The EYES of a Leader...

The EYES of a Leader...

The Mahabharata tells the story of a kingdom where the royal couple has no EYES. The king, Dhritarashtra, was blind and his queen, Gandhari, blindfolded herself. The result: children who were unobserved. The father cannot SEE; the mother chooses not to SEE. The children grow up with a warped value system. Since no one is seeing them, they feel they can get away with anything. As a result the law of the jungle reigns supreme in the kingdom of Dhritarashtra. A woman is publicly disrobed and lands are grabbed by force.


Leaders must have the EYES to SEE his people. He must recognize them for who they are, rather than what he wants them to be. More often than not, leaders don't have EYES – or rather they SEE only themselves. Their EYES are only for their vision of the world. They do not realize there are others around them with other visions of life. This lack of EYES strips them of all empathy. Everything is measured and valued against their narrow vision. Those who support, praise and align with their vision are good; while those fail to do so or provide constructive criticisms are bad. Intellectual leaders with an intellectual outlook of things therefore look down upon people who are not intellectual. Emotional leaders keep advising non-emotional team members to transform for their betterment. Task oriented leaders do not value people oriented team members and vice versa. In other words, they SEE nothing but themselves and constantly seek themselves in others. They notice no one else. They SEE others as they SEE themselves.


The ability to recognize and nurture talent is often missing in people who are assumed to be leaders by their respective organizations. Some leaders recognize talent but do not know what do with it. Others, envious of talent, reject or ignore them deliberately. Some leaders recognize talent but do not know what do with it. Others, envious of talent, reject or ignore them deliberately. The character Karna in the Mahabharata is a case in point. Karna was always seen as a charioteer's son and never as a great archer by the Pandavas. It was Duryodhana who saw Karna's talent but used him unfortunately for his villainous goals. This is what happens to talented people who are rejected in organizations or in countries – they end up with competitors. These talents are like stallions, they know their value and can move anywhere with tremendous speed. The leaders must have the EYES to spot and develop talents within their organizations.


In the Upanishads, it is said that it is an observer who creates an observation. It is our attention that creates the world around us. Likewise, it is the EYES of the leader that creates an organization around him. In Mahabharata Dhritarashtra's lack of sight and his wife's refusal to SEE created the Kauravas. It is not so much about sight as it is about attention – how much attention do we put in people around us.


As leaders, do we SEE people around us and pay attention to them? Do we SEE what they SEE? Do we try and align our vision to theirs or do we simply impose our vision onto them? It is time for leaders to open their EYES to these questions, otherwise they should not be in leadership positions.

Source: Dr Devdutt Pattanaik

The BUS DRIVER

The BUS DRIVER

CEOs Must Know How to Drive the BUS…

If an organization is a bus, then the CEO must know how to drive the bus. The CEO must be able to get the right people onto the bus, get the wrong people off the bus and set the direction for the passengers.


Get the right people onto the bus. I think this is a key concept that most organizations do not do well at all. How can you achieve success if you have the 'wrong' team? One of the mistakes most organizations make when they recruit is to select people based solely on their technical qualifications and skills. This is important, but I would suggest a better option would be to select based more on behavioral rather than technical skills. I would rather employ a manager with satisfactory technical skills but with an excellent attitude rather than the most technically qualified manager, but with a terrible attitude. Working in organizations is not only doing your work well but importantly, interacting and assisting other people in doing their work well too. In a nutshell, the right people would be people with the right skills/competencies, attitude, team players and critically, those who can take your organization to the next level. In the process make sure that the right people in your organization are also sitting in the 'right' seats in the bus! And finally, make sure you are the right driver; otherwise, the right people may get off the bus prematurely at the next stop!!


Get the wrong people off the bus. How do you get rid of your employees who are constantly underperforming or are the deadwood in the organization? I would suggest that you can do this by borrowing an idea from Jack Welch when he was the CEO of GE. He ranked all his employees into three categories, category A were the high performers, category B were those who had the potential but lacked certain skills and experience, and lastly category C were those who were underperforming. Every year, managers had to brief their superior about actions they had taken in relation to people in category C. Termination was always an option that was considered because one bad apple can make a whole team under-perform, which is usually disastrous. Marcus Buckingham in his book, "First break all the rules", says that most CEOs spend a lot of time on underperformers when if they spend the same time on high performers, the returns would be so much greater. Although it is difficult to terminate people, however not terminating them would be more disastrous option for your organization. Please also remember that even if you have excellent goals and strategies, but with the wrong people on the bus, you will continue to achieve mediocre results.


Set the Direction. When you board the bus, you always want to know where the bus is going. If you are not aware, then it is most certain that you will feel uncomfortable. Bus drivers must therefore always keep their passengers informed. It is okay to change direction every once in a while, because passengers understand the volatile state of the business environment and the need to change course. They however would like to always be kept informed of the 'new direction', so that they can work towards assisting the driver to reach the new 'destination'. When you are kept in the 'dark' there is nothing much you can do to assist the driver. Vision/mission statements and organizational strategies must therefore be made known to everyone in the bus inclusive the ones at the lower levels!! I have many times in the course of my work, seen vision/mission statements that were there to be used more as marketing tools and also because 'everyone is doing it', rather than as a tool to drive the organization. Ask your management team today about what your organization's vision/mission statement is and I am most certain 90% will not know!! Think about it! If you do not know where you are going, how can you get there!!


Source: Jim Collins

The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle

The Peter Principle concept was introduced by Dr. Laurence Johnston Peter in his book of the same title. The concept of this principle is that in organizations, new employees typically start in the lower ranks, but when they prove to be competent in their job, they get promoted to a higher rank and to a new job. This process goes on indefinitely, until the employee reaches a job where he or she is no longer competent! Although incompetent, they are kept in the job as it is very difficult to 'demote' someone. The net result is that most of the management levels of a bureaucracy can be filled by incompetent people, who got there because they were quite good at doing different work than the work they are currently expected to perform.

As an example, it is usual for organizations to promote their best sales person to a management position. The nature of the new job however is totally different i.e. managing a sales force. The sales person may be very good at doing sales but falls short when it comes to managing people. Hence he has been promoted to a job that he is incompetent in, triggering the concept of the Peter Principle.

How many times have we seen this principle being demonstrated in organizations? How many times have we all some times wondered about how certain people got promoted to their present positions? Ironically they are there not because they are good at their present job, but because they were good at their past jobs. And the trouble with people like these is that they then carry on doing the tasks involved in 'their past jobs' because they cannot do their present ones well. How many times have we seen managers go on and on about the font and format of a report rather than the substance of it; How many times have we seen a sales manager trying to teach a sales person how to sell when his priority should be drawing up sales strategies for his sales force: How many times have we seen CEO's getting involved in the administration of the annual dinner when the mission statements and strategies for the organization have yet to be drawn up. The list is endless. There is no escaping this concept in organizations.

However a good way to overcome this would be to ensure that whenever a person is promoted, it is ability in the future job that will play a critical role in the promotion process, and not ability in his present job. I must admit that this is easier said than done!

Related article:
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/manager/2006/12/11/stories/2006121101301000.htm

Measure your True Efforts…

Measure your True Efforts…

Shivangi was a God loving young girl. Unlike most of her peers she would spend a lot of time in prayer and devotional singing. Her parents married her to a boy from a very good family. Much to her dismay, Shivangi learned soon after her wedding that her husband Abhay was a compulsive alcoholic and had no interest in anything Godly.

Every evening when Shivangi would sit down to offer prayers to the Lord, Abhay would abuse her and show his annoyance. He would ask her to sit with him and give him company because he loved her so much. Shivangi had to give up her evening prayer routine to please her newly wed husband.

As months and years passed, Shivangi slowly persuaded her husband to let her sit for her evening bhajan for an hour everyday. He had grown more considerate because of the love and affection she showered on him. He was also drinking lesser because she impressed upon him time and again about the evils of alcohol.

Every evening Abhay would sit down to have his drink, but he would miss his wife's company. He kept thinking of her. He kept visualizing her in the prayer room, singing bhajans. Time and again he would wait for the hour to be over, so that she would come and join him.

In the prayer room, Shivangi would play the Harmonium and sing for the Lord. But, her thoughts would drift towards her husband. In her minds eye, she would picture Abhay, taking one drink after the other. She prayed to the Lord, to change her husband's habits. Months passed like this.

One night, Shivangi had a dream: Abhay and Shivangi were kneeling before the Lord.

God said: Shivangi, Abhay is more devoted to me than you. Shivangi: Lord! How is that possible? I sing your glory, but he drinks all evening.

God: When you are physically in the prayer room, you are mentally drinking. You think only of Abhay. "The drink is in you and you are in the drink."

But, when Abhay is drinking, he constantly thinks about prayer and bhajan. He even mentally sings the songs he imagines you to be singing. "The prayer is in him and he is in prayer."

Shivangi: But Lord...!

God: No my child! It is only when you remember me from the core of your heart that you can feel that "I am in you and you are in me." Prayer is talking to God. The time you spend in 'prayer' is of no significance unless you are able to establish the connection that makes you feel that, "God is in you, with you and around you!"

"What counts is not the number of hours you put in, but how much you put in the hours."


Contributed By Rakesh Bisht


yoginAm api sarvesAm mad-gatenantar-AtmanA
sraddhAvAn bhajate yo mAm sa me yuktatamo mataH (Gita, 6.47)

Man-manA bhava mad bhakto mad yAjimAm namaskuru,
mAm evaiyasi satyam te pratijAne priyo 'si me (Gita, 18.65)