VUCA

Somedays back I came across a new term VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) which supposedly characterizes present economic environment worldwide.

What might a VUCA environment mean for mindset a company adopts to deal with environment?

On one hand, it could trigger fear and lead to ‘defending your territory’ actions.

On contrary, companies could start focusing on becoming better at adapting to change.

But companies could also choose path of seeing change as an opportunity – and pursuing, shaping, and exploiting these opportunities.

Which option should your company choose?

I think answer is context specific.  Answer could be different for different companies and different for same company at different points of time.

Intuitively though, principle of ‘if you can’t avoid something it might be better to enjoy yourself at it’ might be applicable here.

So 3^rd option – of seeing ‘change as an opportunity’ – might be better go-to option in most cases during these ‘VUCA’ times.

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Sourav

The Challenger!

I remember seeing a rivetting long distance race during my school days.

Vipin led the race going into last lap. Arnab had been intentionally trailing behind him for most part of the race. Vipin could not run at his own pace as he was not sure when Arnab would overtake him. Arnab could choose his pace depending on what Vipin did.  When last lap started, Vipin looked a bit nervous and edgy. Arnab looked confident and composed. Finally Arnab won the race.

Sometimes, been second in the race is advantageous. It gives you headway to choose your pace and time your actions to beat the competition.

But will this challenger mindset always lead to success - especially in an organizational context?

The above mindset anchors challenger to competition. I think while one needs to keep an eye on competition, efforts primarily need to be anchored around consumer. If that’s done, then even when challenger becomes market leader – it can be more surefooted about how its actions translate to organization success.

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Sourav

Note: I have changed both names in this post to protect identity of individuals J

Networks

In organizations, networks are important!

But are they really important? What kind of different networks you might have? How do networks get built and expanded?

I have been doing a bit of work on networks over last few months and have been surprised at some of learnings:

1)      Be intentional about your network. Who do you need to reach out to and why?  Do you need information, a stretch opportunity, mentoring/guidance, advice, a career change, etc?  Be clear yourself and state need clearly.

2)      Think beyond your immediate reporting relationships. Matrix organizations provide you opportunity to leverage networks which are not necessarily hierarchy driven.

3)      Getting introductions/references are good launchpads for initial connects.

4)      Networks need acknowledgement. Someone will have spent his/her discretionary time on you. You must acknowledge and thank person for that!

5)      Keep your network active. Once you have established connect – even if there’s no immediate need – periodically touch-base with network and keep connections alive.

6)      Credibility is built over a period of time. But it is an important ingredient for ensuring your network works for you. Without credibility, an expanded network might provide you wrong visibility and might backfire.

7)      Networks can help you gain a different perspective on your stated objective – in ways that can be eye opening. It can be a good idea to dip into your network for gaining this alternative perspective on things.

I am slowly becoming more convinced of need to and benefits of intentionally growing and maintaining your network.

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Sourav

 

 

Is it time you need an extra Headcount?

Before you start hiring, you need to a) know that you have a vacancy, and b) figure out how many vacancies you have.

So how do you get to know about these?

Look at following statements. Are any one of these true for you/your organization?

·        Geographical Scope: Your organization is venturing into new geographic areas

·        Customer Scope: Your customer base is increasing rapidly and you will need extra manpower to cater to increased customer base.

·        Scope of Skills: The changing nature of the industry/company requires that you hire for new skills.

These 3 will be usual levers that will feed into your company’s need for extra manpower.

 

Which of these are true for you?

 

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Sourav

Feedback

What role does feedback play in Performance Management?  To answer this question, we´l l have to first answer a more fundamental question ´How does a manager arrive at a proposed rating for an employee?´

A Manager relies on his own judgment & employee´s self assessment– that´s what I have been used to seeing for a long time.

But in new context, I find that a manager additionally relies heavily on feedback received from others. There even is a feedback framework in place – employees use a feedback tool to request feedback and to give feedback.  Tool sees heavy 2 way traffic.  

So why do I see this change?

I think 2 primary reasons are:

·         Ecosystem -  I frequently hear here word ecosystem being used to describe number & variety of stakeholders one works with.  The circle of interaction and influence is not only within your team and teams/leaders you support. It is a matrix structure. Number of stakeholders potentially impacted is fairly higher than in a functional role based setup.

·         Manager´s role description– Most Managers here have a healthy mix of People Management and Individual contributor responsibilities. A Manager is accountable for his own performance and his team´s performance. Hence need for a Manager to balance his time.

Given these 2 realities, a feedback tool seems relevant to provide a manager more holistic visibility about his reportee´s performance.

Would such a tool be relevant for setups where above mentioned 2 realities are not so prevalent?

Manager´s judgment is paramount. But feedback is necessary to enable manager to take a better decision. So a feedback tool may not be necessary, but a feedback framework – on how employees request, give, & receive feedback – does make sense for all setups.

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Sourav

A 'Concern'!

A few days back i received a call from a colleague. She said 'I was to facilitate a session beteween Leadership team and a group of individual contributors. But i might not be able to come to work tomorrow. Can you facilitate this session? I would help you prepare for it.'

I did agree and landed up facilitating this discussion between 2 Leadership Team members and a around 15 individual contributors.

There was a particular challenge/dynamic i faced during the discussion - 'When does one take up a 'concern expressed' for team/group/organizational level actioning?'

In the initial part of the discussion, I realized there were di-alogues happening in the room. One person was expressing a concern, while another person was responding to his/her concern. The concerns were being acknowledged, and many a times being taken up for actioning.

I found something amiss with this inter-personal dynamic. I thought 'How could a concern be acknowledged as a team/group/organization level action item without first being thrown around the room and debated?'

I subsequently made a conscious attempt to change the nature of the discussions. Every concern raised started getting thrown around to others in the room and debatd. I asked 'Have others had a similar experience? Has anyone else handled a similar situation successfully?'

The tone of the discussion changed. People in the room with differing opinions/experiences slowly but surely started speaking up.

With multiple people speaking about their experiences handling similar situations; we got a better sense of whether a concern expressed lay at the individual/team/work-group/organizational level.

It also made participants see that someone they considered 'their type' (and not from HR or Leadership team) had experienced a similar situation differently from the way they had experiened a situation. The face validity of possible solutions proposed was consequently higher as it came from someone perceived to be 'their type'.

What did i those who expressed concerns that were unique - not representative of a team/group/organizational level problem?

Well! I tried acknowledging his/her concern (s/he felt heard) but managed to make him/her aware that his/her concern maybe unique and may not be reflective of a larger problem. 'Feeling heard and acknowledged' seems to have a cathartic effect.

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Sourav

White Spaces and Industry Veterans

A few months back I was in the middle of a discussion with an industry veteran. He had spent 24 years in the same company –his first company. He made an interesting observation during our conversation- his observation has stayed with me.

He said, and I quote “There was a time when I found it difficult to keep myself motivated at work. I had donned most of the roles an employee in this company could don. I could not see new challenges for me in the horizon. It was through these struggles that I came with up a solution that has withstood the test of times. Every year, thenceforth, I venture out into the unknown. I take up something which I know would challenge me/I am not comfortable about. I usually would not have a clue on how to go about it at the beginning. But then I manage to find my way through. This ensures both that I stay engaged on the job and my team has enough space to work (I don’t overstep onto their feet).”

Industry veterans can be an asset or a liability depending on the situation or the way they approach their work. When they use institutional knowledge to thwart creativity and refuse to give up their old responsibilities/power, they are a liability. But when they consciously venture out into the unknown and use their institutional knowledge as a reserve pool (to be used for references) they can be assets -a positive driving force for change.

I had read somewhere about ‘White Spaces’ in the context of new projects. These are about going into previously unchartered landscapes. ‘White Spaces’ can be of two types: doing something completely different from what you are doing today; doing something which is an extension of what you are doing today. The essence of ‘White Spaces’ is that it is an ‘Unknown space’. You would not know what might emerge there. People who are high on learnability are probably more likely to succeed in these white spaces.

We usually talk of importance of a Learning organization. But I also see a subtle difference between an organization which decides to learn reactively (in response to the environment) or pro-actively (by venturing out into white spaces).

To pro-actively shape our destiny in the future, a question we need to ask ourselves, our teams, and our organization is ‘What are the white spaces we would want to work on this year?’. These white spaces need to be defined and worked on, every year, at all 3 units of performance – individual, teams, and organization.

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Sourav