What is Politics!

I am a fan of a good football game (not of any team though). Reading some headlines around FIFA over the past few days, some words have been floating in my mind – politics, definition of politics, organisational politics, politicians, etc.

Most of us have heard about the classic debate “Leaders – born or made”. But I couldn’t find much content on “Politicians – Born or Made?”
My immediate response – “Politicians are born”.

What Is Politics?
A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?"
Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the people. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense,"

So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about what dad had said.

Later that night, he hears his baby brother crying, so he gets up to check on him. He finds that the baby has severely soiled his diaper. So the little boy goes to his parents' room and finds his mother sound asleep. Not wanting to wake her, he goes to the nanny's room. Finding the door locked, he peeks in the keyhole and sees his father in bed with the nanny. He gives up and goes back to bed. The next morning, the little boy says to his father, "Dad, I think I understand the concept of politics now."

The father says, "Good son, tell me in your own words what you think politics is all about."
The little boy replies, "Well, while Capitalism is screwing the Working Class, the Government is sound asleep, the People are being ignored and the Future is in deep poo."

Interesting!!

When you think of the condition Europe is in, the little boy's understanding comes across as spot-on.

What good is your education?

A very recent personal experience has prompted me to pen down these thoughts.

Time and time and time again, I see examples around me where people (myself included) continue to fail in applying their education (and hence, knowledge).

I would challenge any arguments that would offer "memory loss" as the reason. I am beginning to believe that this has more to do with our failure to have learnt and educated ourselves truly and completely; it is a finger pointing towards how superficial our educational pursuit has been; above all, it is a reflection of how indisciplined we are as individuals.

A very powerful lesson I picked up at during my MBA at Cranfield UK was "the Ladder of Inference" - this is something that I have written about earlier too. More than 5 years after having completed my last full time education, I find that I still am a culprit - I fail to follow this mantra 100%....sometimes the slip-up is in my professional life, sometime in my personal life.

It does not matter whether there are many other MBAs who may also be failing to apply their education in real life. My use of "I" should at least tell the world that I am taking onus. The key reflection I need to do is "Why do I slip-up? What good was my education?"

Well, my education and my experiences at Cranfield were not only good, they were brilliant, irreplaceable and life-changing. However, perhaps that was the easy part. The difficult part began after the MBA - applying my education in real life and no one promised me that it would be easy.

So, here's the question to you - How good are you making your education to be?

Manager as a Gardener!

The bright and sunny summers in UK brought out the keen Gardner in me. With literally zilch knowledge or experience of even planting a pot, I had set out to make my garden a green haven for my family. My ambition and enthusiasm clouded my ignorance completely and off I went to a nursery to bring back few saplings of broad beans, broccoli, capsicums, a set of herbs and some flower bulbs. Of course, I should add that there were loads of pots to plant these in.
Anyways, this was a few months ago.

The sheer joy and contentment I have experienced as I continue to nurture my garden is something I can't capture in words. The growing blades of the green grass, the new leaves appearing overnight in the pots, the blooming of the first flower in the bedding - every morning would bring in a new smile to my face.

Interestingly, over the past many weeks of working on the pots, plants, flower beds, watering the grass, etc. another thought has struck me - the similarity between a supervisor / manager and a Gardner. So, here's a summary of thoughts that I experienced:

A. The Gardner chooses what to plant in his garden - The manager recruits his subordinates who then ornate his team (i.e. his garden)
B. The gardener takes full care of his plants; be it adding fertiliser, plant food and water; be it saving the plants from insects, bugs, animals, etc. - The manager is expected to train and coach his team, be the first line of defence against outside world, continuous nurture the talent of his team and enhance their performance through training, etc.
C. The gardener takes full responsibility of whatever happens to his plants in the garden. How well the plants bloom and grow, the buck stops at the Gardner. I do not think a gardener would tell the world that despite his best efforts, the plant would not produce results. - In the current corporate world, I wonder whether I can safely say the same for managers.

Which category do you belong to? In a figurative sense, "Are you a good Gardner?"

Is our hiring process going awry!

As I continue to move along my career journey, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, I experience those moments of sheer intellectualism. While I wouldn't want to claim such thoughts to be earth-shattering or pioneering, I do believe in some of such thoughts very strongly.

Let me share one such thought.

I had worked for 13 years before I came to Cranfield to pursue my MBA. Across the 4 organisations in these years, I had never heard, seen or even known of Belbin team profile. During the Cranfield MBA, I was introduced to some tools including Belbin. The assessment showcased my strong and weak team profiles and to say that I was impressed with the tool would be an understatement. I was amazed. I still am.

Another 4+ years of my career have gone by post Cranfield. Yet, I am shocked at the lack of emphasis or focus on Belbin team profile from most organisations. Some organisations do get their employees to assess their Belbin's, but hardly any organisation uses the knowledge on a continuous basis.

So the moment of my sheer intellectualism was this - if I am a business owner, I would ensure that my recruitment process invests the time and effort into identifying the Belbin team profile of a candidate and use the knowledge as a key input into deciding to hire or not. If I need a "Shaper" in a role, I do not wish to hire too many Shaper's within the same team! Similarly, if I need a "Shaper", should I really be hiring a Plant - who's strength as a Shaper may be at other end of the spectrum!

I am sure there may be some readers out there who may say, "I don't like such tools because they tend to compartmentalise people into such boxes!" However, in my view, it is not about compartmentalising people; it is about using the information to make a sensible hiring decision - not just for the organisation, but also for the individual.

Talent Management - only good in books??

Of late, I hear and see almost every organisation rechristening their erstwhile HR department with this new buzzword - Talent management. I bet lots of HR guru's would even find fabulously crafted language to explain how Talent management is different and / or better that the traditional nomenclature.

But one question lurking in mind for many months now is, "Where does Talent Management end?" or is it supposed to end at all?

Here's the context - based on my recent personal experience, I am beginning to question, "If organisation's are bringing in talent, why does that talent not stay?" While I do not have any statistics to share, I get the feeling that the average career longevity of a professional at an organisation is coming down. More and more people are changing jobs more frequently. Of course, this is a generalisation - as many would say.

One of my personal views is this - Talent is deciding not to stay in organisations because they are not being allowed to work in their own way. While it is not an explicit case of "do this! don't do that!", lots of smart Alec's (read senior management) expect their own incarnations in the wider organisation. If the talent is not their clone, s/he aren't liked. A desire to build diversity in thoughts and action is all lip service - the senior management is all looking for themselves.

Talent acquisition is happening, but Talent execution was never born!

One of the many ironies.....

For those not familiar with Lean manufacturing, the philosophy of Lean is simple: Eliminate waste!

As a lean practitioner for over a decade, I have been driven by this mission in all of my corporate stints. So much so that I now almost live and breathe Lean philosophy. Whether it was rolling out Kaizen within my team that would ultimately become a corporate level initiative or whether it was to undertake a Supply Chain diagnostic for a retail client - I have continued to strive and eliminate waste of any form.

It does not amaze me anymore when I see organisations who are trying to generate efficiencies by eliminating waste in their processes, end up creating newer processes that add to the waste. In our role as project managers, we ensure that we have the stakeholders mapped out, communication plans chalked out, etc. Most of PM's would periodically develop presentations and decks for stakeholders update as well. Conference call invites, action logs, etc. are floating around that give the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction to one and all. Occasional red flags on risk items also add to the excitement.

What goes un-noticed is the scope creep within the project management tasks - which is duplication of what is already happening - and thereby adds back waste to the process of Project Management. One senior management position would initiate a separate discussion, create more calendar invites, PowerPoint decks, action logs, etc. etc. And as a crucial stakeholder, most PM's would end up getting sucked into these "wasted" add-on items. Chances are, such an action by one senior manager would get emulated by a few other senior managers, because the latter would not want their influence / importance be seen as any less. So you have more calls, more decks, more duplication or simply, more waste getting created. Ironically, no one would have sufficient visibility to this incremental waste. If this is indeed true in most organisations, imagine the scale of waste that is created across any industry, country or the economy.

Just as we say that Lean transformation needs top management support to be successful, the remediation of this invisible waste also needs to begin from the top and a sincere introspection would be a good first step.

Don't get killed by whispers

The moment I heard this phrase, I decided that I need to share about this. It is such a powerful statement that every professional in any part of the world should remember it and manage it.

People talk about you - that's a known fact. The question is: can you manage or influence what they talk? The experiences of life tell me that yes, you can (and should) constantly try to manage what people talk about you. And you can do this only through your actions or deeds. To be successful, every professional needs to realise that their success will be a function of what they deliver as well as what people talk about them. Managing one without managing the other won't bring them the level of success they'd hope for.

Take a pause and reflect back on your career till date - have you ever been killed by whispers?