Office-Office : Leadership

Even as I hear some virtual sniggers, I am not going to be discouraged. Leadership is the one thing everyone expects in a potential hire knowing fully well that they don’t have what it takes. Yet, it is the singular most popular catch phrase used by recruiters to lure unsuspecting candidates to run of the mill jobs. Add the ‘L’ word and everything turns rosy with the added illusion of a palanquin with four beefed up guys carrying your not-so-deserving self. Of course those illusions are dismissed the day you see your desk and talk to your ‘team mates’. No knowledge transfer or transition, no proper job scope, no separate bathroom, no views from the desk (well, it’s a cubicle really) and an unending trail of e-mess waiting for your attention. That, is pretty much enough to get the leader out of anyone.

(Image Courtesy: Dilbert.com)


So, are you a leader? (of course, you are! I just asked the question again to see if you were paying attention to the post.) I have known four types of leaders in my professional experience.

a) The Superstar: This leader likes to believe the world revolves around him/her and they can’t think beyond “I”. This type hates the word “We” and chances are he/she will crush the rise of any other ‘leader’ or quit trying. More megalomaniac and less leader, the way into his good books is through ego massage. Think life size corporate standees, the company logo replaced with his initials/ signature, movie style presentations where he is the only speaker, and of course ‘unprecendented’ media coverage (even if you paid for it).

b) I am my team: Literally. This leader cannot work without his team. He mentally segregates his team into two – The professional assistants and the personal assistants. Everything from his chai to his business plan is outsourced. So what does he do himself, you ask? Well, he keeps his junta suitably enthusiastic without realizing they are actually working for him and not for the company. What rubbish! You cannot fool all of the people all of the time! That is why he always poaches his people by making them offers they cannot refuse (doubling of salaries for starters). Danny Ocean is living proof.

c) I like ‘leader’ in my designation, whether I am one or not: This is fast becoming the new norm thanks to social networking. Everyone wants to be friends with a leader, not a loser. And so, the distinction is clear – you either have ‘leader’ in your designation or you don’t. Isn’t that fooling people? Of course. But then who’s looking for reality? Would you really want to be friends with a leader if you knew what they were doing in reality?

d) The invisible leader: If you haven’t seen one yet, then you have something to look forward to. You never see this leader, only his work. You hear about his magnanimity with praise and his restraint with criticism. You see the respect and gratitude that his team has for him. Nah! It’s too good to be true. Yeah, because it takes efforts to do real work and motivate people the right way. If such a leader was everywhere, everyone would be a top performer. Even the office boy.

I have heard of other leaders too like the leader who promptly falls ill when a presentation is due in 30 minutes; or the leader who is constantly trying to jump ship when his shoddiness at work stands to be exposed; or the leader who simply prefers travelling to satisfy his wanderlust burning company money; or even the leader who prefers working from the connectivity–free zone.

So is being a leader a bad thing? Nah. How else can you get people to notice you?

The Insider Reports: Media outside its comfort zone

Should media houses lend their brand name to activities which they cannot positively influence? I was prompted to ask myself this question upon seeing the results of the recently concluded ET Young Leader’s program. Leadership has become a stereotype that is often associated with a business suit, degrees from ivy-league institutions and sporting an elitist attitude. The ET merely promoted this stereotype instead of taking a more holistic perspective like the media often takes on other issues. My piece, co-authored with husband, appeared in the Hoot. The link is as follows

 

 http://www.thehoot.org/web/home/story.php?storyid=5509&mod=1&pg=1§ionId=19&valid=true

 

For those who unable to read the link, here is the full piece –

 

Last weekend results of the much hyped ET Young Leaders program were telecast announcing 22 leaders, all of who would be eligible to enroll for short term executive programs from the Indian School of Business (ISB). On closer observation, the results turned out to be disappointing. The program had picked candidates who fit the stereotypical version of leadership.

 

Why did Economic Times, a market leader itself and one that has time and again identified unconventional leaders and given them their fair share of exposure, allow such skewed results? Was ET merely associating with this program to drive visibility, mileage and potential revenues?

 

While there have been many commendable corporate backed programs aimed at finding leaders (such as The Aditya Birla Scholarship and the Tata Smart Manager program), The Economic Times is the first Indian media to undertake such a corporate focused initiative. Predictably the program generated much interest, primarily because one expected the media’s perception of a corporate leader to be different (and broader) from the corporate perception of a leader.

 

 The results, however, re-iterated what the CAT exam- B-School- Corporate nexus has always told us – that to be a leader it is important to have studied at a Tier I B-School and to be working in a Tier 1 company in a leading industry. (For more details please see the end of the piece).

 

For a brand like ET to promote such myopic thinking, does not augur well. The media in India has shaped people’s opinions, given voice to those not heard by the establishment, and identified heroes from unconventional backgrounds. In this case, ET seems to have merely promoted the corporate belief of leadership and not taken a greater role in monitoring the selection process and including candidates from diverse backgrounds to ensure all forms of leadership are promoted.

 

This brings us to the much debated question – Should media houses lend their brand name to initiatives that they cannot positively influence?

 

 A quick analysis of the leading English news organisations from the around the world indicates that many organizations lend their brand name to only those initiatives that are in some way aligned to their core business or where they have subject matter expertise. Common initiatives include:

 

1. Events/ Conferences - Many news organizations lend their brand to events which they sponsor as a way to create greater awareness of the issues impacting their readers. Leading journalists from the organization are invited as speakers to facilitate and drive meaningful discussion and ensure that the lesser heard voices are heard. The topics discussed are often familiar to the journalist and could be widely reported by him/her.

 

A case in point is the Economist, which organizes conferences to bring policy makers, businesses and citizens together for a common cause. Another example is the American City Business Journals Group, which has around 40 newspapers focused on small and medium businesses, and holds breakfast events to help connect small businessmen with speakers they would like to hear from. The organization uses its relationships and/or influence to get those speakers who are otherwise inaccessible to its readers.

 

2. Blogs – This is a common section today in most news organization websites where journalists, eminent personalities as well as readers can post their views. At times, issues emerging from such blogs have found their way into news. Seattle based Post- Intelligencer, in fact stopped brining out its newspaper and changed it business model to blog-based aggregation of news where reporters in combination with bloggers provide extensive news coverage.

 

3. Job sites – The Economist recently started a job site that specially focuses on recruitment in sectors such as Development sector, international public sector, NGO, Academia, Humanitarian and charity jobs. This reflects the jobs advertised in the print version of the magazine and gives an opportunity for many job providers to take their advertisements online to reach a larger audience. Most general news dailies either have an online section that lists the jobs which have appeared in the print editions or have a separate division that runs a job site.

 

In India, quiz contests are a popular activity for news organizations to promote. Quiz contests are aligned to a newspaper’s core competence – sharing knowledge. Many a time, most of the questions can come from reports / features in the newspaper. The Hindu Group sponsors two Quizzes – The Young World Quiz and the Business Line Ad Club quiz. Business Today till recently used to run a Quiz (and a Debate) competition for B-school students and corporates called ‘The Acumen’. The entire quiz planning and execution is outsourced to specialist third parties to ensure independence. Only the event funding and part of the prize money is provided by these organizations. Incidentally, ET has been organizing the Brand Equity Quiz competition, hosted by Derek O’Brien for 20 years now.

 

What comes closest to the ET Young Leader’s program is The Hindu MetroPlus Theatre Festival. The festival has looked beyond the National School of Drama and its alumni and picked lesser known talent from amateur theatre and given them an opportunity to enter professional theatre. By doing this, it has indicated that talent and leadership in theatre can be found outside of professional institutions.

 

Does the ET Young Leaders programme have similar potential to identify less known leaders? It does, provided it takes greater interest in broadening the scope of the program to give confidence to a wider range of youngsters to compete and win. Merely outsourcing all elements of the process will not help.

 

For now, ET has in some way benefited from the Young Leaders Programme. It now has a database of young achievers and future business decision makers (those who registered for the programme) who it can target for selling other initiatives/ products. It also has strengthened contacts with potential big ticket advertisers, namely the companies that the winners and panel of leaders represent. Given the business savvy minds at work in the ET’s corporate office, one cannot rule out a televised version of the ET Young Leader’s Programme in the coming years.

 

   ET Young Leader’s Program – Highlights

• 22 leaders were identified, all of who would be eligible to enroll for short term executive programmes from the Indian School of Business
• Two thirds of the winners come from just three industries – Financial services (5 winners), management consulting (5 winners) and FMCG (4 winners). 
• 17 out of the 22 winners are employed at leading firms in their respective industries (ITC, IBM, McKinsey, Dr. Reddy’s Labs etc), where there are many such talent recognition and grooming programs.
• Over two-thirds of the winners have an MBA degree from a tier I B-school (including 7 from IIMs, 2 from ISB and 1 from XLRI). – Source: http://www.linkedin.com/
• Over one-third of winners have a sale and marketing background while there are few winners from finance and IT functions and none from human resources.
• There was only one winner in each of these sectors – public relations, retail, telecom, construction and engineering, pharmaceuticals and health care.
• The programme was monitored by a panel of 8 industry stalwarts – Anand Mahindra (Mahindra and Mahindra), D Shivakumar (Nokia), Harsh Mariwala (Marico), Kalpana Morparia (ICICI), Nitin Paranjpe (HUL), Pramod Bhasin (formely Genpact), Vineet Nayar (HCL) and Adil Zanulbhai (McKinsey). Incidentally, more than a majority of the 22 winners are either from the companies that these stalwarts represent, or from their alma mater.
• The assessment for the ET Young Leaders program does not take into consideration results (as achieved by one in the course of their employment) in the preliminary levels of the selection process. The program assesses job competency, personality, verbal and numeric reasoning and only looks at results through group tasks and role play at the penultimate stage of the program.

Office – Office: Comfort Zone

This week we move to a new office building.

Now I consider myself to be the sort of person who challenges status quo, and as an extension of that, the very concept of comfort zone. One shouldn't do the same thing for too long. One shouldn't be in the same place/ space for too long. And so on. On that basis, I should have welcomed this change. I did not. I was aghast because my comfort zone was challenged – that too by some one else.

On deeper thought, I realise that corporate culture is all about maintaining comfort zones – that is your own and ensuring that others move out of theirs. Look at the first email from your boss on a Monday morning. It is inevitably a continuation of last Friday's email where she gave the impression that she was handling everything. But thoughts of the looming weekend ensured that she remained in her comfort zone and did not action that email. What is worse, Monday morning blues have set in. The net result – you are expected to shrug off the blues and get on with the work.

Ever wondered why the "support" staff in office take so long to respond to your urgent online query? Comfort zone (If it is urgent, get out of your comfort zone and look for the solution). Or that the cafeteria helper lets your sandwich go stale before plonking it on your table? Comfort zone (if you want it hot, move from your comfort zone and get it). The fact that the Finance team in every office sits isolated on one floor and invariably has the most number of peons can also be attributed to comfort zone. (All of us have visited that floor at least once in our career with the company for claiming some re-imbursement or worse still figuring out the tax deducted at source)

Ever wondered why during an office shifting process, it is the senior leadership that is often on tenterhooks? They are the first ones to check out the new rooms, with a mental measuring tape – the window is bigger than the old office (yippee), the chair is only rexin (damn), the room is much smaller (how dare they!) and there is no book case (how do I impress the clients now?). An inch of distortion and they will come at you with all that weight accumulated over the years. Did I tell you "comfort" is an integral constituent of that weight?

So what can you do to remain in your comfort zone? Fein ignorance in a tone that says "Yawn! How insignificant."  If pushed, change the tone to "Gawd! How uncouth! That is so 1990s." Fein temporary deafness, cold, cough and/ or vision problems. Work from home, you can always blame the power cut. Whatever you do, don't deliver before time. If possible don't deliver at all!

And if you are being forced to shift from your cozy perch, start bad mouthing the new office. Put it on social media preferably with blurred pictures highlighting that terrible lighting in a flouroscent green.