Gardening Leadership

The gardener knows
each of his flowers
knows how much water
sunlight,manure each requires,
some flowers wither away
if too much sunlight
while others cannot survive
without the sunlight....

As leader of a work team
do you know each team member?
what makes each one tick?
whether they work best in the morning
or in the late afternoon?
or do you insist that they work
by your time preferences instead?

Do you give them space
to work at their pace
to do things differently
if goals met effectively?
or do you insist they always work
the way you think is best?

Oh how boring team gardens can be
when they are mere clones
of the leader himself
its only when there's variety in the garden
it is appealing to the eye, fragrant to the nose
such teams emit an energy, enthusiasm
that propels other teams in vicinity as well!

Being a Role Model

What are you telling young boys & girls
during induction, in the initial days
expectations on integrity?
that customer is king?

Are you telling them to be polite always
to be passionate about goals
and do what it takes, no matter what?
to focus on quality each time, every time?
to teamwork, see the big picture always?

Beware! tell them the bare minimum
that you yourself believe and  abide by
as they are watching you 24x7
to check whether you practice what you preach....

Consistently meeting and surpassing own standards
can enthuse juniors to follow leader with passion
conversely,  if huge deviance between talk and action
it is  disillusionment. and a big
erosion of credibility ....

Instead of adulation towards a  role model
it is just contempt- higher
the hype and falsehood
higher the level of contempt!
and you end up leaving in your trail
a bunch of cynics, cynics
in the garb of employees for life!

Credit

Leaders who are reluctant
to share credit for success,
or assignments well done
will be resented by team & peers...
and in the long run they lose
all support and cooperation

Such leaders behave the way they do
more out of a poor self esteem
 they compensate for the
"I am not good enough" feeling
with  projection of self as a 'star'
around whom everything revolves!

The better way for long term gains
for both leader and organization
is to share credit with all contributors
real achievement after all
is when many own, give a hand
celebrate success together!

HR Analytics and the Four Abilities

HR and data analytics today, is hot

HR had been one of the pioneers

anyway of the analytic path

having had at its disposal

Plenty of employee life cycle data

The challenge is to make sense

of humongous data, by thinking, asking

probing multiple aspects

having an eye for details

having an open mind…

With persistence, patience, deeper probing

some HR goals would be within reach

that of work force planning

comp & benefits, succession planning

learning & leadership, engagement & assessment....

Analytics for sales revenue, productivity

Arresting accident errors, fraud

down time losses…

for customer retention, product mix

for quality, IT and business consulting expertise….

Real success of the analytic journey

is in moving from the level 1 reactive,

 operational reporting to

 level 4, predictive analytics -

development of predictive models…

It’s here that the 4 abilities matter

Ability to collect high quality data

Ability to analyse, make sense of

the data and relationships

Ability to connect to IT, sales,

Operation and finance…

Ability to consult, visualise,

tell stories and drive change!

Note: This poem was inspired by an evening meeting that I attended on the subject organised by NIPM, Karnataka Chapter.The speaker Mr Neeraj Kumar, VP (HR) Wipro spoke exhaustively. This is just a tip of the iceberg.... 

Backfire

Frequent criticism
in the garb of "Feedback"
with an aim to control
seemingly to  ensure
change and improvement
backfires most of the time...

Rather than changes for the better
employees  withdraw, turn numb
become reluctant to innovate
volunteer or take risks

Instead it  results in
diverting precious energy for
blame avoidance
and self preservation!

Sad, the same energy
could and should
have been spent
for the benefit of the organization!

Typical Character

Organizations have a typical character
not withstanding the buzz words of
lean, flat, humane, open door
and what not.....

It's all about the span of control
the power to exercise over others
not allowing  them to use their heads
getting  them to  follow instructions
simply do your bidding!

The other day I watched on 'you tube'
a Swami explain the reason, the need
to leave parent spiritual organization
and start one of his own..

It was all about hurting ego

of the head of the organization

when the swami did not

blindly follow orders from top

but did what he thought was right...

Yes, all  organizations have a typical character
whether spiritual, social  or commercial...

Chasm

An employee wants to leave
for better prospects
company offers more money
in order to retain him/her

Similarly, someone else
wants to leave, weeks later
reason could be different this time
cultural mismatch or an overbearing boss...

Once again HR intervenes
with counselling or promises
of  a change in posting
the aim being retention
any which way...

At times, you find characters
who have discovered your weakness
and so periodically dangle
offer letters from rival companies
for ensuring raises...

A better approach perhaps
is to delve deep in to reasons
and respond or make corrections
to arrest attritions in future

As for the one who
has put in his papers
the dissatisfaction lurks
deep within somewhere
and all your efforts
notwithstanding...


It's a matter of time
that he notices the chasm yet again
and puts in his papers
refusing this time to reconsider...