The HR Function - Not what it does, but what it delivers

Vision for People and Organisation

I believe the HR function should be judged not for what it does but what it delivers.

·       At its primacy, I believe that the People manager must own the people experience(s) of it team, and be accountable for audit as part of the manager’s engagement index. He should be held accountable for:

o   Hiring correctly for roles, using competency based process.

o   Performance management review

o   Performance dialogues and building work plans

o   align rewards and recognition accordingly

o   enable succession planning and enrich careers.

o   support as a coach and mentor

o   be the ‘culture’ for the direct report from hire to retire.

The HR function must facilitate but remove itself from the middle.

·       I believe that all stakeholders should be empowered most of all the employee himself. Our employees bring human capital each day to work.

o   Firstly, a right for self-service. (ESS)

o   Be focused on deliverables, not job descriptions

o   A right to be recognised for being an individual, recognized for the expertise he/she brings.

o   To enjoy an engaged meaningful contribution that is mutually satisfying and taps into his personal potential

o   A workplace that is inclusive, diverse and tolerates similarities and differences. That  discriminates only on the basis of performance.

·       I believe that we must provide analytics and tools for collaboration, social learning, and big data to enable organisational learning and teaming. This to be enable on the move – ‘taps instead of clicks’.

In summary, I believe that we must empower the lives of our own stakeholders. And verily, it starts from home – at the workplace itself. 

I believe our role in HR is to:

·       Clearly define with leaders the Business Strategy

·       Build the case for People and Organization capability

·       Create a strategy roadmap ~for the three years ahead

·       Identify the HR ‘deliverables’

·       Align the Design and Architecture (TU/BU) for the OU initiatives

·       Design Metrics for HR measurement.

·       Embed ‘performance by measure’

·       Create a highly engaged workforce by embedding the three values – personal, re-imagine and restless in all systems, processes and in our behaviors.

·       Support Leaders to take accountability to deliver Business Results through empowered minds and fuelled by passion.

Leadership for re-emerging India

Change is constant, we all know that. It's the unbelievable complexity that creates the anxiety, the uncertainty. In my work, as an Executive Coach, working with Senior Executives I sense a fair degree of fragility with clients - the belief, that if one breaks, one would not be able to put back in place ever again. This fragility of 'self' coupled with perceived 'insensitivity' from the other (no one really understands me) creates the havoc. This havoc becomes the new normal, and taken as given.

It is not enough for the individual to manage the change, nor is it enough, for work groups to transition across such volatile times. At a systemic level, the pressure is intense on the 'actors', exerting pulls and pushes on the multiple actors. Seeing things from multiple perspectives is vital to increased awareness.

It is not enough to manage change, just at the level of the individual, though quite a lot can be achieved there. Systems Thinking and its application needs to be applied. The western world has for several decades now harnessed this well - individuals working in collaboration, in virtual groups, to create dramatic changes to the landscape. A path is forged, initially by the adventurer, later by early followers, then by others, till it finally becomes the default route. The time now, In India, more than ever before, is to tap on the collective will of commercial collaboration. It would be useful to have at the skyline, a vision of nation building!

In order to exploit the demographic dividend, of a re-surgent Asia (barring 1700 - 1900 AD Asia was always resplendent, both commercially and culturally), we perhaps need to focus even more on 'eternal truths' that have stood up for us. Given this, we need to focus on building TRUST, the essence of all brands, and in everything we do, both in relationships as well as in the products and services we sell. We need to be even more CREATIVE to be on a continuos learning journey, to adapt to new paradigms, and shift our thinking, feeling and modes of acting. We need to be even more respectful to ourselves - our well-being, as well as respectful to others. This includes respect for beliefs, traditions, culture. Ever more, Inclusion and Diversity needs to be lived with. We will continuously face the new, confusion and ambiguity will reign, but we must continue to believe that 'this too shall pass'.

Rather than START doing, something new, I would advocate, we STOP doing several things. That we stop doing all the things that act as barriers to our more deeper capacity to grow and enrich. The shift that we seek is not out there, but within.

On Conversation

Take Care of your Conversations (and your conversation will take care of you).

Think about it. What is the one thing we do the most every waking day? That takes a disproportionate amount of time. That’s right – it is talking. Talking, either to someone (either another person or a pet), and largely self-talk, the conversations we have with ourselves. It is estimated that on an average a person spends about 5000 words in self-talk.

We think that when we are not talking, we are listening. For most of us, we either Talk, or are in a mode of ‘waiting to Talk’.

 Consider that when one is talking, one is not paying much attention to thinking before talking, so most of the thought process emerges as part of the rambling talk. Then we meander around, and try and collect our thoughts, even while we continue to speak without a break. So instead of a short crisp relevant response, it becomes a tirade of words – unstructured and thoughtless. Several years ago I witnessed two people talking (both lawyers). One was posing a question and the other tool long pauses before replying to the question. In between there were long silences, chin rubbing and silent eye contact. It was beautiful to see two people engaged in a real conversation, both well connected.

Again when we are listening to the other, are we really? More often than not, the listening is just a polite pretense. One is just waiting to ‘speak again’.  For while we are waiting for the other to wind down, we are too absorbed in listening to the cacophony of our own self-talk, an inner dialogue, that is always going on unceasingly within, “yakety-yak’.

In moments like this, ask yourself a question and be honest with yourself, ‘why do I want to talk?’ what purpose does it serve? Why not be silent? Silence I believe is the strongest speech.

I would like to argue that if conversation is what you are having most of the time, should we not try and be good at it? All our conversations lead us to a feeling outcome: either positive or negative. Our brains are programmed to maximize rewards (pleasure seeking) and minimize pain. If we do want to influence the other does it not make sense to determine what does one need to do to support an energetic conversation. Even more importantly, how does one handle difficult conversations, some even crucial conversations.

For a conversation is not just an exchange of ideas and concepts, just a mind thing- it is more. It is also about evocations and feelings; connecting with trust.

A great conversation satisfies the human desire to both Express and Relate. When good conversations happen, it allows rich reflection of the past, and converts to insights and wisdom. When delving into the tomorrow, it allows for imagination, but adds to it inspiration.

Do take care how you converse. If you do, your conversation will take care of you!

Leadership Development

Individual Leadership matters, Context event more!

Over the past several months as a Leadership Consultant, it

seems, to me, that there is a lot of emphasis placed on the Leadership behaviors demonstrated by the individual. That is indeed a good starting point. Over these years I gather there are few areas on which Leadership Skills/Competencies get built:

1.     Through skills acquired that soon form into unconscious competencies.

2.     An ability to use a wider range of Leadership styles flexed for context and purpose.

3.     Purposeful creation of a work climate, which supports clarity, task focus, team spirit, flexibility, and meaningful rewards and outcomes to all involved.

4.     A learning agility and personal discipline that allows one to navigate even through ever new & ambiguous events that arise from systemic complexity.

5.     A learned optimism and feeling of control from within.

6.     A deep self-awareness of self and ‘other’ and actions that come from awareness.

7.     A deep respect for self, the other and a purpose that goes beyond.

That said, Leadership effectiveness is also a function of Context. We are after all, part of a system, and unless we grasp the dimension of the larger system, we will continue to work, ineffectively in one part of it, and unsuccessfully. All parts are ‘man made’ divisions to support analysis, but it is only through synthesis that we can hope to fully understand. A change in one part, has an impact on all of the parts, and unless we grapple with the full system (both closed and open), we at best change one problem to another (it does not go away – it simply changes it shape). We substitute one issue with another.

Context is not just ‘situation’. The context or larger system itself can create phenomena that cause an issue. Let me change that, the issue is not caused, it is perceived. That said, if we are to solve a problem (whether at an individual level, or at an interpersonal level, or at a work group level) we may need to work at the systemic level especially if we discover that at each substratum level, the issues seem to be across industries and work groups. It is systemic. Given that the individual itself, and the workgroup (consisting of individuals again), and collectivity (individuals of several sub-groups itself), are all part of the system itself, it calls for a simultaneous ability to reflect at that outside and to reflect within at once. To see the emerging Gestalt, for what it is. As J. Krishnamurthy said, 'the observer is the observed'.

An event to be understood is to be seen not just at a phenomenological level, but also at the intra-personal and inter-personal, even more at an intra-psychic level, further to that at an intra-existential level. In that, the drop falls into the ocean, or as Kabir, before he died, with great sagacity, changed his final verse to, 'the ocean falls into the drop'. Leadership then is not a journey, a search for a promised Xanadu:in fact Leadership is to be discovered within, in the wholesomeness. 

Leadership is as much about inspiring individuals and workgroups as it is about re-contextualizing. At an individual level, it will call for re-socialisation and re-culturalisation, and deeper self-awareness.

Fundamental to all of this, is what Zarathustra explained as the will to power. 

"And as the lesser surrenders to the greater, that it may

have delight and power over the least of all; so the

greatest too, surrenders and for the sake of power,

stakes itself." 

Recipe for improving Relationships

We are in the age of 20:20 Cricket – all of us want quick solutions to our everyday problems, and instant results!

Here is a quick recipe for Feeling better, improving Relationships

Try these:

1. 1.    Say Please, Thank You, I am Sorry, I am Grateful as often as you can and to as many as you can.
2. 2.    When you are tempted to say, “try this…”, instead say, “what do you think?’
3. 3.    When listening to someone put forth a point of view, listen to his unique perspective, on it, rather than judge it for what’s right or wrong.
4. 4.    Avoid responding to what has been said, till you have given it full thought, “hmm, that’s interesting, I did not see things this way”.
5. 5.    Use Silence and eye contact, and facial expression to communicate for you instead of Words.
6. 6. When you have a negative emotion, try and observe your breathing: its pace, quality, etc. It will reveal itself to you.
7. 7  Close your eyes a few minutes each day, and try and listen to the sound of 'one hand clapping'.
8. 8. Try to answer the questioner, rather than the question asked. In what is said, lies the unsaid, and the also said.
9. 9. When you 'See it, Say it" - acknowledge behavior
10. Share your heart with the living, when the living lives, not when they are dead.

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