Milind Apte, Head HR, Godrej Hersheys says.......

……….a very practical guide to leadership, purely based on experience. I personally found this book very effective and I am sure that this will aid the development of young leaders.

Comment on book "Young Leaders at Every Level" by Milind Apte. Head HR, Godrej Hersheys Ltd

How to get your Boss to be your biggest supporter in 15 days flat.

Rule No 1: The Boss is always right.
Rule No 2: When in doubt, refer to Rule No 1.

Akshay Sharma got these comments in his annual appraisal "He sets low personal standards and consistently fails to achieve them"

Appraisal time and we have a lot of people in every company making power point presentations, making lists, trying to justify their existence in the company.

A time of the that causes anxiety to both the boss as well as the employee.

But why should it be like this?

Why should appraisals be a source of anxiety?
Why can't they be an occasion for inspiration and joy?

"Let's be realistic. Lets be practical" you might say. "It is all right for you to say this as a consultant, but you come into our role, then we will see"

We have seen some superb boss subordinate relationships, not many though. And in all the cases, the boss certainly plays a role, though the subordinate does a set of things which are fairly commonsense:

1. The subordinate does his own job well.

Jawaharlal Nehru had once given this advice to Indira Gandhi - "there are two kinds of people in the world. Those who work and those who take credit for the work. Try to be in the first group. There is no competition over there."

Lets get the foundation strong. Do your own job well. This point is a necessary though not a sufficient condition for success that it is often overlooked. Look at your goal sheet. Deliver 120% on EACH and EVERY ONE of those parameters. Do more than what other team members are doing.

2. Anticipate the boss's problems, reduce his workload.

Too often we are so focused on our own issues that we forget that the boss has his own issues and challenges. Do you even know what they are? What are his worries, his concerns? What is happening in his career? What problems are keeping him awake at night? (other than......) He might be worried about his deadline with the MD. He might be worried about achieving his cost targets. Find that out.

Knowledge without action is meaningless, so use this knowledge to share some of the boss's workload. Can you anticipate some work likely to come through in the next few days. If so, help him out there. Do you see a problem happening three days later. Is his boss going to ask him for something which you know but he doesn't? Anticipate and take care of him there. Do this genuinely of course.

3. Make him look good in front of his colleagues.

Everybody wants to look good, avoid looking bad. Your boss is also trying to look good in front of his colleagues. If your boss is a Regional Head in teh company, he is trying to look good compared to his colleagues who are of the same grade. So how do you make your boss look good?

Just one step.

At every interaction with your boss's colleagues and with your own colleagues, compliment your boss on what he is doing right. Just simple statements of what is happening right. Most of the time we complain about what is not happening right. Even if your boss is doing one thing right and ten things wrong (according to you), just talk about that one thing that he is doing right.

Fifteen days. That's all it takes. Try it now.

Looking for more such solutions to your everyday leadership challenges? Follow us on Young Leaders at Every Level now.

To connect your team to these ideas and enjoy the resultant productivity gains, call us for a training or a conference now at +919820503710 / info@directiononeonline.com

Maneesh Konkar

3 Leadership goof-ups that would make you look dumb in front of your subordinates

Only one man in a thousand is a leader of men -- the other 999 follow women.

Starting off this article on a funny note. But seriously what does this one man do that the others don't? And its not the point mentioned above.

At a recent conference in Goa for a finance company, we were talking to the business head. He was describing a recurring issue that he has every time he promotes his atr people. The story was familiar, we have seen this scenario play out a number of times. We have a star salesman, a star performer. He does well, meets his numbers, gets praise from the bosses, is the toast of everybody, also attracts jealous comments from others.

We promote him to the next level.

And then what?

Not only do we lose a star salesman, we also get a lousy sales manager in the process.

Why does this happen? How can a star suddenly lose his form? Or is he getting the basic concepts wrong?
He doesn't lose his form. But he does not do some basic things that would make him more effective in the new role.

Mistake No 1: Doing the same things that made me a star salesman would make me successful as a star manager.

Sachin was a superb batsman, though he could have been a better leader. Javed Miandad, another great individual player, pathetic as a captain.

what does a young leader do when he gets promoted? What is the message he gets when we reward him for his sales performance?

He gets the message that doing the tasks of a sales person (individual contributor) got him the success so all that he has to do is do more of the same thing. And that is exactly what he does.

Even though he has got promoted and is now handling a team, he continues to behave like an individual contributor. He continues to "sell" or "be a mechanic" whereas what he is supposed to do is be a "sales manager" or a "works manager". His new role now requires him to manage his team, coach the average and below average team members and inspire his best. If he has moved from a "manager of work" role to a "manager of managers" role, his new role means he cannot direct but he now has to develop a more participative style because his team members are no longer newcomers but more a group of experienced, matured people.

Recommended action is therefore to behave as per the new role because the activities expected are new. Manager's who make this transition succeed, those who can't get stuck at this level in their careers.

Mistake No 2: Spending time only with the star team members, others are ignored. Because the new promotee is behaving like a individual contributor, he wants to take charge, be wherever there is the highest probability of success. He therefore has a tendency to spend more time with the stars who tend to make more sales calls, talk higher in the clients and have better sales ratios. As a manager, since the job is to coach, a good manager would need to spend more time with his average and poor performers, coaching and guiding them. With the stars, he would need to inspire them and involve them in generating solutions to day to day challenges so they continue to be motivated. But basically the idea would be to delegate tasks to the stars & leave them alone, though keep track of them and spend more time with the other members of the team. They say a team is only as strong as its weakest link. a good manager works on and improves this weak link to make it stronger.

Mistake No 3: Taking control of a situation when things are going wrong. Manager is out in the field on a sales call with his team member. Manager takes control of the sales call. Team member is completely silent throughout. Effectively the manager is behaving like the subordinate and is therefore grossly overpaid. If Team member says something wrong, is not able to handle the situation, manager steps in and takes control, prevents mistakes from happening altogether.

What happens overall in the company? A manager is behaving like an individual contributor. But a manager's job is do analyse, manage and coach. That job is not happening. But somebody has to do that job. Who does it? It is done by the Regional Manager. So we now have a Regional Manager behaving like a first line manager. Who does the Regional Manager's job? Somebody has to do it. The Business Head does it.

So a non functioning First line Manager effectively pulls down the entire organization with him.

But what is supposed to be done, you might ask? Should we allow the mistakes to happen?

well - yes and No.

Yes, because nobody learns swimming by watching other people swim. One has to get into the water!!!

No, because the mistakes have to be observed and corrected immediately after the sales call is over. And to ensure that the sales do not get affected, involve the customer into this training process. Mistakes are an essential part of the learning process and the manager needs to ensure that happen in a controlled risk free environment.

One of our sales managers used to call the clients after the sales rep has finished his call to take a feedback - "how did he present? What are his strengths? Areas for improvement?"

So how do we look terrific in front of our team members?

1. Behave like a manager, not an over-promoted individual.
2. Spend more time with your average performers, delegate to stars.
3. Develop the emotional maturity to watch mistakes happen, ensure learning is fast and immediate. Ensure mistakes are not repeated again and again.

Looking for more such solutions to your everyday leadership challenges? Follow us on Young Leaders at Every Level now.

To connect your team to these ideas and enjoy the resultant productivity gains, call us for a training or a conference now at +919820503710 / info@directiononeonline.com

Maneesh Konkar

Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO naukri.com comments....

“This book provides useful tips on how to manage your career, yourself and your relationship at work in an easy to read and engaging manner”

Comment on book "Young Leaders at Every Level" by Sanjeev Bikhchandani, CEO, naukri.com

3 Ways to leave office at 6

"I have become a Sunday wale Daddy" said Abhijit.
"Sunday Uncle, you mean" replied his friend Randhir Mishra
"What can I do? I work six days a week, sometimes seven. I barely get to see my kids. Most of the time they are sleeping by the time I come back home. I see them grow horizontally more than I see them grow vertically?
"You know I used to be like that. Then one day, my boss, who I consider an excellent time manager, told me - when you die, you are not going to say - I wish I had spend more time in the office."
"That must be a wake up call"
"It was"
Robin Sharma had made this statement in his book - The Monk who sold his Ferrari, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear"
"Guess your boss was this person for you"
"yes, he was the one who gave me three things to do. Took me a while to implement it, but I finally got the hang of it."

Step 1: Fix a time to get out of office in the evening.

Most of us have a fixed time to reach office, but we don't have a fixed time to get out of office. Observe your own behaviour for one week. If you normally leave at 9 pm, advance this time in half hour slots and leave at 8.30 pm regularly for the next fifteen days. Then after fifteen days have passed, advance your departure time to 8 pm. That way, your colleagues and bosses get time to adjust to your routine. If you suddenly leave at 6 pm when they are used to seeing you till 9, they would put all sorts of pressure and emotional stress on you "he is not a team player", "he is leaving the work and going", etc.

Step 2: Learn to say No.

It takes us about a year or so in corporate lives to figure out that there is no end to the amount of work we can do at the office. Work by its very nature never ends. One goal is achieved, another one comes in sight and so on and so forth. In one of the banks we were consulting for, our client was a middle level manager who just could not say "NO". He ended up taking on far more tasks than he could handle well. Many of these tasks were actually not his job at all, they were supposed to be done by the boss. Other tasks he took on because he wanted to impress the senior leaders of his company. What happened finally? He did his boss's job, he did all the other tasks too. But in the appraisals, he got evaluated on his performance on his current role, not these extra things he did. And that's where he was found lacking. Learning to say "No" enables us to focus on the doing the tasks that we get paid for, enabling us to focus on our own priorities.

Step 3: Develop an activity to do in the evening with family

The best than one parent can do is half the job. Kids need you. Not your "quality time", but your quantity time. Look at what some of these Americans and Australians do. They have an active sports life. They play tennis, golf, jogging, something in the evening every day. Most Indians on the other hand stopped their sports lives the day they got into corporate life. Get back to the sports routine. Start with twice a week to begin with. Play cricket or football with your kids in the evening. Cycle with them. This way, you get your exercise and the kids get to be with their Daddy too.

Looking for more such solutions to your everyday leadership challenges? Follow us on Young Leaders at Every Level now.

To connect your team to these ideas and enjoy the resultant productivity gains, call us for a training or a conference now at +919820503710 / info@directiononeonline.com

Maneesh Konkar

Get Wealthy Get Free Part 1

Young Leaders manage their money well

The single biggest mistake Young Leaders in organizations make.

At a recent conference for a pharma company, we heard the following conversations happening at the review meetings:

“We need to stop degrowing”
“Why did this degrowth happen?”
“Why did you make this mistake?”
“Don’t make the same mistake in this launch that you made in the last product launch”
“Why is everyone so demotivated?”
“Don’t worry”
“Don’t take tension”
“Don’t be late”
“Don’t come unprepared for the presentation”
“I don’t want daily calls to be less than 45 a day”
“I don’t want complaints from customers”

Sounds familiar to you.
This is the language we use when we discuss strategies and tactics at our review meetings and conversations.

So what's wrong, you might ask?

Well - here is what is wrong.

ALL THESE STATEMENTS ARE THINGS WE DO NOT WANT!!!!

Do you want your people to come late? make mistakes? make less sales calls? come unprepared? Do you want your customers to complain?

Obviously not.

Then why are you talking about it?
"What else should I do", you might ask? I have to discuss the mistake, send a strong message, etc etc.

"Think and talk only about those things that you want"

You might say - that's exactly what I want - I want less complaints, I want less mistakes, etc

Is that what you really want?

Let me show you with an example.

Don't think of a zebra.
That's right. DO NOT think of a zebra at all.

What are you thinking?
I know what you are thinking.

Now - think of a zebra.

What are you thinking now?

You get the point? Whether I tell you to think or not think of a zebra, you do the same thing. i.e. think of a zebra.

So when you say "Don't come late", what happens? yes boss, they all come late. And you know why they do that? Because you told them to "come late".

Because telling them "don't come late" and "come late" is the same thing.

A better way would be "come on time tomorrow"

The human mind does not process "don't" or "NO". It only processes the main message which was "come late", "make mistakes", "take tension" etc. And that is the message we plant in the subconscious most of the time - to others and to ourselves.

So how do we converse:

"Come on time" not "Don't come late"
"Relax" not "Don't take tension"
"Come prepared for the presentation"
"Make more than 45 calls a day"
"Grow 40% this year definitely"

Watch the conversations you make at work and at home.
"I want to be slim" not "I want to reduce weight"
"I want to breathe clean" not "I want to quit smoking"
"I want to get promoted" not "I don't want to be stuck in this role"
"I want to be prosperous" not "I want to get out of debt"
"I want to be healthy" or "I am healthy" not "I don't want to fall sick"


What do you really want? Think and talk only about what you want

Looking for more such solutions to your everyday leadership challenges? Follow us on Young Leaders at Every Level now.

To connect your team to these ideas and enjoy the resultant productivity gains, call us for a training or a session at your conference now at +919820503710 / info@directiononeonline.com

Maneesh Konkar