Inspiring goal / task ownership

Q. How does one inspire others to take ownership of a task or a goal?

Creating or identifying the 'Whats' in it for me?' from the other person's point of view should motivate him / her to take ownership of the respective task / goal. Of course, this is much easier said than done and is insufficient by itself.

Inspiring the individual is a bigger challenge and goes hand-in-hand with providing the right motivation / incentive. There are often situations when an individual understands and accepts the fact that he/she needs to own up to something. But the individual concerned may not be inspired enough, simply due to perceived conflicts in the business environment, organizational culture, belief and value systems. For instance, if an employee believes that his/her manager is not going to give him/her a fair performance appraisal despite a stellar performance... the employee will not have the drive to achieve the goal (however compelling it may seem) as he/she has given up even before starting. So creating a healthy corporate Eco-system sans contradictions will go a long way in providing the much needed inspiration. Understandably, the larger the organization the more difficult it gets to get the right culture within the organization and weed-out unhealthy politics, wrong perceptions and the wrong people.

This explains why there are so few truly great teams and organizations.

My answers to interesting questions on Quora

Leadership and Team Diagnostics

Q. Leadership and Team Diagnostics
If you were to choose a diagnostic for leaders and for teams to gain great insight into their patterns of behavior - what would be your criteria?

My first choice would be to define the criteria for the team and then for the respective leader. If the team is in great form, half the battle is won in advance.

The diagnostic for the team should be able to answer the following key questions:
1) Do team members individually and collectively behave in a way that is consistent with the values of the organization?
2) If yes, under what circumstances would it hold good and what are the derailers?
3) Given the business environment, does the team collectively display behaviors that would more or less ensure successful completion of critical organizational goals?
In summary, is the team the RIGHT team to take the organization from point A to point B under current circumstances?

Based on the insights from the above questions, the diagnostic for the leader should be able to answer the following questions:
1) Does the leader behave in a manner that propels the said team towards goal attainment or away from it?
2) If circumstances turn unfavorable, would the leader still be able to steer the team towards success?
3) Most importantly... does the leader 'walk the talk'?

Customer Engagement

Q. Engaging consumers, not just trying to control them.
How can a company proactively engage their consumers to a point that they will become an integral part of products & services launches, and build up better businesses practices on a win-win scenario?

The very basic and essential thing to do is to 'listen' to your customer, even in areas that may not be directly related to your offerings. Listening does not mean having to obey. It also does not mean that the customer is always right.

Generally speaking, if there is a layer of 'dialogue' built into all customer touch points, you are creating those many opportunities to listen to a customer.

You could apply the layer of dialogue / interaction with the customer asking the 5 basic questions of what, why, when, where, and how during the 3 main stages of customer experience. viz:
(1) Before using your product / service
(2) While using your product / service
(3) After using your product / service

The dialogue / interaction that I'm referring includes obvious methods such as C-Sat surveys as well as hidden, non-obvious data points such as consumer behavior. Appropriate analysis of these data points will tell you what the customer is saying... but are you listening? :-)

HR having access to HR data

Q. Should people in HR have access to data belonging to others in HR?

Human Resource professionals are after all people just like you and me. They are as likely to have prejudices, preferences and political agendas as their colleagues from any other department across the organization. Infact data suggests that people working within the Human Resources function are as likely to jump jobs, as their counterparts from any other department.

So my answer is a 'YES' for all kinds of data pertaining to their juniors only. It would NOT be prudent to let HR professionals have access to highly sensitive data such as compensation, performance rating, etc. pertaining to their peers and superiors within the same HR function.

Building block for continuous innovation

Q. What are the building blocks for delivering continuous innovation?
What are the most important factors in creating an innovative culture and delivering continuous improvements/growth?

The fundamental questions even before this question may be...
(A) Which are the areas that really need continuous innovation
(B) At what speed or rate is continuous innovation really needed in each of these areas? For instance, it may take time for certain ideas, plans, actions, products to start showing results. Premature re-invention / innovation may do more harm than good.

Answers to the above questions actually help in identifying the precise building blocks for continuous innovation in various departments within an organization.

But in general...
(1) I would say that the 'pursuit of excellence' is at the very core of driving innovation, hence a fundamental building block for continuous innovation. People who are result oriented and highly quality conscious need not be told to be innovative. They will innovate, despite you.

(2) The environment (policies, org structures, work culture, reward and compensation structures, etc.) is the next most potent building block. For instance, we know that some companies value loyalty and tenure and somewhat willingly put up with complacency and mediocracy, though they may not openly admit to doing so. In some places, beuracracy impedes continuous innovation. In some places the compelling need to show increasing revenue / profits every quarter restricts continuous innovation.

(3) Lastly, courage and the ability to take calculated prudent risks is an important building block. Forget fancy techniques for continuous innovation at large organizations... how many of us have the guts to giveup what we have to start from scratch and make the best of ourselves, despite knowing that thats' what we need to do?

Validating vendor credibility

Q. How to recognize Self-Proclaimed Internet/Social Media Experts? How to avoid them?

Their experience and clientele should give you the first indication of their capabilities. However, this may seem discriminatory towards those who are new to the business and want an opportunity to prove themselves. So I would typically ask a social media expert to set and meet certain targets. Measurable results speak for themselves.

How to avoid fake experts? There are plenty of ways, depending on what kind of impression you would like them to have of you, after the rejection.

Handling non-responsive clients

Q. Client Handling Query.
I am a self employed professional and working for IT outsourcing company. We got couple of big projects last month and after completing every formality the development team started working on them. Before project startup, the clients were in regular contact and giving timely replies. But, now whenever I ask them to send their comments on a milestone they use to reply very late which is effecting our schedule and developer keep on waiting for comments.

A. I'm assuming that you are doing all you can to get their response... but it is simply not working. This is a classic problem even within organizations.

Hence, the SLAs that I have with clients clearly state that there would be a penalty involved if a client delays response beyond a point. Either, I would let go of a dedicated resource, or I will put the project on HOLD for a certain duration of time or I will bill the client at a certain rate for blocking my time and keeping it idle.

Typically I would re-instate these terms to all stakeholders concerned at the beginning of the engagement itself. That would also give me a fair sense of how the client is going to respond to such terms.

Resorting to legal help is the very last resort, as such a move may almost ensure that you do not get any more business from this client... at least in India.

Understanding your client

Q. What can I do to help lead our company up and out of here?

We are a service organization and need our people understanding our customers better. We provide a lot of data, systems and consulting to support this very thing but our metrics seem to be pegged and immovable.

Understanding the client = being in business... particularly for a services organization.

Hence assuming your customer information systems are in place (though I'm a bit skeptical here) AND assuming that you have the right metrics in place (are you sure?) you may want to clearly define what it means to understand your customers well, across job bands and roles.

i.e. only if an employee meets these standards can he/she claim to 'understand' the client. This will remove all ambiguity and subjectivity.

From this point on, it should be fairly straightforward and you should see the CSat and sales go up.

Political savvy at the workplace

Q. How can a manager help his/ her team member build political savvy at the workplace and when done, how can you measure improvement?

The manager could assign shared goals to his/her team members wherein it becomes necessary to work with cross functional teams for goal achievement. While this approach is used at many companies to meet overall business goals, employees improve their own political savvy in the process. Achievement of these shared goals should be a fair indicator of political savvy.

The degree of collaboration towards the achievement of such shared goals would be a good indicator of the degree of political savvy demonstrated. How did individuals from different teams negotiate their respective parts in the equation? Which individuals from different groups got along well and which ones did not? How did they negotiate different priorities?... these areas can be measured objectively while trying to access who has been able to improve their political savvy at work.

The new manager

Q. What is good advice for a new manager?
What piece of advice would you offer to people new to people-management?

There are several books written that directly and indirectly answer this question. So based on my experience managing people for the last 10 years... let me zero in on the key area that a first time manager I believe should focus on.

Genuinely trusting the subordinate to be able to do the job he/she is supposed to do (and demonstrating this trust) is fundamental to a healthy long-term relationship and building a solid team. As an individual contributor, one is normally used to 'doing the job'. But as a manager, asking someone else to 'do the job' is a huge attitudinal shift that first time managers struggle to come to terms with.

Infact, this is the kind of work we do with participants at our Out Bound Training / experiential learning programs http://www.aspect9consulting.com

Q. What if Lord Buddha becomes a Sales Person?

We would all become 'enlightened' buyers :-)

My answers to interesting questions on LinkedIn.

Cross-departmental collaborations

Q. What is the best way to foster better cross-departmental collaboration as an organization grows?

It is said that families who eat together stay together, we see this philosophy extending to the work place as well. Encouraging this informal bonding could be the backbone to fostering connections between individuals... which would eventually lead to collaboration across groups and departments.

Having shared goals with measurable targets across functions / departments would cement such informal efforts.

On a lighter note, one of my earlier managers once commented that she almost felt compelled to encourage the frequent smoke breaks that people took, several times a day. You often notice people bonding over a cigarette discussing politics, personal lives and a ton of other topics... including work. A rather valid observation she (my ex-manager) made !

Social media for Education Industry, in India

Q. What encourages Education Industry for going Social?

Location specific: India

Any educational organization's (school, college, institute, etc.) primary objective is to ensure appropriate employment to it's students. Using social media to fulfill this objective would certainly be the greatest source of encouragement.

Handling virtual teams

Q. What is the best piece of advice you would give a manager of a virtual team (located in other cities)?
Many managers now have team members scattered geographically.They may have limited opportunities to meet in person. These teams may relay on social media, email, telephone conference calls, and web conferencing to meet. How can they avoid miscommunication, unclear expectations, and conflict? What is the best piece of advice you would give this manager? 

Try and make your performance management system as objective and transparent as possible. This will build trust across your team members, irrespective of geography. i.e. Your team members from other locations will not get insecure over your not being around them to appreciate their good work at all times. Every other team and people management principle is a technicality from this point on, i.e. once the foundation of trust is firmly in place.