I just delivered my car for servicing and MOT and while waiting for lift back to work I had flash that when is the last time I have been sent to management training center and answer is not once in last one year.
Senior manager has a target of revenue generation and their performance is judge by number of projects completed. This has changed focus on their existence and professional life style.
Having this responsibility some time makes us forget that this role also need a training and reshaping otherwise there is always a danger of falling behind that trend and new practices.
I have seen this time and again that many projects are still manged and delivered using old style management and controls which have become inefficient over the period of time.
I feel strongly that there should be a plan in place to send senior manager to the school for a week in a year to refresh and allow him to exposed to new thought streams which are helping other organisations to deliver projects efficiently.
So there should be stock taking every year to ensure that dead woods are identified and replaced with newer skills. Not doing this and understanding the principle of influential leadership there is greater risk that we loose ability to adopt to changes in the industry practices.
Sunday, 20 April 2008
Weekend working -- I take pride in that
Recently I attended a workshop/gathering arranged by one of my team lead, this was to talk about expectation from team after winning a large contract.
This meeting was requested on Saturday , everyone was cribbing about loosing one of rest day but no one had gutts to say. finally one of us put it politely that i have some commitment on weekend , that went down with mild reaction so rest supported it. And finally meeting was arranged on Friday evening.
At the start, an agenda was placed so some of us thought it will be structured workshop and even made one line joke about it.
Meeting started with briefing about the new contract and scope of it , what is expected from teach team and so on so forth. Meeting was progressing as planned , I am impressed as every one was into it until meeting lead mentioned some thing like this.
"Guys we have to work hard as always, our partners in this contract are westerners and they not work beyond Friday, but you know that this contract will take much more than normal working day so till this is delivered we have put in everything what it takes."
Local UK employee among us raised the question "what compelled us to have meeting this late in the evening when we should be with our family"
Reaction to this statement was furious and to my dismay I heard to comments from the rest of people in the meeting in corridor
"He should not have said that in the meeting , it will work against him"
"Do not say any ting now , do what you have to do , why get in to bad books"
I was disappointed by these comments as I am aware that many of us are capable of managing the work between Monday to Friday with odd occasion of late working. But they are not managing expectations of senior managers by talking to him and demonstrating that it can be done in the same way our western partner can do.
I always doubt productivity on next working day after late night working. Many of us aware of this fact but who will be in the bad books and Seniors are aware of their powers so they use it at every possible opportunity.
One question, I would like to ask that why we take so much pride in working late nights ,weekends and then boast about it all the time. Are we forgetting about smart working.
This meeting was requested on Saturday , everyone was cribbing about loosing one of rest day but no one had gutts to say. finally one of us put it politely that i have some commitment on weekend , that went down with mild reaction so rest supported it. And finally meeting was arranged on Friday evening.
At the start, an agenda was placed so some of us thought it will be structured workshop and even made one line joke about it.
Meeting started with briefing about the new contract and scope of it , what is expected from teach team and so on so forth. Meeting was progressing as planned , I am impressed as every one was into it until meeting lead mentioned some thing like this.
"Guys we have to work hard as always, our partners in this contract are westerners and they not work beyond Friday, but you know that this contract will take much more than normal working day so till this is delivered we have put in everything what it takes."
Local UK employee among us raised the question "what compelled us to have meeting this late in the evening when we should be with our family"
Reaction to this statement was furious and to my dismay I heard to comments from the rest of people in the meeting in corridor
"He should not have said that in the meeting , it will work against him"
"Do not say any ting now , do what you have to do , why get in to bad books"
I was disappointed by these comments as I am aware that many of us are capable of managing the work between Monday to Friday with odd occasion of late working. But they are not managing expectations of senior managers by talking to him and demonstrating that it can be done in the same way our western partner can do.
I always doubt productivity on next working day after late night working. Many of us aware of this fact but who will be in the bad books and Seniors are aware of their powers so they use it at every possible opportunity.
One question, I would like to ask that why we take so much pride in working late nights ,weekends and then boast about it all the time. Are we forgetting about smart working.
Wednesday, 26 December 2007
Don't make clown out of you
I was flying with collages on the way back from a conference. we were split onto groups.
After some time I realised that drinks were severed and many of us on the second or third round. It is quite normal on the long haul flights.
In front row, one started talking about senior manager's last visit. He was describing every minute details about his behaviour and making jokes out of it. Every one enjoyed it and shown interest to know more.
Week passed and some of met again for a meeting. In the evening we were in the dining hall of the hotel. After some time one of us passed a comment,
"make sure that Mr X is not around otherwise next time every one will know what were doing tonight".
I was shocked as I remember that on the flight, same people were enjoying his jokes and encouraging him to do so more .
I think that was a free lesson to all us that don't make clown out of you no matter how senior you are in the organisation.
After some time I realised that drinks were severed and many of us on the second or third round. It is quite normal on the long haul flights.
In front row, one started talking about senior manager's last visit. He was describing every minute details about his behaviour and making jokes out of it. Every one enjoyed it and shown interest to know more.
Week passed and some of met again for a meeting. In the evening we were in the dining hall of the hotel. After some time one of us passed a comment,
"make sure that Mr X is not around otherwise next time every one will know what were doing tonight".
I was shocked as I remember that on the flight, same people were enjoying his jokes and encouraging him to do so more .
I think that was a free lesson to all us that don't make clown out of you no matter how senior you are in the organisation.
Power of communication -2
Senior Manager decide to brief team so the outlook invite was sent out to assemble on an audio. It was short notice but everyone made efforts to join the voice conference.
Audio conference started with greetings and next statement is that
" I am not happy to have such call ..."
Just after some moments, silence was felt on the call and even speaker after two minute of talk asked question to check the presence of an audience.
We were in one room ,confusion was visible , many questions were in air , still every one was trying to understand the purpose of the call and what is there for them.
I was aware of the context hence could relate the conversations.
This could have been more effective if the context were set before the actual message is conveyed to the team.
After voice conference, one of us decided to have quick chat in the meeting room and started all over again.
1. context was set by explaining why the call was held
2. explained the issue occurred in the recent past
3. explained the impacts of the issue on customer relations and financial losses
4. root cause
5. benefit of sharing this information with wider audience to avoid such occurrence again.
At the end, it was realised that emotions were too high during this voice conference to deliver high impact message. Perhaps this could have planned carefully and probably next day when things are claim and blood pressure is normal then desire impact could have been achieved with minimal efforts.
Audio conference started with greetings and next statement is that
" I am not happy to have such call ..."
Just after some moments, silence was felt on the call and even speaker after two minute of talk asked question to check the presence of an audience.
We were in one room ,confusion was visible , many questions were in air , still every one was trying to understand the purpose of the call and what is there for them.
I was aware of the context hence could relate the conversations.
This could have been more effective if the context were set before the actual message is conveyed to the team.
After voice conference, one of us decided to have quick chat in the meeting room and started all over again.
1. context was set by explaining why the call was held
2. explained the issue occurred in the recent past
3. explained the impacts of the issue on customer relations and financial losses
4. root cause
5. benefit of sharing this information with wider audience to avoid such occurrence again.
At the end, it was realised that emotions were too high during this voice conference to deliver high impact message. Perhaps this could have planned carefully and probably next day when things are claim and blood pressure is normal then desire impact could have been achieved with minimal efforts.
Monday, 24 December 2007
Power of communication - 1
My team is part of large group, this is divided in to three teams and teams are lead by leaders.
We work in matrix organisation which creates dependencies among us. Teams are spread across different locations and not all team members are in same location as team leaders.
One of us i.e. team leader choose to work in isolation. To ensure his success he built good rapo with team members from other teams . This relationship is helping him in getting all work done and ensure timely deliveries.
Over the period other team leaders learned about it and made a request to him to share his plans etc which off course was refused diplomatically. we could see it is all about showing down other leaders in terms of power and achievements.
After some time impact of his behaviour was that the staff which was not part of his team was not getting recognised for their extra efforts as they were not shared with respective team leaders. Other effects were
1. Efforts estimations and plans produced by teams were always way out
2. Team size estimations were proving wrong
3. Team members were dissatisfied as they were driven by some one else and not by their team leader
4. Staff could feel the power struggle at the leadership level ,not presenting good example
5 Insecurity is built up due to directives from all possible leaders.
6. Communication is confusing.
7. Misguided appraisals.
and on the top of this, the group is directionless and scavenger are put to advantage which is not at all in favour of the progress of the group.
The great danger of achieving success like this is turning him self in a suspicious leader and who least trust his team.
We work in matrix organisation which creates dependencies among us. Teams are spread across different locations and not all team members are in same location as team leaders.
One of us i.e. team leader choose to work in isolation. To ensure his success he built good rapo with team members from other teams . This relationship is helping him in getting all work done and ensure timely deliveries.
Over the period other team leaders learned about it and made a request to him to share his plans etc which off course was refused diplomatically. we could see it is all about showing down other leaders in terms of power and achievements.
After some time impact of his behaviour was that the staff which was not part of his team was not getting recognised for their extra efforts as they were not shared with respective team leaders. Other effects were
1. Efforts estimations and plans produced by teams were always way out
2. Team size estimations were proving wrong
3. Team members were dissatisfied as they were driven by some one else and not by their team leader
4. Staff could feel the power struggle at the leadership level ,not presenting good example
5 Insecurity is built up due to directives from all possible leaders.
6. Communication is confusing.
7. Misguided appraisals.
and on the top of this, the group is directionless and scavenger are put to advantage which is not at all in favour of the progress of the group.
The great danger of achieving success like this is turning him self in a suspicious leader and who least trust his team.
Be positive and get an extra mile
Me and my competitors were in meeting with customer, off course this customer initiated meeting.
Meeting room was full of people and fortunately it was not divided into groups and was just down to the fact that some people in room were meeting for first time, in short no natural groups were formed in the room.
Meeting was all about bringing change in the way we work, new tool is being introduced.
First half an hour was spent in the introductions and I could see that natural linkage was made among people from my company and competitors.
Over period of meeting few thoughts emerged , some positive and some negative. customer was getting pleased as soon as some support is expressed and visa versa.
During break customer was making individual conversation to dig into negative points presented during the meeting, just to ensure that he understands the rational behind the resistance. He used this information in the second half of the meeting either as action points or comments to note.
At the end of the meeting I could see that people who opposed most to the change were not seen as part of the picture where as people to presented positive thoughts with details of concerns were seen as supporter of the change.
for example
Negative person : we have been though such change in past and it did not worked so i doubt it will work this time.
Positive person : this change should bring good results as i see that the learning from past is implemented here and one or two more improvements should make this successful.
You will observe that both are pointing to past failures in different way. The customer is also aware of past failure but this time he is looking for more support for this initiative naturally he will lean toward positive person to ensure the success.
In gist , be supportive at the same time do not fail to point to improvement it may require to make it success story.
Meeting room was full of people and fortunately it was not divided into groups and was just down to the fact that some people in room were meeting for first time, in short no natural groups were formed in the room.
Meeting was all about bringing change in the way we work, new tool is being introduced.
First half an hour was spent in the introductions and I could see that natural linkage was made among people from my company and competitors.
Over period of meeting few thoughts emerged , some positive and some negative. customer was getting pleased as soon as some support is expressed and visa versa.
During break customer was making individual conversation to dig into negative points presented during the meeting, just to ensure that he understands the rational behind the resistance. He used this information in the second half of the meeting either as action points or comments to note.
At the end of the meeting I could see that people who opposed most to the change were not seen as part of the picture where as people to presented positive thoughts with details of concerns were seen as supporter of the change.
for example
Negative person : we have been though such change in past and it did not worked so i doubt it will work this time.
Positive person : this change should bring good results as i see that the learning from past is implemented here and one or two more improvements should make this successful.
You will observe that both are pointing to past failures in different way. The customer is also aware of past failure but this time he is looking for more support for this initiative naturally he will lean toward positive person to ensure the success.
In gist , be supportive at the same time do not fail to point to improvement it may require to make it success story.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
Meeting, prepare for it , Why?
This post is out of recent experience I had in a meeting with my collages.
We were to go for a meeting with the customer on the subject of the recent issue reported in the service that my company is responsible for. So I asked shall we sit down and discuss how and what were are planing to present to the customer.
"you got all facts right "
"Yes ! I have all information required for this discussion"
" so , that's OK , just present it as we have nothing to hide."
" do you not think that you should know what I am planning to present"
" don't worry "
then we met the customer, I started presenting to the customer the facts and numbers , logs etc. Customer was impressed with what we have done to address the issue and managed escalations. There by proving that we have done all we can in the set boundaries.
All going well , and just before we were to shake hands , my collage mentioned to me that we should change person X from the team as he is not competent enough to be part of this team. With this comment, customer picked the point as I mentioned that the same person was attending the calls when the issue occurred.
From this point onward we were at receiving end then it took lot of convincing efforts to give confidence to the customer that there is nothing wrong with that particular employee but we are looking for better experienced person to replace him . This comment by my colleague was merely a suggestions to improve the team skills.
After this meeting , the customer requested for a change in the team which was unwarranted and consequential effect on the person was unrecoverable.
So, I questioned my colleague "what made you make such suggestion in front of the customer" .
"I thought we should have demonstrated that we are taking some corrective actions out this "
"but it was not required , as customer had accepted in positive sense what we have presented."
..
..
We took a hit for not being in the sync and the cost was too high for my company.
Preparing for a meeting or a teleconference should be considered as a necessary activity to avoid embarrassing situations which might jeopardise your credibility and the organisation's reputation.
We were to go for a meeting with the customer on the subject of the recent issue reported in the service that my company is responsible for. So I asked shall we sit down and discuss how and what were are planing to present to the customer.
"you got all facts right "
"Yes ! I have all information required for this discussion"
" so , that's OK , just present it as we have nothing to hide."
" do you not think that you should know what I am planning to present"
" don't worry "
then we met the customer, I started presenting to the customer the facts and numbers , logs etc. Customer was impressed with what we have done to address the issue and managed escalations. There by proving that we have done all we can in the set boundaries.
All going well , and just before we were to shake hands , my collage mentioned to me that we should change person X from the team as he is not competent enough to be part of this team. With this comment, customer picked the point as I mentioned that the same person was attending the calls when the issue occurred.
From this point onward we were at receiving end then it took lot of convincing efforts to give confidence to the customer that there is nothing wrong with that particular employee but we are looking for better experienced person to replace him . This comment by my colleague was merely a suggestions to improve the team skills.
After this meeting , the customer requested for a change in the team which was unwarranted and consequential effect on the person was unrecoverable.
So, I questioned my colleague "what made you make such suggestion in front of the customer" .
"I thought we should have demonstrated that we are taking some corrective actions out this "
"but it was not required , as customer had accepted in positive sense what we have presented."
..
..
We took a hit for not being in the sync and the cost was too high for my company.
Preparing for a meeting or a teleconference should be considered as a necessary activity to avoid embarrassing situations which might jeopardise your credibility and the organisation's reputation.
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