Category: Performance

Freedom of expression at work

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Freedom of expression is a human right. At work, concern about how well an idea can be described and if it will be accepted will inhibit the sharing of ideas. The expression allows the communication of ideas, the development of concepts through constructive interaction and questioning that is free of embarrassment. Ideas often can be challenging to conceive. The expression of those ideas may threaten those individuals who cannot separate idea from the person – leading to rejection of both.

If you are leading a team or business, it is your responsibility to ensure that freedom of expression is maintained well. If you are in a place where you believe the freedom of expression is questionable, you have an opportunity to catalyze a fundamental change. It’s your right. An essential element of success – of your company and yourself.

be a #dreamerdoer

Regulating your flow is critical to achieve more

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Going for too much, too fast, in too many dimensions at work can lead to overcommitment. Trying to be at your best since you want to be a high-performer, can put a lot more stress on your system. You might start ignoring several other dimensions of life – health, wealth, family and so on. Regulating your flow of work is critical to stay fit, focus better and achieve more, consistently.

Unregulated flow leads to priority-conflicts, impatience, dissatisfaction with own and others’ work/contribution, negligence, and not-so-healthy-relationships. This triggers a negative spiral that only leads to the bottom too hard to get-up.

When you regulate your flow, you will have the ability to slow-down and gain-pace as required, be more strategic, and happy-helping-hands around. Heroes are recognized and rewarded at war-time. Hero-behaviour is discouraged and ignored during peace-time. In order to regulate, you may have to say NO more often and reflect on the item on the YES list, routinely.

Budding Intrapreneurs have the urge and tendency to do too much, too fast and be busy always. While you pursue this journey, be watchful of what you are becoming through your passion. Regulate your flow and stay a high-performer, building the remarkable craft.

be a #dreamerdoer.

Finding and nurturing the potential

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What do you know about a subject before taking it in your course? What do you know about the feel of driving your dream car without getting in one and really driving it? What do you know about the terrain and the taste of firmness on the ground while climbing a mountain, without stepping on one? What do you know about the potential of a person in your team without assigning that task, job or a challenge and letting them perform at their best?

Potential of a person can be seen through their willingness to perform, ability to learn, adaptability to changes, ability to work with ambiguity, ability to provide clarity in the context of complexity, ability to work with the resources available and ability to challenge the status-quo subtly by results than talk.

You will be able to identify high-potential people in the team easily. If you have to put a lot of effort to find it, maybe you are looking at a wrong person or using a wrong lens. Change the frame-of-reference from what they are doing today or what they did yesterday, to how they will be doing the next level task. You will see the best in people. But to nurture that, you need to get this potential show-up in regular work. Treat them the way they will be functioning at the next level. You may be pleasantly surprised with how they perform.

When we treat man as he is, we make him worse than he is; when we treat him as if he already were what he potentially could be, we make him what he should be.
~ Johanna Wolfgang von Goethe

 

People who are willing to perform will always find a way to deliver best results irrespective of their capability and context. You should make yourself assume/accept challenges of doing what you have not done so far, routinely and deliver the best. As an intrapreneur, you will need your potential converted to kinetic act and have the ability to find and make-use-of potential of others too. This makes you resourceful and effective. Your craft becomes remarkable.

be a #dreamerdoer

How to make collaborations work

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Collaborations, everyone agrees is essential to move-forward, achieve-greater-good and be successful. Collaboration is all about working with someone to produce something remarkable. For an intrapreneur, collaborations are the critical element of the system to build a remarkable craft.

Collaborations succeed when the contributions and associated value-additions from all parties are mutually respected and recognized. Though well-intentioned, many-a-times, you end-up meeting people, partners, and peers who tend to overvalue their own contributions and undervalue those of others. Many professional relationships disintegrate when people involved, feel that their partners are not giving them the credit they deserve or doing their fair share.

Responsibility bias – exaggerating our own contributions relative to other’s inputs has to be curtailed for making collaborations work. Cut the desire to see and present yourself positively at every possible opportunity. Instead, learn to be factual and make your partners’ contributions shown and perceived positively, at every possible opportunity.

You naturally have more access to information about your own contributions than that of others. You will see all your efforts, but will only witness a subset of partners’ efforts. When you think about who deserves the credit, you have more knowledge of your own contributions. To make collaborations work, develop insights into partners’ inputs and contributions; understand their constraints and dependencies too. Develop mutual respect and extend-helping-hand in all steps of collaboration.

The multiplicity of the value of contributions makes your craft, remarkable. Keep that as the core purpose of collaboration. It helps in keeping responsibility bias away and information deficits at check. Build bridges than barriers for collaboration to work.

be a #dreamerdoer