How to develop good managing skills

How to develop good managing skills

Harvard Business School Press

December 12, 2007

Good managers use coaching skills as part of their repertoire. The focus is on cooperation and facilitation of the other person's development. Coaching involves crating a comfortable environment where action plans can be developed together.

To become the most effective coach possible, work on mastering the following skills:

• Listing actively
• Asking the right questions
• Advocating your opinions
• Giving feedback as a coach
• Receiving feedback as a coach
• Building agreement

"I never could figure out why people didn't seem to follow my advice much. When I started to learn about the true art of coaching, it became painfully clear that my brilliance was failing on deaf ears because I hadn't done a bit of inquiry to learn what they were thinking, what they'd already tried, what their biggest priority was. Inquiry has made all the difference. It turns out most people want less advice but more opportunity to explore their own thinking with a caring coach who is paying attention." -- PattyMcManus, consultant, Interaction Associates

Tip: Those who coach regularly, coach better. Find opportunities to develop your coaching skills

Listen actively

As a coach you need to be tuned into the other person's feelings and motivations. You do this through active listening. Active listening encourages communication and puts other people at ease. Active listening also clarifies what's been said to avoid misunderstanding. As an active listener, give the coachee your full attention by following guidelines:

• Maintain eye contact with the coachee.
• Smile to put the other person at ease.
• Avoid anything that will distract your attention. For example, don't answer the telephone. Only take notes if necessary.
• Be sensitive to body language such as posture and arm position. Is the person tense or relaxed?
• Listen first and evaluate later.
• Do not interrupt the other person except to ask questions to clarify and to encourage him to continue.
• Repeat in your own words what you think the other person has said.
• Wait until after he has finished talking to plan your responses.

What Would you Do? No Sign of Change

As Paula Sat through Tony's presentation, bored as a rock, the sad truth slowly dawned on her. He was making the same mistakes now that he had been making six months ago! His nose was buried in his notes. He was droning on and on, and he had not incorporated a single visual into the entire presentation! Yet they had spoken about his need to work on this very skill.

Tony had told her that public speaking was something he just couldn't do. Paula had assured him that with hard work and practice he could do it. He believed her and he kept trying. So why, then, was he still so bad at it? Was there something more she could do to help him improve?

Tip: Coach your direct reports; don't play psychologist. It's not appropriate and you are probably not qualified.

Ask questions

Asking questions is a valuable tool for understanding the other person and determining his or her perspective. Use both open-ended and close-ended questions. Each yields a different response.

Notice how this manager asks open-ended questions to uncover the employee's perspectives, listens actively to what is said, and then checks for understanding.

Ilka: Gonzalo, how do you feel the project is going?

Gonzalo: Pretty well. We're on schedule.

Ilka nods her head.

Gonzalo: But it's tight. There's no room to spare.

Ilka: Because�?

Gonzalo: Because when Jenna left, no one was hired to replace her.

Ilka: And because you've lost one person�?

Gonzalo: It's going to be really hard to meet the deadline.

Ilka: Are you saying that you'll deliver on time, but it will be difficult? Or that you may not be able to meet the deadline?

Gonzalo: Well, I think we can make the deadline, but there is a chance we might miss it.

Ilka: And if we want to be sure to finish on time�?

Gonzalo: We'd need more help.

Ilka: Perhaps we could look into getting some temporary help.

Tip: Ask a lot of open questions

Most managers ask too few.

Ask open-ended questions. Open-ended questions invite participation and idea sharing. Use them to:

• Explore alternatives: "What would happen if�"
• Uncover attitudes or needs: "How do you feel about our progress to date?"
• Establish priorities and allow elaboration: "What do you think the major issues are with this project?"

When you want to find out more about the other person's motivations and feelings, think of open-ended questions. Though this type of questioning you can uncover your coache's true concerns. This, in turn, will help you formulate better advice and ideas about how you can help her.

Use close-ended questions carefully. Close-ended questions lead to "yes" or "no" answers. Use them to:

• Focus the response: "Is the project on schedule?"
• Confirm what the other person has said: "So, the critical issue is cost?"

Advocate for your opinions

Effective coaches offer their ideas and advice in such a way that the person receiving it can hear them, respond to them, and consider their value. It is important to advocate for your opinions in a clear and balanced way.

• Describe the individual's situation as you see it.
• State your opinion about the situation.
• Make the thoughts behind your opinion explicit, and share your experiences.
• Encourage the other person to provide her perspective.

Your collaboration with the coachee will be most successful if you use both inquiry and advocacy in your communications. Over-reliance on inquiry can result in the participants' withholding important information and positions. Conversely, if you emphasize advocacy too heavily, you create a controlling atmosphere that can undermine the coaching partnership.

Give feedback as a coach

Feedback differs from advocacy in that you are responding to a specific behavior or action rather than presenting and arguing your position on the overall problem or need for change. Giving and receiving feedback is a critical part of managing in general, but it is an especially important part of coaching. This give-and-take goes on throughout the coaching process as you identify issues to work on, develop action plans together, and assess the follow-through.

When giving feedback -- whether positive or negative -- try to do the following:

Focus on behavior -- not character, attitudes, or personality: Describe the other person's behavior and its effect on projects and/or coworkers. Avoid judgmental language, which only makes people defensive. For example, instead of saying, "You're rude and domineering," say, "I observed that you interrupted Fred several times during each of our last three meetings."

Be specific: Avoid generalizations. Instead of saying, "You did a really good job," you could say, "The transparencies you used for your presentation were effective in getting the message across."

Be sincere: Give feedback with the clear intent of helping the person improve.

Be realistic: Focus on factors that the other person can control.

Give feedback early and often in the coaching process: Frequent feedback that is delivered soon after the fact is more effective than infrequent feedback.

"Good coaches have coaches of their own. I can remember one time when I received timely and exquisite coaching. My boss gave me feedback about a self-defeating communication habit I'd gotten into. Because she was compassionate, caring, and clear as a bell in her description, I was able to see exactly what she was talking about and explore why I was caught in this pattern. I was then able to shift my style and get the kind of results I intended."

-- Patty McManus, consultant

Receive feedback as a coach

You also need to be open to feedback on how effective you are as a coach. Coaches who are able to request and process feedback about themselves learn more about the effectiveness of their management styles and create greater trust among members of their groups. To improve you ability to receive feedback:

Ask for specific information. For example, "What did I say that made you think I wasn't interested in your proposal?" or "How were my suggestions helpful to you?"

When you ask for clarification, do so in a way that doesn't put the other person on the defensive. Instead of saying, "What do you mean I seemed hostile to your idea?" say, "Could you give me an example?"

Be willing to receive both negative and positive feedback.

Encourage the other person to avoid emotion-laden terms. For example, "You said that I am often inflexible. Give me an example of things I do that give you the sense that I am not flexible."

Don't be defensive. Only justify your actions if asked. Tell the other person when you've gotten all the feedback you can effectively process.

Thank the person for being willing to share feedback with you, both positive and negative. This will improve trust and model productive behavior to the person you are coaching.

Building agreement

Agreements are the foundation of coaching. You build agreements in the beginning as you commit to working together, and throughout your relationship as you pursue the coaching objectives. The agreement process includes all the above activities from initially recognizing the need for coaching to observing to listening actively to one another and collaboratively coming to agreement about the issues and resolutions.

There has to be agreement between the coach and the coachee for the coaching process to work. However, agreement can range from skeptical acceptance to wholehearted involvement. When your coachee sees progress being made on changing behavior or building skills, then agreement will become easier to achieve.

Extracted from

Coaching People. Price: Rs 195.

Copyright 2006 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.

What makes an effective leader

What makes an effective leader

The cult of the heroic leader remains strong.

-- Loren Gary, editor

Effective leaders are not born with the gift of knowing how to lead. Rather, they gain experience, they absorb knowledge, they see and listen to the world around them - both inside the organization and beyond. Effective leaders are also capable of assuming the leadership qualities needed for specific situations. There are many kinds of effective leaders -- among them are�the charismatic leader, the transformational leader, and the pragmatic leader -- but these distinctive qualities can blend together in one person in different ways at different times.

Charismatic leaders seem to shine

A charismatic leader may seem to be born with a gift to inspire. Particularly during a crisis, people turn to this powerful voice for a grand vision and hope for solutions. Such a leader can clarify the situation for his people and instill the confidence they need. People feel safe handing off a problem to this type of leader.

What makes charismatic leaders such champions? They differ from the norm in greater self-confidence, energy, enthusiasm, and unconventional behavior. Charismatic leaders tend to:

• Have a clear, fresh, new, and creative vision
• Be completely devoted to their vision
• Make great sacrifices to achieve their vision, taking personal risks - financial, professional, social
• Create a sense of urgency among their followers
• Gain the absolute trust of their followers (and also fear)
• Use persuasion rather than forceful commands or democratic appeals for consensus to influence their followers

A charismatic leader is most successful during a crisis. For example, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a charismatic leader who led the United States out of the Great Depression and readied the nation for World War II. On the other hand, Adolf Hitler was also a charismatic leader who gave his defeated nation a new vision of power and might. Thus, charismatic leaders can have great power and influence, but how they use it determines whether their inspiration works for good or not.

However, most organizations are not in a continual state of peril. A lofty vision for achieving a grand mission may not be attainable, and the value of inspiration may dissolve into a need for everyday, step-by-step progress. Thus, charismatic leaders are not always the best type of leader.

"[The charismatic leader is] supposed to have the 'gift of tongues' with which he [can] inspire employees to work harder and gain the confidence of investors, analysts, and the ever skeptical press."

--- Rakesh Khurana, professor

Transformational leaders focus on the people and the task

Unlike charismatic leaders, transformational leaders remold an organization not through the force of their own personality but by appealing to their people, gaining their trust and respect. Transformational leaders achieve results by paying close attention to their group or team as they

• articulate a clear and compelling vision
• clarify the importance of the vision's outcome
• provide a well-defined path to attain the vision
• use symbols to realize their vision
• act with confidence, optimism, and self-determination
• encourage their people to work as a team rather than as individuals to reach the organization's goals
• empower people to make good decisions for the benefit of the whole

What makes transformational leaders effective is their ability to make their vision a clear, identifiable goal that can guide their team's actions to meet the goal. They trust their people, provide the resources they need, and encourage them to move forward.

Pragmatic leaders -- from the ideal to the real

The most apparent characteristic of pragmatic leaders is their focus on the organization rather than on people. Pragmatic leaders face the realities of business environment; they listen to and understand the truth, whether good or bad, hopeful or daunting. They are effective because they

• have a vision that is recognizable as a variation of the status quo
• listen carefully to their people
• make realistic decisions for the good of the organization
• manage by the numbers
• put the right people in the right positions to get the job done
• delegate responsibilities to people they can trust

Pragmatic leaders may not be as flamboyant or exciting as other types of leaders, but they get the job done. Pragmatic leaders are most effective when an organization is going through rough times or when the business environment is too turbulent to see far ahead, when a short-term, familiar vision is necessary.

After all, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were successful in attaining the goal of their Northwest journey. When they reached the Pacific Ocean in April 1805, Lewis wrote that he was "much pleased at having arrived at this long wished for spot."

Effective leaders are future-focused

In general, leaders who are effective now and in the future have learned how to be:

Future-focused: They create a vision, articulate it to their group, and stick with it. They understand how their unit or organization fits into the larger picture, and they organize short-term tasks according to long-term priorities.

Comfortable with ambiguity: They are willing to take calculated risks, can handle a certain level of disruption and conflict, and are willing to change their minds when new information comes to light.

Persistent: They can maintain a positive, focused determination in pursuing a goal or vision, despite the obstacles.

Excellent communicators: They know how to write clearly, listen closely, run meetings, make presentations, negotiate, and speak in public.

Politically astute: They have acquired a solid sense of their organization's power structure, listen carefully to the concerns of its most powerful groups, and know where to turn for the support and resources they need.

Level-headed: They know how to stay calm in the midst of turmoil and confusion.

Self-aware: They know themselves enough to realize how their own patterns of behavior affect others.

Caring: They have a demonstrated ability to empathize with other people's needs, concerns, and professional goals.

Humorous: When the situation warrants it, they know how to inject a little mirth to relive tension within a group.

Tip: Be the change you want to bring about -- model the behaviors you're trying to encourage.

Excerpted from:

Leading People�

Copyright 2006 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation.� Price: Rs 195.�Reprinted by permission of�Harvard Business School Publishing.�All rights reserved.

Written By

Tony Schwartz (tony@theenergyproject.com) is the president and founder of the Energy Project in New York City, and a coauthor of The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal (Free Press, 2003). Catherine McCarthy (catherine@theenergyproject.com) is a senior vice president at the Energy Project.

Managing Yourself

Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time

The science of stamina has advanced to the point where individuals, teams, and whole organizations can, with some straightforward interventions, significantly increase their capacity to get things done.

by Tony Schwartz and Catherine McCarthy

Click here to fill out the questionnaire, “Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?”

Steve Wanner is a highly respected 37-year-old partner at Ernst & Young, married with four young children. When we met him a year ago, he was working 12- to 14-hour days, felt perpetually exhausted, and found it difficult to fully engage with his family in the evenings, which left him feeling guilty and dissatisfied. He slept poorly, made no time to exercise, and seldom ate healthy meals, instead grabbing a bite to eat on the run or while working at his desk.

Wanner’s experience is not uncommon. Most of us respond to rising demands in the workplace by putting in longer hours, which inevitably take a toll on us physically, mentally, and emotionally. That leads to declining levels of engagement, increasing levels of distraction, high turnover rates, and soaring medical costs among employees. We at the Energy Project have worked with thousands of leaders and managers in the course of doing consulting and coaching at large organizations during the past five years. With remarkable consistency, these executives tell us they’re pushing themselves harder than ever to keep up and increasingly feel they are at a breaking point.

The core problem with working longer hours is that time is a finite resource. Energy is a different story. Defined in physics as the capacity to work, energy comes from four main wellsprings in human beings: the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. In each, energy can be systematically expanded and regularly renewed by establishing specific rituals—behaviors that are intentionally practiced and precisely scheduled, with the goal of making them unconscious and automatic as quickly as possible.

To effectively reenergize their workforces, organizations need to shift their emphasis from getting more out of people to investing more in them, so they are motivated—and able—to bring more of themselves to work every day. To recharge themselves, individuals need to recognize the costs of energy-depleting behaviors and then take responsibility for changing them, regardless of the circumstances they’re facing.

The rituals and behaviors Wanner established to better manage his energy transformed his life. He set an earlier bedtime and gave up drinking, which had disrupted his sleep. As a consequence, when he woke up he felt more rested and more motivated to exercise, which he now does almost every morning. In less than two months he lost 15 pounds. After working out he now sits down with his family for breakfast. Wanner still puts in long hours on the job, but he renews himself regularly along the way. He leaves his desk for lunch and usually takes a morning and an afternoon walk outside. When he arrives at home in the evening, he’s more relaxed and better able to connect with his wife and children.

Establishing simple rituals like these can lead to striking results across organizations. At Wachovia Bank, we took a group of employees through a pilot energy management program and then measured their performance against that of a control group. The participants outperformed the controls on a series of financial metrics, such as the value of loans they generated. They also reported substantial improvements in their customer relationships, their engagement with work, and their personal satisfaction. In this article, we’ll describe the Wachovia study in a little more detail. Then we’ll explain what executives and managers can do to increase and regularly renew work capacity—the approach used by the Energy Project, which builds on, deepens, and extends several core concepts developed byTony’s former partner Jim Loehr in his seminal work with athletes.

Linking Capacity and Performance at Wachovia

Most large organizations invest in developing employees’ skills, knowledge, and competence. Very few help build and sustain their capacity—their energy—which is typically taken for granted. In fact, greater capacity makes it possible to get more done in less time at a higher level of engagement and with more sustainability. Our experience at Wachovia bore this out.

In early 2006 we took 106 employees at 12 regional banks in southern New Jersey through a curriculum of four modules, each of which focused on specific strategies for strengthening one of the four main dimensions of energy. We delivered it at one-month intervals to groups of approximately 20 to 25, ranging from senior leaders to lower-level managers. We also assigned each attendee a fellow employee as a source of support between sessions. Using Wachovia’s own key performance metrics, we evaluated how the participant group performed compared with a group of employees at similar levels at a nearby set of Wachovia banks who did not go through the training. To create a credible basis for comparison, we looked at year-over-year percentage changes in performance across several metrics.

On a measure called the “Big 3”—revenues from three kinds of loans—the participants showed a year-over-year increase that was 13 percentage points greater than the control group’s in the first three months of our study. On revenues from deposits, the participants exceeded the control group’s year-over-year gain by 20 percentage points during that same period. The precise gains varied month by month, but with only a handful of exceptions, the participants continued to significantly outperform the control group for a full year after completing the program. Although other variables undoubtedly influenced these outcomes, the participants’ superior performance was notable in its consistency. (See the exhibit “How Energy Renewal Programs Boosted Productivity at Wachovia.”)

How Energy Renewal Programs Boosted Productivity at Wachovia

We also asked participants how the program influenced them personally. Sixty-eight percent reported that it had a positive impact on their relationships with clients and customers. Seventy-one percent said that it had a noticeable or substantial positive impact on their productivity and performance. These findings corroborated a raft of anecdotal evidence we’ve gathered about the effectiveness of this approach among leaders at other large companies such as Ernst & Young, Sony, Deutsche Bank, Nokia, ING Direct, Ford, and MasterCard.

The Body: Physical Energy

Our program begins by focusing on physical energy. It is scarcely news that inadequate nutrition, exercise, sleep, and rest diminish people’s basic energy levels, as well as their ability to manage their emotions and focus their attention. Nonetheless, many executives don’t find ways to practice consistently healthy behaviors, given all the other demands in their lives.

Before participants in our program begin to explore ways to increase their physical energy, they take an energy audit, which includes four questions in each energy dimension—body, emotions, mind, and spirit. (See the exhibit “Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?”) On average, participants get eight to ten of those 16 questions “wrong,” meaning they’re doing things such as skipping breakfast, failing to express appreciation to others, struggling to focus on one thing at a time, or spending too little time on activities that give them a sense of purpose. While most participants aren’t surprised to learn these behaviors are counterproductive, having them all listed in one place is often uncomfortable, sobering, and galvanizing. The audit highlights employees’ greatest energy deficits. Participants also fill out charts designed to raise their awareness about how their exercise, diet, and sleep practices influence their energy levels.

Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?

The next step is to identify rituals for building and renewing physical energy. When Gary Faro, a vice president at Wachovia, began the program, he was significantly overweight, ate poorly, lacked a regular exercise routine, worked long hours, and typically slept no more than five or six hours a night. That is not an unusual profile among the leaders and managers we see. Over the course of the program, Faro began regular cardiovascular and strength training. He started going to bed at a designated time and sleeping longer. He changed his eating habits from two big meals a day (“Where I usually gorged myself,” he says) to smaller meals and light snacks every three hours. The aim was to help him stabilize his glucose levels over the course of the day, avoiding peaks and valleys. He lost 50 pounds in the process, and his energy levels soared. “I used to schedule tough projects for the morning, when I knew that I would be more focused,” Faro says. “I don’t have to do that anymore because I find that I’m just as focused now at 5 pm as I am at 8 am.”

Another key ritual Faro adopted was to take brief but regular breaks at specific intervals throughout the workday—always leaving his desk. The value of such breaks is grounded in our physiology. “Ultradian rhythms” refer to 90- to 120-minute cycles during which our bodies slowly move from a high-energy state into a physiological trough. Toward the end of each cycle, the body begins to crave a period of recovery. The signals include physical restlessness, yawning, hunger, and difficulty concentrating, but many of us ignore them and keep working. The consequence is that our energy reservoir—our remaining capacity—burns down as the day wears on.

Intermittent breaks for renewal, we have found, result in higher and more sustainable performance. The length of renewal is less important than the quality. It is possible to get a great deal of recovery in a short time—as little as several minutes—if it involves a ritual that allows you to disengage from work and truly change channels. That could range from getting up to talk to a colleague about something other than work, to listening to music on an iPod, to walking up and down stairs in an office building. While breaks are countercultural in most organizations and counterintuitive for many high achievers, their value is multifaceted.

Matthew Lang is a managing director for Sony in South Africa. He adopted some of the same rituals that Faro did, including a 20-minute walk in the afternoons. Lang’s walk not only gives him a mental and emotional breather and some exercise but also has become the time when he gets his best creative ideas. That’s because when he walks he is not actively thinking, which allows the dominant left hemisphere of his brain to give way to the right hemisphere with its greater capacity to see the big picture and make imaginative leaps.

The Emotions: Quality of Energy

When people are able to take more control of their emotions, they can improve the quality of their energy, regardless of the external pressures they’re facing. To do this, they first must become more aware of how they feel at various points during the workday and of the impact these emotions have on their effectiveness. Most people realize that they tend to perform best when they’re feeling positive energy. What they find surprising is that they’re not able to perform well or to lead effectively when they’re feeling any other way.

Unfortunately, without intermittent recovery, we’re not physiologically capable of sustaining highly positive emotions for long periods. Confronted with relentless demands and unexpected challenges, people tend to slip into negative emotions—the fight-or-flight mode—often multiple times in a day. They become irritable and impatient, or anxious and insecure. Such states of mind drain people’s energy and cause friction in their relationships. Fight-or-flight emotions also make it impossible to think clearly, logically, and reflectively. When executives learn to recognize what kinds of events trigger their negative emotions, they gain greater capacity to take control of their reactions.

One simple but powerful ritual for defusing negative emotions is what we call “buying time.” Deep abdominal breathing is one way to do that. Exhaling slowly for five or six seconds induces relaxation and recovery, and turns off the fight-or-flight response. When we began working with Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe, he had a habit of lighting up a cigarette each time something especially stressful occurred—at least two or three times a day. Otherwise, he didn’t smoke. We taught him the breathing exercise as an alternative, and it worked immediately: Nishida found he no longer had the desire for a cigarette. It wasn’t the smoking that had given him relief from the stress, we concluded, but the relaxation prompted by the deep inhalation and exhalation.

A powerful ritual that fuels positive emotions is expressing appreciation to others, a practice that seems to be as beneficial to the giver as to the receiver. It can take the form of a handwritten note, an e-mail, a call, or a conversation—and the more detailed and specific, the higher the impact. As with all rituals, setting aside a particular time to do it vastly increases the chances of success. Ben Jenkins, vice chairman and president of the General Bank at Wachovia in Charlotte, North Carolina, built his appreciation ritual into time set aside for mentoring. He began scheduling lunches or dinners regularly with people who worked for him. Previously, the only sit-downs he’d had with his direct reports were to hear monthly reports on their numbers or to give them yearly performance reviews. Now, over meals, he makes it a priority to recognize their accomplishments and also to talk with them about their lives and their aspirations rather than their immediate work responsibilities.

Finally, people can cultivate positive emotions by learning to change thestories they tell themselves about the events in their lives. Often, people in conflict cast themselves in the role of victim, blaming others or external circumstances for their problems. Becoming aware of the difference between the facts in a given situation and the way we interpret those facts can be powerful in itself. It’s been a revelation for many of the people we work with to discover they have a choice about how to view a given event and to recognize how powerfully the story they tell influences the emotions they feel. We teach them to tell the most hopeful and personally empowering story possible in any given situation, without denying or minimizing the facts.

The most effective way people can change a story is to view it through any of three new lenses, which are all alternatives to seeing the world from the victim perspective. With the reverse lens, for example, people ask themselves, “What would the other person in this conflict say and in what ways might that be true?” With the long lens they ask, “How will I most likely view this situation in six months?” With the wide lens they ask themselves, “Regardless of the outcome of this issue, how can I grow and learn from it?” Each of these lenses can help people intentionally cultivate more positive emotions.

Nicolas Babin, director of corporate communications for Sony Europe, was the point person for calls from reporters when Sony went through several recalls of its batteries in 2006. Over time he found his work increasingly exhausting and dispiriting. After practicing the lens exercises, he began finding ways to tell himself a more positive and empowering story about his role. “I realized,” he explains, “that this was an opportunity for me to build stronger relationships with journalists by being accessible to them and to increase Sony’s credibility by being straightforward and honest.”

The Mind: Focus of Energy

Many executives view multitasking as a necessity in the face of all the demands they juggle, but it actually undermines productivity. Distractions are costly: A temporary shift in attention from one task to another—stopping to answer an e-mail or take a phone call, for instance—increases the amount of time necessary to finish the primary task by as much as 25%, a phenomenon known as “switching time.” It’s far more efficient to fully focus for 90 to 120 minutes, take a true break, and then fully focus on the next activity. We refer to these work periods as “ultradian sprints.”

Once people see how much they struggle to concentrate, they can create rituals to reduce the relentless interruptions that technology has introduced in their lives. We start out with an exercise that forces them to face the impact of daily distractions. They attempt to complete a complex task and are regularly interrupted—an experience that, people report, ends up feeling much like everyday life.

Dan Cluna, a vice president at Wachovia, designed two rituals to better focus his attention. The first one is to leave his desk and go into a conference room, away from phones and e-mail, whenever he has a task that requires concentration. He now finishes reports in a third of the time they used to require. Cluna built his second ritual around meetings at branches with the financial specialists who report to him. Previously, he would answer his phone whenever it rang during these meetings. As a consequence, the meetings he scheduled for an hour often stretched to two, and he rarely gave anyone his full attention. Now Cluna lets his phone go to voice mail, so that he can focus completely on the person in front of him. He now answers the accumulated voice-mail messages when he has downtime between meetings.

E&Y’s hard-charging Wanner used to answer e-mail constantly throughout the day—whenever he heard a “ping.” Then he created a ritual of checking his e-mail just twice a day—at 10:15 am and 2:30 pm. Whereas previously he couldn’t keep up with all his messages, he discovered he could clear his in-box each time he opened it—the reward of fully focusing his attention on e-mail for 45 minutes at a time. Wanner has also reset the expectations of all the people he regularly communicates with by e-mail. “I’ve told them if it’s an emergency and they need an instant response, they can call me and I’ll always pick up,” he says. Nine months later he has yet to receive such a call.

Michael Henke, a senior manager at E&Y, sat his team down at the start of the busy season last winter and told them that at certain points during the day he was going to turn off his Sametime (an in-house instant-message system). The result, he said, was that he would be less available to them for questions. Like Wanner, he told his team to call him if any emergency arose, but they rarely did. He also encouraged the group to take regular breaks throughout the day and to eat more regularly. They finished the busy season under budget and more profitable than other teams that hadn’t followed the energy renewal program. “We got the same amount of work done in less time,” says Henke. “It made for a win-win.”

Another way to mobilize mental energy is to focus systematically on activities that have the most long-term leverage. Unless people intentionally schedule time for more challenging work, they tend not to get to it at all or rush through it at the last minute. Perhaps the most effective focus ritual the executives we work with have adopted is to identify each night the most important challenge for the next day and make it their very first priority when they arrive in the morning. Jean Luc Duquesne, a vice president for Sony Europe in Paris, used to answer his e-mail as soon as he got to the office, just as many people do. He now tries to concentrate the first hour of every day on the most important topic. He finds that he often emerges at 10 am feeling as if he’s already had a productive day.

The Human Spirit: Energy of Meaning and Purpose

People tap into the energy of the human spirit when their everyday work and activities are consistent with what they value most and with what gives them a sense of meaning and purpose. If the work they’re doing really matters to them, they typically feel more positive energy, focus better, and demonstrate greater perseverance. Regrettably, the high demands and fast pace of corporate life don’t leave much time to pay attention to these issues, and many people don’t even recognize meaning and purpose as potential sources of energy. Indeed, if we tried to begin our program by focusing on the human spirit, it would likely have minimal impact. Only when participants have experienced the value of the rituals they establish in the other dimensions do they start to see that being attentive to their own deeper needs dramatically influences their effectiveness and satisfaction at work.

For E&Y partner Jonathan Anspacher, simply having the opportunity to ask himself a series of questions about what really mattered to him was both illuminating and energizing. “I think it’s important to be a little introspective and say, ‘What do you want to be remembered for?’” he told us. “You don’t want to be remembered as the crazy partner who worked these long hours and had his people be miserable. When my kids call me and ask, ‘Can you come to my band concert?’ I want to say, ‘Yes, I’ll be there and I’ll be in the front row.’ I don’t want to be the father that comes in and sits in the back and is on his Blackberry and has to step out to take a phone call.”

To access the energy of the human spirit, people need to clarify priorities and establish accompanying rituals in three categories: doing what they do best and enjoy most at work; consciously allocating time and energy to the areas of their lives—work, family, health, service to others—they deem most important; and living their core values in their daily behaviors.

When you’re attempting to discover what you do best and what you enjoy most, it’s important to realize that these two things aren’t necessarily mutually inclusive. You may get lots of positive feedback about something you’re very good at but not truly enjoy it. Conversely, you can love doing something but have no gift for it, so that achieving success requires much more energy than it makes sense to invest.

To help program participants discover their areas of strength, we ask them to recall at least two work experiences in the past several months during which they found themselves in their “sweet spot”—feeling effective, effortlessly absorbed, inspired, and fulfilled. Then we have them deconstruct those experiences to understand precisely what energized them so positively and what specific talents they were drawing on. If leading strategy feels like a sweet spot, for example, is it being in charge that’s most invigorating or participating in a creative endeavor? Or is it using a skill that comes to you easily and so feels good to exercise? Finally, we have people establish a ritual that will encourage them to do more of exactly that kind of activity at work.

A senior leader we worked with realized that one of the activities he least liked was reading and summarizing detailed sales reports, whereas one of his favorites was brainstorming new strategies. The leader found a direct report who loved immersing himself in numbers and delegated the sales report task to him—happily settling for brief oral summaries from him each day. The leader also began scheduling a free-form 90-minute strategy session every other week with the most creative people in his group.

In the second category, devoting time and energy to what’s important to you, there is often a similar divide between what people say is important and what they actually do. Rituals can help close this gap. When Jean Luc Duquesne, the Sony Europe vice president, thought hard about his personal priorities, he realized that spending time with his family was what mattered most to him, but it often got squeezed out of his day. So he instituted a ritual in which he switches off for at least three hours every evening when he gets home, so he can focus on his family. “I’m still not an expert on PlayStation,” he told us, “but according to my youngest son, I’m learning and I’m a good student.” Steve Wanner, who used to talk on the cell phone all the way to his front door on his commute home, has chosen a specific spot 20 minutes from his house where he ends whatever call he’s on and puts away the phone. He spends the rest of his commute relaxing so that when he does arrive home, he’s less preoccupied with work and more available to his wife and children.

The third category, practicing your core values in your everyday behavior, is a challenge for many as well. Most people are living at such a furious pace that they rarely stop to ask themselves what they stand for and who they want to be. As a consequence, they let external demands dictate their actions.

We don’t suggest that people explicitly define their values, because the results are usually too predictable. Instead, we seek to uncover them, in part by asking questions that are inadvertently revealing, such as, “What are the qualities that you find most off-putting when you see them in others?” By describing what they can’t stand, people unintentionally divulge what they stand for. If you are very offended by stinginess, for example, generosity is probably one of your key values. If you are especially put off by rudeness in others, it’s likely that consideration is a high value for you. As in the other categories, establishing rituals can help bridge the gap between the values you aspire to and how you currently behave. If you discover that consideration is a key value, but you are perpetually late for meetings, the ritual might be to end the meetings you run five minutes earlier than usual and intentionally show up five minutes early for the meeting that follows.

Addressing these three categories helps people go a long way toward achieving a greater sense of alignment, satisfaction, and well-being in their lives on and off the job. Those feelings are a source of positive energy in their own right and reinforce people’s desire to persist at rituals in other energy dimensions as well.

• • •

This new way of working takes hold only to the degree that organizations support their people in adopting new behaviors. We have learned, sometimes painfully, that not all executives and companies are prepared to embrace the notion that personal renewal for employees will lead to better and more sustainable performance. To succeed, renewal efforts need solid support and commitment from senior management, beginning with the key decision maker.

At Wachovia, Susanne Svizeny, the president of the region in which we conducted our study, was the primary cheerleader for the program. She embraced the principles in her own life and made a series of personal changes, including a visible commitment to building more regular renewal rituals into her work life. Next, she took it upon herself to foster the excitement and commitment of her leadership team. Finally, she regularly reached out by e-mail to all participants in the project to encourage them in their rituals and seek their feedback. It was clear to everyone that she took the work seriously. Her enthusiasm was infectious, and the results spoke for themselves.

At Sony Europe, several hundred leaders have embraced the principles of energy management. Over the next year, more than 2,000 of their direct reports will go through the energy renewal program. From Fujio Nishida on down, it has become increasingly culturally acceptable at Sony to take intermittent breaks, work out at midday, answer e-mail only at designated times, and even ask colleagues who seem irritable or impatient what stories they’re telling themselves.

Organizational support also entails shifts in policies, practices, and cultural messages. A number of firms we worked with have built “renewal rooms” where people can regularly go to relax and refuel. Others offer subsidized gym memberships. In some cases, leaders themselves gather groups of employees for midday workouts. One company instituted a no-meeting zone between 8 and 9 am to ensure that people had at least one hour absolutely free of meetings. At several companies, including Sony, senior leaders collectively agreed to stop checking e-mail during meetings as a way to make the meetings more focused and efficient.

One factor that can get in the way of success is a crisis mentality. The optimal candidates for energy renewal programs are organizations that are feeling enough pain to be eager for new solutions but not so much that they’re completely overwhelmed. At one organization where we had the active support of the CEO, the company was under intense pressure to grow rapidly, and the senior team couldn’t tear themselves away from their focus on immediate survival—even though taking time out for renewal might have allowed them to be more productive at a more sustainable level.

By contrast, the group at Ernst & Young successfully went through the process at the height of tax season. With the permission of their leaders, they practiced defusing negative emotions by breathing or telling themselves different stories, and alternated highly focused periods of work with renewal breaks. Most people in the group reported that this busy season was the least stressful they’d ever experienced.

The implicit contract between organizations and their employees today is that each will try to get as much from the other as they can, as quickly as possible, and then move on without looking back. We believe that is mutually self-defeating. Both individuals and the organizations they work for end up depleted rather than enriched. Employees feel increasingly beleaguered and burned out. Organizations are forced to settle for employees who are less than fully engaged and to constantly hire and train new people to replace those who choose to leave. We envision a new and explicit contract that benefits all parties: Organizations invest in their people across all dimensions of their lives to help them build and sustain their value. Individuals respond by bringing all their multidimensional energy wholeheartedly to work every day. Both grow in value as a result.

How Energy Renewal Programs Boosted Productivity at Wachovia

At Wachovia Bank, employees participating in an energy renewal program outperformed a control group of employees, demonstrating significantly greater improvements in year-over-year performance during the first quarter of 2006.

Are You Headed for an Energy Crisis?

Please check the statements below that are true for you.

Body

__ I don’t regularly get at least seven to eight hours of sleep, and I often wake up feeling tired.

__ I frequently skip breakfast, or I settle for something that isn’t nutritious.

__ I don’t work out enough (meaning cardiovascular training at least three times a week and strength training at least once a week).

__ I don’t take regular breaks during the day to truly renew and recharge, or I often eat lunch at my desk, if I eat it at all.

Emotions

__ I frequently find myself feeling irritable, impatient, or anxious at work, especially when work is demanding.

__ I don’t have enough time with my family and loved ones, and when I’m with them, I’m not always really with them.

__ I have too little time for the activities that I most deeply enjoy.

__ I don’t stop frequently enough to express my appreciation to others or to savor my accomplishments and blessings.

Mind

__ I have difficulty focusing on one thing at a time, and I am easily distracted during the day, especially by e-mail.

__ I spend much of my day reacting to immediate crises and demands rather than focusing on activities with longer-term value and high leverage.

__ I don’t take enough time for reflection, strategizing, and creative thinking.

__ I work in the evenings or on weekends, and I almost never take an e-mail–free vacation.

Spirit

__ I don’t spend enough time at work doing what I do best and enjoy most.

__ There are significant gaps between what I say is most important to me in my life and how I actually allocate my time and energy.

__ My decisions at work are more often influenced by external demands than by a strong, clear sense of my own purpose.

__ I don’t invest enough time and energy in making a positive difference to others or to the world.

• • •

How is your overall energy?

Total number of statements checked: __

Guide to scores

0–3: Excellent energy management skills

4–6: Reasonable energy management skills

7–10: Significant energy management deficits

11–16: A full-fledged energy management crisis

What do you need to work on?

Number of checks in each category:

Body __

Mind __

Emotions __

Spirit __

Guide to category scores

0: Excellent energy management skills

1: Strong energy management skills

2: Significant deficits

3: Poor energy management skills

4: A full-fledged energy crisis

Want to succeed? Avoid these 9 traps

Want to succeed? Avoid these 9 traps

Robert J Herbold | September 25, 2007 | 09:44 IST

Success leads to the damaging behaviors of a lack of urgency, a proud and protective attitude, and entitlement thinking. This leads to the tendency to institutionalize legacy thinking and practices. Essentially, you believe that what enabled you to become successful will enable you to be successful forever.

After reviewing this problem in many companies, I believe there are nine dangerous traps into which successful people and organizations often stumble.

Trap 1: NEGLECT

Sticking with Yesterday's Business Model

By business model, I mean what you do and how you do it. It includes such issues as deciding what industry you will be competing in and what approaches you will use in carrying out all the processes necessary to compete in that industry. Will we manufacture something or contract it out? How will we sell our products or services?

Do we go through retail channels? How should we organize our sales force? Which segments of the industry do we want to ignore, and which do we want to compete in? What is the structure of our support staff? Which parts of the organization do we out source? What are our approaches to distribution and inventory management? What are the cost targets of the various components of the organization, like information technology costs and human resources costs? Does our model leave us satisfied with our gross margins, profit margins, and other such figures?

Organizations should be consistently reviewing all aspects of their business model, looking for areas that are weak and need to be overhauled. By weak, we mean out of date, too costly, too slow, or not flexible. In which areas of the business model are you at parity? In those areas, are there any bright ideas on how to achieve a competitive advantage?

TRAP 2: PRIDE

Allowing Your Products to Become Outdated

You may be super proud of your product or service today, but you have to assume that it is going to become inferior to the competition very soon. You need to hustle ad beat your competition to that better mousetrap, and you need to do it over and over.

The amazing thing about success is that it leads to a subconscious entitlement mentality that cause you to believe that you no longer need to do all the dirty work of getting out and studying consumer behavior in details, analyzing different sales approaches, jumping on the latest technology to generate improved products, and everything else that is required to stay ahead. The attitude is often one of believing that you have done all of that and have figured it out, and now things are going to be fine.

Until the early 1970s, typewriters were used to prepare documents. The IBM Selectric model was the standard. Then along came Wang Laboratories' word processor in 1976, providing a completely new approach. It displayed text on a cathode ray tube (CRT) screen that was connected to a central processing unit (CPU). In fact, you could connect many such screens to that CPU in order to handle many different users. Wang's device incorporated virtually every fundamental characteristic of word processors as we know them today, and the phrase word processor rapidly came to refer to CRT-based Wang machines. Then, in the early to mid-1980s, the personal computer emerged. Wang saw it coming but made no attempt to modify its software for a personal computer. PC-based word processors like WordPerfect and Microsoft Word became the rage, and Wang died. Wang fell into the trap of not updating its products, even though it basically invented the word processor industry.

We saw this behavior very clearly with the General Motors example. Its cars, while highly distinctive back in the 1970s, were allowed over time to look more and more alike, and the excitement factor for the customer disappeared.

TRAP 3: BOREDOM

Clinging to Your Once-Successful Branding after It Becomes Stale and Dull

Constantly achieving uniquencss and distinctiveness for a brand and also keeping it fresh and contemporary is hard work. Once a brand achieves some success, the tendency is to sit back and pat yourself on the back, allowing your brand to become dull and ordinary.

The Plymouth automobile was introduced by Chrysler for the 1928 model year as a direct competitor to Ford and Chevrolet. It was a sturdy and durable car that attracted a legion of loyal owners. Plymouth became one of the low-priced three from Detroit and was usually number three in sales, just behind Ford and Chevrolet. For almost two decades, Plymouth sold almost 750,000 cars per year and had a solid brand reputation in the low price range of being reliable but having a bit more flair than Chevrolet or Ford. Older readers may remember the 1957 Plymouth with the huge fins, as well as its Road Runner (beep beep!) model. Plymouth had a very clear brand positioning.

In the 1960s, the Plymouth brand began to lose its uniqueness. Chrysler decided to reposition the Dodge, reducing its price so that it was quite close to Plymouth's. Chrysler came out with low-priced compact and intermediate-size models under both the Plymouth trademark and the Dodge trademark. By 1982, Dodge, was outselling Plymouth. Throughout the late 1980s and the 1990s, Plymouth offered nothing unique. Sales continued to decline, while Dodge was quite healthy. In 1999 Chrysler announced that the Plymouth brand would be discontinued. The lesson is simple: when you allow brands to get stale, they die.

TRAP 4: COMPLEXITY

Ignoring Your Business Processes as They Become Cumbersome and Complicated

Successful organizations often reward themselves by adding more and more people and allowing processes to become fragmented and nonstandardized. This is often done under banner of� refining the management of the business. It is also caused by business units and subsidiaries seeking more autonomy, which leads them to develop their own processes and staff resources. Before you know it, getting any kind of change made is very complicated.

Over and over again you read stories about organizations experiencing weak financial results, then finally coming to grips with the problem, laying off thousands of people and simplifying the organization.

We saw in our Toyota case study how aggressive that company is at constantly improving each and every process. Keeping that mindset of constant improvement is very difficult. Success usually leads to a decrease in the intensity with which you tackle such challenges. Also, success leads to a belief that since we are doing so well, we probably need to reward the people in the organization who are asking for their own building and lots of extra people to get them to the next level. Importunely, all those extra costs often lead to bloated processes and further fragmentation of how work gets done.

TRAP 5: BLOAT

Rationalizing Your Loss of Speed and Agility

Successful organisations and individuals tend to crate complexity. They hire a lot of extra people, since clearly things are going well, and those people find things to do, often creating layers of bureaucracy, duplicating capabilities that already exist in the organization, and making it very hard to react quickly to change.

Getting an organization to constantly think about retaining simplicity and flexibility is not easy. The account given in the previous chapter of Toyota's Global Body Line is a good example of doing it right. Toyota thought about agility ahead of time, and when it came time to build a brand-new car, such as the Prius, it didn't have to build a new plant or a new line. This enabled Toyota to get to market fast and save tens of millions of dollars compared with traditional approaches.

TRAP 6: MEDIOCRITY

Condoning Poor Performance and Letting Your Star Employees Languish

When organizations are successful, they have a tendency to stop doing the hard things, and dealing with poor performance is a really hard thing. It also becomes hard to move new people into existing jobs, because there is the burden of getting the new person up to speed and the perception that you are losing valuable expertise. Also, the really strong performers and to get ignored. Consequently, what happens in many successful organizations is that people are left in their jobs too long and poor performance is not dealt with as crisply as it should be. Unfortunately, this also leads to strong players not being constantly challenged.

Successful organizations are especially vulnerable to this trap, since companies that achieve success often have high morale and pride. And who wants to spoil the fun by dealing with the tough personnel issues, which is an onerous task for most managers? Any excuse to put it aside will be embraced.

TRAP 7: LETHARGY

Getting Lulled into a Culture of Comfort, Casualness, and Confidence

Success, and the resulting tendency to become complacent, often leads organizations and individuals to believe that they are very talented, have figured things out, have the answers to all the questions, and no longer need to get their hands dirty in the trenches. They lose their sense of urgency � the feeling that trouble might be just around the corner.

Considering our case studies on GM and Toyota, the contrast between their cultures is really striking. GM seems to exude pride� and an attitude of "we are the real pro in the industry," while Toyota has a more humble personality that is all about constant improvement.

The leader of a group really sets the tone on this cultural complacency issue. The tendency is to become very proud of your success and protective of the approaches that got you there. It is those very tendencies that lead to an insular, confidence culture that makes people believe that they are on the wining team, while in reality, the world is probably passing them by.

TRAP 8: TIMIDITY

Not Confronting Turf Wars, Infighting, and Obstructionists

Success often leads to the hiring of too many people and the fragmentation of the organization. Business units and subsidiaries work hard to be as independent as possible, often creating groups that duplicate central resources. Staff groups fragment as similar groups emerge in the different business units. Before long, turf wars and infighting emerge, as who is responsible for what becomes vague.

Even worse, the culture gets very insular, with an excessive focus on things like who got promoted, why am I not getting rewarded properly, and a ton of other petty issues that sap the energy of the organization.

Another source of turf wars and infighting is lack of a clear direction for the organization and slow decision making on critical issues. When these kinds of management deficiencies occur, people are left to drift and end up pulling in different directions. That often leads to tremendous amounts of wasted time as groups argue to have it their way.

TRAP 9: CONFUSION

Unwittingly Providing�Schizopherenic Communications

When an organization is success or stable, its managers often fall into the trap of not making it clear where the organization is going from there. Sometimes this is because they don't know, but they don't admit that, and they don't try to get the company's direction resolved. They do everything they can to keep all option open, with no clear effort to get decisions made and a plan developed. Such behaviors lead to speculation by the troops, based on comments that they pick up over time. Often those comments are offhand remarks that the leaders have not thought through. Or the troops hear conflicting statements coming form a variety of folks in leadership positions in the organization.

When employees receive confusing and conflicting messages and don't have a clear picture of where the organization is gong or whether progress is being made, they feel vulnerable and get very protective of their current activities. In late 1991, IBM's CEO,John Akes, announced that in the future, IBM would look more like a holding company and that "clearly it's not to IBM's advantage to be 100�per cent owners of each of IBM's product lines."

During the next 12 months, everybody was trying to figure out what he meant. And IBM made no attempt to start publishing separate financial information by product line in preparation for possible spin-offs. IBM also ignored Wall Street's suggestion that it create separate financial entries, with their own stock exchange symbols, for the products that were to be spun off. Employees and investors were confused. The IBM board of directors finally ended the drama in early 1993, announcing that Akers was leaving and a new CEO would be hired quickly. From 1987 to 1993, IBM shareholders lost $77 billion of market value.

Communications from the head of the organization, be it a small group or an IBM, are critical. People want to know where they are headed and how things are going. When the words and actions don't match, confusion reigns.

In the remaining parts of this book, I will discuss these traps in detail. In each part, I will give detailed examples of companies and individuals that in some cases have been hurt and in other cases have avoided these problems. My objective in each part is to provide specific actions that people can take to avoid the particular trap, or to rid themselves of the problem.

Excerpted from:

Seduced by Success by Robert J Herbold.�

Copyright 2007 by�Robert�Herbold.� Price: Rs 495.�Reprinted by permission of�Tata McGraw Hill Publishing Company Limited.�All rights reserved.

Robert J Herbold was hired by Bill Gates to be chief operating officer of Microsoft Corporation. During his seven years as COO of 1994 to 2001, Microsoft experienced a four-fold increase in revenue and a seven-fold increase in profits.

Indian IT takes note of Dhoni's captaincy

Indian IT takes note of Dhoni's captaincy

Pratima Harigunani and R Jai Krishna

What does India's win at Twenty20 World Cup and Dhoni's leadership mean for Indian IT Inc?

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

PUNE/NEW DELHI, INDIA: A young captain leading a team of youngsters in a game. Not many hopes were pinned on the team that travelled to South Africa from England, especially after the big three – Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly – pulled out of the inaugural edition of Twenty20.

Still, the team led by a certain Mahendra Singh Dhoni meandered into Wanderers to take on archrival Pakistan in the finals. On their way to Durban, they drubbed biggies like England, South Africa and Australia, and even defeated Pakistan in the first round in a bowl-out.

During the bowl-out, skipper Dhoni tossed the ball to Harbhajan Singh, Virender Sehwag and surprise, Robin Uthappa, ignoring the other regular bowlers in the team.

Against Australia and later against Pakistan in the finals, he trusted the inexperienced Joginder Singh to bowl the last over. This too was ignoring the tested bowlers he has in the team.

He had only one message to Joginder, a young rookie from Rohtak: you are a pro and give the best and enjoy the game. The outcome of the match bothered him little, Dhoni was reported to have told Joginder.

And Joginder delivered. Misbah-ul-Haq of Pakistan scooped his delivery and S Sreeshanth sealed the fate of Pakistan in a humdinger of a match.

Reams and reams of newsprint were spent to announce the arrival of Captain Cool. “Few Indian captains before Mahendra Singh Dhoni have led their team with this kind of self-assurance and aplomb in their first major assignment,” said the Hindu newspaper in its editorial.

The IT industry also took notice of Dhoni’s leadership. A few years ago, the Indian IT industry had no experience against the might of global biggies like IBM, CSC, Accenture, etc., just the same way as the Indian cricket team had no precedent to back them against in-form teams like South Africa, England and Australia in the Twenty20 cricket.

But fearlessness and confidence have helped both – IT industry and Dhoni’s devils -- prove that they are globally the best. This is a small analogy in the words of Nityesh Bhatt, an expert in Organisational Behaviour and Leadership, and assistant professor, Information Technology, at the Nirma Institute of Management.

CyberMedia News took a walk around the industry and to know what Dhoni's leadership kit mean for the Indian IT game.

For Shirish Deodhar, senior vice president for Symphony Services, managing under change is a vital attribute to be learnt from the championship under Dhoni.

"A good leader doesn't mind going out and exploring. Change in IT is very rapid. Platforms, markets, products keep changing, and when change happens, a new and fresh leadership perspective comes handy, just the way it did for a new cricket format like Twenty20, which is a completely new and disruptive change. The game here suddenly became very short and called for new emphasis skill areas, such as fielding, which were not that critical in an ODI. Young leadership is not about age but about thinking. Dhoni's risk taking ability, inclusiveness and time-pressure qualities are good examples for leaders on the business side."

Bhatt adds: "Instead of pressing teammates to win, Dhoni told them to just enjoy the game. Also, he has mentioned at several forums that he believes to live in the present and not worry about future or past. That's another management tip. Too much strategizing for the future is not recommendable in a dynamic business environment. Dhoni's style quintessentially represents teamwork, empowerment and confidence. He gave the last over to Joginder Sharma who doesn't have much a track record for the trust reposed on him. But it worked."

Naveen Rajkumar, general manager, Aditi technologies couldn't agree more with Bhatt’s view on Dhoni backing people who were low on confidence. He says: "This is super critical in grooming people. Most leaders tend to move people who are low on confidence to less complex tasks and away from the limelight. That dents their confidence even further and gives them the impression that the leader has lost confidence in them. On the contrary, by putting such a person in front of a challenging task, it tells the person that the leader has confidence in his/her abilities and will be fired up to put in 120 per cent. This happened with Joginder Sharma in two critical matches, where he was clobbered all around the park and still given the last over. He delivered on both instances!”

However, not everyone is calling Dhoni's style as just young and aggressive. "It is more rational," avers L C Singh, president and CEO, Nihilent. "Yuvraj, on the other hand, was appearing more excited while Dhoni showed a calm and cool front."

He adds that the sheer absence of seniors have interestingly worked in favour of India. "At times, when the CEO is overwhelming, the second rank becomes hesitant."

The conspicuous absence of seniors is something what Ankur Lal, CEO, Infozech Software, takes note of as well.

"With a "B" team (without the stalwarts and the baggage they bring), it is easy to focus on getting the best out of the team - it gives opportunity and environment for the untested to show themselves and become stars," he says.

In the IT industry, putting the team before yourself, and putting the organization before the team, is the single biggest challenge in execution, Lal adds. "At the end of the day it is about joining the dots (aligning the strengths and weaknesses of individuals) to work for the team rather than against."

For Singh, Vineet Nayar, who took over at a young age from Shiv Nadar at HCL, is a reminiscent of Dhoni in the IT ground.

"Leaders need to be assertive yet humble and must rarely allow their personal egos to be an obstacle for the success of their organization. And M.S. Dhoni displayed all these qualities during his current leadership stint," says Sunil Massey, chief HR and quality officer, Bharti Telesoft.

Optimal utilisation of resources, no matter how acute they are, is vital for an industry like IT where crunch is a harsh fact.

Bhatt cites another learning. "Instead of giving excuses for lack of best resources, specially with the current scenario of flagrant poaching and intractable attrition, it is better to perform in whatever resources a leader has to his disposal. Dhoni never complained about absence of a Sachin or Sourav or Zaheer Khan."

What more Dhoni has exemplified that a leader has to be a consistent performer himself and that is demonstrated in the way he has been entrusted with the crown of captainship at such a young age.

Another leaf out of Dhoni's kitty is his talent management skills, believes Bhatt. "He has managed everything with great panache and poise - high energy and excitement level players, seniors like Yuvraj, and players like Irfan Pathan, Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh who have been out of the scene lately. These very people proved to be his strengths."

For Rama Kanth P, managing director and CEO, eSoft Consulting Limited, the lessons come from Pakistan's defeat too.

"Overconfidence even at almost the end of the task, costs you dearly. Success is a whisker away from defeat. Whatever be your competence, you must have a slice of luck," he says.

The Indian victory, on the other hand, has left ample lessons. "Overcome self imposed limitations, ignore irritants and focus on the task. Enjoy the game (task), however hopeless it is.

When one of the members is down, others should stand by them."

In the words of Rajkumar, Dhoni had some unique qualities, which if every leader imbibes, will reap instant benefits. "When team members see their leader calm in extreme situations, they will not be rattled. It will enable them to focus on their work and do what is expected of them. Dhoni was always calm - whether the bowler started off the last over in the finals with a wide ball or the batsman played a series of dot balls in a slog over."

As Bhatt sums it up well, "Fire in the belly, sweetness in words and a cool head, Dhoni has arrived with a new syntax of leadership."

Takers anyone?

Dhirubhai Ambani's words of wisdom

Dhirubhai Ambani's words of wisdom

August 02, 2007

Dhirubhai Ambani. Arguably, India's most enterprising entrepreneur. His was the ideal rags-to-riches story. He rose from humble beginnings to found India's largest industrial empire, and, in the process, became one of the world's richest men. He rewrote India's corporate history.

In the next few slides are Dhirubhai's famous quotes culled from interviews with various publications and from public speeches:

Text: Rediff Business Desk

* True entrepreneurship comes only from risk-taking.

* Pursue your goal, even in the face of difficulties. Convert difficulties into opportunities. Keep your morale high, in spite of setbacks. At the end you are bound to succeed.

* My advice to young entrepreneurs is not to accept defeat in the face of odds. Challenge negative forces with hope, self-confidence and conviction. I believe that ambition and initiative will ultimately triumph. The success of the young entrepreneur will be the key to India's transformation in the new millennium.

* Dhirubhai will go one day. But Reliance's employees and shareholders will keep it afloat. Reliance is now a concept in which the Ambanis have become irrelevant.

* I have trusted people and they have put their trust in me. I have encouraged youth, and they have never let me down. I have asked my people to take initiative and to take risks. It has paid me rich dividends. I insist on excellence. This helps us to be leaders. Reliance is built on some of these principles.

* The secret of Reliance's success was to have ambition and to know the minds of men.

* Growth has no limit at Reliance. I keep revising my vision. Only when you dream it you can do it.

* The problem with Indians is that we have lost the habit of thinking big!

* We can prove to the world that India can do it. That Indians are not afraid of competition. That India is a nation of achievers.

* I dream India of becoming a great economic superpower.

* We must forge a new partnership for a great India. A strong and constructive partnership between industry, government and society.

* We must always go for the best. Do not compromise on quality. Reject if it is not the best -- not only the best in India, but globally.

* If India wants to be a great nation, we must have courage to trust. This is my sincere belief.

* All we have to do is to break the shackles that chain the energies of our people, and India's economy will record a quantum leap and move into a new, higher orbit of growth, competitiveness and productivity.

* I can never fully repay the debt I owe to Mumbai. To all of you. My past was shaped in Mumbai.

* For those who dare to dream, there is a whole world to win!

* I am deaf to the word 'no.'

* I am 100 per cent pro-liberalisation. I do not think any industrialist is against it. But we should protect our industries, from unfair competition.

* There is no question about that (retirement). Business is my hobby. It is not a burden to me. In any case Reliance now can run without me.

* I give least importance to being Number one. I consider myself to be fortunate in this position and would like to contribute to nation building in some way.

* Does making money excite me? No, but I have to make money for my shareholders. What excites me is achievement, doing something difficult. In this room extraordinary things must happen.

* Think big, think fast, think ahead. Ideas are no one's monopoly.

* Our dreams have to be bigger. Our ambitions higher. Our commitment deeper. And our efforts greater. This is my dream for Reliance and for India.

* First and foremost, I owe my success and achievements to the affection, friendship and trust of millions of employees, customers, shareholders, and business associates, who have stood by me and been a major source of my strength all along.

* I believe that the success of Reliance cannot be attributed to the qualities and achievements of one individual, or even a group of individuals, but has to be viewed as a triumph of a process, and a spirit that binds the entire Reliance family together.

* I consider myself a pathfinder. I have been excavating the jungle and making the road for others to walk. I like to be the first in everything I do.

* I, as school kid, was a member of the Civil Guard, something like today's NCC. We had to salute our officers who went round in jeeps. So I thought one day I will also ride in a jeep and somebody else will salute me.

* My fulfillment lies in the satisfaction of every member of the Reliance family, comprising thousands of workers, managers, business associates and over five million shareholders. Being instrumental in creating wealth for over 5 million India families, and bringing prosperity and well being to their life is the best source of satisfaction and joy for me.

* Give the youth a proper environment. Motivate them. Extend them the support they need. Each one of them has infinite source of energy. They will deliver.

* You do not require an invitation to make profits.

* If you work with determination and with perfection, success will follow.

* Between my past, the present and the future, there is one common factor: Relationship and Trust. This is the foundation of our growth.

* We bet on people.

* Meeting the deadlines is not good enough, beating the deadlines is my expectation.

* Don't give up, courage is my conviction.

* We cannot change our rulers, but we can change the way they rule us.

As A G Krishnamurthy, founder of Mudra Communications, writes in his book, Dhirubhaism, about some of the Reliance founder's doctrines:

* Roll up your sleeves and help. You and your team share the same DNA.

* Be a safety net for your team.

* Always be the silent benefactor. Don't tom-tom about how you helped someone.

* Dream big, but dream with your eyes open.

* Leave the professional alone!

* Change your orbit, constantly!

* Money is not a product by itself, it is a by-product, so don't chase it.