FACILITATING EXCELLENCE

The art of managing people as I see it doesn't come with a special skill or training. It comes with a basic understanding that all people are different and that one standard is not universally applicable. But are we not as team leaders, HR professionals, project managers, etc aware of it? Ofcourse we are! Infact not only are we not aware of it; we at all our levels tell people of our knowledge, demonstrate people friendly behavior, develop relationships. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. In my work career I have seen different team dynamics. Team members working together to achieve one common goal, team members working; not so much together but eventually towards one goal and group of people who are just working. Goals seemingly someone else's headache. Now amongst the three kind of categories ideally the first team will be performing best. However Ideal is not often "OFTEN". The question that one is bound to ask is that if the solution to the  pro...

“Why can’t you get this right the first time? You end up wasting time and resources in doing it correctly the subsequent time.” Sounds familiar! Most of us would have come across such a statement or its modified version, with similar purport, either in our personal or professional life. This simple and innocuous statement has much depth and meaning to it. Let’s take a step back and have a wider perspective. There are so many changes happening around us and at such a fast pace that keeping a tab on information flowing around is a challenging task. “The one who is quick enough to join the dots together is the one who wins the race”, is the oft heard comment. Increasingly, professionals across streams are expected to be quick. One point of view is “…it’s better to be quick and first rather be cent percent correct”. While one strives to walk this path, the other sounds doing the corridor rounds are “Let’s do this right the first time itself. We don’t have resources to waste and ce...

This past week, I met one of my friends who is an entrepreneur. In my view, he has a stable business portfolio (which he always disagrees – guess got to do something with entrepreneurial spirit) and has made a reasonable mark for himself in his field. The fact that he is ever so hungry to achieve more and dissatisfied with where he stands today, seems to be the reason of his success. During our chat, he mentioned that his prospective customers do not view him in a manner as he would want them to view. He feels there is a disconnect between what he feels his business stands for and what his prospective customers feel about it – something amiss between what his brand actually is or stands for and the manner in which consumers interpret it. That made me think if it has it got something to do with brand image and brand identity. Brand identity, in my view, is a combination of beliefs (emotional), symbols (physical), and associations (experiential) which the brand communicates to...

Some of us have used both basis convenience or have been the subject of receiving both. It seems to me that the fine art of using common sense or conman sense has been under constant refinement by one and all – imagine the extent of our obsession with such a refinement. The ease, with which we switch from the shades of white to grey and back of course, seems to be so natural to some of us that it almost feels to be a virtuoso. In some manner, I have started to think if these are two sides of the coin – of course probability rules in our manifestation of the role of senses, but then are we akin to a coin, branded on either side with the categorization of senses for public display? So what makes us cultivate these senses and or our ability to switch roles between the two? I feel the seeds of conman sense are sowed, nurtured and taught to be reaped almost simultaneously to the common sense. But then somewhere along, one of the senses seems to overtake, outclass and outshine the o...