I am Getting Better!

Learning from Sadhguru on the Three 'I's of Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 05:53:00 +0000

I had the fortune of listening to Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev and one of my role models Subroto Bagchi having a free flowing conversation on Leadership, Entrepreneurship and life in general during the recent TiECON Chennai 2012 conference.

When Subroto asked Sadhguru to share three good qualities necessary for a leader/entrepreneur, he shared the following:

1. Integrity - A leader does not compromise on integrity. Lack of integrity causes a lack of trust which does not give room for success.

2. Inspiration - A good leader has an 'infectious' level of inspiration. A leader's inspiration, unless it is infectious and genuine, cannot help team members reach common goals.

3. Insight - Sadhguru says that insight is the ability to see things that others cannot see. Would followers look up to leaders who don't have insight?

Though simple, I believe that these three 'I's summarize what is required of a leader. What do you think? Has Sadhguru missed out on any other 'I's?

Reading Through Your Ears

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Sun, 02 Dec 2012 17:58:00 +0000

I love reading books and you may love reading books too! And you may find it difficult to get time to read books and learn new stuff!

Image Courtesy: Bent Kure at Flickr

If we don't get time to read a book or learn something from printed material, why not just listen to it? In today's technology-enabled world with smart phones that follow us wherever we go, listening and learning is easy and saves a lot of time.

The late Zig Ziglar, who advocated learning by listening during the time that we drive around, called our automobiles as 'Automobile Universities'!

Here are some resources that I have personally used to learn in my own 'Automobile University' in which I get to spend at least 90 minutes every day:

1. Podcasts - Audio Podcasts are a great way to learn. There are a variety of topics on which Podcasts are available. Check out the list of Podcatchers (software that helps you search and add Podcasts) from Wikipedia which would help you download Podcasts to your phone or to your favorite device.

I have used and would recommend Apple's 'Podcasts' app for iOS, Doggcatcher for Android and the native Podcast app available in Blackberry.

2. Librivox - Librivox calls itself the 'acoustical liberation of books in the public domain'. This website has the audio of books in the public domain read by volunteers.

I learnt about Cleopatra, listened to 'The Wealth of Nations' and many more books that I wouldn't have usually had the time to read, through this resource.

3. Audio Books and Programs - While this option does cost you some money, it is definitely a better investment than books that accumulate dust in shelves! If you do a Google search for audio books, you would get a lot of options that you can choose from.

Amazon's Audible membership also gives you one audio book every month for $14.95 per month. In India, Flipkart, Reado and Infibeam offer some good choices to buy these audio books. Learn Out Loud is one more option that not only has audio books, but audio programs as well, published by small publishers and individual authors.

So, throwing aside all excuses, get Inspired and Illuminate your mind by learning through listening!

Want to share a comment on this? Drop a tweet at @dominicrajesh on Twitter.

Live Now or Later?

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 06:01:00 +0000

Should I live this moment or should I plan to live a perceived great life in the future? Isn't this a question that haunts many of us? Wouldn't the answer to this question make life easy?

Image from: Flickr by the-g-uk

I had the same questions too, and Eckhart Tolle's 'The Power of Now' seems to have some answers.

Eckhart's simple philosophy is that, living fully in the present moment ('The Now'), is all that you can do to attain enlightenment or to be 'Conscious'. He says that the 'Mind' is the enemy of being 'Present'. The Mind keeps thinking about something or the other, driving us to focus on the past and the future.

This focus on the past and the future, leads us to not live our life fully in the Present moment. This moment is all that we have - so, why not live fully in the present?

One of the questions that he asks in the book is 'What problems do you have at this moment? Now?'. The answer, if you think through, is 'Nothing!'. Whatever problems that you feel that you have are either your thoughts projecting themselves to the past or to the future.

If only, all of us ask the above question to ourselves, we would be more prone to accepting things as they are and positively working towards solutions rather than fretting and fuming at the situation.

Well, do you want to live now or later (which may never come at all!)?

The Two Golden Vessels

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 06:55:00 +0000

Imagine that you have two Golden vessels.

Both are of the same quality, weight, design and composition.

However, you took time to polish one of the vessels - it sparkles! The other one though, looks dull and boring.

Which one is going to garner more attention? The sparkling one or the dull one?

Even though both are similar, they appear wildly different because of the polishing.

Have you taken time to polish yourself?

What next step are you going to take to appear polished?

Remember something - you will be wasting your time, if you are a brass vessel trying to act like a Gold vessel.

Be Busy. Be Unproductive.

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 06:56:00 +0000

I know of a leader who used to advise that walking fast and acting like you are busy makes you look important.

Well, I have seen busy people who get nothing done. And busy people who are busy staring into the abyss that seems to exist inside their computer monitors.

So, you can be busy. And you can be highly unproductive at the same time.

And the world of business and work, in general, seems to reward busy work rather than productive work.

So, what is the solution?

For the individual:

Know that you don't have to act busy to seem important.
Do one thing at a time - and do that one thing right.
Don't undertake too many projects and end up suffocated.
If you are staring into the abyss that extends into your monitor, then find out why you are trying to act busy. The answer may be too deep to fathom immediately - you will figure it out soon!

For businesses:

Do not reward busy behavior. Reward results.
Get people to do one thing at a time - don't run parallel projects that run on tight deadlines with the same bunch of people, unless you have created some kind of demarcation that allows people to comfortably switch tasks.
Engagement studies, scores and surveys do not really give a good picture of what is happening at the ground level. Manage by walking around - ask thoughtful questions to get meaningful answers. You may get more feedback this way rather than through impersonal online surveys.

Well, if you choose to be busy, you can continue to live your balance-less life or find true balance by reducing busyness.

Image Credit: By JPDaigle at Flickr

One Thing at a Time

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Sun, 09 Sep 2012 14:55:00 +0000

Just read this poem, which is part of my son's First Grade English syllabus and knew that I had to share it on my blog. This is so relevant, in a world that harps on Multi-tasking and running like a chicken with its head cut off!

Work while you work,
Play while you play;
That is the way.

All that you do,
Do with your might;
Things done by halves
Are never done right.

One thing at a time;
And that done well,
Is a very good rule,
As many can tell.

So, One Thing at a Time AND Do it well!

Critically yours...

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 09:38:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

My wife and I along with my parents and brother went to see my son's class dance at his school annual day. All the children from his class had to participate in this dance on Traffic Lights and since these children are from Lower Kindergarten (LKG), we did not expect great synchronization or a perfect output. And they did match our expectation. It was fun though, looking at all the kids dancing (while some were crying or standing still) and I thought my son did a good job! My parents, though, thought otherwise. They had a list of areas where he could have done better.

This instance made me think of times when I have been quite critical too (it runs in the genes??)! Being a person obsessed with perfection, I used to get critical of myself and others - whether it was at home, work or church. Over the course of time, I have learnt my lesson and thought I will share three simple steps that we can follow to avoid being overly critical.

Step 1: Pause - The moment you feel that you are trying to criticize somebody or something, "Pause". Pausing gives you time to understand your feelings and evaluate your actions.

Step 2: Ask - Ask yourself if this situation warrants criticism or an alternate action. Can you find anything positive about this situation?

Step 3: Act - If you can get away without criticizing a person, then just do that. If the situation demands that you have to be critical, then be critical!

So, when do you get critical of a person's actions or activities? I believe that when a person has received enough counseling, coaching, support and time from you and is still repeating an inappropriate action or activity, you can get positively critical with that person.

The next time my son does not so good coloring in his coloring book, I will Pause, Ask myself and Act appropriately!

I wish you enough training to do your job well!!

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 13:15:00 +0000

Image by verbeeldingskr8 via Flickr

Paulo Coelho's books are awesome and he dishes out some lovely stories and thoughts on his blog.

Today's post (Amplify'd below) speaks of the words "I wish you enough" as meaning "I want you to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them".

These words seemed so relevant to me as a Learning and Development professional. They pulled my thoughts back to nearly nine years ago, when I started my Learning and Development journey.

I planned too many good things for my first batch of trainees. I had a 200 page binder with so much of information that would have absolutely made them feel impossible to do their job! I was speaking most of the time! I told them what to do!

I thought I was right. I thought I was being a great trainer.

Today, I realize my folly. I could have let them explore and discover. I could have made them "fill the gaps". I could have made them more well rounded!

This realization has helped me ask myself the following questions before I train:
- Do people really need to learn this? (this is the greatest sin!!)
- What intervention is just necessary to do their jobs?
- What activities would help trainees perform well on their job?
- Can information be supplied as job aids?
- Do people really need to remember so much? (we are so used to learning-by-rote!)
- What support systems are available for trainees to apply their learning on-the-job?
So, now, I wish trainees just enough training to do their job well!

Amplify’d from paulocoelhoblog.com
See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/aqbeb

Recently I overheard a father and daughter in their last moments together at the airport. They had announced the departure.
Standing near the security gate, they hugged and the father said, ‘I love you, and I wish you enough.’

They kissed and the daughter left. The father walked over to the window where I was seated. I tried not to intrude on his privacy, but I could not refrain from asking:
‘When you were saying good-bye, I heard you say, ‘I wish you enough.’ May I ask what that means?’

He began to smile. ‘That’s a wish that has been handed down from other generations. My parents used to say it to everyone.’
He paused a moment and looked up as if trying to remember it in detail, and he smiled even more.

‘When we said, ‘I wish you enough,’ we were wanting the other person to have a life filled with just enough good things to sustain them.’
Then turning toward me, he shared the following as if he were reciting it from memory.

I wish you enough sun to keep your attitude bright no matter how gray the day may appear.

I wish you enough rain to appreciate the sun even more..

I wish you enough happiness to keep your spirit alive and everlasting.

I wish you enough gain to satisfy your wanting…

I wish you enough loss to appreciate all that you possess.

I wish you enough pain so that even the smallest of joys in life may appear bigger.

I wish you enough hellos to get you through the final good- bye.

Read more at paulocoelhoblog.com

Arguing is Pointless - really??

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 11:58:00 +0000

Peter Bregman, in his interesting article "Arguing is Pointless" at the Harvard Business Review blog shares that Arguing is a "guaranteed losing move".

This is a view that I partially agree with. I am usually a person who would try to figure out common ground and resolve problems. I try to listen (which is an area that I work on all the time!) and understand the other person's perspective before sharing my thoughts. These work out well for me!

However, there are scenarios where arguments are indeed necessary - in a positive way!

When issues have to be brought out, questions answered or perspectives understood, arguments are important.

Practically though, since we see only negative arguments all the time, we do not seem to realize that there are indeed healthy arguments!

"Arguing is pointless" - when it is not a healthy argument!!

Amplify’d from blogs.hbr.org

Not just in that situation with that police officer. I'm talking about arguing with anyone, anywhere, any time. It's a guaranteed losing move.

When I think back to just about every argument I've ever participated in — political arguments, religious arguments, arguments with Eleanor or with my children or my parents or my employees, arguments about the news or about a business idea or about an article or a way of doing something — in the end, each person leaves the argument feeling, in many cases more strongly than before, that he or she was right to begin with.

Arguing achieves a predictable outcome: it solidifies each person's stance. Which, of course, is the exact opposite of what you're trying to achieve with the argument in the first place. It also wastes time and deteriorates relationships.

There's only one solution: stop arguing.

And if it's too late? If you're in the middle of an argument and realize it's going nowhere? Then you have no choice but to pull out your surprise weapon. The strongest possible defense, guaranteed to overcome any argument:

Listening.

Because listening has the opposite effect of arguing. Arguing closes people down. Listening slows them down. And then it opens them up. When someone feels heard, he relaxes. He feels generous. And he becomes more interested in hearing you.

That's when you have a shot of doing the impossible: changing that person's mind. And maybe your own. Because listening, not arguing, is the best way to shift a perspective.
Read more at blogs.hbr.org

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/apq3g

Should we not close our schools, colleges and L&D organizations?

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 06:27:00 +0000

Dr John Sullivan spoke of how education is not a pre-requisite for a good hire during his session on “Managing Talent Acquisition to Improve the Quality of Hire” at the recent NASSCOM HR Summit. In a country like India, where grades, ranks, distinctions and Gold Medals mean a lot, this thought has a huge impact!

Image via Wikipedia

In fact, a participant who was visibly agitated was telling Dr Sullivan that India was a country in which education was respected a lot and that the professor’s thought isn’t right in the Indian context. The professor, however, stuck to his stand with a smile.

The more you think of it, the professor’s stand seems truer than ever. Look at Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Micheal Dell or Azim Premji or this big list from Wikipedia! All of these people made it big without fancy degrees!

If all these people made it big and are respected leaders, then why do we need education? Why do we need training programs and L&D departments?

Should we not just close all our schools, colleges and L&D departments and just let people learn the way they want to learn?

The problem is not with having schools, colleges or L&D departments. The problem is with the kind of learning that is imparted at these places.

According to me the following should be some of the key effects of education:

- Improving Skills / Understanding of basics
- Ability to apply principles to work at the right situation
- Showing different perspectives and helping the learner see different perspectives
- Understanding and dealing with different kinds of people
- Improving structural thinking
- Helping one condense large amounts of information into presentable chunks
- Increasing inquisitiveness to find solutions to problems
- Understanding one’s own areas of strengths and weaknesses
- Appreciating the beauty and design of elements
- Personal Leadership and Mastery

If schools, colleges and L&D organizations are going to stick to “by rote learning”, "death by PowerPoint" and “education to clear assessments", these objectives would never be met.

Like Seth Godin says in his book "Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?" that this kind of education system is meant for the Industrial age where we wanted to mass produce everything. A good education system creates “artists” who can create masterpieces!

So, are we creating engaging, inquisitive, positive, colorful, useful, personalized, innovative learning experiences that create “artists” and “leaders” or are we going to stick to the status quo and create mass produced content that is dished out at unsuspecting individuals?

The choice is ours. And our choice has a great impact on our schools, colleges and L&D organizations along with the people that we are meant to serve!

Strengths, Pygmalion and My Local Church Choir

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 11:01:00 +0000

During the last couple of weeks I was busy coaching my local Church Choir for an important church event presided by the Diocese’s Bishop.

When we started this new choir a couple of months ago, there was a lot of skepticism about if they would be able to do a good job – most people expected this group to fail. Their predecessors had been there for a long time and had created a reputation which these new people had to meet or exceed. However, they did an excellent job during the event earning the compliments of the Parish priest and the parishioners.

So, how did we manage to do an excellent job?

Understanding Strengths: To start off, I understood the strengths of each member of the team and also the overall strength of the team. My assessment helped me realize that this was a team that was comfortable with low pitch, high tempo, and simple songs. All of them also had the drive and determination combined with some competitiveness to prove that they can do a job as good as or better than the old choir! Initially, my benchmark of them was based on the old choir – so, I had a lot of unlearning to do and I had to open my eyes to see the real strength in them. (Marcus Buckingham writes a lot on this in his “Now, Discover your strengths”)

Matching the project to Strengths: Once, I understood their strengths, we picked songs that matched their strengths. Since these songs matched their strengths, they became confident during the practice sessions that they will be able to do a good job.

Using the Pygmalion Effect: Even though, they had the drive and determination to succeed, they also had a lot of self-doubt! It was during these moments that I, as the coach & keyboard player, had to pump in lots of motivation, energy and enthusiasm into them. The more I started appreciating them for the great job that they did, they did an even better job during the next practice session.

Identifying workarounds for Weaknesses: This was an important aspect that had to be taken care of. There were certain parts of the songs where I knew for sure that they were not able to catch up with the correct tune. First, I tried giving them more practice for some of these parts - and they got better. However, there were other parts where they would take ages to catch up – for these parts, I added a workaround where the keyboard would take over and they would play a lesser part. This ensured that the overall output was good and the team was also not stressed out trying to do something that they cannot do (unless they worked on it for ages!!!)

As a leader, most of us face such challenges while working with teams. I feel that the following thoughts from this experience would be useful for all leaders:

- Do not underestimate your team

- Do not compare them with your old team from the same or different organization

- Do understand your team’s strengths

- Do try to customize your team’s work based on their strengths

- Do not try to push people to do things that they are not capable of. Try a workaround.

- Do, however, try to give necessary training that would help them overcome or workaround their weakness, if it can be corrected easily

- Don’t forget to motivate them and make them understand how good they are. But don’t overdo to a level where they become complacent.

- Don’t forget your goal – it is what you & your team are working towards!

August Leadership Development Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 13:28:00 +0000

This month's Leadership Development Carnival has been hosted by Jason Seiden at his blog. (Thank you Jason!)

He has put together thoughts from nearly 33 blogs on Leadership Development.

Here's how he ends his post on the Carnival:

"There you have it. And now, you can:

Ignore these great insights and fail miserably.
Heed these great insights and give it your all until you either succeed… or fail spectacularly.

The choice is yours."

My post on "The Leader's Mastery Journey" is also featured in this carnival.

NASSCOM HR Summit - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 05:41:00 +0000

The second day of the NASSCOM HR Summit (July 29^th) had some interesting speakers and thoughts shared. Here are some of the thoughts from the second day.

Creating Democratic Workplaces: Anand Pillai from HCL anchored a session on “Creating Democratic Workplaces in a Gen Y dominated Environment” which was humorous, dynamic and thought provoking - usual Anand style! He was sharing that the following aspects would help in creating more democratic workplaces:

Reverse Accountability – by leaders towards their team members
Transparency and Openness in Communication and
Ability to get day to day issues addressed promptly through an automated tracking system with strict turnaround time limits

Social Networking – Leveraging or Lamenting: Nandita Gurjar of Infosys shared her take on Social networking, its uses and issues. Anand Pillai, who was the Chairperson for this session invited questions to the speakers only through Twitter. The other speaker was Arvind Rajan of LinkedIn.

Nandita had the opinion that the organization had to give accurate data to the employees to share on social networks. This would help in arresting the dissemination of incorrect information to the outside world. She was also open about how they brought a social network inside Infosys after the recent external social media outburst by employees. The main aspects of their current social media policy are that employees are not allowed to share confidential / client related / IPR related information and also follow a simple code of conduct which essentially says that social media may be considered as an extended workplace when sharing work related information.

Transformed Job Market: In this session, Aadesh Goyal of Tata Communications spoke of the challenges in recruiting laterals. Balasubramaniam Iyer of Reliance Retail, while speaking of the scarcity of the right entry-level talent in the retail industry, shared that they were so desperate to fill requirements that they are open to saying that “Trespassers would be recruited!” He advocated more industry-academia partnership to encourage industry ready talent at the entry level.

Managing Talent Acquisition to Improve Quality of Hire: Dr John Sullivan shared thoughts and methods to measure and improve the Quality of Hire in this workshop. The Quality of Hire can be measured by quantifying On-the-job performance (e.g. job/work output, quality of work, rates of innovation, customer satisfaction rates, performance in initial training, performance appraisal scores etc), exceptional characteristics demonstrated during the first year of an employee (e.g. diversity, assuming leadership role, agility, technical skills, etc.) and the after-hire negative factors (e.g. early turnover, forced termination, accident rates, attendance issues, etc.).

All izz well…??: Raj Ramachandran of Accenture, in his interactive workshop on “India’s Corporate Talent Pool – All izz well… is it?”, spoke of three aspects that could increase the talent pool: more women in the workforce, better quality of education and bringing in a Bollywood connection to talent & learning. He also gave us a lot of time to discuss thoughts on this in break-out groups and present it back to the entire group.

Cracking the Code on Business Agility - Lessons from high performing learning organizations: Bob Danna of Bersin Associates and Daniel Bielenberg of Accenture, shared that the modern enterprise L&D program needs deep specialization and learning agility. This would be possible only if L&D acts as the enabler and facilitator, with the actual learning driven by employees and managers themselves. A learning culture, where there is a willingness to share knowledge and also reflect on the past, is necessary to create such an enterprise.

Overall, this NASSCOM HR Summit was very impressive. Looking forward to the next edition of the Summit!

NASSCOM HR Summit - Updates from Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:58:00 +0000

The two day NASSCOM HR Summit’s 10^th edition started today (July 28^th). This summit is definitely different from the last three summits that I have attended – they have incorporated some amount of social media and collaboration before the events and have also changed the format of the presentation and interactions which made day one great!

Here are some of the key highlights from day one of the summit:

Jamling Tenzing’s Talk on Conquering Mount Everest: Even though this was the last session for the day, he just made all of us listen to him – because of his story and the great pictures that accompanied his story. He shared the story of his journey in climbing Mount Everest (in his father’s way) in 1996 along with the trials and tribulations along the way. Speaking in simple language, he connected his story to Leadership, respecting the environment, being passionate about what you want to do and achieving your dreams with the same passion.

Management of Paradoxes: The post lunch session is one which you definitely dread in conferences and training programs. You don’t want to doze off after having a good lunch! But in the session on “Management of Paradoxes” anchored by Elango from Mphasis, you wouldn’t have had a chance to doze off because the anchor and the speakers – Hari Thalapalli from Mahindra Satyam and Piyush Mehta from Genpact kept you engaged with a lot of laughter and simple, powerful insights.

Hari shared of how each individual (including HR) has one third each of the stakeholders - People, Investors and Customers as their responsibility. Even though your responsibility is towards all of these parties, you may have to take a decision that doesn’t satisfy all of them – as long as the decision is going to make things better in the future. Also, all these stake holders have to understand the rationale behind the decision for the implementation to be successful.
Piyush spoke of how Genpact has chosen not to compete just on the basis of pay to attract talent, but through other Learning and Development interventions.

CEO Roundtable: The CEO roundtable was the first session for the day and it was anchored by Tuhina from NDTV profit. Before I write of how the session went, I have to commend her on the way she facilitated the discussion and also cut off audience members who were asking long questions that were totally unrelated to what was being discussed! (This is a species of audience that has to be addressed separately in another blog post!).

Some of the key thoughts from the discussion:

HR: Krishna Kumar Natarajan (KK) from MindTree encouraged the HR function to be the “moral fabric” of the organization. Som Mittal asked HR to think of ways to ensure that the “ethos of the organization” is shared by the organization’s partners too.
New Gen Workforce: All CEOs agreed on a new way to manage the New Gen workforce. Chandrasekaran from Cognizant had an interesting question to ruminate on this aspect (my interpretation – not the actual quote) “How can we ensure that we replicate the Sunday night experience (where one is relaxed, browsing the internet, answering questions on forums…) when somebody comes to work on Monday morning?” He also proposed having quick appreciation systems which provide quick feedback and appreciation to individuals doing a good job – this appreciation should not wait till one’s performance appraisal! KK felt that informal and personalized workspaces would help this new generation do their best at work.
Leadership and Leadership Development: The capability and cope-ability of the leadership talent pool within the system is an area of concern and importance for these business leaders. They shared the view that leaders need to spend quality time with their subordinates. Aparup Sengupta of Aegis spoke of leaders having the capability to manage diversity. Leadership Development Programs, according to these CEOs have to be structured & personalized for each individual. These developing leaders also need space to operate individually. KK said that teaching by stories and anecdotes is the best method to develop leaders.

There were other sessions too, but these are the highlights from the sessions that I found most useful. You can get information on all the events at NASSCOM’s event updates page here.

Character and Competence

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:31:00 +0000

A leader needs to trust his people. He/she needs to believe in people and delegate tasks effectively. Developing a back up is one of the most important aspects of a leader’s job.

These are statements that are often heard when we speak of leadership. However, leaders do not think too much on when they can trust somebody or when they cannot. I have found paranoid leaders who do not trust anybody and “country club” leaders who trust everybody.

So, where is the balance? How do we decide whether to trust or not? Here is my take on these questions. Please feel free to share your thoughts too!

The free dictionary defines trust as “Firm reliance on the integrity, ability, or character of a person or thing.”

Stephen Covey seems to echo this definition when he says that to be trusted; one should be “trustworthy”. One can be trustworthy, according to Covey, only if he/she has “Character” and “Competence”.

During my interactions with leaders, I have found that there is a ‘trust issue’ mainly when either the character or the competence is missing.

Look at the following trust issues:

- A manager figures out that his trusted team member has been fudging numbers to earn incentives for the last three months

- A creative team member finds out during a skip level meeting that his boss has taken credit for all his ideas without any attribution

- A manager learns from the head of his department that his team member has complained about him to HR directly

- A manager, who is not able to handle high pressure assignments, pushes it to her subordinate

Don’t you see a trend in theses cases? All of these are trust issues that involve either “Character” or “Competence”.

As a leader, identifying the Character and Competence of an individual before delegating work would help in not having ‘trust issues’ later. If Competence is low, it can be developed over the course of time. If Character isn’t good – then, forget it and move on to the next person!

Image: Trust from Terry Johnston's photostream on Flickr

The Leader's "Mastery" Journey....

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 04:05:00 +0000

I was introduced to George Leonard's "Mastery" through Tom Peters' book "Re-Imagine!" and Brian Johnson's "Philosopher's Notes" summaries.

George says that Mastery is not a goal or a destination, but a process. He feels that today's world (the book was written in the early '90s) is focused on getting "immediate gratification, instant success, and fast, temporary relief". This focus leads people to just aim always for the next goal and forget the fact that the master's journey involves "relatively brief spurts of progress, each of which is followed by a slight decline to a plateau somewhat higher in most cases than that which preceded it".

Becoming a good leader is also a Master's journey. You don't get things right all of the time and you have to just keep practicing your leadership skills before you advance to the next step in your leadership journey.

Do most new leaders realize this? I don't think so!

Newly promoted leaders / managers assume that they have achieved a peak in their professional journey and become complacent during the course of time. Here are George's "Five Master Keys", which would help leaders continue their Master's journey:

Key 1- Instruction:

This refers to learning from a teacher / instructor to hone your skills. Even though the book says that "the self-taught person is on a chancy path", I strongly feel that you can learn a lot as a leader through blogs, books, social media and of course through teachers / coaches. Not having money is not a constraint for learning today as there are so many people sharing knowledge with you on the internet.

Key 2 - Practice:

In this book's context, the word "Practice" is not a verb, but a noun - "Practice is the path upon which you travel, just that". What this implies is that a leader just travels through his/her leadership journey without worrying about the rewards or results. The journey, by itself, is the reward.

Key 3 - Surrender:

Surrendering is all about willing to be a learner throughout the journey. Nobody is an expert on everything! There is always the next stage. There is always a new aspect or perspective that you have never seen. In George's words, this key involves "surrendering your own hard-won proficiency from time to time in order to reach a higher or different level of proficiency."

Key 4 - Intentionality:

Having the vision, the thought, the goal, the intention is important for a leader to continue to be on his journey towards mastery. One of my favorite quotes from Stephen Covey's "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" is "All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things.". Without the intention, there is no way that a leader can advance on his/her Master's journey. "Intentionality fuels the Master's journey. Every master is a master of vision".

Key 5 - The Edge:

The Edge involves pushing yourself off your normal limits and trying untested waters. Leaders who go to the edge, do so with the complete awareness that they are pushing themselves beyond safe limits. However, George warns that one can go to the edge only after he/she has opened different gates in the master's journey using the above four keys. And after the edge, a master goes back "to the never ending path again".

Leaders who are on their Master's journey, would inspire their followers / team members to travel on this journey too. The more masters we have, the more effective an organization / community / family would be.

Leadership Development Carnival

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 11:13:00 +0000

The Leadership Development Carnival is a monthly event which features blogs on Leadership. Dan Mccarthy (http://www.greatleadershipbydan.com/) initiated this.

The July edition of the Carnival features one of my blog posts on Clutter-free Learning and Leadership.

Clutter-free Learning and Leadership

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:03:00 +0000

Clearing my work bag off its clutter that had accumulated over a couple of months and reading this blog post, inspired me to think of Clutter-free Learning and Leadership.

Apart from cleaning our desk or training venues (:-)), here are some thoughts on how we can get the clutter out of Learning and Leadership:

1. KISS Design for e-Learning & Materials - A "Keep It Simple, Stupid!" Design that doesn't focus on bells & whistles reduces clutter, helping learners focus on the content rather than the design.

2. Clutter-free Communication - While communicating with team members / learners, building our communication around one or two ideas and not digressing often would help the listeners understand us better.

3. Human readable policies - The other day, while researching on a new HR policy on Google, I found tonnes of HR policies that even a Super Computer cannot decipher! I understand that we have compliance related requirements - however, can we have a clutter-free version please?

4. Focused Goals / Objectives - In the name of Multi-tasking and additional responsibilities, I have seen many leaders set Quarterly goals for themselves or their team that are so cluttered that they end up doing nothing or a little bit of everything. Marcus Buckingham, in his book "The one thing you need to know" speaks of having just one number that tells people whether they've achieved what they should be getting. I am not sure if this is inspired by Jill Collins' "Good to Great" - he shares the same thing about great leaders in this book.

5. Simple Customer Interfaces / tools - Our web site(s) & portals, client presentations, invoices, customer support Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system or any other interface needs to be clutter-free and easily understandable. This would help the customer connect with us better and understand as to what we are really doing for them. A good example on de-cluttering for the customer is the "Patient Friendly Billing" project spearheaded by the HFMA in the

Clutter-free learning and leadership is the way to go to make Learning and Leadership effective!

(image from Martin Whitmore's stream on Flickr)

The Little Good Things

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 11:14:00 +0000

Today, along with a reduced attention span on gadgets & fads, we seem to be always running a super-fast rat race. People who have reached the peak after running the race, keep wondering as to what is next for them.

While the former brood on their next milestone, the latter worry about maintaining their position at the peak.

With all this stress and confusion around us, do we take time to appreciate the good things happening in our lives? Do we appreciate all the blessings that we have received? Do we take time to smell the roses and look around for beauty?

As leaders / bosses / parents, do we realize that most of our people / kids are going through the effects of the rat race?

If we do, is it not important for us to help them appreciate the good things that they are getting?

Apart from being an example, we should also share this message of Appreciation with our people / kids. Sharing the message and living the message would help people become more positive and productive.

In the latest Shrek movie (Shrek-3), Shrek gets bored of living a normal life (according to him) and decides to go back to his old ways. Only after losing everything does he realize that his old life was perfect and better than anything else.

It is better to Appreciate all the little good things now than to lose all those lovely moments and feel for it later.

I believe that Appreciation, would help us "live life to the lees", Ulysses style!

Bring on the Learning Revolution! - Sir Ken Robinson - TED

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Tue, 25 May 2010 06:56:00 +0000

Sir Ken Robinson's latest talk at TED is great!

He speaks of how our educational system stifles dreams and talents & encourages people to conform to a Linear "industrial" model rather than an "agricultural" model where people develop organically in a non-linear fashion.

He ends the talk with the following words from W.B.Yeats' poem "He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven":

"I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."

I loved this part!

When we work with our kids or our younger siblings or team members, we have to understand that most of them spread their dreams under our feet. Often, they look forward to guidance and help from us to grow organically as a better person.

It is for us to think and figure out if we let their dreams flourish or route them to the linear path which may not give them real satisfaction.

L&D - Service Vs Partnership

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Tue, 11 May 2010 08:28:00 +0000

During the last couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to participate in two learning events – the first one was a webinar by Kineo on “Aligning eLearning with Business goals and the second one was the NHRD Network Chennai Chapter’s Monthly meeting on “HR Business Partnering - Concepts, Perspectives & Practices”.

While the objectives of these two learning events were different, these events gave me time to think of Learning and Development teams and the different roles that they play today.

Most often, L&D teams are considered as service providers, who provide training programs and learning interventions to the business. A service provider tries to please his/her internal/external client ensuring that the client’s requirements are met. However, is this sufficient? A client may not really see what is “really” right! A client may just see what “he/she thinks” is right.

So, just providing the service without understanding the impact and effectiveness at the business level may not help any of the stake holders.

Being a partner with the business changes the whole perspective. A partner understands, cares, knows what is expected and works “with” the business to get things moving, to get the desired business results.

Even though being a partner sounds quite glossy, an L&D team cannot partner without first delivering services effectively. Once effective services are delivered, the credibility of the team is built leading to partnership with the business.

While a lot of us talk of getting a seat at the board, what may be more important would be to do our jobs in the best possible way so that we gain credibility and prove our worth and competence.

The rest automatically follows…..

Receiving Feedback

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 15:55:00 +0000

Things go right most of the time. Things don't go right some times - during these times, we receive feedback from others.

To make the best use of this feedback, we would have to first accept the feedback and then take things forward.

Being a part of the interview panel for campus interviews, I had an experience the other day with a student who vehemently refused to accept not being selected in the interview process.

He wanted to meet us, the final panel, to understand as to what went wrong. Even though we shared feedback on his developmental area, he adamantly refused to accept our feedback and got quite aggressive.

At the end of this process, he lost all the respect that we had for him and the second chance that we wanted to give him a few months down the line.

Would it not be better to receive the feedback, acknowledge it, clear the air for a positive discussion and take things forward?

I remember reading Marshall Goldsmith saying that the best way to accept feedback is with a positive "Thank You!".

Would confrontation be necessary sometimes? Yes, definitely! However, after accepting the feedback, would it not be a more positive, productive and win-win discussion?

Accepting feedback calls for a lot of patience, humility and inner strength. Well, these are topics for another post some time.....

Ease of Use

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 07:11:00 +0000

My three and a half year old son is now glued to the computer, playing games on the internet.

All that I had to do was to add a couple of sites to my browser's 'Favorites' and show him once how to access it. He explored both the sites, played a few new games everyday and was having fun!

During this time, I only thought of only how smart my kid was and how easily he learned browsing through these sites, finding new games.

A few days ago, since he got bored with those two sites, I added one more site to his favorites & hoped that he would enjoy this one too! However, he was always calling me for help with this site.

When I checked it out, I figured that it was a simple case of a site not being designed for ease of use!

While the other two sites that my son used had all the games laid out on a single page and no pop up windows to start a new game, the new site was totally different. Each game opened only in a pop up window.

Something as simple as a pop up window could make a whole lot of difference to a user's experience in a website or an e-learning program.

Our job, as designers for learning interventions, is to make the experience easy to try and easy to learn.

Most times, it is not the flashy screens and decorated training rooms that win. Simplicity and ease of use are always better options.

“Little things” and Greatness

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 09:23:00 +0000

We want to do great things in life and achieve great heights! We want to be great parents, bosses, employers, leaders and so on.

But what is this greatness? Is greatness so great that it is difficult to achieve? Is it so great that we never reach the horizon of greatness?

Mitch Albom’s “The Five People You Meet in Heaven" talks of a simple man named “Eddie” who takes care of maintenance at “Ruby Pier” (a pleasure pier). He always feels bad about his work as a “maintenance guy” covered in grease. In heaven, after meeting five people, he realizes that by doing those “little” maintenance activities in the park, he ensured the safety and security of millions of visitors at Ruby Pier. He was doing “little” things right – in the best possible way!

Are we like ‘Eddie” believing that we are doing only maintenance activities and things that do not add value?

Remembering that every “little” thing that we do leads to greatness helps us do better at work, family and in our community.

Harsha Bhogle: The rise of cricket, the rise of India (TED, Mysore)

noreply@blogger.com (Dominic Rajesh) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 02:34:00 +0000

Even though I do not follow cricket that much, I liked this one. A nice way to talk of the "India" story!