One thing which fascinated me always is – “ why don’t we listen actively to our stakeholders ?”. Be it your customer, supplier or employee – it does not matter. I have seen multiple instances where instead of listening to them, we assume what they have in mind and make our own judgements.

This attitude leads to misunderstanding stakeholder issues and thereby leads to wrong diagnosis of the problem and hence inappropriate counter measures at our end. Let me illustrate this point with three real life instances, which I have witnessed myself and understood how deaf we are to our stakeholders.

In the first instance I was working in an automobile company. We were travelling in a bus for an offsite with the sales and marketing team. I noticed that the bus was not our brand and was wondering why customers don’t prefer our brand in that region of our country.

When enquired, our sales guys promptly told me that “Price” was the issue. On the other hand, when I asked the same question to the driver of the bus who was also was its owner, he said that “price”was not an issue but the issue was “non-availability of timely service and spares” and they could not afford their bus to be off-road for long as it could impact their business income.

The second instance is that of a patient and a doctor. The patient had mistakenly taken a tablet with its aluminium foil without realising it. When she complained to the doctors that her tablet had got stuck in her throat, they did not listen to her actively and investigate appropriately.

On the other hand, they examined her throat and told her everything was fine. Even in the end when they did an endoscopy the doctors said it was possibly a denture and not a tablet. Ultimately, a tablet with its aluminium foil was removed from her upper oesophagus. If the doctors had actively listened to the patient, the agony of the patient could have been reduced from one month to a few days.

The third incident is that of an employee. We were in process of selling a business to a buyer. We had a fantastic track record of employee well being and never had a strike in our history in that business. However, on the day when we were to hand over the business to the buyer, the employees went on strike.

I was incharge of that business and never realised that I did not listen to our employees. I had fought hard with the buyer to take over all the employees as part of the sale. The buyer had reluctantly agreed. On the other hand, while our employees were very happy with us, they were are not keen to join the new employer. They wanted to make their own decision to join or not. A clear situation where we did not listen to our employees.

In the all the three cases, if we had listened to our key stakeholder, we may have been better placed and the decisions we may have taken could have been a win win in each situation.

Organisations need to train their employees to listen to all their key stakeholders and not put words in their mouth or assume what they have in mind. If we listen attentively and act objectively, all our decisions will be the best we could make in any situation.

Let us learn to listen to all our stakeholders.

S Ramesh Shankar

15th April 2022

 

One of the questions I have been asked multiple times in my career from campus to the corporate world is – “How do I plan my career?” In the campus, when someone asked me about “What his career plan was in our organisation ?” – I would say, join us and we can evolve it together.

After joining the organisation, at every step of the corporate ladder, employees have this ubiquitous question – “How do I plan my career ?. The answer has been mostly similar – You can evolve it with your manager.

So, the first question to ask is – “ Who is responsible for my career planning ? “ We may sometimes think it is our manager, HR or someone else. The reality is that each one of us are responsible for our own careers. If we succeed, we can take the credit but if we fail we have nobody to blame.

Just as in life, career planning is no different. In life, we have to steer our own destiny. Similarly in organisations, we are singularly responsible for crafting our own career. Now, the question may arise as to when do I start and what is the role other stakeholders may play in this entire journey.

I had read a beautiful article in Harvard Business Review long time back entitled “ Career Sculpting”. In this article, the author explains as to how we can sculpt our career over a period of time. There is no right time to make a change nor a wrong time to end a wrong step.

Each of us begin with our dreams. I remember growing up in a Army campus since my father was a government servant. I dreamt of becoming an Army officer. Then we moved to an Air Force campus during my senior school and my dreams moved to become a pilot. So, it is natural for us to have shifting dreams and aspirations and this is ok.

We never know when we realise what is the right vocation for us. I realised that HR was my calling only after I had finished my graduation in Chemistry. It can happen to anyone anytime. One need not worry that it has not yet happened to you.

If you are lucky, you realise what gives you joy, early in your career. If what you enjoy becomes your career then it is like a dream come true. But many of us are driven to take up jobs because of economic necessity or lack of opportunities. We may realise that we are at the wrong place after having spent many years in that profession.

There is no right time or wrong time to feel happy in life. Similarly, there is no right or wrong time to make a career shift. I know of people who spent long years as a HR professional until they realised that teaching was their calling and went back to school to fulfil their dreams.

Similarly, I know of people who went on a holiday and realised that photography was their passion along with travel and decided to take a career break and pursue professional photography as an option. In both cases, one realises that nobody is sure when they have arrived in life and so it is with our careers.

Whatever happens to us and whenever it happens is the best thing to happen.. However, it is important to keep asking ourselves – “ What gives us joy in life ?”. If we keep selling something and regret it every day, we can have the choice of doing it till we retire. But, if we realise at some stage that we do not enjoy selling, then it is time to change.

Today with virtual learning and multiple platforms to learn, there is no limit in terms of time and space to anyone’s career. If at all there is a limitation, it is in our minds and we need to look at the mirror and realise that only “me” is responsible for the same.

We need to dream and then put our actions together to make that dream a reality. Just dreaming is not good enough. It is like a sportsperson does not give up after one loss but learns from it and excels in the next game. So is career and life for us.

It is time to realise that we can begin with dreams and try to experiment as to what we like to do. We may succeed or we may fail. It is never too late to change. The only person responsible for my career is “myself”. All others including my manager, mentors, colleagues , parents and siblings can be partners to this process but the buck stops with me.

Let us reset and begin our career journey today.

S Ramesh Shankar

20th March 2022

How to motivate self and others ? A simple question but possibly the biggest challenge which most employees are facing post the pandemic. Employees have lost jobs and Managers have lost members of their teams. In both cases, its a huge crisis and after all that, how to keep oneself motivated is the key question ?

I was taking a session for a group of managers of a multinational corporation this week. While I was requested to design and take this session, I was told that they do not want to listen to theories on motivation but on “How to motivate team members and self after we face difficult situations at work ?

I was a bit stumped. But, after having worked in industry for almost four decades , I sat down and reflected on what motivated me, what demotivated me, who motivated me and tried to answer these questions to myself, based on my own personal experiences at work and life.

I realised that I had all the answers but still found it difficult to implement them in real life. So, I decided to ask the participants the very same questions which came to my mind, while designing this session. The outcome was fascinating. Let me summarise what I learnt from this session and how I found answers to these fundamental questions in life.

On my first question on “What motivates people ?”, I asked them to reflect on any incident in their personal or work life, where they felt highly motivated. What happened and what were the factors which motivated them at that moment. The answers revolved around freedom at work, challenging opportunities, empowerment, recognition, opportunities to experiment and fail and so on.

The next question was “What demotivated them the most ? “. The answers revolved around micro management, public criticism, lack of recognition, lack of freedom at work, routine and ritualistic work and so on.

My next question was “Who ultimately helped you bounce back in life or work ?”. While many shared it was their parents, siblings, friends, colleagues or bosses, most of them felt that it was ultimately the individuals themselves.

This whole session was engaging for me. When I then moved to some of the basic theories of motivation like Maslow, McGregor and Herzberg, they realised that all these theories point to the same factors which motivate people, demotivate people and so on. So, the inference can be that, we know all the answers in life and work. So, what prevents us from asking ourselves the right questions at the right time ?

It may be important to realise that the factors which motivate or demotivate us as individuals, are not very different to what it does to others. So, the answer is simple. We need to do to others , what we want others to do to us. This is equally true at work and in life.

Then the participants said that it is easy to conquer the world but may be more difficult to conquer oneself. That is the crux of the matter. It may be easier to advise others rather than oneself. It is also fun to give advise rather than implement any idea.

Another important lesson from my corporate life is that your followers at work or your children at home follow what you do and not what you say. It is better not to say anything and make them follow by doing things, which you want them to. Leaders always lead by example not by quotes.

So, I decided that I need to share this great insight with as many people as possible. Let us sit down and reflect. Let us look within ourselves. May be we have the answers for the most challenging questions in life. We also need to realise that we are responsible for bouncing back in life and work and whether pandemic or otherwise. Everyone else can support us but it is upto us to stand up and get back.

Lets look within.

S Ramesh Shankar

28th Oct 2021