Adopting the right strategy for growth.

The growth strategy of a company has a significant impact on its culture and overall performance. It is important to consider its effects on the workplace culture before implementing them.

Each strategy has its own strengths and challenges, and the most effective approach depends on the nature of the business, industry dynamics, and the organization’s long-term goals.

The common mistake

The most common mistake is adopt a strategy basis the decision-maker’s background. A sales background may lead to a sales-centric strategy, while an analytical mindset may favor a market-centric approach. However, the key is to adopt a blend of these strategies to arrive at the strategy.

Pros and Cons of approaches

To Summarize

In summary, a sales centric strategy emphasizes meeting sales targets and revenue goals, a customer centric strategy revolves around satisfying customer needs and building relationships, and a market centric strategy focuses on aligning with broader market trends and industry shifts.

In practice, many successful organizations adopt a blend of these strategies. They focus on building strong customer relationships while staying attuned to market trends and leveraging sales efforts to meet revenue targets. The key is to strike the right balance based on your organization’s unique needs and objectives.

Such balancing of views will also ensure that all opinions are valued and weighed in to arrive at the best possible strategy that works for long terms. Market trends provides course corrections while Innovations consider the change in customer demands and Sales effort gains from best fit services or solution for the customer.

Why 90 days’ notice is hurting the reputation of the IT Industry in India?

What is the origin of 90 days notice period?

The origin goes back to the early 2000 when the IT industry was booming and there was a talent shortage. The idea behind this extended notice period was to manage the continuity of projects with some overlapping time between the talent.

The majority of the Large and established IT companies in India are practicing 90 days notice period, which has not left much of an option for small and mid-size companies to follow the practice.

Problem Statement

1. Fast forward to 2022, the demand and supply of talent are more balanced but the industry has not moved away from the practice. The industry is preferring to maintain the status quo putting a blind eye to its repercussions.
2. In reality, it takes only 15 days to hand over the responsibility to someone with similar experience. However, the transition of responsibility doesn’t even start for the first 75 days of the notice period. By this time the resigned employee is already switched off and stops cooperating.
3. Instead of helping with the continuity, it encourages inefficiency and negatively impacts customer satisfaction.

Loss of Ethics and Goodwill

The IT industry in India is earning a bad reputation and losing goodwill because of the loss of Ethics in the conduct of both employees and employers.

1. The number of employees leaving abruptly (termed as absconding by the employer) has sharply increased in the last few years. This is directly resulting from the long extended notice period.
2. The employer forces 3 months notice period for those who have spent even a day of employment. This is simply a strong-arm tactic to refrain employees to switch at will.
3. The resigned employees have started using 90 days notice period to hunt for additional offers. This results in the existing employers unintendedly paying the employee to search for multiple offers.
4. The employer, on the other hand, starts “Bidding” higher for candidates who have very few days remaining in the notice period. The situation is such that the biggest qualification of the candidate is the “Notice Period” or the lack of it. The merit of the candidate has taken a back seat.

Why is 15 days notice period a better option?

For candidates: Such an option will ensure that some level of succession or bench planning will be in place to kick start the knowledge transition immediately upon notifying the decision.

For Employer: They can confidently start offering positions to candidates on a merit basis only, as there will be a much higher probability of candidates joining upon accepting the offer.

What are the other alternatives?

Alternative #1: The notice period is linked to the period of employment in the UK and European countries. This represents the depth of knowledge acquired by the employee.

Alternative #2: The employment in The USA is “at-will”, so contractually no notice period is required to be served. However, the unregulated practice is to provide 15 days of notice to part on a good note.

Alternative #3: The role of the individual drives the notice period. The pyramid of the employees helps decide the notice period. The lower end of the pyramid gives the lowest notice period. The Sr Management and Executive Management team serves the highest notice period.

What has been done about it?

Several petitions have been initiated over a period of time through change.org, but all of them eventually were closed without any resolution

https://www.change.org/p/it-minister-shri-ravishankar-prasad-90-days-of-notice-period-in-it-and-ites-is-harming-industry-and-needs-to-be-30-days

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/columns/story/6-billion-the-hidden-cost-of-90-day-notice-period-to-companies-economy-296565-2021-05-20

https://www.change.org/p/ministry-of-labour-and-employment-to-stop-indian-it-companies-from-forcefully-holding-employees-with-3-months-notice-period

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notice_period

_{These are my personal views and have no bearing on any individual or company.}

Are you in a Box?

Every IT Services company has some variation of the “In-A-Box” model in their operating model. Some call it 2-in-a-Box others call it 3-in-a-Box

Many have successfully adapted it while many have struggled with it. My take on the same is below…

Fundamentally, I firmly believe in adopting an operating model basis the business needs. An operating model should support the cause of the customer and the team involved and bring efficiency in execution. The model should promote cohesiveness, collaboration, and discourage animosity.

What is the “In-a-Box” model?

This is a model where multiple leaders join hands to share responsibility for a common goal. This in particular became quite common where the Onshore and Offshore team is involved in execution. The most common scenario in the industry is for an Offshore leader to team up with an Onshore leader to serve the customer.

Factors to consider while selecting leaders for this model

While identifying potential leaders to work with the “In-a-Box” model, it is very crucial to look at the following aspects

• Compatibility of thoughts between the leaders
• Complimentary skillset
• A clear line of decision making to avoid a stalemate situation
• A clear understanding of the common goal

What makes this model work?

This model is designed to provide better and wider coverage in managing the execution as opposed to using it as Risk mitigation by way of redundancy in leadership. The following simple guidelines can help in its adoption

• All the leaders should have space to add value and not control
• A distinctive and complementary role is taken up by all the leaders
• The leadership team uses diversified viewpoints with a focus to solve a business problem
• Introduce a role on a need basis that way when approached the leader will feel welcomed

Challenges usually encountered

As with any other model, this has its own set of challenges. The following are the most common list which should be kept in mind

• Implementing this model without considering customer’s preferences and may multiple points of contact as a burden
• The model is imposed for internal control and creates animosity within the leadership team
• Access to customers is denied to one or more leader(s)
• The leaders selected have an overlap of skills and are competing with each other

Conclusion

The first important step to be successful in this model, find a compatible partner to team up with. Leaders with high competing attributes may want to stay out of this model. I have personally found the TKI Conflict resolution test provides an insight into this attribute.

If you are a leader “In-a-Box” model and find no meaningful role to play or finding yourself giving conflicting directions to the team, It is a clear sign that this model is not effective. Side-stepping and providing space to another leader may help improve the situation for the overall team.

Illusion of Consensus

Very often leaders are caught in the illusion of consensus by surrounding them with obedient team. This syndrome is also called Group Thinking or Tribal Philosophy or Social Conformity. If you have also come across this behavior, continue reading further…

Why leaders should avoid forcing consensus?

While building consensus gives a lot of comforts, however, this can lead to following behavior patterns that are harmful in

• The desire to build consensus is likely to encourage coterie behavior within the team.
• The team, sooner or later, starts towing the leader’s agenda and the decision-making process will get compromised and blindsided.
• Those who have a different opinion will impose self-censorship to avoid any confrontation. – At times, the leader will experience that team is consciously omitting information for the sake of aligning with the leader or group.

How to I address such a situation?

• I start with keeping the decision-making group lean with representation from impacted parties.
• I have long accepted the fact that it is normal to not have a consensus and this should be encouraged.
• At times, I delegate the decision-making to someone with listening skills and who would not circumvent a different perspective. This is especially true when I have a very strong opinion on a topic.
• I look for Individuals who play devil’s advocate and ensure that do not get painted as hurdle or roadblock or detractors, rather find someone who is good at playing this role.
• While making a hiring decision, I particularly look for signs of Group Thinking practices that can create pressure on panels for conformity. It is better to have each of the panel members to I/v separately and share the findings without having the pressure to align or comply with the findings of others.
• To summarize, The leader should be seen as genuinely interested in learning the pros & cons of the idea, so an informed decision can be taken.

What’s working for me?

As a leader, I am always looking to perform a reality check on whether the team has a true conviction on the idea, before concluding arriving at a decision. Towards this reality check, I handpick the owner for executing the idea from the group who are in favor of the same. This works as an acid test as almost immediately the true perspective of the individual will emerge.

Secondly, Encourage speaking and diversity in the team. As a leader, I criticize my own plan on what may go wrong to see if the team in favor has a way to address the same. If they don’t, then it becomes quite obvious that the idea needs more deliberation.

Sources, Credits, and References

• Wiki – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groupthink
• Tribal Philosophy – https://www.anthonyarcis.com/blog/2018/4/6/tribal-philosophy
• Group Obedience or Conformity – https://thinkibility.com/2016/09/02/group-obedience/
• Avoid Group Thinking in the hiring process

Lessons from 2020 – 1 / n

Remote working

A lot has been written about remote working during this pandemic and what the future holds for professionals returning to the office. In this blog, I will try and present it from some perspectives which have not been touched much. These are observations made while working with my own team, and in discussion with various other working professionals who have the option of performing their role remotely in a virtual world.

Personality Type

Introvert Personality – This is the personality type who are the real winners with the option of long term remote working option. The environment is to their liking, with no pressure to be part of big group conversation and just focus on solving one problem at a time.

Folks with this type are thriving in the virtual world and their productivity has improved. They can now fully focus on assignments and avoid all kinds of distractions.

My take is that Introverts and Individuals contributors will be quite reluctant in returning back to the office. As a leader, if you are happy with their contribution, my recommendation would be to let them thrive in this mode.

Extrovert Personality – Extroverts are the ones struggling with the remote working. These personality types typically are at their best when they can multi-task, meet with a lot of other folks to draw motivation from their energy, need to continually discuss ideas with other folks, and most importantly just find it suffocating to be alone and follow a routine on daily basis.

My take is that Extroverts, People Managers, Sales & Marketing, and profession which requires constant interaction with the larger group will find the first available opportunity to return back to the office.

Disclaimer: I have used the personality type just to explain my observation, and I have equal respect for both personality types.

Lessons from 2020 – 2/n

Impact on WorkStyle and LifeStyle

Many folks believe that work-life balance has improved during the pandemic period because of the option to work remotely. However, my personal experience suggests that both Workstyle and Lifestyle will need a lot of adjustment, tweaking, and evolution before it gets full adaption. This is true even for developed and modern economies of the west because the access to technology pretty much the same in every economy.

Lazy LifeStyle

The first critical fallout of remote working is getting trapped into a Lazy LifeStyle, which increases the sleeping hours but does not necessarily compensate for the exercise the body and mind need to stay fit and sharp. All of us were used to a particular work/lifestyle which involved regular body exercise like walking and driving, Paying attention in group meetings, or dealing with the emotions of several people one would come across.

• The purpose of lorem ipsum is to create
• In particular, the garbled words of lorem ipsum
• occasionally circumstances occur in which toil

Antique – 30-year-old SLR camera sans Digital

• Make and Model – Canon EF-M
• Year – 1991
• Type – Manual focused 35mm SLR

This was my first SLR camera with a manual focus. It took me some time to get used to the manual focus, but I used it for almost 12 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_EF-M_camera

Antique – 25-year-old VHS video camera

• Make – JVC GR-AX710
• Tape – Compact VHS
• Year – 1995

This is my first Video Camera from 1995. This is still a functioning video camera. While I have converted all the recordings from VHS tapes to digital format, I still possess a couple of blank tapes from the past.

I consider this as one of my prized possession as there are several old memories attached to it.

Fun Fact : Last I noticed, this camera was priced at $8.99 on ebay :).

Antique – 20-year-old First color PDA Palm IIIc with folding keyboard

Palm IIIc was the first color PDA made by Palm, Inc released in Feb ‘2000. The configuration was 8 MB RAM and a 20MHz DragonBall EZI CPU. Unlike today’s smartphone using a built-in keyboard, the Palm IIIc came with a metal stylus which can be used for handwritten notes using Graffiti^(R) Alphabet style.

The piece I have in possession has the cradle for syncing with the PC or Laptop along with a folding keyboard which made life easy in taking notes.

Read more on its Wiki…

More details on the Computing history site…

Antique in making – 15-year-old MP3 player with a built-in screen and external speaker

• Make – Samsung YP-K5
• Memory – 2 GB
• Playtime – 30 hours

https://news.softpedia.com/news/Samsung-YP-K5-Mp3-Player-Review-54927.shtml

Antique – My first smartphone

Make – HTC

Featured a full physical keyboard with a slider, which gave a good competition to Blackberry. The drawback was, however, the windows OS.

Waterfall collections

View some of the glorious waterfalls I have been to in the last 25 years.

Trekking Collection

This is one of my favorite activities, which I picked up in the last decade. I am not a serious trekker, however, enjoy taking up short and moderate trekking of 2-4 hours along with family and friends. Some of the memorable trekking trips are shown below

Humor Typology

This is certainly the toughest of all the assessments I have attempted. Humor is not something I have in abundance. I did not even know that humor typology can be also be placed in quadrants.

My assessment result is follows, the details assessment can be viewed by clicking the url at the bottom

Detailed Report on Humor Typology

Comprehensive Competency Profiling

This is one of the most comprehensive personality assessment psychometric tests I came across.

One of the good things about this assessment report is that it doesn’t compare you with stereotype personalities and instead focuses on 50 odd traits.

In the end, it provides a competency summary which is quite helpful in understanding strengths and weaknesses. My competency profile from the test can be referred below..

View Detailed Report for Sanjay Kabra

TKI Conflict Resolution Model

The recent report of this assessment reconfirms my Conflict resolution mode is Collaboration. This has been my style since 2005 when I first took this assessment.

Collaborating is both assertive and cooperative—the complete opposite of avoiding. Collaborating involves an attempt to work with others to find some solution that fully satisfies their concerns. It means digging into an issue to pinpoint the underlying needs and wants of the two individuals. Collaboration between two persons might take the form of exploring a disagreement, learning from each other’s insights, or trying to find a creative solution to an interpersonal problem.

Read the full report below..

TKI detailed Report of 2005..

TKI detailed Report of 2020..

Gallup – Strength Finder

The top 5 strengths emerging from this assessment are

• Deliberative
• Strategic
• Self-Assurance
• Focus
• Relator

Read the full report below…

Strengths Finder 2.0 – Sanjay K Kabra

Individual Style Profile – Results and Caring

This assessment follows the socio-cultural model based upon two fundamental insights into human psychology. First, that there are universal patterns of individual and group behavior, arising from our biology and psychology that explain how people from all walks of life think and act. The second insight is that a surprisingly limited set of rules can result in highly complex and diverse behavioral patterns.

This assessment finding suggests the following

• You are a focused achiever
• Driven to succeed, you set ambitious goals and don’t give up until attained.
• You are outcome-focused and enjoy solving problems.
• You also like to build positive relationships and are warm and caring.

A detailed report is attached below

Read the full report below..

Individual Style Profile – Insights Report for Sanjay Kabra

16 Game-based Neuroscience Assessment

This assessment is quite different from a standard psychometric test conducted online, and perhaps one of my favorite assessments. You may visit https://www.pymetrics.com/ to know more about it.

These guys are no longer giving the option of appearing for tests to individuals and their tool is now accessible to corporates with > 1000 employees. I happened to enroll with them early on during their initial days, hence the benefit of being able to access their tool as an individual.

The following are the 3 top traits and 3 top careers suggested based on this assessment

ENFJ-A (Protagonist-Assertive) – MBTI

Definition of Protagonist – Protagonists are natural-born leaders, full of passion and charisma. With a natural confidence that begets influence, protagonists take a great deal of pride and joy in guiding others to work together to improve themselves and their community.

View detailed Report

Faster Actions

In today’s Agile thinking, speed matters the most. As a leader, I value calculated risk-taking because decisions are reversible. However, the time lost in over-analyzing (aka Analysis Paralysis) the situation can never be earned back.

The key to faster action is

• Slicing and Dicing. Make smaller and smarter decisions by breaking up a single, complicated, and unmanageable problem statement into more manageable chunks.
• Establish a timeline. Do not fall into an Analysis Paralysis situation by an unending exercise. Establish a timeline and make a decision basis the information gathered in the time period made available. At times, the smart decision could be to just put the decision on the back burner if not enough information is available to make a decision in favor.
• Let it evolve. It should be acceptable to make a course correction if additional information surfaces at a later date that contradicts the decision already made. In my experience, the new information generally turned up because of the previous decision and perhaps saved time for everyone. At times, the cost of a delayed decision is higher than a decision that required course correction or failed decision.

Trust with Verification

Trusting your team is very critical for any successful leader, but in my experience balancing trust with verification creates greater Goodwill and Accountability.

It creates a win-win situation by making both the leader and the team responsible for each other.

Have Backbone and Conviction

This principle is borrowed from Amazon’s leadership principle. A leader is respected for displaying conviction and being tenacious while pursuing their ideas and beliefs. At the same time, this requires a fine balance of accepting justified and constructive criticism.

Text taken directly from Amazon’s leadership principle “Leaders have conviction and are tenacious. They do not compromise for the sake of social cohesion. Once a decision is determined, they commit wholly. “

If you have a conviction in a particular direction, but there is skepticism around it, the leader may agree to disagree on the topic and seek support from the team for its rollout? The answer is most likely to be “Yes”.

If the answer is still “No”, then perhaps relook at the possibility of the idea not being explained sufficiently.

Diversity

Encourage inclusiveness

  Promote individuality to encourage everyone to bring the best in themselves to work

Accountability

  Develop a sense of accountability

  Admit to mistake and correct

Influencing

Set the example and be example

  Be the leader to bring changes; avoid being a popular / mass leader

Responsibility

As a leader, Seek responsibility and Take responsibility for your actions

Seeking Responsibility has two aspects a) As an individual you must seek out challenging assignments b) Take every opportunity that offers increased responsibilities. The responsibility of evaluating the ability (strength or capability) to accomplish new responsibilities also lies with the leader, otherwise one can risk the assignment at hand. Learn about the duties to derisk the assignment before taking responsibility.

Taking Responsibility reflects the integrity and Ethics of the leader.

Challenge the Status-Quo

As a Leader, one should watch out for complacency. I have personally faced resistance with arguments like “If it ain’t broken, don’t attempt to fix it”, however, waiting for it to be broken is too late to act.

Challenging the status-quo requires your team to become vocal and also encourages innovation and risk taking ability for continuous improvement. Team gets an opportunity to apply their learning and disrupt the routine.

Team Enablement

The team is enabled by way of Inclusive decision making and slowly the team starts functioning independently.

Inclusive decision making is an important aspect of the team’s functioning. An effective team will encourage diversified opinion and deliberate on pros & cons instead of believing in arriving at a superficial consensus. A team that has the freedom to speak their mind is usually the one that gives their best in achieving their goals.

The best measurement of empowerment or enablement in the team is to find out how often the team looks up to the leader to arrive at a decision for them. The leader should look for ways to make the team independent in the decision-making process and focus more on providing guidance, direction, and at times course correction to keep the team on course.

Focus on Strengths

One of my favorite read is “Strength Based Leadership”. Identifying strengths and utilizing them is often a more difficult task, however, this has a very positive impact on team engagement and job satisfaction.

Best practices :

• Align team members to work they are passionate about. Do not force-fit anyone on tasks if relating to the purpose is difficult.
• Create a team with diversified experience, and make it a well-rounded team instead of looking for well-rounded individuals.
• Identify the Strengths of your team members and invest further in the same. Leaders often make the mistake of focusing on weaknesses and force individuals to change, it results in disengagement.
• Understand the need of your team. Become an enabler.