Tag: human resources

The Leadership Void.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 2 Comments

Whether it’s the corporate world, the ever pulsating world of politics or about leading ourselves, there comes a time, when we experience or get to see the manifestation of the Leadership void. Join me here, we take a look at what this leadership void is about, it is not about having a leader for sure, it is about the reasons behind that and we also explore ways on how we can get this space fixed! This is the same void from where great icons emerge either to serve themselves (salvage of who and what they are) or at times they plunge ahead in the selfless service of the organisations & communities that they are part of- whichever path that they choose to go ahead with- it’s an empowering, enriching experience as long as the new found direction and motives align to the greater good! So where and how does all of this begin?

Whether it is about us, as Individuals, or about us as someone who is responsible to lead a firm or a nation, we will hit that odd patch at some or the other time, for one or the other reason and when that happens, the immediate reaction is to give away the reins- it’s like you have been driving just fine and it takes just those few seconds over your years of experience to change your whole outlook and approach towards driving! This is what creates the void- an incident, an accident, a missed deadline, a compelling commitment, promise, a promise which could not be delivered not because your competence was compromised or ineffective, but because the time that you traversed was meant to create that block at that moment and your reaction to it, is what sets up the void in the first place! In many cases, most of the cases rather, people will recollect themselves and will get their act together and keep walking ahead, so the void doesn’t precipitate further and in no time even perhaps forgotten as new achievements and new positive stories start to be created. There are those odd cases though, which emerge (and it happens when the stakes are high, really high) and hence you see this leadership void being played out in large stages of business and politics!

As Individuals when we loose that target, we have no other option but to gather ourselves back and again go for it! For example, say, you set a goal to get your self fit and arrive at a weight number in three months. When those three dreaded months are over, you find that you actually have ended up adding a few pounds rather then reducing- so what option do you have? Either begin to ignore and let live be- the Leadership Void impact- or analyse the issue and get going at it again because you know very well that your health is the key to your existence and irrespective of the social appeal that your fit body may get you- the fact remains that a healthy body alone will ensure you walk this planet for those many extra days or hours! Hence when it comes to matters which rare essentially individual and intrinsic, the void to lead oneself seldom remains long and deep and is quickly altered or replaced with some other pursuit and that’s how the story goes on for individuals either from one achievement to the next or one leadership void unto the next!

When it comes to the big stage of business and politics the ramifications can be deadly and intense! Consider this, you have a company whose CEO decides to quit and no one wants to take up that position! Call it acquired levels of incompetence or the complexity of the shit that needs to be managed or whatever the case may be the fact remains that the Leadership Void that gets created when you lead thousands of people- can be far damaging and may have irreversible consequences! When this reluctance of not wanting to be the CEO begins to manifest it starts to send signals which are subtle yet powerful internally and externally about the firm! Employees begin to evaluate if their individual growth is now going to be bottled up, if so how soon and at what level and what’s the economic damage that may come with it ( no one wants ton work for charity or passion- no one does and is they say so- fire them- because they are lying!). Externally vendors, clients all take note and begin to wonder if the problem is more fundamental and start to re- calibrate the competencies and abilities of the firm- few cases leading to law suits and termination of contracts etc. So you see one person’s exit and the inability of anyone else to step in, can cause an impact which is beyond ones’ control but plays havoc with all the stakeholders involved!

If you thought, this looks pretty bad and what could be more worse than this, welcome to politics! When a leadership void is created either by a leader stepping down or being made redundant by the polity (not necessarily form the same political party), chaos ensues! You see, most political parties (as long as you experience some kind of fair and free democratic process of elections in your nation) are evaluated by the voters by factors like the charisma of the leader, the promise, the vision, the track record, the future, the available strength of the team that a party has, level of acceptance internationally and nationally and the quality of views about the social fabric of a nation so on and so forth! So when the leader quits for whatever reason that could be intrinsic or a politically engineered plan; with the leader goes all the elements that were glued on to that party’s purpose and promise! So strangely enough, knowing politicians the way they are, you will find that when shit happens and a political leader quits, even as people may rumble, rush or create lobby groups to stake claim for that chair, the real truth is, everyone is wishing for the same person to come back and lead all over again until a time that there is more calm and clarity in the political waters and await for a time when they would want to make the move when acceptance will seem more natural, like a corporate success plan! In the ensuing period when this void thrives, needles to say the other parties, called normally as political adversaries make the most as the sun shines and are provided with enough of political ammunition that can last for years to come- where they keep on hitting hard on the other party- asking a simple question- That you could not lead your organisation, how can you manage the nation!

So, here it is more about playing to the audiences (the nation) like in the corporate world to the board of the company and the show goes on! When current leaders drop the ball, trust me even that, in a few cases would be a leadership move and if you were that odd person to end up catching the falling ball in a hurry, the weight of that will break your fingers and bury you in a lot of mess than you can ever think off! So the rule says- When leaders pull the brake for no reasons- put on your seat belts and be responsive – not reactive nor proactive! So what can be done about this and how can organisations or even the polity arrest this from manifesting?

It all starts and ends with how sensitive (as in- an acute ability to sense) the people experts are in the organisation or how astute and politically suave the members within a political party are for being able to judge whether a person should lead or not in the first place! Only when this space is analysed in detail with the allowance for failures, setbacks, rip offs , scandals, media assaults and all that you can think of; is when a wise people office of a major corporation or a mature political party will ask someone to lead! It all starts with the individual under the cross hairs to lead and it all ends with that- within the range of the highs and lows once it is understood how much of that swing will remain within the permissible limit- life is a party as long as the rope to the swing is not shredded or ripped off due to the ever increasing burden of the individual who is leading the team!

As long as this first step is fixed and a firm foundation is built around what the limits of leadership are and those are communicated and made clear to the person who leads- things are normally taken care of- most of the times! You see, even leaders are humans and being humans- at some or the point they will break down for one or the other reason and while if it happens for reasons of their own doing like health or some scam, that’s alright and an emerging void can be rapidly replaced and completed, but when that breakdown starts to spread like sepsis and the leader in chief starts to transform into the whiner in chief- that high level sabotage can not only wipe off organisation off the market map but in the case of political parties, end up altering the political landscape of a nation! When Leadership void begins to attain these level of massive unmanageable proportions- you see splintering of political parties and realignment of business units, mergers, acquisitions, stake sales, everything and anything that can be done to ensure that the organisation survives, the nation stays and does not get consumed by the leadership void which threatens to create an unsettling period for everyone around!

A few final thoughts, as I wrap this piece, Leadership Void assumes greater intensity, impact and influence in proportion of who the individual is, what that organisation is or what a political party is in a given contextual setting of a society or nation! The only way to stem this across any of the chosen levels, is about knowing the Individual, the gifts and the curses that the person brings along and how much of what is allowable , manageable and workable to ensure that the ecosystem stays intact when this person occupies the chair! Sure enough there could be, and certainly are, many more details that go on to make sure that these leadership voids are far and few in between and that again depends on the levels of competence of the people across the organisation or within a political party! What we see played out across society is nothing more than the presence or absence of human competence and the extreme manifestation of it, is the emergence of Leadership Void!

I leave you here, with these thought, reflect and seek the competence that you find or don’t within and round you and fasten your set belt, for the void may already be there or on its way!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! Stay safe, stay wise and stay relevant!

Risks of personality worship.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Societies have their own life-cycles, and every society learns what its life- cycle is, usually the hard way! Through modern history, we have seen the demise of the erstwhile kingdoms- whether that was because of experiments in different types of governance models like democracy, communism, dictatorship, autocracy or the hybrid models which picked elements of different governance models (while becoming none); normally societies ended up accelerating their social collapse, but in a few cases retained their character, intrinsic value to survive, reforge and rise again and this space where societies collapse and rise again is the space of personality worships- because the whole social drama that unfolds- no matter where you live, it is almost always about personality or the competing personalities that are offered the platform to lead and provide direction to the masses! Join me here as we try to understand why personality worship could be or rather is a risk that every society must weigh well before limiting it’s exposure to the same!

As Individuals, we like it when we get ready solutions for the problems that we are facing, irrespective of the fact whether these are chronic or one off cases. Very often the people who have the ability to wield this power are the ones’ who provide us with solutions and make our lives easy (at least that is what it looks like to begin with!). This is where the game starts and this is the grand stage of personality worship! Whether it is the politician that you like or despise, that boos you adore or that team mate you can count upon- or anyone for that matter whom you count on- you are knowingly or unknowingly getting into the trap of personality worship, and while this looks innocent and divine, it could end up being quite the opposite and many nations around the world have lived to tell those horrible stories of personality worship gone too wrong! So how does this all start…well here we go!

As we go about our daily chores, we often want to leave a few vital decisions to someone above us! If you are working with an organisation, you are looking forward to your boss- he is looking forward to his until you reach the CEO through the chain of command and the CEO too looks up to the board to whom he is answerable who basically have the stakeholders- which includes you too! So you see, even in a corporate set up as we work, at the levels of competence that we have been entrusted with, every now and then we will leave out that odd blank to be filled up by our bosses, not because we can’t do it, but rather that’s a fail safe mechanism to ensure everyone doesn’t end up doing everything causing chaos that can ruin the organisation or ends up creating more competition from within! It also ensures progressive development of competence and thereby assures survival and growth for all those involved in the creative process. Likewise when it comes to the larger social fabric, it is the domain of the politicians, the bureaucrats and the whole official machinery of a state/ nation that goes in to make our societies progressive and safe. When we start allowing personality worship to creep into this space, we end up creating unprecedented situations and eventually have no one else, but ourselves to blame at the end! You see, if you ask clowns to lead then… you are part of the circus and no longer an audience! So why is this so damaging how can we change this or rather balance this?

Since time in memorial, right from the times of the Kings and Queens, personality worship has been the order of the day! Certainly it made sense because all power was concentrated there and with no other way around, it made sense! So based on the personality worships Kingdoms progressed and regressed, each time the worship was offered to a right person- the Kingdom flourished and at other times if the worship was offered to a nut case who had become a King by possibly killing his own people- well the Kingdoms regressed and failed on their own weight! Sure enough, there are no more kingdoms to be managed, but if you carefully observe the whole ecosystem around you, it is nothing but the aggregation of kingdoms (leaders) in almost every field that you choose – whether it be business, politics, security, work areas, the arena of sport, medicine, scientists, each of these sectors- what I call as little kingdoms- all have their own “worship” models and as these are worshiped the societies arrive at worshiping a taller and unifying personality who is worshiped even by those who are worshiped below him! So where’s the problem you may ask? All looks fine right? People having role models and those role models having theirs and then all these role models choose a grand role model? So all should be great and in-sync right? Well, sadly it doesn’t work that way and that is what sets up this space of “personality worship” for failure! Read on!

The word here is “personality” and “worship” and knowing humans the way they are these personalities are something else as they start to plot their individual paths to progress and by the time they arrive at that position where they are being worshiped they have already transformed into something else which none of the people worshiping below are aware of at any level! So this is like you meet your college friend 20 years down the line and expect him to be the same person who kept asking you for your notes or drink! Well that never is the case, is it ever? With time, people change and personalities transform, in fact they are continually forming and evolving each day, moment to moment! Sure enough the intrinsic value systems seldom undergo a rapid or intense transformation, so a principle of non-violence will almost always stay unless a radical event has come visiting an individual, but beyond that all and everything will change! This is where the problem of personality worship begins and manifests into a complex problem based on how deep the worship model has entrenched, the quality and severity of its impact! Let me explain!

Consider, you lead a nation, you have the power, influence and needless to say you have your followers and the model for your personality worship is intact and working- now if something were to happen to you- you will see the whole model coming crashing down- even if there’s a replacement and someone else takes the place to fill in the void left by you- as the whole model is based on personality specific element- specific to you-the moment the personality is gone, the whole model collapses and unless the next person is available to step in with an equal or perhaps even a more powerful personality worship model which is already working, the nation risks to be throw into anarchy and chaos! Because as stakes increase, complexities do and with that the desire to get the intended results irrespective of the cost! If you are thinking, this must be happening only in politics and what has that to do with office and individual lives, well think again! Do you remember the last time a whole unit was thrown out or resigned or left to join the competition or start something of their own? Well yes, isn’t it- so this is how it manifests at the corporate level and of course not that everyone has to leave and go, even as they stay within the organisations that “personality worship model” tends to impose push and pull effect on an ongoing basis- which manifests in different ways- way of working, corporate bitching all of that gets influenced and directed by the nature and quality of ongoing tussle between the competing personalities and their worshipers in the confines of the corporate world!

This personality worship also plays its role in our homes, too- whose the favorite uncle?, which grandparent, Mum or Dad- whose your favorite so on and so forth! Sure enough the contextual settings of this space are more rewarding, positive and safe then another discussed and actually provide a foundation for individuals to pivot and keep the hustle on in the other realms! Now if you have psychopaths in your personal space- well dude, then you really need some help! So how do we stop this personality workshop from consuming us, becoming a threat or wiping us off and what can we do about it?

Well the only deceptively simple and perhaps the only way to stop and stall any and all kind of personality worship is about celebrating the action more than the actor, it is more about empowering actions and the process rather then the people! The moment you do this, you do great service for one and all, you take off that unwanted load to be at all times awaiting for a consent, approval and secondly you create a powerful stance to send out a signal that what is being evaluated is the work, the task and the impact and not necessarily how it has been done by whom? No, I am not saying disregard the process, I am saying discount the personal touch- like if you are applying jam to the bread, you have only two surfaces and you can do it as many times as you want- but the end result will be jam speared on two sides of a bread piece- there can’t be any other outcome so the empowerment is about applying the jam and not who applied the jam! Think about it! The more your empower processes over people you ensure that you can stall and arrest unwanted personality worship and the nuisance that it brings along with it at the right time!

Of course, great leaders and pioneers in every field and every space must be celebrated and worshiped but that has to be done aligned to the work and the actions that they took when it mattered the most and not just worship because you have been asked to do so! You may get a tiger cub and treat it like a cat, but as it grows, it will only treat you as a tiger should!

I will leave you here, think if you have been worshiped or you worship and eitehrways what is that whole worship about, is it about that person’s work, actions, courage, innovation, resilience, some virtue or is it just that plain vanilla fan following of the college days- so that the cherry on your cake looks a little bit more red!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another one, until then keep thinking and worship what matters and not who matters!

Simplifying Success.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Well before you jump to any conclusion about what this article is about- let me right away help you with that bit- read on if you agree, believe and want to understand why “success” is a mirage, the way it is largely talked about- and in reality has more to do about “you” and “what you end up doing with that “you” part of you! Well don’t get confused; success is nothing more or less, but the story about you- me and each one us- success is about how we calibrate our existence and aspirations in the contexts that we are provided with- at times by choice and few times by compulsion! So, join me here and lets understand what really “success” implies and how you can do what you can and must do; importantly also what you mustn’t do!

As individuals we would have defined success over a million times by now! Whether we started that with our first essay at high school, debates during college elections or that typical Monday morning corporate rant about the progress and work of the organization or the team that you lead or are part of – virtually every day of our life- we are introduced to some story of success and the barometer of that success interestingly keeps changing! Well yes- What you measure as success matters, but importantly what also matters is how are you measuring what you measure and are you really measuring what matters? This I believe is perhaps the most important questions that we must pose to ourselves to first understand what is our definition of success and it’s only when that self-definition of success is congruent and aligned to the one that defines success for the form you work at or the business or cause that you live for- that magic will happen and eventually you will end up touching and experience success the easy it is meant to be!

As we look around the world that surrounds us, the person making a quick sale of burgers is as successful as the top-end fashion store down the lane, or the investors in the stock market or that off politician who lives to keep his promises! To begin with everyone’s success is everyone’s individual and contextual truth! So any comparison even between two or more people doing even the same things doesn’t really make sense for the simple reason that no two people are the same ever- even if you were to ask them to draw a simple circle on paper- both of them would do it the way they see a circle or more appropriately the way they are able to express the circle! What matters is how well the same person is able to get the circle more and more right with each time that he keeps at it and that is yet another real measure of success! It’s never about the other person- it all starts with the individual and ends with the individual for the simple fact that no two individuals are the same and each one us brings our personalities into whatever we choose to do- irrespective whether we serve a burger, sell a diamond or make the buck in the marketplace! It is always about how well we can keep doing what we do- over and over again and if that is scientifically reproducible and has finesse- is what success is really all about! You may want to ask me right about now, isn’t success about being above everyone else, lead the race, be that “number uno” and all that crazy stuff? Well, my question to you right back is – Who told you that?

The whole problem, like many other things with humanity is- these “acquired beliefs” were right from the time you show some abilities of cognition, each and every person around you starts to corrupt your amazing brain and the pure grey cells with the whole unwanted dose of “being better than”, “he did that/ she did that”, “you know what” all these kind of narratives and many more like these and what we end up doing is set our brains and ourselves in the trap of always seeking to know where we stand vis-a- vis “someone! Now, this someone could be your co-worker, boss, junior, that vegetable vendor, that beggar on the street, that business tycoon or that sly gambler- well what we end up programming ourselves into are these paranoid comparison seeking machines- who always seem to be anxious to wake up every morning to see how much gain or loss we have ended up doing to ourselves because of “others”! The moment we see we are better off (rather we assume and perceive- which is a different malaise altogether!) than a few or more of the “others” around we are relaxed and feel confident about ourselves for no real reason and yet at other times when we see more tycoons or that odd school friend who suddenly seems to have hit the jackpot of his life- we are left wondering and end up making ourselves feel more anxious and uncomfortable ever thinking what a low life we are (which again in many cases could be far away from what the reality is!). The important fact that perhaps no one told you or possibly you have forgotten to record and etch is that the “other” really don’t give a f**k to what you think, perceive and how you end up feeling about yourself by looking at them, for they continue to do what suits them and that’s the reality of life! Each of us, works to what we can, to the best we can and there’s nothing more and beyond that can be added to this fact and this is the foundation that we all stand upon, whether we like it or not; we build on the foundation that we stand upon- this depends on how we reflect within and how we cherish and aspire to build the structure that we desire! No one ever built a great monument by emulating an existing masterpiece! Know that for now and always! So how do we about knowing what success really is for us as individuals?

Start from the start! Whatever you choose to do- has to originate from within you- Self-Awareness is perhaps the greatest master-key that each of us have to our own lives! It is about not only knowing what all you can achieve given the contexts that you operate within, but rather it’s also about what you must leave out, when and how much is enough- that is basically knowing your trim level! Another important aspect to work towards your success is stop looking for role models- yes I heard it- you are probably thinking I am out of my mind – but this is a fact and the quickly you learn this the better for you and your aspirational part for your ever elusive success! There are a hundred reasons why people become successful and trust me when they do- not one of them want to tell you the whole truth and their real contextual settings around what made it possible- because that is where the secret lies- that bit is perhaps the most ordinary and non-glamorous stuff and it has a perhaps the biggest potential to rob away all that unwanted attention that people end up getting because”few” perceive and create the “noise” about them being “a success story”! People who cherish success from the confines of the social compulsions- and entrapped in the conformity bias- will always do whatever it takes to camouflage the ordinary as some extraordinary bullshit and weave fiction within the threads of reality to create a mirage which doesn’t make sense but people are made to believe because that billion dollar worth mansion makes everyone believe what they see and this is the space which you really don’t even want to get into unless you too want to end up complicating your success story for the times ahead! Let me explain this bit!

Consider this, you come across this person who has become a burger legend- suddenly you have his details all across the tabloids, the local TV channels, radio stations, the social media everyone is going ga-ga- about this sensation who seems to be in his mid twenties and then you have that amazing PR and talk show and that paid- talk show- going all across the nation- where this person speaks how he got inspired by the humble burger! (I mean really?) and then goes on to tell how he walked down the pavement saw a kid who couldn’t have a burger because it was expensive and that became his mission in life! (I mean..whatever!) Further then it cuts to the present- so I worked hard and here I am! Well, how does this shit sound? Inspiration right- now let me tell you what would really have happened! He would have used his rational brain to sense a business opportunity to sell burgers at a specific price point and went to meet a few investors, or a bank ot to his rich uncles (who are obviously hidden from the star gaze) borrowed or begged that money and started a store and which was going to be profitable (read success- for this person) and that’s about it! So now this narrative got a bit low key, boring and non- engaging right? Well, yes, it is and this is the fact of life! Success stories are always more than what meets the eye and unless you train your rational mind to dig and see what is beyond the obvious, all that you will end up doing is end up comparing yourself with fairy tale characters and end up living and being successful in a non-existent world! Don’t fall prey to the trap of believing what is said, shown and sold because “AB” or “XYZ” said or showed or awarded- use your grey matter and rationalize what you see and limit yourself to the stories and the contexts that matter and are relevant to you within what you want to achieve and as you want to define your “success” everything else is pure crap of nothing more than entertainment value! Remember, each one us goes to the heaven we construct- no one else’s heaven or angels are coming to your funeral!

Humanity has reached a pivotal point, wherein a globally connected society has started to turn onto itself to facilitate greed, narratives and ideologies that serve a few and end up harming many! The whole smokescreen that begins with the “very need to define success” is a big illusion! Think about it rationally, if as humans we are different, emotionally intellectually and even as we understand, perceive and communicate- irrespective of all other things around- why and how can “success” be calibrated to a few and pre-decided formats? The answer to this question lies in the annals of societal greed and mass manipulation through coerced narratives to drive societies in a direction that a few want and these “few” unfortunately are the very role models and those aspirational characters that many of us would eventually succumb too, unless we fail to see what really is beneath and around this big smokescreen!

The “few” are and will always remain anxious about everyone else around because of two primary tings; firstly the largely ordinary part of their “extraordinary” success story- the worry of that being exposed and secondly there being a complete lack of depth to do anything worthwhile in the real essence of it! You see, when innovators have faith in the solution that has been devised they collaborate and share and move ahead together with a team and partners so that the benefits reach far and wide and can be adapted to suit and serve the varying contexts around the world- case in point renewable energy sector! A brilliant example wherein harnessing the bounties of nature has crossed boundaries and that has enabled empowerment like nothing else! Sure enough not all regions have been able to benefit to the same extent- but that largely has had to do with the ability and competence to execute a brilliant solution more than anything else! Remember, “real success” never remains within the confines of the “few”, it seeks a pathway and reaches the multitudes, who are then able to empower themselves by adapting the richness of the solution in the contextual settings that suits the given society! So what’s the takeaway? Simple…

“You” are the foundation of your success and stop developing/relying on what you see, are told and what you perceive- everything may or can be a mirage! Your heaven is what you see at your funeral and no two people ever go to the same heaven even though their funerals may be alike! Your “truth” is your reality and this contextual setting is the essence to decide how high, how far and how fast will you be able to surge ahead and when you will stall with the idea that you have! Remember, the idea is never extraordinary, it is the method of application and execution of an idea that makes an ordinary one into an extraordinary success story! It really doesn’t matter what your definition of success really is, it could be that 5$ a day or that 5000$ an hour bit, what matters is how much of it comes from within you and how much of it do you really own and control; because even the greatest idea and thought will be undone once that control and intrinsic value which comes from within is lost! Stop the unwanted and unwarranted comparisons, be aligned to who you are, what you aspire to be and work to the best of what you can be given the contexts that you are set up within and against and once you have this core alignment synced in- you will touch your aspirations and taste the success as you should- irrespective of what others say or as they perceive what you do!

I will leave you here, grab your drink, reflect within and seek who you are to begin with to seek what your aspirations are and from there can begin the story of your success in an original way!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article, until than stay safe and stay wise!

“Guru” in the workplace!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ 1 Comment

As the title suggests, this article is about trying to understand and explore- what really does it mean when we call or refer people that we work with “Guru” and what makes or doesn’t make one a “Guru”. Well certainly enough, you can always say, who am I to take a shot and define this space, well I am not doing that and neither do I intend to do that! This is about reflecting upon the true essence of the word “Guru” and how that can be appreciated in the times that we live in! So let’s begin!

We have all walked through those so called “aces” at work in our work areas, someone good at sales, someone good at marketing, few others ace it with numbers, few dealing with people so on and so forth, but very few and rarely you will find people around you, when you come across them , seem to be institutions within themselves! These are radically different, they may not always have that coveted expensive degree, nor always will they have that infectious personality and neither will they always seem to be all that spic and span – almost ready for the next shoot of a corporate magazine cover! These are the ones’ who hold us in awe, and respect by virtue of being who they simply are and these, my friends are the real “Gurus” that we have around our workplace! I am sure you would have encountered a few, I had the privilege to be lead by a few and that’s what makes our lives all that more enriching!

This is beyond that help your senior provided you with and you repaid the same with an evening beer, this is beyond that odd shift you took up to help that unlucky junior who had a bad bout of food poisoning, it is different from saving the job of that finance rookie who had posted wrong entries on the forbidden side of the balance sheet! So, by now if you are still wondering, if it’s none of this, not the managers, not the seniors, not the work, not the help, not the guidance, then what is it about? Well, my friend to begin with, let’s start by understanding the philosophical concept of the very word that we are trying to understand here- “Guru” – One of the many golden words from the ancient Sanskrit Language from the Indian sub-continent (often referred to as the language of the Gods) , the word Guru primarily has two parts- Gu- which implies Darkness and Ru which implies Light. This word primarily has been used to anyone and everyone who has had a profound capacity and ability to guide and direct the life or people away from darkness and usher them into the area of light! As the old masters say, The Guru never tells what to see, The Guru just tells where to look!

Now, with this new information at your disposal, I am certain your mind has already started to get into an overdrive to possibly evaluate who are or have been your “Gurus” and for whom you think you have been, well hang in there, there is much more to be understood before you actually end up offering the title or receiving the same!

The genesis or the importance of the “Guru” evolved and developed through the rich ancient history of what is today India, back then historically societies, in terms of complexities were far simpler than what we are today and largely worked around the dignity of labour and definition of the work that an individual did within the contextual frame of the prevailing society, so you end ed up being a priest, a soldier or a farmer or a tradesman or a social worker based on the competence that was derived on basis of one’s lineage- well there would have been benefits and adverse impacts around this- but that is not for the current topic. So once you had these defined sets of social class, meant to perform tasks with exceeding levels of competence to rise and ensure the safety and well being of the society- read kingdom, the onus was only on one vocation- it was the Teachers- The “Gurus” were the only people who stood between a society- kingdom being assured a continual supply of aces across the work areas or incompetent people joining the work areas which would eventual result into the disintegration and falling apart of the kingdom- because once Incompetence sets in- sooner or later- collapse will be certain- whether it be an individual- a society or a kingdom!

Now that the onus of ensuring safety and well being of each and every soul firmly resting on the wise teachers, what do you think would have manifested further? Well yes, good teacher’s created good enough students who were able to hold on to the societies and kingdoms for a few generation perhaps and when extraordinary teachers created geniuses among students, their kingdoms had legacies which last centuries and in some cases have left an impeccable mark on the way we carry out our modern live as well- don’t believe me- well think about the India’s National Emblem you will possibly get a hint at what I mean here! The real “Gurus” have always been able to influence and create value for time periods lasting centuries- long after their physical presence has been lost by way of their structured teachings and eclectic followership- with only one goal- serve the larger and greater goal of the society and replenish the capabilities of an individual! So now that you have got the context, let’s come back to the “now” and what do you see now, do you still find an equivalent or a close comparison to these ancient “Gurus” within or around you? May be you do or may be you don’t, either ways, that’s fine-because that’s the irony of the times that we live in!

In the time that we live in, at the most what majority of the people involved in working around glass clad offices experience is the modern day concept of mentoring- that fabled mentor- mentee relationship- well it lasts as long as the objective of the organisation or the task at hand are met, post that no one really cares for the other! Nothing right or wrong with this aspect as this how the norm has been set whether we like it or not! Certainly there are ramifications for this, it works for that specific problem to be solved, but leaves both of them devoid of any learning which can set them up for future failures- as their focus is too focused and entrapped into one specific aspect- without considering the need of learning in depth of the mentee! The modern day office settings have invariably created pressures of work and time which simply don’t allow to foster in- depth understanding, which is needed for the real Gurus to present themselves, as the students too are almost never ready! There is an old saying, which I had read somewhere along, When the Student is Ready the Master arrives! Well in the modern day office where everyone is working from one pay check to the other, this wait of the students ends up becoming an eternal one, sometimes the Guru is there with no students and yet other times, the student is wailing for help with no Guru’s around! So what can be done about this, is there anything that can be really done?

For the Gurus to arrive and the student’s to thrive, we need to consider a radically different approach to work, an approach which thrives on debates, discussions and experimentation- with an emphasis to fail- rather than succeed (sure enough I am not suggesting the organisations to go bankrupt with this approach- whatever is within the limits of allowable failure). The ancient “Gurus” always had a great tenacity to teach through this approach and it worked because no one ever told the student what to do, they were always told what was required as a result- not how to get it done! The student who would have been the most creative and effective in providing the solution, would than be able to set a standard process for the given challenge for others to follow- this encouraged learning, competitiveness knowing well that- there is never only ONE right way and this ensured that students and Gurus alike ever remained humble! You see, Humility is the anchor stone to Learning and applicability of what is being learnt- Without humility, knowledge will just slip away like grains of sand from the fingers of your palm!

Another important way of knowing you are in company of a true Guru- “Gurus are not bonded to their designation/labels/business cards,they have a strong sense of assumed ownership and will jump straight into the challenge at hand and start providing directions for resolving the challenge- this will be needles to say, to the delight of many and the horror of a few others! Unlike the modern concept, people often misread the part tat the “Guru” has to be a senior person- your boss- or someone in the office who is about to get an heart attack or fade away or retire; well it doesn’t have to be that way! On the other extreme end, actually it could be that new intern sitting and smiling away in all glory to your dumbness! You see,- Guru- as the word implies- the ability to dispel darkness and show the light- also has an intrinsic aspect of common-sense woven into it, you don’t always need to have a deep philosophical bondage to it, just because the word and the manifestation of it have such deep rooted civilization tagged to it!

The fact remains though, for the master to appear, there has to readiness among the students!; You see businesses hire based on consideration sets of the services that have to be provided to the society, and unlike earlier times, we have warped workplaces cloaked and hidden away into far too much of incompetence- which is hidden not because of anything else but the pressure of loosing the livelihood– If businesses ensure that incompetence management is an anchor stone of their business turnaround policy- more than ever students will present themselves to be trained, retrained and skilled and for that to manifest, the masters’ the Gurus’s will appear like magic- This simple shift in the mindset of people to deal and engage with incompetence and not negate or hush it up will do a lot good not only to save livelihoods but create finer and sharper work force which in times ahead can unleash new ways of excellence pertaining to their work!

Well, if you ask me, the presence or absence of the real “guru” in a workplace speaks a lot about the place itself! All great places which have created an impact on human lives have been fortunate to have these unsung masters always around- some famous, many not so famous and it is these tiny elements that go on to make a big difference for an organisation to be considered among the best and being THE BEST! Not to forget, there is a “Guru” within each of us, perhaps you may be struggling with what you do, but something within you, can make a whole big difference in someone else’s life! It is about taking those pauses at work and reflect to see, what is that you know and what is that you know- that you don’t know- when you reach this space- you will have the Guru paying you a visit and at the same time you will end up being a Guru to someone else too!

I will leave you here, with these quasi-philosophical aspects around the concept of “Guru”, I have intentionally stopped short of getting into mundane examples of our office lives and will leave all of that for your imagination and experience to play it around for you! What is important is to have the realization that without The Guru- there is no light and without Light there is no Life! The Guru is sometimes within you and at times around you- You just need to seek THE GURU! Yes, I read this somewhere, never forget- The Guru doesn’t ever tell you what to see, but always guides you where to look! Think around this!

Ciao for now, will be back with another article and once again, Here’s Wishing Everyone A Very Blessed Guru Purnima!

Meaningful HR & Business Integration-The way ahead.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

Yes, I know what are the first thoughts that are crossing your mind, even as you read the title! No this is not about fault finding with the HR aspect of business neither this is a glorification of how business and HR need to work together and contribute- enough of unwarranted positive shit has been written about that and it seldom works! This is about knowing what really helps or strops from that critical integration from happening and is there anything at all that can be done to ensure true synergy which translates into individual empowerment to the people on the floor and at the desks, irrespective of the product or service that they collectively create!

The genesis of the today’s HR came through the dark allies of the industrialized world, where the given dictum was that the owners of the businesses were out there to exploit available resources (people and material), unfortunately some businesses did live up to that dubious label and with that saw the rise of the union movement which provided the much needed collective voice and put a plug to stop and arrest unwarranted exploitation form time to time across different sectors and industries. Certainly over time, few of these unions too lost their grounding – since they too were run by humans- add to that the element of greed and you have the right recipe to completely compromise business exploits and you reach a point where you really don’t know anymore which side is more wrong! Even as these aspects were unfolding businesses were busy working on scientific finding and technological break through to modernize and make processes and services more cost effective and thereby more profitable and just as businesses learnt to manage products and processes they soon understood that they could also manage people and there is the birth of the modern day HR! Sadly though the struggle of complete end-to-end integration of business and HR has always remained a challenge- at times for the right reasons- where businesses require that sterile distinction or segregation to function and more often than not, because of sheer incompetence either with one of the entities or both of them, in today’s context it is a heady cocktail of incompetence which keep shifting from one end to the other in a cyclical manner which results into a “dynamic yet static space”- hence many a times when you go back to organisations even after few years- seldom things are different! Nothing wrong or right about that- at times that’s what is needed and at times that’s exactly what limits the organisations! So what’s happening here, where’s the catch?

It all starts, with like everything else- right in the beginning, even today, in 2020, there would be hardly a few, maybe less than 1% of entrepreneurs who would want to look at HR as a strategic investment which will provide an ROI to their firm with regards to the qualified talent that it can get in and even more importantly manage and ensure that the ” talent”stays and grows with the organisation- sometimes leading it (at senior level), at times staying in-sync ( at mid-levels) and at yet other times, developing a followership (at the junior level). This foundational mistake of discounting the true value and essence of HR right at the begging- when a business starts afresh, or a new business unit is thought of causes more damage to the entity than anything else! I don’t need to explain I am sure about what price an organisation may end up paying for the wrong people at the wrong time, at the wrong place and at a wrong price! Importantly always remember people are never good or bad, it is their “contextual settings” that either make them shine and excel or dim and fade away! You may have an average intelligent person among dumb idiots and that person may end up looking like an angel to your eyes, out the same person against the backdrop of qualified hotshots from top A schools, you may might as well want to kill yourself for hiring that kind of an idiot! It also than says something about your ability to judge and hire people- well but I will leave that for now and maybe some other write up on that- some other time!

Unless HR is at the table with the business to understand and soak in every aspect of what the grand plan of business is and what’s the whole idea and importantly be listened to- there will never be a true integration! Sure enough in today’s times, even having people stick around at their own positions within the organisations- by itself is a challenge- and that just goes on to compound the integration challenge!– Even today,the normal brief always to HR can look like this- “The organisation would want to have an overhaul or a massive change once a CEO or a A level person moves on or just because the exiting one wants to have the HR do some work!”- you may ask “Why?” well you will almost always never get a sensible answer to that and with no “real HR” to question- the organisation will simply go into an overdrive to reinvent the same old wheel! Everyone will be happy doing that because it keeps everyone in the job and busy- but the fact remains , this unwarranted overdrive often ends up being the classical case of visiting history and needless to say- the results are always the same- “Nothing!” and every few years this nonsense continues and we have people coming and leaving and everything seems to stay exactly where it is! This is the fallacy of the much hyped integration of HR and Business when not carried out in a well thought and objective manner! So you may want to ask how does it look when it works and does it really work?

Well, when done right, HR can empower individuals, teams and business like nothing else can! You may want to ask me now, what is the right way, well the right way is the way of common-sense! If your business is heavily reliant on people and people are the reason for your businesses success or failure and if you don’t start your day without wishing “Good Day” to your HR Head, trust me no matter how big or small your business is, you will falter sooner or later and the reason for that faltering will be the disconnect with your people! So if you are a CEO, running a people centric business , make it a point to throw away your ego( which anyways is good to loose) and learn to walk out of you cabin to spend time with the person responsible for getting you the right people for your team- because when discussions happen here and the more often they do, you will begin to experience magic– magic in terms of the positive rub off that will happen within the existing people across your teams and the new ones that come to join your journey! You don’t need long meetings with endless one-sided communication expressing your dreams, fantasies or frustrations, you don’t need endless boring mails with subject lines reading something like “Form CEO’s Desk” or “It’s your HR” kind of gimmick! All that you need is a simple cup of tea or coffee once a day with the person who is responsible to get the right people for you day-in and day-out!

Now, don’t rush into patting your back, thinking that all the work to hold on to this integration lies only with the CEO’s or the business leader’s the HR leader’s too have to play their part and their part starts by behaving and acting like a business leader- who is leading the business of people! This approach seemingly deceptive but if played right, can make all the difference between having a HR and having a great HR! Awesomeness of HR comes not by knowing the rules and regulations and theories of HR, they do matter, but the real fun happens when HR understands and assimilates the business challenge as if they were their own (because they are their own problems- manifestations which are created by HR!) How?, you may ask, well here’s the simple test, When people leave when you least expect and business suffers, the question “How was this person evaluated and selected even?”, When a person leaves because he gets paid twice and more at the other place- “Why are we paying so less? are we?”, when the person destroys a million dollar machinery because of incompetence- “How did this person clear the evaluation and get in!” Well the lists and situations can go on and on- the fact is a HR disconnected with business problems and business plans is equally liable to fail as the business and what’s more a HR disconnected from it’s business can do more harm than a business that’s’ disconnected with HR!

True integration between HR and Business happens only when there is mutual respect and appreciation about what each of them do and how each one of them contribute to build and develop each other to ensure that the organisation keeps progressing with the right tools, both material and human! Unless Business teams stop discounting HR- assuming they don’t understand or see the point of business and until HR doesn’t stop hiding themselves away in files, operations and social media posts pertaining to job vacancy- this problem will persist! If you always wanted to understand why the HR never called you back or gave you an update for your hour long interview of multiple rounds of hour long interviews- well I presume you would have found your answer somewhere here! A disconnected HR with no insight into business revenues and business action plans- will try and continue the old classical way of reaching out to hundreds of candidates- when it is not required and eventually get stuck when the real time comes to hire- because by then externally the genuineness of the organisation has taken a beating!

There are and there always will be reasons and explanations for every connect and disconnect; some real and some are made up, irrespective of what they are, the fact remains that as long as people are involved and businesses require people, there will always remain a compelling need to to have people specialists and business aces to work together collaboratively in a transparent and purpose driven manner! This alone, If you ask me, this the real essence of integration, driven by purpose and proactive collaboration each playing to their strength, understanding the other team’s requirement!

I will leave you here, with these thoughts, depending on which team you are on- the business or the people team- do reflect on what worked and what didn’t and how can you make what matters work for you and the other team!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article!

Leaders too need help!

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

At times when the world stands at crossroads battling multiple uncertainties, depending on where you are, whether it is the still looming pandemic, the economic crisis, social unrest, or in general resentment towards the kind of leadership that you are experiencing whether at your national level or its the crisis of leadership at your workplace,its is of paramount importance to note that there are times when even these very Leaders need help- because even they too are human and in times like these they need it more than ever! This article explores that space of vulnerability that plays havoc with Leaders no matter what they are trying to overcome! So let’s understand for sometime what your beloved leader possibly is facing even as they try to keep a smile, a straight face or that mercurial temperament around them!

Who are leaders? They are not super-humans in terms of any anatomical context, but they perhaps demonstrate their expertise and ability to fare better than the cohort that they are part of and that is why they seem to move ahead within the sub-set that are a group of! Look around you, you will find almost every Leader has emerged as being the best alternative in the context of time and space that the Leader has arrived. Perhaps a few years or decades earlier, this person would have been passed off as an average person, a few years down the line, we may not even have people like them in our consideration sets! Since requirements would have changed and they constantly shift and move to wards the next step of dynamic equilibrium which is so much needed for growth and progress no matter what you choose to lead- a company or a nation or even yourself! This dynamic contextual setting within which leaders operate ends up making them fragile and manifest “Leadership Fragility”! Leaders who are touched by fragility, start to become so much risk averse that at times when they are required to act and move ahead rapidly, they seem to freeze and stay frozen from taking any decisions, small or large and thereby put the whole system that they influence into chaos and confusion! This fragility can occur for multiple reasons- it could be because of the leaders arrived at the control too early- without much experience or leadership baptism, it could be that they were given a wrong picture of the operational space within which they were supposed to hold the fort, it could be they were given a wrong army to fight a battle, it could be that the weapons of change provided to them were compromised and no matter what destiny they try to write, the ink simply seems to vanish away each time and they keep starting again and again! These varying aspects of dealing with day-to-day scenarios at work end up making few Leaders fragile and hence you can find their leadership style reflecting this element- when they are intentional slow, take their time, check and double check and re-check and move ahead only when it is the only and the most necessary option and when every other option has conclusively closed!

Leadership Fragility as a concept also shows the flaws and chinks in the armor of the ecosystem within which leadership is supposed to play its role! It opens up the whole contextual appreciation of team dynamics, ability to see through and develop clear view on strategic and operational preparedness that leaders have developed or have not developed which makes them vulnerable to threats within and from outside their ecosystems!

Normally, we always come across leaders who are accommodating, non-accommodating, easy going or headstrong personalities, but what is important is,instead of jacketing them into any of the singular or plural adjective definitions, we must take an effort to understand the eternal , “Why” of their leadership style and what could have lead for them to adhere to what they seemingly are glued upon with no real end in site!

Leaders are in that odd space within the system of things- which is closer to heaven and hell in equal measure with a caveat that nothing from their experienced heaven or hell reaches the earth (where their team lives!). So when team members look up to the leader- they hardly have a clue of the kind of turmoil that the poor soul is dealing with and the only impression that these earthlings carry along with them is whether their boss was good or bad- because they increment was x or y! When the Leaders occupying such tight spots are not the real “owners”of the business, well, needless to say their lives are as miserable and lovable as you can imagine! Imagine a pendulum which swings far away in each direction- one the eternal core of heaven and the other end the core of hell at the speed of light! When Leaders “own” the businesses, they have one and only one benefit- that is ability to decide when to pull the plug off and leave the business- either shut it down or sell it off and start to toy with something else and start a new life by taking a professional rebirth all over again!

Leaders are constantly shifting between managing the pressures that they meet from above and what they must hold within and pass on what they can while ensuring that they soak up every ounce of pressure from below as well! So needless to say often you find leaders who believe in the maxim Mind over Matter, because that is the only thing that stand between them and Insanity- Their Mind applied firmly to the Matters at their hand!

The next time you start to judge the leader that you are facing- whichever reason that may be- think about it- The Leader may be operating from a point of Strength or from the point of Fragility! There could be plans and strategies which the leader may have devised or there can be mandates which the leader has to simply execute and make them operational! Unless you don’t fathom what is the context from which the Leader is acting, it will be unfair to arrive at conclusions in favour or against the Leader or the Leadership style! You may now, want to ask, so what is that you can do about it or should you really do anything about it? Aren’t Leaders paid and haven’t they signed up for the shit that comes along with the glory that bask in?

Well, the fact remains, they too are human, and like most of us, they too sometimes end up singing up for something which they would have either not understood completely, would not have been told about it completely or they would have misread it completely because of the facts and picture presented to them while handing over the reigns to them as they took charge of whatever that they are supposed to lead! There could also be that rarest of the rare case of “Incompetency” playing out – this happens when Leaders arrive too soon to lead on the scene without having a a clue of what they are supposed to be doing and where they are! More often than not, these people end up blowing up and destroying everyone and everything around them, eventually also damaging themselves!

The only thing that you can do while dealing with the Leader that you face or engage with each day of your life is, to appreciate and decipher the contextual settings and studying what is driving the Leadership that you are experiencing, whether it is the strength derived by the Leader because of who the leader is, or is It the strength derived from the position that an individual occupies, next you must observe the pattern of decisions and the impact created around that- if you see diminishing returns on decisions being taken- you know for sure something is not right and sooner or later you will have a changed leader! Likewise when Leaders act from the space of compulsion- driven by the business owners or stakeholders, often you will see that they too will eventually fizzle out as demands and expectations start to borderline around fiction over ground realities of business and facts! Leaders who also own their business, when they start to act in non-coherent manner it is a clear sign of decay and you can be rest assured that a big change is on the way- which will probably involve a change of hands at the business ownership eventually!

It is not always about the yelling boss or the cheerful happy face boss, it is about the undercurrents that keep these professionals on the edge for the right and wrong reasons that either makes them super achievers or ends up pushing them to cramped spaces wherein they experience their fragility and once that sets in you can see it manifest around the team and all that they lead and influence! Next time when you sit and listen to your boss, take a moment and try to read through the unsaid message and listen to the unmentioned whisper, perhaps your boss needs that extra cup of coffee with you more than you do!

I will leave you here, to explore, experience and think around leadership fragility and the experiences that you would have gathered through your working life; being a leader or by witnessing a leader, no matter what the context would have been, the fact will always remain that even Leaders are Fragile and they need help too!

Ciao for now, will be back soon with another article! In case you or your firm is looking out for Individual or team Coaching, write in to us today and we will be glad to help you!

The HR pivot to the rescue.

~ Parimal Aluri ~ Leave a comment

If you are thinking this article will be about glorifying HR (Human Resources) and play down everything else that happens to be an essential part of the business, well you may be slightly disappointed, but if you want to know how and why people were, are and will always continue to be the core of all that we do as humanity; in that case, this piece is something that might just interest you! So let’s move ahead!

No matter how much few businesses want to keep shouting from the roof tops- automation, AI (Artificial Intelligence), Virtualization, autonomous technologies, well they can continue doing that, there is nothing wrong about it, but they seem to forget the fundamental aspect that even to build the frameworks that provide automation and allied technologies what is necessary is the human mind which is ingenious, innovative and relentless! All our future technologies will only be as good or bad as the thinking minds behind their development and yes, there have been instances when the envelope has been pushed to far and lead to disasters (read Boeing 737Max and Air France Flight AF447 disasters) where rushed-through technologies rapidly implemented and executed and puzzled human minds- leading to ambiguity when it was not needed with fatal consequences!

The key point that I am trying to make here is that human mind and people are the essence of every organisation and every business activity that we embark upon and in times like these when business are preparing to rebound, if there is any one thing that they should possibly focus on doing right,- It will be hinging their come back strategies and actions around the people space within their organisations and for that, they will need to deploy their strategies through the HR pivot! So let’s see what utilization of HR as a pivot can possibly look alike!

Whether you are an organization of 25 people or have 10,000, the urgency and necessity of developing a come-back strategy with people at the core of it, only grows in importance and relevance with the size of your business and people involved. Whether that size is measured in terms of market goodwill, product/ services range/ nature of business or the quality of people, each of these and many such attributes matter! I share with you few areas where the HR pivot can be deployed to bring about that much needed acceleration and doing away with unwanted business complexities which tend to develop around every come-back strategy. These complexities are at times genuine and unavoidable, but many a times are co created to defeat certain emerging scenarios by virtue of hidden narratives and insecurities arising from the people who are likely to be impacted by the developments!

While using HR as the pivot to come-back, here are a few basic approaches that come to my mind, you may like to add/delete a few depending on the specificity of the challenges that your business and people face!

My HR pivot choices:

“Business Enabler”

“People Empowerment”

“Visible Leadership”

“Communication Strategy”

“WE”

Business Enabler: When HR is used as an active pivot to enable business, it accelerates the come-back and fuels direction and purpose like nothing else! The given caveat here though is that the HR teams must know the business and be able to provide HR solutions and point of view which contextually help and empower business decisions, consider there is a requirement to have 50 more workers in the plant to boost production of safety gear- here if the HR is aligned to the business and has in-depth understanding- it will be able to understand the complete impact of hiring 50 people- if the business seems to be diminishing away in next 12-18 months and hence can possible avoid the hiring or provide a solution which meets the requirement in a more apt manner- say temporary staffing rather than a full time association- which will eventually wipe off the profitability coming form the project once the sales begin to fall off! The more aligned HR is to to businesses in terms of knowing the products/services, appreciating the market place factors and behaviors, the more equipped will it be to provide sane and wise advise to Business teams and ensure that no unwanted expenditure occurs and the whole circus of hiring and firing people can be avoided to begin with as much as possible! But as I said, Knowing the business is vital and as simple as this statement may see, this is as complicated as it gets and one of the primary reasons of failure for HR teams worldwide- when they don’t get the correct understanding of the business of their organization right!

People Empowerment: This is one of the foremost pivots that organisations who value their “people” tend to often use, the effectiveness of this however will be much dependent of the earlier pivot and how well the HR team understands and knows the business of the organisation! People empowerment also becomes less effective when the “people on the team are different” from the “people on the paper”! Many organisations deploy hiring strategies which are archaic and old school, quite a few hiring managers seldom show expertise on the technical side of the job for which an individual is being interviewed- one may argue that- you have a technical round for that and that team is best suited for evaluating those skills- well may be- but when it comes to articulation and the ability to communicate and discuss technical aspects of ones’ business with other people (which will be an ongoing process on the shop floor or the service floor) this blend of non-technical and technical skill and quality of engagement will be crucial to determine whether an individual will be successful or not and if yes, by what measure! This blend can only be understood by HR teams as they are supposed to be trained to read the non-technical aspects and when that is complimented by a thorough understanding of business and positional nuances it just makes the job that much easier and you know watch time that you did not miss a right talent and you have not hired a right person for a wrong job! Always remember there no wrong people, but jobs for which they get hired are either too much for them to manage to too little to challenge ! Apart from this, empowering people on an ongoing basis also becomes possible- once a fine understanding of people and the work is developed, in an instant a trained HR eye can spot who within the team is being under-utilized or over-utilized and how best there can be a rejig(minimizing and doing away from the whole effort of hiring from external sources- which you can read as additional costs- costs of time and money). Effectively done “people empowerment” works wonders and propels come-back strategies of organisations like nothing else!

Visible Leadership: Crisis or not visible leadership is crucial for driving resources forward and keeping everyone glued to a business goal or objective irrespective of ongoing distractions that an organization may be facing. The HR plays or rather can play a vital role here, for helping the organization decide who that face of leadership will be at what level. This statement may surprise you, but that is a fact, Leaders who become Leaders because pf the position that they hold, may not always be a great choice to communicate en mass with people to teams during times of crisis- because not only content of the communication matters, but it also matters from whom it is coming! Consider you have a unit leader who has risen through the ranks pushing behind a few senior members on account of individual performance, now if this person was to lecture the team on “collective responsibility” and need to work together, imagine how many of the team members would really be keen to take that kind of shit from that person! Hardly any! Well, that’s the point, depending on what is the problem type and what the crisis level is, the HR can guide organizations on who will communicate at what level- it may be the second- in- command of a team or a Supervisors or a Foreman with over three decades of experience- doesn’t matter, the only thing that matters is that there has to be Leadership which is visible and more importantly listened to- not only because of the opposition but also because who they are as perceived by the majority! which may or may not be the same person as leading that specific set of people! These visible leaders are always there within an organization and a trained eye can spot them and know when exactly to leverage their latent value for helping the organization race ahead!

Communication Strategy: As skewed it may seem, but a glued in and synced HR team also counsels organizations about the communication strategy that needs to be deployed, whether it is about asking people to work more, work less, asking them to take delayed wages, wage cuts or layoffs, whatever the communication, during a crisis, if any bit of this vital space gets into hand of someone who is amateur and not so sure of what has to be done with the content provided- expect heart- burn, legal issues and unwanted headaches and damage to the business brand as an employer! Organizations are managed by people (as yet at least) and as long as people are involved- people will come and go in all shapes and sizes of mental fitment! As I said in paragraph above, positional leadership is of little consequence if the ability to influence is lacking and authority gained by authenticity is limited! Hence a good communication strategy has to be not about the content of the message, but the Who, When and How of it and these can be answered by HR teams well enough once they are deeply synced into the business developments and unfolding scenarios of it! When crisis hits; fast and , clear action seeking or providing communication is of utmost importance!Sure enough organizations have PR teams to do this bit,if they tend to be disconnected from realities and are left finding more for literature in the content of a message rather than meaning, the whole purpose will be lost and the resulting ambiguity will do more harm than not having sent out a message!

WE: Perhaps this is the most important step wherein the HR can be a true and perhaps the only pivot that can unify diverse teams, process and people as required to ensure that localized and team level distractions are minimized as much as people and the larger and grater objectives of the firms are upheld and pursued after! An active, proactive and preemptive HR can appreciate the power of the “WE” pivot. This pivot which binds people and the organization in one thread is powerful to ensure that larger business objectives can be pursue and achieved seamlessly and other challenges can be overcome simultaneously on the way! For this pivot to work businesses need to empower their HR teams! This is needed so that the HR teams can lead people in a more dynamic way and are not kept restricted to their age old archaic spaces of HR Operations and allied functions! When HR is empowered enough to partner with business in an equal measure and lead the “WE” part there in nothing that will possibly block the way of an organization hell-bent to make a recovery and make a strong come-back with a definitive statement!

I will leave you here, perhaps you may want to add a few things, remove a few things and devise new ways to ensure that your businesses teams or HR teams or functional teams that you are part of play the role of being a pivot in a way they can to ensure that your businesses start to make that one much needed U turn to be aiming back to the growth finish line! Lastly no matter what your business is, how big or small your firm is, how simple or complex your business is, if there are people involved , you will rest assured need “people specialists”, for they know much better than anyone else on how to create value from latent energies that lie stored within each working soul in an organization! The HR pivot which is sharp and at work is a blessing that can make all the difference to establish your firm back to it’s cherished spot or make the firm struggle for quarters to come with no end in sight, dousing one fire after another as the business tries to come to grip with changing dynamic businesses environments!

Ciao for now, I leave you to think and reflect, add and delete and maybe you start working on the vital pivot that serves you right! I will back with another piece soon, until than have your Coffee!