Dr. Shailesh Thaker - Best Management Training Blog - Top Management Consultants

Archive for September, 2009

Sandeep Bachhe is an autorickshaw driver in Mumbai. More of him later, but first let me take you through his wonderful autorickshaw. It has a television set tuned to good old Doordarshan which incidentally is celebrating 50 years of transmission in India. Then there is also a board with the day’s price of gold, silver, dollar, pound and the yen.

Behind the driver’s seat hangs another chart with phone numbers of hospitals, theatres, hotels and airlines. You can also pick up the day’s papers and a couple of magazines in the rack behind him. ‘Do not spit,’ another notice admonishes you. There are pictures of Gods from all major religions. “All are welcome,” he says with a smile.

Of course, you can’t have it all, even Bacche’s wonder auto has some limitations — ‘No toilet available,’ says another sign and Sandeep, 35, explains, “Some college girls got in and told me, ‘You have everything where is the toilet?’ and so I put this sign up.”

The signboards continue, and there is one that says, ‘Donate for old people’ with his mobile number below. Sandeep gives whatever he can spare to an old age home. He also collects money from like-minded auto drivers to distribute notebooks among slum children.

He points out four other auto drivers to me who had each given Rs 500 the week before to distribute books to needy children.

Sandeep also gives free rides of up to Rs 50 to people who are blind and gives a 25 per cent discount to the physically challenged. He gets a physically disabled customer about once a month.

Philip Kiracofe believes what goes around comes around. He just doesn’t want to wait around.

Kiracofe is running what may be the world’s first “Karma auction” to inspire people to help others. He’s selling computers worth hundreds of dollars, but he’s not accepting money – the only bids accepted are acts of kindness.

“Every single one of those actions will start a chain reaction, however small, that makes a profound difference in the lives of people that I will never meet,” Kiracofe said.

The idea surfaced when the recession sank his commercial real estate business. Out of a job and without an office, the 36-year-old former chief technologist found himself staring at a wall of a hundred computers in his home. That’s when he had his epiphany: He could sell the machines to a liquidator, or he could use them to get others to “pay it forward.”

“There are countless ways for people to help out those around them through random acts of kindness,” Kiracofe said.

The former real estate broker had become a good-deed broker.

Kiracofe has tapped into a philosophy that could be called “Karmatocracy:” A system built around rewarding those who help others.

The recession may be breeding a new approach to philanthropy. The rapper Ludacris recently gave away 20 cars to people who could pen the best essay on why they deserved new wheels. 

A web site called “Karma Tube” documents selfless endeavors that change lives.

According to the Center for Global Prosperity, “Whatever it is called – social entrepreneurship, philanthropy-capitalism, venture philanthropy, or creative capitalism, the lines between business and philanthropy continue to blur.”

Said Kiracofe: “I can envision this becoming a ubiquitous service, as widespread as donations, garage sales, or online auctions.”

And he believes that if enough people embrace the concept of a Karmic auction, it could create a new economy of kindness.

Jack Borden has found the fountain of youth. It’s in his office. Borden has been practicing law for more than seven decades. At 101, he was recently honored as America’s “Outstanding Oldest Worker” by the nonprofit group Experience Works. Will Miles Clark, D.D.S., on the other hand, is a spry 105-year-old who has gladly spent about half a century in retirement from his former profession, dentistry. There are no two stories alike when talking to centenarians — the exploding group of people who live into triple digits.

There are some of the insights and musings of men and women who have not just lived to see their hundredth birthdays, but have thrived along the way, smashing stereotypes of what old age looks like.

Leaders gain trust and teach people what’s important to them by telling stories. But, these days there’s so much to attend to — now! —coming at us so fast. You might be tempted to let slide your soft skills, like how to tell a useful story. Just get to the point and move on to the next thing on the list. No time for fluff.

Even President Obama, who masterfully demonstrated his storytelling skills in the campaign, was recently described as shuffling from one crucial issue to the next like an iPod listener flits from one song to another. No time for albums. Trying to do too much, too fast, and on too many fronts can be risky, yet today’s environment requires that we get better at doing so.

All the more reason, then, for giving attention to how you get to others to pay attention. The trick is to show movement on the issues that matter, while for each issue, helping your key stakeholder grasp the meaning of what you’re aiming to achieve — why the goal matters to the team or the organization and how we’re going to get from here to there.

So don’t give up on honing your storytelling skills; instead, learn how to move faster among your different narratives. Through practice and feedback, improve your ability to connect through stories — while keeping them short to hold beleaguered attention spans. For even as the digital age compels us to develop ever-increasing capacities for a switch-your-focus-but-remain-present state of mind, as a leader you still have to be able to convey a narrative that resonates with your people and inspires them to move with you in the right direction.

A good leadership story has the power to engage hearts and minds. It has these six crucial elements:

1. Draws on your real past and lessons you’ve learned from it.
2. Resonates emotionally with your audience because it’s relevant to them.
3. Inspires your audience because it’s fueled by your passion.
4. Shows the struggle between your goal and the obstacles you faced in pursuing it.
5. Illustrates with a vivid example.
6. Teaches an important lesson.

Yesterday started with the best of intentions. I walked into my office in the morning with a vague sense of what I wanted to accomplish. Then I sat down, turned on my computer, and checked my email. Two hours later, after fighting several fires, solving other people’s problems, and dealing with whatever happened to be thrown at me through my computer and phone, I could hardly remember what I had set out to accomplish when I first turned on my computer. I’d been ambushed. And I know better.

When I teach time management, I always start with the same question: How many of you have too much time and not enough to do in it? In ten years, no one has ever raised a hand.

 That means we start every day knowing we’re not going to get it all done. So, how we spend our time is a key strategic decision. That’s why it’s a good idea to create to do list and an ignore list. The hardest attention to focus is our own.

But even with those lists, the challenge, as always, is execution. How can you stick to a plan when so many things threaten to derail it? How can you focus on a few important things when so many things require your attention?

We need a trick.

Jack LaLanne, the fitness guru, knows all about tricks; he’s famous for handcuffing himself and then swimming a mile or more while towing large boats filled with people. But he’s more than just a showman. He invented several exercise machines including the ones with pulleys and weight selectors in health clubs throughout the world. And his show, The Jack LaLanne Show, was the longest running television fitness program, on the air for 34 years.

But none of that is what impresses me. He has one trick that I believe is his real secret power.

Ritual, at the age of 94, still spends the first two hours of his day exercising. Ninety minutes lifting weights and 30 minutes swimming or walking. Every morning, he needs to do so to achieve his goals: on his 95th birthday he plans to swim from the coast of California to Santa Catalina Island, a distance of 20 miles. Also, as he is fond of saying, “I cannot afford to die. It will ruin my image.”

So he works, consistently and deliberately, toward his goals. He does the same things day in and day out. He cares about his fitness and he’s built it into his schedule.

Managing our time needs to become a ritual too. Not simply a list or a vague sense of our priorities. That’s not consistent or deliberate. It needs to be an ongoing process we follow no matter what to keep us focused on our priorities throughout the day.

I think we can do it in three steps that take less than 18 minutes over an eight-hour workday.

 STEP 1 (5 Minutes) Set Plan for Day. Before turning on your computer, sit down with a blank piece of paper and decide what will make this day highly successful. What can you realistically accomplish that will further your goals and allow you to leave at the end of the day feeling like you’ve been productive and successful? Write those things down.

Now, most importantly, take your calendar and schedule those things into time slots, placing the hardest and most important items at the beginning of the day. And by the beginning of the day I mean, if possible, before even checking your email. If your entire list does not fit into your calendar, reprioritize your list. There is tremendous power in deciding when and where you are going to do something.

In their book, ‘The Power of Full Engagement’, Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz described a study in which a group of women agreed to do a breast self-exam during a period of 30 days. 100% of those who said where and when they were going to do it completed the exam. Only 53% of the others did.

In another study, drug addicts in withdrawal (can you find a more stressed-out population?) agreed to write an essay before 5 p.m. on a certain day. 80% of those who said when and where they would write the essay completed it. None of the others did.

If you want to get something done, decide when and where you’re going to do it. Otherwise, take it off your list.

STEP 2 (1 minute every hour) Refocus. Set your watch, phone, or computer to ring every hour. When it rings, take a deep breath, look at your list and ask yourself if you have spent your last hour productively. Then look at your calendar and deliberately recommit to how you are going to use the next hour. Manage your day hour by hour. Don’t let the hours manage you.

STEP 3 (5 minutes) Review. Shut off your computer and review your day. What worked? Where did you focus? Where did you get distracted? What did you learn that will help you be more productive tomorrow?

The power of rituals is their predictability. You do the same thing in the same way over and over again. And so the outcome of a ritual is predictable too. If you choose your focus deliberately and wisely and consistently remind yourself of that focus, you will stay focused. It’s simple.

This particular ritual may not help you swim the English Channel while towing a cruise ship with your hands tied together. But, it may just help you leave the office feeling productive and successful.

 And, at the end of the day, isn’t that a higher priority.