Triad of learning

Is an individual responsible for his/her own learning? Most of us will contend yes.

But then what are responsibilities of other 2 stakeholders in process- manager and HR?

Other day I heard someone delineate succinctly the responsibilities.

'Employee owns, manager supports, and HR enables learning'.

Statement sounds simple and relevant! It resonates with me.

But how might this state manifest at workplace?

Employee will own initial identification of learning need and sharing same with manager.

Manager will explore along with the employee whether the correct need has been identified or not (e.g.- by using evidence procedure), facilitate effective choice of 70/20/10 learning mix, work with stakeholders (including HR) on ensuring relevant 70/20/10 learning opportunities materialize, and provide opportunities for transfer of learning back to workplace (for 20 and 10 percent).

HR supports the manager being  more effective in supporting employee through learning process.

But HR's also plays a role is enabling the process. So HR person needs to have an understanding/independent view on how process is running and intervene if process is stuck somewhere- with employee or manager.

But then HR's role is akin to a tight rope walk- you have to enable the employee and manager to drive the process and not to take over ownership of the process.

I also do feel manager has a role to play in enablement. Manager can clear log jams if s/he finds employee stuck somewhere.

A related point is that employee/manager may be stuck at what, when/where, how, or why of learning. A skill in 'enablement' is to figure out where is block/log jam and accordingly facilitate the process.

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Sourav

 

 

 

An Individual Salary Scale

'We are good paymasters. We have provided x% salary increases every year for last y years.'

'We are competitive paymasters. Our salaries are at x percentile of the market.'

These are some usual statements I have heard companies make to showcase to employees/prospective employees the external parity of their salaries.

I often felt these statistics revealed necessary but not sufficient data for a ‘particular employee’. On second thoughts, that’s obvious given that statistics are calculated on basis of a ‘representative employee’.

Hence a particular employee might still be left with a question – ‘so how competitive is my salary wrt market? Is external parity of my salary high, medium, or low?’.

Managers usually respond to such questions by sharing ‘representative employee’ data. But employees also compare their particular situation to anecdotal evidence e.g. – what their friends are earning in other companies, what exiting employees are being offered.

Manager may well counter anecdotal evidence by sharing compensation benchmarking data. Frankly, that’s the best a manager can possibly do.  But compensation benchmarking data is still for a ‘representative employee’.

Can an employee find some compensation comparison data point which is more specific/particular to his/her situation?

A few years back I formulated a relevant methodology specific/particular to an employee. I must share that this makes more sense from an Indian market perspective – given the consistently high salary growth rate in India over last decade.

An employee could look at ' his salary grows y times in how many years’.

For e.g - let's take y as 2. Hence metric is ' your salary doubles in how many years'.

If your salary is doubling every 5 years, your salary is growing annually at 15% (calculate it for yourself J)  That’s a little higher than annual salary growth rate in India for last decade. So you probably are doing well for yourself.

If it’s doubling every 4 years, your salary is growing annually at 19%. If that’s the case, you are doing really good for yourself.

If it’s doubling every 3 years, your salary is growing annually at 26%. If that’s the case, you possibly are doing damn good for yourself.

Do a quick math and check for yourself what rate your salary has been growing at. L

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Sourav

Blind Spots: Intentions v/s Perception of Actions

 

I often find quite a bit of difference between one’s self-perception and perception of one by others. That's where concepts like Johari window and 360 degree processes add value – they make individuals aware of their blind spots.

 

Even well intentioned people seem to have these blind spots. When I first realized this, I was a bit surprised.

 

But then, should it be a surprise?

 

I think the cause of this phenomenon is - we evaluate ourselves on basis of intentions behind our actions while others evaluate us on basis of how our actions are perceived by them'.

 

This also is probably cause for the phenomenon of - we don't seem to live up to the standards we expect from others.

We see actions of others, which we perceive to fall short of standards we expect.

Similarly our actions are perceived by others to fall short of these standards. But we don't realize it as we evaluate ourselves on basis of intentions behind our actions; these intentions usually meet the standard.

 

Hence an important step in self-awareness is to figure out how our actions are being perceived by others.

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Sourav

Tripod of Life and Least Counts

The other day I heard a leader say- ‘You need to be able to focus on work, family, and self.  You need to focus on all 3 to achieve balance in your life’.

I found his concept interesting – especially the fact that he called out self as a different aspect. He subsequently elaborated on how he goes about keeping some time aside for himself also.

Do you need this tripod balance? I will contend yes!

How do you maintain this balance?  

First, periodicity may vary. You may strive for a balance over different periods - daily/weekly/monthly.

Second, quantity you may want to achieve in each period may be different e.g. – you may want to do 2 things for yourself every week while someone else might want to do 4 things for himself/herself over same time period.

So you need to be able to define the least quantity (least count) you want in a period. This is especially important for self-part of tripod – else this may get neglected.

We may use the term ‘quota’ for this.  Once you have finalized a ‘quota’ for a period you tend to work towards it.

Quota ensures that at minimum you meet it. On flip side, it can limit you from exceeding it. But then it also helps you to maintain energy and continuity. You finish the quota and if you still have excess time left – you can experiment/do something new with additional time.

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Sourav

Execution and Results

You have started an initiative. You have laid down initial plans for executing it. You now go ahead and execute the plan.

Will you necessarily have success now?

You may or may not! Execution of plans does not necessarily ensure success.

So what kind of execution or what other elements are necessary to ensure success?

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Let us first look at our perception of execution.

Will you call execution a series of steps or an iterative process? Usual image might be it is a series of steps. If you require follow ups and iteration- well that might seem as process inefficiency!

Surprisingly, I have hardly come across initiatives that have not required follow up, iterations, or some kind of course correction.

Execution of plans is important. But plan needs to factor in 3 things mentioned above.

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Secondly you need to have contracted beforehand with relevant stakeholders on definition of success and timing and process of success measurement.

This is important because success maybe interpreted differently by different stakeholders.

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So execution of plans seems to be a pre-requisite but not a guarantor of success! – a necessary but not a sufficient condition for success J

 

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Sourav

Long Term Perspective

Can you create a long term plan for your work?  

Most of us will be able to at least propose an initial draft of a 2-3 year plan.

 

Are you working today with a long term perspective? 

I was a bit taken back the first time I thought about this question. I frankly didn't have a well formed answer.

 

You could say that if you are working towards a chartered out long term plan, you probably are working today with a long term perspective. But is that the case?

 

Yes. That does seem to be the case. A long term plan will also have tactical and operational elements to it – which link what you do today to expected outcomes in 2-3 years.

 

But then why do we often feel like a clog in wheel - not sure of why we are doing the work we are doing today?

 

Many a times we may not have been involved in long term strategy creation process and/or we don't understand how long term strategy connects back into our daily/weekly/monthly actions.

 

Managers can play a role here – in helping employees understand/appreciate this connection/linkage.

 

Once we understand this linkage, chances are we will do our work today with a long term perspective.

 

Consequently, our work might also feel more meaningful.

 

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Sourav

Manager and Mentor

How does one manage an intern? Is managing an intern similar to managing a full time employee?

How does one manage a campus hire? Is managing a campus hire similar to managing an industry hire?

I think there are differences. These show up both in terms of amount and nature of supervision (if that is the correct term) required.

Frequency of supervision (meet once in how many days) differs. For an intern, it might make sense to meet him/her at least once a day. Would you do that with an industry hire? Possibly not!

Nature of supervision (kind of support provided) differs too. An intern might require more mentoring - being told the answers, more structure in work assigned, and a larger element of ‘psychologically settling down’ conversations. An industry hire/full time employee might want more freedom in both terms of shaping out the goals and working towards them.

First and second elements in mentoring need to be led the manager.

On the other hand, the last element (psychologically setting down) may be better led by a peer/combination of peers. But manager surely has a role to play in setting up these peer relationships.

 

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Sourav