Human Behaviour - Introspection!

As a human our propensity or disposition inadvertently is that we tend to find flaws or reason for why a specific act was done by such and such person, without reflecting these exact thoughts on our own self and we completely ignore our acts! And it is really a prerequisite to transform this ignorance into realisation, into self-introspection, not just once or twice but on a regular basis if we want to witness a renovation. The way ‘Charity begins at home’, ‘To bring in the change one has to be the change’.

While I was penning down these things one of my fond memories knocked in; My mentor and Ex-boss, late Mr Edburg P Mendes taught me in my very early years of career and I quote "When you're nothing or doesn't have any identity/ recognition in the world, world will give you only crap but when you become something and are capable of bringing a change; create the world you always wanted for yourself and be always conscious of never to give back what you got from the world". This also means that if you give back what you are getting then it’s like 'garbage in garbage out' and there is no constructive contribution that you are making with this approach. And if you keep this progressive attitude up then what it would establish is that all the garbage that you got, when you were nothing has been successfully converted into a high-quality manure.  

Therefore, what becomes utmost important in our life is 'WHAT WE DO'.

Remember that you cannot control anyone else's behaviour/ action but only yours. That means by controlling your behaviour/ action, you can control other's conduct/ reaction, as it is no more action but only reaction.

So, let's not crib about the situation you think that you are trapped into and curse your luck and time, let's do something about it.  You are your own boss and this control on present situation is what will help you in deriving your path for success.

Happy Controlling!!!

Organisation can Achieve

Organisations are entities that run economies, systems and governments. It is very crucial for an organisation to behave in a balanced manner. The organisations can be disastrous if they do not follow the ground rules.

But let's look into the aspect of what are organisations and who run them? We will be directed towards the answer saying its 'HUMANS'. So, we can say organisations are also driven and managed by 'EMOTIONS'.

Now we understood the involvement of emotions, it is very critical to understand them and act accordingly to build in the long lasting healthy organisation. Human Resource Department or HRD is a very prevalent and common function in all the organisations. But at times so called HRD people don't behave the way they should. Rather than helping the employee, they trouble the employee. They speak all glittery things but when it comess on action those ideals they spoke and encouraged seems missing. hence we can say there is a big disconnect between the belief and practice of this function. This is one of the major reasons of employees getting dissatisfied from the organisation hence affecting the oganisational environment and employee trust in the organisation.

One can imagine an unhappy employee can be dangerous to the organisation as he/ she is very vulnerable and prone to attract dangers and losses to the organisation.

This becomes the key achievement of the organisation if management has gained the trust of its employees. This will also ensure the other successes of the organisation. That is the reason if we look at the well established large multinationals, they emphasize on the employee welfare and listen to the voice of the employees.

Let's take an example of employee separation from the organisation. When an unhappy employee leaves, he/ she does not speaks good for the organisation because they had suffered. On the other hand, a happy employee will always speak good about the organisation and will help the organisation in its brand building.

While working in the organisation, the happy employee will bring in prosperity in the organisation by providing great service to the clients of the organisation and gaining in positive balance sheets.

So I recommend the leaders to take care of this and build healthy/ happy organisations.

Value Chain: A Strategic Tool Snapshot

Value Chain is a strategic tool that was developed by Michael E. Porter in 1980's. The tool is wonderful to understand the competitive advantage of an organisation. This tool divides the activities in two parts viz. Primary and Support activities. These activities add value to the product/ services organisation produces and makes the end product/ services available to the consumer.

Among Primary activities are: Inbound Logistics, Operations, Outbound Logistics, Sales & Marketing and Services. These activities are actual doers. The main business run on these activities and in its absence the business can not function effectively.But to enable effective functioning of Primary activities, some support activities are required. Among Support activities are: Procurement, Firm Infrastructure, Technology Development and Human Resource Management.

Put together these activities ensure the optimum functioning of the organisation resulting in increased margins and effective products/ services.

This tool also indicates that if all departments are not competitors but really are the complements to each other.

Value chains of different organisations but in same supply chain put togther will create a value system. This system confirms the effective working of all value chains or which link is weak and needs attention to gain 'Competitive Advantage'.

Ref.: 'Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance' by Michael E. Porter.

Coping Up with Changing Times!

The times are changing very fast and so are the business requirements. All businesses worldwide strive hard to create a difference and remain successful. In the race of maintaining and sustaining, businesses face challenges day in and day out. So what is the best way of keeping yourself at pace? Which innovative idea can guarantee us ‘Success’?

The answer is very simple indulge yourself into continuous innovation. Easy said than done, isn’t it? But then this is the only key to success. Worldwide businesses invest lot of resources in finding the different ways of doing things. Aiming to optimize on various aspects of businesses e.g. total cost of ownership etc. The key is how to run the business at minimal cost including minimal rework.

The times were tough during recession that backfired the whole financial system worldwide and still has some of its impact. It was like a nuke bomb explosion in financial markets. Like nukes it had ripple effect and we saw fall of financial institutions one after another followed by non-financial industries. Everything is interconnected. It is very hard to say that a particular industry is absolutely risk free. In fact absolute risk free doesn’t exist, everything is vulnerable.
World saw many companies vanishing and many survived the storm by using some innovative strategies.

How to identify the effectiveness of Leadership?

'To get the things done by self is very easy but to get the same done by others is a real challenge.'

Real managers who understand and practice this become real leaders. They don't only believe in themselves but most importantly trust in their team members by exploring their respective strengths and areas of improvement. This enables the leaders to delgate the right work to right people. In this way all team members are not only effective but they complement each other rather than feelling threatened.

Real Leaders do not interfere much unless the job goes totally out of track. Full freedom with authority is delegated to the team member enabling him/ her to perform the tasks assigned. Giving the right to pursue entrepreneurial behaviour is something that witnesses boost in performance across the floor.

Real leaders do not have any vested interests. Their only vested interest is the team performance and professional satisfaction of the team members. Such leaders make sure that the performance is recognised as team work and not as individual work. These leaders don't even over whelm any team member, rather work on the weakest team member to boost his/ her performance so as the team performance can be further enhanced.

Let us look at this logically. Think of a team member in your team who is doing exceptionally well, the scope of improvement in such case would be limited than the scope in case of a team member who still has long way to get up to the mark level. Rather performing team member's performance can be hampered if all the attention and over appreciation is given to them as they can become arrogant and feel they are invincible. In other words it can be said as such leaders are responisble for deterioration of performing team members.

The author suggests that managers have to be cautious of these situations. As there is always a temptation of fast success and some managers get trapped, thinking that by providing more support to the performers, they will be able to enhance their performance hence team performance. A real leader believes in continuous working and working on/ with all team members at par.

In conclusion, it is said that there is no readymade success or shortcut to success. In fact such things do not exist. Also there is something which no manager should forget, 'Past success no guarantee for future success.' and this holds true for the manager/ leader himself/ herself.