The Art of Letting Go

              
“Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.”

Getting back in here after ages. There are suddenly so many thoughts crossing my mind.One way to look at it is those many things happened in my life over last few months..all good fortunately.But there comes a time when you also have to let go good things for a bigger calling. At times you wish things just remained the same..but the truth is it never will.The universe around you is changing all the time and so are you. Just because something was right for you in the past doesn't mean that it's going to hold true forever. But understanding this is a very slow and painful process as you go down the path of self discovery shaking every fundamental belief you have had. You learn more about yourself and what you want out of life. Then you decide to make some changes in your life and take some bold decisions. You are happy and excited that you could take that call, but there comes the awkward part. You have to let go a lot of things that defined you for a while. You feel like you are being stripped off your identity and try to hold on to as much possible and as long possible. But holding on is like believing there is only past. If you attempt to relive that past, then you are missing out on the fun of new things, the promise of endless possibilities that in the first place drove your decision. There is no point in denying that things are different now or being apprehensive about the challenge that lays ahead. Life moves only in one way- forward. The challenge is your chance to let go the old and make way for the new.

So taking up the challenge, learning the art of letting go.

Have been always the fan of this quote by Jon Acuff in his book "Quitter"

It’s always better to be struggling at something you love than succeeding diligently at something you despise.

Control Vs Influence

Wish you all a very happy new year..Sorry again for the hiatus.. Was terribly busy at work for last few months to the extent of not coming back home for days together..But no complaints..Last three months have been  probably most exciting and fulfilling times in my whole 10 years of professional career..If you are wondering what kept me so busy, you have the answer if you shopped online during 10-12th December :) It was the Great Online Shopping Festival (GOSF) , one of the most complicated campaigns I executed ever. Now when I look back and think of the reasons why it became such a complex one: was it because there were 450 external entities/companies involved, was it because there were lot of first time innovations that made the execution difficult or was it because of a platform that had to built ground up within weeks that was expected to support millions and millions of users ,what amazon.in probably gets over a month, within just 3 days.. Actually it was none of the above.The complexity is never from systems or processes, no matter how difficult or logically intricate they are, the complexity is always from people who it has to be executed through. The more number of people involved in a project, the more difficult it becomes to execute, especially when there are more people involved who you have to work with are in circle of influence/concern, but not in the circle of control.

While in b-school we were told the definition of management as
"Management consists of controlling a group or a set of entities to accomplish a goal".
We were always taught to find the right leverage points to control by analysis of data, balance sheets, trends, market intelligence etc. The mark strat simulation we all did so enthusiastically always made us believe that there are frameworks like 4Ps/5Cs and multiple parameters which you can control or change to be a market leader. But very less we were told that the most important framework you need to understand and navigate is "people around you" to do anything. The biggest learning for me over this campaign was to handle more than 100 people across functions with different objectives, incentives,goals and most of them falling beyond my circle of control. I have made some very good friends at work, burnt bridges with many senior folks in the system, bonded with my own team like never before. It was a roller coaster ride for me with so many emotional highs and lows every single day. But through out I kept telling myself and my team not be bogged down by the number of problems we face every single day, but feel happy about the fact that we are able to solve so many problems every day. The biggest pillar of support for me was my team who held together through these stressful times delivering their best keeping personal interests aside. I would never dare to take credit for this as a manager, because I know how lucky I am to get such wonderful individuals in the team.

Managing creative thinking !

Didn't realize it's been almost eight months since I wrote my last blog. I always keep telling people that you always have time to do things you want to. It's all about priorities. So I will not make any excuses here.

I don't remember how many creative brainstorming sessions I have been in last six months.More than I can count I guess.Some yielded brilliant ideas/solutions and some were absolute bizarre.I was discussing the proceedings of one such session with a colleague. He suddenly interrupted me in the middle and asked me what did I graduate in. I said mechanical engineering. His immediate response was how can engineers suddenly get the skill to handle creative brainstorming and have a point of view on creativity. The MBA degree definitely doesn't teach that.  VERY TRUE !! In fact I was very uncomfortable initially to get into such creative brainstorming sessions as, like many engineers, I am a strong left brained person.My strength lies in numbers,analysis and problem solving. I love dealing with numbers because there is always a logic and definitive process leading you towards a solution.A creative brainstorming  is very different, very unpredictable and can be chaotic.

But over last several months, I have been involved in cracking creative ideas for many brands across variety of industries including Telco, Tech, CPG, Auto, Finance, Travel , e-Commerce having never worked in any of them. So far I think I have done a decent job of  handling these situations. Come to think of it,engineers actually are creative people.They can think designs, build logic and can prove/disprove hypothesis that solves the problem at hand. The only difference in a creative space is you are handling flow of thoughts instead of flow of logic. The rules of the game don't change much. At the end of the day it's all commonsense and everything in the world has a particular order or pattern. There is nothing truly random and as long as that holds true you always have the ability to influence the outcome.

Let me try to dissect a group creative ideation session for you. You will generally find four types of people in the group -(1)people who are not creative, (2) people who are genuinely creative, (3) people who think they are creative, (4) people who think only they are creative. The first two types are easy to handle and the more of such type people you have in the group the better are the chances of ending up with a good idea.The later two types are the ones you should be watchful of . Nonetheless, there is a little control you have on what type of people are in your group, but after being a part of so many of them I guess I can handle these different personalities little better.The trick of the trade is to stay little detached from the core ideation and ask right set of questions to the group in a right way at the right time. It's very difficult to avoid the "creator bias", hence at times it's better to avoid being a creator.

The first ten minutes of the brainstorming process is very critical. When a problem is thrown at us, our brain immediately start processing information in a way that may be not even deliberate. You have to somehow structurally capture them and you would be pleasantly surprised to see some interesting non obvious solutions. More often or not the best ideas come within the first ten minutes of brainstorming.So the best way is to ask everyone to individually jot down the ideas on post it notes, as many as they can. Its very critical not to open up the discussion to the group at this time as you run the risk of type (3) & (4) people hijacking it and disrupting the thought process of every individual in the group.

                    

After ten minutes you should ask everyone to just quickly run the group through their post it notes. Here is when you identify different kinds of people ( type 1 to 4) in your group and formulate your strategy to handle them through the session. Just observe carefully and people will tell you what type they belong to. The type-1 will state their ideas as a matter of fact, the type-2 will tell you their ideas in form of a story, the type-3 will only tell you a long story but less of ideas, the type-4 will tell you a long story and laundry list of ideas in different forms with many of them being more or less the same. If you still want confirm the type (3) & (4) then while they are talking  just shoot a question and you will see them defending with great vigor. It's not necessarily bad to have type 3 or 4 in the group, it's just that they have to be handled with care for a better collective output.

The Egg Theory

Compared to the bachelor days, my experimentation in the kitchen has gone down significantly. After a long time I cooked a breakfast for myself today. Being lazy I decided to make some ready to mix Upma (for those who don't know what Upma is just Google it ). But when I put the pan on the stove, I felt like adding a dash of my creativity to the 3 simple step process ( boil water, add the upma mix and simmer on medium heat for 3-4 minutes) mentioned on the pack. I thought to myself I deserve better than this for a Sunday morning breakfast, something more lavish and elaborate. Well....I opened up the fridge and grabbed almost everything that came in my sight - capsicum, cauliflower, carrot, beans, green chilies, frozen pea, cashew nuts and few more I don't remember. Stir fried them for good ten minutes and then followed the 3 simple steps :) All in all a three minute job took me almost thirty minutes..but at the end of it I was very happy and looked at it with a lot of pride and admiration. I relished every bite of it, not that it was tasting very different from the simple mix. The mix has dried vegetables in it already. But the sheer fact that I invested so much of time in preparing it had somewhere made me fall in love with it already. This is a classic case of creator's bias. Creators always tend to overvalue their work and greater labor in creation tends to higher degree of over valuation. This is an interesting insight for any marketer, especially if you are in the business of selling product or creativity. Let me explain you the classic "egg theory" on this.

The culture of pre-mixes was introduced in the late 1940s in America.Various forms of baking mixes for making biscuits, piecrusts and cakes were launched in the market. But the cake mix which required simply adding water and baking it was not adopted with as much of enthusiasm by consumers as others. For a while the companies thought it was an issue with the formula and tried changing ingredients and flavors, but all in vain. But later some psychologists found out that it was not the product but the process that was the culprit. The cake mix simplified the process to such an extent that people din't feel that the cake they made was actually theirs. Then Pillsbury came up with a mix where they left out the dried eggs and required the creator to add fresh eggs with milk and oil. The sales immediately took off. This idea then became popular as the "egg theory". You can find many such examples in the Indian context. Think of Maggi. In early 90s their positioning was completely on the convenience, it just takes 2 mins to make the Maggi. While this was a great proposition for the market then which lacked ready to cook products, it got them positioned in the snacks category. Soon they realized India is not a snacking country and if they have to achieve volume growth they have to be a replacement for a main meal. That's when they completely changed their communication towards health, taste and experimentation in making Maggi recipes by adding vegetables and other ingredients. The moms in India unless and until spend 10-15 mins cooking something for their child, think they are not doing justice to their motherhood. It's again the creator's bias, of course every mom wants to provide the best food to their child. And when they cook something they attach a lot of value to that food, even if it doesn't add any marginal utility. 

While as a marketer this can be a killer insight, as a people manager or a leader this can be a killer of your credibility and acceptance within and outside your team. We all as managers at times get very possessive about our own ideas and projects. While there may be a strong logical reason behind why we think so, we can't escape the creator bias as human beings. Whether we accept it or not, the fact of the matter is we always over value our own ideas. An extreme case of it can be when you become an elective listener (way past being a selective listener) and process the information which only corroborates or confirms to your ideas. You develop a form of cognitive blind spot which is not due to lack of resources or information, but because your creator bias is so over shadowing that it doesn't leave any room for them. Be watchful of this especially if you are in an authoritative position, because the flow and intensity of right information is even more constricted because of your power distance. Then it's not the "egg theory" but the "chicken and egg theory" :) You think your idea is the best because no one else has refuted it or has come up with a better idea, where as you have closed all the doors of your mind to give way to other sources of ideas.

Ok. Now I have talked so much about cakes, maggi, egg,chicken I am hungry now. Time for lunching :)

Thanks for reading through. If you think I am writing bullshit in my blogs and still going on writing thinking it's awesome, then please help me come out of my creator bias. Drop in a line in the comments section.

The Power of Expectations

" Life is largely a matter of expectation " - Horace

We all, especially the Gen Y Indians, would definitely relate to this, may be with varied levels of intensity. For most part of our lives, we either have been fulfilling the expectation of others or have been expecting for something. We all love to expect and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified we want to be expecting again. These expectations, either from others or our own, shapes us as individuals. However it is interesting to observe that individual expectations, though may seem to be a very personal phenomenon, is strongly derived  from two factors - time (the generation you belong to) and macro economic conditions.

We primarily have three generations active in the workforce  : GenX - born between 1965-80, GenY - Likes of me (born between 1980-1995) , GenZ - The new generation (1995 onwards). Now if we look at the the Indian economy post independence, it can be divided into two distinct era; pre-liberalization period  (1947-1991) and post-liberalization period ( 1991 onwards). Our parents, the babyboomers or the early Gen X,  belonged to the pre-liberalization era where the economy was inward looking leading to scarcity of jobs and limited opportunities. So when they were growing up all they expected for is financial security, may be job for lifetime that pays them just enough to meet all their family and social commitments. Most of them never had the luxury of some disposable income which they could spend on  things like an unplanned dinner in a good restaurant  or a vacation at a nice destination. So they started expecting that at least their kids should break out of these financial constraints and the only way they saw to achieve this was to push their kids (that's us) to excel at studies and end up in a good job. They did everything in their capacity to provide us good education sacrificing many of their needs. But with that also came the burden of expectation on us. We were conditioned to think that excelling at studies is our only way to a better future. We were expected to get good grades, find a seat in a good technical college, get a high paying job and be financially secure. Our parents at times tried to instill insecurities in us to drive us towards that goal.Their expectation or their ways were not totally wrong as that was the reality in early 90's. However in 1991 India adopted a free-market principle and liberalized it's economy to international trade. While we were in schools, Indian economy was going through a massive transformation paving the way for many new avenues. But it was too early for us and our parents to understand those signs; all our formative years we were busy fulfilling the expectations of an old world which was to change completely. When we, the GenY, entered into our professional career in early 2000, opportunities were plenty. We started expecting from ourselves what our parents had expected from us, may be a bit more... High salaries, nice cars, a dream house, vacations in exotic destinations, fine dining, big savings..The more we achieved the more we started expecting because we were always expected to achieve more. And as the law of nature goes, all expectations do not get fulfilled. The more we started expecting, the more windows we opened for us to be disappointed. You may think here I am hinting towards being less ambitious. But don't confuse ambition with expectation. Ambition is a positive term, it gives you the drive to move ahead where as expectation drags you down. GenY is this confused lot now trying to find a balance between ambition, expectation, achievement, gratification and disappointment, at times undermining their achievement/gratification, at times unnecessarily magnifying their expectation/disappointment. But when I look at the late GenY/Gen Z it's a different story all together. They are much more independent, open to experimentation and have stronger preferences in terms of their career choices, . As they have been brought up in the  post-liberalization economy, they have not been exposed to an environment of scarce opportunities or struggle for fulfilling basic financial needs. So they are confident, have better sense of purpose and are much more at ease with themselves. They are not dragged down by expectations as much as the older Gen Y is.

Now let's see what's the implication of this in a corporate set up. What managers believe or expect of themselves greatly influences what they expect  from their subordinates or superiors and how they view the incentives. If you belong to Gen Y higher probability is that your superior is from Gen X and your subordinates are from late Gen Y/Gen Z. To ensure performance, you need to understand and manage the expectation of everyone including yours. As Gen Y you have worked really hard through the last decade and probably have moved beyond the worries of basic financial security. Drawing a comparison to Maslow's need hierarchy theory, in the corporate need pyramid you have moved beyond the 3 basic needs - physiological needs (decent working facility, defined work responsibilities), Safety needs (job security, salary, bonus), Social needs (team acceptance, collective decision making). The biggest motivator for you now is fulfillment of your esteem needs i.e. recognition, admiration, awards, increased responsibilities, respect etc. However your superior being from Gen X still could be valuing tangible rewards like salary hike, bonus or dinner in an expensive restaurant as big motivators, because for him the financial objectives were of greater importance while he was at your level during the early liberalization era. Instead of expecting your superior to understand your new found need and getting disappointed every day, it's better to have a candid conversation and align expectations. Similar is the case when you are dealing with your subordinates from late GenY/Gen Z. Just because you have gone through a phase of struggle  and have worked for long hours to meet your own expectations of financial or job security, it is not right to expect the same from them. They probably have moved one level up in the corporate need hierarchy to self-actualization needs where they are looking for greater autonomy, meaning in their actions. They probably are not in a hurry to reach a destination and believe that the journey - in whatever form it comes - can be more rewarding than the final destination. As a manager it's very critical for you to have an appreciation for this and value every individual for what he is. If somebody is not willing to put long hours at work, that doesn't mean that he is less committed or less effective. Instead of starting to expect less from that person, you should create high performance expectation from him, as more often than not, people appear to do what they believe they are expected to do.

Are You The David or The Goliath

I was watching an interesting TED talk by Malcolm Gladwell today. His interpretation of the classic underdog tale: David, a young Israeli shepherd armed only with a sling, beats Goliath, the mighty Philistine warrior. The story has transcended its biblical origins to become a common shorthand for unlikely victory.

I really loved his ending. He says " Giants are not as strong and  powerful as they seem and sometimes the shepherd boy has a sling in his pocket". When we are growing up the corporate ladder sometimes we behave like the giant Goliath, mighty and powerful bulldozing our way through the organization and sometimes we are this David, timid and powerless in appearance but with an ace up the sleeve to get the win. But unfortunately winning in the corporate world is not that straight forward always. You can neither be like Goliath or David; nor can you afford  to be not like both of them. Let me explain what I am trying to say.

There was a forty day deadlock in the war between Israelis and Philistines in the Valley of Ellah as none of the army would descend down the valley in the fear of getting exposed to the other side first. But twice a day Goliath, the giant Philistine warrior, would come out between the lines in his armor and challenge the Israelis to send out someone to fight him to decide the outcome in single combat. The Israelis were intimidated by Goliath and never braved to fight him. Many a times in real life situations in corporate world you are the Goliath imposing your power, asserting your position to get your way. But at the same time you must be aware that there could be many shepherd boys who possibly can hit you at your weakest spot with the hidden sling shot. One of the explanations given by Malcolm Gladwell for Goliath's defeat was his myopia. Goliath couldn't notice David until he was close enough, otherwise he would have definitely figured out that the shepherd boy without any armor and weapon is not going to fight him hand in hand. In medical terms his myopia could have been a side effect of a syndrome called "Acromegaly" which was also the cause of his gigantism. In acromegaly, a tumor in the pituitary gland results in over production of growth hormones leading to gigantism. When the excess hormones expand they compress the surrounding brain tissues primarily affecting the optic nerves. So clearly Goliath's greatest strength was also the cause of his greatest weakness. I am not saying that you shouldn't be the Goliath at all, sometimes it's necessary to ensure that you are not being taken for granted. But before you chose to do that be cognizant of your weaknesses too and learn to use humility as your defense.

Now let's look at the David side of the story. It was definitely very bold and courageous of him to volunteer for fighting Goliath. But it was not just a leap of faith for him, he had evaluated the situation carefully and devised a plan to fight Goliath using his strength, something he had been doing for years. When he was offered the armor by the king, he clearly denied as he had a complete clarity on how he wanted to fight his battle. Sometimes when faced with challenges in the corporate world you have to be the David, taking the risk to shoulder the delivery of a seemingly impossible task. These are the opportunities that propels you up the corporate ladder, but before you grab them be sure to have a game plan that is based on your strengths. Failure in this case means a suicidal career move and you can't take chances to learn and experiment here. However unlike David you may like to put the armor, at least a light one, to make everyone believe that you are well prepared to take on the audacious task. People are not aware of your strength as much you are, they will have their doubts. But at this point you rather focus on delivery than wasting your energy in handling the skepticism around. So put on the armor, make people believe that you are playing the game the way they know, keep the interference minimum.
                                   P ( Performance) = P ( Potential) -I (Interference)
                 You deliver to your potential if you manage to keep the interference minimum.

Long story cut short, in a corporate set up you are the David and you are the Goliath. Again as an ex-consultant I have the obligation to synthesize and present you the "so what" in three bullet points :)

Here it goes....

1. When you are the Goliath, be humble and watchful, as you definitely would be hit by someone with a hidden slingshot.

2. While being David, stick to your strengths no matter what the world thinks and put that armor, even if unnecessary, to make the world think that you are the one.

3. Learn to manage David and Goliath, as you need both of them for success.

Paradox of Middle Management : The Balcony or The Dance

Too many meetings, too many parallel work streams, too much of information, unable to focus on few priorities, not having enough family time.. As much you would like to believe that you are special, but here it would be a relief to know that you are one of  the many who are going through the same phase.Welcome to the world of middle management.

We, as managers, have always been conditioned to think that our job is to solve problems. Think of all the assignments we did in the b-school, all the midnight oil we burnt with our case prep groups solving cases of all kinds. We were always evaluated on how we structured the problem by breaking it down to smaller pieces and how we derived the solution through issue trees,  hypothesis, fish-bone analysis etc. This made all of us believe that every situation we face is a problem and  can be solved through a logical approach. But what we were never told was there are things which can not be solved, because they are fundamentally not problems. They are paradoxes. One of the biggest paradoxes we face at middle management level is whether to be in the balcony (strategic thinking) or in the dance ( operational work).  We can never solve this, all we can do is to learn to juggle between the two. The sooner we get better at this, the quicker becomes the leap to the upper management. We all know it. But how do we practice it.

Jotting down few things  below that may save you a bit of time from the dance and get you on the balcony for a while. But getting up on the balcony takes a lot of discipline, operational pressures will always tend to pull you back to the dance. You need to be in a constant evaluative mode of yourself and most important of all - Learn to say NO.

1. Let Go 
Not everything is important. There are things that can be delegated. You may argue that when you delegate something, the delivery is not up to the standard and you again have to spend a lot of time in rework. So it's efficient to do it yourself and get it right in the first go. I have two answers to this.One, you get it right in the first go not because it is right, but because you think it is right. Respect and trust the capability of others. Second, even if the output was not up to mark, how the does that matter. It was anyway not important to start with. So why don't you just let it go ?

2. Press the pause button
I am sure you go through a lot of chaos everyday at work and sometimes wish you could just have some time with yourself. Well then why not press the pause button. Block an half an hour slot on your calendar, move away from your laptop to a meeting room or cafe with a pen and notepad, put your phones on silent mode and stop the data sync, grab a cup of coffee and try to not think about work.  That's when you would realize it's so difficult not to think about something when you actually are thinking to not to think about it :) First few minutes your mind will be running all over, but if you keep trying in 5-10 minutes you will feel your mind is getting de-cluttered. That's when open up your notepad and try jotting down your big ideas.

2. Keep your eyes and ears open
With the work load you may not find a lot of time to network or have a chat with people beyond your immediate work group. People are source of information. The more people you know, the better equipped you are with information and the better clarity you have on the big picture. Make it a habit to have lunch with other work groups at least once a week.  You may not be able to contribute a lot to their discussions to start with, but you are anyway there to listen to them. So don't put undue pressure on yourself to be the centerpiece of the conversation on the table.

Enough of preachy stuff. Just want to leave you with one thought. Problems are to be solved, but paradoxes are to be managed. And as managers we should be more worried about the managing part than solving  :)