You Can't Order Change!

“It is better to lead from behind and to put others in front, especially when you celebrate victory when nice things occur. You take the front line when there is danger. Then people will appreciate your leadership.”

-Nelson Mandela

I was recently gifted a wonderful book titled ‘You Can’t Order Change’ which chronicles the leadership journey of Jim McNerney, current CEO of Boeing. McNerney spent much of his career as a rising star and major player at General Electric, where he was one of the three finalists to replace Jack Welch. Now at Boeing, McNerney cleared up a mass of legal problems, tackled the cultural issues that allowed them to arise, rebuilt the brand, and invested in new programs that promise a long, profitable future for the company. I was quite inspired by the profound leadership insights this book had to offer. Some of McNerney’s strategies that grabbed my attention were:

1. Help your people get better through measurable goals

2. Build strategy on customer focus

3. Invest in your strengths

4. Tighten operations with process improvement tools

5. Partner with global suppliers to reduce risk and accelerate time to market

6. Make ethics and compliance a clear competitive advantage

Closer to home, we have our own share of great leaders who have single-handedly redefined industry standards and set new benchmarks. One such leader I have always admired in Naresh Goyal of Jet Airways. Under his pioneering leadership, Jet Airways set the gold standard for customer service in the country’s booming aviation industry. I’ve always heard my dad say, “A great leader is present in his absence”, so true! I see Naresh Goyal in every employee of Jet Airways, right from the staff at the check-in counter to the ground and cabin crew. I am amazed to see the level of commitment and customer care that each employee exudes that one would only expect the leader to demonstrate.

I believe that one of the qualities of a great leader is the ability to build a culture based on shared values, and approach the change process in a very respectful way. A great leader realizes that in order to achieve the organization’s goals, he needs to win the hearts and minds of the employees. Like McNerney puts it, “You can’t order change, after all, there’s only one of me and 75,000 of them”. Another awe inspiring story is that of Matsushita, and the meteoric rise of National/Panasonic under his leadership. At the end of World War II, Matsushita stood up before a gathering of his dejected, demoralized workforce, in an occupied country, with all the company’s inventory taken by the occupying power, and said “I’ve been thinking about purpose”. He then painted a word picture that spoke to everyone, about how taking the lead in quality and innovation and low prices would force competitors to do the same and would ultimately eliminate poverty in Japan. He sat down to silence. Then, one by one his employees stood up, some with tears in their eyes, and said “I think I could dedicate my life to this.” Much of the ‘Japanese way’ that conquered the world’s economy in the 1980s can be traced back to that moment.

Jim Collins in his book ‘Good to Great’ gives us an interesting analysis on leadership. He deconstructs leadership development in five phases. According to Collins, the journey towards greatness begins from individual competency [level-1] and ends at greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will [level-5]. As Collins puts it “A Level-5 leader is the antithesis of the great ego centric leader, they operates first and foremost with genuine humility. But it is humility defined as a burning, passionate, obsessive ambition for the cause, for the company, for the work and not themselves. And they possess the utterly stoic will to make good of that ambition.”

LEVEL-5 HIERARCHY

A level-5 leader channelizes his ego needs away from himself and into the larger goal of building a great company. It’s not that level-5 leaders have no ego or self-interest. Indeed, they are incredibly ambitious – but their ambition is first and foremost for the institution, not themselves. Further, there is a stark difference between a level-4 and a level-5 leader. A level-4 leader is charismatic and trusts his personal competency to get things done whereas a level-5 leader believes in taking people under his wing and developing future leaders.

So, what are the shared traits among great leaders? A great leader is one who…

1. Exudes energy and enthusiasm, does not need an external stimulus

2. Is consistent in his actions, walks the talk and leads by example

3. Faces problems squarely, is able to take unpleasant decisions in a timely manner

4. Is able to set a culture in the organization based on commonly shared values

5. Is not ‘resource myopic’ – is willing to trust other’s judgment in areas he lacks knowledge

6. Strikes a balance between hands-on and hands-off style of management

7. Is able to motivate his workforce to deliver results and pursue a shared vision

8. Is not afraid to nurture the second line of leaders under his wing

9. Is charismatic yet non-intimidating, is approachable and nurtures open communication

10. Sets precise goals and fair measures of performance

11. Is an effective delegator, but refrains from micro-management

12. Is never afraid to expose his ignorance and ask “silly” questions

13. Is genuinely empathetic

14. Demonstrates the highest order of personal trustworthiness

15. Puts his people and the company ahead of himself

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.”

-Lao Tzu

Shame on us!!

I recently had quite an appalling experience at the ordering counter of a popular pizza joint in my neighborhood. While I was waiting in queue to place my order on a not so busy day, two other gents walked in, first a man in his 50s and second a young lad in his 20s. First, the older guy cut the queue by sticking out a hundred rupee note and rattling off his order ahead of everyone else in the queue. No sooner than this happened, the younger guy started placing his order, also breaking the queue. This time I lost it, I put my foot down and demanded that the lady at the counter take the orders as per the queue and also gave her a bit of my mind. Of late I have been observing that the civic sense in our city has taken a sharp nosedive. There seems to be a clear deterioration in the way we conduct ourselves in public and also the way in which we treat each other; there is an apparent sense of disrespect and utter disregard for fellow human beings. It comes as no surprise that Mumbai has been rated as the worst city on a survey conducted by Reader’s Digest on the world’s rudest cities.

Few of my pet peeves are:

1. Shabby road conduct: People showing utter disregard for other vehicles at toll gates and trying to cut right into the queue especially during busy hours. This is such a disgusting and dangerous act as it not only spites other vehicle owners but also seriously compromises their safety. Not to mention other frequent violations like unnecessary speeding, dangerous lane cutting and weaving through traffic, incessant honking and not yielding to pedestrians.

2. Poor conduct in public places: At shopping malls, cinema halls, airports, fast-food joints, virtually everywhere, we get to see chaos and total breakdown of orderliness. It seems like people don’t understand the meaning of the word ‘Queue’. Most painful of them all is the ruckus that people create while clearing customs at Mumbai airport. The twenty five queues converging into one is quite a sight to see! Imagine the kind of first impression of ourselves that we are creating in the minds of tourists visiting our country.

3. Littering at will: There seems to be a complete disregard for the need to keep public places clean and tidy. On a recent visit to a multiplex, I noticed in the restroom that people throw used tissues everywhere else except in the garbage bin. I also noticed this behavior in the mall near my apartment; there is a famous ice cream joint which draws huge crowds almost every day of the week. At the end of the day you would invariably see huge debris of ice cream cups littered all over the place, a truly appalling sight.

4. Poor Elevator Etiquettes: Another annoying behavior is people waiting for an elevator at crowded places showing utter disregard for those in front of them and making the dash for it by breaking the queue acting like thorough numb-nuts!

How we conduct ourselves in public places reflects how we are as a nation. We seem to have completely forgotten that we share our space with many others and that we must adhere to certain basic etiquettes while in public places. We demonstrate complete disregard to (whatever little) efforts the government is taking to improve the infrastructure in our city. With the metro rail system coming up in Mumbai, I can’t bear to think about its fate a couple of years after its launch. We don’t seem to understand the importance of conserving such valuable assets and handing them down to future generations.

While our lack of civic sense has always been my pet peeve, my feeling of irritation and anger has peaked after my recent experiences in the States. I have seen in the US that people do not break traffic lights even at 2 in the morning, but I have seen my countrymen break signals at will even in broad daylight. Why is this disparity? I would not only castigate our people for such flouts but also the lack of effective deterrents. The inefficiency of our law enforcement system in curbing such violations is a major contributor. While in the US, people live in constant fear of getting on the wrong side of the law due to severe fines, penalties and lawsuits, our blokes can get away with virtually any civil disobedience for a minor rap on the knuckles or a pittance of a bribe.

While the nouveau-riche Indian middle class seems to be taken with the glitz and glamour of urbanization driven by our free market economy, the responsibilities associated with these trappings seem to be woefully missing. We have been so hard wired in our live-and-let-die mentality that it is going to take a Herculean effort to change our attitude, thinking and behavior. Ignorance and lack of training at a proper age is the root cause of this problem. The current day youth and middle age population has never been sensitized to the virtues of good civic sense and seems to lack the slightest inkling of what being a Good Samaritan really means.

As India is at the inflection point of global leadership, we need to make a conscious attempt to change our thinking and behavior. We must ingrain these virtues into our next generation right from a very young impressionable age. Schools should include civic sense as a mandatory subject part of their syllabus and inculcate the importance of virtues such as not littering, being nice to strangers, holding doors for others, and respecting those ahead of us in the queue and not forgetting to thank someone for rendering a service. Though these are simple qualities but they will take us a long way in our quest for development.

There must also be consequences for violations. Civic bodies must take it upon themselves to discipline people by imposing fines for littering and dirtying public places. There must be a dedicated cell run by the traffic police to bring violators to books. This can be done through simple mechanism such as a toll free number where one can call and register a complaint by identifying the violator by their license plate number.

If India must become a super power and lead the way for other nations to follow, then it is time for us to take these seemingly ephemeral virtues to heart, make them part of our culture and hand them down to our children as an heirloom. Though I am bullish about India and betting on the Indian growth story, I am painfully aware of the writing on the wall: India will never be truly great if we don’t cure these fundamental ailments. If we Indians don’t get our act together and stop behaving like juveniles, India’s growth would remain all but stunted. This would serve as a painful reminder of what a great nation we could have been if only we had got our act together in time, the very thought of which makes me shudder!

How thick skinned can we get?

Being a Lean Six Sigma consultant for almost my entire working life, I have always been hyper sensitive towards shoddy customer service. It could partially be blamed on my insatiable thirst for authentic real world anecdotes to drive my ideas home during my consulting escapades! I recently faced two such experiences that have prodded me to write about this topic and its impact on customer and the business.

I had opened an account with Chase Bank shortly after moving to the US. Chase was a natural choice given that they were conveniently located at a stone throw distance from my school and they had an ATM inside the school campus. My tryst with Chase began on a not so unusual note with a fairly simple account opening procedure. The banker who helped me open the account was a pleasant mannered South American, who was friendly and eager to please. The process seemed simple enough despite the fact that I was an expat without a Social Security Number. My nightmare began a couple of months later. It started with my debit card being abruptly blocked without my knowledge. When I called up to demand an explanation, I was told that it was due to a document that I had failed to submit. On probing further I realized that I had indeed submitted the document but they had misplaced it. The issue was not resolved right there; instead, they cancelled my debit cards and reissued them, thus leaving me in the lurch without access to my money for well over a week. Close on the heels came another untoward incident. One day when I was out running some errands, my debit card again refused to work. This time I was told that there was a much more serious issue. They wanted me to submit an additional proof of residence due to changes in bank policies. I hurriedly submitted a letter to that effect attested by my school authorities. They got back to me in a couple of days stating that the content of the letter was inadequate and that I should redraft the same. Despite submitting a new letter in the requested format, my account was shut down without my knowledge or consent. They chose to mail me the check instead of handing me the money at the branch. When I demanded that the check be handed to me at the branch, they cancelled the original check and promised to reissue the new one at the branch in a couple of days. I was never told that there was a mandatory waiting period before they could reissue a check and that it would take more than 2 weeks for me to get the new check issued. So I was left with no money again. This saga has been going on for almost a month now and the last time I checked, they had misplaced my check and were carrying out an “investigation” to find out it whereabouts!! Their callous attitude has thoroughly disgusted me!!

The second episode occurred with Continental Airlines. Since I am exceptionally tall, I have to beg borrow or steal for an emergency row seat every time I fly (for the sake of the precious few extra inches of leg room). I had booked myself on a single layover journey from Phoenix to Mumbai and there was no way I was going settle for a non-emergency row seat. First of all I was disgusted by the fact that the airline tried to profit by selling emergency row seats; I had to cough up well over $200 just for the “special” seats. Immediately after paying up, I received an e-mail message stating that I was allotted a non-reclining seat on my Phoenix – Newark leg of the journey. This was never indicated to me at the time of purchasing the seat! When I hurriedly tried to rectify this situation by going back to the website, I could no longer reach the link that would allow me to alter my selection. Worse still, when I called up the airline, I was put on hold for over 15 minutes and after being bounced around like a ping-pong ball, I was told by a rude voice that I had called up the wrong department and that I should call the web support team instead. The persistent sod that I am, I called up the web support team only to hear a recorded voice that told me that all the agents were busy and that I should call them up sometime later! By this point my patience ran out and I finally gave up with the hope that I should be able to make amendments at the airport, which was never meant to be. I didn’t find much respite at the airport either and ended up flying on the non-reclining seat. This seat had such an awkward contour that not only did it not allow me to sit comfortably but also completely prevented me from catching a wink of sleep during the entire 5 hours flight! This was indeed a welcome beginning to a well deserved vacation!!

These experiences have set my six sigma mind in overdrive once again. Several questions pounded my mind. So why did these organizations screw up? Was it so difficult to fulfill my needs? Were my needs so completely out of the ordinary? Were these people never made to realize the importance of good customer service? Is it so difficult to be sensitive to customer needs? Why do these people act like the customer is the greatest enemy to the organization and a serious impediment to their work?

While we all agree that superior customer service is the holy grail of modern day management, then why do we see so many companies missing this point completely? I have come to believe that customer focus is not just about a one-off heroic act of service but is a consistent behavior engendered by a message of customer devotion reverberated at all levels. It is a habit that needs to be interwoven into the cultural fabric of the organization. Furthermore, it has nothing to do with the country or region the organization operates in. One would be tempted to think that being in a country like USA where laissez faire is at its best is reason enough for an organization to be highly flexible and customer friendly. But that is not the case always. It is but driven by several other vital factors such as entrepreneurship and leadership at all levels, top management’s demonstrated commitment, reward & recognition systems, and most important of all, honesty & transparency with the customer.

Any organization which has over the years grown to be thick skinned and insensitive towards the customer needs has to engage in some serious soul searching. It needs to ask itself a few vital questions in order to find it’s bearing once again: How connected is the organization with the customer? Are the processes tuned purely for internal efficiency at the cost of customer service? Has the person serving the customer been sensitized to the pain the customer has to endure? Does she ever put herself in the customer’s shoe and ask the question: “Is that the way I would like to be treated when I am at the receiving end of the service?”

Training the employees goes a long way in engendering such a thinking, attitude and behavior. Like the old adage goes, thoughts become actions and actions become habits, it is very essential for the leadership team to nurture such habits among employees by recognizing and rewarding them. There also need to be clearly communicated consequences for bad customer service. The first step for which is have an efficient and transparent two way communication mechanism with the customer. I am reminded of one such attempt by an organization, a local Apple dealer/service provider in India who had proudly brandished a signboard stating that the MD was eager to hear the customer’s feedback and had his e-mail address printed on the signboard. But when I did write to him about a service failure that I had experienced I never heard back!! Such attempts only indicate a lip service, what is really needed in a clearly demonstrated customer oriented behavior, and a walk-the-talk attitude which has to start at the top and percolate at all levels of the organization.

So is there really a panacea for bad customer service? Maybe not, but then it isn’t rocket science either! By sticking to some of these fundamentals, any organization can be a customer centric organization, and earn the love, respect and loyalty of its customers.

1. Be accessible
2. Listen to the customer
3. Put yourself in the customer’s shoe
4. Be honest
5. Be responsive & transparent
6. Measure performance
7. Give real-time feedback to employees
8. Reward favorable behavior
9. Reprimand unfavorable behavior
10. Set the right expectations
11. Be consistent
12. Become process focused
13. Strike the balance between customization and standardization
14. Make customer service everybody’s KRA, starting from the CEO
15. Link performance bonuses with customer satisfaction

Where Is My True North?

I recently came across a very interesting talk by Prof. Prasad Kaipa of ISB on the topic “Finding Your True North”, where he talks about the role of Emotional Intelligence in the pursuit of one’s aspirations. I found it to be quite insightful and thought provoking.

Each one of us embarks on a career path with some underlying motivation: making money, security or the pursuit of social recognition. Most of us continue along the path, never once stepping back to ask a few vital question:

• “Am I really enjoying what I am doing?”
• “Do I feel like I’m pursuing a genuine passion or that I have been dragged into a pursuit that really doesn’t inspire or excite me?”
• “What kind of happiness or joy do I bring to people around me?”
• “What if I am in a role and meeting everybody’s needs but I’m miserable performing that role (I don’t like the company, the approach, I lack the capability etc.), am I really doing justice to myself and others by continuing to be in this role?”

First of all let us begin by exploring what the speaker really means by “True North”. Each one of us has a personal compass within us which points us in the right direction, toward the path that we deeply desire to follow in our lives. This could be the path along which our true passion lies and along which we really yearn to go. More often than not, caught in the quagmire of responsibilities and expectations that life thrusts upon us, we end up short changing ourselves of our true aspirations and dreams.

Finding our true north in my opinion is not about making an effort to do something unusual or different. It is about being in a state of effortlessness where we allow providence to guide us through the path towards our right destination. Finding our true north simply means following our instincts, and along the way, nurturing personal traits like courage, authenticity, truthfulness and caring. It is about letting our uniqueness to come alive (unique passion, energy and magic), bringing it into every conversation and every action and that will make all the difference.

This talk gave me many valuable insights for life:

Enjoy the journey, not just the destination: So many times we get so obsessed with the end goals that we lose sight of the process to get there. How many times have we ended up feeling tired and burnt out after strenuous day’s work and just wanted to get the job done with. Staying focused on the process allows us to not only unleash our true potential but also gives us the opportunity to recognize what we truly enjoy doing and what genuinely inspires us.

Enlarge your field of vision: Look beyond the obvious. So often we limit ourselves to actions and results that may not be true indicators of our potential. We need to constantly keep asking ourselves, “Am I allowing myself to manifest my true potential with every little thing I do?” true north may not always be obvious but by giving our 100% to every situation, we will eventually unearth it.

Listen to the personal GPS: Each one of us has a personal GPS: Guilt, Pride, and Shame. We should never disconnect ourselves from it as it is an auto regulation mechanism that prevents us from veering off course in our pursuit of true north.

Focus on reflection and continual improvement: Work through the cycle of Awareness, Attention, Action and Reflection. Every action needs to be performed with awareness and attention. And if the result of the action is not what we envisaged make course corrections through reflection.

Let your True North evolve: Our personality blossoms with time i.e. part of us does not change but our understanding of our self evolves with time. Our goals may change and evolve but as long as we are true to ourselves we will eventually realize our true north.

In the process, don’t screw up relationships: Success at the cost of relationship is not worth having. It seems like the first thing that comes part of the package of a successful career is strained relationships. Pursuit of true north cannot be enriching or meaningful if the price one needs to pay is relationships!

What Does It Take To Be A Maverick?

Jonathan Livingston Seagull has taught me one of the most profound lessons of life: “follow your heart, chase your dreams, and stop at nothing” and “always...learn from your mistakes”. I have presented here the excerpts of a small yet power packed book titled Jonathan Livingston Seagull authored by Richard Bach. This book is about people who make their own rules when they know they are right. People who know there is more to life than meets the eye. I choose to write about this book because of its seemingly simple yet profound message which has deeply resonated with my thinking.

This book follows the life story of Jonathan Livingston, a seagull that chooses to tread along the road less travelled, who follows his heart and finally creates a possibility for himself and others that no other gull in his community ever dreamed of. It takes us through the magical journey of Jonathan Livingston, a journey of hope, despair and courage, which finally leads him to the ultimate realization of his dreams. This book bowled me over by its profound message packaged in a down-to-earth narrative style. If I were to categorize it, I would say it is a book about leadership, adventure, self-help, spirituality, passion, courage and much much more.

Jonathan’s problem is that he is a misfit in the Seagull brotherhood because he chose to follow his own heart rather than accept customs of the society. And that made all the difference! He dreamed of achieving what no other gull ever had. Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight – how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For Jonathan though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

Very early on in his pursuit, he realizes that being different from the community is not the way to make one’s self popular with other birds. Even his parents were dismayed as Jonathan spent whole days alone, making hundreds of low-level glides, experimenting. His maverick ways ultimately draw the wrath of the gull community and lead to his eviction. But this humiliation does not dampen Jonathan’s spirit. His only sorrow was not solitude, it was that other gulls refused to believe the glory of flight that awaited them; they refused to open their eyes and see.

As he wanders in pursuit of his dreams, Jonathan comes across a flock of gulls exactly like him, evicted from their communities and harboring an undying passion for flight. Being with this flock, especially its leader, Chiang, a senior gull, Jonathan learns several nuances of flight such as low-level gliding and flying at terminal velocity.

Eventually Jonathan returns to his own community to impart all his learning to other maverick gulls curious to follow his path. Jonathan keenly mentors several gulls and helps them progress in their pursuit of flight supremacy. Jonathan delivers a simple yet profound message to his protégés: “Each one of us is in truth an idea of the Great Gull (God), an unlimited idea of freedom, and precision flying is a step toward expressing our real nature. Everything that limits us, we have to put aside.”

This metaphoric fable inspires us to take the road less traveled, which may ultimately prove to be the difference between greatness and mediocrity. It tells us that unless we challenge our limitations, we cannot grow. The author’s description of Jonathan’s struggle for breaking the barriers of flight is magical. It urges one to abandon the tried methods and attempt the unknown to reach the next level.

If I were to highlight the key lessons I have learnt from this book, they have to be:

• Dare to dream: Never allow conformity to corrode you. Challenge your perceptions about your own limitations and never settle for mediocrity.
• Courage: Luck favors the brave. Never allow fear to intimidate you; instead use it as a ladder towards your goals.
• Persevere: Always consider failure as a stepping stone for success. Don’t give up; you probably are already at the last mile from your destination.
• Don’t follow the herd: Herd mentality will always condition you for mediocrity. Be wary of the groupthink syndrome and never fall for it.
• Learn from your mistakes: Nothing is more valuable than the lessons that mistakes teach us. Don’t hesitate to screw up sometimes; learn from your mistakes but never repeat them.
• Adapt: Not all life situations are favorable. The mark of a successful person is in taking cognizance of unfavorable situations and making course corrections suitably.
• Be selfless/Share your knowledge: You only grow by helping others grow. Don’t be narrow minded and hold onto your knowledge, be willing to share your knowledge and wisdom.

I have learned from Jonathan Livingston Seagull that everything is possible provided that you have faith, courage, and some sense of leadership to share your vision with enough people to make it live. This is what I try to apply to my personal and professional life. Negotiating the twists and turns of life in a highly competitive and dynamic environment demands courage and a strong drive to succeed. In this context, Jonathan Livingston is a model and an always inspiring and motivating force for me.