Please don't wait for Leaders ... Do it yourself.

Value Elicitations !!!!!

2011-01-06T08:19:00.000-08:00

Values are the most powerful motivating tool we have. If you want to change a bad habit, the change can be made very rapidly if you will link the successful maintenance of that change with high values.

It's been 3 years since I started smoking when I was alone or less activity stake stage... I am not at all happy about on this anything else.. I encourage each and every smoker to quit this habit and enjoy life ultimatly after I saw the movie “ Aashayein” starring John Abraham. 

I can narrate one incident in the corporate at my previous tenure in an IT company. One of my friend who placed an extremely high value on pride and respect. So what he did was write a note to the five people he respects most in the world, saying that he would never smoke again. After he sent his letters out, he quit. There were many times when he said he would have given anything for a cigarette, but his pride would never let him go back. It was a value more important that the feeling of puffing on a cigarette. Today he is a healthy non-smoker. Values properly used have the greatest power in changing our behavior.

Value elicitations are important in both business and personal life. There is an ultimate value everyone looks for in work and personal life. It will make a person take a job, and if not fulfilled or if violated it will make him leave it. For some people, it may be money. If you pay them enough, you will keep them. But for many others, it’s something else. It might be creativity or challenge or a sense of family. It’s crucial for managers to know the supreme value of their employees. To elicit it, the first thing to ask is, what would it take to cause you to join an organization? Let’s say the employee answers, a creative environment. You develop a list of what is important about that by asking, what else would it take? Then you would want to know, even if all those existed, what would cause him to leave. Suppose then answer is, ‘A lack of trust’. You would keep on probing from there: Even if there were a lack of trust, what would make you stay? Some people might say that they would never stay in an organization with a lack of trust. If so, that’s ultimate value – the thing they must have to stay at a job. Someone else might say he would stay, even if there was no trust, if he had a chance to rise through the organization. Keep probing and questioning until you’ve found the things the person has to have to stay happy, and then you’ll know in advance what would make him leave.

The value words people use are like super-anchors – they have strong emotional associations. To be even more effective, be clear: How would you know when you have that? How do you know when you don’t have that? Also, it’s critically important to note a person’s evidence procedure to determine how your concept of trust differs form his. He may believe there is trust only if he’s never questioned in his decisions. He may believe there is a lack of trust if his job responsibility is changed without a clear explanation to him. It is invaluable for a manager to understand these values and be able to anticipate in advance when dealing with people in any given situation.

Thanks - Manoj Elanjickal

mans0707@hotmail.com

Cell # 09847788000

REJECT REJECTION !

2010-11-14T07:23:00.000-08:00

When I say that there is nothing on top of the tree and someone is not convinced. I let that person climb on top of the tree and find out themselves...I don't waste my time convincing that person even that person belongs to my mentee group or belongs to my favorite HR Team. Thanks to my tenth grade mathematics teacher Mr. SanthaKumar ( SB Tution Centre) for making me do all the trigonometry equations that I argued I could prove...foolish me.. Finally glad to see and confront that I learned a lesson when I was at 15 years old :-)

This really helps me to do on how best I can prepare for reject all the rejections in my life. We all are very particular about preparations. We keep going back, stronger, not weaker, because we will not allow rejection to beat us down. It will only strengthen our resolve. There is no other way to be successful.
If you are going to be successful, you are going to need to learn how to deal with rejection. Rejection is natural part of life. You get rejected when you aren’t picked for the team, didn’t get the part in the play, didn’t get elected, didn’t get in to the graduate or school at your choice, didn’t get a promotion or job you wanted, didn’t get the date that you asked for, didn’t get the permission that you requested, or get fired. Just think about the occasions where you got “n” number of rejections. Don’t count your valentine day proposals if you are an unlucky person not like me.

To get over rejection, you have to realize that rejection is really a myth. It really doesn’t exists. It is simply a concept that you hold in your mind. Think about it!. The ultimate of each and every so call rejection scenarios creating opportunities for each and every individuals that we are not realizing at the initial moment and completely ignoring by terming it as “faith”. People you see all opportunities and positive way in coming out are became the life time achievers. Life time achievers tasted the fear of failure and lot of rejections. The key differentiator is their ability of good rejection conversion rate as well as huge positive vibrations in their actions.

I found very interesting about the “SWSWSWSW”. It is an acronym which having lot of meaningful messages. Whenever you ask anyone for anything, remember the following: - SWSWSWSW , which stand for “some will, some won’t, so what? – someone’s waiting”. (Reference page/link - http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com ) Some people are going to say yes, and some people are going to say no. So what ?? Out there Somewhere, Someone is waiting for you and your ideas. It is simply a number game. You have to keep asking until you get a “yes”. The yes is out there waiting. Again stressing the point “ The Big Yes Is Waiting For You” .. and it will add only to you with a qualified proper preparations.

I wishing you all the very best of your future “Reject Rejection Preparations”.

Regards – Manoj Elanjickal
E-mail : mans0707@hotmail.com

The Supremacy of "FOCUS" !!

2010-10-24T23:15:00.000-07:00

If you ask me the definition of focus, my answer will be “Follow One Course until Successful”. In other words “FOCUS is inevitable in each and every one’s life”. In my entire experience of handling HR teams at corporate, I have often observed professionals considering themselves to be inefficient. However failing to locate what is wrong. They criticize themselves for being disorganised. Many people including me have serious aims, dreams and ambitions which we want to accomplish. But often times our thought process does not allow us to progress in the right direction i.e. we are constantly in the “ I will do this when that happens” mode.

It is important to understand “why we are here and how we visualize our destination or manage our journey to the destination. We have to be organised by mind first followed by a flair for organising. The problem is we already have a focusing mechanism in place which might be causing more harm than help. We have to un-learn our old focusing habits and re - learn new positive thinking methods. We can see lot of successful people in their profession and life because they completely focus on their success. So please check “Where are you focusing?”
Focus will be successful if we live the event of life completely by understanding the purpose of LIFE. Set Goals that will lead you to have a balanced life.
All leaders have a one strong opinion “Be Focused, Be Successful”.
Time is one critical factor always pushing me in staying focused. I have developed solutions by looking at my failures and learning from those mistakes. Also I have my own reservations developed over a period of time over maintaining “the not to do list” strictly.

Cultivate the ‘Do it right now” versus “Note it now & do it later” approach.
By the way I wish you all great success with the supremacy of focus in this beautiful event called “LIFE”.

Thanks
Manoj Elanjickal

Importance of Sports Training in Corporate Environment

2010-10-10T07:30:00.000-07:00

I am always in to the opinion that the notion of "coaching" in the corporate world stemmed from sports coaches to begin with. The corporate world has taken coaching techniques and turned them into processes and models, such as coaching for peak performance or situational leadership. For every manager, the challenge is to get their unit or team in to a very focused, goal aligned and fully committed towards the vision.

The next time you watch a team game, whether it's professional or amateur, think about the types of training that may have been applied to put the teams and individual members where they are. Think about the similarities between your corporate teams i.e HR Team, Accounts Team, Dot Net Team, Java Team, PMO Team or any other team and a sports team- we can borrow training ideas from both sides.
Because of the needs of potential, capability enhancement for the teams, many are building serious training programs for their employees, as well. It was once a wide belief that a sports persons natural talent and hard work could propel him or her into the winner's circle. Now, performance coaches argue that a big part of sports people’s success belongs to attitudes, beliefs, or thought processes - some of the very criteria standard corporate training programs are built upon. Through this type of personal development training, sports persons are learning better focus, game-day composure, and self-confidence through mental strength. It is precisely important as well in working at corporate world as overcoming the day today challenge, customer demand, team management & deliverables etc.

It would also seem ironic that sports personalities need team building training activities, but they do. I remember one real experience in my previous organisation. It is about one recruitment executive who was very much passionate about playing shuttle badminton. We can see this person everyday morning time and as well as evening time at the practice court and playing with the people. On other day I was reviewing the rewards program chart for HR Team and I saw his name with the high performer recruiter. He been fulfilled the entire resource requirement before the recruitment SLA and all the resources he been hired are good quality people. While playing, he been bringing more social networks in to his account and selling the company. He has not referred any job portal site or consultants to achieve his job tasks and you don’t believe as he was successfully hired 128 people for the last three months and all are lateral entrants.

Change management is another one traditionally followed in sports field that's being used in the world of professional corporate set up. Think about a football game and how each person's decisions, from coaches down to individual players, can impact the entire game and the entire teams' success. Teams use change management courses to teach quick decision making based on individual and group needs. Through this type of training, players learn to quickly assess the situation from what they already know and can see and then make decisions. HR professionals including me unanimously agreed as change management & OD interventions are challenging one in today’s corporates and expectation is to make this happen overnight that is quite impossible. The best way is to undergo the change management and understand the organisation how it is evolving and categorise initiatives as “good to do” and “must do”.

Best
Manoj Elanjickal
Manager HR @ RSPL
Cell # 09847788000
E-mail @ mans0707@hotmail.com

Avoid Poisonous People!

2010-07-25T01:54:00.000-07:00

Until you reach the point in your self –development where you no longer allow people to affect you with their negativity , you need to avoid toxic people at any cost. This is highly recommended and my entire seven years of career taught me this very much. You are better off spending time alone than spending time with people who will hold you back with their victim mentality and their mediocre standards.

Make conscious effort to surround yourself with positive , nourishing , and uplifting people who believe in you, encourage you to go after your dreams, and applaud your victories. Surround yourself with possibility thinkers, idealist, and visionaries. This will gain you interms of moving fast and enable your thought process with global acceptance level. This is one thing every HR professionals are missing now a days. I can say it is because of a good mentor in their career or a good role model person who constantly give messages and positive vibrations in their career. I will assess a person if he or she is a professional only interms of “What is their commitment to constant and never ending improvement”. If they are not, it is sad to say a “Mentor” also helpless. Because they are not ready to clean up their messes and their incompletes.

Rgds
Manoj Elanjickal
E-mail ( Mans0707@hotmail.com)

Realize the real “SALT” in your Team !!!!

2010-07-24T12:28:00.000-07:00

All managers are very good in demonstrating high commitment level towards the organization, department goals, career and family. If a new manager joins and took charge of your team, the HR or Management some point of time will ask the senior member of the team about how the new manager perform or how is it going well within the department. A scenario in which his / her dependability been tested within the team or outside by some important Mr/Ms “XYZ” given a projected wrong message to the management. What you suggest??? Is that good enough to make a run or move away using all your defensive skills? Of course you will think about on proving your innocence and convince the management or higher authority with supporting facts. But again the question remains: ‘Who Is Salt?” Whom I can trust? & How??

The ability to influence others is an indispensable quality for professional success. The Story Factor provides an original tool for becoming more influential through storytelling. Let’s be realistic – even at the best companies, employees work mostly to please their superiors. A few individuals have sufficient legitimacy to change the direction of the organization. These “chosen few” must be careful not to fall into the traps that await those with great power, while the others must understand their political vulnerability and hone their influence skills.

Influencing management or Manipulating feedback is often considered to be detrimental and morally reprehensible. Human Resource Department can’t even tolerate this at any point of time. It should be a "Kill" action to be taken by HR in such occations and if not , it will spoil the entire systems. The object is indeed to make others do things that they would have ordinarily refused to do if asked directly. Even so, this manner of influence is commonly used in the business world – either wittingly or unwittingly, to noble or spurious ends. A better understanding of the underlying mechanisms will help you utilize this phenomenon knowingly, or avoid being manipulated.

The control mechanism in specific to find out the dignity of SALT in your circle….

1) More interaction and get into details.
2) SWOT for your team members.
3) Check how passionate they are and watchful how it is in reaction mode.
4) Establish key people connections outside the department.
5) Read People and be prepared.

Rgds

Manoj Elanjickal
Manager - HR
E-mail mans0707@hotmail.com

The process of visualizing your future !!!!

2010-07-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

The process of visualizing for success is really quite easy. All you have to do is close your eyes and see your goal as already complete.

If your objective is to work in a dream IT company with lot of opportunities and learning, ...........take a breath :-) .....close you eyes and see yourself walking through the exact company you would like to work. Fill in all of details …. What does the company looks like internally ..i.e vision and mission? How the people over there ? What kind of internal environment does it have ? what do the infrastrure , your cubicle, systems, team , manager all? How you are going to function ? go from interacting ddifferrentkey people in critical positions and fill it in all details.

Make the image as clear and bright as possible. This goes for any goal you make whether it’s in the area of expertise , also work life balance. Write down each of your goals and objectives and then review them..The important aspect that miss in todays professional life is the capability to visualize 'THINK BIG' ... & Do SMART WORK..

Again stressing my advice to the IT professional aspirent " THINK BIG .. DO SMART WORK and out perform the competition..

Thanks
Manoj

A “TYPICAL RED ALERT” –SOURCING THE RIGHT CANDIDATE

2010-06-17T07:41:00.000-07:00

Human resource group and IT delivery management team should be in synch interms of a fast, steady and consistent business continuity and growth. To be successful in today’s competitive business world, leadership team and the operations team must deliver result on time with the specified limited budget.

Today, I feel it is very challenging interms of working out a perfect replacement of key ,critical positions like Delivery head, Account director, Functional head, Operations manager ect. I am seeing a “RED ALERT” in majority of top IT firms because of my experience in working as HR responsibility role at a mid sized IT company.

Head of Delivery/ Operations is one of the valued customer for HR interms of partnering and executing the organization level strategies. We were trying out hiring of a delivery head position on a war foot basis couple of weeks back. Selection process been started and very keen on short listing perfect candidates by resume screening / telephonic-Video conference discussions ect. While approaching to the final round, we were surprised to conclude with the candidate acceptance of very big “sorry figure”. The candidate experience on our discussion quoted below.

“Faced a tough one in the entire career and it helps as to know about self and realizing lack of capability issues in functionality”.

These signed off candidates are from top IT consulting firms and holding key positions without knowing the basic functionalities , knowledge , skill and attitude towards business successes enablement. 15 year exp with Cap Gemini, 13 years exp with Wipro, 15 plus exp with US Multinationals ect are in the list of signed off candidates with big ending “sorry figure” in face at the end of final stage interview.

There were no satisfactory responds / reactions on talking about the basics mentioned below.
1) Org structure and why the new structure in place?
2) Bandwidth of people and how many direct reporting?
3) What kind of training that you are giving to the direct reportees?
4) Time division – percentage on spending with the internal team and the customer management.
5) Project Management practices?

Our observation – The ability to demonstrate how will they own and run the responsibilities of Operations Manager ¸ Delivery Head , Account Manager, ect. was missing, when in dynamic scenarios. It was difficult to see their inability to showcase dynamism.

Unique Selling Point – Each of these highly experienced candidates couldn’t highlight their unique model of success which after so many years of vast experience and exposure should be their USP.

Project Management provides structure, flow, flexibility and control in pursuit of result and in totality of delivery with high quality. With the lack of operational know how, myself and my friend at delivery team is surprised as how they were sustained at top levels in the top IT consulting firms. I smell a RED ALERT situation to all the customers and my friend – Head of Delivery, Mr Apurva Shah is in search of right skill match people for Delivery operations hot chair.

My recommendation: - All HR heads of global IT space should think about initiating a program in such a way that all the key position leaders in their company should go and appear for higher level position interviews with Mr. Apurva Shah, MBA, PMP – Delivery Head.

Thanks
Manoj Elanjickal (e-mail – Mans0707@hotmail.com )
Manager - HR