Mumbai Update

It's been more than 24 hours since the Mumbai came under an unprecedented terrorist attack, the rescue operations are far from over. The visuals on TV are disturbing and situation is very very tensed out here.

I wish and pray that all your friends and families are safe. Fortunately, my friends, colleagues and relatives are safe here. Hope the situation becomes normal very soon.

It's holiday time in US. I wish all of you a very happy thanksgiving!

Situational Leadership

So often I find organization "culture" influencing the leadership style so much that just to align to the "culture" or style of the boss, people miss out on the common sense of leadership styles. I firmly believe that you need to have different strokes for different folks.

Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard have done a phenomenal job of explaining this through 'Situational Leadership". Effectiveness of a leadership style - Directing, Coaching, Supporting or Delegating- depends on development level of the follower. Hersey and Blanchard use four development levels to explain the concept.

* D1 -“Enthusiastic Beginner”: Low Competence, High Commitment
* D2 - “Disillusioned Learner”: Some Competence, Low Commitment
* D3 - “Reluctant Contributor”: Moderate to High Competence, Variable Commitment
* D4 - “Peak Performer”: High Competence, High Commitment

Suggested leadership styles for each levels are:
* Directing for Enthusiastic Beginner
* Coaching for Disillusioned Learner
* Supporting for Reluctant Contributor
* Delegating for Peak Performer

There is a lot of literature available on this topic, but there is, unfortunately, a very few people / organizations practicing them:-(

So, which leadership style works for you?

“Gully Cricket” Strategy

I have played Gully cricket a lot. It's a ball game played on street with whatever equipment you get and using any rules that you feel like.

Here is an observation of a gully cricket game and field setting strategy of a team (use the diagram if you are unfamiliar with the game):

• When a batsman hits the ball over the top of bowler’s head, the captain immediately ensures that long on and long off fielders are in place to catch it next time
• The next ball flies 2 meters right to the wicket-keeper and the captain immediately sets two fielders in sleep cordon
• The batsman now pushes for a single run in "mid-off" area and the captain decides to bring "long off" fielder closer to stop the runs on next ball
• Guess what, the next ball is hit over the head of "mid-off" fielder!
• The fielders oblige to the captain, because the captain owns the bat and ball. Once he leaves, there is no cricket for that day:-)

[source: http://www.abcofcricket.com]

Well, there is a lot of common sense learning in this example that may sound very stupid, but not very unreal.

Do we observe somewhat similar behaviors at work?

• Knee jerk reactions and stop-gap solutions to day-to-day problems
• Temptation to solve all the problems and solve them NOW
• Kick-off a new initiative without thinking through the aspects of sustainability, measurement and accountability
• Not questioning the boss, because he/she is THE BOSS (he/she does my evaluation and decides my career progression)
• Fighting battles hard and loosing wars

A common sense solution would be to answer following questions for any new initiatives / solutions that we implement:

1. Is the problem really "the problem"? (Don’t take problem on face value. Identify root cause. Try to spot a pattern / trend)
2. Do the stakeholders (project team, sponsors, customer service,...) affected by the problem acknowledge the problem and seek a solution? (Or we are giving them solution just because we have the solution, time and money. What are the pain-points that we are trying to address?)
3. Do we need to solve it now? (How does it align to our vision? Would it create more distraction for the team than benefit them? Is there a pressing need to solve it now? Don’t you think constrains bring more creativity?)
4. How do we sustain the solution? (If solution is to do monthly assessment of project, how do you put it in the workflow of project life-cycle to ensure that it gets done every month in right spirit? Who will own it?)
5. How do we communicate the solution and its benefit?
6. How would we measure success of the solution?
7. How would we collect feedback and make improvements in the solution?

Does it make sense? How do you solve such problems?