Today i witnessed, through teary-eyes at times, eulogies to a great human being from a very tiny and great country-Singapore. As the prime minister, president, past prime-ministers and other significant Singaporeans including Lee, Kuan Yew’s son, delivered their eulogies, I could not but help connect to how Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard are known to have built HP. Perhaps this post may help make us a better leader, from what i heard and learnt today. Simple.
Focused on the task at hand: This means getting to the point and staying around it even in the face of distractions including things like visual distractions, sounds, ideas not on agenda etc.
Deeply cared for people in the here and now by being aware of the now and addressing it right then and there even if it meant breaking away briefly from protocol.
Fought hard to build out the vision that he had so much conviction in. Bill and Dave were determined in building a great company and they fought hard to build it.Mr. Lee, Kuan Yew did the same in building and guiding Singapore.
Meditate- yes. This may or may not surprise you. I wouldn’t know if Bill and Dave meditated but Lee Hsien Loong, the current prime-minister of Singapore and eldest son of Lee Kuan Yew shared how his father learnt and encouraged his son to meditate. To clear the mind and get back in touch with oneself.
Sense of urgency- there’s no time wasted on things that are either not family nurturing, wellness nurturing or goal nurturing
Start of with the realities of what we are and let it evolve. Don’t go for one stroke solutions. You may regret it.
Lee Kuan Yew’s doctrines – stability can lead to growth. With discipline, give people a stake in the country’s(company’s) development that directly connect with realizing their life-dreams. There’s more. Lots more. He was there for the long haul. Most CEOs of multinational companies and corporate world, in general are in for a tenure of but a few years. That makes your job as a leader different and more difficult.
We have faith in the human spirit. I hope this piece will give us the resolve and ability to evolve as better leaders–for our children and families, co-workers and society we live in.
Gurunath Hari is the author of “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life”. He has over 25 years of corporate experience, including leadership and management roles. His working life started at the end of the pre-computer era and continues to the present ‘everything-mobile’ era.
Sensational as it may sound, this is precisely the title of a recent publication by HBR. https://hbr.org/2015/05/corporate-wellness-programs-make-us-unwell.
The situation
Obsessing over health alone is obsessing over physical well-being. Precisely why its not intuitive for corporate leaders to know how to get Wellness programs to work optimally. Reading this book will Help.
The challenge
Less than a quarter of the employees of a large multinational corporation even participated in their global wellness program. Let alone benefiting in any significant way from it. Wellness cannot be a program. Its a lifelong happy pursuit. It has to be a culture, a mindset. Similar to quality and excellence. So for me, pursuing Wellness has to be predictive of something else(well-being). Wellness fits in perfectly with what Shawn Ackor says, “So for me, happiness has to be predictive of something else. So I’d go with the Greek definition of happiness, the ancient Greek definition, which is, “The joy that we feel striving after our potential.”
In my experience of pursuit and outcomes Wellness is the strife and well-being is the predicate.
The implication
Companies spend a lot of money, effort and time on running wellness programs. employees are not properly orientated into the rationale for these. This results in poor ROIs both financially and from a time and effort, productivity and employee morale standpoint.
The Evidence
In the article Prof Andre states ‘there’s little evidence that superfitness correlates with leadership, good management, or even productivity’.
Indeed that is obvious because:
a. Expecting sustained excellence in performance and productivity at the workplace is a marathon and not a sprint.
b. Unlike sports an office environment demands equal importance to other dimensions of wellness besides spiritual, mental and physical viz. Environmental, social and financial. The below illustration maps barriers to performance excellence and the 6 dimensions of wellness. This is why there is a difference between sports analogy and the workplace and several limitations.
(Reproduced with permission from the authors, Dr. Kerry Evers and Wolters Kluwer Health)
What you need to do
To get it right you need help. There is no silver bullet but the good news is that with adequate evidence of small pilot successes of breakthrough practises, that are measureable and sustainable, it is possible to scale and integrate Holistic Wellness into the corporate psyche and culture. Wellness pursuit has to be customized and individualized. And yes It is a Pursuit, not a program.
In summary
The hypothesis is: the most sustainable way to maintaining a net positive level of well-being outcome is getting staff to do something you want done because he/she wants to do it. Not just because the company wants it done and they don’t/can’t resonate with it. This is also how Dwight Eisenhower defined leadership.
Best wishes to you and in your pursuit of holistic Wellness!
Gurunath Hari is the author of “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life”. He has over 25 years of corporate experience, including leadership and management roles. His working life started at the end of the pre-computer era and
continues to the present ‘everything-mobile’ era.
The kindle and hardcopy version of 6 Dimensions book is now available at Amazon!!
(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s own and are not endorsed by his employer or any other company)
A recent poll by Gallup states 70% of American employees are not engaged at work. There have been some push backs. Gallup measures and we listen and learn but seldom know how to act.
That’s where HBR’s article ‘What Great Managers Do to Engage Employees’ by James Harter and Amy Adkins comes in. They quote Gallup again ‘Mere transactions between managers and employees are not enough to maximize engagement. Employees value communication from their manager not just about their roles and responsibilities but also about what happens in their lives outside of work. The Gallup study reveals that employees who feel as though their manager is invested in them as people are more likely to be engaged.
What tools do managers have today that can support the pursuit of making employees feel their manager is invested in them?
My answer as a people manager and a managed employee is – most managers don’t have the social skills, training or tools to do justice to this important communication opportunity. I did not have it either.
Mark C Crowley in a comment to the Forbes article wrote, ‘One key reason engagement has fallen so severely is that people have greatly changed what they need and expect in exchange for work – and our leadership practices have failed to evolve. What’s required now is that we reimagine leadership and identify all the things that can help restore 21st Century employee spirits, and motivate people to excel’.
What’re your thoughts? What aspects of employees lives outside of work would seem appropriate to communicate on. What’s missing now?
Best wishes to you and in your pursuit of happy engagement!
Gurunath Hari is the author of “The 6 Dimensions, Overcome Presenteeism: Excel in work and Life”. He has over 25 years of corporate experience, including leadership and management roles. His working life started at the end of the pre-computer era and continues to the present ‘everything-mobile’ era.
The kindle and hardcopy version of 6 Dimensions book is now available at Amazon!!
(Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s own and are not endorsed by his employer or any other company)
7 September is Dave Packard’s birthday. As i deliver events for senior leadership and new talent i find these 11 simple rules that’s widely available on the net, nice reminders:
Reproduced here for all of us:
Dave Packard’s 11 simple rules
1. I first think of the other person. This is the key – the first requirement – to getting on well with others. It is the most difficult thing to do. If you succeed, the rest is a piece of cake.
2. Reinforce the other person’s feeling of importance. When we make someone else feel less important we frustrate one of their deepest instincts. Make the other person feel equal or superior and you will get on well with them.
3. Respect the other person’s individuality. Respect the other person’s right to be different from you. No two people are molded by the same forces.
4. Offer sincere recognition. If we believe someone has done something well, we should not hesitate in telling them. Warning: this does not imply the immoral use of flattery. For intelligent people, flattery produces exactly the response that it deserves, disdain that someone has lowered themselves.
5. Eliminate anything negative. Criticism rarely achieves what we intend, since it invariably causes resentment. The smallest suggestion of disapproval may cause resentment – to your own detriment – for years.
6. Avoid any attempt to change people. Everyone knows they are imperfect, but they don’t want other people to try to correct their faults. If you want someone to improve, help them to embrace a higher goal, a standard, an ideal, and this will work much more effectively for them than you can.
7. Try to understand the other person. How would you react in similar circumstances? When you see the other person’s “whys” you can’t help but get on well with them.
8. Check your first impressions. We are inclined not to like someone at first sight as a result of some vague similarity (of which we are not usually aware) with another person whom we have a reason to dislike. Follow the advice that Abraham Lincoln gave himself: “If I don’t like this man, I have to get to known him better”.
9. Take care of the small details. Watch your smile, your tone of voice, the way you look at people, the way you greet them, the use of nicknames, a memory for faces, names and dates. These small things will refine your ability to get on with others. Always be aware that these things form part of your personality.
10. Develop a genuine interest in people. You cannot apply the foregoing advice unless you want to like other people, respect them and be useful to them. By contrast, you can’t develop a genuine interest in people until you have experienced the pleasure of working with them in an environment of mutual appreciation and respect.
11. Persevere. That’s all, persevere!
Dave knew SOCIAL STYLE even before Daniel Goleman gave us his Emotional Intelligence (1995, Bantam Books)!
This morning a senior colleague wrote me a good-natured line: “It takes a village to keep employees happy, focused, and engaged”. It triggered a cascade of realizations transporting me back briefly to a small dose of my village life in Southern India as a young child, that I felt compelled to share.
Though I was brought up in India’s premier City, Mumbai I used to love my family trips to Trivandrum, in ‘God’s own country’, the state of kerala in India.
Here’s what I remember of things that went on there that may have some ideas for how we work in the corporate world.
Takeaway #1 : Everyone treated everyone else well. Everyone was greeted, was smiling and cheerful, there was some happy gossips and above all there was great mutual respect. The word that is closest to respect is ‘admiration’.
Takeaway #2 : There were two families who were cantankerous. One of them was borderline criminal. The strategy adopted by the villagers was patience, tolerance and willingness to seek external help, if situations got out of hand. You could not take the easy way out and evict these people. The villagers did not.
Takeaway #3 : There was division of functions. There was a spiritual leader who’d take care of the spiritual wellness needs. There was cousin brother, the doctor, who the people could go to for medical consultations. My dad’s brother was a much respected individual who worked in the King’s palace as the palace accountant. So he was the accountant for the village investors, etc.
Takeaway #4: People lived holistically well day in and day out with a strict adherence to a personalized set of rituals. Optimizing their environmental, social, physical, financial, mental and spiritual wellness. For example, every morning people’s entrances were swept and decorated with floor frescos- a sign that guests were welcome. Think about you as a leader, creating such a team in your workspace and see what it does for your brand.
Takeaway #5: there was cultural homogeneity. Outsiders stayed out. Translate this to Talent acquisition and as how important new employee orientation is in ensuring everyone understands the operating culture of the place. Let this not confuse you. Cultural homogeneity did not exclude diversity.
Takeaway #6: When adversity struck any family, there would be a spontaneous outpouring of help. No one waited to be asked to help.
Takeaway #7: Everyone lived together for the joy of it. Not for money. They had their jobs for achieving it. Just as we have our roles in the corporate world for achieving it. Yes we need to deliver results and we can do it like the way the village did it. For the joy of it.
Takeaway #8: Yes there was politics but nowhere close to the likes of the US primaries (apologies my respected American friends and you know what I am talking about). People intervened constructively to help resolve conflicts.
Translating all this to apply to a corporate setting is what this HRM article attempts to do.
In 2014 Microsoft took over Nokia and the Nokia name was removed from its devices altogether. Things changed with the rise of the smartphone, and in particular the launch of Apple’s iPhone in 2007. The disruptor had got disrupted.
Mika Grundstrom, a former senior manager at Nokia’s R&D site in Tampere is quoted as stating, “Things became much more complex. We were not so sure anymore what we should actually target. Is it ease of use, is it battery life, is it size?”.
The answer for future Nokia’s in the making is here. Customers look for value.
Value = Benefit – Cost
The mistake that Nokia made may have been, looking at isolated features and trying to beat the daylights out of each of them. Every device making company’s bane. More of a good thing can only take you to some length. Beyond that you’d have to proactively disrupt your own product lines or uncover a new need segment, if you have to stay in business. This is mainly true for device manufacturers.
“If you think about the battery life – we had devices that could last for a week. Then you have this new device, it’s excellent but you need to charge it every day. Ok so how do you actually sell that to the customer?” Sounds like one clueless state.
Value = Benefit – Cost
Here’s what was happening, that had Nokia played its game to win, they could well have continued to be in market as a leader and not yielded to Samsung:
On November 5, 2007, the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of technology companies including Google, device manufacturers such as HTC, Sony and Samsung, wireless carriers such as Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile, and chipset makers such as Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, unveiled itself, with a goal to develop open standards for mobile devices.[17] That day, Android was unveiled as its first product, a mobile device platform built on the Linux kernel.[17][41] The first commercially available smartphone running Android was theHTC Dream, released on October 22, 2008.[42]
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_(operating_system)
Nokia was nowhere in the picture. What rice bowl were they to trying to protect? Symbian? That 2008 smartphone could have had a Nokia brand.
Lessons learnt:
Why could Nokia not have evolved into an Android based market leader, a status that Samsung seems to be achieving from a non-existent player.
What foresight was missing
What strategy went wrong (not to use open source OS?)
What prevented Nokia from joining the consortium
Nokia played catch-up in the smartphone market until 2014 and never recovered. Thank you Nokia. It was good at your time. RIP.
