Tag: Tip

A little more than expected is a good seed

When you are expected to deliver the best, everything you do is considered part of the job. No-one expects you to deliver not-the-best. You don’t expect anything lower than required from anyone. Still, you find at times people delivering lower than their best. At the same time, you do come across those who pleasantly surprise you with what they deliver, how they serve. It is not the capability issue. It is not even the experience issue.

Some people have that inherent desire of putting service ahead of everything else. They ensure that satisfying the customer to the fullest extent possible is their job. They believe that there’s no room for writing everything in the job description. It is just a direction, the license to serve and be remarkable. They find time and energy to do more than perceived limits of the job. Go the extra mile, without counting it. Volunteer where it matters and always delivers a little more than you expect out of their job. They sow the seed of happiness in everyone touched by their work.

It is easy to practice this and make it a habit. All you need to do is go beyond what you believe is the limit of your job. Question how best to serve, without questioning what’s in it for you. Put-service-first attitude to work. Find how to make yourself pleasantly surprised if you are being served and adopt the same method. A little more than expected is a good seed. Spray it well, routinely. Your craft will get naturally remarkable.

be a #dreamerdoer

What are your non-negotiables at wok

You spend most of your active days at work. You spend most of the time with people. In this busyness, your non-negotiables define the boundary of your character. These are the values you do not compromise with for anything. Most of the time you may not record and review them. Once you do, they start acting as guiding compass at work. Try and list them today. Review and follow them regularly.

While you list and explore, consider a few simple elements like – respect, compassion, inclusion, and so on. Keeping them at this level might not help. Convert them to actions you can routinely take and follow. E.g: If you value respect, greet people authentically and say hello – to everyone you pass by. Whether or not you know their name, don’t walk by as if they don’t exist. If you value compassion, create a sense of safety for yourself and your team so that all can work for the common good and shared success. If you value inclusion, make sure that you listen more than you talk. Let everyone in the room, team and you meet, share their views and participate.

When you take these actions in a non-negotiable way, you will become visible, accessible and a person acknowledging people – a vital characteristic of a participatory leader, an Entrepreneur/ Intrapreneur. This helps you build a remarkable team, business and the craft speaks for itself. Embrace your non-negotiables and let them lead you at all times.

be a #dreamerdoer.

There is always more than one way of doing anything

We all know that there is always more than one way of doing anything. In fact, if you have a team working on a problem, there might be at least the number of ways matches the number of people in the team. At the same time, there is no one best way to do anything. Just look at how many ways you can organize things around you to make it truly pleasing. The same goes for studying a subject, cooking your favorite food, fixing a bug, making a presentation and so on. The effective one depends on how it is executed and in what context.

When you start building a business, a product or a solution, explore at least five different ways. Never stop at the first bright-spot. It might so happen that the first one may be the best one unless you are really ignoring it completely while exploring the next one. Don’t let the bias take you over. Find compelling and totally different ways coming from all your team members.

Irrespective of whether these different ways and ideas are sound or practical, record and review them. Many of these ideas might get dropped till someone sees-through the value or you get roadblocks with the one you are pursuing. Compelling design options will help you simulate your business and craft well ahead of spending too much of money, time and energy. They, in turn, help you accelerate product success and make the craft remarkable.

Successful entrepreneurs experiment a variety of ways till they find what clicks. Building a new venture is like running a marathon. Don’t stop at the first roadblock or slip. Find ways to run-well and complete the race.

be a #dreamerdoer

Practice participation to evolve as a leader

Leadership is action. Action to make sure that everyone around you also takes right actions at right time. Leadership is also a position. A position to own every outcome of an act of self and the team. There are several styles of leadership. The classification is mostly based on the function, followers and the context.

The current generation of businesses is increasingly dynamic – in every element of their functioning, product/solutions, and customers. Digital Transformation – Business transformation through digital levers are making it much more dynamic to organize, collaborate and stay relevant. Hierarchy of decision making and control is losing relevance. Significance to real-time, unconventional, playing-to-win operational style is increasingly gaining momentum.

In order to maneuver well and stay on-the-course of building a remarkable business, you have to participate in every significant action of your business. You have to self-select to own the risk of every key decision, build a tolerant system and a culture of winning and executing well. Choose participation v/s delegation. Helps to cut time, show-case courage and build confidence within the team. Practice participation to evolve as a strong and dynamic leader.
Participatory leadership is the way-to-go.

Participatory leadership is all about respect and engagement. When you respect and engage with your customers, your employees and your partners, you end-up building a system that becomes energized well and every craft you build, becomes the most remarkable one. When you participate completely, you are showing the respect and engaging well. People follow the leader and his style. You end-up building the most enviable business and make way for many more through the people you touched!

be a #dreamerdoer

Condition self-motivation engine for getting the best out of the best

There are two types of motivation. Self and External. They are generally inseparable. Motivation is a trigger to act. Action always results from a combination of internal and external factors.
However strong the influence of external factors, true motivation is essentially internal. While it usually does take something external to trigger it. No external factor alone will trigger any action. What triggers motivation are desires – ones that are responsible for self-motivation. By birth, all have a tremendous amount of self-motivation. While we grow, we get conditioned and will be driven by external factors.

Once the inquisitiveness about everything we observe, touch, explore and constantly learn takes a back-seat, our actions change and become slack. That’s when we need external motivation. At work, interventions, policies, and systems are designed and deployed to create this trigger – either through rewards or punishments. But slowly, you get punished-by-rewards. Our innate self-motivation engine starts to always look for the external reward mechanisms to perform.

Even to get the best out of best people, those who are entrepreneurs, explorers, and innovators, you will start requiring external stimuli in terms of rewards. For some, it is rewards, recognition, money, position and so on. Look out for what motivates you and why. Mostly, this is what makes you proud-of-yourself. In your own eyes, and then the rest of the company. Exercise the factors carefully like the way you work with body-building or fitness regime. Condition your self-motivation engine to perform better than its current normal. Slowly, this will reduce the external stimuli to just enough to ignite the self-motivation engine. You will get the best out of the best people, starting with yourself.

be a #dreamerdoer