Golden Rules

Here's a very interesting article from Business 2.0.

It's titled "My Golden Rule" and compiles "49 business visionaries, collectively worth over $70 billion, what single philosophy they swear by more than any other -- in business, life, or both".

Just take a look at some of 'em.

When People Screw Up, Give Them a Second Chance - Richard Branson, founder and chairman, Virgin Group

Get Out From Behind Your Desk - Jim Goodnight, CEO, SAS

Remember Who You Are, Not What - Brad Anderson, vice chairman and CEO, Best Buy

And the coolest: Conventional Wisdom Is Always Wrong - Paul Jacobs, CEO, Qualcomm

Here's the article link.
My Golden Rule

Enjoy!!!

Parable of the boiling frog

Here's an interesting story that has been told several thousands of times and is still intriguing. It's based on a scientific experiment and is therefore repeatable. (I have never thought of carrying out the experiment myself though since the learning from the story is truly valuable and whether or not the experiment works exactly as in theory does not come in the way of learning!) Anyway.


First. A frog is put into a pot of water. The water happens to be boiling. The frog jumps out of the water immediately. If the water level is low, the frog still jumps as vehemently as he possibly could and gets out of the pot.

Second. The same frog is put into a pot of water. This time the water is pleasant. The frog is lying happily and enjoying his time. The water in the pot is slowly heated. At points, the frog does get upset but doesn't do much. The temperature keeps rising. There comes a time when the water is boiling, and it's too late for the frog to jump out since he can almost not do anything in water as hot as that. The frog is boiled. Alive.

Now, what really does that tell us? It has one of the most profound lesson related to change. That change is not noticed when it occurs over a relatively long timeframe, although the same change is taken notice of if the timeframe is shorter, is one of the most familiar mockery of life. And this story describes it in the most effective manner. We are all frogs, waiting to be boiled in water of some kind of the other - be it health, relationships, technical competency, or plain simple habits.

Think about one significant change in your life. Something that has changed your life profoundly. Now, try to recall a point when that change started, how long did it last, and when it was concluded. Most people would answer that the change did not start intentionally - or even if it did, they cannot point out the first moment "after the change". Most significant changes happen over a long or relatively long period of time. And finally, there are seldom examples of being able to point out a specific moment in lift when the change was concluded. To summarize this, the change is constant.

Now, what's new here? We have been hearing/reading/and even writing this "change is constant" thing all of our life! The point here is not to prove that the change is constant, it is rather to prove that the change is not noticed constantly. Let's see some examples.

+ Try to think of someone around you - or yourself if applicable - who from being a normal, healthy person gradually transformed into being overweight. When did this start? When was it noticed? Did all that transformation happen in a day or a week or even a month? Why was it not noticed all that while?

+ Try to think of a neighborhood that changed its identity - for better or worse. When did it start? You could recall now perhaps. But did you notice it at that time?

+ Try to think of an organization doing well and later going bankrupt. When did the descent start? How long did it take to sink?

And there are several more. The point is not when a particular change starts. The point is when the change is gradual it is often ignored or goes unnoticed. The change then accelerates and gets traction. Soon many more things around start changing. The rate at which things change is exponential, i.e. all the changes taken place so far provides further support and push to the new changes. Very soon complete transformation is noticed. Yes, noticed. That is when it is noticed. It is too sad that everything is beyond repair at this point.

The key to avoid it is to keep a constant watch on everything that is changing. Driving habits, eating habits, sleeping patterns, relationships and friendships, coding habits. Everything. One useful thing that could be done is listening to an external observer, like a close friend. The friend knows you, and can see the change externally and therefore notices it. It may seem paradoxical to read at first since just in the previous paragraph, I said change is hard to notice when they are gradual. However, when seen externally, change is noticed earlier than internally.

Whether a person does something after the change is brought into the notice is a separate topic. Some other time...

Every exit...

However necessary a change is, it will always be painful. Let it be as simple as changing over from one brand of laptop to another or as big as leaving your best team to explore even greater successes. Every exit is an entry somewhere else. It indeed is. However, with every exit there are some bonds broken, some promises unfulfilled, some dreams unrealized. It does not mean by any way that leaving a job separates me from my team. Yet, howmuchever I try and remain in touch with them, it will never be as close as actually working with them - day in and day out.

Another very intriguing thought is how paradoxical it is to leave as a good manager. All the team members have only good words for you. In farewell meetings, last team meetings etc., you keep thinking about this. It's certainly a good feeling to hear the good words about oneself. It makes you glad to hear how much people love you. However, you have to live with the very reason because of which all these words are being said. Howmuchever your team loves you and howmuchever you love them, you gotta move in different directions.

Hoping only to become better and better in future...

One very interesting thing I heard from a teammate is "some people never realize what difference they are making to others". Let me be honest and confess that not too many people will realize it when they are doing it - for a simple reason that when the difference is being made, there is a greater purpose than just making the difference that is driving the man's actions. The greater purpose can be as varied as trying to help a person become a great engineer or trying to build an outstanding friendship. When the man is guided with this greater purpose, all his actions are automatically geared towards achieving that purpose. The difference is then automatically made. And it is also not very unnatural for the person to whom the difference is being made to realize it only after a long time. "Parable of boiling frog" is so well known and popular anyway!

 

Getting the best out of the team - II

Here’s second installment of “Getting the best out of the team”.

This speaks more about a manager’s traits than her business skills or domain expertise. I emphasize on the character of the manager or opposed to her personality. (My favorite on character v/s personality debate is Stephen Covey’s legendary The 7 habits of highly effective people. Character ethic – in Covey’s words, things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty, and the Golden Rule – are foundations of truly sustainable long term success. Covey does discuss this topic at great detail in the book, however I will briefly touch upon few things in me that were created or influenced by the discussion. These are the things that I call character traits in here.

Ego
A manager should be most careful about her ego. Not having ego is not the objective, but not being egoistic is. Egoistic is a person who allows her ego to take over her rationality. A manager who wants a team to do something just because she wants it that way can never motivate the team to do their best. One should understand that an intelligent person is motivated to do something that he has chosen to do, not something that has been forced to him. “Because I am saying so” is never – in normal situations - a reasonable answer to any question. In fact, it is recipe of disaster. Democracy is the way any team consisting of knowledge workers should be operating. In democracy, everyone is valuable and has an opinion. Although there’s one person who is responsible to carry out the decisions – e.g. manager – the decision is always made together, by everyone.

Of course, there are situations when a certain scenario demands that a task is carried out exactly as asked for, without asking any questions – perhaps because there’s no time for discussion. The manager has to become ruthless in such situations and command the team to do “because she is saying so”. Will the team not be annoyed with such antagonistic behavior? It would not if the manager a) has been making the decisions democratically in all normal times, and b) after the situation is over and the outcome is concluded explains the gravity of the issue and the reason she forced to carry the task out in a predetermined model. These situations have to be rare, if that. Or else…

Humility – being down-to-earth
One of the meanings of the word “down-to-earth” in dictionary is “with both feet on the ground”. How true! This comes from the thorough belief in the fact that a manager is not special just because of the position. This means outside of every situation where decision making is required, the criteria to define importance of a manager is exactly same as that for a team member, in terms of power, status, and seniority. This is easier explained with examples.

Most managers need an office with closed doors. I don’t. In fact, I am convinced that managers want offices with closed doors; they don’t need it. Some tasks truly require such confidentiality that the manager cannot sit out in the open, but such tasks are less than 20% of the total time spent by the manager in office premises. Why not sit with the team and become part of the same dynamics that they are! Why not sit next to them so that they have you when needed! Some see this as disgrace; I feel it’s a necessity ingredient for a cohesively bound team.

Respectfulness – valuing contribution
This is flip side of the humility coin. Humility is thinking right of self – i.e. not having any kind of superiority complex. Respectfulness is being able to genuinely value the contribution that each person is making to the team. Most certainly, everyone on team is not equal. However, if motivated in right direction, every person does the best he can for the team. Do you salute back the security personnel at the gate? Do you at least smile at him when he salutes? Can we not respect the fact that he is doing his job and needs to be appreciated that he is doing is responsibly? Think!

Another example I have is about phones. I have seen managers talking over speaker phone even when not necessary. Every time I have seen this, I have sensed the fact that it was just being careless. The manager did not intend to prove to the other person that he was superior and busy and therefore did not even have the time to pick up the handset. It’s only that the manager was not thinking about how the other person feels.

A manager should always be thinking about the reactions to her action, before she acts. And all her actions should only show respect to the team members.

Genuine interest in long-term success
This is very important. As a manager I have always been thinking about long-term success of my people as opposed to using them as replaceable components the extracting most out of them as long as they are around. Manager’s job is to motivate every single individual to attain his/her potential. It’s the realization of that potential that motivates the individual even further, resulting into added knowledge and in turn added productivity. “Extracting most” approach does exactly opposite of what it wants to achieve. However being genuinely interested makes a phenomenal difference in the team members’ attitude towards manager.

After all, a good manager takes efforts on his team members with full understanding that sooner or later most of them are going to quit the team. However, for whatever duration they work together, the manager does the best he can to help his team members get better.

Politics!!!
This is the “F” word in team dynamics. Simple definition of politics is an act where things other than the intrinsic merit influence a decision. Most common examples of politics if favoritism. If there’s one thing that can kill a team, it’s favoritism. As soon as a manager starts making decisions based on who she likes more than others, the team will be motivated not to deliver but to provide lip-service and to become favorite. Is anything else needed for such as team to face complete disaster?

It does not mean by any chance however that a manager cannot like some people more than the others. She can. However, all of her decisions should be based on the intrinsic merit of the parties involved thereby treating everyone equally. A manager should always be able to explain her decisions to the team in most logical manner. In fact the better is when such a situation where a manager has to explain motives behind a decision never arises.

Thinking about this, all of these are truly personal characteristics and have nothing whatsoever to do with management. And that’s the point of character ethics. Have them embedded in you in such a way that you as a manager are nothing different than you as a person. Is that not simple enough?

Getting the best out of the team

It’s interesting to see how a few simple management principles completely transform the idea people have about their managers - from being someone above wanting to exploit the team to achieve his targets versus being someone within wanting each single person to succeed and making the team successful as a result. I have been thinking, experimenting, and refining my ideas about getting the best out of the team and here’s a gist of them.


1. First among the equals
Being a manager is special but not so special. The last thing that it means is absolute control over the team; “having absolute control”, ironically, is exactly the first assumption a new manager makes about his role. Assuming that positional management authority grants the manager absolute control over everything that the team does is not only naïve, it’s fatal.

The best strategy is to honestly think and agree to self that the manager is not an authority over the team. The manager just happens to be the one who is responsible for performance of the team rather than her individual performance. The role offers a wider visibility and decision making powers since the role requires it. That’s it. Nothing else is different between a team member and the manager. A manager is only as important as any team member. Nothing more, but nothing less too.

Hierarchy and chain of command/control kills creativity and passion in the team. Everyone is equal. Manager is the first among the equals.

2. Don’t give a man a fish
The old proverb goes, “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach him how to fish and you feed him for lifetime”. How meaningful such simple words can be. Translating to management function, don’t provide readymade answers. A manager’s job is largely asking right questions. Period. Indeed there are times when the manager needs to help the team with domain expertise or some other knowledge. This is particularly true when team members are new or they are working on a project that’s not all too familiar. However, at this moment, the manager is not simply a manager; he is expert in the given area and acting as a consultant to the team member.

Providing answers will save time in the short term, but prevents growing and scaling of the team dramatically. Providing answers makes the team depend on the manager. The manager soon runs out of bandwidth and becomes the bottleneck in the system. At this point, the manager is not doing her true job as a manager because she is simply too busy doing others’ work.

On the other hand, if right questions are asked rather than providing solutions, team starts thinking and soon learns how to find solutions to their problems without any help.

3. Mistakes are good
Lots – if not all – managers are afraid that people make mistakes and in the good intention of preventing the damage preempt the mistakes. What is not so obvious to realize is mistakes also offer the opportunity to learn – for those who want to. Making mistake is not only okay, it’s healthy and necessary if one wants to grow. Flowing out of the second principle above, saving a team member from making a mistake saves time in the short term, but never allows him to understand the implications of making that mistake. This makes it necessary for the manager to protect the team member from making the mistakes, always. Any practical person can easily guess that it cannot be sustained simply because any person cannot protect any other person – including his children – for lifetime.

What is frightening is such a person who never makes mistake – just because he is protected by his manager – obviously shines and is soon promoted. And if his next manager is not so protective, this newly promoted manager is faced with the challenges that he never had even imagined before. Just think of the scale of mistakes that a manager can make versus those that an individual contributor can make. Many/most of these mistakes will have less impact or perhaps will not be made if the new manager had been exposed to them when he was still an individual contributor.

Are mistakes not good?