Leading by Giving - Workshop at StratApps Day 3

Day 3 of the workshop focused first on team dynamics. We looked at how teams can be made more resilient by leaders by setting the common purpose for the team (communication), setting clear values that the team is more important than the individual (communication and behaviors) and aspiring to build teams that are closely bound like a FIST (based on mutual trust and belief over a period of time). Efficacy of such teams improves dramatically, team finds synergies and there is great resilience and energy.

We moved on next to discuss the slightly lofty concept of inspirational leadership. We discussed these leaders with great vision and courage, great compassion and energy, and how they made their followers work like crazy for them. These followers would die for them, give their best for such leaders. What do they do?

It is a must that such leaders 'believe'. They believe that humans have great potential and that every individual wants to excel. They are also passionate in facilitating the growth of their team members in every way possible, genuinely caring to bring out the best in them. They somehow make us believe that we are capable of moving mountains, that they fully believe we can and egg us on. These are also the leaders who tell us what to do, and not how to do things. When they tell us how to do things, they set the framework, knock out all creativity, and limit the person. Each person must feel wanted, recognised and the inspirational leader makes each person realise that it is their own baby, and the whole structure hinges on him or her. People love this freedom to express themselves and normally give their best.

The key to people giving their best is to involve them personally. The 'I' must be brought into the equation. This job is mine, this work is mine. I am doing this well because it is benefiting my team which expects much from me. That is a good space to be in. The inspirational leader gently and compassionately transfers the ownership of the dream to each of his team mates, trusting them, encouraging them to give it their best shot. It needs constant encouragement, help sometimes and allowing space for mistakes, sometimes even costly ones. Do not lose belief in your team when the stakes are high. Hold on to belief.

Belief and Trust become key words for inspirational leaders. They give space, allow their team members to grow, support and encourage and help, get out of the way but are always at hand to help. PV did share a fine illustration, his own, about TRUST. He explained how it was Transparency, Result orientation, Understanding (asking questions), Speaking Up and being Truthful. It is a wonderful way to build Trust.

While at that PV also discussed the concept of values (sacrosanct), freedom (to do the job) and something else (support was it?). I liked the example of the football a lot.

Belief on the other hand is a thought and needs to be held in place. Trusting and believing in people when they are making mistakes or not pulling their weight requires enormous patience, conviction, compassion and clarity. We discussed MSD and his show on belief in Joginder Sharma, a fine story.

Overall inspirational leadership is about  the secure leader. One who knows he can handle it and deliver. One who trusts himself and therefore can trust others. One who believes in himself and therefore can believe in others. One who is secure within and is therefore secure about others.

We discussed leadership tenets and wound up a hectic day. Good participation and interaction and all participants were given a chocolate and asked to use it to make a difference in the world.

Deconstructing Harry - Movie Review

Watched Woody Allen play the role of Harry Block, a writer who has hit a block. It had some moments, some ideas but most of the time I was wondering why he was flagellating himself and showing us what demons played in his head.

Block has an affair with his sister in law and they make love at her father's funeral while his wife and her husband are out in the yard. What he does next is even better, he writes about his affair, his family in his book in a thinly veiled manner and reveals all the dark and dirty secrets that were kept hidden from public view till then. Now everyone knows of his affairs and  what he thinks of other people, their lives, their religion. Anyway he is a sex-starved chap who cannot keep his relations. Isolated by all his family and ex-wives, he finds that he has been invited to receive an award from the university that threw him out. Hating to go alone he hires a hooker to go with him kidnaps his son to go along and takes an old friend who dies in the car on the journey. On the way he bumps into his half-sister and her husband, both practicing jews, and rakes up stuff about his father and his past. He ends up being caught by the police and thrown in jail only to be bailed out by a girl whom he mentored and her new husband.

The idea of going out of focus was interesting as was the one about leaking all details out in the book. The book from fact to fiction and in the end all his characters gather and honour him for some reason, for giving them life I guess. But Woody Allen grated on my nerves as he played Block and in some way acted out the possibilities of sex in his life. Particularly repulsing was the conversation he has with Billy Crystal on the various types of women he had sex with. Episodic and boring.

Anjali - But We Are All Verbs

Learning the rudiments of English grammar is fine but applying it to us was interesting. 'You are reading, Mamma is working and I am playing,' Anjali said the other day. 'We are all verbs.'

Anjali, being a verb

I was surprised to hear that. I had not considered myself a verb ever.

'Even when we are sitting or even when we are sleeping we are verbs nana,' she said gleefully. 'You see even then we are doing something na.'

I guess we are doing something all the time. I guess until we cease being, we are all verbs. Fantastic.

Leading by Giving - Workshop at StratApps Day 2

Going into Day 2, we recapped yesterday's key points. The participants shared their rating on the key attributes of the ideal leader - Professional attributes being Decision making, process Orientation, Leading by example, Communication, Clarity and People Orientation. Personal attributes to develop were Listening skills, Being supportive, Honest, Optimistic, Committed and Cool and composed.

We discussed the 3 stages of leadership and examined them a bit more closely. Process-driven leadership was then taken up discussed and worked upon. The six keys of Goal clarity, Role clarity, Target setting, Inputs required, Communication and Performance appraisal were discussed. The participants made a vision board, where they carried their leadership vision to their area of work, and shared their findings.

Process-driven leadership is a simple process that can make the burden of leadership bearable. It requires some work though, and preparation,  to gain clarity about the goal, roles, capabilities, targets, processes, support, appraisal and communication. If one has worked on the process, most issues would be in control.

We discussed the concept of the Mindsets - Fixed and Growth oriented. PV shared the 1 minute manager. We would up with a video of the Panyee FC and its amazing journey. Lovely video.

Where are the sarees?

It was the other day after a long, long while that I saw a young lady draped in a saree, looking as lovely as any sight could be. I was so taken in by the sight that I wondered what happened to the good, old saree. She looked so dignified, so beautiful and so feminine that I could not but gaze at such a graceful sight. There was something so complete about her as she shopped for some vegetables or fruits I forget which and I passed by in the traffic.

I do feel sad for the good old saree which has been nudged out by the more convenient clothes that urban women wear. Pretty as they are, the pants and slacks, the salwars and  pajamas do not hold a candle to the saree. Perhaps it is time for fashion to come full circle and the regal saree comes back into our public spaces.

Leadership by Giving - Workshop at StratApps Day 1

PV and I got together for a workshop on Effective Leadership or what I'd call 'Leadership by Giving' at StratApps Solutions Pvt Ltd. 14 young team leads joined us for the 4 hour session - we have a 4-hour session every day for 4 days. The idea of the workshop is to acquaint leads / future leads with concepts of leadership, deconstruct it, reconstruct it and make the entire affair of leadership bearable and effective.

The 3 types of leadership are those that one gets by position, process-driven leadership and inspirational leadership. In leadership by position where one has the position but no know-how, the leader may be at a disadvantage. It may breed an insecure leader who can harm the team and individual interests. I always feel it is best to give some inputs to leader sand expose them to some ideas which may empower them a bit. Which is where SratApps scores well.

The second type (process-driven leadership) is what we focus on because it gives some basic structure to work with and that leads to results that are positive. You need not be a superhero but by following the processing and working at it, one could evolve into a good leader, an inspirational leader over time. This type of a leader is more secure because he/she has some know-how and knowledge thanks to the exposure to some leadership thought.

The third type is the leader who is passionate and who can inspire his team to follow him wherever he leads. He can bring them to take ownership and perform to their potential. It may appear that this leader is the one who is least hassled, who is also doing the least work but who is getting the maximum return and benefit for his efforts.

The first thing to discuss was whether leadership could be learned or are we born with those traits. Of course it could be learned. We shared some experiences. The participants agreed that it could be learned, like anything.

Next we tried to put a number on how much they thought good leadership could impact team performance. The overwhelming response was upwards of 60%. We pegged it at 70% which is huge.

Okay, so now we moved into understanding leadership a bit more. Is it possible only when we are given the position or can we think like a leader in non-leadership positions? There was some dissent because one cannot do things when there are other leaders. That's when we looked at leadership within our role. Can we take leadership as an attitude and do the best we can to improve our delivery? If leadership is action or an attitude, it is all about seizing the opportunity to 'add' or to 'give' to whatever position one is in. To drive home the point we all shared stories from our lives where we took leadership positions despite not having been given the power or position. From donating blood, putting out fires, taking responsibility for college tours, apartment works, cricket teams, corporate teams - there were wonderful stories on display - some of them quite moving too. It turned out that in times we took leadership positions we  looked to 'give' without expecting really. We 'added' to the situation, to life, and looked to do the best we can. In short we took responsibility.

Leadership was then defined as showing the way, as giving and creating and as something that grows us and people around us as individuals and as teams.

We deconstructed leadership further. Why are we leading - as in the purpose of leading or taking a leadership attitude to our work or role? What do we want to achieve? How do we do that or how do we approach leadership? Who do we effect? Among the approaches it was suggested that the giving or growing approach is something all of us can handle and do. It can give results, grow people, make life easy.

Then we reconstructed the ideal leader. We threw up many qualities of the ideal leader and from those came down to 6 professional traits and 6 personal traits that one desires in the ideal boss. Each participant was asked to rate themselves on the attribute. A rating of over 8 was good or else, there was work to be done.

Good participation and good energy especially with PV handing out goodies like chocolate for best participation etc. More to come in the next three days. Good work then Praneeth, Nagendra, Satish.K , Satish.B, Rajaneesh, Raghavendra, Kiran, Sreenivasa Katra, Sreenivasu, John, Sandeep, Surendra, Gopinath and Anuradha.

10 Reasons Why One Might Want to Contest Elections

Election time is here again and there is a madness to it that makes no sense. People jumping parties, parties slinging mud at one another, people trying to choose between leaders they know nothing about, money flying all over, film stars, cricketers, every single wannabe is out there, all the weirdest behaviors are out there.

When you look at the people in the fray, most fighting like crazed dogs, one suspects there may be reasons other than public service. Why would anyone want to fight like that to serve some unknown public? I don't think anyone would. If they wanted to serve they would anyway, irrespective of position.

Let me guess the top 10 reasons for joining politics and wanting to become a leader.

1) Have money to spend: Each election costs crores. Unless you have a thick source, there is no way you can contest elections (because you may never get that money back). One reason why you would want to contest would be to legitimize the color of the money and hopefully recover the investment and some more.

2) Make policy: Some join because they want to influence policy so they can make favorable laws for their companies, industries, future politics, election codes etc. Let's say a policy was made by a certain type of person who looked a certain way, weighed a certain weight, had a mole on the nose etc saying that only such people could become Prime Ministers - that would be a nice law would it not. 

3) Stay out of jail: Many convicted felons enter politics because they somehow get cleansed of all their crimes once they get elected. The same police that put them in jail now stands guard, the same people now queue up - all's forgiven brother. Now they can kill, kidnap, rape from under the umbrella. No greater irony than this.

4) Make money: Most people get into politics to weaken someone else's chances. This also gives them scope to bargain for a better deal. Who wants all this serving people business, show me the money.

5) Immunity: The white cloth gives great immunity. You can pretty much do anything once you wear the clothes of a  politician. You get access to government officials, get things done, can organise rallies, morchas etc, put shamianas in the middle of the road, no issues.

6) Save money / Get some heat off: Many people who are facing the heat - scams, industrial frauds, corporate embezzlement - also find it easier to get the heat off if they join politics. Somehow most of the heat goes away too. For many, politics is the best way to save ill gotten wealth that the sniffer dogs are getting uncomfortably close to.

7) Perks: Whether you get elected or not there will be some perks that come with fighting elections. You are now known as the leader. You can leer at women, slap people around, talk all kinds of nonsense on television, do moral policing etc etc. You also get to be on committees, get inside information on many deals, get tax free income from the many businesses that escape the IT net. Sometimes the government perks are not too bad either.

8) Be in the limelight: People flock to you and it can become addictive. Especially if you have got used to the limelight as a youngster - a cricketer, an actor. Most of these people do not know how to fade away and come back into politics to seek some more limelight.

9) Be on hoardings: Apart from being in the media most also like to see themselves up on hoardings with about 30 other photos crowding it. From small time leaders to big time leaders, hoardings are up for grabs and a nice way to let everyone know who you are.

10) Continue the family legacy: This I am sure is a big reason for many. The family is into politics which means that the people and the country owe it to them. So they put the next dud, doesn't matter whether he is stoned silly out of his mind all the time and he has to continue the rich legacy the family has gifted us.

One way or another it looks like a fun career to get into. You can be excused for all sorts of behavior, you can rub shoulders with the celebrities, meet actresses, cricketers, become head of cricket boards and associations and sports boards, cavort with nubile babes right into the ripe old ages, no retirement, can have multiple homes at state expense - oh, it sounds too good to be true. All you have to do is talk and talk ill of everyone around you and make unreasonable promises.

Don't get me wrong. Some genuinely want to serve the public. For some, the public is limited to their immediate family, for some its the extended family, for some a little more.The key is to get elected though, whatever the cost. Then they have a story. Otherwise its money down the drain.