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As it happens in the world of work, as the way we seek and give recognition in families and friends and as the way we mark our milestones in our career – such is the skewed way we mark the measures of ‘Leadership Career Success’.

Navigating the leadership career journey with pseudo and cosmetic milestones decorates only the appearance of the career rather than long term endurance of the career. This treading on an unreal hollow path, puts a lot of pressure on one’s aspiration and the person ultimately reaches nowhere or grows up to be a Bonsai. Bonsai is the art of being ornamental, artificially decorated varieties of big trees in smaller pots. Bonsais are characterized by ‘Dwarfness In Being Big’. Learn more about this from Dr. R. Gopalakrishnan’s book “The Bonsai Manager” in which he speaks to leaders on leadership development.

Career can be defined as the progress by learning and practice of an occupation that a person undertakes for a long period of his life and continuously improve upon it, to offer it at a reciprocal value. Indeed, there can’t be a career where there has not been any ‘progress by learning’. However, and sadly so, the modern societal practice of career measurement ignores the ‘substance’ of career and celebrates the ‘artificial’ beauty tags. Thus, in most cases what we celebrate is our dwarfism in being a Bonsai. Bonsai’s rarely fruit, are mostly appreciated for beauty but a Bonsai Banyan can never give true shade and shelter. Imagine a leader in the place of a bonsai.

Of all the things that make us a true Bonsai Leader, the three most disguised and dangerous are the traps of Power, Title, and Money (PTM). When Power, Title, and Money happen to a professional on a career journey at wrong times, Bonsaism is guaranteed. The ‘look and feel’ is there but the substance is missing in the inner layers. Nonetheless, how many managers/leaders on the other side of the table truly has the courage and conviction to call a spade a spade. How many managers/leaders would like to bear the perils of making a fast tracker on a societal race, realize that untimely stops at the PTM stations underscore no real achievement. This isn’t to say that aspirations and ambitions are bad traits to have. In practice, however, very few can back them with sensibility and logic.

It’s time to review how to measure the success of your leadership career beyond Power, Title, and Money, to have a real career growth and not a bonsai.

 Dr. Marla Gottschalk offers interesting perspectives on leadership aligned to our topic:

• If, in your organization, you are in a role by which you are ‘Developing a voice’ in the organization that impacts the organization as well as your professional practice positively… that’s priceless, go for it. Leadership development programs in India and the world, help leaders to develop the voice.
  
• Learning and mastering something new – Whether your organization is small, medium, or big – look for and get into roles that helps you to learn and master new things in your own professional domain or any other allied domain… you are making meaningful investments towards a long and endurable career. These days, several courses, whether they are online leadership development training courses or offline provide great inputs towards building domain expertise.

• Find the challenge – In organizations, leaders exist in stages of “plates are full” and “can double hat” … periodically, depending upon a range of factors. Whatever they may be and wherever you are, look for challenges. It’s simple to find them. Whatever interferes with your ‘sense of comfort’ is a challenge and you would never regret welcoming a challenge now, to build a strong career base for future. Challenges on the first appearance seems to break us but they do give a tremendous high… a great feeling of satisfaction. Leadership coaching has been found to be a great tool in making leaders find that challenge.
  
• Create something. In every organization either small or big there do exist numerous chances of creating something new. Often invisible. Look for them. Try and give the organization a practice, a process, a benchmark, a system, new product, a new line of business, a new way of operating. Even if you are offering something as mundane as a regular sales training, how differently can you do it and leave your mark. This sounds impossible to many, yet it’s both interesting and elementary. This is an experience which becomes so unique in our career that no traditional matrix can measure them.

As Indian badminton player, Kidambi Srikanth said after he clinched his fourth Super Series Badminton Title with an incredible straight-game triumph over reigning Olympic and World Champion Chen Long – “It’s just that I’m not thinking of winning or losing. I missed competitive badminton and wanted to enjoy the match. It’s like it happened because I missed that period of competitive badminton. It’s like I wanted to hand in and play as many matches as possible.”

Career success isn’t something you chase. It’s something you put forth with effort constantly and then it comes when you least expect it. Most people don’t understand that and only later realizes that they have become a Bonsai.

This blog has been written by Satyakki Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner @ Growthsqapes Consulting.

With VUCA/BANI becoming an established business-environmental monster that assumes myriad unpredictable forms, it is but obvious that businesses seek effective leaders who can lead with an eye on the future. If leadership is role centric then leadership effectiveness is habit centric. Habits which come from a certain depth of character, habits which build trust, habits which inspire and habits which contribute to the purpose or the cause of organization development.

So, what are habits?

A set of behaviors and acts done over and over again become habits. Habits are powerful forces in our lives. As the old much cliched adage goes, “ first you make your habits and then your habits make you”. So aptly put! Leaders are defined by their habits, both the good and the not-so-good ones. Furthermore, for leaders who play a strategic role or are involved in strategic thinking, their habits have the potential to alter the course of the organization they lead.

Let’s look at the top 4 habits that effective leaders practice to leave an indelible impression on the organizations they lead. It is ultimately these habits that improve their leadership effectiveness.

Building trust by jumping in first

People want to trust leaders to lead the way. They trust what they see leaders do and not just say.

Average leaders tend to make mistakes here. They believe that merely inspiring or influencing people with a passionate speech is enough to move them to action. But it rarely does so, at least not for long as rhetoric is not as powerful as action.

Effective leaders habitually practice proactive actions that build trust and set examples.

They convince people to do something by showing them how to do – by jumping in first and then inviting people to join them. They know that to build trust they need to be the first one to jump in the water to see how cold it feels. If they need to cut everyone’s pay, they cut their own pay first. They make the first sacrifice. These trust building actions begets trust and act as great examples of coaching.

Encouraging people to share constructive criticism

No leader can grow if no one shows them where they need to change. It’s painful on one’s pride, but if one is going to fix some habits then one needs other people to show them the mirror every now and then. It’s not fun to hear about how one is falling short, but it’s necessary if one wants to grow. Effective leaders are those people who are high on emotional intelligence and who practice the habit of being open to a two-way communication. They allow people to show them where they lack and what can be done to change that. They proactively seek constructive criticism and do not misunderstand that or take offense. Their feedback seeking habit is a result of the belief that feedback is the breakfast for champions.

Expecting resistance to their ideas

Ineffective leaders wrongly assume that if they did everything “right”, people would get on board with the leader’s vision and get to work. But that’s not how human nature works. There will always be resistance and often it may have nothing to do with the leader’s ideas.

Effective leaders expect this resistance. They don’t pretend that it won’t happen to them and they don’t get discouraged when they face resistance. They inculcate a healthy habit of facing resistance proactively and overcoming that through more powerful habits instead of feeling buried in internal conflict. Their operating mindset is that strength in thinking actually comes from the diversity in thinking. This habit further opens the doors for collaboration.

Practicing reflection

Being a leader can become a daily chore of checking off tasks and fighting fires. And along the way, one can get burned out. To cure this, leaders need to take a pit stop in their leadership journey and consider how they are feeling.

The most effective leaders regularly set aside time to check-in with themselves. They ask themselves how they’re really feeling and remind themselves of the reason they became a leader. This habit of practicing regimented reflection makes them stronger. It acts as their inner lighthouse that navigates their leadership behaviours. Additionally, as a bonus, taking time away from focusing on a problem often becomes the key to problem solving.

Considering the importance of habits in shaping one’s leadership profile, any short-term leadership training or long-term leadership development initiative, whether it is aimed at first time managers or middle managers, is likely to be ineffective if it does not focus on building habits.

This blog is written by Rupender Singh Khaira, an Associate Partner with Growthsqapes.

Since the days, organizations started, teamwork has been one of the fundamental pillars of an organization’s success. Quick and professional collaborative work gives businesses the credence and ability to deliver high-quality products and services, punctually. However, forming a flexible and friendly team is a refined human science. This is because all team members are different and consequently everyone needs a bespoke and personalized approach. Simultaneously, all team members should be instructed on how to act as a single entity.

So, what’s the secret behind a high performance team? How do leaders build one within their organizations? Let’s explore some answers

Defining a high-performance team

It’s not that people working on a common project in one room can be called a team. When we talk of team, we are talking about qualified professionals who share the same values and come together to achieve a common business goal. Such professionals know how to solve the problems efficiently and demonstrate a prominent level of communication and cooperation, providing the expected business results and creating the desired business impact.

Considerations, when building a team

1. Team size: One of the most common mistakes that some leaders tend to do when building a team is to gather a large number of members. In most cases, teams of more than seven people experience poor coordination, increased stress and low productivity. This happens because some tasks remain incomplete due to those members who don’t take the initiative, assuming that “it’s someone else’s responsibility.” In addition, based on data, large teams are more likely to face coordination and communication issues. Hence, a team of five to six specialists is the golden average.

2. Diversity & inclusion: Over the past few years, business leaders have focused more on building diverse teams and be more inclusive. Actions in this area includes hiring people of different genders, ages, nationalities and from other underrepresented groups. When forming a perfect team, leaders need to pay special heed to the team members’ life stories and their individual differences. Leaders need to remember that strength lies in diversity and the most creative ideas are usually born in teams which are characterized by a diverse views.

3. Inter personal relations: As Peter Schutz, Porsche’s former chief executive officer, famously said, “Hire character. Train skills.” While a team member’s job experience is significant, their ability to interact with their peers should not be underestimated either. Leaders need to understand their level of emotional intelligence. They also need to learn, how well can they deal with conflicts and complaints? In what way do they react to critics? It’s also a great practice to explore employees’ behaviour and reactions to stress levels.

Creating a high-performance team

1. Create a clear mission.

An organization’s success and teamwork begins with a well-defined mission statement. This factor plays a crucial role in every team. For example, historically, all noble sports teams have achieved significant results and victories because they had a clear plan and mission uniting all players. The same works for every team. It’s because great leaders are able to articulate a clear team vision and mission that is aligned to the corporate vision and mission. These leaders are able to make the team members know who they are, where they are moving up the career ladder and what they can achieve. The correct mission statement creates a common goal that allows teams to get the desired business results.

2. Set up effective lines of communication.

Communication is one of the most consequential aspects of strong teams. A lack of understanding of how to communicate effectively in a team can have some serious repercussions. When managing a team, leaders need to make sure that all members have direct and boundaryless communication lines with one another. This can lead to increased team motivation, productivity and profitability. Teams that communicate regularly clearly understand the common goal and can support each other without competition. Additionally, it ensures tasks don’t stagnate, and the working environment becomes flexible, innovative and empowering.

3. Share feedback regularly.

Feedback is vital to your team as it helps all team members see their contribution to the business goals and understand how organizational leaders view them. When leaders communicate openly and share honest feedback to each team member, they provide valuable experience that keeps their team united. Feedback, further opens the way for coaching conversations.

4. Contribute to team members’ professional development.

The more leaders invest in their team, the better their business’ bottom line will be. Great leadership is all about developing and empowering the team. Leaders may look at the following ways of improving their team members’ expertise and overall job satisfaction.

• Training: professional courses that empowers team members to stay on top of the latest knowledge and skills pertaining to their field.
• Possibilities and perks: to meet employees’ needs and engage them within the team.
• Appreciation: having a robust rewards and recognition mechanism.

5. Track team’s projects’ progress.

Progress tracking of projects is an integral part of a productive work process. When the leader and the team knows how much time is devoted to a specific task, what goals need to be achieved and who is responsible for the tasks, the leader is on the right path to achieving the objectives. Further, properly organized progress tracking allows the SMEs to quickly identify which parts need to be improved upon, as well as bottlenecks that are preventing the project from development.

Evidently, a high-performing team plays an essential role in overall business growth. Using the above fundamentals, go a long way towards building a cohesive team that is effective and creates the desirable business impact.

This blog has been written by Meena Murugappan, an Associate Partner at Growthsqapes.

A Key or a Strategic Account in B2B sales is that strategically valuable customer of yours’ whose loss would impact your organization’s profits significantly. Owing to the same these accounts are your organization’s “precious gems”. Hence, managing those “gems” is crucial. It is noteworthy that Strategic/Key Account Management (S/KAM) isn’t just about winning new business from your customers but changing the very complexion of how you do business with those customers. This calls for a robust S/KAM framework with a strong focus of winning and retaining those strategically significant “gems”

Let’s look at 3 ways in which those precious gems can be managed

Estimating the future value: all customers do not become large from day one. What is big today started off small at some point of time in the past which is why it’s important to look at growth potential in your key account selection criteria. The business value that the customer offers is co-related with time. Therefore, while trying the estimate the value opportunity, some of the areas where account managers would need to do research pertaining to the above are: potential volume of future sales, their expansion into new markets, their profitability from operations, the uniqueness of their product offerings, focus on innovation etc.

Analyzing the attractiveness value: over and above the value opportunity, there are several pointers to determine your interest and investment of resources in a particular account. For example, you may like to consider the ease of doing business with a particular account before investing your resources in them for the longer term. Some of the other factors that you may like to evaluate are: how much of industry’s work do they represent, their budgets for your products/services, customer’s potential volume you can realistically capture, their willingness to collaborate with you, your access to their decision-makers and influencers, the mutual alignment of values and culture and the like.

Understanding the positioning value: what is your positioning in the customer’s mind space as against your competitors, will determine, whether both teams will be able to work well together for the longer term or not. For example, a good current position in their mind would mean that you have a good relationship with the customer but more growth of the account is possible, perhaps through cross-selling products/services or by penetrating other divisions. A strong current position would mean that you are well entrenched with the customer and are maximizing the value from and to them. Limited current position would mean that you have been selling to them for some time but have only limited penetration of the account and future growth is unlikely unless conditions change.  

Account managers shoulder the responsibility of deepening the existing accounts via development of new opportunities. Towards the same, they do not have an infinite bandwidth of time to grow and protect their existing accounts. Therefore, they must ensure that they are applying uniform guidelines in assessing the new opportunities when they arise. Those guidelines are determined by these factors: 1. The current and future reality of the value opportunity. 2. The competitive ability. 3. Winnability in the account 4. Financial and non-financial worthiness of the win.   

The Strategic Account Development framework of Growthsqapes empowers you to train and develop both the skillset and mindset that is vital for Key Account Management.

This blog is written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at Growthsqapes

When I was at IBM, Sam Palmisano was CEO. Way back in 2004. Sam succeeded Lou Vincent Gerstner Jr. who retired. Sam shook IBM by his famous book titled “Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance” (Sam Palmisano, 2003). However, what wondered the IBM mindscape was that Virginia Rometty succeeded Sam as IBM’s first women CEO. Sam had retired.

Sounds so normal like a rotating chair behind a revolving door. Is it so?

The expression ‘Chair’ usually brings to the mind the two images – of a simple piece of four-legged furniture and a person who could be the authority amongst a group of people. Perceptually a man, if not in reality. Implies power and authority. It’s this aspect that draws one’s attention to the interplay of power and authority and the never-ending chase to win this race. Though this chase for ‘the chair’ exists across different spheres of life, a very interesting one to consider is the corporate sector.

Things are very structured and organised in the corporate sector in terms of roles, responsibilities, authorities, boundaries, hierarchies, etc. This structuring is also visible in context of the growth path for its employees and shows itself at the senior level in the form of succession planning. Succession planning in simple terms is the process of identifying the right talent and preparing them to take up leadership roles in the future when the vacancy arises by virtue of the existing leaders retiring, moving to newer roles or passing away. In other words, it is the process by which contenders for ‘the chair’ are identified and prepared so that the better one may take up the role in the future. 

The purpose of succession planning is to create a talent pool within the organisation from which the deserving candidate ready for the role can be moved to a leadership role as required while maintaining business continuity.
This can be done in two ways –
1) Contingency Succession Planning, wherein an emergency or unforeseen leadership vacancy is aimed to be filled, and
2) Proactive Succession Planning, wherein a long-term approach is taken to fill leadership position vacancies. Another benefit of succession planning is that recruitment cost is minimised with the creation of a sizeable succession pipeline. When Steve Jobs wanted a successor, he started the Apple University. Yes, a university to create a succession planning pipeline at Apple, that gave Tim Cook after Steve Jobs.

If we look at it a little closely, it is easily identifiable that succession planning is a structured process which helps establish an organisation’s identity and facilitates the process of organisational identification within the contenders (Albert & Whetton, 1985). The future incumbents need to understand the organization, what it stands for, create ways of co-relating and identifying with it to be considered as the rightful contenders for whichever chair of office they are currently contending for.

Though seemingly simple, succession planning is a highly evolved and complex process by which the race to ‘the chair’ is facilitated and finally won. However, it is not as simple to achieve as it sounds. There are various challenges encountered along the way. The three most common and crucial challenges include – 

1. Identifying the right candidate – a crucial point to consider here is that while a candidate may be excellent at his/her current role, does s/he have what it takes to perform at the higher levels. Moreover, the selection should agree with everyone.
2. Avoid the bias trap – It is quite natural for the selectors/recruiter to end up being biased in the favour of a familiar candidate despite another one being a more deserving choice for the role under consideration. This is where succession planning can fail terribly and should be avoided. The selection should be made based on the best suited skills as opposed to any other criteria. 
3. Maintain high morale– This is a crucial challenge faced during succession planning as talking about retirement or redundancy can end up being very daunting for some people thereby impacting their morale.  An environment of openness in discussing the growth path and transparency around the possible candidates for growth could help keep the morale high.

It is with such challenges in consideration that one realises the importance of a careful and well-planned succession planning approach. One that steers clear of these challenges and delivers a succession planning strategy that is aligned with the organisational strategy. It is then that in real terms ‘the chair’ will be able to find its rightful heir. 

That’s a bit about how it happens inside the organization. How does it happen at the industry level? Industry level succession planning can be understood from the fact that most CXO of Unilever who cannot make it to the highest executive chair within, becomes CEOs in other companies. Unilever thus is known as the CEO factory that produces well-groomed ready-to-hire CEOs who can hit the road running in any industry.

Think! How does your organization prepare its future leaders? Do you have a plan? The first step is to have a kindergarten of leadership in-house, that builds the first-time managers in their formative years with a success rate of 70 to 80%. As said – If we do not prepare your leaders for future now, you are beginning to make your organization obsolete.

This blog is written by Namita Singh; Consultant & Project Manager at Growthsqapes.

References: 

• Peter Burrows. “Why Apple University Matters More Than Ever”. Bloomberg.com.
• Global Leadership Forecast 2021 by DDI

Let’s begin with self-indulgent posture. When two leaders from different organizations meet, – “How’s business” is the cliched start and then one thing leads to another in hurried hops. A long halt is usually at the topic of ‘people challenges’. Cut to varied covid times when they are talking, a long halt now is at ‘Great Resignation’. Thanks to Dr.Anthony Klotz, professor of business administration at A&M University, Texas who studied resignations for half of his young life now.

Dr. Klotz has contextually calibrated attrition for us and offered it to us as a phenomenon. What is not sure is, if organizational leaders especially human resources managers have taken to the phenomenology behind the phenomena and explained the same to the business managers.

‘Great Resignation’ i.e., unusual numbers of people leaving the organization and creating upheaval within the organization is nothing new, particularly in the Indian context. Many sectors in India have already learned to outgrow attrition levels that are unimaginable even now by other industries. The Business Process Outsourcing Industry in India in the late 90s and early 2000 dealt with attritions as high as fifty percent or more and monthly dashboards moved on to the next slides when it came down to the forties. Around the same time, when Indian Media & Entertainment sector was emerging and began with its humble contribution of one percent to the GDP, what was happening was not attrition but ‘coups’. One media leader would leave as the pied piper of Hamlin followed by many en masse.

What is common across industries is that human resources professionals suffer from a phenomenological miss when it comes to attrition, the aggravation of which is called great resignation. The usual approach to managing attrition is retention, using the compensation and benefits handle. It does not work as it merely is a superficial bandage applied with little or no deep-seated long-term meaningful cure. Here is what happens! Once there is resignation, a reactive financial bandage is attempted and whether it works or not is anybody’s guess. Human resource professionals miss the phenomenological process that the act of resignation is a final act. Before this action, the employee has undergone a series of rational and emotional processes and failing to find a solution – has thus ‘decided to put her papers’. A costly miss by HR professionals. Indeed, for this miss, ignorance cannot be a blissful plea if claims of being professional people managers are to be sustained.

Here’s where leadership at all levels of the organization plays a role. When retaining people exclusively becomes HR’s performance metric, the beginning of the ‘Great Resignation’ starts. Instead, HR professionals must be mindful of the entire phenomenological process behind ‘great resignations’, preempt topples and tumbles by observing human processes patterns around them, describing, interpreting, validating and acting upon on them on priority. Everything else is an act of ‘taking for granted’ and alas one day the decision is taken by the employee.

If ‘Great Resignation’ is to be arrested, leaders across organizational levels need to start thinking, believing, and acting of the following:

Socio-psychological Involvement: Leaders must go beyond the numerical levels of the typified ‘Engagement Scores’ and endeavor to involve themselves at emotional level with the thinking process, feeling process and actions of their people at several situations. Leaders must truly ‘engage in spirit’ and the HR pros must help other leaders understand that engagement is beyond a mathematical score and pomp & show of festivals.

Psychology of Appreciation: Like trust begets trust, appreciation begets drive and motivation. The machinist metaphor is today not only restricted to organizational forms. There are managers who are machines and are detested covertly, if not overtly. An organization with more of these kinds of managers are at the brink of the collapse due to ‘Great Resignation’. HR pros must endeavor to develop the human skills and emotional intelligence of these business managers.

Lead: Lead for heaven’s sake. Either by thought or by action. People look up to leaders. If they cannot look up to their boss, they are discouraged. They have a sense of loss of grace that they ‘have to work’ for someone they cannot get anything from.

Help to learn, more than to earn: Enough data shows that employees remember those bosses from whom they learnt a lot. They say that those bosses made the foundation on which their careers stand today. They imitate those bosses and carry their legacy forward with pride.

Covid shall go away, but organizations will remain. What would remain is continued volatility, uncertainty, confusion, and ambiguity. Stability is a fatal illusion, and it is the leadership and its efficacy that will fetch business efficiency amidst all the dynamism. Amidst all this, it is socio-psychological involvement with people, a culture of appreciation, leaders who can inspire, leader who can truly lead individuals’ career growth and minds that would arrest ‘Great Resignation’.

This blog is written by Satyakki Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner at Growthsqapes Consulting.