Skip to main content

Author Archives: admin

Older posts
Newer posts

Middle Management Matters! Why?

Posted on by
Middle Management Matters! Why?

Introduction

In the game of cricket middle-order batsmen are those who come out to bat 3-down to 6-down. They face a worn-out ball delivered by spinners, many of whom throw a ‘googly’ every now and then. A bit here and there with your footwork or timing, you are finished with a roar. They must stand like a strong wall of defense. Thus, by competencies the middle-order batsmen are very resilient. By skill, they are craftsmen. They know how to hang-on and keep the battle on. They forward-build what the openers have done, or not done…(sic) and pave way for the tailenders to display bravado.

The world of management is not far different. Here too. Middle is the core and core is strength. It is the core – whether in cricket or business – that stabilizes and controls any system of management order.

In the Middle

They are truly in the middle. Merriam-Webster defines in the middle as ‘in a difficult or unpleasant position’. In the world of management ‘Middle’ is defined as a layer within organizational hierarchies which is in ‘between the operating core and the apex’ (Mintzberg, 1989:98) and whose members are held responsible for a specific business delivery at intermediate level of the overall corporate management order. The order contains everyone from the ‘chairman to the line-man’.

Why the Middle?

Should the apex of the organization be its command center (read brain) for the order of management, the middle management then is the spinal cord. It constitutes the pathway for messages sent by the brain to the frontline organization below (the organs) and from the frontline to the apex-brain on top. The top is nothing without the middle.

Middle management is also the layer which balances the fundamentals of management – Control and Confrontation. Management is all about planning, organizing, implementation and control. Where there is control, there is confrontation – overt or covert. Middle managers are shock absorbers who absorb the tremors from top and bottom layers in their cushion of resilience, competence, and sense of role.

In the Middle: Expectations

Ever since the evolution of management thought, process, and function – the middle management perennially suffers from must and actual conflict. Those on the top think and write down prescriptions for what the middle management must do. In the middle manager’s daily managerial life what’s written down is rarely the reality.

The reality on-ground is that the middle manager is far beyond the docile coupling, transferring the force of the higher management directions obediently down frontline. They rather are critical fasteners who intelligently connect the operating frontline to the strategic apex in such a way that creates the critical success path for the organization. They are ‘fasteners’ as they understand and help interpret both ways – what the seniors say and how the frontline juniors would best understand. Not an easy walk-in-the-park for sure.

In the middle: Competencies

Most of effective ones in the middle are adept in social skills, great dreamweavers that they are – through informal discourses and arm-on-the-shoulder pep talks, they convert top-down interventions into bottom-up aspirations.

What they ‘have to face’ and take-in from the top are not what they shunt to the front liners down the line. They gulp anxieties, fear, ambiguities from top but exude confidence, positivity, and emotional intelligence. They express enthusiasm about a change which deep in their hearts is still at the level of uncertainty. They know that the way they feel is less important, than the way they make others feel viz., their top managers and their bottom layer. For, that’s the reason for their existence in the middle.

In the middle: Inevitable

Will any CEO have the courage to ask for replacing the entire middle-management layer with hundreds of direct reports?  Unthinkable indeed! Look into the list of the most successful and highly effective organizations and you shall see the value the stakeholders attach to the middle-management roles.

The value or importance given to the middle managers manifest in three principal strategic action points:

  1. Investing in furthering the middle managers’ capability. Great organizations believe that middle is the core and core strength is real strength. Thus, capability building of the middle managers is non-negotiable come rain, heat & dust, or snow.
  • Organizations that believe in core strength of the middle, are also very conscientious in doing their succession planning. They go above and beyond the mundane rituals of performance management and embark upon genuine identification process of future leaders on merit from the front lines.
  • Being effective leaders themselves, the top-leaders believe that it is the middle management that is key to corporate sustainability for a future-ready vibrant and sustainable company.

This blog has been written by Satyakki Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner at GrowthSqapes.

B2B Selling Leveraging Impact Of New Paradigms

Posted on by
B2B Selling Leveraging Impact Of New Paradigms

Let’s start by looking at the shifts that are happening in the B2B sales domain in three areas.

The impact of these shifts has led to the following outcomes in buying behavior

  1. Longer time to make purchase decision
  2. Not risking changing supplier for minor improvements 
  3. More complex decision-making with new considerations of multiple stakeholders’ value and impact on organisation
  4. More post-purchase anxiety

While everyone agrees that the way B2B sales is being done also needs to change, let us briefly look at the milestones of how sales has evolved over the last 100 years since Patterson brought in the concept of features, benefits and scripts in 1920 when customers had no information other than what the salespeople actually explained about what the product or service did till the present scenario where new paradigms of B2B selling is emerging.

1970: Linda Richardson introduced consultative selling when competition increased and buyers became more demanding focusing more on the questions and ‘consulting’ before suggesting a ‘solution’.

1980-1990: Solution selling gained popularity when software sales started, focusing more on selling the solution to your customer’s problem instead of selling the product itself. In 1988 SPIN selling was introduced as a simpler and sharper framework of solution-selling.

2012: Insight selling was introduced for customers so overwhelmed with information that they can’t accurately diagnose their problems or find a solution. Insight salespersons act as educators, teaching customers valuable insights for introducing disruptive changes and new approach

2020: A new paradigm of selling is evolving which incorporates the best of the earlier selling practices

The salesperson needs to become adept in using remote/digital selling tools to start building credibility while building their individual “brand” using social networking sites and create value even before they engage in dialogue. Recent CEB research shows that customers despite being better informed are deeply uncertain and stressed. With an excess of data on any solution, a large team of stakeholders involved in each purchase, and a growing range of options to choose from, buying decisions have become more complex and more and more deals slow down or even stop totally. Successful B2B purchase decisions are dependent on customers’ ability to successfully navigate complex institutional change. There also lies the capability of the supplier to provide strategic solution fit and add value which competitors will find difficult to match. Much against popular belief, Harvard Business Review research shows there is a 18% decrease in purchase ease with more information piling which, in fact, makes it harder to sell. B2B sales process, in the current scenario envisages to essentially progress through the following stages which will lead to buyer purchase decision

Now let us focus on the skills required by salespersons to be effective in today’s world.

A Gartner report suggests that 58% of salesforce will remain operating virtual by the end of 2021. And as we all know; selling in a virtual environment needs a different skill-set since customers have lower attention span and it is difficult to track cues and body language, especially when there are multiple stakeholders and the need is to arrive at a consensual decision.

The virtual selling skills include:

  1. Pre-call planning with clear definition of roles, expectations and discussions to anticipate and strategize roadblocks.
  2. Confirm participation and meeting agenda and engaging and mobilizing support in advance among the buyer group.
  3. Prepare Meeting agenda minutely with prioritized topics and engaging stakeholders during and after the meeting.
  4. Use of technology/ platform and tools to create engagement and impact become very important.
  5. Virtual Presentation skills to ensure a connect from anywhere.

The future-ready skills include:

  • Salesperson should already have the information about the industry trends and changes and of the organisation.
  • Add to what the customer already knows as customers expect salespersons to come with insights and ideas.
  • Communicating impact and outcome as only15-20% of salespeople talk of solution in terms of business outcome (Forrester research).
  • Accurate assessment of sales phase and how to advance the sale linked to a well-defined sales process and tracking tools.
  • Emotional connect at a deeper level to enable the amplification of the buying motivators.

Overall skill-building and mindset shifts are needed in the following areas:

  1. Digital tools to uncover information on buyers
  2. Understanding emergent and future needs of buyers and industry
  3. Building emotional connect and trust with buyers
  4. Managing multiple stakeholders with divergent expectations and personal motivations
  5. Positioning and communicating insights in an engaging manner
  6. Business scenario building and commercial acumen

Sales is a dynamic domain and is characterised by constant evolution. To survive, sales professionals need to continuously adapt.

For a better understanding of how you can succeed in overcoming the challenges and grow sales in the current situation in your organisation, feel free to contact Growthsqapes.

This blog has been written by Mr Sandip Mitra, Associate Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Emotional Intelligence For Customer Experience

Posted on by
Emotional Intelligence For Customer Experience

Today, customers do not buy products and services only. They buy experiences. According to recent studies, businesses collectively lose billions in revenue per year due to one unfortunate reason: poor customer service, leading to poor customer experience. The revenue figure quoted above has increased by almost 50 percent from just two years back which is pointing to a problem that is only getting worse as time goes on. These days, when customer experience is the veritable Fourth Industrial Revolution it isn’t enough to simply respond quickly to customer inquiries and offer guidance whenever possible. For delivering a memorable customer experience, we need to create a true, emotional connection with people and use customer service as a way to hone and strengthen it. In this continuum, our own customer centricity and ownership plays a major role.

For delivering a unique customer experience, emotional intelligence in terms of customer service comes into play – something that can not only improve our efforts, but also create a new competitive advantage for us in a wide range of ways that are worth exploring.

Why EI matters in customer service

We need to start thinking of customer service as more than just a utility-based interaction. When we think about service just as a client question to be answered, we lose out on multiple potential opportunities.  When we don’t, we are able to leverage those very opportunities. When customers make direct contact with our brand, they do it for a reason. It is this reason which offers us opportunities that we need to use to our advantage; through emotional intelligence.

Let’s look at 4 simple ways in which we can use emotional intelligence to deliver a unique customer experience

Empathy: empathy is the ability and the mindset to get into the customer’s shoes. It is the hall mark of understanding our customers. In many ways, success in this regard begins and ends with our ability and attitude to care about the person we are speaking to and the issue they are having. “Compassion” is a trait that should be a crucial requirement for anyone in the organization who has the potential to make contact with a customer, regardless of whether they’re technically in customer service or not. Furthermore, we incessantly need to look for reasons to care about our customers.

Building trust : In business, customers mean everything. They are the most important revenue drivers and our brand image builders. Ergo, what our customers think about us can affect practically everything. It is owing to this, that building customer trust makes all the difference. It is noteworthy that while relationships between businesses and customers are quite different from interpersonal connections, most of the core foundations are actually quite similar. Trust and respect are cornerstones of customer decision-making and using emotional intelligence to build trust , especially in an age when customers care more than ever about transparency and socially conscious practices is a critical success factor.

Listening: A strongway to leverage emotional intelligence to our advantage in terms of customer service to deliver a memorable customer experience, involves both truly and deeply listening to what our customer is experiencing and our ability to maintain a positive conduct and attitude, throughout. To be emotionally more intelligent while listening, we need to throw out “the script“, the “broken record” and treat every interaction as unique as it actually is. We need to listen empathically and search for the bigger picture – to find out what the customer’s said and unsaid needs are and what we need to do to exceed customer’s expectations by focusing on the solutions.

The key to using emotional intelligence in customer service involves raising our own self- awareness. Hence, we cannot be afraid to check in on how we are feeling. Only when are able to read and label our own emotions, we will be able to read the emotions of our customers. Building our emotional intelligence skills enables us to leverage our emotional intelligence to do more than just answer customer questions or solve customer problems efficiently. We attain a position whereby we can create better outcomes across the board, taking a standard or even negative customer experience and turning it into a positive one. Consequently, this strengthens the emotional connection we have with our customers, thus increasing their brand loyalty.

This blog has been written by Namita Singh, Consultant & Project Manager at GrowthSqapes.

THE R FACTOR OF SALES LEADERSHIP

Posted on by
THE R FACTOR OF SALES LEADERSHIP

In the last 100 years, perhaps there has never been a time than the last 18 months, when resilience building for sales organisations and sales leaders became a shriller clarion call. With most organizations and people getting impacted by Covid-19, the R Factor (R for Resilience) mattered the most to ensure leadership effectiveness in the sales domain. However, it must be noted that to ensure continuous leadership effectiveness, resilience cannot be merely event based. It has to be “leadership lifestyle” based.

To be effective and successful, it is imperative that sales leaders do the following on a continuous “leadership lifestyle” basis under each of the 3 components of resilience:

1. Belief systems:

  • Proactively make meaning from the experience of team-mates related to their personal goals in the context of organizational goals and get involved in supporting people to achieve their goals.  This surely is compassion in action.
  • Sales is a domain where success and failure are the two sides of the same coin. Maintain and communicate a positive outlook. Help the sales organisation as a whole, as well as individuals; find hope, and identify and work towards realising new opportunities.
  • Take a leading role in finding transcendence for the organisation and its employees. Provide inspiration, define routes towards transformation, and do whatever is possible to support individuals to achieve growth.

2. Organisational processes:

  • Be a proponent for flexibility for employees, showing an openness to novel ways of working, acknowledging and accepting newer ways of relating and connecting to people.
  • Focus and build connectedness, with individual team members and reporting groups. Give and encourage mutual support, show respect for personal experiences, and recognise the strains and stress of balancing new ways of working with team members’ possibly very stressful family situations from time to time.
  • Help, where possible, to mobilise organisational resources to support team members and their families. Build networks of team members that are able to offer each other mutual support. If needed, and feasible, offer financial security and even direct financial support.

3. Communication processes:

  • Be very clear and totally consistent in organisational communications, and clarify ambiguous information quickly, especially where team members are feeling high levels of anxiety about any unclear messages.
  • Be brave and behave with open emotional expressions. Share your own pain, respond empathically to team members’ pain and loss, tolerate differences in the way people respond to loss – and don’t forget to offer respite too, with appropriate humour and expressions of happiness when justified.
  • Reinforce what ought already to be within the mainstream organisational culture of collaborative problem solving. Brainstorm, share decision-making in appropriate ways, emphasise a democratic ethos, agree and focus on goals, and plan together with team members.
  • Make timely and decisive decisions to bring change as organizations that suffer from “decision paralysis” rarely move forward.

Many studies have indicated the importance of resilience as both an individual and leadership trait. Resilience in sales leaders brings about a transformation in the way a sales organisation operates and prepares for the future. It alleviates suffering, builds trust and loyalty, and positions the organisation exceptionally well for facing future challenges. For a sales leader who is trying to be more resilient, an improvement on even a few of the bulleted points above will help.

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

Mindfulness and Leadership: The Connection

Posted on by
Mindfulness and Leadership: The Connection

“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
-John Quincy Adams

Universally, leadership is agreed to be a process by which an individual is seen to have the ability to influence and provide a sense of direction to a human group to accomplish a desired outcome. Especially in the business context, it is about managing people, managing process, managing perception and managing profits. 

Leadership is a significant phenomenon in every stratum of human society. In business domain, it is much in focus and is often celebratory. Nonetheless, absurdities exist in the practice of leadership and does not make it salutary more than often. Leaders derail. In fact, “more leaders fail and derail than become successes” (Furnham, 2010).

The reasons of leadership failure are multidimensional and are highlighted by an amalgamation of behavioral, organizational and situational factors that significantly impacts organizations business results. It a product of the internal processes of the leader, the interpersonal processes with the people being led and the situational dynamics under which the leader is operating. The root however, is the repeated behavioral patterns of the leader.

Mindless pursuit of tasks eventually makes the leader blind to many self-level flaws, and they become incapable to manage their emotions to initiate, develop and sustain reasonable interpersonal relationships. These leaders operate ‘mindlessly’. To be ‘mindless’ is to be in an inactive state of mind that is characterized by clinging to the past. Mindless leaders are imprisoned by their own rigid perspective. They remain unresponsive to how meaning shifts with shifts in circumstances. For them, the past continues to rule their opinion. Their behavior – much like automated robots without knowing it – keeps governing instead of any directional guiding to the future. They are characterized by suspension of understanding, being oblivious to surroundings and never think and act differently tuned to times. They become robotic leaders.

The antidote to robotic leadership is ‘Mindful Leadership’. Mindfulness is being aware of self, involved with others and engaged with the surroundings. Mindfulness does not demand hermit-level meditative skill and recluse. It is a humble process of actively noticing and being aware of things that are happing within self and in surroundings. It is not to put a demand on the degree of acuteness of observation and making it performance. It is rather, being present, being sensitive, being open to receive a new context and accept a new perspective. It is not to be slaved by a routine of governance but to be liberated by the guidance of the moment. Being in and being aware of the ‘here and now’. Sounds strange, as most may think – ‘I am very much present’. In reality, the mindlessness is so acute, that they do not even realize that they are “not there” and sadly they do not even know that they are not in the moment. Reasons for mindfulness to be promoted as an effective leader development method.

A research conducted by Institute for Mindful Leadership on the effectiveness of a Mindful Leadership and Wellness interventional workshop reported that:

  • 93% said the training had a positive impact on their ability to create space for innovation
  • 89% said the program enhanced their ability to listen to themselves and others
  • Nearly 70% reported that the training made a positive difference in their ability to think as strategic leaders.

Favorable results showed that mindful leadership training enhances mindfulness, compassion and overall well-being and health.

Here’re 4 Simple Mindfulness Practices for Leaders:

  1. Being in the Present: Be aware of your being. Focus on your presence in a situation. Asking yourself – ‘what is happening to me’? ‘How am I feeling?’. ‘Why am I doing what I am doing’?’
  • The Power of Breath: Feel your breath going through your nostrils. Notice the way your body swells and ebbs. Each time you are being aware as – ‘I breath in, I breath out’. Initially, if the mind wanders, so be it. Eventually, it will settle down and you will begin to be ‘mindful’.
  • Collect yourself – Literally! The scattered self that we often become needs the ‘organizing and ordering’ that you do to a pack of cards. Order removes disorder – of mind body and spirit – and enhances our sense of Being. Closing your eyes and watching your breath is an easy way.
  • Body Scan – Mind, body and spirit are integral to our being in totality. To align them, close your eyes, be aware of your breath. Focus on each part of your body silently. Visualize it, be grateful to it, thank it in silence. Talk to it. Offer a smile.

Mindfulness heightens sensitivity. With enhanced sensitivity and self-awareness leaders expand their thinking horizons. They become sensitive to their people, receptive to newer ideas, develop newer perspectives and do not get entangled in the chains of the past. They evolve as transformational guides for self and others. Mindfulness truly adds to personal and professional growth of leaders and prevents them from derailing.

This blog has been written by Pete Harpum, Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Leading with Care? – The Key is Emotional Intelligence

Posted on by
Leading with Care? - The Key is Emotional Intelligence

Back in a 2019 survey when the world was normal, 36% of the executives thought that Emotional Quotient (EQ) will be the most desired competence within the next three years. 25% of them extended the period with grace to five years. Within a year of this survey by Capgemini Research Institute, came the ‘new normal’ with radical tectonic changes in the world socio-economic system of which organizations are but parts of the whole. Thus, barring a few categories of business that rocketed, pandemic otherwise stormed most organizations with sweeping changes in the way business was performed.

Leaders well-known to exhibit visionary strategic insights and clockwork execution in the ‘normal’ are suddenly getting examined on a range of ‘new normal’ paradoxes. The latest mandate for leadership in the new normal; a critical behavioral measure as a determinant variable in this wavy covid-19 continuum that could have the most significant impact on a leader’s effectiveness – The Leader’s Emotional Quotient.

In the amphitheater of an organization, a leader irrespective of the rung of the organizational ladder he belongs to, has five arenas to perform –

i) managing process

ii) managing products or services

iii) managing people

iv) managing perceptions.

The way the leader performs in these arenas is determined by how he performs in the fifth arena which may directly not meet the eye of the organizational onlookers –

v) managing self.

Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is insufficient and only partially affords the above. Total leadership effectiveness is achieved through Emotional Quotient (EQ). EQ is the leader’s X-factor. The ability to make sense of the surrounding, usage of the sense made, and channelizing one’s own emotional energy in positive ways to ease stress, communicate effectively, empathizing with others, overcome challenges of relating despite differences, and transforming conflicts into collaborations.

These clearly are beyond the reach of cognitive faculties and calls for an active emotive faculty. Thus, without EQ ‘managing self’ is seldom a reality for leaders. The ill of this reflects gravely in the case of senior leaders of the organizations who are lonely at the top, bereft of any frank feedback, make key decisions that influence the strategic path of the organization. One wrong foot forward due to overuse of IQ and abandoning the EQ has devastating effects that could last long.

What’s even worse, a leader without EQ is on his way to becoming what is called a ‘narcissistic leader’. Someone full of himself and oblivious of what’s happening around, with an excessive need for admiration, complete indifference to what others feel, inability to take slightest of the criticism, and a heightened sense of entitlement.

While organizations ride the rollercoaster of Covid19 waves, their leaders need to play the role of resilience-provider providing for the emotional, physical, and psychological endurance of their people. Leaders are expected to demonstrate high degrees of empathy towards the employees and reassure them about the future. Leaders are to act on hope-restoration by infusing positivity.

Inspire people to adopt and practice a calm and composed approach to daily life regardless of what comes next, often providing necessary psychological, financial, and socio-logistic support to their people to facilitate their work-from-home realities. Above all, it is now that the leader must take personal responsibility and facilitate the performance achievement of his people.

To ensure this support to employees, leaders must adjust, adapt and be responsive to the uncertainties triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic across the organization. It is the leader’s EQ-based resilience response that can significantly influence his people’s resilience, well-being, engagement and identification with the organization, performance, commitment, creativity, and positive organizational citizenship behavior. Can any leader deliver these if he is not a High EQ Leader?

In a fleeting spell, the coronavirus has shown multiple deaths to many organizations. Many escaped deaths from a sniffing distance. This obviously has an unseen psychosomatic effect on an organization’s mindscape. Communicating bad news is a tough skill. Getting people to deliver even when the ‘new normal’ has most things ‘abnormal’. Few homes and domestic family processes are seldom designed to double-up as offices.

Yet, the leader needs to show business results through his people. Through self-awareness by high EQ, the leader uses a polite yet firm, tough yet loving, authoritative yet affiliative, demanding yet supportive style that creates an organizational climate that nurtures trust and performance.

The high EQ leader, therefore, is a ‘balanced being’ aware of his own thoughts, feelings and how the thoughts and feelings manifest as behavior. Being high on EQ is about having the ability to identify and manage not only one’s own emotions but that of others and groups too. EQ is a fundamental competency for effective leaders and is a reliable predictor of professional and personal excellence. Thus, the X-Factor of the leadership effectiveness is ‘High EQ’ and it impacts organizational profitability and performance.

Here’s an endorsement of the high EQ leadership-

“I have always lead people with affection. No success or achievement in material terms is worthwhile unless it serves the needs or interests of the country and its people and is achieved by fair and honest means.” – J.R.D.Tata

(Upcoming Next: The 5 things that a high EQ leader does)

[Disclaimer: Wherever a gender-specific pronoun is used, it should be understood as referring to both genders, unless explicitly stated. This is done solely for the purpose of making the text easier to read, and no offense or sexism is intended.]

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

Covid-19 second wave – How is it impacting L&D?

Posted on by
Covid-19 second wave - How is it impacting L&D?

As you read this, the equilibrium of normalcy in society seems to be in another battle. The battle between vaccine possibility and virus positivity. Both Covishield and Covaxin in India seem to be overcoming the accusations of efficacy, supply, and side-effects from all quarters, at least perceptually.

In a huge nation like ours where faith often rules over logic, perceptual validation competes with clinical validation. Though each substantial leap of the virus is being thwarted by eligibility leaps of a vaccinable population, clearly to us this wave is altered. Fear now seems to be a faulty evaluation of actual reality. No matter how much the authorities force penalties or whack us, there is a fair degree of anti-virus arrogance and disbelief.

‘Walking and talking encyclopedias’ declare herd immunity. Only if they can be convinced by eminent experts like Dr.Guleria, that herd immunity is achieved by protecting people through vaccination, not by exposing them to the pathogen that causes the disease. 

The factors that are driving the second wave, let’s face it – waning antibodies, not following COVID-19 appropriate behavior, pending vaccinations, and gung-ho festive celebrations are finally affecting business. With many local governments forced to re-introduce stricter measures like night-time curfews and sealing of premises in order to contain the spread, several plans that were coming to tracks of delivery are getting stalled or delayed.

What does this ‘contact-less continuity’ and delayed normalization mean for L&D managers?

Virtual boredom returns like a bad taste. At all levels of society, we were beginning to ‘get real’ , and getting back to virtual again is battling a lot of inertia.

Hope is also a paradoxically bad habit. It drives us in a direction and generates a dilemma. That’s what the L&D community is filled with as the second wave rises. Budgets and plans were made keeping the Hybrid Learning Model in mind, but the heart yearned for the off-line. Covid-19 enforced hybridization of learning.

Hybridization of learning could be defined as intermixing of different pedagogical elements that have the capacity of going beyond the traditional ‘walled educational interaction-­systems’ of facilitator and learner to create a new cyber-organizational entity.

What’s different in the Hybrid Learning Model?

A composition of internet-of-things (IoT) based educational technology and human beings turning learning into a new social hybrid. A new social system of learning, with its own social networks and mediating technology – the mobile apps, Amazon Alexa, Google Home, the changed LMS that talks through them, travels in the car and employee bus to other home-delivered byte-sized content carriers.

While the ‘echo chamber’ utility of a traditional conference room is not discounted, the new cyber-org entity would function as a room of discords and differences. Facilitating in the hybrid model is not smooth as silk. The virtual environment generates new psychodynamic elements in the learner much different from in-class.  

So, project managers and program managers are back on the drawing board. And within the hybrid, the blended will be put to test. All elements of L&D will swivel around these. Is there a better model than the Corona Virus Learning Model? 2021-22 is the Year of the Corona Hybrid Learning Model. It May sound bizarre at the moment but once it passes the test, it would enter the future BCP-DMP manuals.

How can the L&D community cope?

Without judgment and without trying too hard to force-fit, the L&D community needs to accept that theory continues to be put into practice. The conjectures that happened in magazine articles about real growth through virtual methods are now a reality. As a capability building community we must be “paying attention in a particular way: on (our) purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4).

That’s what being mindful is all about. This would give us an inner sense of flexibility to accept, connect, and collaborate. The ‘flexibility to accept’ is a cognitive process and a biological reality that we may not be conscious about that we undergo. So, let’s be thoughtful and mindful of what we cook with our thoughts. That should help us cope. Another point. Resilience is for us too. Learning too is business.

L&D community can no more brush aside technology as the snooty’s show. We got to come out of our technophobia, adopt and adapt to stay in business.

3 ways to ensure efficiency, effectiveness, and efficacy in capability-building endeavors in the Hybrid Learning Model?

The North Star: Zero-surprises project management is the north star for program managers, project managers, and learning team leaders. The inertia of taste, preferences, and fatigues of Zoom, MS Teams, and Google Meets forced by the quirks of  WFH, needs a disciplined approach to help us accomplish more in terms of a learning culture with the hybrid model, so that we do not spin out of control. For efficiency, it is mandatory that the unstructured virtual environment of the hybrid model becomes empirical and project-oriented.

The Visible Impact: “Change in behavior is the only indicator of growth” (Lewin). For capability-building interventions, this translates into a change in behavior that gives a visible needle movement in business. Traditional indicators of effectiveness are no indicators in the current context and methodology of capability building. Program managers and business managers need to identify fresh needles on their dashboards whose movements they will track. That’s where L&D and business have the mandate to co-own, connect, create and collaborate.

Not the Medical Paradigm – What creates fruitful learning and how to measure it? Does a good facilitator always lead to great learning? In other words, can any facilitator, in real or virtual mode, create learning even when participants do not learn well; and can participants learn despite facilitation that is substandard? The observation that surgery was successful, but the patient died anyway is what medicos can afford. As learning community members, our reality lies in the ‘belief that we have on our own capabilities to impact others learning’, as different role holders of the learning organization. On the other hand, each of us in the learning community also has a larger goal – that of generating belief in people that learning would change their world for a little better. ‘Learning is learner’s responsibility’ – true, but that does not absolve ours. 

Satyakki Bhattacharjee
Managing Partner – Growthsqapes

This blog has been written by Satyakki Bhattacharjee, Managing Partner at GrowthSqapes.

FTM Development

Posted on by
FTM Development - Making tomorrow’s leaders, today.

Making tomorrow’s leaders, today.

As we reflect upon the heading, our mind may be wanting to first understand what leadership is.  Simply put, leadership is a set of behaviors that leaders manifest to influence organizational growth via people management. Leadership capability and bench strength are crucial determinators of an organization’s success.

In the context of above, the First Time Managers (FTM) form the crucial base of the leadership pyramid. In terms of pure statistics, FTM is almost 70% of the total leadership pool and supervises around 80% of the workforce. However recent research shows that a large majority (up to 87%) of FTM wish they were given the chance to learn and progress when they first assumed their role, and nearly half (48%) felt they were grossly undertrained for their new role. This builds the case of a clear need for sustained FTM development, more so in the wake and the aftermath of the Pandemic.

Our experience and understanding arising out of working in the area of FTM development, in both domestic and international markets, reveals 2 paradigms. They being

  1.  The struggles and challenges faced by an individual transitioning into the FTM role and those faced by a tenured FTM are different.
  2. The sustainability of the FTM’s learning is very crucial to their success.

Hence, GrowthSqapes believes only singular and a differentiated approach for both paradigms above would make leaders out of the FTM and pave the path of building tomorrow’s leaders today.

Let’s look at the two approaches of developing FTM.

Approach 1: Develop those FTM who are transitioning into the new role.

In this case, the need is to assist and prepare the new managers for the transitioning process – for both leadership skills and emotions. Hence the focus of development is on:

  1. Understanding oneself – awareness of one’s strength and development areas to build confidence to take on a managerial role.
  2.  Understanding of the new role– the expectations, responsibilities attached, and the measures of performance. 

Approach 2: Develop the tenured FTM (already spent 12-18 months in the role)

In this case, the need is to develop the managers with a focus on skill development pertaining to:

  1. People Management – effectively managing people and driving team performance
  2. Leadership style– adopting situational leadership styles to coach and motivate the team to achieve the team deliverables.

The success of any FTM development journey depends on 3 levers:

  1. Establishing relevance: “What is in it for me?” for the participant.
  2. Personalization at scale: Providing personalized inputs to each participant.
  3. Seamless experience: Providing a seamless & engaging experience across modules and creating a continuous connection throughout the learning journey.

GrowthSqapes has been working with large MNCs as well as traditional Indian organizations in the area of FTM development. Our observation has been that; based on the organizational priorities of FTM development, the focus on key skills varies. However, most organizations choose to undergo a 3-6 month blended learning journey so that they are able to create learning sustenance and ensure sustainable development of the FTMs. The organizational benefits for these learning journeys, both for the participants and the organization are being acknowledged and the business impact is being felt.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

The Leader As a Coach

Posted on by
The Leader As a Coach

The Evolution of Coaching

As the corporate world grapples with job losses, anxiety, and related issues resulting from “Work From Home” in the current pandemic and tries to make sense of the “new normal“, the challenge being faced by the corporate leaders is; how to develop the intangible and yet extremely important competencies of being a coach to the team to help them in keeping their heads above water as they navigate through the troubled waters of these times.

The word “leader” and “coach” now has greater importance and significance than ever before. Earlier, the leader needed to command, control and direct the team. That’s not what today is. Owing to rapid, constant, and disruptive changes, the leader today needs to give more of support and guidance rather than instructions to unleash fresh energy, innovation, and commitment in the team.

Additionally, today, with the senior leaders having to don the new role of a sounding board, allowing people to leverage their strengths and looking at areas in their lives which were never spoken of and yet seem to have the potential to compliment their existing strengths, the role of the leader has transformed.

In short, the new role of the leader is to become a coach.

The basic philosophy on which coaching functions is that “we human beings are extremely capable of change and transformation at any point of our lives and becoming the best version of ourselves”. Provided the change is for our betterment, is based on trust and is done in a safe and non threatening environment, it has the potential to make us better than we are.

The coaching we’re talking about—the kind that creates a true learning organization—is ongoing and executed by those inside the organization. Data of the last about one decade shows that evolved and progressive organizations moving away from the command and control culture and managers/leaders are shifting paradigms from being just managers and becoming more of coaches to their peers and colleagues.

The Case for Coaching

Athletes, musicians, and people from different professions have always given a lot of credit to their coach for their success. Roger Federer and Serena Williams, two cases in point, have won the maximum number of Grand Slams between them and they give a lot of credit to their coaches time and again for their success.

The leader as a coach does not play the sport for the team member, but he will stretch you, encourage you, show you the mirror, will almost certainly create insights which would lead to immense learning for the team member about themselves and would hold the team member accountable for their performance for the future. Great leaders who are great coaches listen well, which is the hallmark of any great coach.

While every leader at the helm of affairs may bring in their own strengths, at the same time” listening”, empathy and understanding of things not being said and still being understood is an art that is becoming more and more important as organizations develop leaders for different levels.

But, for leaders who are accustomed to tackling performance problems by telling people what to do, a coaching approach often feels too “soft.” What’s more, it can make them psychologically uncomfortable, because it deprives them of their most familiar management tool: asserting their authority, a trait which a lot of leaders acquire from their predecessors.

Read this example. In one study, when asked about their intent to develop their reportees, nine out of 10 leaders decided they wanted to help their direct reports do better. But when they were asked to role-play a coaching conversation with the same reportee, they demonstrated much room for improvement. While they know what they’re supposed to do: “ask and listen,” and not “tell and sell”, that behavior doesn’t come naturally in the leaders, because deep down they’ve already made up their minds about the right way forward, usually before they even begin talking to the reporter.

So their efforts to coach typically consist of just trying to get agreement on what they’ve already decided. That’s not real coaching—and not surprisingly, it doesn’t play out well.

Therefore, coaching as a developmental approach requires a paradigm shift in thinking and behaviour in which encouraging exploration of possibilities plays the most crucial role. And, while coaching is something which can be learnt and there are models which can be helpful, leaders must allow the coachee to formulate their own thought and ideas…and support them along the way.

For leaders, it may be quite an uphill journey initially as it requires an effort in letting go of their inherent managerial style. However, the development of coaching ability is a great skill to help the leader meander upwards in their leadership journey.

GrowthSqapes has robust solutions and strong capability in developing leaders as coaches.

This blog has been written by Rupender Khaira, Associate Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Social Network Selling Vs Digital Marketing

Posted on by
Social Network Selling Vs Digital Marketing

Circa: 2000: A business headline: “Seven out of ten executives believe that technology will replace human interaction with customers in the next decade.”

Circa 2019: A business headline: “78% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media.”

Sales is a dynamic domain and in the VUCA world, it has become more vibrant as an art and a science. This dynamism is attributed to the ever-changing relevance or importance of the various “cogs in the sales wheel”, customarily known as the sales process, over a veritable time-lapse of the last 20 years.

Hence, a component of the sales process which was appropriate at a particular point of time in the past may not be relevant today or in the future. The most significant contributing factor to this dynamism is the advent of technology and the infiltration of the social network in our lives.

What is Social Network Selling?

Social network selling is the art of leveraging and capitalizing on your social networks to find the right prospects, build trusted relationships with existing customers, and ultimately, help you achieve your sales goals by engaging with both prospects and customers at a personal level.

The concept is very akin to that of inbound marketing with the goal being: overall improvement of sales and marketing efficiency by building more deeper relationships with target audiences. The social selling process is characterized via engagement through the use of social media tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

The cogs in the Social Network Selling wheel

Observations and studies show this is how social network selling works

  • Instead of spending time on cold, outbound prospecting, the sales team members focus on generating conversations and engagement throughout the sales process.
  • The sales team members participate in social media, share a mix of interesting branded and non-branded content so that they are perceived as expert curators, and build relationships organically over a period of time.
  • Over time, the visibility that the sales team members bring via the content that they have been collectively sharing starts trickling back to the organization as a whole, thereby strengthening the value of the brand and influencing the customer’s purchase decision positively.

Is Social Network Selling, Digital Marketing?

An answer to the above pertinent question is that by definition, social selling isn’t conventional selling. It sits at the intersection of sales and marketing of the online and offline worlds. While, unlike social marketing, social network selling is aimed at cultivating one-on-one relationships versus a broadcast to many, it draws similarity from the fact that sales have the relationships and the expertise in “selling” but marketing is often on the frontlines of the brand value proposition and the story that is needed to optimize those “selling” interactions.

With the help of industry-validated content, GrowthSqapes’ social network selling solution brings to you the expertise to up-skill your sales team members to develop and sustain the art of leveraging social media for sales outcomes.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

Managing vintage people during Organizational Transformation, The Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©®

Posted on by
Managing vintage people during Organizational Transformation, The Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©®

The Existential Question

Particularly those organizations which have existed for many years, a time comes when it faces an existential question that must be answered. “The conventional (read traditional) model of our operations, should we continue with that? Will it be potent enough to help us enter the new age economy?” Is what the board room deeply contemplates. For the courageous ones, this often leads to a deterministic enterprise-wide planned changed intervention – the organizational transformation.

The Role OD plays

Whereas there are agile transformation experts who lay down the cognitive process of transformation, it is the Organization Development (OD) experts who hold the hands of the organization to enter a new world of work in terms of value creation, innovation, process integration, and collaboration. The organization faces fundamental dilemmas akin to balancing Hobson’s choice – what to do with vintage employees? Vintage is characteristic of high quality.

Nonetheless, vintage is also characteristic of not being in tune with modern times though being a solid citizen. In the context of organizations, the ‘high quality’ of people is time relevant. When the organization wants to shift from a traditional model of operation to a more contemporary model to adapt to the shifting waves of the new age economy, how it deals with the vintage employees is a direct reflection of any gap existing between its espoused values and enacted values about its workforce.

The Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©®

Our Vintage-Agility Human Capital Model©® is a logical yet sensitive application that offers to facilitate astrategic plan and decision-making in this area. When viewed through the lens of ‘fit for future’, the human capital can be seen through the two axes of Vintage and Agility. The resultant four zones clearly offer the strategic necessities that are merited.

When Applied as an Intervention

Our experience of running this intervention for an European beer major has resulted in painless management of “people matters” during an organizational transformation endeavor – a rather sensitive issue otherwise. This brewery organization was traditionally a family business for generations which is traveling the cycles of times since 1870, high on passion and innovation and wanted to shift gears to match the speed and character of the new-age business dynamics.

People who were high on vintage, low on agility, and were in the zone of obsolescence were “to be dealt with”. The brewery family first wanted to push these people to the zone of capacitive potentiality to explore areas on which it was possible for them “to be developed”. They were imparted new technology, a new work attitude, and new skills development training to reduce the gap between what they were earlier good at and what their new roles demanded to become performers today.

Being a historical family business, they had a humanistic approach and believed in the Y-theory way of managing their human capital base that the theory-X way. Putting anyone in the zone of obsolescence was the ultimate step that was used when it was thoroughly falsified that these people can be developed. It was validated in many ways before being conclusive that they have reached such high levels of obsolescence attitudinally as well as by skills, that they cannot be developed.

The Effect

The efforts made with these people were recognized by the people themselves. They, therefore in many cases volunteered a good-humored separation. The brewery family management ‘took care’ of them for lengthy periods of the rest of their lives socially, emotionally, and economically. The identity of belonging to the organization was reinforced in many different even after the separation. One family director shared the spirit rightly – “the marriage is called off, but the human relationship remains”. sense of identity that the people derived by ‘working for the brand’ was changed but never robbed off.

The Lessons Learnt

The above success story has many lessons to learn.

  • Potential agitations in organizational transformational endeavors are indeed made smooth and harmonious by effective OD intervention.
  • The Change Engine moves in a pair of tracks – the mechanical process reengineering, and the humanistic people process management.
  • OD interventions prevent derailment of the change engine.
  • Not all organizations need to be financially as generous as the brewery company, but emotional generosity and inclusion are possible without expending a penny.
  • Employment ceases, ambassadorship continues.
  • Organizational Identity and identification are significant constructs that are often ignored in transformation exercises with huge long-term ramifications.
  • Holistic approach to organizational transformation through the diagnosis of conscious as well as unconscious processes yields better results and business impact than the Reductionist quick-fix approach.

(Disclaimer: Names of client system are withheld under a non-disclosure agreement.)

GrowthSqapes does extensive work in the area of OD. Feel free to reach out to us.

This blog has been written by Pete Harpum, Partner at GrowthSqapes.

Re-imaging Sales in a Virtual World: 4 Success Mantras

Posted on by
Re-imaging Sales in a Virtual World: 4 Success Mantras

In the early 2000s one of the leading business newspapers in India published a report which said that 70% of senior executives believed that technology would replace human interaction with customers in the next couple of decades. Data of last year shows that in the B2B sales domain, approx 75% of social sellers outsell peers who don’t use social media to engage with their customers. In the current “Covid Crisis” context the latter figure is only going to move northwards.

As the shock settles in, sales professionals are thinking (as they must) of ways to respond to the several questions that are coming in their mind pertaining to their business sustainability and of ways to be prepped for the actions they’ll need to take with their customers to lead their business in the “new normal”.

As an inference from the second data point above, it is interestingly conclusive to note that the rate adoption of digital technologies by customers also has been very high. Therefore, metaphorically speaking, B2B sales professionals just need to cater to the already existing appetite. Let’s look at 4 ways in which sales professionals can respond to the demands of the market, situation and their customers.

Connect with existing customers immediately:

A helping hand in crisis is remembered for long. Hence sales professionals and sales leaders must deeply analyze and understand the main customer challenges and identify the actions they can take for them immediately. One way of doing this is to gather data from the field and other related indicators to create a scenario-based forecast that draws a realistic view of demand and supply. This being done, they must deploy an agile but phased approach to ensure quick and targeted responses to each customer.

Start regimented “Social Selling”:

Social selling is about leveraging and capitalizing one’s social networks to find the right prospects, to build trusted relationships with existing customers and ultimately to help the sales person achieve his sales goals. The social selling process is characterised via engagement through the use of social networking tools like LinkedIn, Facebook , Twitter and the like.

In a digital world, the sales person needs to have a well-defined personal strategy, that is aligned to the organisation strategy, to reach and engage with the right target segment. Since, in the digital world, social selling is a cost-effective digital way of generating leads, it is also crucial to build discipline into this approach and measure the activity metrics in a regimented manner.

Develop “Virtual Executive Presence”:

In the interest of the company’s image and the personal brand of the sales person, it is crucial for the sales professional to cultivate a strong virtual executive presence.

Some ways in which this can be done is by progressively building a digital persona, positioning one-self as a domain expert, engaging with customers on several socially and economically relevant topics, sharing one’s thought leadership and networking with industry leaders as much as possible. Concurrently, sales persons also need to sharpen their knowledge and skills to operate digital /virtual meeting platforms and make virtual presentations to communicate, interact and sell in a digitally professional manner.

Digitalize the customer experience:

In a digital world, a unique and improved digitalized sales experience offered to the customer truly leads to a differentiated customer experience. Towards this, the sales person would necessarily have to leverage digital technologies to make product presentations and demos, use new age digital technologies like Augmented Reality or Virtual Reality or 3D Computer Vision or Extended Reality to create an impact and activate the customers’ buying motivators.

GrowthSqapes’ several Sales Capability Development Solutions empowers you to train and develop both the skillset and mindset to be able to sell in a digital world.

This blog has been written by Baalmiki Bhattacharyya, Partner & COO at GrowthSqapes.

Older posts
Newer posts
error: Content is protected !!