5 C Success Model

Recently  we hired 15  juniors to our team and had the opportunity  to  meet them  the first day  at  their orientation  session at  Dallas.

Wanted to start my presentation with a ‘Gyan’ or with a good advice - like thought for the day. So shared Indira Nooyi ‘s 5C model for success.  This is applicable to all lifestyles.

5 Cs’

• ·         Competency
• ·         Courage /Confidence
• ·         Communication
• ·         Consistent
• ·         Compass

Competency:  ability to do something successfully and efficiently.

1)    You  should  be known for a particular skill 

2)    For this, one needs to be a lifelong student, equipping oneself with all the required knowledge and become a SME.(Subject Matter Expert) 

3)    Being a life-long student guarantees growth both  professionally & personally

4)    Master your chosen skill and never shy away from knowing more. 

5)    Become the ‘GO TO’ person - which will help you to stand out of the pack.

Courage /Confidence – the ability to do something that frightens one / firm trust.

1)    You can be competent in your role, but you need to build up the courage to speak up.

2)    This will  facilitate a strong decision  making skill

3)    Fellow team members know that  you  have opinion and you are NOT afraid to  voice it out

4)    When you speak out, it establish your knowledge base and confidence, as a leader.

Communication - Sending and receiving information

1)    this skillset is very important 

2)    If you want to be leader and you cannot communicate, forget it you cannot be one. L

3)    In this digital world, everyone thinks that texting and tweeting is effective, but that is NOT true. 

4)    Clear communication, gets across your passion and vision

5)    You  constantly need to  mobilize the team 

6)    Will also facilitate team building and will put you across as a strong leader 

7)    Need to improve all  5 ways of communication

i)              Written -  Email , letters, Social  media

ii)             Oral -  Video Conference , video  chat

iii)            Verbal  -  conversation or story  telling

iv)            Non Verbal -  reading between lines

v)             Physical - Body Languages.

Consistent - acting or done in the same way over time, especially so has to be fair or accurate.

As a leader, you should also be consistent in the way you operate. You can change your mind, but always do it in consistent framework.

If you are NOT consistent, then everyone will be making guesses on your next move, which is NOT right.

For eg… As I am in operation, I am consistent based on Company policy - I  can be flexible where needed , but within the Policy. 

Compass

            Integrity is critical. You can be competent , courageous , consistent , be good  in  communication , but if you lose integrity , if that compass does NOT show ‘ TRUE’ north ,  everything comes crashing down.

Without character, none of the other four steps will matter. Be true to yourself and do not compromise. Point True North! Always be ethical.

    All the Best !

High Performance Team

How many of you had your monthly review with your manager or supervisor?  You would have reviewed your February results and your March targets.📈

In every field, this review is taken care, to check the progress.

This is one of the feature of the high performance Team

There are 5 behaviors an high performing team consistently demonstrate

• ·         Shared Goals
• ·         Align Goals
• ·         Measure Fairly
• ·         Delegate authority
• ·         Recognize Results

Shared Goals. Leaders in the high performance team understand that the

•    individuals  learns
•    individuals  change
•    individuals  produce results 
•    individuals achieve share goals

Therefore, it starts with individual behavior and driving that behavior and including them in establishing shared goals

Moving to team goals and ultimately overall shared goal.              

Team having a shared goal is understanding the individual and then working with the individuals on the team and arriving at shared goals.

Align Goal

As mentioned earlier the team is comprised for individual performers.  Once you have a shared goal for the team, it is essential that we align the goals with the individuals based on each ones

·         Strength

·         Aspiration

These are the things that the individuals does or passionate about.

We need to review this periodically.  As we know our strength and aspiration changes. As we learn more or life style changes or if life situation changes one’s want /aspire changes.

So the leaders of high performance team are constantly reviewing and discussing how the individual apply  their strength and aspiration to  achieve the shared goal.

Measure Fairly

Need to focus on   how the individual can make an impact.  Also has the

·         responsibility 

·         authority 

to impact the measure.

Delegate Authority

They do NOT micromanage. They do not do the job. They don’t tell how to do the job , but do tell  what  to  do. 

Most often leaders or mentor lead through questions. 

The leader of high performance team do NOT give Orders, but they ask questions.

By  doing so they  delegate the authority , lead the individual through  the  discovery  process how they  can impact  the shared goals.

Recognize Results

The leader of the high performing team, do recognize results – team results and individual results.  In addition, how do they do this… both financially and non-financially.

First  of all  communication, frequent communication -  may  be weekly  either  writing email /  orally  in a meeting   recognizing the individual  and how  that had  contributed to  the group/team success.   We need to celebrate the individual.

Pay Performers: Leaders do recognize the star performers and reward or pay them through bonuses, spot award or raises….

Let summarize the 5 behaviors an high performing leaders

·         Shared Goals – team has shared goals  to  contribute towards to

·         Align Goals -  Align the shared goals to  individual based on  their strength and aspirations

·         Measure Fairly -  providing the required  responsibility  and authority

·         Delegate authority - not by micro managing. NOT telling how  but by  telling what  to  do

·         Recognize Results -   reward the high performance individuals by communication and compensation.

Positive atmosphere in high performance team – an overall team culture that is

·         Open

·         Transparent

·         Positive

·         Future-focused

·         Able to deliver success

Note:  Like to set of scale for a high performance team to heaven. When listening to   Suki  Sivam -  he describes  ‘Swargam’ heaven as  "like - minded people  get together and working towards a  common goal"

Had the fortunate opportunity  to  be a team member of the high  performance team led by Arun Varadarajan 2018-2019,  being the Ops person for his Data Practice in CDB-AIA.

Remote Working

How many of you work from home either daily or once a week?

Remote working - It is one of the recent revolution that is going on, all around us, in places that we work. It is also referred to as telecommuting or teleworking - it is nothing but a person doing his official work from home or any remote places.

Yes it is remote working and NOT working remotely😏

I have been telecommuting  for the past 14+ years and just thought of sharing more details  including pros and cons of it. Let me tell you, how I started my remote working….  I just started to do my remote working for medical reasons. When I  conceived my  second baby,  doctors advised less commute  and hassles , hence  worked with  my company  and  got the approval to  work from home.

I  felt  it was blessing in  disguise , in order to  pay it back -   I  worked  more than 100% and made my  boss /employer  happy. This culture continued and still I work from home.  

The ideas behind Remote working is - Talent is border-less and work is border-less.

Not everyone can telecommute. Rather designing our life around work, we are designing our work into our life. Most work from the service sector can be done from anywhere - if you have the right skill and technology.

Let us see who prefers Remote working

1)      We see young people like to Travel and do remote working.

2)      If you want to raise a family and spend more time with the loved ones or take care of any one ill in the family - remote working is the viable solution.  You can work and at the same time be next to the loved ones.

3)      If you are bound by immigration law - remote working is one such solution.  For eg , associate with  US Visa issue , get Canada work  permit and work  for US clients.

4)      If  you  feel  you  have exhausted all  the challenges in the local  market , you  can do  remote work for  challenges from  other countries.

There are 3 layers for remote working

1)      Individual   - how do you make individual workers more attractive as remote workers - so that they are hired.

2)      Company /Organization - how do you make company   great places to work and facilitate remote working.

3)      Government - how can government kick start initiatives and encourage remote working people.

Individual 

Below  6 qualities, makes us good individual remote workers.
1)      Organizational skills - how organized are you.  Are you  someone, who  needs to  chased to  do  a work, are you  a procrastinator -  need to  improve these qualities to be  good remote worker
2)      Communication - how good do you speak to people?  In fact are you bilingual / are you multi-lingual. How effective can you communicate to get the Job well done. Better you communicate, the better you are a remote worker
3)      When  you  telecommute ,you  are more autonomy  and you  set your  own schedule 
4)      You will be lonely - you will not be seeing people for a long time.   Like me - I hardly see coworkers 2 or 3 times a year in offsite / planning discussions.
5)      Visibility  and deliver-ability  - At office we are fine tuned  to be at our  desk  from  9  to  5.  May be we stay in desk after 5 to tell others, we are working hard 🙂.  But with  remote working you  are  totally  invisible -  you are accounted for  the what you  accomplish  that day or that week. Is the project moving fwd? Am I making the number to meet my set target.
6)      How you  navigate working -  getting used to  work  from  anywhere home, airport , hotel  rooms, library, cafe….  The more you are able to navigate around these uncertainty - the more you are a successful remote worker.

See how you can cultivate these qualities and PUSH these qualities, when you interview new work stream, so you push these traits to them.

Company
1)      Hire remote worker, with the qualities we spoke. If not start pilot project work with remote workers.  
2)      You cannot  discriminate anyone  -  that  he or she telecommutes
3)       With telecommuting increasing, what kind of software are being used talk to each other or communicate – WebEx.
4)      Have metrics to check  how  effective are the remote  workers

Government  
We need govt to protect us individual and our company to facilitate this new kind of remote working.
1)      Immigration - mobility is one big issue. If we do NOT allow people to move freely to get better jobs, we are going to  stagnate our economy
2)      What are we giving companies incentive / subsidy to  hire these remote worker
3)      What kind  of training programs available  for these  remote workers.

Advantages 
1)      You  save time on your  commute
2)      Flexible Schedule
3)      Work from anywhere
4)      Quality Time with your  Family
5)      Save 💲 on your wardrobe / gas / after school charges for kids etc and company save on rental space /insurance and the funds saved can be diversified.

Disadvantages
1)      Unplugging from  work
2)      Loneliness
3)      Collaborating & Communicating
4)      Distraction from Home
5)      Stay motivated

To conclude - no other generation has had the freedom to carve out its own lifestyle. Please try  to  revolutionize this remote working culture
1)      Ask your current employer, if it is OK, to  telecommute….
2)      If you  are a recruiter -  check  if you  can hire  the workforce , who  is more interested in  Remote working

This will  help  Talent to  move around , this  will  make the world so much better place in terms of getting the required skills  and  in  terms of jobs that are getting available .