A Coaching Model

Tags

A Atep A Day, coaching, Performance improvement

” My team needs coaching. How do I go about it? Is there a structured basis for coaching my team. Is there any model you can suggest ?” asked a senior executive the other day.

I told him my take on what makes coaching effective:

• Mutual respect
• Clarity of goals
• Action orientation
• Holding the gains

Without mutual respect, coaching doesn’t work. Period. There should be a clear understanding of the motivations and capabilities of the participant ( I prefer to use “participant” in the coaching process rather than “coachee” etc.) and the coach. Confidentiality is of the essence. Just as you cannot command your team to respect you, in coaching too, respect must be earned based on your competence.

Without goal clarity, we go nowhere. We need to mutually agree upon realistic expectations on what the coaching will achieve. I have found it useful to quickly cover in the conversation what it will not do as well.

Without an action orientation, you will not get the best out of this investment. To me, an action orientation means time-bound actions which the participant commits to achieve. Action orientation moves the coaching from the discussion venue to the workplace. What eventually matters is not what you talk about but what you actually do.

Without holding the gains, we tend to regress back to our old ways and earlier comfort levels. In my experience, holding the gains is key to coaching success. Participants need to incorporate new skills, new techniques that they have gained into their daily repertoire of managerial skills.

Your success as a coach depends on the accuracy of your assessment of the coaching situation. This assessment comes from gathering information. A model that is frequently used in getting information is the GROW model.

In this, questions are sequenced covering:

* Goal

* Reality

* Options

* Will

1. Goal: We get the participants to firm up where they want to be, or what they want to achieve. Working together we then define the goals as clearly as possible
2. Reality: We check the goals in the backdrop of the prevailing environment. We identify what is going on, what has been tried, what are the possible obstacles to success etc.
3. Options: We help participants draw up possible options to achieve the agreed goals. Can these be prioritized, we ask. What has the best chance of success?
4. Will: The participant must commit to, and take responsibility for, carrying out the agreed actions. I have found it useful here to get the participant to “visualise” success such that he/she knows the benefits of achieveing the improvement goals.

Coaching is not about merely listening to the participants woes, being encouraging and hoping for the best!
It involves, as I have tried to bring out in simple terms, clear objectives, mutual effort, choosing actions which have the biggest impact on the participant’s performance and practice with feedback.

You can subscribe to this series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

Advertisement

What Are Your Learning Goals?

Tags

A Step A Day, Learning Goals

We managers are so busy doing the hundreds of things that we need to do to keep on top of our jobs. In the pursuit of results are we ignoring our own need to learn? Some managers become complacent with their success and do not recognize the need to constantly improve by learning more and more. Yet others are so busy setting learning goals for those they supervise that they end up having no learning goals for themselves.

Obsolescence is around the corner. To stay ahead of the curve, we need to constantly improve and that comes through setting and achieving learning goals.

These could be in your field of expertise, your domain, your technology, your function or by building your managerial and leadership skills.

If you do not invest time in your own development, no one else will. So go ahead and ask yourself:

• Have I learnt anything new today?
• Have I learnt anything new this week?
• Have I learnt anything new this month?
• Have I learnt anything new this quarter?

If the answer is that you have not learnt anything substantial, you are as good as dead. Not literally of course, but you face the danger of being swamped in a knowledge-skill intensive world where you could easily be left behind.

Set aside some time for an investment in your own development. Understand what you need to learn and work on acquiring that knowledge or those skills.

Remember, no one and I say that again, no one will be as interested in your development as you.

You can subscribe to this series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

A “No” Answer Is Better Than No Answer

Tags

A Step A Day, procrastination

“When will I get the transfer I asked for?” asked the young software engineer “I have many commitments which compel me to make this request. My being nearer my hometown means so much to my family”. She needed to relocate and relocate soon.

“Let me think about it” said her manager.” What happened to the specs. you were working on. Can I review it now?” Always the Efficient One, she thought to herself. She tore herself away from her personal problem and forced herself to listen to her manager speak of the project, the customer, his work load, his responsibilities and so on.

When the engineer asked again the next day, she was told the manager would let her know in a day or two. On the fourth day, the manager admitted that he had forgotten about it. ‘ Work pressure, you know. What was the request again?” he asked. ‘Just take me through the story once more”. She did, with a lot of emotion, barely controlling her temper.

“Yes, yes. Now I remember.” he said. He knew fully well that there was no chance whatsoever of her request being approved. How could he tell her that, he thought to himself. She was working on an important module in his project.

“Let’s see” he said ” I will take it up with some people. We should know next week”. She glared at him, half in annoyance, half in despair. “Early next week” he added recoiling from the cold stare.

You know this story or one like this, I am sure.

By postponing the ” bad news “, this manager was doing more damage than good. A week or so later, things reached a climax. She said she was quitting the job. “Don’t do that” he said. ” I am still trying my best. When will you complete the assignment you are working on ?”.

The engineer went back to work with a venom. She completed her part of the work much earlier than expected. When she said in exasperation that there was a lot of pressure on her from her family and she couldn’t take it any more, he was forced to admit that there was no immediate possibility of a transfer. ” Immediate ” being for the next couple of months.

There was an unparalleled scene. She left in a huff. She bad mouthed the manager and naturally the Company too. In today’s times when word -of -mouth has such great impact she went away convinced she had been cheated by the manager and the organization. She went away determined to tell her story to as many people she knew.

The manager did not realize how much damage he had caused to the image of the Company. Just as positive references bring talent to the organization, negative stories keep away good talent.

It would have been far better for the manager to have told her the truth. That such a transfer would not be possible. And much earlier than he did, if indeed that was true.

By evading the decision he made the situation worse. Procrastination helps no one. She would have been disappointed not to have had her request granted, I am sure. But even that would have been better than not telling her anything at all.

I have found it useful to remember that often : ” A ” No” answer is better than no answer”.

You can subscribe to this series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

Blog Typography

Tags

Blog Typography, Randa Clay

Avid bloggers, and I am no exception, put in a lot of time and effort to improve their blogs. I have learnt my lessons on the fly. Apart from the content which goes into the blog, there are issues of fonts, colours, background, design templates etc. which can enhance or bring down the appeal of the blog for your readers.

Have you wondered: Are there any guidelines to make your blog more readable? Here is a list I liked – titled The Ten Commandments of Blog Typography by Randa Clay.

I agree with her that our blogs should be reader-friendly. After all that’s what blogs are for, right?

Comments on how I am doing with respect to typography on this blog are welcome.

Google’s Next Frontier: Renewable Energy

Tags

, Google, renewable energy

Google, the Internet company with a seemingly limitless source of revenue, plans to get into the business of finding limitless sources of energy.

The company, based in Mountain View, Calif., announced Tuesday that it intended to develop and help stimulate the creation of renewable energy technologies that are cheaper than coal-generated power.

Google said it would spend hundreds of millions of dollars, part of that to hire engineers and energy experts to investigate alternative energies like solar, geothermal and wind power. The effort is aimed at reducing Google’s own mounting energy costs to run its vast data centers, while also fighting climate change and helping to reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels.

The company also said that Google.org, the philanthropic for-profit subsidiary that Google seeded in 2004 with three million shares of its stock, would invest in energy start-ups.

Google says its goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy — enough to power the city of San Francisco — more cheaply than coal-generated electricity. The company predicted that this can be accomplished in “years, not decades.”

Idealism is hardly new at Google. In their Letter From the Founders before the company’s 2004 initial public stock offering, Mr. Page and Mr. Brin wrote: “Our goal is to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible. In pursuing this goal, we may do things that we believe have a positive impact on the world, even if the near-term financial returns are not obvious.”

Amongst many other grants made by Google.org. ,beneficiaries include:-

• Acumen Fund: $ 5,200,000 to support Acumen’s entrepreneurial approaches to address global poverty and services for the poor
• PlanetRead: $345,000 to support Same Language Subtitling (SLS) programs in India.
• Seva Fund: $2,000,000 to support programs to prevent blindness and restore eyesight in India, Nepal, Tibet, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Egypt, Tanzania and Guatemala

When was the last time you did a SWOT?

Tags

A Step A Day, career development, SWOT analysis

Ramesh was expecting a promotion to the next higher job on the basis of his experience. He felt pretty confident that this would come through as a matter of course. After all, hadn’t he worked in that area for the last few years? Wasn’t he the acknowledged expert in his area? He knew that his talents were appreciated by his organization. His boss was shortly moving to another assignment within the organization and Ramesh felt any day now he would be asked to take his place.

When the organizational changes were announced, Ramesh was shocked to find that he had been superseded by a younger colleague. It was clear that the organization was placing a premium on expertise in new areas of technology for future growth and experience in cross- functional teams, both of which Ramesh lacked. As his manager told him, when Ramesh went to him in a huff and asked indignantly about his promotion : “We are looking for the future, Ramesh. You are really good at your current job. We value you but you just don’t meet the requirements of the higher job.”

Put him down as yet one more victim of complacency. Ramesh had not bothered to understand what he needed to do to grow in his organization.

A good start point for career and personal development is to do a SWOT analysis. SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, and Opportunities & Threats) originated from military strategy and came to personal development via business strategy. Organizations do SWOT analysis to take stock of where they are and where they want to be. It gives them considerable insight, critical for drawing up their business strategies.

Likewise, SWOT for an individual helps you take stock of where you stand. Remember that while Strengths & Weaknesses are internal to you as an individual, Opportunities and Threats are external. You need to scan your environment to spot both opportunities and threats.

Doing well in your current job does not automatically make you the right choice for the next job. Take the trouble to understand what the crucial for success factors are for your next assignment. What do you need to acquire by way of knowledge, skills and attitude to fulfill those requirements? Do you know what is happening in your business, your industry which could affect your organization and you as well?

It is useful to do a SWOT when you are taking up a new assignment or prior to taking up higher responsibilities. However, doing a SWOT is serious stuff. You need the right data and must invest time to do a proper analysis. You can’t finish a SWOT at 12 noon and say the next one is due after lunch.

Our suggestion to Ramesh: Learn from this experience. Figure out where you stand. Don’t lose too much time moping over what has happened. Get cracking and do a serious SWOT as soon as you can. Draw up specific actions which follow

As I told him: If you don’t know yourself and your job well, who else will?

By the way, when was the last time you did a SWOT?

You can subscribe to this series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

“It Happened in India” Kishore Biyani’s Story

Tags

Entrepreneurs, India retail, Kishore Biyani

Just completed ” It Happened in India” written by Kishore Biyani (the man who revolutionised retailing in India) with Dipayan Baishya, a business writer.  A very well-written story which gives tremendous insights into what makes an entrepreneur successful.

Kishore Biyani re-wrote the retail script in India. From a position when he was almost looked down upon as a trader who wouldn’t amount to much to his current position as the Group CEO of the rapidly growing Futures Group, he and his companies have come a long way.

“It Happened in India” is interspersed with comments made by various people associated with Biyani from both within and outside his organisation. The book is written in a simple yet effective style and grips the reader. It is described as “the story of Pantaloon, Big Bazaar, Central and the great Indian consumer”.

Right from the time he first started, Biyani showed amazingly accurate perception of the Indian consumer -especially in the retail space. He perhaps understands the psyche of his typical customers more than anybody else. Therein lies the secret of his success.

The Pantaloon chain , headquartered in Mumbai, has grown to operate over 5 million square feet of retail space. It has over 450 stores across 40 cities  in India and employs over 18,000 people.

At the heart of the organisation is what Biyani calls the Pantaloon Genes. These precepts are :

• We like being simple
• Speed is the essence of everything
• We like to learn while we execute
• We like thrift
• We believe that customers are always right
• We like to think in terms of the majority of people
• We take pride in our core value of Indian-ness
• We believe in ourselves
• We do not like to blame others or external factors
• We like to think positively in every situation
• We like building and nurturing relationships
• We love to rewirte rules even as we retain our values

As is said in the book, what we become is a result of the way we think. “Sometimes we a nation of billion people, think like a nation of million people” said former President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Kishore Biyani dared to think big. His story is worthwhile reading not only for entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs but also for those who want to understand the Indian consumer.

Indians at Harvard Business School

Tags

Careers, Harvard Business School, Indian Economy, MBA admission

For many a bright professional, the world over, a dream is to be admitted to the Harvard Business School. The venerable school celebrates 100 years in 2008. It’s mission: “We educate leaders who make a difference in the world”.

Guess which country sends most candidates (after the US of A of course) for the Harvard regular MBA program? That honour goes to India which sent as many as 38 students for the batch of 2009 made up of 900 students. HBS assistant director in MBA career services, Kurt Piemonte said, “Increasingly, we find Indian students want to head back to the country to pursue their careers. There is a real interest in India and the trend of returning to India to work is catching up. The number of students who have not been in the US before and want to return to India to work is rising.”

India already has a strong presence in the teaching side with 15 % of the HBS Faculty being Indians or of Indian origin.

Also, as part of its plan to globalise its curriculum, in 2005, HBS opened the India Research Center (IRC) in Mumbai, one of the six research units across the world. The research centre will help build HBS’s knowledge about the Indian economy and the corporate sector through case studies and original research work.

These are clearly positive by-products of the greater interest evinced in the Indian economy by almost everyone-including the Harvard Business School.

To Help People Grow

Tags

A Step A Day, personal development

Our meeting was over with a client team. Some of us were waiting for our car to take us back to Bangalore from the resort on the outskirts of the city.

“There are so many things for us to know. Why don’t you tell us how we can be successful in our careers?” asked a young manager.

This was today’s premium on speed, I thought to myself. I have always maintained that people development is not like the Nestlé’s Maggi 2 minutes noodles, which the young manager and his wife probably made 3 days a week at home, like many young couples do.

We had 5 minutes before the car drove up. He wanted everything there is to know in 5 minutes. There could be many like him, I reasoned on the drive back, eager to learn and learn, fast. Here was someone who wanted everything in a jiffy. He was a product of today’s instant world.

Personal and professional growth, I am afraid, does not work that way. However, enthusiastic you might be, you cannot master skills overnight. Skills have to be mastered one step at a time. The best way to start is to incorporate improvements in yourself a step a day, every day.

It is with this backdrop that I plan to initiate a series of posts categorized “A Step A Day”. The objective: provide perspective and provoke thought to facilitate self-development across a wide spectrum of issues – big and small- crucial for executive success.

I hope this will be useful to many at my client companies . At this stage of my life and career, my personal goal is: To Help People Grow.

You can subscribe to this series using RSS at https://bprao.wordpress.com/category/a-step-a-day/feed

Sarathababu Elumalai

Tags

entrepreneur, Sarath Babu

I wonder why Kolkatta’s famous newspaper The Telegraph chose to call him “The Idli Boy”. But they did give him, deservedly, a front page story.

Sarathababu Elumalai’ s story is one of the most inspiring I have heard. Born to a poor family in Chennai, he said of his childhood: “I was born in a family of five children in Chennai and my mother worked with the government’s mid-day meal schemes. The money was not sufficient to sustain the large family, so she set up a small idli shop near our home in one of the slum areas of Chennai.”

Despite many hardships, he went on to complete his engineering from one of India’s most prestigious colleges – the Birla Institute of Science & Technology at Pilani. “I had never heard of the institution as we never got such an exposure. Someone told me that if I study there I will get a job,” he said.

After 3 years of work experience, he did his MBA from what is without doubt India’s best business school- the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad.

Not accepting many job offers that could have come his way, he chose to start his own business. FoodKing Catering Services.

The business, which started with a mere Rs 5,000 and a small kiosk at Ahmedabad, has today spread to 6 branches employing over 175 people whose only job is to supply nutritious home-made food to corporates.

“It was an idea that I chanced upon during my internship at Pilani when I learnt that 30 per cent of the country’s population go to bed without food,” he said. “More than working for somebody I wanted to give jobs to people like me, who did not have other means of livelihood.”

To me, his is an amazing story of grit, commitment to principles and dedication. Sarath’s story is aptly described in Chennaionline as: The Stuff Dreams Are Made Of.