2009 was a mixed year.
So we did survive; probably, the first of worst slowdown years. The road to recovery has begun for us and all. The bitter fact remains that it took enormous time for a lot of people and nations to come out of denial stage. 2009 also showed us that our lives are globally more woven than we think. A fisherman in Canada, farmer in Africa, sales executive in Hongkong are all interconnected.
A simple flashback.
'Yes we can' slogan erupted and then slowly mellowed down.
Cricket was symbolically attacked in a terrorism hub.
The G8 became G20...reminds of a crowded dinner table and decision of who would be the best man.
More lives lost to Swine flu and the battle continues.
MJ left and the world watched in shock.
Social Media Networking era has begun and looks almost on peak. (caution..)
We witnessed the longest solar eclipse.
Copenhagen targets to limit global warming to 2 degrees after a long and painful drama.
And to close the Tiger ended up in the Woods.
The undying human spirit has again proven, that no matter how dark the clouds are; all we need to do is to stick to 'purpose' of our lives and sunshine will be back.
The Law of Farm may be old, but still applies. I wish we all apply the lessons learnt.
Happy New Year 2010.
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
What ticks an employee to stick to an organization?
Hope you all had a great weekend.
Someone posted a question (over the weekend!) "What is that ticks an employee to stick to an organization?" Can you say one thing that is must to have in workplace and that’s what makes an employee to adhere to the company and that’s the key retention factor.
The following was my early monday morning answer :)
The first factor. Every employee holds different Values which he or she expects from an organization. These values are very intrinsic and often remain unknown even to that particular individual. These non negotiable values range from Job Satisfaction (More to deal with the "I contribute factor"), Security of monthly income, Learning and Developing, Respect, Reward, Recognition, Growth in the chain etc.
The second factor is to realization of employee skills (Preferred Skills) by an organization and by the individual himself. So lets say I am an operations manager and I love been with people motivating them to achieve the targets while keeping a close eye on metrics management and improvements. People and Performance management is my core or preferred skill.
Now at this point of time I am realigned to a different role with a better pay and designation and the job involves looking a reports and graphs and cite business improvements which is an acquired skill but not my preferred skill...I will be in that Job for a period of time with a desire to learn or for the comfort of work hours etc....however soon with develop with a vaccum to align myself to my preferred skill and this is where the breakdown happens and may be the first symptom of an employee attrition.
Organizations which invest in understanding the real values and preferred skills of their employees and align a balance are successful in keeping their people.
The success is directly proportional to the degree of this balance.
Someone posted a question (over the weekend!) "What is that ticks an employee to stick to an organization?" Can you say one thing that is must to have in workplace and that’s what makes an employee to adhere to the company and that’s the key retention factor.
The following was my early monday morning answer :)
The first factor. Every employee holds different Values which he or she expects from an organization. These values are very intrinsic and often remain unknown even to that particular individual. These non negotiable values range from Job Satisfaction (More to deal with the "I contribute factor"), Security of monthly income, Learning and Developing, Respect, Reward, Recognition, Growth in the chain etc.
The second factor is to realization of employee skills (Preferred Skills) by an organization and by the individual himself. So lets say I am an operations manager and I love been with people motivating them to achieve the targets while keeping a close eye on metrics management and improvements. People and Performance management is my core or preferred skill.
Now at this point of time I am realigned to a different role with a better pay and designation and the job involves looking a reports and graphs and cite business improvements which is an acquired skill but not my preferred skill...I will be in that Job for a period of time with a desire to learn or for the comfort of work hours etc....however soon with develop with a vaccum to align myself to my preferred skill and this is where the breakdown happens and may be the first symptom of an employee attrition.
Organizations which invest in understanding the real values and preferred skills of their employees and align a balance are successful in keeping their people.
The success is directly proportional to the degree of this balance.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Thought for the approaching weekend..
So much has been written about Leadership ...but as the Passionate Corporate Coach Marina Kapur says "What we know is just a micro part of Mega pool of Knowledge about Leadership and Overall Management" to which I totally agree.
Our Lives are all about re-discovering and reinventing ourselves. So this weekend..get to the bottom of who you are & what your non negotiable values are? Align them with your preferred skills while acknowledging your areas of opportunities. Leadership is not a one time exercise but its a way of life. While we all (including me) get consumed by our daily routines and tasks; we need to constantly revisit our purpose, where we want to be 3-5 years from now and how we want to be remembered.
Recently a question was posted to me "Can a serious leader ever be a good subordinate ? Or can a subordinate follower ever be a good leader ?"
Well my reply was as follows:
Leadership and Excellence are attributes, that you are either born with or acquire through commitment to constantly learn. You can be a leader irrespective of your designation or position. People in lowest scheme of our society display leadership through different means...our sweeper at the society displays leadership by sweeping so well that every passerby says "someone has done an excellent work"
Leadership is not about competition, its about synergy.
A serious leader can be a good subordinate (not a yes man) and subordinate follower can be a good leader...both can lead within their circles of influence and collaboratively support an organization which will have clearly chalked values.
Keep thinking and let me know what you think...See you soon.
Our Lives are all about re-discovering and reinventing ourselves. So this weekend..get to the bottom of who you are & what your non negotiable values are? Align them with your preferred skills while acknowledging your areas of opportunities. Leadership is not a one time exercise but its a way of life. While we all (including me) get consumed by our daily routines and tasks; we need to constantly revisit our purpose, where we want to be 3-5 years from now and how we want to be remembered.
Recently a question was posted to me "Can a serious leader ever be a good subordinate ? Or can a subordinate follower ever be a good leader ?"
Well my reply was as follows:
Leadership and Excellence are attributes, that you are either born with or acquire through commitment to constantly learn. You can be a leader irrespective of your designation or position. People in lowest scheme of our society display leadership through different means...our sweeper at the society displays leadership by sweeping so well that every passerby says "someone has done an excellent work"
Leadership is not about competition, its about synergy.
A serious leader can be a good subordinate (not a yes man) and subordinate follower can be a good leader...both can lead within their circles of influence and collaboratively support an organization which will have clearly chalked values.
Keep thinking and let me know what you think...See you soon.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Time to change ...Are we?
So we watch TV everyday or read daily newspapers featuring the melt down or recession, trillions which are being promised to save economy and millions which are spent to arrange for a platform to arrive at that decision. We witness historic speeches where our global leaders solicit change and I firmly believe that its time to change and challenge.
The summit that we had recently should have been facilitated through a virtual conference saving the millions which would have evaporated just for leaders to arrive at that summit.
If we say that change is the way forward why don't we change the way we conduct our global meetings...the delegations on peace and the conferences on global warming, the list is endless which would save a lot of money and will be a change from the way we operated a year ago. I do not undermine the human warmth of meeting people, its just that, these times call for it. There is no harm in trying and if it doesnt get us what we want, we can change again and in the worst case scenario we can get back to royal or ceremonial meetings.
The concise message to all leaders (and we all are those leaders) is that its perfect time to practice leadership in everything we do. Be it saving petrol or electricity or for that matter wasting tooth paste. The sooner we realize and cultivate this habit sooner we will be out of this mess.
The summit that we had recently should have been facilitated through a virtual conference saving the millions which would have evaporated just for leaders to arrive at that summit.
If we say that change is the way forward why don't we change the way we conduct our global meetings...the delegations on peace and the conferences on global warming, the list is endless which would save a lot of money and will be a change from the way we operated a year ago. I do not undermine the human warmth of meeting people, its just that, these times call for it. There is no harm in trying and if it doesnt get us what we want, we can change again and in the worst case scenario we can get back to royal or ceremonial meetings.
The concise message to all leaders (and we all are those leaders) is that its perfect time to practice leadership in everything we do. Be it saving petrol or electricity or for that matter wasting tooth paste. The sooner we realize and cultivate this habit sooner we will be out of this mess.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Quote of the Day...
"What's Difficult to Measure is Very often Wrongly Measured...Customer Satisfaction is One of those things."
Tahir Khan.
Approx 41% of call center's use survey by telephone and rest rely on emails and other channels. Sources reveal that phone surveys are costlier than email surveys. Well it is very important to measure customer satisfaction realistically and it may be costly, however not measuring and leveraging that data would cost even more.
Another common point of failure is inability of analytics to separate customer satisfaction evaluations from any/all quality monitoring done in a call center.
With independent surveys, you will gather information from the customers themselves without having to "interpret" whether or not the customers were satisfied with the service.
While Call monitoring(remote) will give you a realistic picture of compliance and process adherence, it can be utilized as an accesory in evaluation of customer satisfaction (Commonly referred to "surrogate" in the call center world). The risk in capitalizing this data is that, it is very much dependant on the skill and outlook of the monitoring evaluator hence should always be of secondary value in measuring customer satifaction.
One probable disadvantage of phone surveys is that Most customers will not take the initiative to complain to the agent while talking to the surveyer. Instead, they will tell their friends and co-workers how good or bad their experience was. By offering them an independent email survey to comment on their experience, customers have the opportunity to voice their opinions and you can (operationally)assure them that any problems/trends and behaviours encountered are addressed immediately. This will work well to maintain their loyalty and avoid losing your customers to competitors.
The best way forward in these and all times would be to blend both channels randomly to arrive at a more practical measure.
Tahir Khan.
Approx 41% of call center's use survey by telephone and rest rely on emails and other channels. Sources reveal that phone surveys are costlier than email surveys. Well it is very important to measure customer satisfaction realistically and it may be costly, however not measuring and leveraging that data would cost even more.
Another common point of failure is inability of analytics to separate customer satisfaction evaluations from any/all quality monitoring done in a call center.
With independent surveys, you will gather information from the customers themselves without having to "interpret" whether or not the customers were satisfied with the service.
While Call monitoring(remote) will give you a realistic picture of compliance and process adherence, it can be utilized as an accesory in evaluation of customer satisfaction (Commonly referred to "surrogate" in the call center world). The risk in capitalizing this data is that, it is very much dependant on the skill and outlook of the monitoring evaluator hence should always be of secondary value in measuring customer satifaction.
One probable disadvantage of phone surveys is that Most customers will not take the initiative to complain to the agent while talking to the surveyer. Instead, they will tell their friends and co-workers how good or bad their experience was. By offering them an independent email survey to comment on their experience, customers have the opportunity to voice their opinions and you can (operationally)assure them that any problems/trends and behaviours encountered are addressed immediately. This will work well to maintain their loyalty and avoid losing your customers to competitors.
The best way forward in these and all times would be to blend both channels randomly to arrive at a more practical measure.
Sunday, April 5, 2009
Videsh- HOE the sunday disaster.....
So my sunday began with a phone call from my driving instructor... who has pledged to make me an F1 driver in few weeks :) ... We went to the famous gorai beach ...with some stunts and a peak speed of 120 km/hour the session ended and I was home at noon.
The great idea stuck and we decided to watch the "Videsh Heaven on Earth" at lunch. This decision will be regretted for the next few hours. The movie lacks creativity and plot, though shows some realities of domestic violence of immigrant Indian families in developed countries. Speaking on individual performances Priety Zinta was at her best in a serious leading role, contrary to her many bubbly roles. The usage of a typical Indian Cobra tale leads to a point of boredom and is an ultimate suicide for this movie. I failed to arrive at a message of the movie and continued thinking for a few minutes...
No wonder I had to grace myself with a 2 hour nap and dilute the intoxication from this movie!
The great idea stuck and we decided to watch the "Videsh Heaven on Earth" at lunch. This decision will be regretted for the next few hours. The movie lacks creativity and plot, though shows some realities of domestic violence of immigrant Indian families in developed countries. Speaking on individual performances Priety Zinta was at her best in a serious leading role, contrary to her many bubbly roles. The usage of a typical Indian Cobra tale leads to a point of boredom and is an ultimate suicide for this movie. I failed to arrive at a message of the movie and continued thinking for a few minutes...
No wonder I had to grace myself with a 2 hour nap and dilute the intoxication from this movie!
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Three Corporate Beliefs...
And I am back with the 3 Beliefs...
“For an organization to survive and achieve success, It* must have a SET OF BELIEFS on which it builds all its strategy, policy and actions...
“Next I believe that the most important factor in corporate success is ADHERENCE to those beliefs...
“And, finally if an organization is to meet the challenge of this changing world, it must be prepared to change everything** ABOUT ITSELF EXCEPT those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.”
*Though Organization is full of life ...grammar does not permit me to use he or she!
**Processes, Technology and People ..this should be a fixed order...switch on any news channel and you will see a lot of people mending this order which is like postponing an envitable global disaster for a short term....and not true leadership.
“For an organization to survive and achieve success, It* must have a SET OF BELIEFS on which it builds all its strategy, policy and actions...
“Next I believe that the most important factor in corporate success is ADHERENCE to those beliefs...
“And, finally if an organization is to meet the challenge of this changing world, it must be prepared to change everything** ABOUT ITSELF EXCEPT those beliefs as it moves through corporate life.”
*Though Organization is full of life ...grammar does not permit me to use he or she!
**Processes, Technology and People ..this should be a fixed order...switch on any news channel and you will see a lot of people mending this order which is like postponing an envitable global disaster for a short term....and not true leadership.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Once in a while......
Sarabhai Vs Sarabhai on Star One is not very entertaining I guess...especially on a saturday morning. So I sit here and visualling with the TV but thinking about a lot of things.
....looking at my blog and thinking of ideas.
.....thinking about the biryani I cooked last evening which had some extra chillies in it..but tasted great with the Raita (Katchumar as we call it in Mumbai-Raita for rest of India!)
....I am also reviewing the connection speed of Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ which appears to be good value for money apart from the limit in the unlimited plan..they have restricted a max of 10 Gb for the month terming as "fair usage policy"
....Browsing the google page to download the gmail application for windows mobile 6.1 which is giving me a tough time...after I click on the link on my HTC...says opening but doesnt open!!
...Just came across my picasa page where I had uploaded few pics long back...immediately posted that link on my facebook...
...you know what ...with so many things on my mind its actually not a saturday! so this is what I am going to do...I will drink my 3rd cup of lemon tea and then have a early lunch and this laptop needs to be shut ...atleast for a few hours...see you soon.
....looking at my blog and thinking of ideas.
.....thinking about the biryani I cooked last evening which had some extra chillies in it..but tasted great with the Raita (Katchumar as we call it in Mumbai-Raita for rest of India!)
....I am also reviewing the connection speed of Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ which appears to be good value for money apart from the limit in the unlimited plan..they have restricted a max of 10 Gb for the month terming as "fair usage policy"
....Browsing the google page to download the gmail application for windows mobile 6.1 which is giving me a tough time...after I click on the link on my HTC...says opening but doesnt open!!
...Just came across my picasa page where I had uploaded few pics long back...immediately posted that link on my facebook...
...you know what ...with so many things on my mind its actually not a saturday! so this is what I am going to do...I will drink my 3rd cup of lemon tea and then have a early lunch and this laptop needs to be shut ...atleast for a few hours...see you soon.
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