Utpal Writes » excellence

Entrepreneurship 30

Utpal Vaishnav — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 04:14:22 +0000

What’s entrepreneurship all about? Here are thirty some thoughts on what it is and what it is not. For some people, its very cool move but in fact, it takes a completely different kind of commitment and ability to act beyond reasons.

It is:

Glamorous, in the beginning;
Hard (in fact, very hard), soon after;
Needs a groundbreaker (pioneer, go getter, fireball kind of) mindset;
Not for you if you:
…get disturbed by things you cannot control in your job;
…need very clear objectives from your management to perform;
…need very co-operative people to get things done;
…always need someone to listen to your complaints. Ah…you complain??
…are reasonable, well at least 90 percent;
…think one has to lose in order for the other to win;
…think that honesty was the best policy in 20^th century, maybe. This is 21^st – isn’t it?
…think you need a perfect plan to get started (does perfection exist? Where?);
Sure for you if you:
…don’t depend on your MBA degree to take decisions;
…lead beyond your title to get things done, always;
…want to take the pain of making the road;
…know that someone else is going to travel that road later, but anyways;
…don’t complain. About the dust. About bad people. About crazy clients. about anyone;
…take responsibility for the problems created by other people;
…have persistent determination; a completely different level of commitment;
…listen to criticism about what you do; look at the things from multiple perspectives but still move ahead;
…think you’re smart – you always learn from everyone’s (mostly others’) mistakes; not necessarily your own;
…understand multiple contexts well; better if you apply lessons learned in one into the other;
…believe in creating win-win business prepositions (Haven’t read 7 Habits from Stephen Covey? Huh?);
…are a (the best) people magnet – someone said ‘like attracts like’ …isn’t it? Are you?
…are unreasonable;
…begin with the end in mind (Covey, again) but having (smart) goals is must;
…understand what ‘empathy’ means. It means: how people feel about things. It leads from hiring right person to producing great products to selling not so great products what you wanted to. Not so easy but simple.
…enjoy reading (and acting upon, most important!) what Jobs or Seth or Bate have to say.
…start something, right now!

See Also:

Prevent Your Project from Collapsing

posted in Leadership Leave A Comment

See Also:

Prevent Your Project from Collapsing

Profit from Conflicts!

Utpal Vaishnav — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 20:21:37 +0000

A zero-conflict workplace is like living in fool’s paradise and wiser is one who is able to make profit even from the conflicts.
To do that, your primary focus should be on how to prevent it. Once, Max Lucade wrote,

“Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional.”

So prevent it. Here are some tips:

Have people with integrity on board: Make sure your people have integrity and character. Team is not a team but just a group of people if team members cannot trust one another. Remember, trust without integrity is just not possible.
Invest in developing listening skill: Make sure they possess good listening skills. If you recognize that some people lack such a skill, work on it. State clearly what specific steps they need to take in order to develop listening skills. For example, encouraging them to attend Landmark Forum could be a good option.
Have them read the One Minute Manager: Make sure that they have not only read The One Minute Manager, they really understand it from its deepest insights. Remember, we are just not an individual but an individual managing our own behavior – and this book focuses on some of the most powerful management principles.
Don’t accept anything but solution focused approach: Many people have a habit to complain or criticize about something. That’s okay when they also come with the possible solutions. In fact, a problem presented with a possible solution is a key weapon in grinding success faster. Encourage people to look at problems as opportunities to go to the next level.
Encourage Life-long relationships: Make sure your team members have nurtured internal relationships which are going to stay alive for their remaining life. Situational leadership is good not situational relationships.
Develop tools to pre-handle conflicts: Invest in developing tools and techniques which handle conflicts even before that happen. For example, you can have a list of the causes of conflicts or invest in team-training where team members are taught how to self-handle conflicts etc.
Choose leadership over bossism: Choose to be a leader over just being a boss. E.m Kelly said, “The difference between a boss and a leader: a boss says, ‘Go!’ while a leader says, ‘Let’s go!’.” Leader leads regardless of a title and takes accountability for what his people are doing. He leads from the front and makes optimum use of techniques like Responsibility assignment (RACI) metrics to prevent conflicts.

If prevention doesn’t work and still you find yourself in the middle of a conflict, next best thing is to systematically attack the problem, resolve it, record the lessons learned and prevent it the next time. Here’s how:

Develop Problem Charter: Understand the problem very precisely. Go to the maximum possible detail level and get the clarity. Develop a problem charter which clearly states Who, What, Why, When Where and How of a problem.
Develop a plan: Develop a plan which clearly states how you will perform steps to overcome a problem. Meet the entities identified in the first step, collect other relevant information, keep alternatives ready and be ready to attack the problem.
Execute: Now you have two good things. Necessary clarity about what the problem is and one or more ways about how you will act on it. So execute. Call meetings, exhibit different situational leadership styles and management practices.
Evaluate the outcomes: Captivation of execution is such that the executor forgets to pause and think about how he is executing. So monitor and control your execution. If you feel that your execution needs to be altered, do that. Nothing is permanent and ‘execution’ should also not be an exception. If needs be, restart from step 2 and refine the plan.
Close the problem: Once planned outcome has come, close the problem. Make all the required people aware about the updated status of the problem and record the lessons learned.

You don’t need to always formally develop problem charter or a plan but you need to do that process mentally in order to execute from the correct context.

So profit from it. Like a Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung said,

“The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed. It is just these intense conflicts and their conflagration which are needed to produce valuable and lasting results.”

See Also:

posted in Project Management Leave A Comment

See Also:

Stop Being A Hero

Utpal Vaishnav — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 04:20:40 +0000

Photo Credit: kchbrown's Flickr photostream

When you were a child, your grandmother told you, “You’re special, you possess a unique charm; you’re like a hero!”

First, you laughed…then you consciously started liking it and eventually started believing that you’re a hero… someone very special.

Then, after years of education, you became a software professional and got a good job with one of the top IT organization, but still, in the back of your mind, you have treasured the old image, “I’m a hero!”

That’s where the problem rests for many software teams.

Since you consider yourself a hero, you inevitably strive to reinvent everything. Right from what other team members should have done to organizational processes or what the customer should have expected instead.

Your coarse argument would be, “No one in this organization can work like me. If I were not in that team, that big problem could have never been solved.” Or “People out here do not know even 10% of what I know and I don’t think they will be able to perform the task so effectively when I am not in the team.”

Instead of being open and learning from past mistakes of colleagues or everything else around, you insist on doing everything on your own; at the cost of the client or the organization.

You spend most of your time in beautifying your own code, debugging your less experienced colleague’s code or re-creating architecture of half-developed business application.

You need to understand that you’re not a hero. At least not at the workplace. If you become one, it is not going to give you benefits after a certain point. Reserve that narcism for your visit to your grandmother’s house.

Be less heroic. Be less special. Be more agile. Focus more how your team can add value. Ship early; ship often rather than investing your time in less necessary artifacts in order to build a product or a service that works. Inspect and adapt. Remember, none of you is as powerful as all of you.

See Also:

posted in Self-Help Leave A Comment

See Also:

Mini Saga – Doing Rather Than Being

Utpal Vaishnav — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 16:33:59 +0000

Even today, many companies focus on looking-good kind of practices than actually being good. For example, read this mini-saga.

Photo Credit: mikebaird's Flickr photostream

Doing Rather Than Being

Tactically lionized Steve joined a company as a VP, Sales and was on his first sales call. He had to win over an old client to initiate a crowning deal. The client was happy with the presentation but enunciated, “You can’t paint over a bad experience with good Sales efforts.”

But now the age is changed, the customer mindset is changed, they have become smarter, sharper and declared that now such companies can not keep making chump of them anymore. Either be able to add value – by bringing in Linchpins or doing whatever is necessary - or get lost.

See Also:

posted in Customer Relationships Leave A Comment

See Also:

A Leader Beyond Her Title Leads By 7

Utpal Vaishnav — Sun, 30 May 2010 20:06:51 +0000

This age is of being the best version of you, being able to provide unmatchable value in everything you do, regardless of your position or title.

Photo Credit: pedrosimoes7's Flickr photostream

The following 7 points throws some light on what it takes to be a leader beyond the title.

Embracing Creativity – Despite of being a logical person, she has led her right side brain as well. So she thinks outside of the box in select situations and innovates. She is not frightened of original thinking like most of her environs do. She is always ready to embrace creativity.
Mastering At-least One Skill – She’s able to do her job like no one else does. She’s the best. She’s done everything possible to gain the best possible knowledge and applying it in the right kind of situations. She’s learned, unlearned and relearned that skill. Impact of her mastery is that she’s respected by everyone she relates with; by the virtue of her excellence.
Being Genuine – She has spent meaningful time to identify what she actually is. She decides what it takes to be genuine. She smiles when it’s natural and doesn’t paste on a masked smile to fit a situation. In other words, she says what she means and means what she says.
Showing Instinct – She makes optimum use of the natural leadership resource that all of us have, the instinct. Nonetheless she evaluates all the possible actions with optimum analysis; she operates straight from the gut. She is totally aware that the instincts are below the airfoil of the subconscious and helps her base her feelings outside of reasons.
Assuming Responsibility – She takes responsibility for all she does. For every situation, For her happiness, for her well-being, for doing her job well, for being the best family member, for her better health; for making best use of her energies, for every area of her life, for everything that’s happening to her. For example, she assumes responsibility like Peter did in this story.
Adopting Discomfort – She is comfortable being uncomfortable. She sets the next impossible target and crushes that with handsome margin. She understands that the risks are always personal and the benefits are for all. It is not that she does not feel the dread; she does but still chooses to do it anyway.
Traveling Road-Less – She has aligned herself with the foundational principle of effectiveness. Timeless, unchanging principles which create fundamental paradigms for her to operate. She refuses to travel the broad, well-traveled road to mediocrity and chooses the road to greatness which is full of meaningful-challenges.

Power Question: Are you limited by your title or unreasonably able to lead your way?

See Also:

posted in Leadership Leave A Comment

See Also:

Contribute Beyond Your Title With Assumed Responsibility And Take The Right Decision!

Utpal Vaishnav — Sun, 23 May 2010 08:40:45 +0000

Easier are the decisions where one side is right and the other is wrong however in most situations, leaders do not have that liberty.

Instead, they need to choose between the two rights. They are literal sticky situations specifically because each side is strongly embedded in one of the core, elemental paradigms.

Photo Credit: Randy Son Of Robert's Flickr photostream

Here is a story about Peter, the project manager who assumed responsibility, led beyond his title and made a difference by his decision.

Quandary or the Growth Opportunity?

Background
Peter was working as a project manager with a small but growing software solutions provider company. For last few months, he was working on a project which was critical for the client – Caroline.

Caroline was very happy with the way the project was progressing; especially with the way Peter was managing it. Peter never missed a Status report and used to keep Caroline updated with the progress by every possible means, always.

In fact, Caroline’s positive feedback was one of the reasons behind Peter’s recent handsome salary rise.

Quandary of Two Rights
On Thursday morning, Peter got an email from his CEO instructing him to “hide” important information in the weekly status report which was supposed to be sent on Friday.

Benefit of hiding the information was continuation of the contract with Caroline for at-least next 6 months which meant a lot of money for Peter’s company.

On the other side, Caroline may go bankrupt in next 6 months if she continues funding the project which had no future – at least it was apparent with the information which was to be hidden.

Peter, the project management professional, was well aware that as a project in-charge he has to do the right thing for the project. He wanted to inform Caroline about the fact but he was asked by his superior NOT to do that.

Now, he has to make a choice between two rights. Between integrity (with the client) versus commitment (towards his own company).

Now what would he do? Would he send the status report and pretend that he doesn’t know about the “hidden” fact or update the client about the situation which will lead his company to lose the contract?

The Decision
Peter decided to Eat That Frog and chose a road less traveled.

He decided to meet his CEO to verbalize that he won’t hide that information in the status report and still do well for the company.

Peter quickly developed a business plan which would enable his organization to earn the money they were losing if they unhide the truth to Caroline and presented to his CEO.

“This plan is not bullet-proof and there is no guarantee we will gain the money we are going to lose,” paused the CEO.

“But, it’s definitely a way to go! Peter. You, the leader beyond your title – Project Manager – have made me realize that the path I was heading was faulty and was not in the favor of our company’s long term sustainable success,” CEO ceded slowly.

“Go ahead and update Caroline with the facts. Even if we lose the contract we will at-least win a friend who will be ready to stand by our company for the remaining life,” added the CEO.

Conclusion
Peter sent the status report without hiding the fact. Caroline had taken the decision to stop further development on this project. Actually, stopping this project saved Caroline from going bankrupt also.

On the other side, CEO worked with Peter on the business plan he developed, made it bullet-proof and stared executing it.

6 Months Later: Peter, who is now leading the SBU as per the revised business plan, got a call from Caroline who wanted to start a new project which was 10 times bigger in size, of course with Peter’s company.

This was the story about 3 such quandaries which stand as fundamental models or paradigms while deciding from two-rights quandaries.

Honesty versus Commitment – Honesty towards his profession and commitment towards the company.
Personal interests versus Organization’s – Hiding the fact was easy for Peter but was going to be bad for the company over the long run.
Quick-fix versus Long-standing – Again, the quick-fix – hiding the fact – would have affected the company adversely over the long term.

In such situations, first thing you need to do is to exclaim, as Peter did. The people around you will know it nevertheless.

Everyone will learn it the harder way if you don’t cry it out.

Pause. Take a deep-breath. Decide how you are going to work out the problem. Make an alternative plan and execute it with the specific purpose.

Power Question: In quandaries, do you assume responsibility and take the may-be-tougher but the right decision?

See Also:

posted in Leadership Leave A Comment

See Also:

What Many #Sales Focused Organizations Sometimes Forget (And How Not To)

Utpal Vaishnav — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 19:29:55 +0000

I’ve observed organizations keeping no stones unturned to sell their stuff. From hiring (so called) intelligent management grads from top B-schools to making wild number of on site visits to making a local veteran (with 40 years of industry experience) overloaded with more functions than he can justify – just so that other persons can focus on sales…. means getting the “Goat” in the box!

Photo Credit: Shahrokh Dabiri's Flickr photostream

Such organizations focus only on increasing the sales. To do that, they run aggressive campaigns, extensive cold calling, participate in many trade-shows, do large number of on-site sales visits etc. – all the time they are running, running and running… just to find more customers to sell their stuff.

They do not like to invest their time in making their operations process based. Investing in certifications like CMM or ISO 9001 is a waste of energy for them. Instead they rely on individual’s skills to get things done. In essence they are neglecting to measure the quality of services or the products they are providing.

Often they forget the basic principle that if the service you provide or the product you sell is outstanding; it will market itself!

I’m not saying that aggressive marketing efforts are bad; I’m just saying that equal attention should be given to operations part of the business.

Such “Only Sales focused” mindset negatively impacts their employees (and their family’s lives as well) and the overall business over the long run. Such organizations end up with the poor group of employees who are just helpless people who don’t have any other career option available.

And such organizations expect that such employees will take care of their business. Doesn’t it sound sadly funny?

Here’s what they can do to validate the quality of their products and services from the customer’s perspective:

They can:

be their own customer. Call their customer service department to talk with one of the executive. Call at different times. What kind of experience they get with different executives?
hire external consultants or ask their friends to just walk-in like their real-time customers… get the report of their experiences.
ask their employees, “Would you buy the services that your organization offers?” – they should also drill into the reasons.

Now they should observe the pattern of the answers. Do these patterns resemble anything? If yes then they know what to do.

PS: Here’s a great value article series from Nicholas Bate on A to Z of sales excellence.

PPS: #QualityTweet is a must read ThinkAha! series book by Tanmay Vora which would dramatically help you managing your business-focus by providing an opportunity to look at business from the quality perspective.

See Also:

posted in Customer Relationships Leave A Comment

See Also: