Leaders, Movers and Shakers

There are managers who are great in execution, but lack vision and strategic thinking. There are managers who are great in vision and strategic thinking, but are unable to carry through to completion. Then there are managers who are leaders. They combine vision and execution.

Consider vision and execution as the two dimensions of leadership. Leaders score high in both vision and execution. They have clarity of vision, think out of the box, see what exists only as a possibility to be realized in the future. They are able to work out strategies to convert the possibility into reality. They also have the discipline to work out detailed plans, delegate responsibilities, ensure resources, review progress and follow through to completion.

What about people who are effective in executing plans, even if it calls for moving the mountains? Yes, they are the movers of the world. They make things happen, and that too pretty quickly and on budget. They are the traditionally efficient managers.

You would also remember someone who deeply influenced you by a very articulate presentation of a vision for the future. He or she could be a manager, a teacher, a politician or from any other profession. Yes, that person literally shook you up. Such people are the shakers of status quo.

For the sake of completion, let me also refer to another type, who neither move nor shake. They may be called laggers. The word may not be in the dictionary. But you know it means someone who lags behind. (Laggers may not be laggards, and so I am using a different word.)


Footnote: The term 'movers and shakers' appears in the following poem by Arthur O'Shaughnessy. The poem is titled 'Ode'

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams;
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.


You may like to read the entire poem. It is on http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Ode_(O'Shaughnessy)

on leadership

Last night I was at a New Year party on the terrace of our apartment building in Trivandrum, Kerala. There were two young singers -Anand and Latha - supported by Anand's laptop to add spice and spirit to the party. You know, Keralaites have a way of enjoying parties which is very different from that of Punjabis. We talk and talk while our Punjabi friends dance and dance.

Anand had a tough time making us join the chorus and also sway to his tunes. But in the end, he did it. Everyone, the grandparents and grandchildren included, danced to the beats of the latest Hindi songs and the hit Malayalam songs.

How did Anand manage to raise our party spirit? By sheer persistence. And of course talent. But I think it was persistence that did it. He didn't give up when his calls to chorus fell on deaf ears. He continued to sing, and little by little he conquered our hearts. You know, Anand can make a Malayalee dance.

I am just thinking about the title of the book by Louis Gerstner: 'Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? ...' I really don't know what Gerstner did or didn't do to turn around IBM, or whether at all IBM can be compared to an elephant or whether dancing must be taught to those huge pachyderms. But one thing I know: human beings have dance hidden in them. They would be natural dancers, if it weren't for the culture that criticizes and tries to educate them into serious adults.

Anand made loose-lipped, stiff-necked, tight-hipped Malayalees dance. And he didn't do it by force; he didn't impose it on us. He persisted and made sure that we did what we always wanted to do, if it weren't for our self-conscious self-criticism. He made us do what we enjoyed doing. That is leadership in action from the young man, Anand.

Staying in business

We don't decide whether we stay in business. Our customers decide. We can help them take the right decision. -- JJ

Dealing with change

Yesterday I met a group of youngsters who graduated recently with engineering degree. My interaction with them made me think about how people deal with change.

I was also surprised to find that many of them were unaware about the recessionary pressures in the economy, how such forces affect the job market, and thus impact their own careers. These youngsters were seeking entry level jobs in IT companies. But the current reality is that large IT companies have cut hiring. Why? Because the jobs are not created by the IT companies. The jobs are created by their clients in different sectors such as finance, insurance, retail, manufacturing, travel, logistics, hospitality, entertainment, telecommunications etc. When they are cautious, as in the current times, they cut down on large-scale expenditure on IT.

What are the options in front of a person when crisis is in the air - in the economy, in business, in society or in personal life? And for the young engineers I was talking about, it is about their own careers and lives. What are the choices?

There are three responses to changing times: The first is to go on with life and business and performance on the job as if nothing is changing. "Crisis, meltdown, recession etc. are for the finance minister and the chief executive and the media people to talk about. It doesn't affect me, I hope."

The second response is to join the blame-game team. Those who choose this option live with an orientation to the past, using most of their intellingence to find out who was responsible for what happened yesterday.

There is another response which is chosen by a few. This starts with an acceptance of the change that is taking place, and acceptance that many of the causative factors are beyond their control. But that doesn't make them feel powerless, because their orientation is towards the future. They take charge and do their best in the given scenario. They are agile. They take risks, get started and learn from experience. They succeed in hard times.

On Entrepreneurship

I am jotting down some thoughts on entrepreneurship:

1. The motivational profile of an entrepreneur can be best understood in terms of 'Achievement Motivation' described by David C. McClelland. It is the need for achievement that drives a person to take the moderate, calculated risks of starting out on a new venture. The need for achievement gives him sufficient energy to face the hardships, and persist in the face of adversity.

2. I would suggest that youngsters fresh out of college must first take up a paid job, before starting out on their own. In several cases that we see around us, entrepreneurs are not able to rise to their full potential, due the lack of discipline and maturity that a formal work experience would give them. (Of course, this is not applicable to people of the calibre of Bill Gates.) The formal work experience, especially at a junior level, would also expose them to the world of employees, an understanding that is indispensable to any employer or entrepreneur. Another quality that entrepreneurs will have to gain through formal work experience is that of working in teams, and the ability to set aside ego issues. Too many ventures fail due to lack of team work.

3. Entrepreneurs fail to rise to their full potential when they think of themselves as perpetual entrepreneurs. They sometimes get stuck with the idea of entrepreneurship, and do not re-invent themselves as leaders of people and managers of the organizations they have established. Entrepreneurs do a great job, when they channel their achievement motivation to the goal of taking their current enterprise to the level of excellence, rather than being in a hurry to do the next big thing.

Managing in tough times

Today everyone who has something to do with money - economists, businessmen, housewives - are talking about economic downturn and recession.

Downturns can be opportunities for companies to get serious about transforming into lean enterprises, i.e., to identify wastages, and redefine processes to eliminate wastages. But unfortunately hard times also lead to knee-jerk reactions offered as fixes for managing the downturn. And most noticeable is the spate of lay-offs.

Listen to these words of caution in a recent newsletter by James P. Womack, Founder and Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute, and co-author of 'Lean Thinking'. He was talking about ways to tackle the impending recession of 2009:

The very last thing to consider is the one thing managers seem to embrace most readily: cost cutting. This means leaving out steps and features that actually create value from the perspective of the customer and removing employees who are actually needed to get the job done right using the current process. The hope, usually wrong, is that the customer won't notice.

This last expedient is the one I most fear, because it is likely to be justified in the name of "lean". Every recession seems to produce a major cost-cutting campaign sold by traditional consultants. Their key promise is rapid financial payback, even within one quarter, and the only practical way to achieve this is layoffs. I truly hope that the recession of 2009 will not be known to history as the "lean" recession and everyone in the Lean Community should vow to avoid the cost cutting urge in their own organization.

Navigating in troubled waters require equanimity of mind - not only of the senior management team, but also of everyone in the organization. What can be more damaging than knee-jerk cost-cutting measures and lay-offs? Listen to the words -- most managers are talking about cost cutting, not cost management.

A few weeks ago, the largest private airlines in India, Jet Airways, laid off around 1900 employees. And took them back within 24 hours. What would be call this, other than knee-jerk reaction? That was certainly not the way to manage costs.

Recently I was at the new airport in Bangalore. I was impressed by the scale and grandeur of the airport. But it also made me think - why so much of wastage? Why should I bear the cost of such large scale civil and interior work, when all I wanted was to get to Mumbai by a low cost flight? I didn't want to spend my time lounging around as if I am in the lobby of a five star hotel. I was not on vacation, but on business.

Now, look at it - let the airlines and the airport authorities and all the stakeholders in the air travel ecosystem examine what the customers really want. Just give them that with minimum wastage. I for one, wanted economy and speed in getting from Bangalore to Mumbai. If someone wanted a luxurious lounge at the airport, they could have some exclusive space for them. That's OK, but most passengers wouldn't want to pay higher for that, especially when it is only a matter of a few minutes of waiting.

The key point here is this: save money by reducing wastage, not by the popular cost-cutting measures. Wastage is created when we don't build the value chain to deliver what the customer really wants. In the case of Bangalore airport, wastage is built into the infrastructure. Every customer and every airlines will pay the price for many years to come.

On attitudes and communication

What we describe as an attitude problem with an employee is more often an indicator of poor two-way communication between the employee and his or her immediate supervisor or reporting officer.

Attempts to correct the attitude through training and counselling usually do not have the desired impact. Many a times these efforts backfire, resulting in a more demotivated, despirited employee. This is often taken as proof that the employee really has an attitude problem, which needs serious correction.

When we look at it from a different angle, and treat it as a problem in communication, our interventions become different. We do not look at the individual employee with a desire to change him, but we look at the processes, especially the communication processes. We see the behaviour (which is labelled as attitude problem) as natural responses in a complex system of inter-relationships. The focus shifts from labelling and blaming to a joint investigation of the system, with the shared objective of improving its functioning.