Oh my Boss!!

In a week from now, that's coming week I will completing 36 months of professional life; a life of works man, a life of Management professional, a life of a fresh Management trainee. I would be completing 3 years of one of the most dynamic and challenging building years with a continually shifting horizon and continually changing dynamics and work environment. I've joined IIM in 2004 where IIM K was budding to be in top with other IIMs; with lots of dreams and passion. True to our motto the batch truly dreamt, innovated and achieved; much was to be seen in the placement committee's achievement and the new heights we as a student organisation went. But stepping into a professional environment has a totally different set of challenges and required a totally different and may be irrational approach to succeed.
Post my two years stint with Genpact and an Year at CTS I was able to observe, analyse and greatly categorise my Bosses and shared bosses I worked for and under. I have learned a lot and how organisation and work environment effect the organisation's professional traits.
Here goes the traits of bosses under different categories.

1.Raging Bull
As the name suggests this type of the boss is full of rage and is extremely tempered and furious with his subordinates on most if not most of the occasions.
Typical Traits

• Takes out anger on others in Public
• Humiliates and dissipates individuals for ill or non-performance in full Public View.
• Controls and rules the team with instilled sense of fear

Ideally
This kind of boss should give freedom and encourage people to be more open and take feedback. Private counselling instead of public humiliation for his subordinates.
2. Insecure Boss
This kind of boss typically is low on self esteem and probably self confidence in the decision he needs to take and keeps avoiding and skipping such decision making situations. His insecurity of the situation at hands unnerves his co-employees a lot.
Typical Traits

• Approval Seeking boss ;Who looks at everyones approval before making a choice
• Dependent on others for decision making
• Suspicious of everyone and everything that goes on due to his insecurity
• Self, keeps thinking of oneself and self needs

Ideally

Should look at prioritising and system driven approach instead of relying on everyone for inputs.

3.Targets Tyrant
This kind of a boss is typically bent upon on achieving targets set by the management, customer or self set targets. They are very public and verbal on the targets set and try to ensure in every possible way to meet the same
Typical Traits

• Sets unrealistic goals for the team
• Aims at unduly perfectionism from all
• Work Alcholic
• Control freak, believes in having everyone under his vigil.

Ideally
This kind of a boss should ensure a good work-life balance for everyone while ensuring that everyone is given enough time to unwind at end of the project.



4. Whimp
This kind of people look like idle people to work for in the beginning. As a fresher you might idealise such personality but later on one realises it doesn't work that way always.



Typical Traits

• Typically follow the rule by the book
• Play it safe; risk averse attitude ; Lacks Challenge
• Continually shifting personality to suit moods and needs
• Not a go getter and has a potential to miss targets

Ideally

Be a little more innovative and open to change. Creativity is the key for success in such cases.

5. Mr.Chaotic
This boss creates confusion, misunderstandings and ultimately runs a havoc if not set right.
Typical Traits

• Lacks direction and focus on his tasks.
• Can't Prioritise work and task allocates neither can delegate effectively
• Unaware on what to do and how to do
• Confused
• Stressful

Ideally
Should be organised and keep a track of whats happening round him and evaluate current and plan for the future activities
So...do you feel like your bosses fall under any of the categories mentioned above. Oh yes the boss personality types is not exhaustive and yes they are well admired and ideal bosses do exist and I never got that feel ever so you could say I am a bit of critic of my bosses and possibly resistant to be bossed around, yeah with some consequences.

To sum up Raging Bull, Target Tyrant category of bosses are typically found in very demanding work environments where one has daily deliverables and KPA/KRAs (Sales teams, Call Centres, BPOs and few IT projects).

Insecure Bosses are typical in a laid back culture organisations.

Whimps are usually found in the Audit and possibly compliance based organisations where the focus is to go by book and creativity is locked.
Mr.Chaotics are typical in situations where people have been hastily promoted.
Anyways an organisation should be cognizant of such traits and ensure that work environment and work culture is cultivated in an healthy, supportive and a collaborative fashion.
At a strategic level and a leadership level

• Clear thought process and Vision should be available and be well communicated and emphasised
• The organsation should take stock of the situation and be aware of constantly changing work dynamics
• System Setup - A well setup and organised system and process should be set in place to tackle early warning and grievances.
• Everyone starting from the top should aspire to build and spread a role model behaviour to start off an organisational revolution.

I am quite sure that all the budding managers are open to such realities of professional life and come out successful tackling and succeeding and pick up the best of the things while stepping towards their own Managerial stints.

"Barriers Break When People Talk" - Airtel's new Ad

Airtel has decided to ‘express’ itself in a different way.
In an ad that broke in Dec 2007, Airtel has shifted away from its usual ‘Express Yourself’ brand premise, which has been a part of it for a couple of years now. Instead, the brand has dug a bit deeper and questioned the whole process and the need for communication itself, and the resultant thought, "Barriers Break When People Talk", has become Airtel’s new mantra.


KS Chakravarthy (Chax), ex-national creative director at Rediffusion DY&R, who was with the agency when the TVC was conceptualised.
Airtel The TVC begins on the shot of a Moroccan boy eating at home, when he sees a football land on his balcony. He steps out to find another boy on the opposite side of the fence (presumably the border of a neighbouring country) asking him to pass the ball back. Hesitating to talk with a person who’s presumably an enemy, he looks back to see if his parents are watching. After thinking for a while, the Moroccan boy kicks the ball towards the other who, in turn, invites him over to join the game. Not minding the restrictions any more, our boy crosses the boundary and joins his new friend. They start playing together and the voiceover concludes, “Deewarein gir jaati hain, faasle mit jaate hain, jahan do baatein ho jaati hain (Barriers break when people talk).”
The ad was conceptualised by Chax, Ajay Gahlaut, Abhinav Pratiman and Daniel Upputuru of Rediffusion DY&R. The team was briefed with the task of portraying the thought that the very definition of communication implies the dissolution of barriers.
It seems that the original idea was to set the ad at the Wagah Border, and get Indian and Pakistani soldiers to start a football game together, quite spontaneously. But that, as Chax says, would have been the predictable thing to do. “We wanted to make our idea more universal, more human,” he says. “After all, the brand is about regular people.”. Moreso I recall an 7pm whisky TVC on the same lines, and would have made the concept redundant.
The ad was shot by Prakash Varma of Nirvana Films in Morocco. Local boys (who had never faced the camera before) were selected for authenticity. The pre-production work took about four weeks, and the ad was shot in four days. A barbed wire fence was set up over acres of barren land, while the two houses were sets. That whole process took about a week.
To make the children act more naturally, Varma and his team often didn’t tell them when the camera was rolling, so as to capture their natural expressions.
The campaign uses children as symbols of minds free of prejudice, with their innocence depicted in stark contrast to the desolate landscape around them. Airtel’s point of view has clearly become this: The world would be a better place if only we all talked to each other.
- Adapted Commentory/ BG from Agency FAQs

Paradigm Culture - My story

The other day in office I was reading an article on change management, and on breaking the norms by thinking out of the box. I had an interesting read on one experiment, related to primate influence on primal behavioural traits and the underlying traits in a controlled environment.
In the experiment a set of 5 monkeys where put in a cage, with a tall ladder placed in the middle with a tempting bunch of banana's on the top of the ladder. By natural instinct whenever the bunch was put at the top the monkeys would rush to get the bunch, the naturalist researchers switched on the water sprinklers for 5 minutes whenever the monkeys touched the bananas. This irritated the monkeys and ensured that they don't fall in for their temptations. Even if one of them was tempted, the others ensured that the one which rushed to the bananas was trashed enough. After a period of 3 months of the exercises, one monkey was replaced with a fresh subject, and this monkey without knowing would rush to the top of the ladder would be pulled down by the other members and bashed up thouroughly. Over a period the temptation was suppressed, the experimenters repeated the replacement over the period until the entire lot of monkeys where new, and never had an insight why they were being bashed when they attacked the bunch of bananas. So the ritual slowly set-in with the cause being lost.
You must be wondering what am I trying to relate to using the above example, earlier I was in a discussion with my fiance over the cultures and customs. In particular over dining habits and how particular some communities are. Later during the day as I was talking to my Aunt, and was discussing on the same lines, she did share a few more insights on similar customs in our families during our earlier days, and how things have changed in the recent times owing to the cosmopolitan and fast paced life. What I really felt funny was how we all followed these age old rituals without even realising the significance of the same, and how in the modern times everyone disregarded these rituals without even understanding the root causes and the logical reasons.
Things I learned today are

• Madi, madi well, maddi saree concept
• Pooja paat, vs maadi vs tulsi
• Maadi bath at lake and how the ladies use to keep the path in which they walked clean and wet by sprinkling water all along the pathway.
• Cleansing of the pooja area, space etc.
• Dining rituals - on the floor, sprinkling of water on the floor after food.
• Dining norms - hands, serving hand vs feeding hand.

The list was endless, and I was awestruck as my aunt took me through the entire list how they used to do it our homes. Following the conversation I did manage to get a notch of the funnier side of these so called rituals and how people use to compensate for some short comings particularly in handicaps people had those days. Funnier enough how a "Saas-bahu" clash happened due to the rituals. In my own case, experience of my Granny-Aunt nexus, where my granny used to sprinkle water all over the place as a part of the sprinkling ritual. And how my aunt used to go to lengthsto keep the place spotless and co exist with some hilariously severe rituals. Funny is the way how a traditional monkey spoilt the crux of the ritual practice with the underlying reason lost over a period of time. Irony, superstitions, cult, confusion, skepticism all follow as man is the topmost primate who believes in challenges. Afterall its their forefathers who have tasted the forbidden fruit of wisdom, at the God's Garden of Eden, and vanquished from their to suffer the fate, so do the present generations carry on a similar suffering to some extent.

Management Funda's for Real life - Selecting a life partner

Last week starting from 23rd of July I was into a week long training. I had to attend a compulsory 2 week D.M.A.I.C Six Sigma Black Belt training as a part of my job requirement, to enrich and dissipate the knowledge to the Operations, in addition to assisting teams in their quality initiatives.
I earlier attended the Week 1 BB training in Bangalore in Sep 2006. The faculty then was a BB called Pankaj, of ACOE who till date had only been taking GB trainings. Doubtless to say there wasn't much knowledge transfer happening at that time, and more so I had completely given up on me using the Six Sigma methodology, until my reinstatement into NBCU as a billable Black Belt. So this time around the training was in Hyderabad, with Sriram Cherukuvada, MBB GSS COE, an IIML alumnus as the facilitator. Needless to say the entire sessions where neatly done, and all the 23 in the class absolutely had a great time at the training. He was pool of knowledge to be tapped at every opportunity. Really impressed me a lot.
Anyways in one of the sessions one thing really touched me when he was taking us through the CAP training modules and QFD (Quality Function Deployment) tool in detail. He mentioned a real life situation where he had to take a decision on his wife's continuity of her profession. He said many of the the tools could be use in such circumstances and aid one in their decision making. Though the tools are not decision for making as such but they would prove of great use to support a decision making process by bringing in structured and organised approach and thought process.
This answered a long awaited, lingering thought or rather a confusion in my mind over the applicability of various theoretical leanings into real life situations, but surely as I matured in age, the thought process has come-off time. The last weekend of month, I was facing a similar kind of a situation where I am supposed to make one such decisions. The decisions might pertain to heart, and heart as they say is not bound by logic, and that the heart has it own rules and follows its own logic. Given this situation I badly wanted a way out, and going and contacting people is very subjective and biased by ones experiences, environmental influence so to say.Here where I thought of deciphering the code of heart, well did I achieve it?? That's a question you need to answer yourself, here are my workings and approach.One was to utilise the QFD approach where one tabulates the Big Y's in a column and all the vital X's on the different columns, and make a scorecard and then compute the final tallies under the house of quality. I wished to go beyond a scientific approach as stated, and wished to get into a marketeers shoes, and think how he would place himself in a consumers mind. The approach was how does a Branding professional create a image and brand. I heavily relied on David.Aakers approach on creating a brand has a section dedicated to how do you market a brand as a person (The brand identity system). I did my own bit of reverse engineering on this topic to arrive at my vital X's.


Heres a few steps to my approach, probably one might corealate at a much required time of life.

Firstly drill down to a set of questions on how a person's identity serves to provide direction, purpose and meaning for that person. Considered the following basis for questions...
What are my core values ?
What are the core values that am looking for which would compensate/compliment mine ?

What is that I stand for in life/family/career?
What is that the person am looking for stand for?
How do I want to be perceived by the other family and what I can offer them ?
How do my family perceive the other family and what do they look from the relation?
What personality traits are influential and how are they to be identified or projected ?
What are the important relationships in life and how to compensate the same over the current developments?


Based on this I arrived on the extended brand identity structure which has core and extended identity. The core identity as defined speaks of priority traits which are central, and a timeless essence of a person, which is most likely to remain or expected to remain unfaultered as the relation nurutures and blossoms. The extended identity includes identity elements, which are sublimal in a relationship and add on those variety and spice which is much requiered for a fun filled life, it would also speak of various smaller elements get gelled as organised cohesive and meanigful groupings, that provide texture and completeness.
I wish to incorporate of few of Management fundas I've learned lets see how well I can be successful on the same.