HR and Football!!

Author: Pranay Reddy, plugHR Pro

Remember Oliver Kahn, who stood like Colossus of Rhodes bestriding German goalpost during the FIFA ’02. Oliver single handedly enabled Germany’s progression into the finals against a star studded Brazil. His awesome goal keeping played an essential part in his team’s victory against much famed oppositions. He didn’t even concede a single goal in the seven games leading to the final, where his sole mistake in the entire tournament not only cost him the coveted “world Champ title” but his captaincy and eventually his place in the senior side. It was also for his pyro techniques Kahn was honored with the ‘Golden Ball’ a rare occurrence among the goalies.

In football, Pundits have often said and I’ll repeat, “The goalkeeping, no matter how good you are, you should must be aware that what you’re doing is a ‘Thankless’ job”. Try to recall your childhood football icons, and figure out how many were actually goal keepers? Shocked, the answer is a big fat ZERO. We are cult followers, and the goalkeepers on almost all occasions are the ones who’re unable to create any cult around; simply because they’re not involved in scoring any goals and thus are not the ones who’ve halo around their heads.

An HR manger is also not involved in creating any value in a business, directly. How many times, have you ever patted the back of your HR when your appraisals were done on time? On the other hand you’ve grumbled almost every week, as you were marked absent, just because the funny biometric was being too funny? Now I am just interested in asking some rhetorical, as all readers are well versed with answers. My purpose is to set in a though process, so that people start contemplating.

In football you cannot win a game if your Goalie is weak, because the opponent will score more goals than you, similarly if you’re HR is not strong in engaging and training, your workforce will find it difficult to stick to your organization, and you’ll see your folks entering the premises of your competitors. Bingo! Your opponent has scored a goal over you, by poaching your priceless talent. Contrary to that, if you’ve a strong and a competent HR, your people will not only stick but will create awesome values for your venture and you’ll score a goal over a goal over your competitor.    

In football, Goalkeeper is the only player well positioned, who can analyze the strategy of the opponents and hence play a key role in catalyzing positive outcomes. This is possible because atop a football pitch, he is the only person who can mark the movements of his teammates. Another question to tickle your brain; who is the only manager in your organization who alike a goalkeeper can chart the progress and trajectories of your employees. You need not think furiously as you already have your answer.

When pressure mounts on the captain, or when he feels there is a need to call in a substitution, skipper always look forward to a valuable advice from his goalkeeper, whenever he has to make a quick decision. Rhetoric again, in an organization, who is the go-to person for a CEO, when he is in a dilemma, whether he need to ask some people to leave or on occasions when he needs some new talent to be pumped in the ecosystem of the workplace full of vibrant energy.

Emotions at work place.. Needed ?

 

Attuned to a rare habit of feeling emotions running across any space I walk into. It infuses a certain energy , tremendous power of emotions... at times positive ...sometimes negative and destructive... and sometimes just nothing. So what and how important are these emotions... Emotions are nothing but a combination of behaviour and attitude, they indicate an existence of value and in my line and way of thoughts; extremely critical for any space home or office... so focusing on emotions at work place; it is the emotions that create an organizational culture...really?  So what happens to the Vision, Mission, Values, Rules & Regulations, Principles, ethics.... that organizations spend time on putting in place. Very important... but come to think of it, we’d realize that these would actually be empty phrases and statements without emotions in them. To believe that you can be the best in market for XYZ product or ABC service... this statement stays as a vision but will certainly not translate into performance or service excellence. So how are emotions going to change this ? Emotions create a culture and culture is the single biggest differentiator for a business in the space one is in.

 

Emotions help connecting with the world within the office space and reach out to the world outside. And that is effectively opening up the channels of communication. Ever realize, you walk across the office and you see your colleagues / team members gather in group, chit-chatting, talking – laughing and then suddenly someone notices one individual walking across / towards and the crowd softly but immediately disperses. That happens when there exists no emotions... emotions of being fearless, of being able to express freely! There is a dire need of being able to communicate fearlessly. For the new age leaders... CXO’s need to have an informal approach, collaborative and democratic way of working. A need to capitalize on the emotions people have and be a caring organization... there should be no space for anxiety, anger, confusion or unhappiness. One should be able to pick up the emotions of team members before taking decisions. So it is for the leaders of today to internalize these attributes and effectively creative an ideal leadership style that people would look up to. 

 

So how does this help create a culture? Culture cannot be imposed on people. It needs to be build in the system by these same set of people working in the office. Culture will get driven by those emotions that must co-exist in harmony. An organization has no existence unless the people in it bring it to life. Bring it to life with their emotions of loyalty, commitment and performance excellence, which in all are enough to drive the organization on the path of success. You may have detailed, sophisticated presentations made to new Joinees / employees on organization culture but it essentially understood by employees as they interact with others in the office space.

Culture essentially drives organizational performance and effectiveness, more than competence it is the emotions and adherence to culture that are even more important. Emotions help managers coach employees during low performance, the growth paths can be delineated and one can essentially optimize the diversity. Emotions create and form the biggest culture capital in any company.

So the choice lies with you whether you would want to be in space where you work with people who are disinterested in their jobs. Who walk in, do their work and simply leave for the day not knowing how effectively they have contributed at work or you would like to create an environment where every team member functions as a partner in accomplishing your vision. Your company will succeed because you have built a culture of openness, a culture that promotes productivity and cohesiveness.

Author

 

Samruddhi Mulye

Sr Project Manager - plugHR

Samruddhi comes with over 12 years of HR experience with expertise in Compensation and Benefits, Performance Management, OB and Learning & Leadership. Samruddhi, in her prior assignments has worked with Infovision Software, Carlson Wagonlit travels, ABN Amro and Spanco.

 

 

 

 

Are you Human Oriented?

"JOIN OUR FAST-PACED COMPANY"
We have no time to train you.

"CASUAL WORK ATMOSPHERE"
You'll be here very late, very often -- might as well be comfortable.

"MUST BE DEADLINE-ORIENTED"
Your first four projects are already way overdue.

"SOME OVERTIME REQUIRED"
Did we mention that you'll be here very late, very often? And most weekends.

"DUTIES WILL VARY"
We might not check with you before adding more responsibilities

"CAREER-MINDED"
Female applicants must be childless, hope pregnancy is not on cards.

I came across these tweets which was shared with an intended pun but actually is a bitter reality check and an eye opener. These just reiterate that Human Resources has been more of treating Humans as resources. In the fast paced competitive work pace before we even realized Human got dropped somewhere midway and hence people became numeric assets good enough to be shown on dashboards. Numbers good enough to be deleted or added as per market climate.

Mostly organizations in urgency to increase the productivity try to optimize there bottom line which in turn results in aggressive target settings for the employees to produce desired results. As much as the top line is important ignoring employee wellness and a stress free environment is what should not be ignored either. These tweets portray the outcome based approach or behavior pertaining to most of the startup and SME where understanding human aspects still looks to be far cry.

My intension is not to counter the organization expectation but only if humans are treated as beings and not machines, as people and not just resources, as family not just assets, growth is inevitable.

So next time don’t look at your watch when somebody is late!!

 

 

CEO - not entirely an insider

My recent experience made me think through the role of a CEO in context of representative of inside of organization and outside. While CEO is an entirely internal role paid for by the organization to promote its private objectives, to that extent, its perfectly fine if this role always remain sided with internal interests; I have a feeling that a CEOs role has also to do with some commitments towards the outsiders. Lets dwell deeper in this.

Typically, if as a customer, you feel upset about the service of organization, you want to write to the CEO of the organization. As a vendor, if your payments get delayed, you connect with the CEO or as an ex-employee, if your final dues aren't coming in time, you do the same. SO in all these cases, if our first assumption about a CEO being a total insider was true, all these outsider actually would not hold any hope for favorable response from CEO's office, isn't it. Fact is that, most of the time, outsiders do get attended to their concerns by writing to CEOs. This also suggests that not just the outsiders consider a CEO as someone who'll hear them as a neutral party but even CEOs see themselves responsible for even outside interests in outsiders dealings with their organizations. Call it corporate governance, or fair play, or organization culture, whatever; role of CEO does seem to have an accountability towards outsiders in safeguarding their interests along with driving business interests of their payee organizations.

Do outsiders also expect some assurance from the CEO of the organization that they interact with? Are there some assumptions here, let me try to lists down a few, my own guess;

1. Outsiders expect CEOs to be people with high integrity to society at large, sure about value of their own product/ service and sincere towards their organizations dealings with outsiders.
2. They also expect CEOs to be by and large fair. Along with that , they also feel that CEO is capable of taking the risk of siding with outsiders if fairness demands as long as its not entirely against organization's interest.
3. They also believe that a CEO is fully capable of going extra mile, put extra authority, spend extra time in helping outsiders, if she thinks its fair to do so.

Now some of this might not be true or consistent across the fraternity, but by and large, whether written or not, CEOs do seem to have the responsibility of guarding outside interests of people who deal with their organizations.

I once met a senior lawyer, who told me that if he is working for me, he'll write documents that are fully one sided in my favor; I am sure people see CEOs differently.

Its a complex subject and I have just shared my opinion. More comments are welcome.

Monday Morning at Diamond Mine

"There's a Diamond in each one of you" - were the words with which we started this work week. Not a bad start would say even the pessimists.

Team members of Rigved - The retail Infrastructure company headquartered in Mumbai were not showing any signs of Monday morning blues when I walked in for the session. A neat rug on the floor of the conference room was the seat for all from CEO to the Office boy all sitting at random. And while the facilitator moved on to variety of things from small prayer to, moments of silence, deep breathing, praising the colleague, some self discovery, I remained amazed at how an hour on Monday morning can energize teams for the day, the week and may be longer. For some members, this was the first session to see how each member has things to deal with, for some the rare praise from someone they never thought even looks at them.

I have by now met at least 100 - 200 CEOs who have spoken about transformation of their teams. I have seen less than 5 really attempting that. A few more have delegated it to senior people (you can guess the result).

So what did Nirav do? You walk into Rigved office and you'd realize the attention of the CEO in everything around. Colours please you, walls talk, reception lets you catch a breath, you can visit rest room without infection worries and I can go on and on... point is, these are not small things for Rigved, these are essentials. No surprise then, that Nirav doesn't find it difficult to find that hour on Monday morning, when team members get their concentration right and warm up with other members to head into the work week.

Rigved operates in fiercely competitive space and they know how to fight it out. So next time you want transformation, don't talk.....take a walk around work bay, you'll know where to start...