to the desired destination. Sometimes large steps sap up the energy that you then tend to take rest (just like the hare in the hare and tortoise story). This rest means that you lose continuity and momentum to achieve your goal. You need to decide whether you are playing a test match or a T20. The pace will be determined by the game you play. Small steps also give flexibility to change you plan of actions based on the results achieved which would not be possible otherwise.

Just to make sure that there is no communication chasm, I want to insist that I don’t mean that you have to think small for taking small steps. We do need to think and expect big. However, expecting to get there in no time, is, more often than not a myth. To reach a far out destination, the essential ingredient is “Small Steps” and not “Big Leaps”.

It’s easier to make a comeback from a little tumble than from a steep fall. It’s a shorter road back up. Taking Small Steps is rather a habit that needs to be inculcated than an effort. Once you get into this mode, you’ll realize how easy and simple it was to win.

Do let me know what you think of this.

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Is Experience about adding years?

Here the thought is about something that all of us think that we possess and continue to gain every day, but rarely do we realize what it actually means – “Experience”.

The thought has been with me, ever since I came across a simple saying – “Experience is not what happens to you, Experience is what you do to what happens to you”. I have put together three examples, let’s take a look:

The management team of a retail company is sitting and trying to find out a solution to a problem. The problem is the global concern of recession. The early trends have shown that recession is here but nobody has any clue as to what level will Recession impact the company. The team sitting in the meeting is a heterogeneous team with various levels of experience and there is a lot of debate and discussion on this topic.

Abha, an executive from a premier B school, says “We need to take a hard look at all our costs and save money on them as sales are bound to fall. One of the areas of high cost in our operation is the manpower cost and we need to cut the same to manage our profits. I can only see layoffs as the way to go”. She drew a proximate sales drop chart which is expected and thus, how much costs will we need to save to reach break even. People in the meeting are obviously way too uncomfortable for this solution.

Mr. Juneja, having spent 15 years in the company objected upfront. “I have seen many ups and downs in my career. Such drastic steps at this stage are not required. We need to cut cost by maybe, reducing salaries and if required, laying off a few unproductive people. Also, we will get benefit by negotiating on rent in some of our properties. If we lose 15% sales, that can be compensated by taking these steps. I am sure all these steps will help us sail through recession period”. Everyone seemed to nod in affirmative.

After a little pause, Ashwin, another old hand, though not as experienced as Mr. Juneja, spoke up. He said, “I think besides managing the current, we should also think about the long term impacts. Therefore, we do need to understand what will be the impact 3-5 years down the line as well. First of all, it is a great time to book new properties for our stores. We will not get these prices in the near future and we will be able to command on the builders. At the same time, I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to lay off people as right now, we can retain people at the same cost but during the boom period, when we will require these resources again, the same positions will at least come at a 30% higher cost. As far as the sales are concerned, as people in various teams will now have lesser work, we can try out some unconventional methods like maybe some of our staff can get involved in institutional sales and bulk enquiries, something which we have not tried until now”. People in the room had a ray of hope on their faces.

This is how experience differs. The first case, Abha, had little experience but she was backed up with education. She believed whatever she has studied in text books holds completely true in the real world and made projections similarly. But all of us know, Education is others’ experience, but what we need in the real world is our “own” experience and way of looking at things. If the world has done things in a certain way, not necessary that that is the right way only!  She was not able to think of alternatives and did not consider implications of actions. The second case, Mr. Juneja, as much as it sounds like experience, is a case of “conditioning”. We go through certain events in our life where we have taken certain steps and we continue to do the same on every occurrence of it. This is much like the “Pavlovian Theory”, where we are conditioned to respond to a certain event in a defined manner. This case is a little better than education as the learnings are our own and the set up is more “real”. However, this “conditioning”, results in the same experience always and there’s no value addition ever. Repeating once again – “If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always got!”

And then, comes Ashwin. Even though he has lesser years of going through the grind than Mr. Juneja in his career, he is “experienced” enough to react to a particular situation in his own way. He learnt that what went wrong in the last recession and is now smart enough to take the right kind of actions upon each one of them, and each action impacting a fairly long period of time. That is what is called, the real experience!

Now you need to figure out for yourself, whether you are educated, conditioned or experienced. In most of the cases, we are “Conditioned”, as we believe that what we have done once in the past and was right, will continue to be right forever and we don’t need to break our heads every time into it. Education cannot replace Experience. Therefore, there is a lot of value to the "grey hair". But if someone believes that "grey hair" alone is experience, that is where the mistake starts. This is when we deride education, get closed to new ideas because we have "experience". To repeat, most of us confuse experience with conditioning. Experience is about internalising the events that unfold and have an even better plan of action for future.

Next time you think you have the experience, think again. Is your experience only conditioning?

Do let me know what you think about the write up.

You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Communication - Gap or Chasm

This management thought relates to a commonly talked about topic, Communication Gap!

“The Single Biggest Problem in Communication is the Illusion that it has taken place” ~ George Bernard Shaw

Every individual is different and unique and so are their abilities to express and perceive. Communication, as simple as it may sound is a challenge in terms of making the other person understand what you intend to say and also understanding what the other person has to say. This is what is communication gap. However. over the two decades of my career, I have realised that often what we refer to as communication gap is actually a chasm.  In this post, I am narrating some instances of how I learnt about this chasm in my career.  I am also attempting to put down the learning that I derived out of them. However, communication improvement is a vast topic and therefore, what you will read here is definitely not exhaustive. Here we go:

1.       One of my Bosses went on a market visit. When he returned, I inquired about how his visit was and he said he was very unhappy with the Area Sales Manager (ASM), as even the basics were not followed. He also mentioned that he gave the person a piece of his mind. After some time, I called up that ASM and asked him how my Boss’s visit was. He said – “It was fine only that he gave feedback on a few improvement areas, which will be corrected!” The Area Manager clearly seemed to be satisfied with the current state of affairs. The clear learning that I derived out of this incident was that when dealing with people a couple of notches down the hierarchy¸ we must be simple and crisp in communicating! Assuming that the other person will understand jargon and complex sentences, is a mistake. Also, it may be a good idea to close the loop by asking them about their “take away” from the conversation post the download.

2.       Another one of my Boss had serious concerns with our advertising agency. He decided to communicate his issues to their MD and met him over lunch to discuss the same. After two months, there was no improvement in the performance. He then, called them to our office in a slightly larger group and discussed those issues again. This time with harder questions. After two months, when there was again no improvement, we decided to move the account and that’s when the MD realized that he had not been listening to us. I learnt that clarity of communication does not depend on the IQ or designation of a person, because most often we hear what we want to hear.  Communication gap can occur with anyone. I also believe that tough talks need to be done with eye to eye contact and in a formal setting. Very often the setting overtakes the communication objective.

3.       Once, I was upset with a colleague of mine over the low growth rate that he had taken for next year’s budget. I was so upset with him that being at such a senior level, he’s not getting company’s vision of growing big next year and was convinced on taking low numbers. On top of that, he was also trying to justify the same to me. I sarcastically told him – “If I had taken this kind of growths, I’d be holidaying in Bahamas”. Obviously I meant that the targets were very easy to be achieved and required no hard work. However, he understood it as his ABP was good enough for him and he doesn’t need to work on it any more. Learning was that sarcasm is best avoided in a professional communication.

4.       I was once told that another colleague of mine is not agreeing to the project timelines as he believes that there are certain bottlenecks in the project. But this information given to me was “off the record”. Till date, I fail to understand how can any communication which impacts our work and deliverables be “Off the record”. If I am officially not supposed to act upon it, why am I being provided with the information and if I am supposed to act upon it, how does the information become “off the record”? Official Information is never “Off the Record”. If it is, its not official information, its “gossip”.

5.       One of the most crucial aspects of communication, as hackneyed as it may sound, is about it being clear about expectation. A lot of times, “I want it” is not perceived as “I want it now” and when your team member fails to understand the priority of work, frustration comes through. I once told my Marketing Head to get an ad released within next three days. He replied that it was really difficult. I replied back “I want the ad on the required date, DO OR DIE”. Without doubt the ad was released on the required date.

6.       In one of the advertising agency meetings, I liked one of the ads, though I remarked casually that “maybe the ad would look a little better if the background was yellow instead of blue”. Genuinely, it was only a casual comment. Next day, I had the yellow background ad in my mailbox. I pitied the people who worked on it throughout the night just to give shape to my casual comment. At senior positions, it is likely that people tend to take your casual comments also as directives and act upon them without you necessarily wanting them to. Expression of purpose is the most important content of a communication.

Communication is a funny thing. How you come to know from the smile of a woman that she has fallen for you and how you don’t understand that when Boss said that the work needs to be completed “Now”, that “Now” didn’t mean a week.  Like I mentioned, perception is different for different individuals! That is what creates the communication gap or shall I say chasm?

Communication gap is inevitable and will never be able to be completely got rid of. If my secretary confuses my intent of visiting Allahabad, my  “Home Town”, as my intent to visit Home Town, the concept which is just downstairs, I will not blame her, but reflect on myself. What we can work towards, is making sure that the gap is reduced as much as possible and make conscious efforts towards it.

Would like to know your thoughts on how do you make sure that proper communication is in place in your surroundings.

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

Duplication - The Evil within the organisations

This time, the thought is about an issue which is present across organizations and if addressed rightly will result in significant increase in the productivity. It’s about eliminating Duplication that exists in the nooks and corners of our work life.

What is the most important problem that persists in all our lives? After a lot of meetings with various colleagues and industry veterans, the answer is singled out as “Time”! There is always so much to do that we are just not able to find out time for ourselves to venture into newer projects and processes in our work. When we take a close look as to where the time is going, we find that everyone is doing everything and this is where all the time is going. Seems like a silly thing to hear, but actually it is not!

There are different departments / people in an organization to perform different roles. However, over a period of time, depending on various factors like lack of trust, ambiguity in role, interest area, impatience and ego issues, we start venturing into every other department. Sample some of these thoughts. “Last time there was an error in  the Calculation by ABC team, let me do it myself this time and see if it is correct”, “Am I supposed to do this? Maybe I’ll get shouted at if I ask, Why not do it?”, “It’s exciting to do XYZ work, this time I’ll also get fully involved in the same”, “PQR Team takes a lot of time to update us on these issues, we’ll follow up ourselves”  becomes the initial point of starting to get into the works of neighbor departments. Slowly, it becomes a habit and then your “unstated” KRA. What seemed to be a proactive behavior, actually resulted in so many people doing the same work twice. Worse, if three departments don’t trust each other for the same work!

It is much  more important to understand how this problem would exist in a large organizations. As the number of layers increase, so do the chances of spreading “Duplication”. Between the different offices – Head Office, Branch Office and Area Offices, there’d be a number of activities that would be duplicated only for the simple reason of improper communication. Similarly, in the same office, the chances of duplication among various departments are quite high. It is also possible that Duplication exists within the same team where the junior person does some work and Boss cross verifies it. There is just so much of overlap all over! I have always fancied what all milestones can be achieved if all this time was spent in putting extra efforts in your work and working out on newer projects for your team.

A lot of times, we encourage Duplication to be the “check and balance’ in the system. To a certain extent, it could be right. But when it starts getting in excess of being only ”Checks and Balance”, that is where the issues arise. Also, when the “Checks and balances” start happening more often than not, that’s where bureaucracy steps in. Nobody trusts nobody else and everyone is busy pulling each other down to show how they are correct and the other person is a fool! Egos build up and all the time is spent in “proving” yourself rather than working your way up! A lot of times, this “Check and Balance” also results in people taking their work casually – knowing that the check exists and they’ll be corrected wherever they are wrong. This, inculcates, Duplication in the organization’s DNA. Sometimes, it also backfires. So,” if you have proved me wrong once, I will prove you wrong twice”, and the story continues…

Did you just realize the amount of imbalance that a seemingly simple thing like “Duplication” can cause?

To address this issue, Just a few points that I think will be helpful:

è At the onset we will have to believe that all people work for the benefit of organization. Nobody has any personal problems with anyone and human errors are inevitable. So, Trust! Do not make cross checking a habit in your work life.

è If there is any problem in sorting out who’s responsibility it is – Talk it out, There’ll be nobody who’ll want to do the work for the heck of it.

è If some of other department’s work is in your interest area – Assist, not Interfere. It’s always good to have an outsider’s point of view in any function.

è Last, but not the least, encourage “Samvaad”, rather than “Vivaad”. Blaming anyone will only result in backfire. Give suggestions, not directives. Click to read my blog on this topic!

Wonder if I am exaggerating on the evils of duplication. Ego, bureaucracy, insecurity and many others? For most of us, it is only about productivity. If you have been provoked, do ACT! ACT NOW!

PS: You can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.

It's Just a Meeting! Isn't it?

In this piece of article, I am covering a subject which is most deprioritized in the corporate world – “What do you do for a Meeting”. Do you start by thinking that this is one of the weakest topics covered in my writing? That’s my point!

Let’s begin with this example. Marketing Team sends a meeting invite to everyone, including the CEO, which says “Discussion on Next Quarter Calendar” for tomorrow. What do you do? Accept the Invite. And then, be present for the meeting right on time. Do you think something is missing? No? Ok. Let’s begin the meeting. The CEO before the start of the meeting, does think that there’s something missing. He asks all the people present in the room – “How prepared are you for the meeting?”. What kind of answers do you expect from the group? Some examples as below:

·          It’s a discussion , right? What Preparation for a discussion? Will speak up as the discussion unfolds

·         I don’t think there was anything to be prepared for / The topic didn’t require any preparation

·         My Boss is there, he will ensure the discussions happen in the right direction.

·         It's about Way Forward – you have to speak and we have to listen, what preparation?

·         I have the sales database for past few years readily available on my laptop. Can take out relevant data as soon as required.

·         We will discuss today and will come prepared in the next meeting with the action points.

Whatever words you use or don't use, the underlying tone is that you think you will (actively or silently) go through the meeting without any preparations. It’s a Large forum and no hard questions are asked to “an” individual. But do you even realize what happens in the meetings – people with unprepared thoughts speak about unreal facts stating unclear numbers resulting in no next steps. The entire two or three hours of every person present in the meeting, is wasted! Something more criminal that wasting only your day unproductively. Did you even think why you are called for the meeting? If you believe that you will not contribute to the meeting, can you decline the invitation?

Over a period of time, it becomes a culture. Just see its evolution:

a.      You have never felt the need to be prepared for any meeting.

b.      As described above, the meetings become unproductive with no clear next steps.

c.       So, there are more meetings, to follow up on what have to be the next steps (or whether the next steps discussed in the last meeting were relevant or not).

d.      Because there are more meetings for you to attend, you have even lesser time to think of any preparation for these meetings.

e.      The vicious cycle just started!

And then, there are things called “fake preparations”, which are just the preparations for the heck of it. Over the years I have often made fun of my advertising agencies coming unprepared for the meetings. Their big bosses will come for meetings with no clue of what the brand objective was for the latest campaign. Often I would joke that the presentation made by them was actually prepared in the car drive. The other one was that they would have prepared a presentation for a new MNC and recycled the same to a seasoned Indian company. All these would seem so fake and one thing was clear that in all of these meetings we would not achieve the required results. This was because the discussion was theoretical and revolved around only one thing, "to sell" what the agency had created. It took the cake recently when a partner brand came and presented their launch strategy in India. In that they showed a clip of the fashion show held in Hong Kong. I was left wondering as to what was the relevance of the same. Again the result was the same. We were not able to reach any agreement on stocking their brand. At this very thought, I realize that there’s something fundamentally not in place in the corporate world! 

With regards to meetings, there are other evils too. Some people just forget that they had to come for a meeting! And when the meeting starts and you enquire about the whereabouts of the person, they tell you, “Oh I had this sudden plan of travelling to ABC city, I “forgot” to inform you”. No, I am serious, this is real! Also, something that cannot be measured but is equally important – attentiveness in the meetings. I have always said (or demonstrated) that the productivity of the meeting is directly proportional to the attentiveness of the Boss.

Like Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail!”. This holds true in each and every aspect of our lives and meetings are no exceptions, more because along with our own, it also involves the time and “opportunity” cost of all the attendees of the meeting, some of whom may be high cost resources. Chances are, that some of you may relate to some of the excuses mentioned above. Just think about it that you are being called to a meeting because your PoVs is important to be considered for the meeting.

So the final question is  – Do you justify your presence in a meeting?

Now on, you should! Looking forward to what are you Points of View on this topic.

PS: you can also reach me out at @agrawalsanjeev on twitter.