Storytelling!

How do you effectively communicate your message to a group who has not experienced what you have experienced?

Do you provide an overview, or a generalization? Do you talk about what might it feel if they were to experience what you experienced? Do you create a simulation of the conditions you faced and let them respond/cope?

We can do some or all of these. But what I have found significantly impactful is “story telling”.

I remember a few years back moving from the Audio-visual mode of presentation to the “story telling” method for interactions with groups of students. A person who had experienced the company, talked of his experiences. These were not generalizations but actual experiences that were spoken about. I remember the presenters being enthused about doing this, and I remember the audiences raving about what they had experienced.

Last year, we tried communicating the importance of e-learning through “street plays”. Till then we had struggled to find buy-in for our e-learning initiatives. We had used e-mails, e-mail advertisements, presentations in conferences, etc but to hardly any avail. But the street plays seemed to strike a chord with people. Suddenly the number of site visits, course enrolments and course completions jumped up.

I remember my Mathematics teacher in School (if I remember correctly his name was McDermott) used to tell us stories towards the end of the class and he used to have us in rapt attention – Omen was our most favourite story! (any memories ? J). I actually can still recollect visuals of he telling us his stories even though I don’t remember much of the Mathematics he taught us.

A common childhood memory we cherish is one of our significant parental figures (mother, father, grandfather, or grandmother) reciting stories to us. Can you visualize such instances from your past? How does it make you feel?

The “Storytelling” parts of the Appreciative enquiry discussions, we had last year around, impacted me the most. I remember neither the details of the session structure, nor the exact details of the stories of my teammates. But I do remember the feelings I was left with at the end of those conversations. I also retain a strong bond of friend ship with my teammates.

Over and over again, the power of storytelling shines forth!

What makes storytelling such a powerful mean to communicate? I wonder!

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Sourav

Individual and the Institute

How is it that at times you find guys from “not so good campuses” performing better than guys from the “supposedly better campuses”?

This is a question which I have pondered on for quite some time.

A possible answer:

· “Quality of the student” is what matters. “Quality of the campus” is just an indicator. This gets manifested in different forms:

o Better campus just means that in a higher ranked campus you have a higher probability of meeting a candidate who meets your requirements.

o Better campus just means that if we were not to have any number constraints, we might end up making offers to a large proportion of students in the “best campus” . This would not be the case in a so called “average or not so good campus”. But it also does not mean that in “average or not so good campuses” you would not find someone who meets your standard.

o Better campus just means that average batch quality in a higher ranked campus in the country would be more than the average batch quality in a much lower ranked campus.

So it is possible that a hire from a “lower ranked” campus does better than a hire from a “higher ranked” campus as long as a company has used the same “bar” for hiring across campuses. The probability is lower, but it is certainly there.

Is there a possible flaw in the argument I have used above?

What is the process a student uses to select colleges? If a representative student were to get an offer from the best campus in the country and the 10^th best campus in the country, which one would s/he choose? It is obvious, s/he would choose the best campus. So is it not correct to conclude that all students in a higher ranked campus would be better than all students in a lower ranked campus?

Let me make this a bit more stark. “Is it not correct to conclude that the lowest ranked student in a higher ranked campus would still be significantly better than the highest ranked student in a lower ranked campus?”

What would be your answer? What does gut feeling tell you? My gut (not that I have much of it J) tells me that this is not what I have observed in my experience.

What can be the reasons? Why is it that quality of students (as measured by performance on the job) doesn’t necessarily co-relate with quality of campus? A few possible explanations are:

· Correctness/ Comprehensiveness of Filtering Criterion: The filtering criterions in the entrance examinations for educational institutes may not necessarily reflect what is required for effective performance in the industry. The entrance examinations for these institutions do test Learnability (in RC, DI, Numerical and Logical ability, English – when presented with a new situation -------- is the individual able to crack it?) and willingness to make contributions (there is a lot of focus on extra – curricular in the selection process) but do they check whether an individual is able to “work effectively through others” and whether “s/he is open to change”? Yes, Group work and learning teams are mandated in educational institutions but so is relative grading. The incentives to have a Zero Sum game in this case are high. But any ways the point here is that both of these aspects (Effective Relationships and Openness to Change) are not something selection to educational institutions depend on (the assumption being that these aspects are not trainable in the short run – abilities and hence hire, & not train, for them).

· It might be about the self efficacy (the individual’s own evaluation of his/her competence) of the individual. A mediocre guy from a “higher ranked campus” might have a lower self efficacy at the end of 2 years of relative grading than a higher ranked guy from a “lower ranked campus”. Self efficacy is something which can be impacted in the short run and two years of conditioning can impact it for quite some time.

· It might also be about the willingness to contribute. (“The best decisions are the best implemented decisions” J)

o Fence sitter v/s Inside the system feeling: Do you feel a part of the system? Or are you in the search for short term benefits so that you can move on to greener pastures? This might impact the quality of the contribution.

o The world owes it to me v/s I am out here to prove a point – What mindset do you come in with? Do you feel that you are special and hence the world owes it to you? Or Do you feel that you are out there to prove a point – that you are as good, if not better, than the rest? Hence energy and commitment levels would vary.

One or many of these factors may be at play when you find that “performance on the job” doesn’t correspond to “so called pedigree of the institute” an individual comes from.

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Sourav

Flux around Stretch Goals!

When it comes to PFMS there are these few things which we consistently hear:

• Focus on Goal Setting
• The goals need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time Bound)
• The goals need to be STRETCH GOALS.
• Focus on Rewards…. Distributive Justice v/s Procedural Justice.

There are quite a few questions which arise in my mind when we talk of stretch goals. What do we mean by stretch? When is a goal unstretched and from when does it start becoming stretched? How much stretch is adequate enough? Do you need stretch in goals at all? Is it possible to have stretch at all?

The dictionary meaning of stretch is “to extend beyond normal limits.”

There are 2 things:

• Setting of a goal
• Judgement whether a goal has been reached or not

Now let us assume that:

• The goal when it was set, was stretched (and hence was beyond normal limits).
• The judgement arrived on is that the goal has been reached.

What does it tell us about the performance of an individual?

So say a guy had to sell 100 units in a quarter (and it was decided that was the stretch goal). He sells 110 units in the quarter – what does it tell us? Can we say that the stretched goal was not stretched enough? Or has the guy stretched himself more than what is required to get to a stretched goal? What is the adequate level of stretch? Does stretch means the maximum stretch possible? How do you arrive at a judgement on the maximum stretch possible?

I agree that goal setting is important. But there sure is a lot of flux around this concept of Stretchness of a Goal. There must be another way of looking at this.

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Sourav

Differences and Profiling!

A few months back I was a part of a workshop with around 30 other people. There was something which had struck me odd back then. The realization and the associated feelings have kept on coming back to me at different times.

People were sharing their individual life stories in small groups. Some of these stories were being subsequently shared with the larger group. Most of the stories were of “having made it big inspite of being from a difficult background or having overcome significant obstacles in life”. I found this common emerging theme odd. I wondered – “in a group of 30 individuals, not even a single story which is different!. I didn’t hear anyone speak of an easy childhood or growing up years. What could be the reasons?”

There are a few possibilities:

• Does the group have a selection mechanism which “filters in” only specific kind of profiles and “filters out” all/most other kind of profiles?
• Is there a strong “compliance dynamic” in play within the group - something which makes individuals speak of themselves in a certain light – because that is what seems to be valued within the group? In a sense, there is a subtle rejection, of anyone who doesn’t proclaim to be of this type. Hence “socially acceptable answers” are expressed in group settings. This may be the case even though the group members may have significant differences in their ways of being.
• Principle of Similarity and Liking! - People speak of themselves in a certain light because the recipient feels good if he were to hear that story.

If I were to reflect on the typical member profile of this group, what would his/her profile be?

The person would be “a male in his late 20s/early 30s, married , with young kids or without kids, owning a 2 box or an entry level 3 box car, left brained, with some quirky habit or the other, would be a good teacher, would come from a middle class background, would have had to overcome significant difficulties to make it to wherever he has made it, and would be extremely loving and caring about his/her significant others in life.”

There’s nothing wrong with having a group profile like this, but how does the group react to someone who doesn’t fit into this profile description? Is the group “accepting” of differences, or “rejecting” of them? That would be the key!

How would we know what’s the usual preference of the group – “accepting” or “rejecting” of differences?

One possibility is to ask open ended questions and look out for similarity/divergence of themes in the answers you hear.

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Sourav

Performance Decisions

Over the last year I have seen two cycles of rating moderation discussion and have had the opportunity to chart out the rating distribution for a fairly large team over a bell curve.

There are a few questions which I have been actively trying to find answers to:

• Bell curve is relative by nature. What is the process one should follow when proposing a rating for an individual?
• What is the process one should follow in a moderation discussion to modify the rating of an individual?

I might have found some tentative answers.

First proposed rating

The 1^st proposed rating should be on absolute scale. But for that to happen one first needs to have the parameters for performance measurement in place. Let me elaborate. Let us assume that we have a 5 point rating scale (P1,P2,P3,P4,P5), with P5 as the highest rating and P1 as the lowest rating. You should first decide what performance would correspond to what rating on an absolute scale. One possible set of parameters can be:

• P5 – Significantly exceeds expectations on all Performance Indicators (PIs);
• P4 – Significantly exceeds expectations on critical PIs and meets expectations on other PIs;
• P3 – meets expectations on all PIs;
• P2 – meets expectations on critical PIs but falls short of expectations on other PIs ;
• P1 – unacceptable performance

This understanding of the parameters for performance measurement should be shared by all members who would be present for a moderation meeting. This would then become a common language people would share in the room.

Deadlock

Let us assume that there arises a situation where a rating needs to be moderated. On what basis would the ratings be moderated? I can think of only 2 possible reasons:

• Similar levels of performance but varying degrees of difficulty of the environment within which the performance was achieved.
• A higher level of results by 1 individual as compared to the other. E.g. – if we have a deadlock for a P5 rating (both individuals have significantly exceeded expectations and under similar environmental conditions), “Who has achieved higher results?” would be the differentiator.

Efforts or Environmental Understanding?

What about the effort an individual has put in? Should not that be factored in?

Efforts are taken in a certain context. These efforts should be factored into the evaluation of the environment within which results were achieved. Efforts by themselves would not provide you actionable data.

Let me elaborate. Let us say there are 2 individuals who have similar levels of performance, under comparable difficulty of environmental conditions but one individual has put in more effort than the other. Can we say that the individual who has put in lesser effort should be given a lower rating? I don’t think so. I can’t penalize him for finding a smarter way of doing work. On the other hand can we say that the individual who has put in higher effort should be given a lower rating? I don’t think so too. I can’t penalize him for doing his work in a less smarter way when he is got comparable results.

Hence the conditions/environment within which results have been achieved are a factor for decision making, but efforts by themselves are not.

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Sourav