Ranu's Cafe...

Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher? Find out...

2010-07-11T15:58:00.000-07:00

When I first heard about Multipliers,many things popped up in my head, from economics, math to my prolific neighbor from India with 4 brats and pregnant wife in tow!

Fortunately, none of that turned out to be the subject of Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeowan’s recently launched first book, “Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter”, already a bestseller on Amazon.

For me the book's main message emerged as 2 fold:
1)While there are many smart leaders in the world, the smartest are the ones that make everyone around them feel smarter
2)The leaders #1 job, above everything else is to unleash employee potential.

While our history is littered with examples of great leaders, the leadership models we know appear to have surprisingly (atleast to me!), evolved primarily over the last century. From McGregor’s work on Motivation Theory X and Y and Blake and Mouton’s Task and People Grid, to the more recently evolved work around Situational and Transformatmive Leadership. Especially in the last 2 decades, leadership as a subject has been wringed by more authors than one cares to remember, and the size of the publishing industry it has spawned is perhaps a close second, only to porn literature. While many have built tomes and careers writing about leadership, for the discerning mind, there is precious little new thinking that has come out.

While what the book presents is not always new insight, the Multiplier framework is unique in that it looks at Leadership in the light of how it impacts the individual and collective intellect of a workforce. Drucker contended that the advance in production practices in the 20th century heralded a fifty fold increase in the productivity of the manual worker, throwing the gauntlet to us, 21st century Managers to similarly enhance the productivity of the knowledge worker.

So I was intrigued when over a year back, Liz first invited me to critique the opening chapter of her book. Multipliers draws on Liz’s 2 decades of experience observing and coaching senior leadership and over 2 years of research with her colleague Greg, interviewing 150 leaders across North America, Asia, Europe and Africa. Structured elegantly along a 5 discipline framework it is replete with practical advice and tools with a summary at the end of each chapter. Free of complex models and vague concepts, it does not weigh you down and serves as a handy reference.

Here is a quick peek into the 5 Multiplier disciplines:
1) The Talent Magnet who attracts smart people and uses them at their highest point of contribution.
2) The Liberator who creates an intense environment that demands people’s best thinking.
3) The Challenger who defines an opportunity that causes people to stretch.
4) The Debate Maker who focuses on asking the right questions
5) The Investor who invests in other’s success.

I was fortunate to have a view of how some of Liz’s thinking evolved on the subject and also the opportunity to attend her pilot workshop based on the book at Oracle University (best training food ever:)). When I challenged the model as a little too “Black and White" for reality, the authors' contention was that many of us fall along a continuum and make choices that may fall on either side. Infact, an interesting observation by the authors' is that many times, many of us acting in the best of faith end up being “accidental Diminishers” totally oblivious of our impact on people around us. If you are curious to find out if you are one,consider taking the following short quiz at www.multipliersquiz.com .

Being where we are today, experiencing the worst recession of our lifetimes,paying penance for decades of excesses, what we need is disruptive shifts in everything we do including how we think about employee productivity. Pretty much the same way that assembly line thinking transformed manufacturing and served as our ticket to prosperity in the 20th century.

One Multiplier practice, that I have taken on for this year, is to cultivate the skill of asking the right question and then shutting up(I find the latter part the hardest:)). Being a Multiplier and bringing out the best in people can start with something as simple as asking a question.

To close out this post I echo the books sentiment encapsulated in a wise old blessing -

Go forth and multiply!
Ranu

PS: You can learn more about the book at www.multipliersbook.com

For a good synopsis of the book you may enjoy reading Liz and Greg’s Harvard Business Review article on Multipliers at www.hbr.org/product/bringing-out-the-best-in-your-people/an/R1005K-HCB-ENG?Ntt=liz%2520wiseman

Another article about the book from Verne Harnish, Fortune syndicated columnist is available free at
http://gulfnews.com/business/opinion/what-kind-of-a-leader-are-you-1.641615

The Leader's new Avatar is Global !

2010-01-18T17:09:00.000-08:00

S/he is, as in Cameron’s masterpiece, connected and in tune with every aspect and nuance of her organization’s existence, and able to tap into every part, however remote to create a better whole. In this case, I guess it isn’t World peace or Harmony of nature s/he is after, but in our crass world of business, I guess s/he will settle for a Q on Q Shareholder Return of 15%!

This is indeed the new Avatar of our often debated and currently much beleaguered Leader. And as in the movie, I wouldn’t be too far off if I said, “s/he is blue in color and is only found on the remote Planet of Pandora!”

In his best selling book, “The World is Flat” and its “3.0” Sequel, Thomas L. Friedman describes the unplanned cascade of technological and social shifts that effectively leveled the economic world and “accidentally made Beijing, Bangalore and Bethesda next door neighbors”. Today (he contends from 3 years back), “Individuals and small groups of every color of the rainbow are able to plug, play, connect and collaborate”.

And as a somber wake up call to those of us still living in denial of the massive technology driven social and economic shifts happening around us, here is a perspective changing 5 minute video, http://youtu.be/emx92kBKads

Folks, what we see unfolding before our eyes is Human Evolution on technological steroids. The only question remaining, as Friedman puts it matter-of-factly and a tad morbidly, is “Will it be done by us, or to us?”!

In Friedman's Flat World, that we are living into today, everyday we tap into the creative, technical and entrepreneurial genius of the US, the low cost manufacturing juggernaut of China, the teeming millions of India, competing to stay up nights to take sh#% from our customers, and profiting from selling to customers in every god forsaken corner of our earth. Is it any wonder then that many of our best in class Valley companies, otherwise at the cutting edge of technology, but without the necessary investment in building Global Leaders, continue to struggle in establishing themselves as true long term Global companies. And yes I would say that includes our superstars, Google and Apple.

If we look around us, so many of us are on a daily basis working with, talking to, depending on and in many cases making decisions that impact employees in a totally different time-zone, culture and geography. Yet, how many of us really have the where-with-all, or even the desire to think and act with a global mindset, and work as seamlessly with our global colleagues as we do with our buddy in the next cube. I would venture a precious few, and recent studies not too surprisingly appear to back this assertion.

Many of our large and growing organizations have a global multi-national presence, but not really that many have mastered how to think and behave like true Global organizations and have been able to turn their global presence into a competitive advantage that goes beyond local P&L or Sourcing. Some companies especially in our neck of the woods, tend to operate as local companies that also happen to have offices in other parts of the world! While this insular approach may even work well initially for some of the start ups that our blessed Valley thankfully continues to spawn by the 100s; it can hardly serve an organization that is looking to tap into the global market, well, in the long run.

Definitions of Global organizations are a dime a dozen, but the ultimate test, as an enlightened GM I once supported, used to say, is if you can walk into any of your office locations anywhere in the world for the first time and feel instantly at home, then you know you work for a truly Global company - everyone speaks the same jargon, share the same look and feel, the same systems and processes, the same values. In other words, you experience and share a collective consciousness, a common foundation and framework for the entire company that is painstakingly built over the years by leveraging and globalizing the best practices and wisdom from each culture and geography that the company operates in.

I have had the good fortune to work at at-least 2 such organizations that in many ways, embrace and embody the definition of a truly global company, in Procter & Gamble and General Electric. As testimony, both organizations operate successfully as either the No 1 or 2 players in well over 100 markets in the farthest reaches of the world. I bet very few companies can lay claim to such a remarkable feat.

Like everyone else, these companies also started off as domestically focused companies, and as they expanded into overseas markets, they not only created subsidiaries, but systematically invested in setting up a Global Leadership Development infrastructure to tap into their worldwide talent pool. They took the best and brightest from each geography, and transformed them through a combination of multiple stretch assignments across geographies and functions, mentoring and experiential training into global cadres of highly mobile leadership talent. These programs have dutifully churned for close to 50 years, not only some of GE’s best General Managers, but that for many other Fortune 500 organizations as well!

P&G on the other hand takes a slightly different but equally effective approach where it hires only at the entry level, carefully handpicking its hires from top schools all over the world and growing them through a career path that winds its way through multiple geographies and cultures to General Manager roles. P&G prides itself for having home grown each and everyone of its General Managers for at-least over 50 years, if not longer.

The Globalization formula in each case has been very simple - Each expatriate Global Leader who represented the best leadership values of their respective geography and culture would in turn leave their imprint, overtime building a collective global leadership consciousness that has continued to reward these companies with global leadership for the past several decades, not too unlike the Mother Tree on Cameron’s Pandora!

Leveraging Social Technologies to build your Employer Brand and shape your Organization's culture

2009-10-16T13:43:00.000-07:00

Below is a webinar I recently attended by Josh Bernoff, a leading authority on social networking 2.0, Co-author of "Groundswell" and a Vice President at Forrester Research. He did a fine job of presenting some of the chief ideas from his groundbreaking book on social networking trends, "Groundswell". I would encourage you to spend the 60 minutes going through his webinar, as it presents an excellent framework to develop a viable Social networking strategy for your organization, which I believe can be a very potent yet non disruptive tool for driving organization culture change.
If an organization's employee population has an average age anywhere around 40 years or below, the company may benefit tremendously by tapping into the power of internal and external social networking tools in shaping the organization's employer brand and culture along its stated values. The book advocates a well thought out customized approach to promoting social networking technologies based on an understanding of the Company's demographics, socialization patterns and long term strategy , as opposed to a "me too" approach.
You may find of interest some of my observations based on the Webinar and other related research:# Employee Demographics key driver of Usage & Adoption PatternsYounger people are the most active users (adopters and contributors) of Social networking technologies with 18-25 being the most active (90%), 26-34 at 84% and 35-44 at 76%. After that adoption and usage patterns tend to taper off dramatically. So your employee demographics clearly drive what social networking strategy and tools maybe appropriate for your organization. Gender, Income and social level does not appear to have a direct correlation to adoption and usage patterns.
# Employer Branding>80% of US College students are apparently active on Facebook. So if College hiring is a key aspect of your hiring strategy, Facebook is probably the most effective vehicle to leverage for your College Branding and Outreach programs. Best of all most of the branding can be done easily, quickly and free of cost. For lateral hiring, while I donot have exact statistics, I would venture to say that Linkedin may probably the most effective.
# Shaping Organizational Culture (Collobaration, Productivity and Community)While many organizations, focus a lot on defining and driving their top down communication strategy, a great part of their culture is really determined by the sideways informal communication and peer to peer networking that goes on in the organization. Social technologies are a great way for organizations to promote this sideways communication and leverage it to really shape the organization's culture along the lines of its stated values. It can be a very effective way to promote collobaration, knowledge sharing and a sense of belonging both with constituents within and outside the organization as evidenced by examples of Accenture, Best Buy, and Universal McCann.CEO Blogs at Mariott & Forrester, the internal Wiki at Razorfish, IBM and P&G's alumni networks are again great examples of how Social networking tools can be leveraged to create strong vibrant communities both within and outside the organization within a short span of time and at minimal cost.
# One Company across the WorldEspecially for organizations with a widespread employeebase across different parts of the world and culturesthis may probably the most effective tool to build a cohesive culture, a one company brand and to promote knowledge sharing across the organization. It maybe also a great tool to quickly assimilate start up operations, acquisitions and new employees into the organization
# Effective Learning toolMany organizations are also finding these networking tools as effective means of promoting learning within the organization. Serious Games (ie learning games) produced by organizations like Skillsoft and Virtual heroes are finding increasing takers in organizations like Best Buy and others who are using their "Learning games" to great effect on their internal employee social networking websites.
I hope this piques your interest !
Best personal regards, Ranu
Josh BernoffCo author of GroundswellVice President & Principal Analyst, Forrester ResearchBe a part of the ongoing Groundswell discussion happening now athttp://www.talentgraffiti.com/
Click here for a copy of the presentation

HR Globalization Trends

2009-04-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

This is a debrief of a recent webinar I attended. A link to the webinar is attached below. This is based on a recent study on HR Globalization trends conducted by The HR Executive magazine and the Hackett Group. The sample size of this study initiated in Jun 2008, was 80 Globally spread out companies ranging from 1000 to 10,000+ employees worldwide. Many of the companies surveyed were between 10,000+ employees I have summarized below a quick debrief of the study findings (from the webinar ):

#1 The number 1 driver for HR to globalize appears to be "enabling Company's global growth and expansion strategy" and then "Cost savings". The study also cites that HR Globalization is a key differentiator between companies that have successfully become global companies from those that are struggling to do so.

#2 Companies surveyed surprisingly experienced not only a decrease in HR transaction costs (Efficiency) but an increase in the impact of their HR / Talent Management initiatives (Effectiveness).
- The transaction cost reduction experience ranged from 86% in top decile companies to 26% in other organizations.
- The HR cost per employee was reduced from a max of 86% ! in top decile companies to 38% in other companies.
- Service response time reduced by an average of 38% and error rate dropped on average by 32%.
- Companies that did this also found their HR function better aligned with business and experienced higher employee retention .

#3 The Top Decile companies (I assume these are the HPs, GEs & P&Gs of the world) that have done this better than the others and have reaped the maximum benefits, have done this, by:
- Re-engineering their HR Processes (HR Service Delivery Model) to better align with global needs
- Upgrading Technology (such as a Global Employee HR Portal, Call Mgmt System, Success Factors, Taleo etc)
- Leveraging global synergies and labor arbitrage opportunities
- Introducing transparent and rigorous measures for successful globalization

In summary, as you can see the differentiator between companies that benefited the most from their HR Globalization efforts and the ones that did not was really 2 fold:

1) The Top Decile companies took a more holistic / comprehensive approach to globalization by consolidating Re-engineering their entire HR Service Delivery Model, and upgrading technology versus just a "Lift and Shift" of their existing processes

2) The Top Decile companies were more rigorous in exploiting global synergies and putting in place rigorous metrics to track the benefits of globalization (Better Governance).

I hope you find this a useful read.

Warm regards, Ranu

https://lrp.webex.com/lrp/lsr.php?AT=pb&SP=EC&rID=27509757&rKey=DF5E1B540C95BA3E