India and the entrepreneur mindset

My son was pitching his startup to a real, live audience for the first time this weekend. The event had 10 fantastic ideas by students from all parts of the country. While the brilliance of these ideas and their bold execution took one by surprise, what really got my attention was how each speaker (each of them a stellar entrepreneur themselves) spoke about the dire need to pull our children out of the job seeker mindset and to instill in them the job creator mindset. 

"In school, don't think of how you will kill your creativity and do a course to become a job seeker. Think about how you will harness and unleash the same creativity to be a job creator by the time you graduate from college." 

- Said one of the speakers. 

Another speaker said: 

The British have worked hard to make sure our children grow up with the clerk mindset. Change what your education is telling you to become. Give up the clerk mindset and get the entrepreneur mindset. 

********** 

Obviously, these quotes make one think immediately of the Gujaratis, who traditionally look down upon jobs as a form of slavery and inspire each child to start something of their own. It is a cultural thing. 

And then, one got to thinking some more: 

From the days of Indus Valley Civilisation, India has been and continues to be, at its heart, a mercantile civilisation*. 

Agriculture does employ the most people, but trade generates the most value. 

After the Mughals, there was relative stability in Delhi and trade flourished. By 1600 AD, as many as FOUR East India companies had been incorporated in Europe because Europeans were sick of how much money they were having to pay to India for their needs - Dutch, Portugese, French, and British East India companies. 

India did not just know how to make great stuff. We also knew how to sell it profitably. 

Even today, mercantile trade in the form of family business contributes to the bulk of our secondary sector GDP. 

And that is why, Indians will find their way back to entrepreneurship. We may have eliminated it from our education, but we have it in our homes. 

I think we underestimate the importance of historical legacy when we talk about India becoming the fastest growing startup nation of the world. As soon as the ecosystem was created and favourable conditions provided, we soared. Including the 100 bright young minds who submitted their entries to this national startup contest for students. As one of the speakers said - "If this is how the young minds of today are thinking, I know that our future is in safe hands. This country will progress." 

*Trade relations of SIVC with other contemporary civilisations are well documented. My hypothesis on the seals is that these were mercantile seals with codes instead of actual text. The code would include things like source(name and location of merchant, much like brands today), type of product, grade/quality of product, and potentially, the units carried. Most of these seals can be imprinted upon another surface, much like lac seals used even today by Marwadi marchants. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0UlCatC1e4

Here is another person who shares the same hypothesis: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8qA6sSXNts

Here are some estimates: 

https://www.businesstoday.in/opinion/interviews/story/family-businesses-contribute-over-70-to-india-gdp-says-farhad-forbes-of-family-business-network-225943-2019-09-09

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/company/corporate-trends/india-ranks-3rd-globally-in-terms-of-number-of-family-owned-businesses/articleshow/65807479.cms

https://www.forbesindia.com/special-report/indias-family-businesses/1617/1

https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041770/india-business-structure-family-businesses-by-type/

How to create a Rewards and Recognition Program in 40 days

 I was a part of an interesting project this year. 

An organisation had been wanting to implement a Rewards and Recognition program for over 2 years. 

We went live in 40 days. 

Here is how we achieved it: 

Prework: Industry Benchmark

As consultants, obviously, we get paid to know the industry benchmarks on Rewards and Recognition. If you are starting out on that journey, suggest you spend some time reading up on what other organisations in the same industry, location, and size are doing. 

Step One: What do you want to reward? 

I always say that 80% of consulting is asking the right questions. 20% is using your experience to create the right solutions based on those questions. 

So, the first question we ask is: What do you want to reward? 

This session was held with the CEO and next level. They all listed what they wanted to reward and how they would unequivocally and transparently identify that. 

The second question, obviously, was not easy to answer for most of them, and that is what helped us eliminate the kind of awards that would lead to heartburn later. 

Once the listing was done, we identified the modal values and selected the top X number. These awards were purely behaviour based. You demonstrated some behaviour, you got nominated. As an advisor, I insisted on 100% transparency and clearly recordable data points. Because each award leads to one winner and 99 losers. So you have to be very clear who you put on that stage and ensure that everyone in the audience is clapping because they understand why that person is on the stage. 

Step Two: Ask the People 

The next step was to ask the employees what they would like to be awarded for. 

We ran an employee contest in which everyone was encouraged to share as many ideas as they would like for awards. 

There were, of course, spot awards and awards for the best ideas submitted. 

We picked some ideas from this list too. 

If you use this route, make sure you close the loop by doing the spot and best idea awards within a week of the contest closing. Otherwise, people will not participate next time. 

Step Three: Bringing in all Together

This is easily the toughest part of the project. 

As the functioning HR leader, I had to collate the three lists and choose what we would start with and what would come later in the year. 

We chose 15 items. This list was then presented to the CEO +1 level, and we were able to prune 5 more entries out. 

With that, we were ready to start with a good 10 awards, 5 more to be added within the year. 

A big risk was that 6 out of these 10 were peer to peer awards. Which means that if people did not like the Awards program, we would bomb. Big time. Also, were our people mature enough to understand and give the right P2P awards? 

I decided that it was time to empower the team, and take that risk. We'll see if any coaching is required. 

Step Four: Communication Plan and Creatives 

Do not underestimate the power of this step. Work on an excellent communication plan that does enough communication and repetition. 

Pay attention to the creatives. All your month-long hard work will go down the drain (no exaggeration) if the creatives do not talk to the audience. Please pay attention to the creatives. 

And pay attention to the right communication plan. Send those teasers, prepare those spot awards, ensure that everyone knows what the P2P awards are for, and how to give them. (Especially if, like me, you are running 6 out of 10 awards as P2P). 

Step Five: Launch! 

Have a launch event! Even if its virtual. For multi-location companies, have a virtual event ONLY so that everyone gets to know about the awards at the same time. 

Step Six: Monitor 

After that, we monitored how people adopted. P2P awards had a spot element too, so people could start using the awards immediately. 

Thankfully, we did well. Very well. 

Step Seven: Keep the Fun Pumping! 

The worst thing that can hit any program is boredom. So, ensure that you have scheduled adequate award functions to keep the RnR program fun and relevant. Both physical and virtual events, and the right mix of communication. Too much, and they switch off, too little, and it becomes irrelevant. 

How to spot fake news, clickbaits, whataboutery, and other dubious media practices

This post is a series of comments made on another post on LI. 

You know a news is fake when:
A. It has too much fortune telling with very little specifics. Look for words like - may, potentially, is expected to, allegedly, might, will, reduces risk, increases risk, dramatically increases risk, will be isolated, will give a boost to, estimated to.

B. It uses positive and negative adjectives in more than 40% of the content. "Greatest" "First Time ever" "The grandest" "Poor display of"

C. It presents "facts" that only reinforce one side of the story.

D. It appeals to the emotional. it can use words like "Cultural heritage", "Victimised", "Ancient origins", "Only ones to meet this treatment". OR it might just use adjectives or verbs that are emotional rather than factual. A factual news piece would read - "One study estimates that ocean trash in the Indian Ocean is 20% more than last year." Then go on to provide details of how this estimate was arrived at. A media story would go - "Dirt Reaches the Indian Ocean: Trash to Double Within Five Years" then go on to first present fortune telling, and make no effort to explain how the study was conducted.

E. Bold headline statements - "Scientists make ship out of plastic bottles" Reality? ONE pilot project has been submitted as a research paper at a peer reviewed journal. "This <something> holds the key to <that something>. " Reality - Some researcher has done some simulation and arrived at one estimate.
A factual news piece will give you a lot of facts - both supporting and negating a hypothesis, if a hypothesis is in order. It will state facts using neutral terms - Rajasthan Chief Minister quits. Not "Rajasthan Chief Minister quits amidst speculation of a rift in party." The latter is clickbait and sensationalism. Don't click on them, don't read those stories.

How to do Portfolio Planning for HR

 In the previous post,  we did 3 important things: 

A. Created a vision for the future. 

B. Created a portfolio of all HR services 

C. Created a linkages map to understand how HR interacts and depends on/supports other functions. 

In this post, we will understand how to take strategic discussions using this tool. 

Step One: Bases for prioritisation 

What matters to your business? 

Here are four different bases that you can use, either one by one, or in combination. 

This discussion is ideally between the CEO and the CHRO. Other stakeholders may be present, but only if necessary. This is a very strategy-led, focused discussion. 

You can either use a simple Red-Yellow-Green format, or you can get more detailed and give weightages to these items. 

The first step, of course, is to take the master portfolio and remove what does not belong or is not relevant to the organisation. This step simplifies the visuals quite a bit and is very helpful. 

For example, your portfolio, after pruning, might look like this: 

Now, of these, we have completely outsourced: 

A. BGV 

B. Payroll 

C. Claims and Benefits

D. Compliance 

So, we remove these 4 also. POSH is on autopilot and does not need day to day attention. We remove that too. 

Our portfolio now looks like this: 

Now, we are dealing with significantly less complexity :) 

Base One: Business Needs 

This is a no brainer. If we are looking to enter a new country, global employee management will need to come first. 

Likewise, anything else that is dictated by business strategy is prioritised. 

Base Two: What People Want

This is a more personal prioritisation. 

We pay attention to three main stakeholders: 

A. What the CEO wants 

B. What the CHRO wants

C. What the employees want (as per the last E Sat) 

One simple way to do this is to choose 3 colour shades - White if no one selects it as important, pale blue when one person chooses it, medium blue when two stakeholders choose it, and dark blue when all 3 choose it. 

Here is an example: 

And now, we can clearly see that Employee Information management, RnR, LTM, and Recruitment are our focus areas for this year. 

The beauty of this tool is that it is simple and visual. 

So as decisions get taken, the tool also looks cleaner. 

Base Three: The Urgency -Importance Grid 

This is a brainstorming and discussion technique. The CHRO and CEO discuss and finalise the items that go into the four grids of urgent and important. 

This base is a little confusing, and we would avoid it for the first time. 

Step Two: Fixing outcomes, timelines, and responsibility 

Let us continue with our example above. 

We want to focus on recruitment, LTM, RnR, and Employee Information this year. 

The next step is to simply write out the business outcome we expect each quarter on each of these items. Who will take ownership of these? 

The outcome is the criteria for success. 

For instance, we take a simple example like Employee Information. 

The Quarter wise targets for these in the next two quarters are: 

Q1: All employee information streamlined at a single source of truth. 

Q2: Zero duplication of information across systems. 

Q3: Information lag (the delay between an event happening and the information entering the system) is 2 days or less. 

In Q4, with this tab reaching stability, we can deprioritise it. 

Step Three: Review and Reprioritise 

The ideal is to meet once a month on the HR strategy, so that we know that actions in HR are following our strategy. 

Once a quarter, we can reprioritise. 

This is a self-sustaining mode of HR operations that keeps HR Ops aligned to strategy. 

A Portfolio Planning Approach to HR

Over the years, many HR leaders (and IT leaders) have asked: 

How do we make HR more business focused? How do we speak the language of business? 

How can we communicate better with the CEO? 

In 2016, I worked on and created something called the HR Portfolio Management. 

This is a very different approach to managing HR. 

This approach can: 

A. Help CHROs see and show the big picture to anyone who wants to learn about their work. 

B. Help CXOs communicate about people policies in a language that everyone understands. 

C. Hopefully, reduce the friction that one observes in organisations around HR plans and budgets. 

So, What is the Portfolio Approach to HR? 

In PMI, we learn project management. Several programs come together to form programs, and programs come together to form portfolios. 

In essence, portfolios are the highest level of strategic planning. 

They help us understand where the building blocks of our function lie in the grand scheme of things. 

How do we do this? 

Start by defining the pillars of the Future of Work. 

This should be based on your reading and on your discussion with other HR leaders and CXOs within your organisation. 

I believe that the pillars of the future of work are going to be: 

The Future of Work 

Your list may be different from ours. That's fine. What is important is to have a vision for the Future of Work, and how you intend to participate in it. 

Step Two: The Portfolio 

Usually, when I show CHROs and CEOs the HR portfolio, their eyes pop in surprise. CEOs more than CHROs, to be fair. They do not think that HR covers so many verticals. At most, we think of HR as Talent Acquisition - Talent Nurturing - Talent Management - Employer Branding. 

We think of HR as a Hire to Retire enabler. 

Allow me to share: The HR Portfolio 

Obviously, this list keeps changing. For instance, the Multiple Concurrent Employment node has just been added after moonlighting became a thing. 

Step Three: Understand the linkages 

The next step is to understand the most vital touchpoints of HR with other entities in the organisation. This high-level diagram is very important. 

My diagram below is indicative, but has worked for almost 70-80% of our clients. 

Next Post: How to do Portfolio Planning for HR 

11 Top Tips for New Age Tech Product Companies

 So, this is how a story unfolded: 

We use a cloud-based tech product for a specific part of our work. 

Of late, we have not been using them much. 

We started getting automated CRM messages like, "You have not visited us for a while" etc. But it really wasn't their fault. Our work had changed and our need for their product was less than it used to be. 

But last week, I needed to use the platform once again. Logged in and tried to do something I'd done hundreds of times earlier. 

There was an error message - "<field name> should be at least 30 minutes in the future." I looked for the field. It wasn't there. Which means this was a backend field that was somehow populated by some script running on the page. But I had no idea how to debug for this! 

Looked for a support channel. The only option was to initiate a callback if the knowledge base has no answer to your query. 

I did. 

The callback came. To their credit, in 15-20 minutes. 

I explained the problem. 

Support Desk: Why don't you make a new page and enter the whole information again? 

Me: I don't want to make a new page. I want to reuse this page. Why am I not able to do that? 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot or a screen recording? 

Me: I have given you the text of the error and the point at which this error is getting triggered. You have my cust id. Why do you need a screenshot to replicate the error? Take the record to your test server and do the transaction there, then debug! 

Support: Can you send me a screenshot? 

Me: No. 

But that's not all. After that, I got 2 emails a day with the following text: 

"Dear Customer: 

This is wrt the ticket that you raised. We hope that it was closed to your satisfaction. Please close the ticket if your issue is resolved" 

- with NO link to close the ticket. No email id on which to confirm whether or not the issue was resolved. Nothing. Just a plain text message from an automated sender. There is also no ticketin dashboard for me as a customer after logging in. 

With this, I got to thinking of the other reasons one has left Tech products behind. And here are some pointers 

Zero Defect Product is not an achievement. It is a MVP. 

If you want to run the marathon, make zero defect your DNA. 

************** 

Dear Tech Product Firms: 

• It is not the customer's job to help you debug your product. It is your job to ensure that a zero-bug product reaches the market. Zero tolerance for production bugs needs to be in your DNA if you are a tech product. Those tech bugs come back with big bites. Ask the graveyard of tech firms. 
• Minimise the customer's experience with the error. Have SoPs in place that tell the support person what exactly they need from the user and then get them cracking. 
• Have an accessible support. It goes a long way in increasing NPS, even from attriting customers. 
• Have a brilliant L1 support team. Half the user's issues can be solved by a well-informed L1 Helpdesk. Don't scrooge on them. 
• There are two quotes related to customers: 

                Steve Jobs: The customer doesn't know what it wants, until you show it to him. 

                David Ogilvy: The customer is not an idiot. She is your wife. 

                Trust Ogilvy. 

• Don't give the customer stupid workarounds. The customer is more ingenious than you when it comes to workarounds. You are being called to solve the problem. 
• "I am trying" means nothing to a retail customer. It means less than nothing to an enterprise customer. The correct response format is, "This will be done by <time>. If we are not able to resolve this by then, we will do <Plan B> to get your business in place." 
• Have product managers spend at least one day a month on L1 support desk. Have L1 support desks attend your sprint planning voting on stories on rotational basis. 
• If you have a wishlist, don't make it a Treasure hunt for the user. Have a simple link that takes a signed in user to the feature wishlist. That feature wishlist is your goldmine. 
• If you do have a wishlist, also add the small feature of "+1" in it, so customers who have similar needs can just upvote a story/feature ask instead of typing out the same thing over and over again. 
• Security is not an afterthought. 

The Gap between when we learn and when we need it

My son started learning meditation when he was 7-8 years old. 

Why? 

Because at that age, the child does not have to do any unlearning. We can start with simple things like deep breathing and guide the child to the format of meditation that works for them. It can be dhyana, it can be Bhakti. It can be focus based or love based. 

The second important reason is that with an early initiation into meditation, the child grows up with a strong inner calm, and more importantly, a technique that they can use to center themselves when needed. 

Children don't need these skills until much later - the High school is perhaps the first time that a child feels exam or peer stress and needs a relaxation or centering technique. But by that time, the child has already had years of practice and slips right in, avoiding the trauma of teenage hormones.  

He learnt Speed Reading in 2019, when he was 12 years old. We fought. 

"I don't need this." he stormed. 

"Yes, right now you don't. But when you do need it, you won't have time to spend on learning it, nor the time to practice. To use it effectively then, you will have to learn it now and practice it pointlessly till then." I countered, "Just trust me on this." 

Reluctantly, he did. He completed a 5 week course in a single sitting, going from 200+ words per minute to a top speed of 1400 words per minute. 

After that, I encouraged him to speed read at least some of the times, and while he wasn't all gung-ho, he complied. 

Then came Grade 9. And he was able to read fast enough to complete reading and find time to play. 

He learnt Speed Maths from the ages of 8 - 10. 

This Speed Maths was created by me at the age of 11 to deal with my own maths issues. So, it covered only the things that we needed as students - prime nos, multiplication of prime nos, squares, cubes and cube roots, basic identities, multiplication and division. 

Same story. 

"I don't need this!" 

"Not right now, but in a few years, you will." 

"No i won't." 

"When high school maths hits, what kills you is not the concepts. The concepts are easy enough to get. It is the laborious calculations - 13 * 17 *19. But you learn that right now. Just trust me on this." 

And he did. 

We did not use practice sheets. We just practised with number plates of vehicles around us as we drove, or randomly while watching TV, or in the middle of unrelated fights. "Why is 1729 a special number?"  Because it is 7*13*19! And 1728? That's 12 cube. 

Come Grade 7,  the child was looking at those long calculations and finally benefiting from what he learnt years ago and had practised for years before needing it. He slipped right in. I got that Thank you. 

He learnt self expression through theater at the age of 18 months.. we covered the Navarasa to understand and express exactly what we were feeling. We practised through books, and over a period of time, with situations that came up around us. He learnt to identify and express the real emotion. It took some struggling, but the core navarasas helped a lot. As soon as he learnt to talk, he learnt to talk about emotions too. I didn't know then, whether he was going to be an introvert, but I did know that the ability to identify and express exactly what you are feeling is a priceless skill, and hard to acquire later. It must begin with the acquisition of core language skills. 

As he grew up, I heard a lot of "Boys don't express themselves." But thankfully, was spared the experience. He and I had been identifying and articulating for many years before teenage and other difficult times struck. When the time came, we had already practised. 

He was taught logic puzzles from the age of 6 or so. When he was 8, I tried to do a logic puzzles class for other children, but found few takers. Any case, we kept at it at home. He had to solve logic puzzles with me, albeit reluctantly. This year, we did GMAT Critical Reasoning (he is 15). There were 35 practice questions. He got all 35 right. In his first attempt. He didn't even think it was a big deal. Indian students score lowest on the CR section of every test, because logic is not a part of our school curriculum at all. 

Before the age of 3, he had heard 6-7 languages inside the house. I spoke them deliberately, sometimes mixing words from 2 languages in the same sentence! Everyone called me crazy, but I just kept doing it. Today, he understands those 5-6 languages to a reasonable degree. He has never needed them - yet. 

So, what is the point? 

The point is, that the age at which children are best suited to learn a few things, and the age at which they need to use those things, are very far apart. The time at which we teach our children these skills, is years before they see any real need of them. But at the right time, they find that they are able to manage just fine. That is neither automatic nor a coincidence. It is because two vital things have happened: 

A. The child has acquired the skill when their brains were growing the fastest - the first 3 years are the fastest stage of growth, then 5 years, then 8, and then, the growth slows till the age of 18 or thereabouts. We do learn after the age of 18, but compared to our potential in the early years, it is much lesser. 

B. The child has had years of slow but consistent practice. In a peaceful, non-stressful way. There really is no substitute for slow, consistent, fun practice. Even if you remember once a year that 2197 is the cube of 13, that is important. And it will come to you, almost automatically, when the need arises - 10 years later, when you are prepping for entrance exams. 

So, we, as parents, need to understand that some of these skills, which go on to form part of our IQ, EQ, and SQ, start much before the child actually needs them. And as enrichment educators at TCP, we need to find a way to teach that to other parents.