Tag: Authenticity

How to Thrive Amid Disruption: Key Insights


 I had posted on a similar topic a couple of years back, but in a different context. It was based on an interaction I had with a participant in a workshop I had conducted then.

Winning in a Disruptive World

Interestingly, I was recently invited by the Goa Business School, Goa University to speak on the same topic.  What we were really looking at is succeeding in an environment that is constantly changing and being disrupted. By new technologies like AI, new competitors, new business processes. The question for us was, ‘So what does one do to win?’

I related a story from my own professional life.

In a past assignment, I was managing a Travel & Destination services t company. One of our major customer accounts was the national petroleum development organisation and because of the large business quantum, we had an implant operation with a dedicated team. Our service and response levels were appreciated by the client.

As our contract period was ending, the company released a tender for a subsequent period. Believing the client was happy with us, we submitted our competitive offer in line with what we had done during our last successful bid. When the tender was finalised, we were shocked to know that we had lost. When we asked the client’s commercial team, we were informed that we had not complied with the technical terms of the bid. Going back to the drawing board, we found that in the tender document, there had been a small section requiring development and implementation of a Travel management Services, TMS in short, software as part of the client’s intranet, which we had not responded to.

Soon, we had the opportunity to bid against a tender released by the National Gas Company. We noticed that in this tender document too, there was a requirement of implementing a TMS software. This time we were careful enough to comply with the requirement by indicating our willingness to develop. But we again lost the tender! The winner was a competitor who already possessed a fully developed TMS module and had provided a live demonstration of the same to the client.

We had been disrupted. By a new technology, a new competitor, which together had disrupted our traditional business mode, a model which had worked well all these years. The world had shifted, the business need in the environment had changed and the earlier alignment which our company’s competence set had with the environment, had been lost.

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In 1849, French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr wrote, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” which in English translates to “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

The above perspective is possibly at the heart of why we get disrupted. The human mind loves continuity and certainty. These allow us to make sense of what we see as stuff we are familiar with, which our brain does using mind models based on our past experiences. But what happens when we are faced with something we have never encountered before? Our brains somehow try to force fit these unknown inputs into one of our mind models. Even though we remain unaware, this ‘force fit’ sense making process leads to the observed inputs getting distorted, some parts get amplified while others which do not fit, get discarded. Thus, when we probabilistically try to predict, often we fail and get disrupted.

The disruptive world allows us to reside in a narrow band in the present with a hazy and uncertain future in front and the inability to take recourse of the past.  Thus to successfully negotiate we need to shift away from our usual probability-based mindset into a mindset of possibilities.

In the session I showcased certain action steps which would support us to do the shift.

I got around to explaining that the first Action step is to create a context for ourselves within our own domain through using hard trends in three areas viz. Demographics, Regulatory and Technology (DRT Context). The hard trends that we uncover become the framework of the context we are creating. Our context would allow us to view every situation in a particular manner.

At this juncture a participant asked for this step to be shown through a case study or live example. I elaborated using the example of the Aviation Industry.

Demographics: Major customer profile shift is occurring viz. growth of young budget traveller and the elderly. Communication technologies is leading to the decline of Business travel. Climate change is shifting the seasonality of leisure travel. Customer behavior is also changing, with short booking windows—often a week or two with fewer travelers making plans far in advance.

Regulatory: Climate change is leading to increased incidences of air borne diseases requiring changes in booking process e.g. Pre-flight testing, need for registration of previous and past travel etc. Technology is allowing airlines to have seamless connectivity within the travel ecosystem to increase demand + assist governments and regulators in creating worldwide / regional standards for hygiene as well as operations.

Technology: Integrated and contact less handling at the airport regarding access viz. boarding pass issual, traveller identification through eye scans, baggage check-in etc. Seat allotment keeping in mind traveler profile, past medical history etc.

Action Step 2 is about using our above created DRT context to make three lists. List of all that we are certain of, list of things we know, and list of things we can do. If we put in the requisite time to make the lists, new possibilities would start showing up for us, a reflection of our improved competence to shift into a possibility mindset.

Action Step 3 is about further sharpening the saw for possibility mindset creation. We do that by unplugging ourself from our present clutter and challenges, then plugging ourself into the future and then use the ‘hard trend’ context created in Step 1, the 3 lists of being certain, knowing and doing ability in Step 2 to do anticipatory & future back thinking through a structured enquiry.

Action Step 4 is about Relational Assimilation which is identifying and defining groups relevant to our business and optimising the group boundary level interactions to advance our own interests. It thus is all about addressing stakeholder concerns. So, who are these stakeholders? They are wide ranging entities. Starting from the company Owners. Employees, who are the internal stakeholders to Customers, suppliers, our banks and financiers- our external stakeholders. But we also have environmental stakeholders viz. local community, society at large and the Government and regulatory authorities. Each of the stakeholders impact the organisation and ourselves in some way, some directly, others indirectly. To ensure effective relational assimilation, we need to exhibit certain qualities in our interactions.

  •  Honouring or Integity of our word. Have we ever considered the fact that we are really equal to your word, nothing more , nothing less? We might see ourself as an individual with certain looks, qualifications, competencies etc. But to the outside world, we are perceived as our word. So, what is ‘Honouring our word’? This means keeping our word and as soon as we realize we are not able to do so, we need to inform all effected parties that we cannot keep our word within the time frame indicated earlier, offer a new time frame to do it and declare that we would take care of the consequences if any, of not keeping our word as per the earlier indicated time frame.

Can you see from what I just said that while it is not possible to keep our word under different situations, we can always ensure that we honour our word?

  • Being and acting consistent with who you are: This is all about being authentic. Bill George, former CEO, Medtronics and Professor of Leadership at Harvard Business School, concluded, “After years of studying leaders and their traits, I believe that Leadership begins and ends with authenticity.”

So how does one improve one’s own authenticity? Simply put, it is by being authentic about our inauthenticities’. We need to be publicly authentic about our inauthenticity with those around us for whom this inauthenticity matters.

  • Listening with no intention, no judgment, no Right or Wrong:. This is called Active Listening. A special kind of listening that we use to allow the speaker to articulate his or her own strongly held positions, views, rationalisations, justifications and unexamined beliefs. When we engage in active listening, we do it without colouring our own mind with our own intention, own judgments and our own views about what is being said being right or wrong. You could start with practicing active listening once a day and then slowly increasing the number till the trait becomes part of you.

As you make Integrity, Authenticity and Active Listening part of your repertoire for dealing with your stakeholders, you will see the significant upswing in empathy, respect and trust in your dealings. Action 4 is thus the catalyzing agent to ensure the achievement of the action steps you had created based on the first 3 actions.

With the participants

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In the ultimate analysis, Winning in a disruptive world is all about  that ability to See, Comprehend & therefore Interact with life (and situation) differently than most people do. ‘Winners of a disruptive world SEE….and come to live in a different world.

In Learning….. Shakti Ghosal

The Mantra of Personal Mastery


Recently at an IIM Udaipur conducted Management Development Program (MDP) for Indus Towers managers, I anchored four sessions. We started with the overarching perspective of Leadership and personal mastery before drilling down to specifics of Power & influence in teams, Managing high performance teams and the Feedback & Delegation aspects in Team Dynamics. We ensured a surfeit of activities, Role Plays and Case Studies to deepen the learning through practice and Ideation.

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In one of the sessions, we were in discussion of the aspects of ‘Honouring one’s word’ and ‘Being Authentic’ as performance accelerators of a team. Several participants mentioned their reservations about this, as under:

“If we become authentic and honour our word and others in the team do not do it, we would be taken advantage of and would be forced to do the work of others”

“All this is good theory but just does not work in real life. The fact is the Management has perceptions of who are good versus who are bad and irrespective of whether we honour our word or not, the favoured ones would get rewarded in terms of promotions and bonus”

In life, we are conditioned to judge others on moral and ethical yardsticks but remain quick to rationalize our own failings against the same yardsticks. We look around to try and determine who all are ‘honouring their word’ and tell ourselves that we would wait for others to honour and keep their word before we keep our own. As Chris Argyris had said about self-deception, ‘Put simply, people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of the contradiction between the way they think they are acting and the way they really act.’

 To gain the ability to honour our own word, we should be prepared to deeply deliberate and answer the question, ‘Where is my word when it comes time for me to keep my own word?’  In the ultimate analysis, there is a simple but inviolable equation of workability which is YOU are equal to YOUR WORD.

As I explained to the participants, team performance has very little to do with peering over shoulders to ascertain who is doing what. It has almost everything to do with how we can create trust of others in us. And creating trust has everything to do about Integrity viz. honouring our word and being authentic about how we show up for others. While some may try and take advantage of your trust in the short term, the aura of trust leads to team members gravitating towards you, working with you as you shift into being a natural leader.

How might you incorporate ‘Honouring your word’ and ‘Being authentic’ as part of how you show up tomorrow with your stakeholders?

In Learning……. Shakti Ghosal

Further Reading: ‘Integrity is a matter of a person’s word- nothing more, nothing less’– Michael Jensen, Professor Emeritus, Harvard Business School. Revised March 28, 2014.

Note : Indus Towers is India’s largest mobile tower installation company.  In India, 3 out of every 5 calls made are through an Indus site. https://www.industowers.com/

A recipe to develop humility in Leadership


It was an economic downturn period with the attendant business concerns. In a management strategy meeting, team members were called upon to offer suggestions about how they would wish to ring fence one’s customer accounts, sustain revenues and margins, bring down expenses and so on. I got the sense that the participants were merely sticking to the safety of what we had been doing in the past; no creative suggestions were forthcoming. It seemed to me that in a perceived environment of insecurity, no one was willing to stick his / her neck out. All were hesitating, waiting to do what they would be told.

This set me thinking. Could it be that my seeking suggestions of what each team member plans to do in an adverse situation was being viewed as appraising and judgmental? Could it be that my stance smacked of arrogance, that I was putting others in a spot but was not willing to commit myself?

In a follow-up meeting, I decided to orient the conversation differently. Prior to the meeting, I sent a note to all participants inviting them to come into the meeting with an answer to a simple statement and a question:

  • You would like to ask me about  _______________
  • What suggestion do you have about what I need to do?

The response was surprisingly overwhelming this time. Everyone chipped in with their frank assessment and the feedback I received were ‘I needed to be more of a team player, needed to be more accountable for team efforts’ and so on. Moreover, one could sense a renewed level of energy and vigour in the team’s declarations.

I thanked all for their frank inputs and avoided giving any explanations.

When later I thought about what had happened, I sensed that it all came down to my practicing humility in the meeting with vulnerability and the willingness to listen and learn. Without knowing it, I had shown up as a ‘Servant Leader’.

In ‘What Is Servant Leadership? A Philosophy for People-First Leadership’, author Sarah K. White, CIO says, ‘Servant leadership is a leadership style that prioritizes the growth, well-being, and empowerment of employees. It aims to foster an inclusive environment that enables everyone in the organization to thrive as their authentic self. it helps create a “psychological ethical climate” that allows employees to be authentic and not fear judgment from leadership for being themselves.’

Humility begins with authenticity. And the pathway to the practice of authenticity begins with ‘being authentic to your own self about your own inauthenticities’. This pathway has no end, it is the journey that we need to enjoy.

If we are not careful, a leadership role has this nasty tendency of making us arrogant. “I am a leader because I am better. I know what is good for the team, so it needs to be my way or highway” is the kind of thought that can sometimes circle inside us. And such thoughts manifest in our conversations and actions.

Arrogance blocks growth, humility drives growth. Humble leaders always strive to develop themselves.

What humble practices might you adopt to develop your team?

In Learning…….  Shakti Ghosal

Acknowledgement: ‘What Is Servant Leadership? A Philosophy for People-First Leadership’ by  Sarah K. White, SHRM Labs, Feb. 28th 2022

Leadership and Introspection


A way to grow one’s Leadership is through introspection. One needs to look back into one’s past and identify all that which contributed to one’s Leadership and performance development.

This may sound easy but it is not. As we move through work responsibilities and the corporate hierarchy, we tend to develop our own plethora of ‘what we believe made us succeed’ mechanisms consisting of inauthentic facades, assumptions and ‘need to impress the other guy’ behaviours. We also hone our survival instincts. So, when we do get down to ‘looking into our past’ and identifying all that which contributed to our development and growth, we tend to see stuff distorted by our facades, beliefs and impress the-other-guy behaviours.

The way to grow one’s leadership through introspection is to do the following practices.

  • Ask yourself, ‘Who were the people who changed you?’

When I thought about this question, I could identify two individuals.

 The first was a senior colleague at the start of my career as an Assistant Mechanical Engineer in the Indian Railways.  The quality that my colleague brought into our relationship was one of sunny optimism and a natural instinct to mentor without a self-serving mindset.

The second was my boss in Voltas Ltd, where I was handling HVAC projects. The quality that he brought into our relationship was one of down to earth openness and transparency.

I realise today that what allowed me to grow through the above relationships was to try and inculcate a non-self-serving mindset as also authenticity through openness and transparency.

  • Ask yourself, ‘What kind of people did you gravitate towards?’

When I thought about this question, I could again identify two individuals.

In my tenure in the Indian Railways, I had two workshop foremen report to me. The first was a kind of a ‘yes man’ guy. He made me at once comfortable through his unquestioning loyalty; he would do exactly what I asked him to. This was a great relationship for maintaining status quo about situations and other stuff.

The second was a guy who was a ‘shop floor rebel’. He would usually give a counter viewpoint to most stuff I would suggest, and at times speak uncomfortable truths based on his own past experience and arguments. I would often ‘see’ his approach as unwillingness to accept my authority or trying to prove me wrong. I would feel upset.

This did not seem to be the kind of relationship I would be comfortable with or gravitate towards at that point in time. But I realise today that the person who allowed me to grow was this ‘rebel’ guy as he shattered my comfort zone and forced me to look at uncomfortable possibilities.

So how might you grow your leadership in today’s disruptive world? How might you foster such growth in your team members?

Gain mastery about how to succeed in a business environment that is constantly changing and being disrupted. Do this free module:

https://www.learndesk.us/class/6399442649350144/winning-in-a-disruptive-world-module-1

In Learning……… Shakti Ghosal

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The Millennial Leadership Series: Authenticity and the Gremlin


Gremlin

Wish you, dear Reader,  a wonderful 2018 ahead! 

On a longish flight last week, I was again drawn to “Taming your Gremlin”. In the book, the author Rick Carson claims to offer a surprisingly simple method for getting out of your own way.  As I riffled through the pages, I came across the various manifested Gremlins who masquerade as us to the outside world in terms of our personality, our beliefs and our behaviours. This inauthentic persona a.k.a. our Gremlin got created somewhere in the past due to certain specific circumstances but has now taken control of who we are.

Millennial leaders are being increasingly buffeted by disruptions and an environment that lacks predictable cycles and trends. Such unpredictability gives short shrift to management tools and organisational decision making processes. In the absence of path clarity Leadership can get subsumed by the Gremlin.

The Gremlin whispers.

“As a leader you cannot afford to lose peoples’ admiration. If needed you need to stretch the truth and hide what is embarrassing or awkward and even…..manipulate situations and people.”

“As a Leader you need to maintain the pretense of loyalty to your bosses and supporters. Otherwise you run the risk of losing their admiration and support in these uncertain times.”

“You need to look knowledgeable and pretend to have understood things which you haven’t. Else people would think poorly of you.”

Increasingly the inauthentic ‘Gremlin’ persona holds sway. But unfortunately, the personality traits, the beliefs and the behaviour which worked earlier might not succeed under the changed circumstances. After all ……………………

  • Can you be effective in what you want to do when you are trying to be someone you are not?
  • Can you put faith and trust in others to handle an uncertain situation when you yourself are faking it?
  • Can you exercise moral authority on people to embrace something new when you are being inauthentic?

The millennial leader needs to increasingly anchor himself to the foundational element of Authenticity. Being authentic is being and acting consistent with who he holds himself out to be for others, and who he holds himself to be for himself.

Also, one cannot pretend to be authentic. That, by definition, is inauthentic……………

So, what is the pathway that the Millennial leader needs to follow to improve his authenticity?

 

In Learning…………

Acknowledgement:  Taming your Gremlins by Richard D. Carson. Harper Collins, 2003