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Say, this is about “Empowerment – Encourage others to speak freely by not interrupting…”.

You have been working diligently on this (your daily behavioral checklist actually makes you smile), and on the advice of your Executive Coach, you regularly seek feedback from your stakeholders – checking in to see how they see you doing. You expect everyone to tell you how great you are doing.

Unfortunately, when you ask your stakeholders how you are doing, everyone seems to recall the one occasion (3 weeks ago!) you interrupted the shy new intern in your team during a project review meeting!

Sound familiar? How would you feel? Would you philosophically accept that perception takes time to change and continue to work as diligently as you have for the last 6 weeks? If you are like most people, you will probably feel discouraged and your commitment towards practicing the new behavior will waver.

There is an important and legitimate place for feedback in our journey of behavioral change. But just as you cannot drive by only looking at the rear view mirror, you need more than feedback from your stakeholders – you need feedforward: suggestions on what you can do in the next few days/weeks to continue to improve in what they and you agree is important for your growth.

Marshall Goldsmith speaks about his observations from a unique experiential exercise that involved over 30000 participants, and concludes that people find giving feedforward fun and that feedforward is more effective in helping leaders who are working on behavioral change. The key reasons mentioned by Marshall include:

Feedforward works because it focuses on the future, which we can change, while feedback is about the past that we cannot relive

It is more productive to help people focus on what is “right” than to dwell on what they have been doing wrong .

Successful people like feedforward – because it offers them ideas on working towards their goals

Feedforward can be provided by anyone who is familiar with the task, even if they do not know the leader very well. This is particularly useful when you are involving a stakeholder who you do not have a long relationship with but is nonetheless important in improvement journey (example your new boss!)

People do not take feedforward as personally as feedback. While in theory, feedback is supposed to be about performance/behavior and not the person, in reality people take feedback personally, especially successful people.

Feedforward can reinforce the possibility of change, whereas with feedback , there is a risk of reinforcing personality stereotypes and negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

Most people hate receiving (and even providing) negative feedback (even when we frame it as developmental or area for improvement)

Feedforward can cover almost all the learning intended via feedback, but avoid the stress of reliving mistakes committed in the past

Feedforward tends to be much faster and more efficient than feedback - no time is spent on being defensive or judging the idea

Feedback is often associated with judging – so people are especially wary about providing feedback to their peers and managers. Feedforward is not seen as being judgmental.

People tend to listen more attentively to feedforward than to feedback. This is built into the process, where the receiver is only allowed to say “thank you”. In feedback, very often, the receiver is thinking about his response, rather than paying attention to what is being said.

I am not suggesting in any way that feedback is not relevant or that it has no place in the organization. My submission is – when dealing with behavioral change, using feedforward is more likely to result in positive and sustainable change in behaviors than only feedback.

So are you willing to give feedforward a shot?

This article is based on a study conducted by Marshall Goldsmith and his associates and published in 2004 (see Credits below). In an earlier (The Importance of Involving Stakeholders in a Leader's Improvement Journey) we have looked at the importance of engaging stakeholders in a leader’s development journey. To briefly summarize, the key reasons for involving stakeholders in a leader's improvement journey are: involving stakeholders is a natural choice given the inter-dependent nature of work; stakeholders as close observers have much to offer to the leader’s development; stakeholder’s constitute a natural accountability network; involving stakeholders helps the leader improve perceptions even as he improves his behaviors

Two additional benefits of involving stakeholders are:

Engaging employees in developing their leaders is also a means of developing them as leaders. This is an effective way of cascading leadership from senior management to the organisation at large

Productivity tends to increase when employees perceive that their leaders are interested and involved in their work. Leaders who ask for input and follow-up to see if progress is being made are seen as people who care

Marshall Goldsmith and his associates conducted a review of the leadership development programs of eight different companies, covering 11480 leaders, ranging from mid-level to the CEO. The programs had the same overarching goals - determine the desired behaviors for leaders, and help increase their effectiveness by aligning actual practices with desired behaviors.

While the companies followed different approaches ( offsite training vs onsite coaching, short vs long duration, internal vs external coaches, classroom based training vs on-the-job interaction), the common thread amongst all these programs, was that rather than measuring participants' satisfaction at the end of a program, each of the companies measured the participants’ perceived increase in leadership effectiveness over time. This increased effectiveness was not determined by the participants - it was assessed by predetermined co-workers and stakeholders.

From the review, one variable emerged as central to the achievement of positive long term change: follow up. Follow up refers to the efforts leaders make to solicit continuing and updated ideas for improvement from their co-workers. When comparing results,

Leaders who followed up were viewed by their colleagues as far more effective than leaders who did not follow up.

Leaders who had frequent or periodic/consistent interaction with co-workers were reliably seen as having improved their effectiveness far more than leaders who had little or no interaction with coworkers.

Some key insights from this study were:

For most leaders, the great challenge is not understanding the practice of leadership, it is practicing their understanding of leadership. Leaders who attended training and followed-up in terms of implementation were consistently perceived as having grown in effectiveness, compared to leaders who did not follow-up

The correlation of follow up with improved leadership effectiveness works across cultures- the study included leaders from North America, Latin America, Europe and Asia, and the correlation between follow up and increased effectiveness was evident across geographies

There is a strong correlation between the number of times the coach followed up with the client and the client followed-up with co-workers. Frequent and consistent follow-up by the coach, correlated well with the leaders' frequency and consistency of follow-up with co-workers

Both internal and external coaches can make a positive difference.While there are certain concerns when using internal coaches (time, credibility and confidentiality), there are organizations who have successfully addressed these challenges and use internal coaches effectively

Follow up needn’t be expensive. Feedback and coaching by telephone was found to be as effective as feedback and coaching in person.

Organizations should measure the effectiveness of the leadership development programs, not just the participants’ satisfaction with it. Data from the study indicated that average satisfaction with the program was very high, but just because executives love a program, doesn’t mean they use it.

The key to changing behavior is continually learning from those around us, then modifying our behavior based on their suggestions. If leaders can be taught and encouraged to reach out to coworkers, to listen and learn, and to focus on continuous development, both the leader and the organization will benefit. This process does not have to take a lot of time or money - there is something far more valuable: contact.

Credits : Leadership is a Contact Sport (www.strategy-business.com/article/04307?gko=a260c): The Follow-up Factor in Management Development by Marshall Goldsmith and Howard Morgan, strategy+business Issue 36

Successful people also have a strong belief in their capability to make desirable things happen. They believe “I can succeed, therefore I will succeed”. They are very confident that their personality, talent and intelligence can steer things in their favor. This belief gets reinforced with every achievement – until the leader starts believing that they are successful because of the way they behave

Successful people are almost always optimists - they believe “I will succeed”. This is important – because thinking otherwise can be disempowering. However, this optimism can also make it very difficult for successful people to say “no” to opportunities, and they can find themselves drowning in a “sea of opportunities”. Often, this belief can also make leaders overcommit on behalf of their teams – leading to poor morale and increased stress within their teams.

Successful people have a high need for self-determination – the belief that they are doing what they choose to do, and that they are successful because they “choose to succeed”. This determination and commitment is a strength, since it helps them persevere and see things through when times are difficult. However, it can also make it difficult for them to stop doing something, even when it is not working! It is hard for winners to quit! Also, they have great distaste for being controlled or manipulated – so find it difficult to change, when they are “told” to do so.

These four beliefs, “I have succeeded – I can succeed – I will succeed – I choose to succeed”, working together create a delusion – the success delusion. And this delusion can sometimes make successful leaders repeat ineffective and dysfunctional behaviors – because they become superstitious. And they confuse being successful “despite the behavior” with being successful “because of the behavior”.

If you look hard at yourself, you might find certain quirks or unattractive behaviors. Let’s say you are told you should be “a better listener”. You know it annoys your friends, family or coworkers – yet you continue to behave that way because you tell yourself – “this is me. I have been successful because of who I am, and I cannot succeed if I stop being myself”. If you feel this way, it is very likely that you are suffering from the success delusion. Overcoming this delusion requires constant vigilance and asking oneself – “Is this behavior really contributing to my success or am I successful despite it?”

For a successful leader, the first step towards making positive changes in her life is to realize that it is hard for her to change, to acknowledge that some of her beliefs and behaviors may have outlived their utility.

The second step is to get in to the habit of asking the key people in his life (stakeholders) – “How can I improve”?. For this to work, he needs to suspend judgment and the urge to defend himself, and accept that the stakeholder may be right about the need for change

The successful leader needs to make peace with the fact that she will only change what she chooses to change; that the motivation and commitment to change has to come from within her. So, after gathering inputs from all key stakeholders, the leader has to decide what she will work on – changes that she believes will be right for herself and her organization.

Finally, the leader needs to watch out against over-commitment. It is better to pick one behavior to change and see it through.

What quirk or ineffectual behavior are you finding hard to stop?

Credits:

The Success Delusion: Why It Can Be So Hard for Successful Leaders to Change. The Conference Board Review, Jan-Feb, 2007. By Marshall Goldsmith

Stubborn by Anna-Eagle flickr

Drucker deals very comprehensively with the underlying practices that make a leader effective:

Managing TIME

Focusing on CONTRIBUTION

Leveraging STRENGTHS

Setting PRIORITIES

Taking effective DECISIONS

A simple search on each of the above will throw up an almost endless list of books, articles, courses and other interventions. With few honourable exceptions, much of what one will find in these books was very EFFECTIVELY covered by Drucker in The Effective Executive. Drucker very convincingly makes the case that effectiveness CAN be learnt, and that it MUST be learnt.

If there was only one book you could recommend to someone starting on their journey as a leader, what would it be?

Alas, not all companies care deeply about developing leaders, and even the ones who do, usually can’t look beyond the top 2 - 5% (high potentials). If you are like most managers, you got where you are by working hard and proving yourself. You volunteered for the toughest of assignments, often ignoring personal inconvenience and hardship. You sought out people willing to mentor you and help you navigate the complexities of the corporate world. You quickly moved from being a talented individual performer to a first time manager - and your adaptability, willingness to learn and the humility to seek help from anyone and everyone allowed you to quickly close your competence gaps. In other words, you truly owned your own development and growth.

And while most managers and aspiring leaders start strong and show a great degree of ownership for their personal development, it takes a great deal of commitment, planning and effort to continue to work on one’s development while delivering in one’s current role. Even when one is aware of what needs to be done (through assessments and evaluations)and is encouraged and supported by one’s organisation - through training, coaching and opportunities to develop on the job.

So you can only imagine how hard it is if the manager or aspiring leader, has neither ideas about what needs to be done or how to go about it - if the organization does not provide the necessary support. But it’s easy to blame organizational apathy. The real issue seems to be that managers become so focussed on the urgent and now (which is what get’s rewarded in the short-term) that they forget the important and strategic priority of continuing to keep themselves relevant. They ignore the need to manage their own development and growth, and over time they even lose the ability to do so.

Accelerate Your Career is a series that is designed to help you revisit and refresh your personal development plan and make it a living and empowering roadmap to create and implement a career strategy that is aligned with who you are, what you seek and what your employers want.

Over the next few weeks, this series will guide you through the 12 essential steps to create your Personal Development Plan and to implement it effectively to Accelerate Your Career. You will learn how to go about the Prepare, Plan, Implement and Review/Refresh stages of formulating and implementing your personal career strategy. You will learn detailed steps, and discover resources and best practices that will help you in completing the 12 Essential Steps to achieving your career goals. And if, besides reading the articles and downloading valuable resources, you build your commitment and start taking action, then there is no stopping you from unleashing your true potential and accelerating your career

If you would like an overview of the 12 Essential Steps to create and implement your Personal Development Plan and Accelerate Your Career, please access the same from www.nkoach.com

The scope of MNCs I am discussing in this article is limited to the IT Product companies like Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft, Dell, Intel, etc. and does not refer to Banking/Retail that have made their presence felt in the Silicon Valley of India in the last 5 years, like Goldman Sachs, Walmart Labs, etc.

I have worked in the Silicon Valley of the USA and then moved back to India in 2000 and watched the growth and the challenges of working in these MNCs over the last 15 years. It has been an interesting journey and a constant struggle for some of us who moved back from the US to be on the other side of the world. The working environment is very different in India compared to the Headquarters which for all practical purpose can be called as the “Power center” or “Epicenter”.

One of the most common pervasive challenges we find in the MNCs are power struggle for good work & visibility for those working out of the Indian side of the Silicon Valley. In the early 2000s, the highest position you would find in these MNCs were only first or second line Managers. Director level jobs were almost non-existent if not minimal. It was a struggle for these Managers to have true ownership for the work being done out of the offices in India. The Ownership was in the US and the Managers here were mere administrative Managers. It was a struggle to find experienced Engineers who did not want to become Managers in India since the talent available in the Market came mostly from the service companies like Wipro and Infosys. This made the challenge of owning and delivering high quality Technical work out of India even more challenging.

By mid-2000, MNCs in India graduated to getting more ownership at Managers level leading to creation of Director level jobs in India but then the challenge of being of being just an administrative leader shifted from Manager to Director. By late 2000s Senior Director and VP level positions started in pockets brining ownership at Director Level and administration moving to the senior leadership positions. There are quite a few Senior Director and VP roles in MNCs now in India but few really have the meaty responsibility of this role when compared to their peers in US.

Most of the MNCs have grown exponentially in headcount over the last 15 years by transferring the responsibilities of Products that are already released or reaching end of Engineering in the past purely on the basis of the “Cheaper cost of labor” card – you can hire 3 engineers for one engineer hired in the US. This may not be sustainable in the next decade. The good news is with the capability building that has happened over the last 15 years in India many MNCs are now able to build products out of India catering to global markets leveraging hardware building capability from neighboring South East Asian countries. But again, this is only happening in pockets. The power struggle between the US and India teams continue and as long as ball park of the customers ($$revenues) for the MNCs continue to be in the developed countries, VP level positions in MNCs here who hold complete Engineering responsibility for a vertical and/or P&L responsibilities will continue to be a struggle.

What will it take to break this glass ceiling in the India MNCs and create the next level of growth opportunities for the senior leaders in these companies will be the challenge to solve!!!

In fact, if one were to go by the Center for Creative Leadership's (CCL) popular 70-20-10 model, only 10% of learning happens through courses. That means a good 90% of the learning/retention of managerial skills depends on what happens outside/after the course.

Indeed much of the learning happens on the job (70% as per CCL). One can envision how repeatedly applying the concepts learned help the learner become skilled : Plan-Do-Check-Act in action! This also sits welll with the idea that mastery comes from repetition - repeated application of a skill, not repeated acquisition in courses.

But even then, a critical piece (the remaining 20%) is missed out in the typical Leadership Development Program. This is the "learning from others" piece per CCL's model. And that is where coaching fits in.

Of course there are different types of coaching. And it would be wrong to assume that one-on-one coaching is the answer to all leadership development gaps. Just as in sports, while there are typically 1 or 2 or 3 coaches training a team, the individual player learns not only /nor as much from the Coach, as from practicing together with the rest of the team. And if Leadership can be described as a contact sport (Marshall Goldsmith: Leadership is a Contact Sport), it is only to beexpected that effective leadership coaching involves not just the leader & coach, but all critical stakeholders as well.

Stakeholder Centered Coaching is therefore an effective way to bridge the gap between Knowing and Performing.

Yes! You got that right. The brightest and most inspiring coach in the world will fail to make any meaningful contribution, unless you are coachable. This is not a clever disclaimer , designed to absolve the coach for any lack of progress; it is a key (perhaps the key) determinant of whether coaching will work for you.

So what does being coachable mean? While there are lots of definitions, as per Marshall Goldsmith, it essentially boils down to Courage, Humility and Discipline

For coaching to work, you as a Leader need to have Courage. The courage to make it about YOU. To ask for feedback, to accept that despite your success there are behaviors that you need to change, to tackle issues that make you feel uncomfortable, to push yourself outside your comfort zone…

You also need to have Humility. The humility to make it NOT about YOU. Leadership is not about you – it is about your team, your business, your organisation’s mission. Coaching is about involving your stakeholders, asking for suggestions, accepting them without defense and implementing changes to make yourself and your team more effective

And you need to have Discipline. Behavior change requires replacing ineffective habits and processes with new ones that make you more effective. This requires disciplined implementation of your action plan and disciplined follow-up with your stakeholders (accountability partners)

So before you sign up for coaching, take some time to reflect and ask yourself “Am I Coachable?”

This post is not about exploratory sessions, nor about the specific issues he felt he wanted help on, so I will spare you the details.

During our conversation, it became apparent that he considered his supervisor and a couple of key colleagues responsible for the stagnation in his career since the last 4 years. He was looking for help to work "around" and "neutralize" the impact of their negative perception of him on his career. In his mind, there was no upside in involving them in the coaching engagement, and he would prefer not letting any of his colleagues know, especially "this bunch", that he was "seeking help"./p>

Again, without going in to the specifics of his particular situation, let's look briefly at some of the reasons why Marshall puts great emphasis on involving stakeholders in any key behavior change initiative that the leader embarks on:

The first reason to involve stakeholders is due to the interdependent nature of work in organisations. No man is an island, and nothing is achieved in isolation. Also, as direct reports, peers and supervisors, these stakeholders directly experience the impact of the leader's behavior, so they should naturally be interested in any changes in the same

The second reason is that stakeholders, as close observers of the Leader, have much to offer in the form of feedforward suggestions. If a Leader receives feedback that there is need for improving a particular behavior, it stands to reason that the people who noticed the gap (were dissatisfied with the leader's behavior in their interaction) would have some suggestions on how the leader could improve.

Another reason for involving stakeholders is that they could serve as an Accountability network, holding the leader to his commitment, much better than an external coach ever could

The biggest reason for involving stakeholders however, is that in addition to the leader changing his/her behavior, it is also important ( if not more important), to change stakeholders' perception of the leader's behavior. And since perceptions are built slowly, through consistent and repeated demonstrations of a new behavior, it is important to keep the stakeholders informed and check frequently that they notice the changes

Coming back to my discussion with Harry, I had to push back very strongly on his desire to keep his stakeholder's out of his change journey. It took some time, but he finally did see how his stakeholders were not only necessary, but critical to the success of his behavioral change efforts, and how it would be difficult to bring about and sustain positive changes in his behaviors, without their being brought on board. We also spent some time addressing his discomfort on letting people know that he was engaging a coach to help him with his goals. We were finally able to come to an understanding on how we might move forward.

For lateral hiring, companies are paying placement companies higher bonus for sourcing resumes of women (and converting into a hire).

Most companies have gender diversity oriented ERGs setup which run many programs through the year that promote retention through Coaching, mentoring and exposure to Role Models.

All of this has certainly helped increase the overall gender diversity in many of the companies but has a long way to go to claim victory. There are several challenges that one needs to acknowledge are not easy to overcome -

1. Available Talent Pool - There isn't sufficient number of women Talent out there in the market for lateral hiring and sufficient number of Women students passing out from Professional colleges to hire. Tier-1 (Ivy league)and Tier-2 colleges have less than 10-15% of women students. The only colleges you find women students to hire from are mostly Metro Tier-3 engineering colleges.

2. Aspirational deficit - There is no doubt that we have come a long way compared to 70s and 80s. When I used to work long back in Customer support in Wipro in the early 90s, I was the only woman in a team of 100 for a long time until one more woman joined the team. The question here really is how passionate are women about their career. While there are obvious factors that have huge influence here - Society, lack of role models, Work-life balance issues, etc.. it is not easy to pursue career along side the challenges of personal life - it does feel like being in a hamster cage for most women. While most women these days pursue their Education with great passion and compete for jobs and are quiet ambitious early in their career, as years go by, many of them slow down and eventually loose interest along the way and start treating their career as jobs. This is the hardest problem to solve. This is where Coaching, Mentoring and having Role models inside and outside the organizations for inspiration helps.

3. Growing into Middle Management and Exec positions - If you have now overcome #1 and #2 - Yay!! You have won half the battle!! Growing into Middle Management and Exec position is a different ballgame. It is tough even for Men. Many start hitting their glass ceiling - some realize and many don't. Here is where building Leadership skills, developing EQ and building skills to strategize become important. These are Leadership positions which imply that you are on your own - you need to build the ability to not only pave path for yourself but for your entire team and organization. To be able to do that, knowledge on Technology trends, business knowledge and Competitive knowledge are important. Your ability to keep pace, understand, connect the dots and solve the challenges will determine your leadership capability. All of this you need to do alongside with running the present business which is predominantly your execution skills. Many people struggle here trying to balance between the two - both Men and Women. Women find it tougher since additional responsibilities mean finding the time to do more with the same 24 hrs that everyone has.

Both Men and Women use the excuse of lack of time. To me this is the same excuse that most of us give on why we don't exercise when we all know how important it is for our well being. Making time 1-2 hrs in a 40 hrs week to keep yourselves updated on what's happening in the industry is not much to ask for is it?

To do my bit to help the Women in IT Industry and help them being updated on Technology and business trends, I have started a Forum called Women in Technology on Facebook where we share and discuss the trends. The forum has Women Students to Women at Middle Management/Exec positions.

There was a manager of mine who loved conversations. Our conversations could range from his weekend hobby classes, to my kids’ school and even waste management in our campus. All these conversations needed to happen before he could get into the nitty-gritties of work and we would brain-storm ways to deal with our clients. But alas, that was not to last.

As it happens in any large organization, I found myself reporting to a new person due to an internal team restructuring. During my first sync-up meeting with my new boss, I tried my hand at some light conversation and chit-chat as I would with my previous boss. However, I immediately noticed that my new boss had an expression that clearly said: “Stop it. Get to the point.” She was also not forthcoming in sharing her stories. I distinctly remember stepping out of our first meeting feeling like I was at the wrong end of a quizzing program, where every question began with “What is the status of…?”

I also remember feeling low and missing my old boss, who was more like a friend to me. It took me a while to realize that it was up to me to adapt to the new boss’s expectations, rather than expecting her to magically transform into my old one. From then on, whenever I approached her, it was with a list neatly divvied up into two sections. The first section was for general updates of an ‘FYI’ nature. The second was for key decisions that she would need to make for me to proceed with work for the day.

That’s about it. No banter about either the notorious Bangalore traffic or my exercise routines or even the weather. Our meetings ran on for exactly for 30 minutes, with a complete focus on the tasks at hand.

We worked wonderfully from then on.

Slipping into the right avatar

It may have taken me some time, but I learnt that my boss wasn’t looking for a friendly relationship at work. At least, not at the outset. She was a goal-oriented person, focused entirely on the work at hand and was extremely happy that I came prepared to meetings with a specific agenda. The focus of our meetings was only on the way forward and little else. We had a long and productive working relationship.

As it turns out, our platonic work-centric relationship eventually evolved into a lasting friendship over time.

Be the glove that fits the hand

What works with one person may not necessarily work the same way with another. Each person is unique and brings their own distinctive approach to work. If you are looking to achieve harmony and productivity, identify how you can quickly adapt to their particular working style. Match their expectations and you will find yourself building strong working relationships with different kinds of people.

There are leaders like my first boss who are completely relationship-oriented. They are charmers who build close bonds with people, while keeping things friendly with their contagious sense of humour. They love to hear the stories that make the people they work with. A person’s opinions are important to them. Building an informal rapport with them can be extremely rewarding. If you focus on the big picture and share their energy, they will reciprocate in kind.

On the other hand, there are people who are warm, soft-spoken, great listeners and form the glue that keep the team together. These people love to work collaboratively in groups. However, they may not be the quick, rational decision-makers you expect. It’s best to avoid backing them into a corner, expecting them to make quick decisions or even operating at a rapid pace with them.

Then come the goal-oriented taskmasters like my new boss. They are so focussed on work that a check-list approach works best with them. They thrive in an environment of control and love power, so do your bit to defer some decision-making to them. They will definitely appreciate you for it.

Not to forget are the rational, clear-minded leaders who are completely analytical in their approach. These leaders may even be hesitant to make eye-contact with others, preferring to deal with data rather than people. Such leaders make sound decisions which are completely fact-based. While working with them, keep your funny tale about your neighbour and his dog aside and instead focus only on the facts and figures alone. It will work wonders with them!

Snowflakes in a storm

There are several different types of people out there. Rather than working in a single consistent style, focus on building harmonious working relationships by adapting to match others’ expectations. Adapting to their particular style will shape you into an integral and indispensable member of the team.

Facing difficulty adapting to your boss’ style?

Talk to the workplace coaches and experienced mentors at Mentoring Matters about the challenges you are facing with meeting others’ expectations. With a little guidance, you will find yourself equipped with several techniques to deal with such challenges.

Drop us a line at information@mentoring-matters.com and start your growth journey today.

I once had a conversation with a very senior board member of an organization who was a regular at the golf club I frequented. Now, in India, Golf is not a game played like gully cricket. It is meant for the elite; people who have already made it in their careers and are materialistically well-off. I often wondered what motivated these gentlemen to get up early in the morning, walk for about 5-6 km in the sun, all trying to get the ball into a hole.

That conversation was an eye-opener for me. A little about golf: it is a game where your goal is very clear from the start. There is no ambiguity about this at all. You get to pick the stick which you would want to use. The longer sticks help you to hit the ball farther away. The shorter sticks offer better accuracy. But no one tells you which stick to choose. It is your call and solely your decision.

Any avid golfer would agree that if someone else makes the choice of the golf stick for you, the joy in the game is over. When you hit the ball towards the hole, the feedback on how you have done is immediate. You instantly know whether it went off-course, farther than you aimed or short of the hole. Golf also gives you an opportunity called ‘progressive mastery.’ Each day you get a chance to get better at the sport. Finally, there is recognition. There is even a concept called ‘handicap’ in golf which is a mark of how well you perform. The ‘handicap’ score helps you get recognized at any golf club as a talented player.

This left me pondering. Now, if we can bring these aspects of golf into our workplace culture, can we not be as motivated and encouraged to excel as these senior people who play on the golf course?

Keep a weather eye on the horizon

Having clear goals is an important aspect to know where you are headed and what is expected from you. Having a discussion with your senior, documenting the expected outcomes is an important and, dare I say, a mandatory aspect to keep you moving towards them. Ensure that your goals are unambiguous, time-bound and realistic. Know how your success will be measured.

As important as it is to have goals at work, it is equally important to also have personal goals. These goals could span areas such as health, learning, hobbies, relationship and even financial or materialistic aspirations. Knowing what is important to you and doing work that will lead to success in both, your professional and personal goals, is critical to keep you motivated.

Point and follow through

Making your own decisions, having the freedom of choice of how to do things, is another aspect which raises motivation levels. If you are being constantly micro-managed, it can definitely lead to stress. Ensure that you have a discussion with your superior regarding the frequency of sync-up meetings so that both of you are comfortable with this approach. Getting feedback immediately on the work that you do will help in course correction early on in the game.

Many organizations mandate a yearly dialogue on the appraisal of an employee’s performance. But there is no restriction on you seeking proactive feedback on your work more frequently. A good word from your superior is going to make you that much more motivated to do better.

Shape your surroundings to shape yourself

Ensure that your workspace gives you a chance to constantly develop. The environment must allow for “progressive mastery” for you to love what you are doing and excel at it as well. Sometimes your environment may not be conducive to learning, but don’t be disheartened! It is up to you to seek out the new things that you want to learn and keep developing.

An employee who is recognized for the good work he does is extremely motivated to continue contributing phenomenally. Most organizations have frameworks in place for recognizing their best employees and rewarding them. However, you could start something on a small scale, such as peer-recognition in a team, to charge your environment positively.

If you are able to assimilate these aspects into your workplace, you will find yourself charging ahead towards your goals with renewed focus and enthusiasm.

If you’re finding this difficult, simply talk to the workplace coaches and experienced mentors at Mentoring Matters about the challenges you are facing. You will find yourself motivated to deal with the challenges!

Drop us a line at information@mentoring-matters.com and start your growth journey today.

There are a whole lot of ways people advise us to handle stress –from mediation and exercise to making time for hobbies. However, some of the mental tension that we usually face can be tackled with some simple techniques. To apply any of these techniques, it is critical that you correctly identify what is stressing you out. Once you have identified the stressor, you may want to see if you can ‘Avoid’ the stressor. If it is a person, or a topic, or even a particular traffic route – can it be avoided altogether?

The interference conundrum

You may want to try the ‘Alter’ technique. Can you alter the situation so that it is less stressful? Let me tell you about this lovely nuclear family that lives close by. The lady ran the house from her kitchen, as is the case in most households. Some years later, her mother-in-law moved in with them. The lady was suddenly forced to tolerate a lot of interference in the kitchen from her mother-in-law. This started to stress her out.

Being very inclined to change her state, she spent time understanding her mother-in-law, found her strengths ranged from being good at singing devotional songs to knowing regional languages fluently. She encouraged her mother-in-law to start teaching people devotional songs as well as the regional language. In no time, the mother-in-law was so busy and engaged in her classes that she did not have any time to interfere with the lady’s routine. What a harmonious and positive way to beat the stress!

When all else fails

There is always the fall-back option to ‘Accept’ the stressor. When you know nothing can be changed, then it is simply best to accept the situation as it is. However, go a step further, and ‘Adapt’ to the situation. If you know that the traffic route cannot be avoided, try altering the situation by making it your ‘me time’ by listening to e-books, reading or even calling people (if you aren’t in the driving seat) and make the journey interesting. If none of these are possible, simply accept the situation and adapt to it by leaving your house early enough to avoid that peak-hour traffic and reach your destination on time.

Think of stressful situations at work: is the fact that a senior keeps bothering you for updates every once an hour stressing you out? Could you try altering the situation? Can you tell him that you will give him your updates as soon as you are done with a certain amount of work? Is the fact that you are asked to multi-task stressing you? Can you avoid it by talking to your supervisor, or changing teams or jobs? If you cannot avoid or alter it, then it’s better to accept that multi-tasking is the new normal. So step up and adapt to this requirement. Start slowly with a couple of tasks and learn how to prioritize, delegate and get things done. You will be soon mentoring others on how to get multiple things completed in time!

Passing the stress-laden parcel

Transferring stress is the most common way we deal with stress. Unknowingly, we vent out negatively at people who are close to us and may take for granted. Over time, our relationships also suffer and this just adds on to our stress levels. Learn the art of managing your stress to benefit at work as well as in your personal equations with people. Changing the situation and changing the people responsible for our stress is a long-drawn and often difficult task. Changing our perspective of the situation and learning to deal with it positively helps us with better managing this stress at work.

Talk a workplace coach and experienced mentors at Mentoring Matters about the issues you are facing. You will find yourself empowered and motivated to deal with the challenges!

Drop us a line at information@mentoring-matters.com and start your growth journey today.

Meena was returning to work after a maternity break of 5 months. She was overwhelmed with different emotions. She felt extremely guilty about leaving her child behind in the day-care centre while also feeling very insecure that the child seemed to be getting closer to the care-giver. However, Meena was a highly career-oriented professional and needed to get ahead in her career

At work, she suddenly found herself feeling inadequate and out-of-place, owing to the break she had taken. She found out that a male colleague who reported into her, was offered an opportunity to travel abroad whereas she, who was more capable at her job, could not because of her baby.

Understandably, she started feeling a degree of resentment towards her male colleagues and also towards her baby. But driven by guilt, she tried to leave her workplace early everyday leading to some friction with her superiors. She felt she wasn’t able to give her best anywhere – neither at work, nor at home. She tried confiding in her friend at work, Chander, but he was facing difficulties of his own.

Chander was a qualified professional who hailed from rural North India, but moved to the city as it offered tremendous job opportunities. He was excited and proud to be a part of a large company. Unfortunately, he wasn’t feeling confident about his communication skills. He felt afraid to stand up in a meeting and voice his opinion, unsure how to behave with his female colleagues while also dearly missing his hometown. He suffered from an inferiority complex, lacking confidence and finding himself very alone both at work and even after returning to his rented room, which was adjacent to Kumar’s home, another working professional facing his own challenges.

Kumar was a soft-spoken young man who worked for a very dominating boss. The boss continuously dumped work on him that no one else wanted to do. Unable to be assertive; he felt cornered into accepting every task thrown at him by his boss. Each evening, he went home to his family feeling very stressed-out. When his son refused to listen to him, he resorted to beatings. He was a bully at home, but he was completely bullied at work.

C’est la vie

Each of these people were dealing with situations that would often be very stressful to them. Their thoughts, feelings and emotions were very negative and hence their resulting actions were very negative too. Since they were unable to deal with their emotions, their actions would usually be ranging from cribbing about the organization, to back-biting about the boss and spreading negativity. This would lead to transference of stress to a helpless family member and in some extreme situations may also result in suicide as well.

Harder than it looks

Meena decided to talk to her boss about the issues she was going through. As soon as she started to talk about her problems, her boss immediately replied: “Meena, there are only 2 ways out. One – you quit and focus on your house, two – use all the support possible to take care of the baby, and focus on work.” But Meena was unable to deal with this solution-mode that the boss was getting into. Neither did she feel he had heard her out, nor did she feel understood and respected. She was simply upset that he was giving her solutions in a manner as though she did not have the capability to come out with the solutions. Her feelings were apparent in her face, and this left her boss wondering what he had done wrong. After all, he was simply telling her the best possible things to do.

Chander was supposed to work with a senior team member, who was to mentor him. Chander tried to confide in his senior, just as Meena had tried to confide in him. The senior though was responsible for providing all the input to the organization on the performance and progress of Chander. Hence, he was mentally wearing the organization-hat and could not step into the role of a friend and understand Chander’s struggles from a more neutral point of view.

On the other side of their shared apartment wall, Kumar was struggling with intensifying family issues, as his son was starting to turn more rebellious each day. He had constant arguments with his wife. At work, his boss treated him worse than a door-mat. He was apprehensive about discussing his issues with his friends in office as he was not sure whether he would become the focus of office gossip and jokes. He did not have close friends outside of work and had no one to turn to.

There is always hope

Each of these people were unable to give their best at work, as they were all in situations that drained them of their peace of mind and hence their productivity was negatively affected. Meena’s boss and Kumar’s mentor are not equipped with formal counselling or coaching skills to help them deal with these stressful situations. Workplace conflicts, team dynamics, personal issues, personality challenges - in all of these situations, it would have been a great help for the employees to turn to a workplace coach or mentor to discuss the issues that they is dealing with.

It would be ideal if the workplace coach is a neutral person who is unconnected to the organization. The coach’s focus is then devoted completely to the employee and his or her well-being. This has a huge direct benefit for the employee and an indirect benefit for the organization as the employee is able to better manage the situation, move past it and give his or her best back to the organization.

Isn’t this what is called a win-win situation?

Your win-win is just an email away. Drop us a line at information@mentoring-matters.com and get started on the path to becoming a better leader.