Finding Jobs that fit employees

Right and wrong are perhaps the two most vigilant sentries in our lives. Yet, they are dubious in their existence and situational in their implications. They are two words that the wise use with dread, and the naïve with liberty. This combination of right and wrong becomes more interesting when played against the backdrop of today’s corporate world. These are the words that decide where someone stands as an employee, as a manager and ultimately, an organization. Tactful use of right and wrong signals can influence an employee’s motivation, performance graph attachment to the organization and most importantly, his/her self image as a worker.

It’s interesting to note how perceptions of right and wrong are influenced by personal considerations. Even more interesting is the fact that based on these personal perceptions, an employee is branded, and point fingers at his/her personality, instead of re-evaluating what he or she could have done differently and how the organization could have drawn the best out of the employee.

Corporate perceptions of what is acceptable and unacceptable are contextual, relative and in clash with the personal sensitivity of employees. This is known as hurried branding. There’s always a hurry to brand an employee be he good or bad. Tasks are given to subordinates based on whether he has done it or not. This quickly builds up an opinion about that person. If a particular task done is not liked, instead if saying it needs more improvement it brands the person a failure. The same example could be looked at from a wholly different perspective. When a particular work done is appreciated by the supervisor or the manager, the worker is immediately put on a pedestal. In other words, depending on individual perception, the worker is branded Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong.

It is important to gauge what someone is right or wrong in relation to personal values or a set of agreements. In the context of an organization, it is very important to stick to unwritten corporate agreements, plans or codes of conduct. If a task is done as per the agreement, it is right. So, wrong here basically involves the issue of violation of that corporate agreement or company core values.

Instead, most of the time, what happens is, it is said that something is wrong from the standpoint of a personal value premise, and expect others to follow.

Added to this external perception, experts feel, employees themselves tend to attach a negative perception to their competencies. During assessment they would want to know more about their weaknesses linking this to an employee’s cultural mindset. This happens because though it is not right for an employee to be wrong. Also the nature of work itself has changed it’s more team-oriented and less individualistic, making it tougher to evaluate individual performance.

This ambiguity in perception brings in mindset where we think that being wrong is harmful. Hence, organizations constantly drive elimination rather then enablement.

The urge to escape wrongdoing also makes managers constantly raise quality standards. In the process of raising the bar, they get into a mindset wherein they decide not minding losing out on 10 good people, but they always want to ensure that not even one wrong person gets in. What is interesting to note here, is the fear of a wrong people entering into the organization, as a consequence of which managers only look for faults in people. And that’s where elimination begins. As a result, they lose out on lot of good people.

Even more interesting is the way the equation changes once a candidate enters an organization. Because he has to fight a number of eliminations to get in, there’s always an element of vengeance. The moment he’s in, he starts looking for faults in his managers. Unfortunately ads are also portraying a negative aspect of the manager team member relation.

So instead of looking at a wrong proof system, managers must look at embracing best practice and enabling people excellence rather than banking upon fault elimination mechanisms.
The effort has to start with changing individual mindsets. Culturally, Indians steer clear of appreciating good work, and are quick at finding faults instead.

This has to change.

A management story

Story # 1 It`s a fine sunny day in the forest and a lion is sitting outside his cave, lying lazily in the sun. Along comes a fox, out on a walk.
Fox: "Do you know the time, because my watch is broken"
Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix the watch for you" Fox: "Hmm... But it`s a very complicated mechanism, and your big claws will only destroy it even more"
Lion: "Oh no, give it to me, and it will be fixed"
Fox: "That`s ridiculous! Any fool knows that lazy lions with great claws cannot fix complicated watches"
Lion: "Sure they do, give it to me and it will be fixed"

The lion disappears into his cave, and after a while he comes back with the watch which is running perfectly. The fox is impressed, and the lion continues to lie lazily in the sun, looking very pleased with himself. Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the lazy lion in the sun.
Wolf: "Can I come and watch TV tonight with you, because mine is broken"
Lion: "Oh, I can easily fix your TV for you"
Wolf: "You don`t expect me to believe such rubbish, do you? There is no way that a lazy lion with big claws can fix a complicated TV"
Lion: "No problem. Do you want to try it?" The lion goes into his cave, and after a while comes back with a perfectly fixed TV. The wolf goes away happily and amazed.
Scene : Inside the lion`s cave. In one corner are half a dozen small and intelligent looking rabbits who are busily doing very complicated work with very detailed instruments. In the other corner lies a huge lion looking very pleased with himself.

Moral : IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY A MANAGER IS FAMOUS; LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.
Management Lesson In the context of the working world : IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY SOMEONE UNDESERVED IS PROMOTED; LOOK AT THE WORK OF HIS SUBORDINATES.

Story # 2 It`s a fine sunny day in the forest and a rabbit is sitting outside his burrow, tippy-tapping on his typewriter.. Along comes a fox, out for a walk.
Fox: "What are you working on?"
Rabbit: "My thesis."
Fox: "Hmm... What is it about?"
Rabbit: "Oh, I`m writing about how rabbits eat foxes."
Fox: "That`s ridiculous ! Any fool knows that rabbits don`t eat foxes!"
Rabbit: "Come with me and I`ll show you!" They both disappear into the rabbit`s burrow.
After few minutes, gnawing on a fox bone, the rabbit returns to his typewriter and resumes typing. Soon a wolf comes along and stops to watch the hardworking rabbit.
Wolf: "What`s that you are writing?"
Rabbit: "I`m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat wolves."
Wolf: "you don`t expect to get such rubbish published, do you?"
Rabbit: "No problem. Do you want to see why?" The rabbit and the wolf go into the burrow and again the rabbit returns by himself, after a few minutes, and goes back to typing.
Finally a bear comes along and asks, "What are you doing?
Rabbit: "I`m doing a thesis on how rabbits eat bears."
Bear: "Well that`s absurd ! "
Rabbit: "Come into my home and I`ll show you"

Scene : As they enter the burrow, the rabbit introduces the bear to the lion.

Moral: IT DOESN`T MATTER HOW SILLY YOUR THESIS TOPIC IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHOM YOU HAVE AS A SUPERVISOR.

Management Lesson In the context of the working world: IT DOESN`T MATTER HOW BAD YOUR PERFORMANCE IS; WHAT MATTERS IS WHETHER YOUR BOSS LIKES YOU OR NOT

IIM grads back with job offers

A beautiful article on young entrepreneurs.......

Inspiringly great!
Ahmedabad: Four alumni of Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) who had opted out of the placement process last year to start their own enterprise, are coming back to the campus in the next placement season in March, 2008 —- for a different reason this time. Though IIM-A had relaxed its rules this year to allow students opting out to come back for next two years for placements, this four-some will be in the campus to hire fresh management graduates for their own venture which has written a success story and needs more man power to take it to new heights.Vishal Prabhukhanolkar, Bhusan Davir, Vineeta Singh and Debashish Chakravarty had last year spurned high profile job offers to start their own venture ‘ten-a-day’, an online website providing coaching for the CAT examination which is the gateway to the IIMs and several other institutions.

The venture, known as www.tenaday.co.in, has logged nearly 22,000 registered users in its year of existence and needs more hands now, said Vishal about why they are coming to IIM-A next year.The ‘ten-a-day’ website, the largest online CAT preparation site, requires aspiring students to answer 10 questions every day and also provides daily percentile rankings. All this and the explanations of the questions are for free. But the detailed analyses of the answers have charges ranging from Rs 210 onwards. Other institutes charge nearly Rs 14,000 for similar analyses, Vishal said.Since nearly two lakh students appear for the CAT every year and another six lakh appear for other admission tests, the online website has a great potential for growth, the young entrepreneur, who rejected a fat pay packet to start this venture along with his three other batchmates, said.

Manual HR systems

The devil is in the details someone once said, and this is certainly true with respect to designing an HR system. The HR manager may talk in broad terms about the recruiting, selection, and other HR functions he or she wants to install. But eventually, creating the HR system requires translating the HR manager’s broad preferences (for “a selection program that produces more qualified candidates,” for instance) into specific, “how exactly will we do this” policies, guidelines, tools, and paperwork or computerized processes. This means actually creating the infrastructure of the HR system

Doing so is not easy. Consider the paperwork required to breathe life into a company’s HR system. Just to start with, recruiting and hiring an employee might require a Notice of Available Position, a Help Wanted Advertising Listing, an Employment Application, an Interviewing Checklists, various verifications of education, and immigration status, and a Telephone Reference Checklist. You’d then need an Employment Agreement, Confidentiality and Non-compete Agreement and an Employer Indemnity Agreement. To process that new employee you might need a hiring Authorization Form, an Employee Background Verification, a New Employee Checklist, and various forms for withholding tax and to obtain new employee data. And to keep track of the employee once on board, you’d need – just to start – an Employee Changes Form, Personnel Data Sheet, Daily and Weekly Time Records, an Hourly Employee’s Weekly Time Sheet, an Overtime Permit, an Expense Report a vacation Request, an Absence Request, an Affirmative Action Summary, and an EEO Policy Statement and Analysis of promotions . Then come the performance appraisal forms, a Critical Incidents Report, Notice of Probation, First (or second) Warning Notice Form, a Disciplinary Notice, a New Employee Evaluation, a Performance Evaluation and a Letter of Commendation , and (eventually) a Retirement Checklists , Notice of Dismissal Reduction in Workforce Notice, Employee Check – out Record, Separation Notice, and Employment Reference Response....

The preceding list barely scratches the surface of the policies, procedures and paperwork needed to run the HR system part of a business. This has several implications. First, you obviously can’t wing it. Perhaps with just one or two employees one could keep track of everything in memory, or just write a separate memo for each HR action, and place it in a folder for each worker. But with more than a few employees one needs to create a human resource comprised of standardized forms.

Very small firms can handle all or most of this sort of HR record keeping through manual paper and pencil forms and systems. But as the company grows, various parts of the HR system – payroll, or appraising, for instance – will have to be computerized if the firm is to remain competitive. After all a HR manager probably don’t want to spend twice as much money and time on HR as their competitors.

Mistakes Win Sucess...

One of my friend gave some tips on how you can create a work culture that encourages prudent risk taking:

Be accommodating:Encourage and build a climate where problems are accepted and mistakes acknowledged. Do not respond to a mistake by an immediate scolding. Try to solve the problem, aAccept MistakesSubordinates must be taught that errors are part of the cost of development. A mistake provides an excellent opportunity to learn and improve on whatever is being done. On the other hand, irrational and repeated mistakes should not be tolerated.

Tolerate failure:Many innovations and concepts are not successful initially. Persistence and the ability to deal with disappointment and failure are therefore essential. To learn from one’s mistakes, one must be able to accept failure, analyze the reasons for the failure and then take the appropriate action. As Akio Morita, the Chairman of Sony says, “when customers see our products they only see success, they do not see the 99% of failures that made that product possible”.

Do not be conditioned by past failures:There is a tendency for managers to be conditioned by past mistakes and failures. This encourages conservatism and caution. Past mistakes must be acknowledged and learned from. They must never be allowed to impede risk taking options in the future.

It is always easy for managers to take the path of least resistance and seek out only the risk free options. This not only reduces managers to being mere clerks who routinely and mechanically follow some laid down rules and never look beyond them, but it also affects a company’s overall success.

As Bill Gates, the CEO and Chairman of Microsoft says, “How a company deals with mistakes suggests how well it will bring out the best ideas and talents of its people, and how effectively it will respond to change. When employees know that mistakes won’t lead to retribution, it creates an atmosphere in which people are willing to come up with ideas and suggest changes. This is important to a company’s long term success.”

Moreover, in certain industries not making mistakes is a sure sign of a shirker. For example, in the media industry one can often hear old timers say “only those who work make mistakes”.

These are the people who have realized the wisdom in the words of the great Italian sculptor and artist Michaelangelo who once said: “Trifles make perfection and perfection is no triflend then, more importantly, discuss how the mistake could be avoided in the future.