Building your creativity

(another article written a long time ago - in 2001. Finally posting it on my blog!)

Understand and accept the fact that you are a creative person, and that you are capable of being even more creative. Creativity is not restricted to a few and can be practiced with wonderful results.

To become more creative you must also nurture and learn to listen to your intuition and be open to a wide variety of possible solutions. Being aware of your own personality and beliefs that might blind you to possible solutions is also useful.

1. Don"t be afraid of failing with any given avenue of exploration; even a negative result from one line of questioning can lead to a new idea or new possibility.
   
2. Be alert to alternate solutions as they occur to you.
3. Keep a track of ideas.
4. Learn to recognize your own abilities so that you have some sense of the areas of a given problem that may give you difficulty or require more energy to solve.
5. Sometimes tackling the difficult areas first is wise so that your energies are high; other times, leaving the less well understood problems until later in the process can allow your "backbrain" or subconscious time to generate pointers to the solutions.
6. Practice divergent and convergent thinking processes: Discipline your mind to create many possible solutions to a problem at the beginning of your effort -- to brainstorm ideas, to be open to many avenues of solution.
7. You must also be aware that at some point in the creative process you must begin to go through these various ideas, analyse their utility to the problem at hand, and decide on a solution.

Some of the misconceptions which hinder creativity

1. For every problem, there can be only one solution: A creative person is always looking for more innovative solutions and believes that the number of ideas that can be applied are limitless.
   
2. One must be logical and rational when solving any problem: Creativity often comes when one plays around with assumptions and status quo thoughts. Being logical often builds it further.
3. An idea can be useful, only it if falls within the norms and standards of the organization/society:Oftentimes ideas have been successful that were thought of to have no practical utility.
4. One should always be clear in one"s thinking: Clarity usually in the beginning of the creative process often limits options, not expand.
5. In solving problems, one should always avoid mistakes and failures: Avoiding mistakes and failures will never get you started on anything new, which is the basis of creativity.
6. Problem-solving is a "serious" activity: It might be serious in repercussions, but does not have to be serious in approach.
7. Expertise and specialization is a must for effective problem-solving: A lot of creative thoughts have emerged from people who are novices and new to fields.
8. One should obviously not take weird ideas seriously: Crazy ideas, on the other hand act as ignition points for starting a search for more do-able ideas.
9. Some people are creative, others are not: Everyone can be creative, if he or she fights against these mental blocks.
   

The Talent Wars

Jobster CEO Jason writes about his views on the Talent wars in the new age. And I think it's a struggle for most organizations and their recruitment divisions to transition from their old mindsets to new mindsets.

Remember, the people who are in charge in most organizations are people who grew up with earlier assumptions.

And I wonder if they are going to be ever ready for the new wave in organizations.

While Jason does get it right, he is still speaking from the perspective of an employer and employee contractual assumption.

What will happen when people become more and more "free agents" and "fleas" looking at organizations to fulfill their higher calling, their vocation in life? How will talent magnets be different from people from whom talent runs away?

Here are some thoughts:

1. As people work more and more for meeting their inner creative desire, the challenges that organizations give have to change. And they will not come forth if the products from organizations are not creative.

2. As more "traditional" work begins to move from hard-core organizational boundaries, the lines between employer and employee themselves will blur. Because, if one employer cannot pay for work, it will be taken to another.

3. Dave Pollard (how I admire this guy!) posts on the new structure of the organization that gives rise to some more questions....questions like: Would employees be willing to forgo higher salaries (and much higher salaries if they reached the top echelons of traditional organizations) for the more human, healthy working environment of the New Age organizations sketched above?

Interesting thoughts...what do you think?

Hunting the Headhunters

According to this article the headhunters are getting a dose of their own medicine.

The reasons:

1. They don't pay as much as corporates.
   
2. There doesn't exist any entry barrier to become a headhunter. Hence many see it as a stepping stone to a "better" job.
   

"The attrition rates in this industry have grown significantly as compared with the last year. Many of those who join the recruitment industry leave to join the corporate sector. We, however, do not discourage that as they turn to be our own ambassadors," said K Pandia Rajan, managing director of Chennai-based Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.

Hoteliers in short supply

In my previous life (i.e. before my MBA) I was a hotelier....and the reason why this is happening in India is that salaries in the hotel industry have not been able to compete with the other industries that compete for its talent.

Very few of my friends and colleagues have stuck to the hotel industry. Most people did not want to get paid peanuts for skills which other industries hold in high esteem. Many ex-hoteliers have gone on to lead BPO and Call Centre organizations in India while traditionally in the hotel industry they would have reached the level in 5-10 years more !

Gary Hamel takes a different perspective on outsourcing

Gary Hamel the innovation guru takes a different look at outsourcing by saying that jobs that cannot be outsourced are being subsidized by customers.

XLRI launches post doctoral FPM for Working Executives

XLRI launches the part-time Executive FPM has been designed to cater to the scholarly needs of working business executives who already have a full-time MBA and three years of work experience. The objective of the part-time Executive FPM is to develop prospective scholars for careers not only in management research and teaching but also in management practice, consulting, training, and development.

Interested?

The Exec-FPM would follow two stages. In the first stage, the selected candidate needs to meet the course requirements. This would be fulfilled through 4 campus visits of 20 days' duration each, spread over a period of 13 months.

On successful completion of the course requirement, the student has to qualify in two comprehensive examinations (one in the area of specialization and the other in interrelated areas) before taking up the thesis work.

The second stage (thesis) will start after that. The student will select a thesis topic from among the areas - Economics, Finance, Information Systems, Marketing, Operations Management, Organizational Behaviour, Personnel Management & Industrial Relations / Human Resource Management, and Strategic Management. The student is expected to identify a thesis topic in consultation with a thesis adviser, and work under the supervision of a Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC). On successful completion of all the requirements of the Exec-FPM, a student will be awarded the title 'Fellow in Management'.

To read more click here.

Building your Organizational Quotient

Most of the time professionals focus on building one's competencies regarding the career so much, they forget that they are part of a larger subsystem called the organization, which has its own demand on the career of the people who work for it.

The relationship between an employee and the organization is under change. Earlier it used to be lifelong and the relationship was that of a passive receiver and a benevolent giver. Those were the days of large corporations and work that depended on following instructions blindly.
However the advent of the "knowledge economy" changed all that. Slowly, employees realized the value of the knowledge that he brought to the office and demanded more than what others were getting. Now knowledge firms are smaller and the nowhere is the concept of lifelong employment even tacitly admitted to.

There are three things you need to be aware about when you think of your career in an organization:

1. Congruence between your values and the organizational values
   
2. The psychological contract between the organization and yourself
   
3. The explicit deliverables operating between the organization and you.
   

Let us take them one by one.

Value congruence.

This basically refers to the degree to which the organizational value and your values match. So if the organization stresses speed over reflection do you do the opposite ? If yes, then both parties will experience tension in the relationship and usually the employee leaves the organization for one, which matches his/her temperament better.

The psychological contract

This refers to the unsaid assumptions that operate between both parties. Think for yourself . Do you expect something from your organization that is not happening? Examine your assumptions. How did this expectation occur in first place? Mostly such kind of assumptions are carried by both sides on the basis of expected models of behaviour. These are usually shared meanings and metaphors of employment that are usually outmoded and outdated and need to be re-examined.

The explicit deliverables
Do you know what is expected from you by your organization and what you have to do to complete it?

Rarely are organizational deliverables for an individual alone. Usually it is for a team. Are communication lines clear in your team? If not, then you need to bring it to the organization¿s notice and clarify things.
Do you know where your work fits in, in the larger scheme of things for the organization ? The more critical things you are involved in, the better. Remember, the more peripheral the job you are doing, the more is the chance for you to get left behind.

Do you know what your career path is going to be for the next two three years (anything beyond that is not worth planning) ?
Can you negotiate for more rewarding jobs that enrich you better ?
Reflect on the above points to know how aware are you about the relationship between you and your organization. And keep doing it every now and then. Keep yourself abreast of changing trends in the industry and economy that would influence the way your organization works or even its very survival.

Should software engineers go for an MBA?

I wrote this article some years ago for a online recruitment portal called CIOLjobs that does not exist anymore.

MBA is a post-graduation qualification given by Universities (the IIMs, XLRI etc. grant Diplomas) to certify that the student is ready for a business role in an organization.

How is a business role different from the ones that Software engineers usually do ?
A software engineer usually works in the delivery side of the business. That is , after a project is won and comes to the firm, the delivery people get to work on it and follow specifications. Therefore a delivery person only sees a part of the business and works on it.

Is it necessary to know all the parts of the business ?
No, it is not. But a delivery person can rise to only a certain level in the organization. If he/she yearns to rise higher or faster having knowledge of business management is very useful.

So what does an MBA have ?
An MBA course has various courses that cover all aspects of business operations. They are clustered in the following areas:

Operations
Strategy
Marketing
Finance
Human Resources
Systems

In the first year most courses require you to do "core" or necessary subjects in all areas. The first year is followed by a Summer Internship in which students do projects in a specific area that they and the sponsoring companies choose. This enables a student to get a feel of real life situations in business.
The second year is mostly dedicated to "optional" subjects which are called "electives". A student can choose to specialize in area in which he/she is interested in. Specialization is a decision that most B-Schools take on their own. In some schools you can specialize in one area. In others you can specialize in two. In others, it might not be necessary to specialize at all.

So is it worth your while to leave your job and do an MBA ?
In my view, it makes sense to do an MBA when :

You want to explore other careers and not get stuck in a software /networking
career.
You like seeing the big picture and want to rise up where you can influence that big career.
When you want to remain in software and yet explore other career tracks like business development leveraging your software experience.

In most schools work experience of any kind between 2-4 years is a desirable quality in a business student. But you need to be aware that while this work experience might be helpful in getting certain kinds of jobs and companies, it might work against you in certain companies that prefer to hire fresh MBAs and mould them in their culture.

So if you seek to make a career as an MBA go for it ! Don’t forget about trying out the top online MBA programs as well!

The Art of Succession Planning

One of the great untracked metrics for a great manager is the "bench strength" that he/she develops to take over his/her role.

And its not a very scientific process.

One has to have a nose, eye and ear for grooming talent to take over from your role.

Past performance is never a guarantee for future performance (Wall Street knows this and so should you!) specially when management levels are concerned.

Will the great individual performer become a "as good" people manager?

Will the great people manager make a fruitful transition to a business leader role?

Will the business leader make a good global leader?

One can build in a process around succession planning, but the data that needs to be really analysed is not one that organizational systems capture.

That's because organizational systems capture performance goals that are related to today's role, and not tomorrow's.

Hence the lever for the success of succession lies in the leader who can identify potential in direct reports to rise up to their level. That knowledge comes from really knowing one self, one's direct reports and the organizational culture. As a manager I interacted with told me he looked at the three "I"s if Initiative, Ideas and Influence when looking at candidates for leadership role.

How do you identify your sucessors? And what do you do to ensure that they succeed in that plan?

Low posting - Apologies

Hi folks, I apologise for the low volume of posting this month, but certain things have kept me from blogging actively.

I know I have disappointed some of my regular readers, but I'll try to be more regular. However, volume won't be as high as in the past.

I was touched with the concern some of you showed. One email from a headhunter friend specifically ask "Everything OK? You haven't been posting !"

Knowledge Creation - KM is passe

Ok, I didn't say that, Nonaka did, and that was a long time ago. But something else struck me today. Have patience whileI try to narrate it.

When one talks of managing knowledge one usually talks about the Knowledge strategy as dependent on the business of the firm. The focus of Nitin Nohria's article in the HBR "What's your strategy for Managing Knowledge?", the kind of strategy is determined by the business model of the firm. Do you use repeatable solutions, not too customized? Then a IT solution like a database and some other bells and whistles would suffice.

Does your firm give customized solutions for all clients? Then you should link the "knowers" in the firm, as the knowledge is too different to be of much use when stored in databases.

And then it struck me.

The focus of knowledge management would also then depend on the level of the employee using the knowledge and the function using that knowledge. For example in Nohria's example the consultancy firm's competitive knowledge would be diverse and therefore linking partners would make more sense. However, this same firm would be taking a lot different approach to recruitment, where the application of the solution (i.e. selection!) would be a lot more of a cookie-cutter. Would a KM solution help this firm's staffing team more than an ATS? I believe it would. Hold on a moment, an ATS system is actually a great KM system, and if more functionalities were added could be an 'ideal' KM system!

Which brings me to the next level.

Even Nohria's two appoaches to manage knowledge would not take firms up the value chain to be 'game-changers'. In essence they are approaches mired in the old-school approach at 'operational excellence'. KM needs to drop the "management" and embrace "creation" to rise up the value added ladder. To do that, Knowledge facilitators need to challenge the status quo and goad people to be more forward thinking than "what had worked in the past"....

Remember,
Knowledge = Past
Learning is the key to creation

The basis for learning is to stop seeing Knowledge as a static process but a churn of mindsets, identities and shared image of what our work means for us today and what it might mean for us tomorrow.

This post is inspired by Denham's thoughts on Knowledge creation.

Ten most important trends for business

Thought leader Dave Pollard spells out the ten most important trends for business, and before you say "oh no", the baby-boomer retirement or outsourcing is not amongst the ten !

When there's a great game...

Do you encourage employees to catch the action on the TV?

I know lots of Indian companies do ...and James wonders if employees in the UK will be allowed to watch the last Ashes test match.

I do know lots of cricket enthusiasts in India are going to be late to office because of that too !

Office Romance: Loving your co-workers

Rashmi points to why office romance happens so regularly.

As Psychology Today magazine notes:
Like every other kind of intimacy, the workplace variety brings with it the likelihood of sexual attraction. It is natural. It is inevitable, hard-wired as we are to respond to certain kinds of stimuli, although it sometimes comes as a surprise to those it strikes. But sexual attraction in the office is virtually inevitable for other reasons as well: The workplace is an ideal pre-screener, likely to throw us together with others our own age having similar socioeconomic and educational backgrounds, similar sets of values, and similar aspirations.

It also offers countless opportunities for working friendships to develop. As teams come to dominate the structure of the business world, the other half of a business team is increasingly likely to be not only a colleague with complementary skills and interests, but an attractive member of the opposite sex. As close as the collaboration between men and women workers can get at the office, it may be even more so outside it, as workers today function in an extended workplace of irregular hours and non-office settings. We are now more likely than ever, for example, to share the intimate isolation of business travel.
However, the article goes on to say: "Sexual attraction can be managed. It is not only possible to acknowledge sexual attraction, but also to enjoy the energy generated by it--and without acting on it sexually."

Porter's diamond is not forever

Something struck me the other day suddenly

In this new flat world (there! Even I've started using Friedmanisms ;-)) interconnected with fiber optical cables does Porter's diamond still hold true?

Specially the bit about spatial proximity - it sounds so 20th century , doesn't it? And the role of government. The best example is India, where the IT services industry grew because the government was oblivious to it! And these are the folks who are going to challenge the big daddys of the IT consulting world now!

Donovan - The world's highest paid HR professional

Arguably the world's highest paid HR professional is Dennis Donovan, the HR head of Home Depot and here he spells out his approach for change:

- A sense of direction shared by the entire organisation, which depends on effective leadership at every level, as well as a uniting cause, spread from the top of the organisation down
- People: "A high-performing, diverse, workforce"
- Effective processes: "You can't have systemic change on a continuous basis without process," Donovan says. "I see a lot of organisations that think systems are the answer when, in fact, processes are, and systems merely automate processes. Unsuccessful launches of enterprise systems are usually the result of lousy process design"
- Organisational structure: "Structure is the enabler for direction, people, processes and systems to work together," Donovan says.

I learnt about Dennis Donovan from Tom Peters' ChangeThis manifesto where he talks about how Donovan is the benchmark for staff functions evolving into Professional Services Firm

"It's time to get serious about HR," said Tom Peters - dubbed the world's top management guru - while pacing the stage at March's London Business Forum. "In every organisation, the person with the second-highest pay should be the HR director."
You could almost hear the collective intake of breath. There were hundreds of senior executives present, and most had been expecting tips on how to boost their leadership skills or margins. Now they were being told to put HR at the centre of their business plans, supported by all the spending they could afford.

The coming crunch for HR Talent

I think the one concern that ought to make CEOs stay up at night is not the ability to attract and retain talent but the fact that there are not enough HR professionals to attract, develop, motivate and retain those elusive star performers.

I read somewhere once that the BPO industry alone needs 150,000 HR professionals in India over the next few years. With the fast growing insurance and retail segments in the Indian industry set to explode and heavy core sector industry also booming, we are going to see a lot of people fighting for good HR people.

What is more important is that the vast majority of HR jobs are held by people with either a Industrial Psychology background or from Social Work backgrounds. With the increased focus on measuring HR as a "business unit" and moving away from the "personnel-welfare" tilt of earlier HR , there is going to be a dire shortage of management students who have majored in HR. As Wayne Brockbank says "HR people shouldn't love HR only, they should fall in love with the business".

The nation produces less than 10,000 HR MBAs, so where will the others come from?

I have started seeing a trend of business managers moving into HR roles and that is going to have a profound impact on what HR is and what it will be. Of course, there is the reverse movement also. Around 10% of my HR classmates have moved into line business and I am sure that if they move back into HR that's going to be further enrichment.

Looks like "the best of times, and the worst of times" to come in the near future!

Organizational structures of the future

BusinessPundit thinks the reason why organizations are not moving towards the future is that there are too many control freaks out there.

He thinks the future is in self organizing, dynamic, flexible organizations.

Hey that sounds like something I blogged about some time ago on emerging organizational structures.

It's the Talent, stupid!

Terrence claims its all about Talent.

I agree with the statement, but it reminds me that extraordinary organizations don't always need to have extraordinary talent always to do extraordinarily well.

OD's here would be to transfer the insight and talent of the extraordinary folks into processes that can be duplicated and are not person-dependent.

The other thought that worries me about all this focus on Talent is that it reminds me of some remark of the early industrial age.

"I wish I could only hire the hands, why does every pair need to come with a head"

Now every head comes with emotions and a heart attached and we just can't wish them away. Engaging with the tough parts is what will make the employment more human.

Effective recruiting is tied to stronger financial performance

from Consulting Times:

Organizations with superior recruiting practices, such as filling jobs quickly,hiring their first-choice candidate and using employee referrals, financially outperform those with less effective programs,according to a new study by Watson Wyatt.

"An organization'sfirst opportunity to increase value is effective recruiting,"said Paul Platten, global director of human capital consulting at Watson Wyatt. "Companies that minimize the disruption and lost productivity caused by turnover create a significant advantage that allows them to outperform their competition financially."

That's interesting. But what I'd like to know is does the study research just the co-relation of such a thing or does it establish causality between effective recruitment and better performance?

Employment blog necessary to create an employer brand

I really do not see why more organizations are not following Microsoft's lead in making blogging a priority for their recruitment teams.

Heather and the JobsBlog folks at Microsoft recruiting are doing a great job and doing more than any job ads could have done to increase the attraction of Microsoft as an employer.

People like working with smart people and if you have smart people blogging on your corporate site everyone (and this is important for smaller employers who don't have mega budgets!) gains. The job seekers get to see the human figure behind the organizational walls, you build relationships that go beyond just transactional "filling a job" and maybe a supply chain.

The best part for corporate organizations? Their google rankings rise !

Ask Joel Cheesman, he'll give you more of the technical dope on that.

Making sense of the blogosphere

With technical solutions getting difficult for tracking blogs looks like manually created blog directories are finding the time ripe to enter the market. How else can you classify the blogosphere as lots of smaller blogospheres linked to each other?

I had blogged about shadows earlier and yesterday I discovered that this blog was added to something called the blogracy, also seems to be a human built search engine for blogs.

Will these be an alternative to Technorati, Feedster, Icerocket or PubSub ? Who knows, but this is going to be an interesting space to watch.

On a different and yet relevant thought, does your organization load employees with too much information? Do you help employees make sense of that data? Or does your effort all go in vain?

Salary increases in Asia Pacific : Hewitt Study

Hewitt Associates(NYSE: HEW), a global human resources services firm, today released preliminary results from its annual Asia Pacific Salary Increase survey, which reveals that India will be having the biggest increases in salaries (upto 14%)

Nishchae Suri, Rewards Consulting Leader, for Hewitt Associates in Asia:
"As organizations attempt to become more global and capture larger customer bases around the world, India and China continue to be strong favorites. It is expected these countries will continue to drive and significantly influence economic growth in the region. Given the global attention, salary increases in these markets are expected to be among thehighest in the region."

Does this mean that cost-competitiveness of India is about to erode for India in some of the higher value industries? Probably, but I would argue that's a good thing. Let the lower value work start moving to even lower cost countries. But there is a chance that numbers of such skilled people are too small in individual countries to benefit organizations that outsource. BPO benefits organizations by not just with the lower cost but the ability to centralize and standardize processes and have control over them. Would that be possible if work spread out to dozens of smaller countries instead of India. I think not.