Coming to work, leaving your personality behind

Q. Would you work in a place where you are expected to leave your personality at the door when you come in to work?

I almost certainly wouldn't if it were to do with leaving behind my core values; but personality?... maybe, maybe not. In most cases, it normally isn't about leaving behind your entire personality, but parts of it.

For instance, I've worked at a place where if you laughed out loud in the main office area, people stared at you as if you committed a crime. One employer behaved as if getting in to work at the right time every day was way more important than what you did as the day progressed. Another firm where I worked seem to believe that creativity only happens between 9am and 5pm.

On the flip side, there were times when I distinctly disliked my workplace. But I knew deep inside that if I had to overcome certain typical personality traits (eg. my need to be 'right' and be 'accepted' at all times), leaving them at the door was the only way out. This actually helped me grow and worked in my favor in the long run as it resonated with my values, more than my ego. Infact, some of our more traumatic experiences bring out the best in us. A common situation is when a super shy individual contributor is promoted to a managerial position, and now she can no longer escape from having to speakup in senior management meetings.

By the way, at times that part of your personality that you left behind has it's way of sneaking in from the window. A lot of it has to do with the kind of friends you end up making and the circumstances you create for yourself at your work place.

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Moving up to senior management

Q. What are the best strategies to move up quickly to senior management?

Very bluntly put, the right strategy for you would be largely dependent on the organization you are in and the prevalent ecosystem. Here are some of the strategies that have worked for me, more than once:

• Go significantly beyond your call of duty.
  Provide objective evidence that you have delivered more than what was expected of you. What matters is the results you produce, and not just the effort you put in.
• Demonstrate the competency needed for a specific senior role that you may be eyeing.
  This can be best done by actually delivering consistently on a KRA (Key Result Area) that is typically the domain of senior management in your company.
• Pick proven best practices in other industries and custom fit them to your organization's unique challenges to produce results that you need.
  This will establish you as a quick learner and a creative leader.
• Build a healthy rapport of trust and dependability across your peer and cross-function groups.
  Your subordinates may sing your praise, but you are taken even more seriously when your colleagues publicly acknowledge your help at her/his time of need and refer to you as the 'go to' person.
• Escalate against your biggest client if truly required.
  Having the courage to stand up for what is right and push back appropriately (and respectfully) will set you apart from the rest of the breed who bend backwards to over accommodate. The icing on the cake is if you can provide an alternative solution, with an implementation plan... not just push back and stay put.

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Dealing with toxic people

Q. How do you deal with toxic people (bullies, snobs, control freaks, whiners, etc.) you just cannot avoid?

I'm assuming that,

• you have emphatically stated that you do not appreciate a particular behavior or trait, yet you see no change.
• You have at least a vague idea of why the toxic person is toxic (is it his personality type, or some deep insecurity, or frustration, or some deep rooted belief, etc.)
• You know the triggers (situations, behaviors, time of day, etc.) that could elicit an extreme display of the behaviors you so deeply abhor.

Here are some strategies (listed in no particular order of priority) that could work:

1. Minimize opportunities for the undesirable behavior to show-up.Unless you are a trained psychologist or directly responsible for this individual's output, why bring up more of something that you clearly are unable to handle in the first place.
2. Add someone else into the equation.i.e. someone who could neutralize or at least limit the degree of the toxicity. For instance, if a customer tends to get nit-picky with every single line on your status report, inviting your manager and your customer's manager into the review meeting may help move on and close the meeting on time.
3. Mirror the other person's physical stance for immediate results.
   If your boss is furious and is just hammering on... mimic the body posture, decibel level and breathing rhythm that is being displayed. Now that you both are on the "same page", gradually alter your stance and calm your own breathing to sub-consciously alter your bosses' physical stance as well. Notice that it is very difficult to breathe deeply and slowly and be angry at the same time.
4. Give the person a taste of his own medicine.
   This strategy is similar to the one above, but works when you want to highlight a certain trait or pattern that cannot be done in a single instance. The idea is to hold a mirror in front of this person and pull it back at the right time. Genuinely empathizing with the individual once he has experienced the "Oh $#!+ !" moment could help in fostering a much better relationship in the long run.

Use your own judgement on when to use which approach and detox your life.

A note of caution:
At times you may feel that this individual is successful in spite of such bad behavior. You may be tempted to overlook your better judgement and actually mimic the toxic behavior at display to be successful, just like that arrogant colleague who keeps screaming at the top of his voice and actually gets things done. 

Please avoid this trap !

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Telling NO to the client

Q. How do you tell your client that her suggested product feature is actually a bad idea?

It is important that you and your client start any kind of negotiation after getting on the same page. Reinstating the projects' goals and objectives can be a great starting point. One can easily get swayed by new trends, fads, and influences and hence it is critical to stay grounded and focused on the end result.

Keeping that end goal in mind, you should first re-evaluate your own perspective on the matter. Now if you still believe that the client's revisions are counter productive... you will be in a better position to objectively explain your perspective to the client.

Sometimes, things are not as black and white. The client's suggestions may appear to be the right thing, but your gut may not let you accept your client's perspective, call it experience or plain intuition. You probably just 'know it' and cannot articulate "why" in clear terms. This is where your client management skills are put to test. If you have a healthy working relationship with this client (i.e. one of trust), you may be able to express your opinion honestly and your client will trust your judgement.

The ideal solution in such a scenario is to attach some kind of measurement / validation over a period of time to prove your point. That way if you make the changes recommended by your client and the objectives / targets are not met, it is clear to both parties on whether or not the decision taken was an appropriate one. In fact, armed with the recent data, it is easier to get the client's nod, make any course correction and move in the right direction.

Hopefully the next time round, the client will trust your decision more readily.

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Problems that are harder than they look

Q. What are some problems that are harder than they look?

Depends on your state of mind and circumstances while looking at these problems.

• Holding it in for 2 more minutes while your bladder is on the verge of  explosion > and the client continues to ask the same questions that you answered 10 minutes back.
• Getting stuck in traffic while you are already behind schedule for an important meet
  > and the fuel indicator displays a near empty tank status.
• Being polite to the tele-sales caller at the other end after you have politely declined
  > for the third time in 3 hours.
• Sending a sensible reply to your irate boss over email > when your 2.5 year old is trying to climb all over you.
  
  ... the list can go on, but you get the point right?

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Self generate or outsource content creation?

Q. Should a startup grow its own content or use another company's content?

The fundamental questions that precede your main question are...

1. How CRITICAL is the content to the success of your startup?
2. Do you know precisely WHAT content you need?
3. Do you know who exactly is the TARGET AUDIENCE for different types of content?
4. Do you know what content CONSUMPTION PATTERNS will work for different consumer types?
5. Lastly, how CAPABLE is your startup in generating such content?

Assuming content is critical to your startup's core product / service, you may want to have better control and therefore generate your own content. You could however get creative on the execution strategy to keep your overheads low. While you work on your content strategy (that would emerge from the above questions)... you could outsource the creation part.

For instance, you could define the subjects, word count, target audience, and other parameters for your blog page and outsource the actual blog writing work to experienced professionals.

Some of the content may also be sourced (via appropriate channels) from external sources like another blog, website, or company... as long as it fits into your strategy and budget. You may then filter out what you need and present it the way you want to on your website, blog, etc.

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Clients with stubborn choices

Q. How should one handle working with a client that chooses to handle all conflicts via email?

I assume that you have explicitly tried to talk to the client in person or on phone... with minimal or no results. I also assume that the client is important to you / your business and that you are willing to invest what it takes to improve your relationship in a professional, ethical and legal manner.

For the moment, I recommend that you continue to use the client's preferred mode of conflict resolution (email in this case) while consistently yet gently nudging the client to an alternate mode/s of your choice.

At the same time, do a proper RCA (Root Cause Analysis) to understand why the client behaves this way. Some critical questions to consider are:

1. Are there other modes of resolution being used besides emails, by specific individuals and/or teams at the client's end... maybe occasionally?
2. Is this behavior displayed by a specific individual or a group of individuals / department at the client's organization?
3. Is this mode of conflict resolution noticed while your client interacts with an individual, or with a specific team within your organization?
4. Has this always been the client's preferred mode or has it changed lately?
5. You say 'all' conflicts, but is that really true? Is there a pattern in the nature and severity of conflicts being dealt with strictly via emails?
6. Does this client behave only with you in this way?
7. How important are you to the client in question?

Answers to these questions, should lead to further related questions till you reach the end of the rabbit hole.

Good luck !

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Measuring management quality

Q. How do you measure management quality?

The ability to accurately measure management quality is directly proportional to the clarity with which management objectives and goals are pre-defined.

You will typically see well defined goals and objectives in mature (not necessarily large or old) organizations. i.e. ones that have well defined processes, roles and responsibilities, performance benchmarks and competencies defined at different levels across different functions.

If you are having a hard time objectively appraising managers, I suspect that the pre-work i.e. setting of clear goals and KPIs is not yet done. The precise KPIs for management quality in "your organization" would be very specific to the org structure, goals and overall vision of "your organization". i.e. a copy-paste from anywhere else will not work.

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Improve your problem solving & analytical skills

Q. How does someone improve their problem solving & analytical skills?

There are probably an infinite number of ways that will work, let me list down a few that have worked for me.

1. Define and redefine the problem statement till you are 100% convinced that "this" is indeed the problem.
2. Focus on the problem when you are in the most relaxed state of mind (alpha state).
3. Who are you most inspired by, living or dead? How would he/she have fixed this problem?
4. Play a lot of chess.
5. Imagine the worst possible outcome and see that you solutions are not that bad after all. i.e. weed out the fear of failure first.
6. Use the 'Six Thinking Hats' approach.
7. Take on projects / jobs that push you out of your comfort zone.
8. Pick problems to resolve that you are disconnected from.
9. If you have hit a saturation point without a solution, just move on to a totally disconnected topic.
10. Watch TV shows where participants are debating over problems, try answering tricky questions as if you were in the participant's shoes.
11. Meditate.
12. Write down the problem you are trying to solve and then a list of possible solutions with paper and pen / pencil.
13. Ask someone who you think is better than you with respect to the problem (may be your boss, your colleague, a relative, college prof., etc.) for solutions. Do this even if you may have resolved the problem.
14. Take short breaks between intense work sessions.
15. If you catch yourself not having smiled for a few hours do what you can to change that, a hearty laugh at least once a day is important.

let me know if any of these were particularly helpful.

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Handling mediocre-but-(I-know-it-all) guys

Q. What is a better way to address Mediocre-but-(I-know-it-all) guys around?

Assuming you have a reasonable counter opinion or argument, here is what you could do (scripted for easy rehearsed re-production).

You say: "Really??" 
Display surprise, intrigue, anxiousness, fear or any such strong emotion in your tone and facial expression depending on the context and situation. This should disturb the mental state of supremacy being displayed by Mr. Know-it-all.

You say: "Thats' interesting"
This will ensure that you have your listener's full attention

Now state your point-of-view in a matter of fact, yet innocent and confident tone, as if seeking approval or clarity... since you are confused / concerned / alarmed / worried thanks to the piece of advice dished out by Mr.know-it-all. 

By doing this, you are not hurting his ego, and yet breaking his resistance to another perspective. Projecting a state of subtle vulnerability also invariably instills a sense of responsibility into the other person's sub-conscious. At the very least, he will re-consider his perspective in the light of what you have just shared. 

This may not drastically alter Mr.Know-it-all's cocky attitude, but he will surely be better behaved with you around.

Go on... have fun :-)

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Fitting in

Q. How do I quickly fit into a new job?

There are several ways, let me just focus on the two most important ones.

1. The "WHAT"
Ask your manager what he/she expects of you and by when. Keep that constantly in your active awareness as you go through your day at work and outside of work. You will automatically find yourself observing, learning, saying and doing things in alignment with what's being expected of you.

2. The "HOW"
Besides all active interactions with your colleagues, notice the unspoken laws and chemistry between people at the work place. Observe how people are going about their day in the office. who comes in when, who stays back late, who spends time with whom, who occupies the meeting rooms most of the time, who prefer working by themselves, who are the whiners, who smile the most, whats' on the display boards around the office, who sits where especially in team meetings, the tone of emails internally and so on. Over time, you will be able to clear out individual personality traits and start noticing patters that emerge as the underlying prevalent cultural ecosystem. 

Embrace this "How" and focus on delivering the "What" and you will "fit in" in no time. However, the real question you want to start asking is whether you really want to "fit in"?

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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.

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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? :-)