Wellness Quotient

Robin Sharma says there is only a incermental difference between a millionaire and an average individual  in terms of happiness. Infact he goes on to say that many a milionaire’s are less happy than an average individual.

However every one in this world hankers after money and other materialistic pleasures in the hope of increasing their happiness. However many a times we have heard people say that they are “not happy” and if you ask them what happiness means, they suddenly wake up and don’t know what it really is.

It is said that man is a social animal. He cannot survive in loneliness and needs to be in the company of fellow human beings for his survival. He is in constant company of his family members, lives most of his waking hours in the company of his office colleagues and socialises with his close circle of friends in the society ocassionally. For him to be happy he needs to be happy on all this front so that he has a well rounded happiness. This is what I call as “wellness quotient”

Well than what really is the wellness quotient.

It reflects the state of happiness on these fronts :

•          Personal
•          Social
•          Professional

A person may be very happy/sucessful one or many of these fronts. Its rare to find a person who is happy / sucessful on all these fronts or equally happy / successful on all these fronts.

Personal

•          Health
•          Self esteem / self confidence
•          Value / Character
•          Relationship with
•                    Parents
•                   Spouse
•                   Children
•         Education

Social

•          Number of friends
•          Circle of influence (type of friends)
•          Relationship with friends
•          Reputation
•          Status in society

Professional

•  Advancement in career
•  Position
•  Wealth creation
•  Influence
• Job itself (doing what you like)

WELLNES QUOTIENT

 There are many instances in history where we have found people who are highly successful in Professional life but have fared very poorly in their personal life and have ended their life in tragic circumstances. There are very many people who are extremely happy and contented in their personal life but not so successful in their professional life. There are very many instances where in we have heard that “he is a tiger at home but a mouse in public” – it means he has a very strained relationship at home but a very successful relationship in the society / professional life. 

One needs to learn to balance on all these fronts and its not going to be easy. However what could help is that we are aware of our well-being on all these fronts and consciously working towards building a well rounded happiness and building a good “wellness quotient”. 

“Maybe the truth is, there's a little bit of loser in all of us. Being happy isn't having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it's about stringing together all the little things.”
― Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

                                                                                                                                                               

Competencies required to be successful as you move up the ladder

• Comfort around Top Management

You need the support of the Top Management and your peers to be successful. You need to work as a team to build a successful enterprise. If you are not comfortable working with the Top Management team (superiors, peers), you are unlikely to succeed. Hence its very important that you maintain a very good working relationship & understanding with the Top Management to succeed. If you aren’t, you are most likely to fail.

• Managing Boss

It is a reality that “you cant choose your boss, your boss can choose you”. We have no other choice and hence we need to find a way out to manage with the Boss. Cribbing about the boss is not going to take us anywhere. We need to understand his style, his expectations, his behaviours and also his idiosyncrasies and adapt ourselves, failing which there will always be strains in our relationship and gaps between expectations & delivery.

• Business Acumen

No organization is built for charity and no one works for charity. There are tremendous pressures to deliver profits and maximize return on investment. Hence it is important that we understand our business, the competition, the market, the future, our products, our customers, our strengths, challenges, our people to be able to relate to their dynamic needs and build business strategies. Otherwise we would be operating in a vacuum akin to the “frog in the well” and likely to be consumed by the looming disaster.

• Managing ambiguity & change

In todays world, the only thing constant is Change. The world is dynamic and is changing at a rapid pace day by day. Hence we need to learn to manage in a dynamic environment, live with ambiguities and cope up with change. We need to be flexible and adaptive and be able to drive business through these changing environment.

• Decision Making

It is often said that Executives are hired to make decisions. Hence it is very important that Top Executives take decisions as quickly as possible rather than procrastinate for that perfect decision. The competition is fast changing and we need to be in a position to take quick decisions and move faster than our competitors.

Merit alone should count, and not the gender

Offlate we are seeing a fanatical quest for Diversity in large Corporate Organisations.

No doubt diversity is important to promote an inclusive culture but not at the cost of merit. One should be conscious of the need to promote diversity but final decision should be based on merit and not influenced by the need to just promote diversity. Its about promoting a healthy corporate culture with diversity of thought, skills, experience and skill sets and not just gender.

Unfortunately in the name of Diversity, many a organizations are falling prey to the fallacy that promoting diversity leads to organizational success. They are promoting “Diversity for the sake of Diversity”. Heather Jackson, founder of An Inspirational Journey and the Women’s Business Forum, called on businesses not to get complacent about diversity, despite the encouraging statistics around women on boards. “The women on boards figures are reasons to celebrate, but it’s the talent pipeline that’s the future,” she said. Many an employee, have been deprived of a rightful position because of the organizations fanatical quest for inclusiveness & promoting diversity.

Meritocracy and diversity should work hand in hand. Diversity for its own sake is pointless and potentially harmful to the contextual culture (organizational, educational, etc.) If people believe that diverse candidates are included solely for diversity's sake, resentment, tension, and animosity can build.

Im sure even the members of the opposite sex wouldn’t want to progress in an organization solely because of gender. Mahnaz Shaikh, Diversity Leader, P&G, mooted a culture of meritocracy. “Gender diversity is a very important initiative for us, but it doesn't come at the cost of value and meritocracy,” she said.

"Diverse" candidates should always meet the minimum qualifications, at the very least. if diversity is considered alongside merit, that's when human potential is ignited. A homogenous meritocracy won't be as creative, innovative, and engaging as a diverse meritocracy.

There’s plenty of good research on the subject of team performance that shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams on many different kinds of tasks. The problem is that this research doesn’t argue for demographic diversity, but rather for a diversity of perspectives. So, again, racial or gender diversity is not an end in itself.

The implementation of diversity should not be seen as a threat to meritocracy , otherwise, are we, turning the clock back to the days of Quota / Reservation systems ……

Career and life lessons from M. C. Mary Kom

By now all of us are aware about M C Mary Kom (yes, her complete name is Mangte Chungneijang Mary Com). The 5 time world women boxing champion, awardee of Padma Bhushan and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Puraskar, a mother, a wife and finally an Olympian who won medal for India.

She was from a very poor family whose father was a landless labour in Manipur. Her introduction in her official website says "Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom, (born 1 March 1983), also known as MC Mary Kom, Magnificent Mary or simply Mary Kom, is an Indian boxer belonging to Kom tribal community of north-eastern state of Manipur. She is a five-time World Boxing champion, and the only woman boxer to have won a medal in each one of the six world championships. She is the only Indian woman boxer to have qualified for the 2012 Summer Olympics, competing in the flyweight (51 kg) category and winning the bronze medal. She has also been ranked as No. 4 AIBA World Women’s Ranking Flyweight category"

Mary Kom was born in Kangathei, in Churachanpur district of Manipur. Her parents, Mangte Tonpa Kom and Mangte Akham Kom, worked in jhum fields. She completed her primary education from Loktak Christian Model High School, Moirang, up to her class VI standard and attended St. Xavier Catholic School, Moirang, up to class VIII. She then moved to Adimjati High School, Imphal, for her schooling for class IX and X, but could not pass her exam. She did not want to reappear for her exams so she quit her school and gave her examination from NIOS, Imphal and graduation from Churachandpur College.

Although she had a keen interest in athletics from childhood, it was the success of Dingko Singh that inspired her to become a boxer in 2000. She started her training under the close eye of M.Narjit Singh, Manipur State Boxing Coach at Khuman Lampak,Imphal.

For her age and background , she has achieved much more than average of us do. She has achieved multiple awards, name, fame and recognition even in the condition when she had nothing - neither MONEY nor support. Today, when women do not want to have child to make "career" even at her age, Mary Kom is an example that its you who can decide your own limit, nobody else.

Here is few take away for all of us. I have seen people complaining lack of support, lack of resources. When she started, she even did not have basic MONEY to travel. She did not have good trainer, she did not have enough support. It is not about having resources, it is about having excuses for not getting success in our life.

Learning from Mary Kom

1. Its not resources, its passion who make us successful: When Mary Kom thought about boxing, she had nothing. She even used to hungry, she had to depend on relatives. But she was passionate enough about boxing. She even left education for it and she succeeded. Follow your passion.

2. We can get the money and fame we want if we follow your passion: Mary Kom faced lot of difficulty in her life even till few years back. She had to travel in general coach of the train (and forget about a reservation class and flight was a distant dream). Her things were stolen, she was ill. But finally, due to her determination, dedication and passion, she became 5 times world champion and even won Olympic Medal. With this she could change her own financial condition as well as of her family. We struggle to do MBA/ qualification TO MAKE MONEY .

3. We cannot get success without other's help: Reaching to the glory at this height would not have been possible for her without the help of other people. It includes his father and mother who sent money to her despite of their own adversity. Its support of her own Kom community who always stood with her. Its about her coaches at SAI as well as others, its support of her husband Onler who gave up his career for her success. You cannot remain isolated and never remain successful. If you are a leader, without support of your team member- whatever they are, whoever they are, without them you cannot remain successful.

4. We should always remain grateful: Mary Kom, in her autobiography mentions contributions of everybody who helped her. It includes her all coaches, friends and community who supported her. She reached to the top level of fame. But she never forgot all these people in her life. How many of us do that? We work, company provide us employment and when something goes wrong (particularly our expectations) then we abuse the company and boss and we start to find out what they do not have. Agree, but she should not forget the positive side and should remain always grateful of what we have. If she would have started to hate all of us Indian because somebody stole her luggage in train, because one of her teammates stole her cash then I do not think she should have reached to this place. She feels gratitude towards her sponsors like Monnet Steel and Herbalife and Olympic Gold Quest. This is lesson for us- to remain grateful always.

5. It is about giving, not only taking: When she won the medal, money started following. She purchased land for her father, she made enough provision for her siblings, she included her brother in law's family and took care of them too. She got from the society, and she paid back the same by opening free Mary Kom boxing championship so she could give back to the society. We must have similar attitude about our career. It is not about our money, it is about how we got it.

6. Make enough provision for future, success is not permanent: After earning money, she wanted to purchase a Merc but she knew it is not a good idea considering the road condition and the cost. Rather, she invested the money for future as she knew value of every single penny. Similar situation arises to our life. We have job, we have business but do we know its sustainability? We must not spent all at once, we must make enough provision for our future.

7. We decide our own obstacle, nothing else: Mary Kom's first child was unplanned. It suddenly came. People thought her career ended now. It was a caesarian child so doctor had advised her to take rest for at least 3 years. She decided to start early and prepare for Olympic. People including her father thought that her boxing career has finished now. She proved all of them wrong. We should always listen to our intention, we must be determined enough about us. Nobody else can decide our career and life except us.

8. Focus on strength not on weaknesses: It is our habit. I often here people saying, I do not have MNC background, I do not have a degree from a good institute, I do not have a degree, I do not have an IIM or tier 1 MBA and so on. I do not know why we crib? Why we focus on what we do not have? Should not we focus on whatever we have? In Boxing game, several time, her opponents were strong, taller but she did enough study about them, watched their video and found they are weak in strategy. She took advantage of this. She focussed on her strength and did not give up on her lacking i.e. height.

9. Define your own success parameters: We normally compare and compete with others.We must change this attitude. It should be "I". We should decide our position now and where we want to go. She did not compete with her other players and thinking to compete with them. She was focussed on world championship and she won. She focussed on Olympic and she won. Compete with yourself. Not with others.

10. Be true to yourself: Always remain true to yourself. Do not give excuses and do not over show your performance. I have seen many people who interfere in others' work to show that other people cannot do something and only they can do it and over show it to their boss. They never accept their failure. In case of Mary Kom's when she could not return with GOLD (although she won Bronze) she was crying for not giving her best. How many of us dare to do so? In her book, she ask for pardon for her inability. Still she is the winner.

She has achieved much more than average of us do. She has achieved multiple awards, name, fame and recognition even in the condition when she had nothing -neither MONEY nor support. Today, when women do not want to have child to make "career" even at her age, Mary Kom is an example that its you who can decide your own limit, nobody else.....

Voice of Internal Customer Experience - my paper published in HR.com

Generally Voice of Customer is referred to understanding the needs and also gauging the satisfaction levels of External Customers. At the same time we find that “customer – supplier” relationships do exist within all organisation. And this relationship is often ignored or not given the same importance as it is shown to external customers.

All too often, we take our employees and their job satisfaction for granted. We focus all our efforts on achieving financial results, acquiring new customers, launching new businesses, and driving customer satisfaction, but too often we forget about the people who actually turn all those promises into real actions.
Employees shape the experience a customer has with the company each time they have contact. Hence employees become the most memorable voice of the company brand as they constitute the actual brand experience. It’s people who ultimately deliver the brand promise. It does not make a difference what the company tells its customers about the company brand, if those who actually encounter the customer don’t deliver the values consistently.

Well here is a Paper of mine published in the world renowned HR.com, the leading HR Portal on VOICE - Voice of Internal Customer Experience. I have shared our VOICE program that has been implemented at Schneider Electric and how it has helped to gauge the pulse of the employees at each stage of the Employee Life Cycle in the organisation and also help us improve the Employee Experience. 

Happy reading.....

 SSE_APRIL2014-RanjansVOICE.pdf

Talent vs Attitude

Mark Murphy in his book “Hiring for Attitude,” he says that 46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months, attributed mainly to non-technical or non-skill related items. Research shows that most employees are fired for non-skill related items. The truth of the matter is that we often hire for skill, and most often fire for attitude.

Attitude is to do with the way you think about something and therefore affects your behaviour, how you approach challenges, decision making etc. From research and observation, talent plays a much smaller role in the success someone has compared to their attitude.

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; noting on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."— W. W. Ziege

This does not prove that attitude is more important than skill or other Candidate Metrics; rather, that attitude should be looked at as equal to the rest of the candidate’s attributes and even higher as we go up the hierarchy.

Most recruiters focus on a candidate’s experience – skills. Most recruiting processes drive transactional behavior – “Let me know what you think of this resume” and they do not focus on a complete understanding of an individual’s multiple dimensions.

The 4 Dimensions to be assessed :

Skills/Experience - Does the candidate have the training/education to do the job?

Competency - Does the candidate have the ability/behaviors to do the job?

Attitude - Has the candidate shown they want to do the job?

Culture Fit - Does the candidate do the job the way the company does or wants to?

Skill & Competency MUST be matched with Attitude & Culture.

Skill determines fit for the function, Competency determines fit for the job, Attitude determines fit for the career, Culture determines fit for the company.

In another study it was found that when a person suceeds in a high profile job, 85% of the times it is because of his attitude and only 15% of the times because of smartness or knowledge of facts and figures. Surprisingly, almost 100% of our education expenses and time go to learn facts and figures which account only for 15% in success at work and life.

Truly, attitude defines the altitude and attitude makes all the difference in pursuit of excellence.

I have seen many Hiring Managers and Leaders falling a prey to this Talent Mania only to realise their folly very soon. I have always felt that Talent/Skills/Competency can be acquired overtime and even in a very short period but Attitude / Culture is something which is hard to acquire. Attitude is something that is nurtured over the years and takes enormous effort and time to change over time. There fore it is better to hire someone who is high on attitude & even a bit less on Talent, rather than hiring someone high on Talent but low on attitude.

Everybody looks at sportstars, musicians, artists etc and say - Wow! what an amazing talent, I wish i could possess that kind of talent. People often confuse themselves with the thought that excellence is all about talent. However, excellence is not about talent alone. In fact a major portion of excellence has nothing to do with talent. Beyond a certain point, talent or ability is the most useless virtue to possess. It is what you do with that talent that counts. Beyond a point, it is attitude that counts way more than talent.

It has been observed that even the most talented people in this world have not been able to achieve what they were supposed to achieve. This is because the moment they faced a road block, did not know what to do. Earlier it was talent that solved problems for them. But beyond a certain point when you reach a certain level, it is your attitude that counts. Once an individual is in the top league, the importance of talent fades away. This is because, others present in the top league also possess the same talent. So whats the difference? The difference here is Attitude. An individual succeeds when he/she has the right attitude, the right work ethic and of course the passion to perform. Talent might open the first door, might open the second door, but will not open all subsequent doors. So to achieve anything in life, it is very important to have the right attitude and passion to do well.

Here is a very thought provoking speech by renowned Sports Commentator – Harsha Bogle speaking on Talent while addressing the students of IIM-Ahmedabad.

The best part about the video is when Harsha was successfully able to explain the importance of failure in life. It’s not a bad thing to fail in life, but the most important thing is: one bounces back from the failure and achieves the height of success again.

The right attitude often results in employees proactively developing the skills they need for their particular role and mastering them.

As per study of William James at Harvard University, “The greatest discovery of this generation is: human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitude.”

ROLE OF HR IN ECONOMIC DOWN TURN AND SUBSEQUENTLY

1.                  How do you think the HR Profession has been affected by the Down Turn (Other than Pink Slips, Lay Off’s & Man Power displacements)?

HR plays a pivotal role in helping companies cope up with the downturn. While the top line is stagnant or moving downwards, companies have started tightening their belt and reducing their bottomline or Operating Expenditure. It is here that HR plays a pivotal role in helping containing costs of operations. HR needs to understand the Business dynamics, the Business levers that drive Profit & Loss and initiate strategies in line with the resilience program. We can no longer feign ignorance about business. HR professionals need to have “business acumen” and actively participate in business strategies.

2.                  What innovative action plans you have been able to initiate to f ace the challenges?

We have consciously taken a stand of not resorting to layoff except in extreme cases. We have encouraged employees to use their unutilized leave and not allowing leave carry forward of leave at the end of year. Reduced work days (from 6 days to 5 days). Offering sabbatical leave to employees.

3.                  Do you think HR Profession ‘Future Proof” and ‘Shock Proof” enough to face similar situations in the future? If no, what needs to be done?

I think this time around HR professionals are more experienced to manage such downturns. The challenge would be how do we predict such downturns and proactively initiate HR programs to minimize such shocks in future. Now that it is well known that the Global Economy goes thro a business cycle lasting about 8-10yrs (highs & lows), we need to be better prepared for the future downturns.

4.                  What action plans would you suggest for the HR Professionals, particularly in South East Asia and Middle East who have faced the maximum heat during this period?

The world is a “Global Village” and no one is insulated from the ripples in the Global Economy. It is often said that “if America sneezes, the rest of the world will catch a cold”. Hence HR professionals in the APAC & Middle East region must be aligned to the Global economy and keep their eyes and ears open to whats happening around Global Economies. Offcourse there will be more focus on the new and emerging economies viz. BRIC countries and HR will have to play a major role in these economies to help capitalize the potential and global interests being shown. An international exposure to get an international perspective will help these HR professionals. Keeping in constant touch with their counterparts in other countries will help. Understanding the diversity and culture in other countries is a must to be successful in this era.

5.                  Based on this experience, should HR Professionals focus more on basic HR Issues (Communication,  Employee engagement, Human relations, Employee welfare, Mentoring) and go slow on HR Systems and Processes such as Performance Appraisals, HR-IT, E-HR, Competency Mapping, HR Score Card etc, which seem to have not found to have made much positive impact in this critical situation?

Dave Ulrich has defined the role of HR professionals :

• Strategic Business partner
• Employee Champion
• Expert Administrator
• Change Agent

HR professionals will have to don all these coats and effectively play these roles in any situations.

HR activities could be broadly divided into two:

• Transactional
• Strategic

We will have to master the Transactional activities, bring in greater efficiency, speed of delivery, reliability and at a lower cost to ultimately drive Employee Delight and enable Business to meet its stated objectives. This is key to survival during down turn.

Strategic activities are key to driving competitive advantage. As CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel have said, that “its people who fuel the journey of success”, they are the biggest competitive advantage any company will have. It is there fore imperative that we continue to focus on developing the competency of our people and build Organisational Capabilities that will not only sustain competition but will also help to beat Competition. 

Managing HR during uncertain times

The world is a “Global Village” and no one is insulated from the ripples in the Global Economy. It is often said that “if America sneezes, the rest of the world will catch a cold”. Much of   HR professionals in the APAC & Middle East region must be aligned to the Global economy and keep their eyes and ears open to whats happening around Global Economies. Offcourse there will be more focus on the new and emerging economies viz. BRIC countries and HR will have to play a major role in these economies to help capitalize the potential and global interests being shown. An international exposure to get an international perspective will help these HR professionals. Keeping in constant touch with their counterparts in other countries will help. Understanding the diversity and culture in other countries is a must to be successful in this era.

Its often said, that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Will HR turn out be tough.

Well HR plays a pivotal role in helping companies cope up with the downturn. While the top line is stagnant or moving downwards, companies have started tightening their belt and reducing their bottomline or Operating Expenditure. It is here that HR plays a pivotal role in helping containing costs of operations. HR needs to understand the Business dynamics, the Business levers that drive Profit & Loss and initiate strategies in line with the resilience program. We can no longer feign ignorance about business. HR professionals need to have “business acumen” and actively participate in business strategies.

I think this time around HR professionals are more experienced to manage such downturns. The challenge would be how do we predict such downturns and proactively initiate HR programs to minimize such shocks in future. Now that it is well known that the Global Economy goes thro a business cycle lasting about 8-10yrs (highs & lows), we need to be better prepared for the future downturns.

Dave Ulrich has defined the role of HR professionals :

             Strategic Business partner

             Employee Champion

             Expert Administrator

             Change Agent

HR professionals will have to don all these coats and effectively play these roles in any situations.

HR activities could be broadly divided into two:

             Transactional

             Strategic

We will have to master the Transactional activities, bring in greater efficiency, speed of delivery, reliability and at a lower cost to ultimately drive Employee Delight and enable Business to meet its stated objectives. This is key to survival during down turn.

Strategic activities are key to driving competitive advantage. As CK Prahalad and Gary Hamel have said, that “its people who fuel the journey of success”, they are the biggest competitive advantage any company will have. It is therefore imperative that we continue to focus on developing the competency of our people and build Organisational Capabilities that will not only sustain competition but will also help to beat Competition.

I believe that there is an opportunity in every calamity and its up to our hands to seize this opportunity and showcase the true value that HR can add to business and help organizations surmount any challenge.

Impact of Various Institutions on the Human Resources Management in the context of Economic Reforms

An paper that was presented on " Impact of Various Institutions on the Human Resources Management in the context of Economic Reforms" at the Conclave organised by the Karnatka Employers Association in May 1996.

EcoRef20001.pdf