Mindfulness: The power of being ‘here and now’

In today’s competitive environment, we often complain about having no time for peace and happiness.  We are so much engrossed in “doing” that we don’t get time “being” in the moment.  Our minds are constantly meandering; we are often physically present at a meeting or discussion but mentally elsewhere.

Distractions arise either through our internal dialogues or through external objects.  With the advent of technology, our distractions have gone up significantly primarily due to cell phones, tablets, emails, texts, WhatsApp messages etc.  In our fight for survival in a competitive world, our internal dialogues are diverting our minds to wander in our troubled past or uncertain future, taking away our sense of being in the present. 

How big is this problem?  According to research articles, our mind wanders 46.9 percent of the time. In other words, we focus on our tasks a little more than 50% of the time we assign to it. This also means that our business is losing on effectiveness due to limited concentration.  The loss in productivity resulting from limited focus underlines the importance for leaders and people in organizations to be mindful. 

Mindfulness is an art of striving to focus on the present – being at the moment “here and now”.  Our conscious level mind tries to fill any emptiness with internal dialogue by dwelling on the past or future.  Not taming our mind results in it going into an auto pilot mode. 

Our mind continues to be noisy even when things are calm in the external world, resulting in emotional instability. When we keep ourselves engaged in internal dialogues, we lose a lot of energy and peace.  This impacts our emotional and intellectual well-being; our productivity reduces, and our ability to manage our emotions depletes. 

Hence it is important that we shift to moving our mind to the present. When we focus ourselves on the quietness of the mind without the temptation to stray, we live the very core purpose of our existence, the purpose of being at peace, happiness and love. 

In the spiritual world, mindfulness meditation enhances the power of concentration, peace and happiness for practitioners.  In real life where one is dealing with pressing situations, it is highly recommended to pause from the daily schedule for two minutes periodically to experience being in the moment and observe the feelings, and emotions of self as an observer.  Mindfulness is not an ultimate purpose; it is the journey of being oneself.

We know that we have no control over our past and yet, we keep thinking about it and lose a lot of energy.  In Hindi, we refer to the past as “bhoot-kaal”.  The word Bhoot indicates an entity that has no life or existence. Any reflection of the past that is done without being emotional, and with the sole purpose of learning from previous lessons is constructive, and will not drain your emotional resources.

Similarly, our future isn’t ours for the taking.  Our lives may come to an abrupt halt at any given moment for us to even experience next dawn.    

The moment we realize that both past events and future events are distractors, we are better equipped to concentrate on the present moment; our efficiency and effectiveness double and our tasks become more productive and effective. 

Practicing Mindfulness

Some principles and practices which can enable us to be mindful are listed below –

1.      When you wake up in the morning, spend a few minutes meditating.  This could be in a form of breathing exercise or following a guided meditation.

2.      While doing or performing any activity, just concentrate on the same and don’t let your mind wander elsewhere. For example, if you are brushing your teeth, observe the process, feel the brush and experience the overall activity.   

3.      Try not to overload yourself with a lot of information. Social media, in today’s age, provides a lot of information that is mostly noise.   As far as possible, avoid your exposure to negative information during the early hours of your day. This includes reading newspapers in the morning as newspapers thrive on negative information, and the information you consume stays with you.

4.      While at work wherever your mind is taking you to past event or to some anticipated future event, bring it back and promise to spend time on the topic it is taking you to. Reserve some time during the day when you could reflect upon these events with some constructive objective.  This also means that you don’t let your mind wander on these events or topics again after you are done with reflecting.

5.      Remind your mind that you have no control over the external world but on the inner world.  People will not be your way; you must need to accept this instead of getting angry on people or situations.  When you get angry, mind accelerates the thinking and becomes noisy. 

6.      Last but not the least, take regular pauses during the day. Close your eyes, focus on the emptiness of the mind, observe your breath for concentration.  Be in this state for two minutes.  This will help you recharge yourself and you will become much more effective, calmer and energetic.

Mindfulness and Leadership

According to management guru Peter Drucker, we cannot manage others unless we learn to manage ourselves first.  Mindfulness leadership is all about developing high levels of self-management and being aware of the environment around you. 

To explore the value of mindfulness leadership further, let me place it in context for further exploration.  Sometime back, I had met a leader who is the founder of his organization.  He had hired a head of sales for his business a few months back with the objective of improving his sales numbers.  The person he had hired was very promising, networked and had shown a lot of promise to expand the business. 

However, nine months down the road, the head of sales wasn’t producing results even after his tenure of nine months in the company.  The founder had set up a meeting with him to review the progress. The new recruit was very anxious, stressed about the review meeting as he was aware that he had no results to showcase. 

In the given situation, if you were to act as a Founder, how would you have conducted yourself?

This founder was very mindful of the fact that head of sales showed promise. He was also aware of the tremendous pressure and stress that the current situation had placed the recruit under. He followed the Choice Map as laid down by Marilee Adams (Co-founder & Partner of Institute of Inquiring Leadership).

According to Adams, people or leaders can choose to follow two distinct routes – the Learner Path or the Judger Path.  One starts down the Learner Path with neutral questions such as: “What just happened? What’s useful here? What do I want? What are my choices?” One starts down the Judger Path with judgmental questions like: “Who’s to blame? What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with them?”

Learner questions generally lead you towards thoughtful solution-focused choices, says Adams.  Moreover, they tend to produce win-win relating styles which help build and solidify relationships.  On the contrary, Judger Questions tend to be automatic reactions; they often blame focused they typically produce win-lose relating styles.

In this situation, the founder made the sales head comfortable and reinstated his lost faith so that he did not lose his confidence. He was very well aware that had he pushed the head of sales into corner or blamed him, the head of sales would have probably reacted in a way that would have been detrimental to his own self or to the health of the organization. 

The founder followed the Learners path and had a discussion with the sales head to understand what was working fine, what were the facts, what was the big picture, what were the choices available, what could be learnt, what was possible etc.  This discussion helped them approach the situation from a positive perspective leading to solutions that benefited both the head of sales and the sales numbers of the company.

In leadership, being mindful to own emotions, values, feelings, and at the same time having the same awareness for others make a real big difference. 

Strategies for managing Multi-generational workforce

Interview meeting at “Dream Company”
(12 noon, Monday)

HR Head of “Dream Company” who happens to be from Gen X, meeting a fresher for an open position in his team.  Extract of one of the questions he asked -

HR Head: Where do you see yourself in five years from now?

Management Fresher: I want to be sitting on your chair, clearly to be HR Head of this company or some other company. 

Wondered with this response?  For people who come from Gen X and some part of Gen Y, they may find this response to be impractical and may even label the candidate with carrying attitude and unrealistic aspiration.  But when you look at this from the current generation perspective, they find it normal as they pretty confident and believe in themselves and have bigger aspirations. For them job does not mean monthly paycheck, it is the mean to fulfill and live their purpose.  Very recently I met a young fresher who had quit his company within few months of his joining as he could not find alignment of his purpose with the job he was offered.  This is a big loss for the company.  When I went deeper into this issue, I discovered that his functional leader who belongs to Generation X was not able to appreciate his aspirational need and wanted him to learn and contribute in what was offered to him.  This difference in thinking among generations require a good amount of orientation and sensitization.  HR needs to do a lot on orientation and sensitization of these multi-generational workforce so that they could appreciate each other’s perspectives and could work effectively under one roof like a family. 

India has more than 65% population either as Generation Y/Millennials or Generation Z. what does it mean? It means that this generation will be commanding the future. They are redrawing the rules of society, corporate world, and indeed politics.  Generation Z is about to enter the corporate world. With this new generation entering the organization, the rules of the organizations need to be redefined as well.  Organizations must need to gear up to make changes to make it future ready for its own benefit and advantage. Some of the suggestive changes are listed below –

1.      Purpose based Job: With the enhanced employability focus in the academia and exposure to ‘learn by doing’ and ‘e-learning opportunities from across the world’, Millennials and Gen Z have become more aware and clear of their needs and aspirations.  Unlike their parents, job does not mean a source of monthly income to them but they look at alignment of their purpose with the job being offered.  Very recently, I came across a fresher who onboarded us a couple of months back, he came back to us and mentioned that he was not liking his job as it was not aligned to his purpose and he quit.  Probably we would have never imagined this in earlier generations where somebody would leave their first job citing reasons like this and become jobless. There is a need for organizations to understand and appreciate the different thinking and thought process of new generation and offer them alternatives where they may find alignment to their aspirations.

2.      Empowerment on Job: Micro management will not excite or engage the new generation.  They will soon become disengaged and the price organizations will pay for this would be huge.  Managers need to be orientated and trained to become more empowering Managers.  Accountability shift with responsibility is imminent.  The new generation does not appreciate Bossy term, they need somebody who could coach them and empower them and also mentor them so that they are successful. 

3.      Regular Performance Dialogues: Regular performance dialogues are essential today.  No surprise feedback conversation at the end of the year.  New generation appreciates constant conversations on their performance. They need instant feedback.  I am glad that there are many organizations which have already moved away from annual review process to regular dialogue based performance process.

4.      Feedback vs Feedforward: Most of the times, performance discussions are based on what went well or bad in the past which is feeding the ‘back’ and rarely it moves to feeding the ‘forward’.  The new generation requires developmental discussion where the discussions are happening around how to enable them reach their aspiration.  What are the key and critical expectations from their job and role in future.  How their strengths can further be leveraged and what developmental support is to be provided to enable them overcome their improvement opportunities. 

5.      Promotion vs Growth: Mere career progression/promotions would not make individual feel happy or satisfied. Growth means continuous learning and hence companies must need to detach title progression with growth alone.  Limiting people to same job for long will not help, providing opportunities to people to rotate their jobs, leading newer assignments, attending career focused learning programs and conferences will rather be looked as Growth by them. 

6.      Preferential based Rewards System: ‘One size doesn’t fit all’, offering standard reward framework to everyone may not be the right approach.  HR needs to relook at its offering, benefits basis preferences or segments of the population. One example could be to look at CTC structure and make it flexible so that within same CTC, people have opportunity to distribute their compensation to different components basis their liking. This will create a sense of empowerment and satisfaction among the Millennials and Post-Millennials.  

7.      Listening vs Active Listening: Sounding listening through engagement surveys once in a year is not sufficient.  They are vocal lot with enormous opinion, hence would prefer an environment where their voice matters and is heard.  So companies need to become creative in lending their ear out to them through various platforms and initiatives and this would definitely make them feel wanted.

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Employability Gap, Challenges, and Solutions

Employability Gap, Challenges, and Solutions

Nitin Pande’s dilemma on fresher hiring as Delivery Head of BeDifferent.org
Monday 1200 HRS, BeDifferent’s Office

Taking a sip of the coffee at noon in his office, Nitin talks to his HR Leader and shares how frustrated he feels when he sees these resignations of freshers who joined BeDifferent last year.  He had ensured they were trained effectively for last one year and now after having invested too much on their development and readiness towards becoming productive, a few of them had resigned.  He has started to believe that instead of providing technology solutions to his customers, his company is turning into a factory of training hired candidates for other companies. 

The situation which Nitin is facing is not unique in Indian IT Industry.  There are two issues associated to this. One, companies don’t have enough stickiness to retain the young. Second, due to non-employability of young candidates, companies are forced to put them through rigorous training programs. By the time the new candidates become productive, the company would probably have invested over 10 to 12 months on their development and readiness for putting them on to live customer projects. 

Addressing the Issue of Employability at its root:

A few months back, 3DPLM – Dassault Systèmes R&D Lab in India, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to set up Product Innovation Lab at Walchand College of Engineering-Sangli.  This would be the sixth such Product Innovation Lab in Walchand.  The primary objective of these labs is to create and provide a platform to all the young minds in Engineering colleges where they can “Learn by Doing”. This proactive method would not only enhance their employability but also cater to the Skill India mission.  All our labs have been well received by all the colleges where we have entered into such arrangement.  Students that are actively participating and engaging themselves in these labs have benefited the most from the practical orientation and hands on experience provided by these labs.

As a 3DExperience company, our objective is to transform the learning experience by offering academic and research institutions opportunities to leverage the power of experience to transform the way people interact with and discover the world around them.  To help today’s students be better prepared for tomorrow’s real world experiences and research scientists empowered to find better answers to difficult challenges more quickly, we have equipped them with accurate 3D models of the real world and know-how to use them.  Providing students access to and training to 3D technology has never been more imperative.

In the Indian context, we find that while Industry has forged ahead and while as a nation we have advanced in the areas of Information and Technology, our academia and research facilities have fallen behind.  We continue to read and hear various reports which are published from time to time indicating how broad the gap around employability is. Out of 100 engineering graduates, not more than 25 are employable.  As of today, graduates from colleges have to undergo rigorous training programs, including shadow projects for 6 to 9 months, for them to be ready for the organization’s requirements.  Sometimes, by the time these young minds become productive, a company may have already invested on their development for over 12 months or so.  IT companies are becoming more of training schools than being innovation hubs.  Besides, the cost to training is very high not because of training but because of losing valuable time to create and provide Innovative solutions to the market especially in the environment where competition is intense and fierce. 

Key Gaps in Employability: Employability requires three key ingredients of competency – Knowledge, Skills and Attitude.  Knowledge is just one component and not the only factor.  While academia has been doing a good job on the knowledge front, it has failed to address the gap in technical skills development, including the enhancement of soft skills. A major reason for this is that the speed at which the curriculum is revised at Universities is not agile enough to keep pace with industry .

If Universities invested in creating full-fledged practical experiences for their students, their placement ratio and credibility will soar automatically in long run.  For the right results, academic institutions should partner closely with industry.   

Such partnership would mean investment from the industry both in terms of time and money, with uncertain ROI.  However, if this investment is channelized effectively, it could result in positive changes that work to the benefit of both the academia and industry.  

I am listing below some initiatives that can be taken up by Industries –

• Setting up Product Innovation Lab to enable the culture of Innovation in the colleges Provide ‘learn by doing’ opportunities to students who would then be able to think and learn beyond their conceptual and theoretical learning. In Dassault Systèmes, we truly believe that when we provide such opportunities to students, they can learn faster and also innovate.  Future innovations would come from such labs. 

• Mentorship interventions for Professors.  Unless Professors or Faculty members are not trained on new technologies and skills, they would not be able to teach their students. This can best be supported by Industry.  Conducting regular webinars, having mentorship programs for faculty members, inviting faculty members to visit company premises and share new trends with them including giving them demo on new emerging technologies can benefit Academia in a big way.  In Dassault Systèmes, we have been actively partnering with colleges in this space and have an outreach program for skill development of professors and faculty members. 

• Corporate world understands the importance of soft skills.  Organizations invest a lot towards enhancing the soft skills of their employees.  Often, Industries find the soft skills of hired candidates not meeting standards.  Having experiential sharing from the corporate sector including learning around ‘campus to corporate’ journey will be of great help.  Having connect programs and experiential sharing sessions from corporates to campuses would go a long way in addressing this gap.

• Encouraging Alumni-based mentorship program.  All students who have graduated must pay back their colleges by mentoring students. Their timely guidance will better prepare students to be effective in their first corporate job.

Attitude

Knowledge and Skills of an individual are driven by attitude. Based on my experiences in different organizations, these are my suggestions to address shortcomings on this front.

• Understand and focus on one’s strengths without being overly concerned about competition
• Understand the importance of soft skills competencies such as Communication, Problem Solving, Client Orientation etc. 
• Deciding between Compensation vs. Learning Opportunities 
• Missing alignment to company culture and value systems 
• Restricted domain or a skill set (companies prefer employees that are agile that can change their skill set to current demands) 

The requirement is two-fold: Accept these issues and start sensitizing and make students aware of these challenges. Secondly, partner with Industry or training partner to bridge this gap. This should help ensure more employable candidates. 

The Significant Stakeholders & Experience - An Enabling Formula!!

As the HR head of my company, when I ask myself a question about the significant stakeholders of a company, the answer I get are these three.

1. The Employees
2. The Customers
3. The Shareholders

While all three are important, I believe that we just need to focus on the first two.  If we are able to create an experience for Employees and the Customers, our shareholders will automatically be taken care of.  Now, let’s try and decodify the formula.

Customer Experience

When I look at our customers, I understand the need for a differentiator experience that ensures customer loyalty in the long run. The differentiator experience is what sets us apart from our competitors and provides us the edge to survive.

A quality product or service is important but not the only thing. We need to ensure a great experience and ecosystem for our customers through the journey of using our products and services. This holds true  irrespective of one being a product company or a services company.

Let's understand this with a couple of examples.  When we look at Apple’s product iPhone, we realise that people buy it for the simplified experience while calling, texting, or using applications.  Every aspect of the product from its design to its user interface and usability is better than most of its competitors.  

A quality product is essential but it is just the foundation of the overall experience that drives user purchase and retention.  Let’s look at this from a different perspective now.  You have to choose between two restaurants: the first restaurant promises great food but is rated low on customer service and ambience. The second restaurant has an equally good menu and is rated very high by customers for service and ambience. Which one would you choose?

Most customers rate a product or service based on the overall quality of the experience. A company cannot excel at one while failing in any of the rest. Overall customer delight drives customer experience and retention.

It is a reality that we live in a world of experience and we want an experience which creates all the positive feelings in us at emotional level. In Dassault Systemes we call ourselves as 3D Experience Company because we understand the importance of experience.

Employee satisfaction

Now moving to the second significant stakeholder (i.e. the Employees).  The formula we used in the customer experience can be similarly applied here. It is all about quality product/services + experience.  

My firm believe is that we can create an engaging journey for an employee when he or she is not only satisfied or engaged at cognitive level but also at an emotional level.  Every company today claims to provide challenging work assignments and ample opportunities to grow with competitive compensation and rewards. While all this is essential at a cognitive level, what results in loyalty or bonding with the company is when the same employee is satisfied or engaged at an emotional level.  

How is he or she feeling in the company? Is he or she feeling valued? Are they recognised appropriately? Do they have an enabling company culture which provides them openness and transparency?

As a HR Professional or leaders of a company, it is critical for us to ensure we provide engagement to our employees at both cognitive as well as emotional level.  In the absence of one, we will never be able to create a wholesome experience.  Employees will be willing to strive only when they have an experience which enables them to go extra mile.  This element is very important for any company because a striving and engaged culture has direct impact on the overall success of the business.  

Despite such an easy formula, not all companies have been successful in leveraging this.  In my opinion, the major reason of failure on this is the mindset of leaders.  This journey is possible only with effective leadership. The culture of experience can be enabled when leaders are committed towards these efforts and work collectively to make it happen, and in the process challenging and overcoming their comfort zones.

Candidate Experience | A Paradigm Shift

Anjali’s decision of joining BeDifferent.com

Saturday 1000 HRS, Prateek Fedora, Anjali’s Home

Taking a sip of the coffee in a cold morning, Anjali tells her husband about the experience she went through with BeDifferent.com on a job opportunity, a mid-sized organisation in the Information Technology sector. She mentions that she could not remember a company that paid so much of attention to her starting from the first touch point of connect to offer release.  At every stage she was welcomed with a smile and also made to feel at ease in the process.  The overall experience from call to connect, docket to schedule, interview to clarity on work profile, welcome to hosting snacks; everything made her feel at ease.  She is convinced that this is the company which can provide her the culture she is looking for, a culture of openness and respect.   She tells her husband that she will send a confirmation on her accepting the offer with BeDifferent.com

Creating Hiring Experience at BeDifferent.com

Monday 1200 HRS, Manoj (Recruitment Lead)

Manoj calls up Anjali and extends his gratitude and thanks to her for accepting the offer.  He also sends a nice Thank You Card to her signed by CEO and HR Head at her residence.  The plan Manoj has worked out to provide an experience to Anjali includes below steps –

1.     Inviting Anjali for a lunch meeting with Hiring Manager within 2 weeks of her accepting the offer

2.     Handing over a small souvenir (A company embossed Coffee Mug & a nice Notepad)

3.     Hiring Manager to have two calls during the notice period to provide updates on project and plans around the role for which Anjali has been hired

4.    Recruiter will have weekly call to check if Anjali is looking for specific help; also provides her with company updates to keep her informed about what is happening in the company

5.    HR to work in background to ensure everything is put in place to welcome Anjali on Day 1 of joining including workstation allocation, laptop and netlogin creation, access and ID card etc.

What Prospective Employees really want?

Employees are the assets of a knowledge industry.  Amid options to join many organisations, the key to attracting and retaining employees is the experience we create at every stage in the lifecycle of employee in the organisation starting from first touch point as prospective employee of the company. Other than a good work and compensation, it is the experience which brings the emotional connect with the organisation. 

Recruitment today has to start creating an experience and engagement at every touch point of the candidate’s interaction.  The impression of the organisation is primarily built through these connect experiences. Recruiters and hiring managers have a big role to play in the process.  They need to create hopes and excitement in the minds of candidates about the company. 

According to a recent Glassdoor survey, 89 percent of job seekers value the employer's perspective during the application process. In other words, they want to hear why you think your company is a great place to work.

Creating experience and engagement in the lifecycle of candidates will also help in reducing drop outs significantly which have really gone up in current market. 

Other Important Hiring Trends

Increased pressure on backfilling positions in short time frames accounting for recent trends in increased offer decline, and strict notice period release from exiting company, hiring right talent in the shortest time frame has made the overall hiring process a big challenge.  The conventional way of hiring will not be scalable in case organisations have to reach out to right talent and expedite the overall hiring process keeping in view time and quality of the resources in mind.  Other than providing a best-of-xperiences at every stages of hiring, some other important hiring trends will continue to act as differentiators in the overall hiring process–

1.    Leveraging Social Hiring Process: Social hiring process consumes time initially but it has a lot of positive results in the long run.  It can be a successful tool of hiring if there is a right mindset of hiring and also when a right process is adopted.  Ability to understand and use the correct boolean operators and Google strings is very essential.  This increases the reach-out to profiles much faster than any other process.  LinkedIn, Facebook and even Twitter are good platforms to reach out to candidates.  The advantage of Social Media is that it provides an opportunity to reach out to passive job seekers who can be lured towards job opportunities. This is the most cost effective process of hiring.

2.   Technical Collaborative Platforms: Another important forum which must be leveraged for potential hiring perspective is technical collaborative platforms.  Companies can host technical events, gamification, hackathons etc in such forums where technical experts from across the Industry can participate.  It provides a great opportunity for organisations to build and connect with participants and explore their possibility as potential employees. It’s a slower process, requiring considerable investments in money and time but companies which are looking for quality talent will find this a worthy investment. 

3.  Profiling Based Hiring: Hiring is an art.  As a hiring manager or recruiter, it is important to understand the overall environment and people of the person being interviewed. This helps in identifying potential candidates who may not be active in job portals but can be contacted either through social media connects or through references.  This is a powerful approach and also helps in expediting the overall hiring process

4.  Making Recruiters accountable to hiring: Bringing a sales-based approach to recruitment will become popular in the Industry.  Incentive based compensation where higher share of compensation will be incentive driven with opportunity to double the salary will surely bring a lot of competitiveness and result orientation in the overall recruitment function.

Recruitment is an engine to business.  This engine needs to not only run fast and help an organisation reach its destination in the shortest time frame but it also needs to bring a lot of efficiency to the journey. Also, it has to  create an experience for its stakeholders to remain effective.  Recruitment today is a truly business function.

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Urgent & Important – Rule to Success

Urgent & Important – Rule to Success

 

As part of the HR organization in a knowledge-based industry, the complexities and the volume of work throws up unique challenges and situations. Because our manpower is the primary driver of our business, every interaction with our workforce is critical in ensuring business results and collective success.  

In such an environment, the key to planning and managing one’s workload effectively is the ability to prioritise tasks and manage time effectively.

My mantra is to filter my current priorities and anticipated tasks into a bucket that I call Urgent & Important. This is the bucket into which I put in a major chunk of my energy and time. To me, important activities have an outcome that leads to achievement of defined goals. Urgent activities demand immediate attention and have business or people criticality or sensitivity associated with them.

To manage time and work more effectively, I use Steven R Covey’s Time management matrix:

Quadrant I, All activities that are both important and urgent, like crisis, deadlines, and emergencies. These tasks should be tackled immediately

Quadrant II, Activities that are important but not urgent, such as self- development, learning etc. These tasks should be planned with due diligence to action dates.

Quadrant III Urgent but not important activities such as certain meetings, most phone calls, interruptions and so on. These tasks may not be very relevant to our values or goals but must be tackled when they arise.

Quadrant IV is Activities that are not urgent and not important. They are tasks that make you  deviate from your goals. These tasks should be removed from your list of tasks.

This Urgent/Important Principle helps you quickly identify the activities that you should focus on, as well as the ones you should ignore.

When you use this tool to prioritize your time, you can deal with truly urgent issues as you work towards important, longer-term goals.

 

Importance of Prioritization –

John is a hard worker and is always on his toes to complete his work. I have often heard people calling him a busy bee. He has that sense of feeling that he is contributing in making the organization better and making it meet its goals.

To his surprise, at the end of the year, during his performance appraisal, he had nothing that spoke for the value of his work that could be measured, tracked, noticed, or appreciated from an organisational point of view. Did he really not work?

His hard work could have paid him well provided he had clearly linked his deliverables with the priorities set for his work including linking his deliverables with the bigger picture from an impact perspective. Is it only John who is at fault here? His team lead should take an equal share of the blame.

It’s important for leaders to continue to enrol its people on larger picture. If people at large are not aware of the impact that their tasks/assignments have on business results, they will never be able to prioritize tasks.  Having a sense and clarity about the ultimate goal is crucial and critical for task prioritization. 

Prioritization of tasks is critical for both personal success and that of the organization. This helps leaders focus on those priorities which require immediate attention and action and has potential impact on organisation success.

Similarly, prioritization is important with respect to delegation in teams.  Oftentimes leaders struggle with something very important which they could not prioritize but could have been managed effectively if delegated.  One of the best ways to practice smart leadership is to delegate tasks to your team so you can focus your energy on the responsibilities that are specifically yours. At the same time, it's important to plan and prioritize the work so that your team can operate as smoothly and efficiently as possible. 

While delegating tasks it is crucial to ensure that you have competent people on your team. It is also important to allocate work in ways that empower others to do their best and play to their strengths.

 

Honing Prioritization Skills - As a HR team lead, I like to encourage and motivate my team to continue to enhance their learning curve by way of investing their time in education and something more than just work. I keep challenging them as they try to move to the next rung of the ladder. In one such instance, a team member posed this question to me. It should resonate with a lot of us.

“I want to write articles, I want to volunteer for CRY, I want to join HR courses, I want to attend sessions on HR but at the end of the day I never have enough energy and time to get to the things that I dream about. Every night when I go to bed I think Tomorrow it will be the day I will start fresh.. But it never happens.”

My simple answer to her and to everybody is, “If you chose to live your dreams, you will find enough time during the day to pursue it”. The first choice in the process is to continue to think or start taking actions.  Taking actions help. 

Stephen Pressfield said it best when he said -  “I'm keenly aware of the Principle of Priority, which states (a) you must know the difference between what is urgent and what is important, and (b) you must do what's important first.”

Let me crack this whole thing wide open for you.

1. Make a work list:  Pen down every possible thing you can do in a day.

 

2. Categorize urgent vs. important:  Now the next step would be to see if you have any tasks that need immediate attention.  Any work that, if not completed by the end of the day or in the next several hours, will have serious negative impact on business and people. Filter such tasks and bucket them as Urgent and Important and focus on their closure!

 

3. Evaluate value/importance: Analyze your important work and identify tasks that provide highest value to your business and organization. Another way to gauge the number of people affected by your action. In general, the more people involved or impacted, the higher the stake.

 

4. Set the order by estimated effort: Instead of waiting for 11th hour to arrive, break tasks into smaller units. Determine the effort and time to be invested in each activity.  Also prepare a RACI (Responsibility, Accountability, Consulting, and Informing) project model to track the progress of your tasks.

 

5. Be compliant and flexible:  While working as per these rules remains cognizant of the fact that change is certain; unexpected tasks will force you to reprioritize. Be ready for that. Remain focused, complete the work in hand or the tasks you’re committed to doing right now.

 

6. Cut the Cord:  Since you have noted everything you wish to do, you probably can’t get to everything on your list. Once you prioritize tasks and estimate the time and effort, cut the remaining tasks from your list, and focus on the priorities that you know you must and can complete for the day. Then take a deep breath, dive in and be ready for anything!

 

Spending too much time on one priority, however, prevents you from getting other stuff knocked off your list. Acknowledge when you’re doing this and enforce strict deadlines to prevent yourself from going down the rabbit hole. Remaining tasks which you have cut can be managed by some other people in your team; leverage effective delegation.

 

Pareto principle (80/20 rule) in context of prioritization of workload - Pareto Analysis uses the Pareto Principle – also known as the "80/20 Rule" – which is the idea that 20 percent of causes generate 80 percent of results. The Pareto principle is extremely helpful in bringing swift and easy clarity to complex situations and problems, especially when deciding where to focus effort and resources.

As a leader, in order to identify, measure and manage the top processes, focus efforts on the most frequently used work streams. For instance, to enhance engagement within the organization, we can easily identify and focus on the key enablers of engagement (20%) instead of the entire Employee Value Proposition which will help in attaining maximum engagement (80%).

Similarly during the day we may have to respond or manage multiple complex and important tasks but it is given that not more than 20% of them will have significant business and people impact. 

 

 

The 4 Pillars of Human Well-Being

This article draws its inspiration from Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya (The Prajapita Brhama Kumari University), a university that imparts education on God, the supreme soul. The university has dedicated itself to illuminating minds not considering religion, caste, creed, color, or country as eligibility criteria.

The World Health Organization defines Health as a state of mental, physical, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. In a broad understanding, well-being is living a good life with which one is satisfied. 

The human life is dependent on four important pillars which must be given equal weightage all the time.

1.       Physical Well Being

2.       Intellectual Well Being

3.       Emotional Well Being

4.       Spiritual Well Being

The absence of any of these four results in an incomplete experience of human wellbeing.

Physical well-being Physical well-being acts as a driver of rest of the three pillars. Other than the absence of disease or illness, physical well-being includes a fit body, mind, and spirit. This kind of wellbeing can be effectively achieved through Yoga.

Yoga helps in attaining this state of body and mind.  It prescribes guidelines for a life style that ensures physical well-being. This includes waking up early in the morning, spending quality time in yoga or other forms of exercise, and consuming food that is mostly “Satvik” in nature. Satvik food excludes the Rajsik  and Tamsik forms of food. In essence, all forms of meat, liquor, onion, and garlic are contraindicated for human consumption.

Satvik Guna was first defined and explained in Ayurveda and Yoga under Vedic philosophy. Satvik food has a positive impact on the body. It makes the body, mind and senses light, rational, and focused.

Intellectual Well-being ensures that we remain competitive and successful in our Karmabhumi (the land where one works). Physical wellbeing is a great influencer of intellectual wellbeing.

Intellectual wellbeing confers material luxury and convenience for humankind.  We had seen evolution of work places. As a society, we have moved from a labor intensive workforce that demanded high standards of physical wellbeing to an innovation driven society where most of our physically challenging work has been outsourced to machines. 

The shift in the nature of society has provided us with more time to innovate as well as enjoy the fruits of innovation. For example, recent innovations such as computer, mobile phones, cars, and air conditioners have significantly enhanced the quality of human life.

Intellectual well-being also acts as a differentiator at our workplace. We are known and recognized based on our ability to perform and add value to the organization, community, groups we are associated with.

Emotional Well-being is a more personal form of wellbeing, a connection with our society and values. The end purpose of our efforts is to attain a state of at peace, happiness, and love. These three drivers of emotional wellbeing are non-tangible and sometimes in dissonance with our cognitive emotions.

The inability to bridge our cognitive experience with our emotional needs has led to us distancing ourselves from people that add meaning to our lives.  The convenience, luxury and comfort which we aspire for are incomplete without human bonding.  Emotional wellbeing cannot be achieved without social outreach and through our understanding of living in harmony with society.  The concept of Vasudaiva Kutumbakam (the whole world is an extended family) is based on this premise.

Our ability to respond effectively to situations and conflicts that are part of our being in a society has a significant telling on our emotional experience.  Success in Workplace or in Karmbhoomi (the land where one works) is dependent equally on intellectual and emotional well power. 

Because we work with people, we should constantly work on our emotional intelligence.  Emotional intelligence defines how effectively knowledge and skills are imparted across the organization. Great knowledge without an attitude of sharing is detrimental to the wellbeing of companies in general and societies at large.

Spiritual Well-Being leads to an understanding of our self, our identity. In complete contrast to the popular understanding that our sense of being is through our physical body, who we are is a result of our understanding of our self. While our body is mortal, the spirit that drives us from inside, that we know as the “soul”, results in our spiritual exploration.

Spiritual wellbeing provides us with the understanding that our purpose in life is beyond the materialistic needs and goals. The real need is to attain a state of peace and happiness. 

Our basic structure of soul is to attain peace. If we ask ourselves, can we remain angry for 24 hours continuously, the answer would be “No” as we would come back to normal peaceful state of body and soul. If we are a peaceful soul, why do we get angry? We always believe that someone’s actions are responsible for our reaction or our being angry. While believing so, we forget that we are telling in a way that we are controlled by others. This means our reactions are triggered by someone else, we don’t have control in them and then we blame those for our behavior.   

Spirituality provides us with the perspective that our pursuit of peace and happiness is our own responsibility.  It lies in our ability to respond and take control of a negative situation and turn it into a positive experience.

Can I still bless those that hurt and abuse me? If we are at Spiritual well-being, the answer is “Yes” but can this be “Yes” otherwise? Therein lies the power of spirituality.  When we are aware that we are a peaceful soul, any situation, words, challenges, or pressures cannot change our basic being.  We have always learnt that Stress is a result of a situation or pressure. Spirituality helps us understand that Stress is not just Pressure but a product of external pressure and internal resilience.

Stress = Pressure / Resilience

Our ability to be at resilience can be achieved through spirituality. The first important aspect of achieving this is meditation.  Meditation is a powerful tool that helps us achieve spiritual, emotional, and intellectual well-being. 

If we had to pick tools that help us strengthen all four pillars of human being, they would be Yoga and Meditation.  Yoga helps us achieve physical well-being whereas Meditation helps us achieve the other three components of well-being: Spiritual, emotional, and intellectual.

Om Shanti!!