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My Designation Defines Me....?

As I am interviewing leaders for my forthcoming book, I stumbled across a leadership myth - ‘My Designation automatically warrants respect!’

Hmm, let’s take a pause and explore this further because for most of us our designation is a yardstick by which success is measured. This is also subconsciously linked to the hierarchical seating mechanism in an office – the bigger our designation, the more exclusive desk we get in the office until we have a room and then the corner office. Don’t get me wrong – one should be proud, very proud of moving up the corporate ladder and as the designation gets sexier and sexier, one has the right to feel on top of the world.

Looking back, years ago, I used to agonize over the title on my business card. I was in sales and in my mind, my designation was the window through which my customers would judge me and my power within my organization - the bigger the title, the higher I stood in the ‘importance’ ladder. Also, the perception was that the designation seemed to be a way of getting past a gatekeeper – after all a CEO does not have time to meet with everybody! Huh, there was however, ONE BIG point I was missing – every other person was a Vice President or had a fancy title. So, what differentiated me?

Approximately 2.5 years ago, I had an enlightened discussion with one of my clients – he admitted that given his position, everybody wanted to meet him and yes, designation played a role, however, he wished people were more innovative with that. He wished he had a way of knowing who could really provide value and who was just a fancy designation. He had met many CXOs and unfortunately found many were a waste of time – it really did not matter to him who he met as long the person made a difference and really took his problem off his hands.

That gave me an idea – henceforth, every meeting I went to, I stopped giving out my business cards. I would make some excuse about running out of business cards. Interestingly, I noticed that I made some of my best connections when I did NOT give away my card and focused instead laser like on my customer and on the value that I could bring. Henceforth, my introduction was ‘I am Ruma & I handle sales in this region from ‘my company’ – If you need a solution that I have, rest assured, I know how to navigate through my organization and can get things done for you. So, let’s get the show on the road.’ And now it has become a habit. Except for networking events, I just forget to hand out my business card. (So, if we ever meet and you want my business card, please do remind me….)

One of my good friends, Shantanu Sen Sharma (who now runs his own company, Ozone Education), jokes about how everybody appears to be a Vice President or a Senior Vice President. According to him, the right hand text that comes AFTER the Vice-President gives a true indicator. So, one should ignore the ‘Vice President’ designation and focus on the right side of the title to get a true picture ie Vice President – Americas, Vice President – Infrastructure, Vice President – Service Delivery, Vice President – Customer Services and so on.

And today, in a world of commoditized designations, there is a distinction between going up the ladder on paper and going up the ladder in practice. There is a distinction between a designation and the person behind that designation. And this is one case where the distinction should not be clear at all – if both merge, rest assured a leader is emerging.

Yes, the higher up the ladder you go, people around you will laugh harder at your jokes and your request or suggestion becomes a command. Yes, you will have people working for you but have you earned the right to lead? Have you earned the respect that accompanies the designation? Maybe a better question to answer is ‘What is my unique contribution to this designation?’ ‘What is my identity minus the designation?’ ‘What is the one change I would bring about using my designation?’

Here's to shifting away from just being a wannabe leader defined by designation alone…..

The BIG 'Safety Net'

Until recently many of us viewed having a job as a safety net for our futures. Our parents lived in a society where the main objective was to live comfortably, provide for children and hopefully retire from employment with a reasonable bank balance to help through their old age. And if we look at ourselves now, that is exactly what we are doing (maybe on a larger scale). And more importantly, we are educating our children so that they can land a nice cushy job in the corporate market and in turn have a cushy bank balance to retire on and the cycle continues. 

True, a few of us do break that cycle or encourage our children to break that cycle but for more than 90% of us, this cycle repeats itself.

One of my biggest fears until recently was that I would die an old sick woman with nobody to take care of me and all my focus was on working hard to generate enough bank balance so I could have a support system around me during my old age. After all, you might have a large number of family and friends but when you are sick and old, you have to fend for yourself – can’t really depend upon anybody else.

When I expressed this biggest fear of mine to one of my friends, she laughed. Her biggest fear was to suddenly go bankrupt and disrupt the current comfortable/luxurious lifestyle – I suppose all of us have our own biggest fears and we cling to the flimsy safety net of the corporate structure that gives us an assured income at the end of the month, of which we spend some and invest most for a rainy day. And thus, our mundane existence continues….

When I realized that my fear is not the same as everybody else’s fear, I was surprised. If my friend is not afraid of dying a sick old woman, why am I? And if I am not afraid of disrupting my lifestyle, why is she? We are both strong women – what makes it different for both of us? That set me thinking and I actually realized the whole foolishness of it – that threads of beliefs that we cling to and we plan for…

It just might throw my plan completely out of the window if I were to be hit by a bus tomorrow. I would have lived a miserable life worrying about my old age while I never reach my old age. The hilarity of the whole thing threw me off completely.

Most people I speak to, talk about safety nets – either safety net for themselves or safety net for their children. Don’t get me wrong here – we do need to plan for our older selves and for our children (both of whom need support). However, what is astonishing is our obsession with this safety net. So, what is this safety net? All fingers point to MONEY! Actually ENOUGH MONEY!

What happens if we actually live the thrill of swinging out without a safety net – the worst thing that could happen is that we fall and die? Well, in that case we donot feel a thing. I suppose the worst fear is that what if we fall and we don’t die? What if we are maimed for life and are not able to enjoy the things that we are used to. In a sense that means what if we lose all that we have right now? 

Well, have you ever stopped to consider how strong the corporate safety net is? What if there is a calamity that turns all that digital money you have accumulated in your bank to just useless toilet paper? What safety does the corporate structure, the finance structure provide? What if you became sick (god forbid!) and you never get to see your children grow up? It is not that these things have not happened earlier…..they have and they might happen again in different manifestations.

If you notice closely, the only safety net is YOU – the person that you are, and the belief in yourself. And that is the safety net you can provide to your children as well – the belief in their own selves.

So, if you had no compulsion of maintaining a safety net today, what would you do?

Vote for your CEO...?

‘A Billion Votes’ - This is the name of the program covering the general elections in a news channel in India. The world’s largest democracy is in the throes of an election and the atmosphere has never been so charged - ever. This is the 16^th general elections in India and the longest ever, spread out over 1 month and 1 week. While the temptation is paramount to put in my views about the election, this article is not focused on the elections but instead focused on a 'billion votes' and corporate leadership.

Imagine in a company of hundred thousands of employees, if similarly, the CEO would be elected by the employees, how would that look like? Is the situation be any different?

Well, the employees make money from the company as does the citizens from a country. A company’s performance determines the bonus or increment of an employee as does the country’s economic performance determine the profit and loss of its citizens. A company has various departments contributing in their own ways to the growth as does the country’s states or counties contributing in their own ways to the growth.

So, by that analogy, a truly democratic company would have general elections where the CEO is chosen by the employees rather than the shareholders. So, interestingly while the employees are an organizations biggest assets (particularly in the service industry), the employees have no say in the selection of a CEO. So, does a CEO truly have to value his employees? And what is the pressure of performance – not just an outside-in view but an inside-out view as well?

What are the pros and cons of electing a CEO, wherein the shortlisted candidates (by the board) have to woo the employees to get the coveted corner office?

Advantages that I see are as follows:

• -          Employees are more connection with the CEO since they have selected him/her. Majority employees could have a sense of loyalty
• -          CEO is focused on governance
• -          Rally employees to connect with a CEOs vision, thus enabling an overall growth strategy
• -          Depth or shallowness of the CEO is exposed right during elections

Disadvantages:

• -          Investment in the election process – is it really worth it?
• -          Setting up of camps – opposing camps are clearly identified even among employees. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
• -          CEO has the added focus of connecting with employees on regular basis – is that a good thing or a bad thing?
• -          Sometimes only good articulators who can own the room could get elected – that is one of the biggest highlights of a leader. So, is that a good thing or a bad thing?

What are your thoughts? 

Stage Fright

Have you ever frozen when going onto a stage to speak or when you begin a really important presentation? Has it ever happened to you that you start thinking ‘Oh my god, what am I going to say now? Shit, I have prepared so hard and now I have forgotten everything’. And your steps to the microphone becomes slower and slower and you are looking around at the audience in a bewildered manner. 

You begin your speech the way you had practised and planned and somehow you feel the audience is not responding as you had expected – you make a joke and maybe only you laugh at it or you get a few murmurs. So, you are thinking in your head, my next joke is going to completely fall flat, my audience is bored, how do I get the audience moving etc etc etc.

And here’s the thing – the moment you get into your head, you are in a level of listening where your focus is on you and your thoughts and that is all fine at times but this is definitely not one of those times. The speech/presentation is not about you and hence being in your head now is NOT going to serve you well. So, the trick is to get out of your head and shine the spotlight on something else or someone else.

There are many techniques that people employ – you have to find one that is most effective for you. Performers employ method acting, some look for an object to hold onto to shift their nervous energy. Have you heard of the saying that ‘Imagine your audience naked when you are going up on the stage’. That is a ploy to get you out of your head and many times it could also put you in your head where you then start thinking ‘Ok, the naked audience looks weird, oh  my God, what do I say to this audience?’ So, look beyond that and find something to shine the spotlight on.

And here’s a simple technique - the best antidote to freezing or getting out of your head is being curious. So, imagine this scenario, you are walking up to the microphone and you recognize that you are already in your head going over about what to say and what to do. So, look around and ask yourself ‘what I can be curious about?’ You can be curious about your audience, you can be curious about one person in the audience, you can be curious about the inanimate objects on the stage and THEN NAME IT! Give voice to your curiosity, articulate it and then notice the shift in the energy of you and your audience – that is a great ice-breaker. And once you connect with your audience, notice how easy the flow is - do this again in the midst of your presentation if you feel your audience is drifting off.

The same technique can be used when you are about to make a presentation or conduct a meeting – could be in a closed room as well. So, go ahead give this a try and let me know how it goes....

Is the Client Always Right?

This was a question that was posted in one of the LinkedIn CIO groups. There has been this age old belief in business that Customer is always right. The debate was on whether this saying still holds true because the customer/client may not be aware of the newest solution in the market and hence how can he always be right – he could be operating under limiting beliefs. Very true! 

So, should the solution provider educate the client and make him see his limited beliefs, which could essentially be costing him more money than otherwise?

While the debate raged on for sometime, it is only fair to say that as a solution provider, you might have the best solution in the world, but if you make your client look foolish, your solution will not have any buyer.

Imagine if you could steer your client away from his limiting beliefs and expand his perspectives AND make him look extremely good in the process - sounds like an ideal win-win situation. That is possible only when the client feels that it has been his idea and his decision. So, how does one achieve that?

I had a similar discussion with a wonderful coaching colleague of mine about the following example:

A Coach notices a self limiting belief in a client and believes that if that can be explored and called out, it will serve the client so much more to move forward with more resources. However, the client does not see that as a limiting belief and is uncomfortable with proceeding in that strain of discussion. What should a coach do?

One of the skills in coaching is ‘Holding a Client’s Agenda’. As coaches, we do want the best for all our clients, however, there is a difference between a well wisher and a professionally trained coach. As a coach, she is trained to let go of her agenda and be with the client without judgement. 

Using a mechanism that I call as ‘Engage & Detach’, while a coach engages with a client, she also detaches herself from the outcome and from her own assumptions – a coach does not have to prove herself right. The outcome is something that emerges from the discussion, which allows for openness and gives space to the client to explore and come to his own conclusions. That is so empowering for the client.

What if the same analogy were to be utilized in business? Most books on sales’ or client engagement say the art of selling is to influence your customers to get the desired outcome that YOU want. I have seen sales meetings/negotiations fail due to too much focus on the solution – the solution is the best in the market and hence that should automatically solve all the client’s problem.

As a solution provider, if you are focused on your agenda of what a great solution you have, the client never feels engaged – maybe the client has a more immediate issue of budget or maybe he is struggling with some office politics and his promotion is in jeopardy. The trick is to let go of your own agenda and assumptions and focus on the client’s agenda – you donot have to prove yourself right. And the deeper you explore your client’s agenda, the more you peel off the layers and you are so much closer to getting a solution that empowers the client to take some tough decisions that the client would not have otherwise taken....ENGAGE & DETACH!

The Insincerity of Trying

“I will try my best”, “I am trying to finish this on time”, “I will really try hard”....

How many times have you heard this and it did not give you any sense of relief or belief? And ask yourself how many times have you said this to somebody else?

The phrase ‘try my best’ is still used in all sincerity to convey that no stone will be left unturned and yet the phrase lacks conviction, lacks sincerity, lacks commitment. Imagine if it is replaced by ‘do my best’ – what a big transformation!

So, when we want to show conviction, invite trust and command respect, we need to remove the word ‘try’ from our vocabulary – instead of ‘trying’ to do our best, let us just do our best. Keep it simple!

Involuntarily, use of certain words actually mold us and our brains in a certain way – when we say we will try, we automatically leave a door open to exactly not do that (there is a underlying connotation/prediction that we will do something that is not going to be successful) and it shows itself not only to ourselves but to the listener as well who hears the lack of conviction and immediately breeds distrust.

A tough report needs to be worked upon the entire weekend and put on the customer’s table on Monday first thing in the morning. The report is not just a simple copy and paste but needs a lot of thought, data analysis, insights to be worked upon etc – John is given responsibility of this report. He is ready to take the ownership but does not want to be accountable just in case he is not able to come up with the desired insights. So, he writes an email to the customer explaining ‘I will try to do my best on this report and send you the results by Monday.'

While the intention here is noble, notice the vagueness of the sentence used and imagine what the reaction of the client would be! Rightly so, the customer did not get a definitive YES or NO from this commitment and he has no idea how to proceed – a door is left open through which John could walk right out and leave the customer high and dry.

What do you think would have happened if John had mentioned – “I will do my best on this report and take full ownership” OR “I donot have enough resources over the weekend and hence cannot do the best possible on this report – request an extension”. This way the client is able to definitively able to take a judgement call on what action s/he needs to take next. John either does it or does not - there is no in-between.

Imagine you are going in for an open heart surgery and the surgeon says “I will try to do my best” versus if he says “I will give it my all” or “I will bring in my best team”. Even the doctor does not know the outcome of the surgery, however, you would like to know that the doctor is not just trying but actually doing his/her best.

Imagine if the pilot of your plane says 'I will try to fly the plane'. Ooh, would you get on that plane?

Are you a ‘TRY’ person? Count the number of times you use the word every day – if it is more than 2 per day, you are a ‘TRY’ person. 

How about eliminating the word ‘try’ from your vocabulary (leave the word only to be used for trying on shoes/dresses before you buy). Play it as a game with a friend or your team – every time the word ‘try’ comes up, 10 bucks goes into a collection box. See how huge the collection is at the end of the week.

Another word to watch out for in powerful communication is ‘but’. What do you notice about the usage of this word?

Leadership Begins At Home

(This article is not meant to start a debate on parenting or what is right and what is wrong. Instead, it is aimed at reflecting upon possibilities and expanding perspectives…)

Your team is preparing for an important presentation – they have worked really hard on it and come up with a powerful pitch and really good slides. They send the slides to you for review and your inputs. You go through it and find it really good, shows the tenacity of your team. However, you do believe if 2 or 3 slides are re-ordered, the overall presentation would read better – what do you do?

Most of us would want to add our own value and say ‘Really great presentation, I am impressed. However/but, if you change the order of slides 5 and 10, it would read way better – that’s my only suggestion.’ Nothing wrong with this. Imagine, if you instead said ‘Really great presentation, I am impressed. Let’s go with it and win the pitch!’ What do you notice is the difference?

I would say the value added in the latter case is priceless – you subtly empowered your team to own and be accountable for the presentation! In the earlier case, the moment you say ‘however or but’, you subconsciously diminished their power and their ownership in the overall picture – have you noticed, the higher up you go in an organization, your suggestions automatically become orders to  be followed.

Then the scenario moves to the actual presentation day… Your team member, your subject matter expert and you show up for this important multi-million dollar pitch. Your team member, having taken ownership, is expected to present and he is obviously nervous – stakes are really high and he would rather his seniors present. That’s when you tell him – ‘Are you worried that you are armed only with a pistol and you are going into war zone – don’t worry, in case you haven’t noticed, you have 2 high power bazookas with you on either side of you. What more do you need?’ In the presentation, you discover that your team member upgraded himself to a bazooka and needed to use you and your expert only as rocket launchers. (This is a true anecdote and if you identify this anecdote with yourself, yes, this is your story!)

Have you ever noticed that giving ownership and believing in a person is what extracts the best from him/her.

Sometimes the best example of leadership is at home with our kids. Bringing up kids is never easy – there are too many unknown aspects, too many ifs and buts and stakes are always too high. If I were to say, empower your kids, what comes up?

As a simple example similar to the presentation anecdote mentioned above, as a parent, have you ever ended up taking the lead for your kids’ project(s)? Somewhere along the way, in the race to win, you suddenly find yourself leading in your child’s project instead of supporting – stakes are too high. Your child cannot fail and given the complexities of today’s projects, which sometimes challenge even adults, the child is bound to fail - for sure other parents are 'helping' their kids.... So you have to take up the reins now and before you know it, it becomes a competitive stressful game among grown-ups!

Stop for a minute and ask, ‘What is the goal for my child in this project’? ‘What is success here?’ Coming first, winning a medal or learning (to lead, to fail, to be self-dependent, to be accountable, to be confident)? What if the child took ownership of the complete project, stumbled and fell and you were right there to pick him/her up. What if, you empower your child not by doing his/her work but letting your child lead, take ownership and direct the project the way s/he wants to. You are cheering on your child from the sidelines and ready with bazookas to protect your child, if need arises, but let the child fire his/her own bazooka.

What kind of leader are you and what kind of leaders are you developing at home?

What is your Escape Route?

The other day my friend and I were reminiscing about our college days and my friend pointed out my enormous appetite for fictions during those days and my unusual sleep patterns even during exams. When I was reminded of that, it did strike me odd because I did use to read an inordinately large number of fictions in college and sleep (?) – well, don’t even get me started on that! So what was I gaining from these so-called ‘fruitless’ activities?

Looking back, I loved reading story books right from childhood – the fantasies took me to another world of rich imagination where the mystery, triumph against all odds and the aliveness kept me glued to the books.

Since leaving college I had deluded myself with the fact that I was too busy to read fiction – there have been times when I have not read any fiction for many years and then sometimes I felt the twinge of a cord pulling me towards a fiction. However, the guilt of wasting time in a fiction, kept me away – rather read important stuff like the news, science, fact rather than fiction! So, I tried to do that but that somehow did not resonate with me – the power of fiction kept pulling me incessantly.

So, what is this power of fiction?

Can you imagine what it is like to be the only girl in a class full of 70 odd boys? That was my scenario in engineering college (those days not many women ventured into Mechanical Engineering) - I was a bit of a rebel and quite undiplomatic then, where my ego was as big as anybody else’s and I could play second fiddle to none! And in a class full of hormone raging young boys, most of who came from extremely feudalistic societies/households, you can only imagine the war of the worlds!

I had to shut off the incessant chatter around me so I could focus on my goal of making it through in 4 years of engineering college and I realized fiction gave me that escape route. I also discovered that I relied very heavily on sleep as an alternate therapy. A disagreement with anybody, an intrusive comment at class, something bothering me, I would instantly dive my nose into a book or just go to sleep. My room mates often wondered why and how I slept so much, well, now they know why. Sleep was my escape route and so was fiction.

That set me wondering what kind of escapism is this? It was then that I realized my natural instincts of survival kicked in, in an unimaginable way – sleep delayed my instant reaction and gave me a fresh perspective on waking up. Ever heard of the saying ‘Let me sleep over it…’?

And books took me to a place of aliveness and triumph, which acted as my motivator and renewed my energies or often times even gave me an alternate perspective once I had removed myself from the issue at hand. (Interestingly, I never could read sad books with horrific endings – still can’t).

What is your escape route from anything that is distasteful to you and what do you notice about that? Is that escapism or a way of dealing with the challenges that need you to be better equipped before you deal with it? As long as it is helping you in moving forward, you are doing the right thing. However, if there is dissonance and if you are at the same place where you started, it is time to evaluate your escape route….

When Did It Become OK to Fail?

When did it become all right to fail? When did this paradigm shift happen? I have always grown up with the constant battle AGAINST failure. Study hard so you donot fail; Donot show your emotion so you donot fail in the realm of society; Prepare hard for the presentation – you cannot fail to impress; Study your competition – failing in business is not an option. From these thoughts suddenly, we are thrown into this realm – it is OK to fail….I wonder what is behind that! Is it really ok to fail? Why strive at all, if the accepted norm is – it is OK to fail?

Imagine a baby who is eager to walk on his/her two feet. S/he is probably thinking “Everybody around me is walking and running and I am just crawling, my mobility is so limited –how wonderful it would be to run to that shiny red thing at the end of the room (which people around me say I should not touch) and explore it at will before anybody stops me. Sigh, let me get up on my feet but my bum hurts everytime I fall down and everybody laughs as well – how humiliating!” If the baby decided that he wants to walk and run but is afraid of falling, of hurting and of being humiliated, he would give up on getting up again and again and he would never walk!

We often call going after our dreams as ‘leap of faith’ – wonder why… Our typical journey is we take a leap (somewhere) and build our career and then figure out this is not what I want to do or I want to do more, something is missing and then the opportunity comes up to take another leap (this time with awareness) and we step back – Why? Because we donot want to lose what we already have, we donot want to start at the bottom again (seems daunting...), we have practical obligations in life (mortgages, children, family, our comfort etc etc) or we are just afraid of falling/failing. And then life is up and nobody gets to hear the music within you ever….

If you are one of those who hesitate to follow your passion, it is interesting that you have acquired success, wealth, comfort etc doing something that you are not so passionate about, forcing yourself to give 100%. Imagine what is possible when you follow your passion where you automatically give more than 100%....

I recently met up with a songwriter/music director friend and we were discussing about the struggle and joy of embarking on the path less travelled and the support or non support of people around us. He had a really interesting thing to say – ‘What if I fail – that phrase does not exist for me. There is no ‘what if’ or ‘but’ in my life - I donot give myself any other choice. Music is a passion for me and while many might count the not-so-good days as struggle without success, for me every passing day brings me closer to my goal.’

This observation is so profound – it is so like the child who has to walk/run. For him there is no other choice. There is no ‘what if’ or ‘but’ in the child’s mind – every passing day brings the child closer to the day s/he WILL walk and run. It is not a 'leap of faith' - it is just doing what you are meant to do.

Coming back to when did it become OK to fail, it looks like as babies and as kids, we were uninhibited, undaunted by competition, unafraid to fall down again and again and kept our focus on what we wanted and went after it whole heartedly. 

As we grow up, there are certain things we acquire, ego being the biggest of them who begins to take control of our lives, who begins asking the question ‘what if’. That is our false self, who successfully distorts the image of our life and we fail to make clear distinctions among identity, success and money. Not failing becomes an obsession and the definition of success becomes blurred.

If you look closely, success is about achieving a goal and that is so fulfilling. However, most of us find that, that fulfillment is not the finish line. We never 'arrive' in our lifetime…we move on from one goal to the next and next…so the end state is about reaching a goal and success/failure are just uphills/downhills on the road towards our goal. Hence, it is OK to fail means it is OK to overcome the bump and move on….

What do you notice? If your focus shifts to the goal rather than the end result, and you look deeper into your goal, letting go of associated distracting factors, you will find you NEVER FAIL. Here are some examples of deepening your goal(s):

a)   I want to be the best that I can be (the goal could be: I will add at least 10 more ammunition this month to my artillery to tackle life/career – where am I limiting myself?)

b)   I want to win the contract (the goal could be: I want to win $ X million from this customer within Y months – what else is possible?)

c)   I want to make a lot of money (the goal could be: I want to live my life comfortably and luxuriously and provide for my family – what do I have now? )

d)    I want to provide the best for my children (the goal could be: I want my children to grow up as somebody I would be proud of – what can I do for my children’s growth?)

e)   I want others to look up to me and admire me as a success (the goal could be: I want to be respected and be in a position to give rather than take from others – what does that say about me?)

The same is true for leaders in an organization – if you redefine and focus your personal and professional goals so that they have more depth than just a shallow perspective, imagine the shift you would have in your communications, in your relationships and hence in your business.

I am interested to hear what your goal is….(@ ruma.biswas001@gmail.com)