Personal And Professional

First Priority of Second Line Development

Leave a Comment / Blog, Business Solutions, Career, Careers & Concerns, Growth, HR Consulting, HR Views & News, Leadership, Learning and Development, People Management, Personal And Professional, World of Business / /

Leadership is a business imperative. Time and again, we’ve seen how leadership can make or break organizations and businesses. While the necessity of strong leaders is clear, there’s a stark reality in spotting such talent. Even after identifying and onboarding potential leaders, helping them settle in and succeed presents another challenge. Let’s assume for a moment that an organization successfully spots, sources, and facilitates a leader’s success. As the benefits of good leadership begin to manifest, the organization may fall into the “trap of successful leaders.” They start depending on these ‘successful’ leaders for their continued success. As long as things run smoothly, this cycle persists. However, this smooth sailing comes with numerous risks, such as: • What if new opportunities arise, but the leader is critical in their current role? • What if the leader finds their role monotonous and wants a change? • What if the leader decides to quit for personal or career reasons? • What if circumstances change and the leader doesn’t align with these changes? • What if the team below the leader aspires to grow, but the leader becomes a roadblock? • What if the leader reaches retirement age, falls ill, or becomes less active? In all these scenarios, an organization finds itself unprepared to tackle the risk unless a second line of leaders is in place. We’ve observed in many organizations that the need for second-line development is often realized too late and rarely considered a top priority. The hard reality is that a second line cannot be groomed overnight. Therefore, second-line development must be treated as a top priority for the sustainability and growth of the organization and for managing talent risk. Do you want to develop your second line? Talk to us. Sign up to stay tuned for more such interesting and insightful blogs.

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Workplace behaviour

Perception of others towards you.

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Authenticity at Work: Can ‘I Am What I Am’ Thrive in a Professional Environment? At the workplace, can one say “I am what I am and I don’t care about what you think of me”?  However one wishes to think so, one cannot escape how others perceive. It is a hard truth that perceptions of others towards you in the workplace can matter significantly. Below are some of the ways how perceptions at workplace touch every individual. To put it succinctly, perceptions in the workplace do matter because they can significantly affect your career trajectory, relationships, and overall work experience. Therefore, managing how you’re perceived, while maintaining authenticity, can help you navigate the workplace more effectively. How to engage in perception management? You cannot control how others think of you; however, you can choose how you wish to behave so that others see you in the right perspective. Here are some of the ideas to consider: It is important to note that consistency is the key to build and manage perceptions. Many of these above behaviours have to demonstrated have to be demonstrated consistently so that others take note of. A mere random act will not create any impact. Also, it is important that you demonstrate as many of these behaviours in a virtual environment as well, which is often the case. What if others do not acknowledge my behaviours? It can be frustrating when people don’t notice your behaviours or the changes you’ve made, especially when you’ve put effort into improving yourself. Here are a few reasons why this might happen: In summary, if you think perceptions at workplace are important, you need to keep working on your behaviors with conviction even if others are taking time to acknowledge. Over time, consistent change will become more apparent. Author,Dr raj – CEO HR Footprints

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Communication Skills

5 Myths of Communication

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The ability to communicate effectively is perhaps the most important of all life skills. It is never too late to work on one’s communication skills and by doing so, one may find how the quality of life can improve tremendously! Just as we embark upon the journey of communication excellence, it is important that we do not fall into the traps by ignoring some of the common myths. Let us have a quick reminder of FIVE such myths. Myth-1 Communication is a natural ability:  Some people assume that communication is something that comes naturally; either you have it or you don’t; they may believe that training and learning cannot improve your communication ability. Truth is that committed learning and structured training bring in significant improvement in your communication. One needs to invest in the process of development. Myth-2   More we communicate the better: Some speak a lot, demonstrate high energy, and talk loud with a belief that it can make their communication more effective. Truth is that is not necessarily the loudness and length of your communication that matters; it is the conciseness, clarity, and conviction that adds to your communication effectiveness. Myth-3 Once mastered, communication can be used everywhere: By learning some impressive language skills, and building internal confidence some may believe that they can handle any situation or any person. Truth is that apart from the language and confidence, one needs to be sensitive to the situation, emotions of the other person to communicate effectively. In other words, you need to tune in to the other person in a given context. Myth-4  Great vocabulary is a must for great communication: By using some complex vocabulary, some people think that they can impress people and emerge as great communicators. Truth is that communicating is about improving the understanding between people and it is not about impressing people. Right words at the right place are good enough and there is no need to use complex vocabulary for effective communication. Myth-5  Telling clearly and confidently is the secret of communication: By presenting their own ideas confidently to others, many believe that they can achieve the purpose of communication. Truth is that communication is as much about telling and speaking as it is about listening and encouraging others to speak. Unless you engage others in the communication process, you can never be an effective communicator. To conclude, we believe that communication is a conscious and mindfulness process that is beyond just language and personality….there are other important ingredients to attain excellence in communication! One must not cut corners in the hurry of sending across a message! Do write to us, what are some of the challenges that you have faced when communicating or any other myths you have come across.. we would love to hear your views.. write to info@hrfootprints.com Author Kalyani Barma,  Head, L&D, HR Footprints More articles on Communication skills: https://hrfootprints.com/knowledge-vs-communication-skills/ https://hrfootprints.com/importance-of-communication-skills/ https://hrfootprints.com/four-communication-mistakes-to-avoid/ Don’t let myths hold your organization back—reach out now to start improving your communication practices!

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HR Consulting

World should have treated me better!

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“During my stint in that organization, I brought in many systems and processes; there was nothing when I joined” – -this conversation goes on endlessly unless one makes a conscious effort to stop it!  “I helped them a lot when they were in crisis. Of course, now they have grown big” – -The disappointment is more palpable as the conversation progresses.  “This organization does not understand my value. There are so many other people who want me to join their organization”  -Frustration on lack of respect cannot be hidden.  We often come across such people and regularly hear such comments. It all perhaps comes from several unfulfilled needs. Such people end up boasting about their contributions in an out-of-context manner with irrelevant people. Perhaps such people keep telling themselves “world should have treated me better”!  “I should have been respected more” “I should have been recognized more” “I should have been acknowledged more” “I should have been celebrated more” “World should have understood me more” “Organizations should have utilized more”  More one feels this way, the bigger the sense of disappointment and regret. Primarily because all these expected responses are from others and one has no control over others’ responses towards you. The urge to have others acknowledging you leaves you at the mercy of others. It hurts your ego more when they ignore you more. That is certainly not an empowering feeling!  Instead, a more pragmatic – though it might sound philosophical – approach would be to learn to celebrate internally. Do you know when you truly made a difference to someone or some organization? If you are true to yourself, then celebrate internally and respect yourself. Tell yourself that you are successful in making a difference and your contribution has been meaningful. To acknowledge your contribution or not….let’s leave it to the maturity and wisdom of others. That makes you more self-fulfilled and doesn’t wait for validation from others!  Look forward to hearing from you on your experiences or your approach towards managing yourself in these types of situations. Author Dr raj, CEO, HR Footprints Management Services Pvt Ltd

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Communication: The X Factor

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Poor communication skills adversely impact self-confidence. It will impede relationship building and networking with diverse people. It could also affect your ability to persuade others and get your point across. Lack of communication skills are also seen to be resulting in interpersonal issues. It could also be a reason for not bagging some of the interesting roles, which require extensive communication globally. It might be frustrating to those with strong domain knowledge. Some may even comment that we are relying more on showcasing and packaging and ignoring the substance. But, the reality is that in fast-paced workplaces, it is rare to find someone with a lot of patience to take time and understand your view patiently. Employees who can get across their views swiftly, confidently, and concisely will soon overtake and perform more effectively. It is surely a challenge for someone to take up an English course after joining a job. Though it is difficult, it is better to take up that challenge early in the career in the interest of long-term growth. For example, even if Ramana Rao was selected based on his chemistry knowledge, it would be tough for him on the job to interact with several others. The problem will be bigger as he grows into a team leader. It was surely essential for him to work on his communication skills on a priority. One way to improve communication skills is to attend training classes. Several companies offer Business English or Technical Writing courses. If you want to improve, register for the same without hesitation. If your organization does not offer such courses, then take up the same in some good institutes with a personal cost. It is surely worth an investment in your career! If you are comfortable in English but like to sharpen your communication skills, then the best approach will be observation and self-help. We learn a lot by observing how others are pronouncing some words, how they wrote a mail, or how they presented to an audience. Having observed, it is immediately important to practice what was learned by bringing into one own daily communication. I found the observation method working very well! If you want to significantly improve your communication proficiency, then you may engage a personal communication coach who can work with you at a one-to-one level. Best of the CEOs and leaders do it too! It is usually not so much about vocabulary, as much as it is to do with ‘appropriateness’ of usage. A touch of sensitivity and sensibility will make your communication skill more polished! Go for it – it will be your X-factor!

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is people management for me

“I am a techie; is people management for me?”

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Let us admit first – technical skills are essential to start a career. A young professional is hired by organizations to perform a set of tasks as per the standard operating procedures using the technical expertise. We can see this across industries – IT, pharma, engineering, BPO and so on. As one grows, the young professional starts experiencing greater degree of freedom as the organization begins to trust the technical competence and sees no need for close supervision. In this process, the young professional gains greater proficiency, confidence and freedom. What next? We see some of these proficient technical professionals aspiring to go deeper in the technlogy and become ‘experts’. Which means they continue as ‘individual contributors’ and they are respected as experts. They are expected to bring in cutting-edge technology and advanced thought-leadership as they grow. That is only path of growth in career; or else, one can continue to play the IC role with notional growth. At this stage, it is prudent to consider two practial dimensions: 1. What is your readiness to bring in such deeper technical thought-leadership? In case you don’t, are you ready for a stable IC role with notional growth? 2. Will organizational need as many senior individual contributors without technology thought-leadership? To address the question (1), one needs to be a technical wizard to constantly add value as a technical person and that justifies the seniority as one grows in the career. By doing the ‘familiar’ technical job, one cannot aspire for handsome growth for too long. To answer the question (2), it is important to understand the talent needs of a growing organization. For scaling up and to drive growth, organizations need brilliant innovation (which can come from technology thought-leadership) or by brilliantly managing people and getting the best out of them. The second option necessitates ‘people management’ skills for a technical person. If we see across the organizations, there is an increasing need for people managers at middle levels of the hierarchy. So, if you are a techie, you can introspect on the above aspects – do I have the aptitude and expertise to constantly stay ahead of technology and grow as a thougt-leader? Remember – there will be a handful such roles and not too many. Alternatively, can I quickly learn people management skills and grow in career while getting the best out of the teams? Demand is certainly more here if you have the right attitude to manage people. If you miss these two, then the default option is to stay as techie and be happy with notional growth – so long the organization has the need for your technical skill. Note: If you wish to know more about our experiences of how we helped many managers develop their people management skills, and about our Certified People Manager (CPM) program, please do write to info@hrfootprints.com Wondering how to blend your technical expertise with effective people management? Embrace your full potential as a tech leader—reach out now to learn more about our people management solutions for techies like you!

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