Things I have learnt because of The Children's Post

• The incredible economy of LOVE - where money is not the motivator, neither the earning. 
•  All women teams do not indulge in conversations - like, ever. The group was never used for anything not related to work. By anyone. We shared personal updates, challenges, chatter, in the Editors's Meets. We have had ladies across education levels, geographies, and personality types.
• Making Creatives for social media. Never thought I could do it. 
• Community management on Facebook 
• Proofreading and Editing 
• Reporting for children - knowing what children will want to read, and how to write it. 
• Writing funny poetry for children 
• Contest and event management for kids - I can now get up from sleep and put one together. 
• All about CC0 to CC4. I was aware, to the extent that we needed it for Esha. But the Free Music Archive, the CC0 image websites, etc. have all been a revelation. And now i contribute to CC0 images regularly. 
• The children and their love. We made a decision to NOT use bots to manage the email volume, even when it was overwhelming. because we wanted to remember that on the other side of that email was a child. And how much we have learnt because of that rule! 
• I once read a quote that has become the goalpost on my life - If you want to know the difference your leaving will make, take out a pail of water and see the empty space left behind. There are, by any estimate, at least 100 children's news publications in India. Yet, every single one of our stakeholders - our incubation center, our mentors, our readers, subscribers, everyone who took the time to speak to us, told us that they need The Children's Post to go on. This is the ONLY exception of the hole in water theory that I am aware of. We will, I think, leave a hole in the water. And I hope that that hole will be filled with fond memories by every heart in which it exists. 
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Why Facebook targeting fails

 In a recent discussion, it just came out:

The reason that Facebook targeting, with all that AI and cookies, does not work, is that people are very different on FB than they are in real life.

We need good research professionals to obeserve and understand what people are really like. Not what their online behaviour is. Even if you find out their secret lives, they are not going to make purchase decisions based on that secret life.

Your thoughts?

When the Medium hurts rather than benefits the advertiser

 Dear Hotel Chain: Please tell facebook to correlate two simple pieces of information:

1. Do you have a property at the location searched by the user on their non Facebook window, when the user has specifically said that facebook cannot track off-facebook activity?

2. Has the customer already booked? There is no point in showing ads after the hotel booking has been completed.

As a user, I should be angry, but am mildly amused.

As the advertiser, I should be livid, because Facebook has both these pieces of information, and does not use them to give advertiser the best value. This is wastage of advetiser money, not to mention open breach of user privacy for which the user might blame the brand and not the platform. One is very tempted to not use the brand again.

In this case, the advertiser is likely to lose rather than gain business, because of unethical conduct by the medium.

On Community Management

Running a community is like flying a kite. You start with small, repetitive efforts and keep doing the same thing, until you are really in the sky. Then, you soar. 

Would you evict an unhappy customer?

 So, came across yet another instance of this: 

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/a-grandmother-and-her-6-year-old-granddaughter-were-kicked-out-of-a-georgia-hotel-in-their-pajamas-after-leaving-a-3-star-review-a-report-says/ar-AAR4UpT?ocid=msedgntp

https://www.wyndhamhotels.com/baymont/marietta-georgia/baymont-inn-and-suites-marietta-atlanta-north/overview

This was the hotel in question. 

1. Has this ever happened with you? That a hospitality provider asked you to leave in the middle of your service because of a bad review? 

2. Would you do this? Why or why not? 

PS: It has happened to me once. And since then, I always ensure that i rate anonymously and honestly. I depend on honest reviews by other travellers and owe them the same honesty. 

On setting up an organisation

Let's say you are a leader looking to start a new firm. You have resources, the mandate, and the authority. You also have that manana from heaven - a clean slate. 

Here is one recommended approach to putting your organisation together, if you have the resources.

Organisation Structure

Obviously, one of the first things you will think about is Organisation Structure. 

This part outlines the steps to create an organisation structure that will actually work. 

But first, lets talk about the things that DON'T work. 

• The Structure is led by the leader, not the consultant 

A therapist knows the right behavioural elements, but they don't tell you what to do. Instead, they do the frustrating job of pestering you with questions until you realise what you want to do. There are two kinds of consultants you can bring on board - the first, will do what a therapist does, bring the org structure from within you, because you have to live with that structure, not them. 

The second kind will come in and tell you how you should operate, and put 15 analysts on the job. 

Get the first kind. With one key difference. When they see you doing something that is obviously not going to work, they tell you that upfront. If there is enough trust in the relationship, this leads to mutual learning and saves time. If not, the consultant will have to use the option of asking questions until you realise what is going to work for you. 

Here is why the leader is the key decision maker on culture. 

In Nov 2020, the new CEO, Thierry Delaporte, completely overhauled the org structure of the company. This is the email that he wrote to employees then: 

https://www.cnbctv18.com/information-technology/wipro-ceo-thierry-delaporte-writes-mail-to-employees-highlights-organisational-changes-full-text-7469451.htm

Less than a year later, Wipro had changed its story completely. 

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/a-frenchman-sitting-in-paris-turns-wipro-around/articleshow/87091176.cms

How was a behemoth like Wipro transformed in under a year? 

The leader created an org structure that allowed them to monitor the business in a way that worked for them, and then appointed people they trust in key roles. 

THAT is the power of leader led org structures. 

• There is no such thing as Industry Standard or Industry Best Practice 

The only thing that matters is common sense and alignment. Some industries have to do some things more than some other things. We take inputs on that, sure, we understand what others are doing and how its working for them. But we do not make those practices our goalposts. Not in anything, and certainly not in strategic things like Org Structure or Business Planning. 

In an emerging industry, we have the luxury of defining the industry standard. In legacy industries, that bandwidth may be a little lesser, but its there. 

In the early 2000s, all Indian IT companies moved to this grid structure - Verticals and Horizontals - Industry * Geography. It was this matrix structure that was dismantled by Thierry Delaporte. 

What Works aka How to define an Org Structure 

A. Define your first line. 

How do you want to view your business. If you had to get 5 key things about your business on your fingertips and have 6 people on a hotline, what would those numbers be and what would be those 6 roles? 

That's the first step - to define your first line. 

B. After that, do a culture workshop. 

A Culture Workshop is the most important thing that you will do in the Org Structure journey. Write out the 6 words that reflect the culture that you want. 

A CEO I worked with recently was insistent that the word he wanted was "family". Even in a competitive industry like IT, he did not want to create a culture focused on competition or personal excellence alone. When thinking of work, he wanted people to think of the office as a family they belong to. 

In the two years since then, we have done 3 employee dipsticks and family comes right on top when people talk about what their culture is. Trust comes a close second. :) 

C. Then, write the JDs and hire the right people 

JDs are important, esp for your direct line of reporting. Hire the right people. People who bring their own functional expertise, and more importantly, share the same keywords for culture. 

Trust has two components - Intention, and Action 

The first is about shared values. The second is about delivering results. Trust is a biped, it needs both to walk the talk. Ensure you bring people who share the values, but can also deliver business results in a foreseeable time frame. That is the only way that their teams and your stakeholders will trust you. 

C.1 The Compensation 

Do have numbers in mind, but be flexible. This is the only place where "industry standard" almost trumps "What we bring to the table." 

D. The Org Structure guidelines

The next step is to create guidelines for an org structure. You can decide lean and efficient, or gig workers preferred, or diversity first - anything works. But do have a small set of guidelines that you communicate clearly to your first line of command. 

E. Let them make their own organisations 

After this, let them make their own organisations. In fact, have this as a key interview question - as a department head, how would you like to structure your organisation. 

Making it Run

A. Involve your own HR team as early as possible. The longer you let consultants run the show, the harder the KT. 

B. Put HR processes in place. Follow an HR Portfolio management approach. Don't go piecemeal. 

C. Invest in human process excellence. Don't think of the function as paper pushers. Give them aggressive talent targets and give them the teeth to bite. For instance, if a manager loses more than x% of their team over a period, they should be able to highlight that as an organisational process. If they find it hard to fill a position for more than x weeks, either they complain or you complain "We are trying our best" or "Market is tough" is not acceptable response. 

D. Hold your HR accountable. Typically, HR tends to enter the room with reasons like "Business needs". But there will be no business without people. Their core job is to marry business needs with talent aspirations. That is literally their job description. If you bring a numbers based approach to HR, you will find that it is hard to hire the right HR talent, but once in, they will LOVE working with you. 

E. Do NOT compromise on values and culture. It never pays. Its very short term, and it guarantees failure. Even if the values route appears to be longer, more painful and far more expensive, remember that markets can stay volatile a lot longer than economies can stay solvent. So, responding to volatility with volatility-supporting behaviour does not guarantee success. 

Afternoon Thoughts

 

Infosec is to Fintech what HSE is to Oil and Gas.

#AfternoonThoughts 

 

Just like OIl and Gas depends on security to keep its engines running, Fintech depends on Info security. One incident, and everything comes tumbling down and grinds to a halt. Coverup is a short term solution and perhaps the instinctive reaction, but as the oil and gas industry will tell you, its a poor strategy, and what's worse, doesn't work. 

The only good thing to do is to approach infosec like the Oil and Gas Industry approaches HSE - have transparent standards, invest in a clear security policy and ensure that every member of team is educated and compliant. Report transparently and periodically. Most importantly, learn from EVERY mistake. Each one of those recovered mistakes is going to save you from a larger disaster, and make no mistake, there will be larger incidents. Oh, and don't forget the Incident Management System.