Last friday, I saw Marathi play Jawai Mazaa Bhala. It was a play depicting the transition of a relationship between a father and his daughter when she decides to marry. During the transition the father goes through the intense phase of seperation from his child whom he has nurtured while the grown-up daughter shows the rebellious streak of independence that is so reminiscent of a cub fighting for its independence. Both fight the transition. At the end both grow after they go through the fights and disputes on small matters, resolve the anger caused by repressed hurt, and negotiate the altercations sparked by emotional outbursts. The process of transition was captured beautifully by the director. Man goes through various transitions in personal life: from being a single to a married life, from being a husband to a father, from being a child of his/her father to being 'parent' to his/her aged father.
In corporate life, an executive also goes through various transitions: the transition from a performer to a manager, transition from relocation to another geography or to another company and above all the transition to the senior managerial position. None of these transitions are easy, and like the father, no executive has help in negotiating these transitions. I know of an executive who was summarily asked to report to another office ( and that too in another function) in 10 days.
No one can understand the uncertainity through which the executive passes during this transition. He/She cannot even ask for help from anyone because he/she does not understand the feeling of inadequacy that grips him/her. A family may help, out of ignorance,by providing him the much needed respite. If however she is unlucky, the sparks she throws in the family can lead to more unintended consequences. Many careers therefore get stalled if these transitions are not negotiated smartly. Some even get derailed.
Transitions can be facilitated when one can anticipate them. But more importantly, one can also cross utilise the learnings from a transition in a personal life to enable transition in corporate life. But surprisingly, Learning and development (L&D) does not cross utilise the learnings and neither do they help their executives in enabling these transitions. L&D is supposed to be responsible for developing their executives, but fails to utilise this crucial phase. L&D surprisingly ignores this transition phase completely. If your company's L&D is however helping you, you are a lucky one. Most others are simply unlucky.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Saturday, September 15, 2007
The making of vision
In the Times of India of 16 September 2007, I read a column of Swaminathan Aiyar about the reforms in Bollywood. This is a brilliant example of how visions are created or how visions are executed.
Imagine someone in Bollywood having a vision of making 'successful serious cinema' 15 years back, say in 1992. I am talking about making movies like Khosla ka Ghosla or Life in metro. It would have looked like a dream of an exuberant impractical youngster who does not know anything of cinema industry. A empathatic viewer would have even lauded the ability of 'youth' to do the impossible. But a systems thinker would have told us that such a dream required too many things to be done which are way beyond the control of any person.
For instance, it would have needed the deregulation of Indian TV which brought in many actors, directors and producers in the forefront: a critical mass of good youngsters who are willing to experiment and have nothing to lose. It would have required liberalisation in capital markets for the capital market to provide finance to new ideas. It would have required deregulation of cinema halls which allowed 3 lakhs of Hindi speaking population in Karnataka to afford a Hindi movie or 1.21 lakhs population of Bengali in Delhi to enjoy the movie in Bengali. Each of these three different huge systems were required to make Khosla ka Ghosla possible.
Which youth can make such a vision happen? As you would have realised, even money or resources alone, howesover large, cannot influence such large systems. Any amount of hard work, commitment, dedication cannot turn a vision into a reality. When we see some of the individuals achieving their visions over a long time, we could applaud their ability to patiently wait for the 'systems to change', and perhaps bear the hardship for a long time. We could call them committed, hardworking, and passionate individuals. But are these individuals visionaries?
A visionary individual, according to systems thinker, is an individual who can see the interplay of these large systems and can 'plant' the saplings in these systems, and watch them grow. Based on their growth or withering, he then plans the course so as to convert the vision into reality. He has the ability to know which systems require what leverage and then muster the resources to influence those leverage points. Alternatively, he should forsee the choke points in a system and initiate efforts to de-bottleneck them. And above all, like a farmer, he has to wait for the right time to do the right thing and hope things will coalesce to convert the sapling into a fullfledged tree which can bear fruits.
Imagine someone in Bollywood having a vision of making 'successful serious cinema' 15 years back, say in 1992. I am talking about making movies like Khosla ka Ghosla or Life in metro. It would have looked like a dream of an exuberant impractical youngster who does not know anything of cinema industry. A empathatic viewer would have even lauded the ability of 'youth' to do the impossible. But a systems thinker would have told us that such a dream required too many things to be done which are way beyond the control of any person.
For instance, it would have needed the deregulation of Indian TV which brought in many actors, directors and producers in the forefront: a critical mass of good youngsters who are willing to experiment and have nothing to lose. It would have required liberalisation in capital markets for the capital market to provide finance to new ideas. It would have required deregulation of cinema halls which allowed 3 lakhs of Hindi speaking population in Karnataka to afford a Hindi movie or 1.21 lakhs population of Bengali in Delhi to enjoy the movie in Bengali. Each of these three different huge systems were required to make Khosla ka Ghosla possible.
Which youth can make such a vision happen? As you would have realised, even money or resources alone, howesover large, cannot influence such large systems. Any amount of hard work, commitment, dedication cannot turn a vision into a reality. When we see some of the individuals achieving their visions over a long time, we could applaud their ability to patiently wait for the 'systems to change', and perhaps bear the hardship for a long time. We could call them committed, hardworking, and passionate individuals. But are these individuals visionaries?
A visionary individual, according to systems thinker, is an individual who can see the interplay of these large systems and can 'plant' the saplings in these systems, and watch them grow. Based on their growth or withering, he then plans the course so as to convert the vision into reality. He has the ability to know which systems require what leverage and then muster the resources to influence those leverage points. Alternatively, he should forsee the choke points in a system and initiate efforts to de-bottleneck them. And above all, like a farmer, he has to wait for the right time to do the right thing and hope things will coalesce to convert the sapling into a fullfledged tree which can bear fruits.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Are MDP programs a pipe dream?
I was going through a design of a MDP program for Project managers. After going through the entire design of a 4-day program, I understood that we want project managers to 'bat like Tendulkar, bowl like Kapil Dev, field like Yuvraj, and lead like Ganguly'.
When I verified this 'design' of MDP with my trainer friends, I was surprised to note that all MDP programs are designed on this premise: the premise that we want our managers to be all rounders. We want all rounders. Although we know that the world is full of specialist, we still dream in having our managers as 'all rounders'.We want either square pegs or round holes.
When I pondered over our requirement of manager, I realised that Managers are also unique human beings; each peculiar in his/her style, responses, strengths and blind spots. Each of the manager is different; but when we want to develop our managers we want them to be 'similar'. And precisely because they cannot be homogenous, they demand the most impossible from the MDP program participant: change and twist himself or herself into a role model.
Instead, if we concentrate in enabling our participant managers retain their uniqueness and practice 'managership', we might be better off. We make two mistakes. We believe that all managers are moulded into one 'ideal'. However this is not true. Like a cricket team requires different kind of leader at different times, we also need different kind of managers in our organisations for different teams as well as different times. Then we make the second mistake: twisting every person into the 'ideal' manager. Both objectives are difficult to attain. When will companies learn to have realistic expectations from their managers?
When I verified this 'design' of MDP with my trainer friends, I was surprised to note that all MDP programs are designed on this premise: the premise that we want our managers to be all rounders. We want all rounders. Although we know that the world is full of specialist, we still dream in having our managers as 'all rounders'.We want either square pegs or round holes.
When I pondered over our requirement of manager, I realised that Managers are also unique human beings; each peculiar in his/her style, responses, strengths and blind spots. Each of the manager is different; but when we want to develop our managers we want them to be 'similar'. And precisely because they cannot be homogenous, they demand the most impossible from the MDP program participant: change and twist himself or herself into a role model.
Instead, if we concentrate in enabling our participant managers retain their uniqueness and practice 'managership', we might be better off. We make two mistakes. We believe that all managers are moulded into one 'ideal'. However this is not true. Like a cricket team requires different kind of leader at different times, we also need different kind of managers in our organisations for different teams as well as different times. Then we make the second mistake: twisting every person into the 'ideal' manager. Both objectives are difficult to attain. When will companies learn to have realistic expectations from their managers?
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