Not using Communities innovatively is a professional wastage

After reading this Jeff Howe's book on "CrowdSourcing', i felt that 'community' is a 'resource' that i have wasted. Being in Learning and development, i could find multiple ways of using communities for fulfilling many needs of learning and development. Practically every functional expert can use it for some use.

Communities can be used for multiple purpose. Here are some of the uses the author has listed in his book:

1. Use communities for problem solving: Example of Innocentive is a wonderful example. Companies use external community to 'solve' their tough problems by offering monetary incentive. It could be very useful to visit this website, both as a user as well as 'provider'.
2. Use communities to do your work: Example of TopCoder is a very disturbing example, because this innovator has created a community of about 50,000 programmers to get the 'programming work' done for a client, AT&T. This example shows a how the nature of 'firm' is changing. US patent office is planning to use 'crowd' evaluate 'patents', a very radical idea.
3. Use communities to predict events like elections. A company known as 'marketocracy' is using it beat 'stock market'. Companies are using it even to predict next quarterly results. This is the most innovative use one can think of. Like a stock market, there is a 'trading' market for help you do this. For more details of how this works, you may like to read James Surowiecki's Wisdom of crowds.
4. Use communities to rate each other's work or each other's performance. This is called as 'crowd voting'. This is a common use of community and is a very useful proposition for companies, say for example, to evaluate their best talent. It rests on the presumption that 'A Dot net coder can evaluate another dot net coder better than any one'.
5. Use communities to generate ideas. This is similar to 'suggestion box', but is more useful when done with people outside companies, especially the customers. Dell Idea storm is the quoted example.
6. Use communities to 'fund' ideas: Examples of Kiva.org ( donors lend money for small entreprenuers) is an eye-opener.One wonders how people actually 'contribute' money for good causes and how this can be channelised for better use.
7. Use communities to fund ideas as well as create market: Sellaband ( fans lend money to have their bands create music albums) is a classic example of creating market for music album as well as funding it. Threadless is infact a better idea of creating 'market' within the community.

If you know of any other use, i would be glad to know.

IPL-2

It has been one year since i wrote my last blog. I have been occupied fully in many activities: writing a book for students of 10th standard for choosing their careers, developing a leadership architecture for an organisation, and above all, coaching.

IPL-2 ended with a bang. Due to the twists and turns of the security issues, IPL this time got hosted in a country, that i am fascinated with. I have stayed in Johannesburg for 10 months, and have seen their cricket craze from very close. South Africans are as religious about cricket as Indians. 

More than IPL-1, this IPL proved that IPL has been a best training ground for training our budding cricketers. Because of the four-foreigners restriction, this has helped many youngsters to experience the rivalry and test their skills in the international cricket conditions from close. The tougher wickets of RSA further have further increase the bar and know where they stand in the pecking order. 

If you have read the posts of Adam Gilchrist or Lehman, you will realise that even they consider their highest personal satisfaction as ' grooming raw Indian talent'. I was more surprised to read Adam Gilchrist observations that 20-20 cricket is more testing than Test cricket, because it forces one to focus on the game 100% as it leaves little chance of recovering from a lapse. In other words, every brand of cricket tests different skill sets. Although purists may disagree, it is obvious that this '100% focus' will also help test cricketer. 

I hope our training manager, Lalit Modi, does not heed to the cry of some of the team franchisees of relaxing the four-foreigner rule. Although ILP-2 happened in RSA due to chance, he could use this serendiptious event to plan the next IPLs in different countries and conditions.

Lalit Modi: the best Learning and development manager on hire

If you do not believe me, please consider these elements he has juggled in 20-20 tournament of IPL ( Indian Premier Leage ) and judge for yourself:

1. He is developing the young crop of Indian cricketers by providing the best platform of learning for them: real playground with real life situation. No training in the class room. No computerised web based training. No simulations. Direct real-life situations.

2. By pitting best cricketers in the world with the junior cricketers, he has compelled compulsory knowledge transfer of insights, tricks and ideas. I remember Kapil Dev saying in his interview that 'Had he learnt reverse swing early in his career, he would have got 100 more wickets'. This is a biggest bane in Knowledge management in real life organisations. Experts in an organisation do not share their knowledge even in the most knowledge intensive organisations. Organisation further compound their difficulties by 'promoting' competition in favour of collaboration.

3. The learning is not just confined in downloading 'content' ( what to do) but also applying content. Organisations, who pride in spending huge money in learning and development, spend money in downloading content, hoping that individuals will learn to apply content by themselves. Instead Lalit Modi has incorporated both in his IPL format. In order to win matches, senior cricketers have to teach juniors how to sum the situation, how to find ways to score,how to construct an over, how to be positive in the head despite the onslaught, how to anticipate the next action of a batsman and so on.

4. He has roped in ICL in the format by including foreign players so that the tournament can find a time window in the ICL match schedules. By doing this, he has killed two birds with one arrow. One, he has got the best talent in the world. Two, by restricting the foreign players to four in a team, he has got the best cricketers in the world to rub shoulder in junior cricketers. Organisations plan their learning and developement in isolation with rest of the organisation. Even Leadership development programs are planned in isolation with the real-life work in an organisation. Therefore these programs are shunned by the best in the organisation, or worse still, are treated as 'sight seeing' programs.

5. The best part of this development story is that he has 'not asked' for any funds from BCCI. Instead, he has generated funds. Organisation worry about 'return on investment in the development of their employees'. What else one can ask for from their learning and development manager?

So, do you agree with me?

Is developing leaders a necessity for you?

( A practical methodology of developing leaders in an organisation)

Context
With increasing globalisation of business, demanding customers and constant reduction of costs, organisations need to develop more leaders for running their businesses. Leadership development is no more a slogan. With increasing stakes, organisations are actively engaged in developing leaders.

On the other hand, challenges of leadership development exist at both the levels: at the blue print as well as at the execution level. The note here explains those challenges and suggests a possible action plan.

Challenges of leadership development in corporate world
Because leaders need to perform real-time in live situations, they cannot be developed by classroom training. Nor is it a content-download exercise which can be rated at the end as A+. Because leadership skill has to be embedded in an individual’s armoury, the process of developing leader is like growing a plant: partly in our control, partly outside our control. As James March, a researcher who conducted a course on Leadership for Stanford University for 14 years, writes ‘Issues of leadership are indistinguishable from the issues of life”.

Therefore, much like a development of a plant, leadership development cannot be hastened beyond a certain point; the time depending both on the complexity of the requirement, baggage that an individual brings on the table, as well as the kind of people the leader is leading.

Given this difficulty in developing leaders, companies earlier focussed on developing managers. That was enough when industry changes were relatively slow-paced, where majority of organisations followed me-too strategies, or where the systems were relatively ‘closed’ by regulation and other means. Smart ‘managers’ performed the role adequately.

However, when ground rules change quickly by aggressive competitors, managers are always running hard to remain at the same place. Even the risk-mitigating measures of incremental improvement tools like TQM, Six Sigma or Lean do not help. For instance, Fujitsu’s new delivery model in BPO has completely changed the ground rules of BPO industry. On the one hand it promises to solve the customer problems in one shot as well as the inbuilt problems of attrition. But that also has forced BPOs to develop leaders at a relatively young age.

A practical methodology for developing leaders ( and managers as a side benefit! )

Organisations, who have to develop leaders because of their business models, are compelled to take a complete end to end view of leadership development. For them the objective of leadership development is to replenish the pipeline of leaders so that senior ‘positions’ are manned appropriately. They have to walk through all the three stages of developing leaders: Sourcing of pipeline, inoculating and developing the leadership skills, and nurturing the second tier network to enable leaders.

Stage I: Sourcing of leadership pipeline

Three decisions are have to be taken at this stage.

1. One can source the pipeline from the basket of junior pool of employees or hire from the basket of ‘ready-made pool of senior individuals”. Needless to say, both strategies demand compatible recruitment, retention and performance management policies. Business demands and size of organisation also matters because sourcing from junior pool requires large investment. GE and HLL are examples of the first option. So too are business groups like Tata and Birla.

2. The second step of ‘sourcing the leadership material from the pool’ can be executed by two ways. Two methods are used: old method of selecting potential leaders through evaluating employee performance over a period of time, and the modern method of evaluating potential leaders through ‘leadership potential assessment’ centre.

Psychologists are split 50/50 on this. One group believes that individual’s behaviour can be explained by ‘absolute traits’ (and therefore can be evaluated through assessment centres) while the second group believes that it can be explained by the ‘situations’ in which the individual has been placed (and therefore can be evaluated only through real performance in an organisational system). As an example of later, responses of officers in Government are a good example of ‘situational behaviour’. Irrespective of the type of individuals placed in Government, they behave in a similar fashion. The same is true of professionals working as doctors, lawyers, and police force. A lot has been written on this split. For a condensed summary, see my book, The Five great myths of career building, Page 123-132.

3. Because leadership development is a long process, one of the ways to reduce the developmental timetable is to categorise employees and channelize their development in that region. Using an analogy of cricket, we do not need all-rounders that can perform in different conditions and situations; we need batsman or bowlers who will perform in a specific situation.

Stage II: Inoculating and developing leadership

Inoculation of leadership vaccine means establishing the distinction of ‘managership’ versus leadership clear in the mind of corporate participants. In my opinion, this confusion has been the primary source of difficulty in developing corporate leadership skills. A leader ‘negotiates an open system’, while a manager, negotiates ‘close system’. A closed system ( like building a complex bridge) can be very difficult to manage because of the number of variables involved, but the complexity is still ‘static’. For more elaborate definition of leader, see my earlier blog of Leadership.

We engage in open systems and closed systems all the time: in our relationships, in resolving a problem, in achieving our objectives. However, we do not understand the ‘principles’ we adopt in negotiating these open/closed systems, because they are invisible and applied unconsciously. Articulating these principles clearly is therefore the first step in developing the leadership. Another advantage of using ‘systems view’ for leadership development is that the individual can use non-corporate platforms and situations to develop his or her leadership skills. This saves time and also ‘embeds’ the learning in the ‘whole’ of a person.

Developing the leadership skills requires both the elements of action: understanding of ‘what to do’ and the behavioural skill of ‘how to do’. This presents three major challenges

 Enabling leaders to work in multiple ‘people’ systems ( transactional and collaborative) concurrently so that they find time to prevent fires instead of spending time only on dousing fires

Transactional system enables executives get their work done in short time with minimal effort (with the fullest use of their power and status). This constitutes majority of their tasks. However, they also have to engage in collaborative systems to ‘resolve problems’, develop new ways to solve old problems, and generate insights ahead of a problem. This however requires more time with people and less use of positional power. If a senior executive does not get the right balance between the two systems, he/she spends all his/her time in dousing fires, instead of preventing fires. Once an executive is caught in this vicious cycle, he/she keeps on working for 60 hours a week but still producing lower-than-average results.

 Sharing the difficulties in synthesising work system with people system to achieve organisational objectives like knowledge management and innovation.

Innovation or knowledge management require harmonious synthesis of people and work systems. When executives rely too much on work system to manage their ‘knowledge’ the objective is not achieved. Big IT systems are created with no addition of knowledge. Innovation also happens out of the ‘chaos’ created in the work+ people system. If we move too early to ‘rein’ the chaos, we miss the innovation.

 Inculcating the understanding plus behavioural component in the armory of an individual through use of one-to-one coaching, shadow coaching or group coaching.

Non engaging situations in classroom, WBT simulations can develop the understanding, but developing the requisite behavioural skills requires online responses to real-life situations. This requires embedding the skill into the ‘whole’ of a person. This therefore requires coaching. Without real-time coaching, behaviour skills cannot be imparted. Learning remains conceptual. In certain difficult instances, even shadow coaching (shadowing executives in meetings and interactions) is required to provide ‘accurate’ inputs to the employee so that root cause identification happens immediately without any bias.

Embedding also needs understanding the individual’s background habits, family life and personal hobbies so that learning is incorporated in a personal kit of an individual. Certain insights and appreciation can be acquired only after reframing an event in personal life. Coaching is an art, because it demands intervention without ‘intruding’ in a person’s life.

Although many tools and ideas exist in developing leadership skills, the real challenge is ‘embedding’ them in the system ( ethos and habits ) of an organisational work. As Henry Mintzberg, highly acclaimed management researcher, puts it aptly “ the crux lies in adapting the ideas , and not adopting them”.

Stage III: Nurturing the second tier to enable the leaders

It is well accepted that even leaders deliver results when they have good teams to lead. Top talent is more effective when it operates in vibrant internal networks with a range of employees. Without the social network of capable performers, leaders cannot perform for a sustained period.

Fortunately, leadership development program can itself help us develop a second tier of capable steady performers. As the leadership process is linked closely with the personal self development process, no one can guarantee that all potential aspirants will become leaders. These so-called ‘unsuccessful’ individuals can help create a band of capable performers who can excel in their function, be it sales or delivery. In other words, developing Managers can be a ‘secondary output’ of this program. Although this cannot truly substitute the manager development program, it can partly cover the gap.

Action plan for an organisation

Given the current HR processes in any organisation, leadership development cuts across all the three functions of Talent acquisition/allocation, Talent management and Talent deployment. At the minimum it requires tying up of four independent processes:

 Utilising current program to identify and track potential leaders
 Altering the Conventional design of LDP training program to include relevant elements such as ‘systemic’ intelligence, managership versus leadership etc.
 Utilising Talent acquisition/allocation team to allocate potential leaders to identified roles/positions so that coaching is used effectively, and
 Utilising Succession Planning to plan for key leadership positions.

Organisation-relevant definition of Leadership

Leadership has become an oxymoron, a meaningless word in the corporate world.

We attempt here to ‘redefine’ it with the specific purpose of making it ‘practical’ and useful’ for developing leadership qualities in corporate executives. The purpose is to extract its implicit meaning we have in our minds and articulate it as precisely as we can so that we can not only practice it but ‘develop’ it when we see its absence.

Section I: Why another definition of leadership
Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership
Section III: Organisation-relevant definition of leadership and its implications
Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world

Section I: Why another definition of leadership?

Leadership is a much misunderstood concept in corporate world because it exists in many versions.

Trainers 'label' many of their programs as 'leadership development programs', even when they are not meant to develop leadership. They go a step further by claiming that leadership can be practiced at any level and by anyone. This is the Western view of human development: you can do anything if you have the willingness and drive to achieve it. This propagates leaders who take charge from the front, ignoring the leaders who lead from behind.

Versions also proliferate because of reluctance of researchers in defining leadership. Researchers interview and study CEO's and political leaders, decipher common traits and behavior (such as integrity, customer focus, result focus etc) and claim it as a common denominator of a leader. They do all this without ‘defining’ leadership. In their quest to identify leadership traits, they may even forget that many of the CEO's and leaders they interviewed may have been 'administrators'.

Some argue that we should not define leadership because we may fall in the pit of claiming that there is only 'one' definition of leadership. On the other hand knowledge cannot be built until one defines something 'precisely'. Not defining precisely makes it easier to claim 'anything and everything' as leadership, which is happening right now.

Without precise definition of leadership, what do companies currently do about ‘skilling’ their leaders? Because they need capable leaders, they have taken an inside-out approach of developing leadership traits. They define five, six or seven leadership traits as being ‘absolute’ and then proceed to inculcate those ‘traits’ in their top executives. Assessment centers are designed to assess and evaluate these traits.

Psychologists are today convinced that absolute traits ‘alone’ do not explain the behaviour of an individual. Equally powerful determinant of behaviour is the ‘context’ of the situation. ( This is why we may be ‘honest’ with friends, but not be honest with others. ) Some even argue that there is very little difference ‘of traits’ between the leaders and non-leaders; the difference lies in how the leaders use their ‘traits’ in a given ‘context’. Because the second half - the competency to deal with the context - is not understood well, it is neither ‘taught’ nor ‘enabled’.

Because of the above, corporate leaders today are developed through luck and chance, rather by any design or plan. With a precise definition of leadership, HR can provide the potential leaders the right 'practice ground' to develop leadership. HR will know which positions are not good for practicing leadership. It will also know what it needs to do help executives practice leadership. It will enable HR set realistic expectations from itself. HR will invest more carefully in training and developing the right people, instead of trying to practice it all levels. This will mean getting more returns from the efforts, better grooming of leaders and better succession planning

Section II: Towards a new definition of leadership

Rudolph Giuliani's resurrection of New York after 9/11 is one example of leadership development which is often quoted. Reviving a city/institution after such a tragedy requires extraordinary capabilities to bring together all stakeholders, chalk out an action plan and execute it. But is this leadership?

Is 'removing terrorism' same as 'removing terrorist'?
Is countering the practice of anti dowry same as passing the 'anti-dowry' law in the parliament?
Is instituting 'secured transport' in a city after 11 pm same as instituting anti-criminal police practices in the city?

If you observe closely the difference in the first and second act, you will get the glimpse of leadership concept. The first act requires understanding of 'interrelated systems', while the second requires understanding of 'linear systems'. The first act requires a far difficult juxtaposition of initiatives and stakeholders, while the second requires a 'one dimension action' against the dissidents. The first act requires dealing with ‘dynamic complexity’ (complexity created because of interrelationship of variables) while the second act is dealing with ‘static complexity’ (complexity created due to number of variables).

In short, the first act requires the ability to deal with Open ‘systems'. It is a word which has precise definition, derived from Systems theory. For more details see Frijtof Capra’s book The Web of Life.

This is where we have a first definition of leadership: the kernel

Leadership practice is an ability to influence large open system(s) in a sustained manner.


What is the essence of leadership practice?

Is it managing an open system? Every operating system ( be it business unit, geography, or a function) is an open system because it is influenced by multiple systems. But even a relationship with spouse, influenced by multiple systems like finance, kids, and friends and so on, is an open system. However we do not wish to term 'managing relationship' as leadership practice.

Is it managing a ‘large’ system? Largeness can be defined by physical boundary, such as eco system. Eco systems are difficult to influence simply because of their largeness. A virtual system in an organization however can also be large. But largeness alone does not differentiate leadership practice of say a freelance entrepreneur (such as a doctor working in a clinic, or a photographer working in entertainment industry) visavis a corporate executive? Both must understand the large open system - of which their operating system is part of - to find how they can influence. So what differentiates the two?

The corporate executive has to influence the 'internal open' system to execute the 'strategy' that he/she has deciphered from understanding the 'external open' system, while the freelance entrepreneur only has to influence the external open system to discover a sustainable strategy.

In other words, essence of corporate leadership practice involves management of two kinds of open systems: one, to understand the 'external open' system to 'decide' strategically the requirement of influencing it, and two, to 'execute' that decision by influencing the 'internal open' system ( which is nothing but the operating system).

'Execution' requires consensus of the direction to take. Imagine what Gandhiji could have gone through to develop a consensus that ‘Independence to India should be pursued by following the path of non-violence' amongst other contending alternatives. Consensus is also required to create 'enough variety' in the system. 'Variety' is the ability to understand the requisite variables in the environment and respond appropriately. If variety is not enough, each person in an organisation may follow different path, halting the progress of the organisation in a specific direction. If too much time is required to generate the consensus though, the opportunity window may close. In other words, influencing internal open system is a big challenge.

Lastly, corporate leadership practice is also about taking actions that will sustain the initial trigger. Executives are often seen to take one-off actions that can be sustained only by sheer willpower and/or a 60-week schedule. Sustained manner means taking an action which can be sustained by the ‘system’ after the initial trigger is off.

Section III: New organisation-relevant definition of leadership

Leadership practice, in short, requires two criteria to be met

Part I: Understand large open system (of which the operating system, say the business units, is a part) to chose the 'mountain' to climb (that will enable the operating system to influence the open system in a sustained manner).

Part II: Enable the 'large operating system' to scale the mountain so that elements of operating system follow appropriate course/path in a self-sustained manner (which includes the ability to course-correct) irrespective of the changing circumstances (which may therefore include the decision to change the mountain).

In non-systems language, we can call part I as ‘developing a sustainable strategy’, while Part II as ‘executing the given strategy in a sustainable manner’. We are however using the language of ‘systems’ because HR has to understand the ‘theory of leadership’ to apply it anywhere. They have to diagnose a given position for its leadership potential, or a leader in a given situation.

This definition tells us what leadership practice is and what is not.

One, a CEO of a company selling ball bearing, exclusively to automobile industry, has to understand a large open system involved, as well as a CEO working in a General Motors. The difference is in scope of the largeness of the open system. Part I and Part II actions are required by both CEOs.

Pressurised by stock options, shareholders and boards, CEOs develop strategies/plans to show that they are at helms. In the process they develop 'me-too' strategies that are unsustainable. They look good on paper but fail to pass the test of ‘sustaining’ the advantage. Or they just believe that 'hard work' alone can help them scale the mountain. These CEOs find it convenient to blame 'people' for poor 'execution'. Execution therefore has become a buzz word of corporate success.

Two, a senior executive heading a support department like HR, Training or Finance faces a different set of open systems to ‘decide’ the mountain than a senior executive of a SBU facing a customer. The difference is in the dependency: one is dependent on truly external open system (customer); another is dependent on the business unit’s view of external open system.

Because of this dependency, if business executives in their organization lack the skill of first part, an executive in support department may ‘lead’ his/her function in a ‘wrong direction’. Fortunately, as we shall see later, other options are open to this executive which may still enable him/her to practice leadership.

Three, Part II actions seem to be a bigger differentiator than Part I actions in defining a leader due to two reasons.

One, ability to self-sustain the course requires one to develop a team which can function without the leader. We have seen many well intentioned initiatives suffer when the 'hero' leader leaves the team without developing his/her team sufficiently. Many small companies remain 'small' because of this lack of ability. Part I executives will remain as entrepreneurs and innovators.

Further, lack of Part II understanding also reflects in wrong choice of strategies, which is a Part I action. Many strategies (arrived after understanding the open system) are impractical to implement because they require many system elements to converge with the 'goal'. Part II-unaware leaders are completely ignorant of how to achieve this. For instance, very few executives know how 'vision and values' can help system elements to converge.

The difficulty in managing Part II actions seems to be arising due to dual nature of an organisation: on the one hand an organisation is a ‘mechanical system’ meant to achieve a given purpose in a predetermined way, while on the other hand it is a ‘living system’ of people which provides the required ‘variety’ to the system to bring in flexibility and innovative solutions. Both are needed. But MBA executives learn to manage the first, miss the second. For MBA executives, execution is about 'controlling' everything, which is the model of an Army commander. Organisational leaders learn to manage the living system, and more importantly, how to make the ‘living system’ coexist with the ‘mechanical system’.

Four, this definition of leadership also shows that leadership can be practiced in certain positions and in certain situations.

For instance, in difficult times, one may need a different set of actions, such as Louis Gestener did when he was brought to revive IBM. At such difficult times, stopping the hemorrhaging is more important than developing a sustainable strategy. Moreover, as organisational elements converge on the ‘to-do actions’ more readily due to crisis, Part II challenge is minimal. ( Louis Gestener also had the insight to leave IBM in time because he knew that it needed a man who understood the ‘internal system’ of IBM! )

Similarly, at a junior position, when sufficient options are not available in the ‘operating system’ of which the junior person is in charge, one cannot practice leadership. Neither Part-I is an open system or Part II is an open system at a junior level. Part II internal system can be made ‘open’ in certain situations. For instance, small project in a software company is not a sufficiently open system to practice leadership, but organizations can create a much larger open system if the project size is large and multi dimensional.

High variety situations, where lots of options seem to exist, are often confused with ‘open systems’. For instance, customer-facing positions of delivery in airlines, hotels, or banks ‘generate’ lot of variety. Such high variety positions can create ‘conflicting’ demands on HR! For instance, these positions demand initiative and flexibility on the one hand, and compliance with processes and system on the other.

But, it is my suggestion, that we should restrict leadership positions to mean those positions where both internal and external systems are sufficiently open (which in turn would necessitate both Part I and Part II actions). Whenever a system is relatively closed, it has a potential of being manned with an able manager or administrator.

Five, this definition also makes it easy to understand why leadership practice is more prevalent in ‘open system’ social arena than in relatively ‘close system’ organizational arena. We intuitively knew that there is a parallel we corporate executives can use, but we never knew the limitations of drawing that parallel. This definition brings out the limitations starkly.

Section IV: What is needed to develop leadership in corporate world?

Part I skills are taught by B schools. A MBA definitely learns how to develop a strategy. He knows the elements involved in developing the strategy and can find out quite easily what every competitor is doing and why. This is a big step in learning Part I skills.

The second step is however quite difficult: finding a strategy (it is also called developing business model) that will help company sustain it’s competitiveness over a long period of time. Because nothing is difficult to replicate over a long period, it is about gaining the lead that is difficult to catch. For a fashion industry, lead of 6 months is difficult to catch. For an old industry it could be 6 years.

The difficulty of second step is apparent when you see two companies bashing each other with similar strategy. Pepsi and Coca Cola is a good example in India. They have been following similar me-too strategies and bleeding profusely in India. But no one is backing out. Jim Collins reports in his book ( Good to Great) that the 12 leaders, who achieved constant growth over 75 years, took a very long time (about 6-8 years) to get the business models of their company right. So although the first step can be learnt, the second step requires understanding of the deeper dynamics of an industry to evolve a sustainable strategy.

Part II skills are currently taught in bits and pieces.

Generating dialogue amongst the senior management team has been well researched and understood. Performance appraisal systems to align individual goals to organisational goals are understood well but they are too static to deal with the challenges faced on the ground.

Work on rewards and incentives – based on Pavalovian model – unfortunately do not help us in influencing today’s individuals who want something ‘more’ from their jobs. It is therefore not surprising to find that jobs in social system, based on voluntary commitment, are more easier to ‘man’ than a job in corporate world.

The biggest knowledge bottleneck in Part II is in designing the ‘whole’. We have understood a lot about individual part elements, about vision, values, and organization structural options, MBO, Balance Score card and others. But our knowledge of putting these parts together into a whole is still an art, not yet developed into a science. This is where largest efforts shall be required in developing learning material that can help executives learn ‘Part-II’ actions.

Part II is about understanding internal open system requires understanding of the recursive effects of actions, the interdependencies inherent in the sequencing of actions, the realistic understanding of the current situation without the bias, and using symbolic effect of an action. (A subset of this is called 'change management'.) One can use countless examples happening around us to develop this Part II competency. For instance, asking ‘how should BCCI have responded to the Harbhajan controversy’ will help us evaluate the understanding of the managers in this arena.

However the more difficult part in developing Part II competency is knowing that Part II is not just 'understanding' content, but being able to 'act on it'. It is accompanied with behavioral component. This therefore requires 'simulation of a situation'.

Learning any competency is also related with measuring it so that corrective actions can be taken by measuring the as-is status. Consequences of Part II competency are visible in the 'reportees', 'colleagues' and above all the family members of the aspiring leader. Taking advantage of this impact, one can do a 360 degree feedback and indirectly measure this leadership competency. Other visible but indirect indicators like work-life balance, ability to react under stress, active sense-making can also be used as a substitute.

To summarise, leadership development would need

o Preparing Learning material ( that should include case studies, role plays
and simulation ) on
- Part I: ‘Dynamic’ strategy development both for BU heads and functional
heads ( normal strategy development is pick and apply
- Part II: How to generate the competency of influencing the ‘operating
system’ to deliver the outcome of Part I. (Larger and widespread teams
require different expertise and tools.)

o How to develop the above two competencies by using multiple channels
(using multiple channels will help produce results in shorter time) like
- Organisational interactions such as meetings, mentoring and others
- Parenting
- Automatic sense-making in social interactions and media
- Development and pursuit of hobbies
- Fulfilling other responsibilities such as living with old parents,
developing friends, building social network

o Preparing diagnostics on
- How to diagnose ‘positions’ in an organisation for their absence/presence
of leadership potential (We do not need a leader if the same position can be
manned by a manager or administrator)
- Measuring Part I/Part II competencies ( continuously) in an individual to
identify and rectify the gaps

Post Script

The above definition of leadership has deeper insights for a leader in social arena, because a NGO executive, unlike a corporate executive, is forced to engage with open systems all the time. Because social initiatives are high on ‘passion and commitment’, but low on ‘practicality and results’ leadership development offers them a high leverage option. However, we shall not deal with it, because it will divert our attention from developing leaders in ‘organisational situations’.

References

James March, the researcher who conducted a course on Leadership for Stanford University for 14 years, writes after his experience that ‘Major Issues of leadership are indistinguishable from the issues of life”.

Having identified the challenges of development in a human being through my 5-year long research on career building ( the book of which has been published by Macmillan), I took this leap to define leadership.

Systems theory has been my primary vehicle of both understanding leadership and now, as I see it, developing leadership. Systems theory has also got very evolved and crystallized since 1990s. In contrast to earlier days, we can now use it to build and develop practical leadership skills.

Making leadership practice work

The real proof of pudding is in eating it. An erstwhile HR collegue challenged my definition of leadership by asking a simple question " Can you tell me if my position of VP-HR a leadership role or managerial role?". So I set about attempting to test my definition.

What 'should a VP HR do' in an organisation? Because he is not dealing with 'external customers' his external open system is defined by the 'business units' he is serving. So should we ask SBU heads 'what do they want from HR'? But this is like asking a question to a father 'what he wants from his child'. It is often a wish list which is devoid of any realistic understanding of the ground reality. So what can one do?

Perhaps, it is necessary to understand what 'businesses' is HR servicing. Only then, one can ask the next question, 'what one needs to do to hire/retain and develop the people required in that business unit'. When I did this quick analysis with my HR friend, we realised he is serving four different businesses whose skill-sets are entirely different. In other words he requires different HR policies for each of them, if he wants to service them meaningfully. We were both surprised that one HR policy was being used currently. We also realised that best answers of what should be done by HR, is best answered by experts in HR and other past VPs who have been in the same function earlier.

As we explored the question further, we discovered that this question of what should be done can be best answered by the internal stakeholders of HR who are currently serving these HR units. When we talked with them , we understood why business heads do not respect their judgement, why HR is still seen as a 'transactional provider', why HR is brought at the fag end of a conflict when the employee is just to leave. This made us realise that even if find 'what should be done' by HR, we still cannot 'execute it' because the organisation does not perceive HR to be an important function ( although all senior managers do not say it openly).

In other words, even before VP-HR can hope to do anything meaningful for the organisation, he cannot do so until the organisation system provides him enough 'power' to accomplish it. This meant that his first 'should-be' action must be 'gaining trust and credibility of the business units' before he can even meaningfully service those businesses. This is both an opportunity and constraint for him; opportunity- because it will give him more time to understand what should be done- and constraint - because he has to learn to be patient and wait for the right time to launch his plans.

As we explored this together, we realised that 'gaining credibility' is a far more meaningful objective for his system, than just rushing about, launching some new actions or doing something visible for the sake of it. Even this seemingly simple objective required a set of packaged cohesive initiatives to be implemented in next 3months. Contrast this with what a manager would have done.

A manager would be wanting to sit in the drivers seat and take charge from front. A leader however learns to wait for the right time and wait in the background till that time. A manager bangs his head against the wall and blames others for not responding to his initiative; while a leader by setting his expectation 'right' enables his team to 'synthesise' his team's energies and achieve 'traction' to set up the next move. A manager by taking wrong actions reduces his credibility ( making it difficult for himself for the next round), while the leader 'accumulates' small wins to generate 'credibility'. Although this is not a full fledged description of entire analysis, you can realise the difference between two roles starkly.

In other words, a position ( like VP-HR) offers both options: of practicing managerial and leadership roles. Which role one takes from the two is determined by the person's individual attitude and his/her skill set. Most of the individuals take the role of 'manager' by default, because they are ignorant of the other role. But, as i talked to my friend, we realised that this role is a 'culturally difficult choice' to take. Let us explore that difficulty in the next blog.

Measuring Leadership competency

One of my friend said that without being able to measure leadership competency, this idea will be difficult to implement. So today we shall explore the different ways of measuring the leadership competency, as we have defined it.

Measuring Part I competency of understanding external open system is quite simple. It is also called an ability to 'strategise' in a normal language. For a business manager, this competency therefore is quite straigtforward to measure.On the other hand, functional managers who deal with internal open system will find it difficult to measure their competency. How does one measure one's ability to find the right way of doing things internally in an organisation?

For instance, how should one launch an initiative of developing leaders in an organisation? This requires understanding of internal open system which managers/leaders often lack. Researchers call this 'change management'. This is not difficult to measure because one finds countless examples that can be used to assess this competency. For instance, how should BCCI have responded to the Harbhajan controversary?

If Part I competency is about understanding what 'should' one do, Part II competency is about understanding what 'can' one do. Assessing this understanding requires understanding of the recursive effects of actions, the interdependencies inherent in the sequencing of actions, the realistic understanding of the current situation without the bias, and often the symbolic effect of an action. This is more complex than Part I and may have to be decomposed a bit before one can assess it.

However the more difficult part in assessing Part II competency is knowing that Part II is not just 'understanding' content, but being able to 'act on it'. It is a skill. This therefore requires 'simulation of a situation' and can be quite difficult to measure. One can however take refuge in the knowledge that Part II competency is visible in the 'reportees', the 'colleagues' and above all the family members of the aspiring leader. Taking advantage of this consequence, one can do a 360 type of feedback and indirectly measure the leadership competency. Other visible indirect indicators like work-life balance, ability to react under stress, explanations of a leader can also be used as a substitute.

More importantly, one has to always remember that metrics can also lie if viewed outside their context. For instance, one should remember that when a leader is undergoing a transition, say from a functional manager to a business unit manager, one will not be able to display these competencies during the transition time. Ram Charan's six pasages of Leadership pipeline show such six transitions in the life of a leader.

In short, measuring the development of leadership competency in an aspiring leader is not difficult to determine, although some efforts will have to be taken to achieve this.

Learning Leadership

Today, let us take a different direction. If leadership is about learning to deal with open systems, what are we doing currently to teach it?

Part I activities are being taught by B schools. A MBA definitely learns how to develop a strategy. He knows the elements involved in developing the strategy and can find out quite easily what every competitor is doing and why. This is a big step in learning Part I. The second step is however quite difficult: finding a strategy (it is called developing business model) that will help his company sustain its competitiveness over a long period of time. After all, remember, nothing is difficult to replicate at the end. So it is about gaining the lead that is difficult to catch. For a fashion industry, lead of 6 months is difficult to catch. For a old industry it could be 6 years.

The difficulty of second step is apparent when you see two companies bashing each other with similar strategy. Pepsi and Coca Cola is a good example in India. They have been follow similar me-too strategies and bleeding profusely in India. But no one is backing out. Jim Collins reports in his book that the 12 leaders took a very long time ( about 8-12 years, I guess) to get the business models of their company right. So although the first step can be learnt, the second step requires understanding of the deeper dynamics of an industry to be able to evolve a significantly sustainable strategy.

Part II activities are taught in bits and pieces. Generating dialogue amongst the senior management team has been well researched and understood. Servant leadership is understood, although one does not know how to practice it in the real environment of a competitive corporate world. Performance appraisal systems to align individual goals to organisational goals are understood well but they are too static to deal with the challenges faced on the ground.

Work on rewards and incentives – based on Pavalovian model – unfortunately do not help us in influencing today’s individuals who want something ‘more’ from their jobs. It is therefore not surprising to find that jobs in social system, not based on salary and rewards but on voluntary commitment, are more easier to ‘man’ than a job in corporate world.

The biggest knowledge bottleneck is in designing the soft architecture of an organisation. We have understood a lot about it: about using vision, values, organization structural options, MBO, Balance Score card. But every element is a ‘part’. We do not know how to put together all the pieces in designing a ‘soft architecture’ of the organization.Researchers therefore throng to companies like SEMCO who have designed a different soft architecture, but fail to understand how it can be done in another company.

Instead, the trainers and the industry have taken an inside-out approach of teaching leadership qualities. It defines five, six or seven leadership traits as being ‘absolute’ and then proceeds to inculcate those ‘traits’ in their top executives. Assessment centres have been designed to assess and evaluate the ‘leadership qualities’. But this is just one half of the requirement. The second half - the capability to deal with the external or internal ‘system’ is not even understood – leave along ‘taught’ or ‘enabled’. We therefore have to rely on luck and chance to find our leaders. Rests remain as managers.

Refining Leadership: Attempt 3

Let us discuss two more observations emanating out of our definition of leadership.

One, in the corporate arena, most of the executives - pressurised by stock options, shareholders and Board - have to develop plans to show that they are at helms. In the process they develop 'me-too' plans that are unsustainable. They look back at their 'people' and say it is all about 'execution'. Execution therefore has become a buzz word of corporate success.

On the other hand, leaders rarely spend time on on developing Part II actions (which is about executing the Part I output) that can sustain the organisation, because Part II is about developing people; developing the soft architecture of the company to generate the requisite variety. Execution to these corporate executives is about 'controlling' everything that happens on the ship: the model of a Army commander. This is exactly the opposite of what leaders practice.

Two, this brings us to the second interesting dissonance of leader; their popularity. Popularity of leaders is almost antithetical to a good leadership practice. If you realise that a true leader is the one who is not even known by those she/he leads, the popularity acts as a significant dampener in practicing leadership. Tracy Kidder's book ( Soul of new machine) about the development of first mini computer clearly shows that people who were involved in the development did not even know who was spearheading the effort of computer development.

It is not surprising to note that even the leaders of the 12 best companies ( the companies which performed significantly above average for more than 7 decades) discovered by Jim Collins were not as popular as the others who were heard in the media.

Popularity of a leader makes 'one man/woman' become more responsible for the entire effort, and transfers the contribution made by a group of people to one person. Leader knows that is not what he has done, nor people involved in the effort believe that they are being led by anyone. The concept of Servant leadership is not new, and has been in vogue for quite a long time. Robert Greenleaf's book captures it quite well.

This is an interesting dilemma for a leader. In order to practice Leadership of Part II, a leader has to let go 'popularity' because people like to take charge of themselves instead of being led. If the leader however has to sacrifice popularity, then what is the end benefit to a leader? Why should a leader practice true leadership if he/she is not even getting any credit for the end result?

Could this be the reason why true leaders are difficult to find? Are we asking too much from them? Or is it pointing us to another quality of a leader: the quality that makes them give up 'credit' because they realise that they only played their 'role'. The quality of 'humility' emanating from the understanding that we human beings are after all 'elements' of a bigger system.

Refining Leadership: Attempt 2

Let me recapture the last week's attempt to refine leadership. We said that leadership practice requires two criteria to be met

Part I: Understand large open system ( of which the operating system is a part) to chose the 'mountain' ( that will enable the operating system to influence the open system in a sustained manner)
Part II: Enable the 'large operating system' to scale the mountain so that system elements follow appropriate course/path in a self-sustained manner ( which includes the ability to course-correct in a cohesive manner) irrespective of the changing circumstances( which may include the change of the mountain)

I know the definition is still too long and complicated. We need to achieve the simplicity without sacrificing the salient 'complexity' inherent in the definition. So let us explore the dissonances, three of part I and three of part II.

One, a CEO of a company selling ball bearing, exclusively to automobile industry, has to understand a large open system involved, as well as a CEO working in a General Motors. What is the difference? Intuitively, one can sense the difference. But we need to capture this difference in exact words.

Two, a senior executive heading an important support department like training or finance faces a different set of open systems to decide the mountain, while a senior executive of a SBU facing a customer faces different set of open systems to decide the mountain to scale. What is the difference in complexity? Once again, we can easily sense the difference, but we cannot define it.

Three, many executives lack the skill of first part. They follow 'me-too' strategies which can be replicated easily and therefore cannot be sustained. Or they just believe that 'hard work' alone can help them scale the mountain. In both cases, the leadership has suffered, although few analysts point it out.

Four, the second part assumes that the leader understands the current operating system 'realisitically' to determine what needs to be done. An entrepreneur often fails in understanding his/her realistic limitations as well as his/her team, while an executive often fails to understand the 'power' he or she realistically can muster to carry out the 'milestone actions' to reach the mountain.Does the executive need more 'leadership capability' because of this additional 'skill'? A leader practicing in a social arena needs this skill even more. Is this an important differentiator therefore?

Five, the ability to self-sustain the course to reach the action is often taken as an ability of the leader to develop his/her team which can function without him/her. We have seen many well intentioned initiatives suffer when the 'hero' leader leaves the team without developing his/her team sufficiently. Even best of the teams in the companies suffer from this malady; many small companies remain 'small' because of this lack. Should creating sustainable teams and organisations be an inherent task of a leader? The answer seems to be yes here.

Six, many strategies ( arrived after understanding the open system) are impractical to implement because they require many system elements to converge with the 'goal'. Mostly leaders are completely ignorant of how to achieve this. For instance, very few executives know how 'vision and values' can help many system elements to converge. Many leaders do not spend enough time in strengthening system elements, because 'action' is more preached than 'action plus thought'.

So here we are with six observations. Some are creating convergence, some divergence. But we are definitely few steps ahead of last week. Do you agree or disagree?

Refining Leadership further

Having defined leadership practice as a practice to influence open system in a sustained manner, i have been trying to find chinks in the definition. Is there a reason to refine?

One of my friend argues that we should not define leadership because we may fall in the pit of claiming that there is only 'one' definition of leadership. On the other hand knowledge cannot be built until one defines something 'precisely'. Not defining precisely makes it easier to claim 'anything and everything' as leadership, which is happening right now. So let us take the risk of defining leadership for the sake of creating knowledge.

If Leadership practice is influencing open system in a sustained manner, then influencing a 'close relationship' can also be termed as leadership. However we do not want to term ' managing relationship' as a leadership practice.

In order to arrive at a definition of leadership, let us say add one more criteria: that the system should be influenced by 'multiple' systems. But even a close relationship with spouse is influenced by multiple systems like finance, kids, friends and so on. This criteria is not enough to define leadership.

Let us add another criteria: System should be large. How do we define 'largeness'? Largeness can be defined by physical boundary, such as eco system. Eco systems are difficult to study simply because of their largeness. How does one define 'largeness' in a virtual system? We need to explore the definition of 'largeness'.

Largeness alone does not seem enough to differentiate leadership practice though. A freelance entrepreneur ( such as a doctor working in a clinic, or a photographer working in entertainment industry) also must understand the large system ( of which he is part of) to find how can he influence it in a sustained manner. What differentiates a freelance entrepreneur with an executive who is managing a large organisation?

It is the latter's ability to influence the 'internal open' system to execute the 'strategy' that he has deciphered from understanding the 'external open' system.

In other words, a leadership practice requires both the abilities: one, to understand the 'external open' system well enough to 'decide' what is required to influence, and two, the ability to 'execute' that decision by influencing the 'internal open' system.

'Execution' requires consensus of the direction to take. Imagine what Gandhiji could have gone through to develop a consensus that independence to India should be pursued by following the path of 'non-violence'.

Consensus is also required to create 'enough variety' in the system. 'Variety' is the ability to understand the requisite variables in the environment and respond appropriately. If variety is not enough, each person in an organisation may follow different path, halting the progress of an organisation in a specific direction. If too much time is required to generate the consensus though, the opportunity window may close. How to trade off? This is perhaps a bigger dilemma of a leader.

Let us explore this further in the next write up. Please feel free to share or pick holes in the argument.

Building leadership in companies

Leadership is a much misunderstood concept in corporate world. We are further confused with the different versions.

Trainers add to the confusion by 'labelling' many of their programs as 'leadership development programs'. They go a step further by claiming that leadership can be practiced at any level: junior, middle or senior. This is the Western view of human development: you can do anything if you have the willingness and drive to achieve it. This view creates heroic individuals who may perform heroic acts, but can also create deputees who cannot even think for themselves.

The confusion is fed by reluctance of researchers who refuse to define leadership. Researchers interview and study CEO's and political leaders, decipher common traits and behaviour, and claim to discover the common denominator of a leader without defining leadership. In their quest to define leadership traits, they may even forget that many of the CEO's and leaders they interviewed may have been 'adminstrators'.

Rudolph Giuliani's resurrecation of New York after 9/11 is one such example. Reviving a city/institution after such a tragedy requires extraordinary capabilities to bring together all stakeholders, chalk out an action plan and execute it. But is this leadership?

Is 'removing terrorism' same as 'removing terrorist'? Is countering the practice of anti dowry same as passing the 'anti-dowry' law in the parliament? Is instituting 'secured transport' in a city after 11 pm same as instituting police practices to catch criminals in the city?

If you observe closely the similarity in the second and first act, you will understand the concept of leadership. The first act requires understanding of ' interrelated systems', while the second requires understanding of 'linear systems'. The first act requires a far difficult juxtaposition of different initiatives and weaving amongst different stakeholders, while the second requires a 'one dimension action' against the dissidents. The first act requires dealing with dynamic complexity while the second act is dealing with static complexity.

In short, the first act requires the ability to deal with 'Systems'. ( please do not confuse system with department or process. It is a word which has precise definition, derived from a practice called Systems thinking.)More so it requires an ability to understand and deal with open systems and that too multiple systems at one time.

This is where we have a definition of leadership. Leadership practice is an ability to influence open system(s) in a sustained manner. Sustained manner means not just one time action; but an action which can be sustained after the initial trigger is off.

This definition tells us where leadership cannot be practiced. If, for instance, not a single system is 'kept' open at a junior level in a company, one may not be able to practice leadership at a junior position in that company. You will also realise that one may not be able to 'practice' leadership even at senior positions in certain organisations at certain times. For instance, in difficult times, one may just need to bring someone to 'rectify' the situation, such as Louis Gestener did when he was brought to revive IBM. Louis Gestener also had a wisdom to relinquish the position because he intuitively understood what constitutes leadership.

With a precise definition of leadership, HR can develop leaders and then also provide them the 'practice ground' to practice leadership. HR will know whom to expect to practice leadership and what it needs to do in an orgnisation to help them practice leadership. HR will set realistic expectations. HR will invest more carefully in training and developing the right people, instead of trying to practice it all levels.

Four steps to make learning effective

If learning is considered as a corrective step by an organisation ( based on my last week's definition of learning and development) to fill the gaps in competencies, we can exactly specify what can be done to make the learning effective and efficient. This is one of the benefit of defining vague terms like 'learning and development' in a precise manner. I suggest four steps that can make learning effective in an organisation.

First step is to diagnose the 'gaps' effectively. If, for instance, HR is told to fill the gap in team building, HR should avoid the temptation of conducting the 'one size all' team building program. Instead HR should meet the affected group and find 'the exact reason' that prevents 'team from gelling' together. It should ask tough questions to the affected group: why suddenly the team has got affected, find if new member joining the team has changed the equation, or if the team environment has been spoilt due to 'competition' arising from the impending appraisal time, or if new team member has been promoted as module leader, and so on. Very often HR avoids conducting the diagnosis which spells doom to the learning program right at the start. At the end of step one, the specific objectives of 'learning program' should be clearly spelt out.

Second step is designing the 'training program' to teach team building. Both the trainers and HR have a role to play in this stage. While trainer's role is to add games and ideas to increase the participation, HR's role is to bring context to the training lesson. For instance, a training program on interviewing skills should specifically bring the context of 'whether the interviewee is a fresher or an experienced professional'. By using mix of games, directed learning, and carefully drafted case studies ( studies based on organisational context) the training program can be made both enjoyable and instructing. Often the participatory aspect of design is overstressed at the cost of building requisite competency. The popularity of outbound programs is one of the offshoot of this trend. They are very enjoyable and fun, but fail to build any competency.

Third step is the offshot of the second step. It is designing the feedback form for the participants. Instead of the generic feedback form that asks for the content and quality, the feedback should specifically find if the objective of training program has been achieved or not. The feedback should specifically measure if the 'content and context' of the lessons have been understood by the participant. If necessary, a test may also be designed to ensure that the participants have learnt the requisite content and context.

Fourth step is ensuring that the participants are able to use the content+context in an appropriate situation. For instance, can the participants use the interviewing skills. This is the critical step in which the participants learn to apply the content in a specific situation and either fail or succeed in the application. It is here some support has to be provided either in the form of mentoring or on web. In case of interviewing skill, a company can keep a senior interviewer with the trainee interviewer to find how the trainee was applying the interviewing skill.

All these four steps need to be used to ensure that learning gaps are filled competently. Even if a learning program fails, one knows one has failed. Failure itself becomes a feedback to question everything. I know of a company who questioned the learning objective itself of their program on delegation.

Misunderstanding of data and knowledge can derail training

Training function is now called as Learning and development. It is my hypothesis that the new name is more apt because it balances both the organisational and individual needs.While learning can be organisation-centric, development can be individual- centric. Both are required to create a sustainable learning institution. Both are complementary to each other.

Learning is needed because organisational requirement drives the needs to teach individuals the gaps in technology, managerial or other competencies, while development is needed to align individual's goals to organisational goals. Learning effectiveness is higher if it is corrective while development effectiveness is higher if it is preventive. Organisation can use 'development' goals if it can anticipate issues that will crop up, while it can use learning goals to rectify the situation quickly.

Both learning and development can be problem centric or solution centric depending on the saliency of the situation. Both learning and development however have one feature in common: they are effective when they follow the path of data > information > knowledge.

Very often learning in an organisation stops at data stage, because training is downloaded without any 'context'. For instance a training program in presentation is conducted without bringing the context of inhouse team presentation,client presentation or presentation outside the team. All three contexts require different set of variables to learn. The same is true for programs in communications, delegation, time management and or interviewing skill.

Worse still, organisation provides little support for moving the learning into knowledge stage. If information is 'data with context', knowledge is 'information with action'. For instance, when a presentation is made to a boss/senior management, it is necessary to understand the 'background context' within which the presentation is being made: the expectations of boss, the possible questions of boss, the perception that boss carries about the issue at hand and the 'time' in which that presentation is being asked to made. All this determines whether the presentation will be effective or not. Without bringing the variables involved in 'situational action', one cannot make an effective presentation. This is the last stage of knowledge.

Surprisingly, very few training departments support this stage, hoping that individuals will cross this stage by themselves. They measure effectiveness of training program by asking a feedback from the participants immediately at the end of the program. This feedback, at the best, can capture if the participant have understood the 'contextual data'.

Some training departments capture the participant feedback after a delay of some period, say 3 months. This also fails to capture the real feedback, because participants can never say that 'training program was not useful'. They assume that it is their responsibility to apply the knowledge. When they fail, they wrongly ascribe this to their lack of effort. Training department never knows the effectiveness of their program.

If, however the path of data to knowledge is known and monitored, both types of training ( whether it is learning or development) can be made effective.

Does L&D really develop executives?

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.

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.

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?

Career management and HR

I gave a talk on my book 'The five myths of career building' ( published by Macmillan) to NIPM, Mumbai last month. The audience was HR managers and executives.

I had planned to cover at least 3 myths of career building during my two hour talk. However, I could cover only one myth: the myth of how employees use goals to build their career. Many participants shared their experiences of how goals mislead more than direct, how they are retrofitted to the past actions, how seemingly 'goalless' actions lead to a channelised path which later may be explained as well directed, how goals are meant for uni-skilled individuals, and how multi-skilled individuals in corporate world find this strategy of goal setting ineffective to build their careers. At the end the participants decided to have a one full day long talk at a future date, instead of hurrying up the 'talk'.

The host at the end summed up career managment's relevance to HR in a very insightful manner. He said " Career management is all about sustaining performance over a long period of life. And if HR is all about enabling employees generating and sustaining performance, how can HR not get involved in career management?"


Career management, as I have discovered, is about managing the interactions between work-life, personal- life and people-life. An organisation therefore has to 'enable' employees to manage their work-life while also helping employees negotiate the intended and unintended impact of people-life and personal-life on their work-life.

In earlier days, the organisational life and personal life had clear cut boundary. Today that boundary has got blurred due to many changes: advent of email and mobile means that even a holiday of employee can be intruded under emergency situations, 'globalised working' of 24/7 at different timings mean that one has to talk with a client at 11 pm IST, women working alongside with men means that lot of personal chores have to be finished during office hours and so on. All our lives are collapsing into one 'whole' , and therefore even career management is about managing the 'whole'.

Should CEO's salary be capped?

The Prime Minister's call to India Inc to trim salaries of top executives has got thumbs down from industry, even as CPM celebrated it as a validation of its critique of Manmohanomics.

Salaries are a product of demand dynamics, said Sunil Bharti Mittal, the just-elected head of the corporate club, the Confederation of Indian Industries. A head hunter pointed out that CEO compensation in India is nowhere the global standards. If the median pay of US CEO’s is $6.5 million per annum, Indian CEO’s only earn about $0.5 million per annum. Head hunters say that it is a seller’s market.


This brings us to the real question. “Is there a skill shortage at the top that is influencing the price of CEO?” Mittal categorically claims that there is shortage of skill at the top level and more specifically in the service sector, which is why pay packages of senior executives are high.

But if you look at an organization with an eye of an HR researcher, who is from organisational behavior lineage, this claim may not be justifiable.


If you look at an organization from inside, it comprises of hard architecture ( 3 S -strategy, structure and systems) and soft architecture ( that enables people to coordinate, prioritise, and decide). As hard architecture alone cannot alone respond to internal and external demands, organization needs soft architecture to absorb the ‘residual variety’.

If the ‘residual variety’ to be absorbed is high, then you require more integrators (euphemistically called as managers whom we hire at middle level, senior level and very senior level) to absorb this variety. It is senior level’s responsibility to design this hard architecture or adopt/adapt the right one.

If they do not adapt/adopt right architecture, then the entire ‘residual variety’ has to be absorbed by the soft architecture. For instance, take the example of Japanese. They ‘simplified’ the ‘complex’ manufacturing system (the Toyota way) so well that they could afford a flat ‘managerial structure’, because the entire variety was absorbed by the ‘first level’.

On the other hand, senior management in India (who are brought up on the staple diet of western management principles) do not spend time on designing the right hard architecture of the organization. Instead, they are more than likely to ‘pass’ the entire burden of ‘residual variety management’ to the soft architecture. They hire more middle managers to absorb the residual variety who essentially become ‘highly paid coordinators’. They work ‘overtime’ to sit in meetings to tie loose ends. They have to say ‘yes’ to all decisions, because people below do not have the ‘bandwidth’ to take those decisions. And naturally, because they work so long and so hard, often at the cost of their personal time, they justify higher salaries. Because they themselves are senior management, there is no one who can ‘challenge’ this logic.

This virtuous or vicious cycle (depending on which side you belong) is then nurtured and fostered by everyone. Juniors pass up all the decisions to the higher ups assuming that they do not know enough. Seniors keep on taking those decisions to justify their higher salaries. As juniors do not develop because of ‘passing up’, seniors feel even more righteous in not allowing juniors to take those decisions.

Board and shareholders want one head to be responsible. They therefore want ‘accountability’. This further nurtures centralised decision taking. New Systems are installed to establish this control. For instance, instead of ERP enabling front line people to absorb the residual variety, senior people use ERP to develop dashboards to get even more control over their first level. The cycle continues to be nurtured.

If you closely watch these top-heavy organizations you will find other symptoms: hero worshipping fosters high handed behavior of few, front line people feel more and more disempowered thus making the organization prone to slow reaction time, band-aid solutions that allow seniors to save face or produce immediate results are in demand, serious long term initiatives are run by mavericks in small divisions far away from central office, politics is nurtured because some decisions are bound to look ‘partisan’ even when taken in the best interest of the organisation.

When this soft architecture still cannot absorb the residual variety, the organization loses slowly and surely, like what is happening in the auto industry, or is taken over by another organization. Because everyone in the industry is facing the same ‘issues’, organization does not see any solution to this problem. When Jim Collins in his research of Good to great found that only 12 organisations managed to perform well over 75 years, and the leaders of these organizations were not the usual types, he found it intriguing. An organisational researcher would not be too surprised.

Surprisingly, designing hard architecture is not supposed to be a job of a leader even today. We love to have leaders who are flamboyant speakers who look great. We believe that leaders are those who take ‘quick action’ instead of deliberating on it. When our seniors take ten hours to meet us for ten minutes for an important meeting, we justify that they are very busy. When our seniors lack of timely decision delays our project, we take the blame on ourselves. Unwittingly, we foster this vicious cycle. This allows us to blame ministers and others for the ills and fortunes of our industry.

And if we belong to HR, whose job is to bring this to the light of all, we blame that HR is not getting its due respect.

How understanding career-development will be useful for organisations

After the book release of 'The five great myths of career building', one of the friend asked me how this will be useful for organisations.

One of the immediate area of application seems to be leadership development. The concept of leadership is so 'loosely' used in management research and books, and that too by well known researchers, that one is surprised.

If you look at a typical organisation, you will realise that individuals play two distinct functions. One is that of a doer ( programmer, salesman, accountant) and another is an integrator. Integrator integrates the doers to produce a 'marketable' and sustainable output. At the worst, an integrator can be a coordinator, at the best he is , what we all like to believe, a leader. The choice is not completely in the hands of the 'person' who is performing that function; it is also the design of the job position. If a job position is designed like a coordinator, a person will have very little lattitude to become a 'leader'.

But unmindful to this, organisations have 'leadership development programmes' for all managers. Even though some managers cannot perform a bigger role than coordinators, the organisation expects them to be a leader. Every manager is put through the leadership development program, and then expected to display 'leadership' qualities. When most of them cannot do so, they are blamed for not taking the initiative, for not thinking out of the box. Managers also stop taking 'leadership development' seriously. They attend these programs only when they are at exotic locations or when they are at Harvard.

Managers are expected to learn from these programs and become leaders. Some companies become even more aggressive. They run competency tests, identify the gaps to become a leader, and conduct programs to fill the gaps. Although we know that no 'leader' is a perfect person, every manager is 'moulded' to become a perfect leader. Some twist themselves to change, some just show that they have learnt. No one can question the wisdom of a company which is spending huge amounts on 'developing them'.

One way to come out of the this conundrum is to understand human development, or what i call career development. Every individual has a different trajectory of development. An individual may or may not be able to develop the required leadership qualities in a given timeline. Luckily, organisations also require 'leadership' qualities on a wide range of spectrum, because each job position of manager is different. Organistions can therefore easily assimilate them.