i need to make the right decision always !!!

  I need to make the right decision always !!!

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the myths most of us have in the workplace on making decisions is "i need to make the right decision."
 

The mindset of always making the right decision leads to either perfectionism or looking for more data/ facts and too much analysis, eventually ending up with not making any decisions or delaying the decisions.

Obviously, we come to know whether the decision is right or wrong only when taken and not while finalizing the choice.

The effect of this mindset makes the people either too passive in not making decisions or being rude to prove to the world that their decision is right at any cost. Both behaviors are not good for the individual and the organization.

For example, as a manager, you need to decide to recruit a person after an interview. Instead of focusing too much on the right or wrong recruit, you have a choice to focus on the process of shortlisting, interview methodology, and make a deliberate choice. You will come to know whether the decision is right or wrong only after the person joins the organization and performs.

The capability is expected from the manager or leader is the ability to choose with the given facts than looking for too much perfectionism or worrying too much about the consequence.

Another example, as we are aware of the decision taken by the TATA group some years ago, to launch a low-cost, affordable car (NANO). During that time, it was applauded as bold, correct decisions. Today, they stopped manufacturing the model itself due to various reasons. Would we say it was the wrong decision? No…When they decided with the good intentions of providing affordable cars, the assumptions were different. Today they decided to stop manufacturing with the market reality as it was different from the earlier hypotheses. They demonstrated leadership by making decisions with the right motive and available data points.

In professional life, depending upon the role and the situations, we need to make decisions with good intentions and available information; time only will decide whether the decision is right or wrong. We need not worry too much about the consequence.

Also, we need to understand that decision-making is not an event; it is a process. That means it is continuous and ongoing.

Hence, as a manager/ leader, we need to decide with available facts and the right motive than worrying too much about the consequences of always being RIGHT.

It is better to be active by making decisions than to be passive by not making timely decisions.

We need to be aware of our mindsets towards labeling the decisions as right or wrong.

Let us discuss some more myths next week.

Developing Decision Making Skill @ workplace

 Developing Decision Making Skill @ workplace 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the competencies a professional should develop is making decisions in personal and professional life.

Generally, some of the decisions we take quickly without much thinking and effort like which dress to wear, what to eat, etc. Because those decisions are routine and no risk. Some decisions are difficult to make as it calls for more thought-process and effort. For example, should i switch careers from one industry to another?  should i diversify my business now or later? Should we buy petrol or an electric vehicle?

We are stuck in making decisions when there is ambiguity in the facts/assumptions and unsure about the future consequences. Most of the decisions in a professional environment are complex and uncertain; how to develop decision-making competency as a leader?

Why do we need to develop decision-making competency?

From a personal perspective, we are getting confidence only through our actions. When we decide and take actions, that will boost our confidence to take higher decisions and actions. we are growing only through our choices and actions

From a professional perspective, when we are growing up, we are being paid to make the right decisions based on the set of data or assumptions. Managers and Leaders are meant for making decisions, either right or wrong.

"decisions followed by action leads to results either good or bad."

Whatever we are today due to the combination of various decisions we took in life in many instances.

 
For example,

i decided to attend one training programme in 2008 despite time and high cost, which transformed my career.
i took an impulsive decision in one of the investments, which affected me heavily on the financial front
i took a decision to reject a career change opportunity from manufacturing to IT consulting, which helped me in the long term with high returns 

Whether the outcome is right or wrong, we make some decisions, which shape us into what we are today.
 
You may relate your life and the decisions you have taken in many instances that positively or negatively impact your quality of life.
 
 In a professional setup, given any circumstances, how we develop decision-making skills depends on how we process the information and counter the consequences. It needs some awareness of ourselves and the decision-making process.
 
 Let us discuss some of the insights in the following weeks to get more awareness of the decision-making process.
 

• Misconceptions on decision making
• Why do we have decision dilemmas or hesitate to take decisions in a professional environment?
• How to overcome the decision dilemma or hesitation?
• Skills to develop on solving problems
• Tools and Techniques that help you to make decisions easily
• How to inculcate the culture of decision-making in the organization?

Have a great week ahead!

Being aware of your time spending pattern

 Being aware of your time spending pattern 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)
 

We discussed the first important step to effective time management is knowing our priorities with reference to our position. The second step is being aware of current priorities or time management.

How to find your current level of time management effectiveness?

Some people are gifted with an inherent, sharp awareness of self, and they manage their time well. For others, a conscious attempt is required to be aware of the self-time spending pattern.

For those, the following methodology will help. This simple methodology worked me very well when i did in my current role, and some insights enabled me to change some of my behaviors in spending time in some low-level activities, and i could find some alternatives for the activities which i cannot delegate.

Hope this  method may be helpful to you as well
 
1. For a week, track your activities for every 15 min ~30 min time slot and note down the activities. For example, Travelling to work from 8 am to 8.45 am; spending time in meeting from 2 pm to 3 pm; Preparing a presentation for customers from 10 am to 11.30 am and spending time in the mobile app from 6 pm to 7 pm and so on.
2. Once you consciously track the activities for a week, you can group the activities under major categories like meeting time, traveling time, complaint resolution, spending time with colleagues, etc.


3. when you analyze your time with reference to various activities, you will find a pattern of useful, relevant activities to your prime priorities. You will find some irrelevant, not much useful, or useless activities that you can avoid or delegate to someone. You will get insights into your spending pattern and some of your behaviors that lead to spending in activities.

Once you know your pattern and its relevance to your current role, you may change your habits and delegation style.
 
To summarise,

Time management is priority management. We need to be clear about what is required for our role, and we need to be aware of the gap in our time spending pattern with reference to our core priorities.

Awareness is the first step for subsequent actions like avoiding, delegating, combining with other activities.

Have a great week ahead!

How to know our priorities?

 How to know our priorities? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

In continuation of last week discussion on Time Management, the key action points  that we have discussed were

1. Knowing our core priorities
2. Knowing our current status w.r.t core priorities.  

Now, let us understand how to know our core priorities in a professional context.

How to know our core priorities?

When we are growing up on a career ladder, our core priorities will also change with reference to our position or title.

for example,

when you are a junior executive in finance functions, your priority might be "bills accounting." When you become a finance head in the organization, your priority might be "ensuring the positive cash flow."

So, your position determines your core priorities. Your position demands specific accountability or result or deliverables from you, which determines your priority.

Hence, we must have clarity about our accountability with reference to our position.

For example, if you are the business head of the organization, you are accountable for profit, growth, and ensuring sustaining the business. If you articulate your key accountability, the expected result of your position, you can list down the activities which are priorities to meet your result expectation.

Many of us are mixing up with activities and accountability part together. Eventually, we are happy with the list of activities and being busy. When we are busy with activities, and at the end of the day, when we are not delivering the results as expected, we feel guilt or think that we are not good at time management.

The most critical part in knowing the priorities is defining your accountability or expected deliverables regarding your position. That step will give you clarity on what should be your core priorities.

The second part is knowing where we are with reference to core priorities.

How to find our gap on the current level of time management (Priority management)?

Let me share my personal experience on understanding the gap next week.

Have a great week ahead!

Are we managing time or priorities?

 Are we managing time or priorities? 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

One of the frequently asked questions in most of my management sessions is "How to manage time?".

The intention behind the question is to learn some proven techniques that can help us manage time. There are many books and resources to guide us with numerous techniques for managing time well. In fact,i had tested the checklist, formats, alarm system to prompt to keep my timing alert. But those efforts are not sustained because managing time is driven by internal motivation than external. We cannot manage the time to go slow or move fast or take a pause.

We need to understand the inner concern or dilemma we are going through when we worry about our time management. Even after doing many activities in a day, we feel guilt that we have not done what we suppose to do. When we do not spend our time on our own priorities, we feel guilty about our way of working. That is a conflict issue of what we want to do and what we do.

When we know our prime priorities, accordingly, we direct our energy and time towards them. In case if the work environment is not conducive for focusing on our priorities, we will make an effort to create an environment.

One of the busiest CEO of the conglomerate mentioned that amidst his busy professional and personal commitments, he ensured that he read a book on avg one per week. How does he find time for that activity? Since he believes that reading books is one of his priorities, he finds time to make it happen. He may probably not claim that he does not have time to watch movies or go to parties as those may not be his priorities. The key is he is thoroughly aware of his prime requirements.

If we know our priorities and spend time on those activities, we need not concern about time management techniques.

The action area would be

First, we need to be aware of our pattern of activities and the time consumption in a day.
Second, we need to know our priorities which will give more happiness or satisfaction at the end of the day.

Once we are aware of it, we can avoid some of the activities, improve our skills, or delegate to others to get our core priorities done and feel satisfied at the end of the day.

Have a productive week ahead!

Atomic Habits -Book Review

 Atomic Habits -Book Review 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

Recently read the book "Atomic Habits"  as suggested by one of my client's business head.

An atom, even though a small fraction of a larger system, the energy for the large system is derived from atoms. In the same way, in professional or personal life, any big success is achievable only through adopting some of the habits daily.

The author explains the compounding effects of 1% improvements daily, leading to 37 times better in a year.

The author puts that the difference between winner and loser is in efforts or in polishing the process than the setting the goal. Everyone sets the goal either in business or sports, and only a few people succeed. The reason lies in the consistency of practice.

Also the book helps the reader to practice the new habit formation and giving up some bad habits through four step-by-step processes and the explanation of the science behind each approach.

Unlike research books, the author explains the concepts from personal, sports and business which is easily relatable and easy to read.

If you would like to get more perspective on habit formation practices, recommend this book to read.

Given below the link.
 

https://amzn.to/3AbiCSY

Resilience and quality of network

 Resilience and quality of network 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

Recently read an interesting research article, and the insight may be helpful to you. Some people easily overcome any setbacks in life, and some struggle to overcome them, reflecting their resilience power. Resilience is nothing but the ability to bounce back from challenging situations emotionally and physically.

Most of us may be thinking that resilience is something inherent quality within us. However, the research article indicates that people with high resilience power have a good network of people or forums to develop their resilience.

For example, if you have a network of good friends or like-minded people in your professions and whenever you face challenging situations, you may interact with them and get different ideas/views to overcome the problem. That kind of association enables one to look at the situations from a different perspective than those who do not build that network.

The key learning is how we develop our network with worthy or reliable people, which may help us develop the capability to overcome any challenging situations.

When i was reflecting on this key insight,i realized that some of my friends, when they had a challenging situation in their career, they used to approach many people and sought their views (not seeking employment help) on solving the problems and successfully managed the crisis.

Developing a vast network is relatively easy for some people, and it may be difficult for some. However, we can create a quality relationship with a few reliable people who can guide us during a tough time. They could be your spouse, friends, mentors, colleagues, senior people, or any professional forums that can guide you without any bias.

We need to ask ourselves is "Do we have trustworthy, reliable sources or relationships in our life whom we can approach when we have challenges in life?"

If yes, then we are leading a healthful life;

If not, then we need to develop a quality relationship or network now…!

Have a great week ahead.

Key learnings on developing conflict management competency

 Key learnings on developing conflict management competency 

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

As we have discussed the various aspects of developing conflict management competency in a professional environment for the last 12 weeks, let us summarize the key learnings before moving to a new topic.
 

• When you are growing up on a career ladder, one of the key competencies you need to develop is conflict management competency. Competency is all about how you are getting things done from a diverse group of people and at the same time maintaining a cordial relationship.
• The diverse group would be your boss, your customer, your colleagues, or your direct reportees.
• The conflict or difference arises on thought process, values, looking at the problems and solutions methodologies. Sometimes due to misinterpretation of communication and the tone itself.
• The difference arises in the workplace since others come from different backgrounds, look at the problems from different perspectives, have different priorities, and inherent issues like fear of facing challenges, failures, and personal securities. Once you understand the causes of differences, you tend to accept them as part of your professional activities rather than personal differences.
•  We have discussed the three dynamics of conflicts—Power, Goal, and Relationship. The effective way we manage the power, goal, and relationship, we become better in managing the conflicts. Awareness of that combination and its effect determine the right approach to deal with the difference. 
• When you are growing up, your power also goes up. Power means the ability to get things done. Effective people look at power as an opportunity to guide, help, facilitate others when they encounter conflicts.
• When you have a conflict with juniors, you can use a compassionate approach in which you educate, guide, and convince them to get things done and earn respect from others. Alternatively, you can choose a constructive dominant approach when you feel others cannot learn or go against organizational objectives.
• When you have a conflict with equal power, say with your colleagues, you can think of a higher purpose that makes you more powerful than others.
• Generally, effective people listen to others to understand other’s perspectives, give the third dimension to the problem, and try to settle third angle solution, flexible to change the views if it serves the higher or organizational purpose. They take Parent-child, Teacher-student relationship patterns to solve the conflict with anyone.

When we look at our life journey as success or failure, that will have a strong relationship with how we deal with the conflict WITHIN ourselves or WITH OTHERS at some point in time.

That awareness and striving to learn the conflict management competency will help manage any conflict.

The key focus for any manager or leader is to get things done and maintain the emotional balance with self and others.

Let us discuss a new topic next week, and have a great week ahead till then!

How do effective people manage conflicts?

 How do effective people manage conflicts?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

For the last few weeks, we have discussed conflict management at the workplace and some of the causes/methodologies to deal with direct reportees and colleagues. Now let us summarise some of the approaches effective people adopt to deal the conflicts.


I have observed some of the patterns effective people display when they deal with conflicts. At the end of the conflict, they remain calm and meet the objective of getting things done. 
 

• Taking responsibility
• Listen and perspective-taking
• Put the higher purpose as context
• Try to find the third angle and settle it

 
Taking responsibility:

Taking ownership is one of the mindsets they possess and reflect in their behavior when they encounter conflict. They assume the role of guardian, and they take the responsibility to solve the differences quickly. When they take responsibility for solving the problem, they mainly focus on the issue than on the person.
 
Listen and perspective taking :
 
The conflict arises because of the different viewpoints of others from self. Effective people listen to others and are keen to know where others are coming from. As discussed earlier, when you listen and take the perspective of others, that eventually puts the other person's emotion in a positive state.
 
 
Put the higher purpose as context:
 
When differences arise between two people or teams, the effective leader looks at the problem from the higher purpose. For example, when people argue from their functional perspective, the effective person goes one step above and looks at the situation from an organizational perspective or the customer perspective.

For example, i witnessed a situation when the functional team members were arguing for incurring the freight cost increase due to delivery delay by operations, the business head put the customer as a central point, and the debate ended as service became higher purpose than the cost.
 
Try to find the third angle:
 
When both parties are right from their standpoint, the effective people quickly try to find a solution point where both people accept it as a win-win proposition.
 
You might have observed some other patterns also.

We need awareness of ourselves and others when dealing with the differences, making us an effective leaders in the professional environment.

Have a great week ahead!

How to deal with challenging colleagues?

 How to deal with challenging colleagues?

(Emotional Management for Personal & Professional Growth Series)

 

In continuation of last week's discussion on managing the person with equal power, one of my friend working as production head has called me and said," I am finding difficult to deal with one of my colleagues who heads quality functions. He expects me to own the problem most of the time, never agrees on any solutions approach. Since he has the final say in delivery decisions, i am not able to work along with him comfortably." 

On listening to some other aspects of the problem, i suggested some solutions approach him, which he may take forward. But this kind of situation happens to most of us, even though the colleagues, counterpart, or partner also has equal power.

In my opinion, the first step would be how do you think of yourself to others sets the direction in dealing with colleagues successfully. 

We have choices of how we look at ourselves with the counterpart. Do we look at our position as equal to others or inferior, or considering the task importance or goals, do we look at ourselves as an overall lead? This feeling comes from the responsibility we assume for the overall organizational goal. When we urge for a higher purpose, that will push us to think beyond our current position. That feeling or thinking itself puts you on a higher level compared to your colleagues.
 
For example, in the above instances, when the person thinks of himself as he is ultimately responsible for overall delivery (which is usually the responsibility of the business head), that responsibility assumption will make him feel he is equal or more powerful than his colleague.
 
When we assume higher responsibility even at the mindset level, that will change our perception about ourselves relative to other counterparts.
 
Most of the time, we are not failing during the conversation or in an argument, but before we initiate the conversation, we lose ourselves with the self-image.
 
You could have observed that some people may be with less experience, age, or relatively less positional title but move across any function or level to make things happen. They put the organizational goal or higher purpose in front of them than any other positional power.

Just relate yourself.