Leadership Practice

"Change is inevitable"

The above line would have been heard by each and everyone. This is true in real life and with the growth, change in mind set, competition, increase in competency level of an average person, we do change or are part of change in each aspect of life. This is true even in Leadership. Here I have collected 10 points which should be changed or rather removed from the "Leadership Practices" which we have been following for years. 

Business owners certainly have a long way to go, especially in more established companies where old practices die hard. By creating a company with a clear purpose and values, you'll find your employees connect themselves to something bigger, and that increases productivity.  In other words, a culture of engagement leads to greater customer loyalty, and better financial success.

Remove or throw away following from your leadership Practice.

A.  Micro-management, or the need to control every aspect of your company is outdated.  Empowerment, the ability to give your people some rope--even rope to make mistakes without blame. Empowerment is the Key now.

B.  Management by walking around the office; it is no longer enough to be visible. What is now happening is : Leadership by watching and listening, engaging in conversation, implementing the ideas presented to you, and distributing the results.

C.  Pretending you know everything. You don't have all the answers, so why try to make people think you do? This practice is gone now and what is in is: Knowing your leadership team members and trusting them. Choose great people who have the right skills and fit the culture.  And get out of the way.

D.  No mistakes, or a "no tolerance policy" some still think works, but it does not. Today we are  Learning from mistakes, or being the first to admit an error.

E.  The balance sheet drives the business, and informs all other decisions is out and what is in is  People drive the business, boosting customer loyalty, and profit.

F.  Job competency is sufficient. Do the job asked, and you'll survive. This now history. Need of today is  Recruit "A" players who will go the extra mile. They're out there.

G. Out: Invest in technology to increase productivity. In: Invest in people.

H. Out: Demand change; be very specific about what you want and when. In: Nurture change; your people can come up with the best ideas and you can give them credit for it.

I. Out: Fried food in the cafeteria. In: Wellness in the workplace.

J. Out: Incentives; pay employees more money and they'll do more. In: Rewards; being valued matters more than money.

Think... For all the leaders and all those which aspire to be leaders

Unspoken Communication in Presentation

Presentation ( making ppt) is one of key in almost all companies for communicating an important piece of information to stakeholders at all level. Presenting a concept , may it be a strategy, solution, plan or anything in form of power point presentation provides ease of building creditability and engaging all users to participate with their thoughts. Would you like to listen to a speaker who is standing with an angry look on his face? Mostly (baring few exceptions) not. Right from children to old people, we want to befriend a person who is cheerful, playful, approachable, smiling. Although we communicate with words, but our non-verbal signals communicate a lot in participants mind. Here are few points which would help present you point in a better way

1. Never show you displeasure: Even if something has not gone in your favour, do not look displeased. Wear a warm smile. Remember no one cares if your displeased, how ever people look forward to you if you are pleasing personality.

2. Don't Look away: While presenting make sure your eyes communicate ( where you look) to every side where the participants are sitting. Especially towards end (last slide) many people just look at the last slide as reinforcement or may look aside as to communicate (non-verbally) "thanks god it is over".Never speak with your back towards the audience.

3. Ease at start and End: Engage people in some general topic before  the start so that participant opens up the bond building with the presenter. Good example may be one of the recent topics of news (which generally all are interested in) or a quick story or joke. Although many people follow this but their are very few who does this at the end. Do not rush to pick your things and go back to your seat. Say thanks and wait for people to respond to you. Slowly pick up your things before you leave the presenter seat. Keep looking at participants while you are wrapping up to leave.

4. Hand Gestures: Use slow hand gestures that move in harmony with your words like your are directing a group of people performing musical night. Hold your hands out and palms down while presenting facts.Prospects that rub, pull or scratches their ear while you’re presenting to them means they 
have either; heard enough or they want to speak.

5. Visual Aids: While presenting you may use visual aids like some picture on ppt, or using some note card to participants. It is obvious that while you present using visual aids, you may loose eye contact. Hence keep note pad in your palms right in front of you or stand near the visual aid side of ppt. This will make people to keep eye contact with you

These are very small but very high impact communication for a presenter. Initial users ( who has not given much presentation ) can practice this and see the impact. 

5 Things That would Help in Project Management

Information Technology has always been a challenge for people who manages IT Projects. The challenges are different for following reason:

• Information Technology is always been linked to Business and business is always growing , changing and expanding. Information Technology projects goes through changes even before it has been delivered.
• Business users are ignorant about technology(Although we have seen a growth)  and their understanding of how to use the Information Technology to maximize potential is limited. They see technology as solution provider and not the tool to help them.
• Technologies are changing faster than any other business

Keeping all these in mind, we need to have following things to manage our Delivery of the solution in a better way:

1. Open for change: Define the scope and limit it to development but make sure that you are developing something which is easy for change. Avoid giving answers like "this is not possible in this technology?". Remember if you can not do it, some one else would.
2. Understand Business: It is important that the whole development team understands the business to the maximum they can. Once they understand the business and the need of the user , they would themselves come up with solutions which will give then praises from customer and end user.   
3.  Embrace Change:  Team should be motivated to accept changes which are critical to the business requirements. If they understand Business they would definitely accept it more easily.Make sure that team is able to say "No" for a change which is not critical for business or does not add value ( It reminds of Lean Philosophy).
4. Ready Made Code: A typical developer will always love to write his framework/libraries etc , this eating away the time which can be used for some meaningful development, if we take off the shelf available code or already developed frameworks/libraries.
5. Partnership Not Management: Project Manager, Customer and team should work as a Partnership firm, where every one has a role defined and is working for the goal. Manager should not be only acting as some one sitting high and ordering, he should be like a Team member with maximum expertise/information/experience

Finally I would be happy if you people ( whoever reads this!) can comment with their points.

Software Team Management

How is it different from any team management? Lets see how a common ( General Rule applied  ) man ( working in a Company) think of IT.

• If there is a problem, it has to do with software.
• IT does not yield direct revenue to the company
• IT people are paid well above their capabilities.

In all these scenarios it becomes slightly more difficult to manage your team. I am putting down some of the points which we must do, with the team to make sure that we deliver best as per expectations to the customer. These may not be the guide lines for doing it, but these have worked for me over the years.

• Do Explain the project from Business perspective to the team. Make sure when you are explaining, you explain in a layman's language.
• Spend time with the team  whenever possible. 
• Give small doses of appreciation. Who does not like it, even after years of service an appreciation gives me goose bumps
• Make sure you are friend to them when they need you and a tough manager to them when it comes to delivery.
• Ask them to write what they have understood. I learnt in my childhood after writing. It helps you recollect while thinking in mind and then while writing. Also, we have every thing in "Black and White" as they say.
• Remember not to show them that you are smarter than them. Sometimes a foolish idea from them can turn to be a big idea. This foolish idea will come to you only if you show that you are still learning.
• Understand the career plan for each of them and align that with the work given to them.
• Play some games to activate there mind during the project, may be ask riddles. Remember a mind used is mind sharpened. We need proactive ideas, nothing is changing and expanding as Information Technology.

I would appreciate you all to add to this and pass your comments. Finally it is a collaborative world now.