Emerging challenges before the budding professionals

After going through close to two decades of grilling in schooling, under graduation and professional post-graduation, I can almost picture you as the long distance runners standing on their marks and all set to cross ambitious milestones in the race for achieving professional excellence.

I can see the readiness in your posture, confidence on your faces, dreams in your eyes—a perfect recipe for a perfect Victory!

As a fellow professional, claiming no edge over you--whether intellectual or in any other way, I still have a benefit of close to two and half decades of hindsight. And my quick dip into this history, hopefully, will bring you some useful insights for your future.

Today, I plan to just open for you my own book of lessons learned in this significant period of 25 yrs, as you plan your professional endeavors. As the saying goes, there are no new sins; the old ones just get more publicity.

Lesson 1:

Pace is essential for success but not sufficient – We all know the story of an African Gazelle who has to wake up every morning and start running so fast that the chasing lion can not catch it. If caught, it will perish. And an African Lion who has to run faster than the Gazelle, because if it can’t catch it, the lion will perish of starvation! So far so good, but, imagine a situation where keeping it’s pace the same, the gazelle actually runs in the direction of lion! Therefore pace without a sense of direction actually accelerates path to failure. Thus, always keeping an eye on the goal – post is critical to success.

A thief breaks into the home of a sprint runner in early morning hours. And the runner gets up to some unusual hush-hush sounds around him. The thief having noticed this development, starts running away only to be chased by the runner. They both hit the road and suddenly a cop stops our runner friend and demands for an explanation for his running so frantically at that odd hour. “I was chasing the thief who broke into my home”—says he. “and where is the thief?”—asks the cop. “Oh, I left him behind quite some time ago—he can’t probably win against me in the race”—says our friend. Now what’s the use of such pace without any real sense of tangible objective?

Lesson 2:

The day you don’t learn something new, knock down 5 days of experience gained- While learning is a very active and conscious process, every opportunity to learn that we allow to just pass by us leads to some erosion of experience base. The more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know! You should therefore never allow a student in you to go on a holiday! All learnings can not be truncated and delivered in various forms of training. Therefore, there is a need to learn from continuous experiences that we go through every moment. I actually look at learning as an attitude with which you face experiences. When a child inadvertently puts his hands in boiling water for the first time and gets hurt, it avoids doing the same the second time around. That is learning. Putting the hand in boiling water every time and instantaneously taking it out upon getting hurt is an example of not learning through experience. This example also underscores one other important aspect of learning and that is not every learning happens smoothly—some happens through bumpy rides and bruises, but the trick lies in our ability is to look at even those as experience building opportunities.

Lesson 3:

Knowledge alone doesn’t assure success, but it’s application certainly does it-
Knowledge is knowing more but is not worth having it just for the sake of it. Nothing is more important for a practicing professional than applying such knowledge. Wisdom lies in application. Knowing Tomato is a fruit and that is knowledge and not adding it to your fruit salad is wisdom.

Through this whole MBA program, I am sure, you have gone in great details relating to various Management theories and now you are almost at the threshold of entering the corporate world. It is going to be your opportunity now to apply in practice what you learnt in class so far. I have to forewarn you about likely obstacles here. You will meet n number of people who will put it to you with conviction that what you learnt here is completely irrelevant in the real world. Just ignore them! Remember, your success will only come when you are able to apply what you learnt here and add experiential learnings to your professional actions as you keep making progress. You will find examples after examples of successful professionals who were not necessarily high in acads and equal numbers of not-so-successful ones who were brilliant in acads. You may therefore erroneously come to the conclusion about irrelevance of your professional education! While the fact is exactly the opposite as we observed earlier.

Lesson 4:

Trust is the foundation of relationships and credible relationships are the foundations of success-Trust building is a conscious and time and effort investing process. There are many shades of trust that go into making a long term relationship. At one end of the continuum is trust as an absolute value that individuals hold and cherish and the other end of the continuum is trusting judgments of people we work with. Let me explain this a bit more. You are likely to share confidential, sometimes even personal information only with people who have demonstrated to you in their earlier interactions that such information sharing on your part has never passed beyond them. You then tend to build a closer relationship with such trusted people. On a plain professional front, you trust individuals for their knowledge base or ability to judge the issue and advise you appropriately etc, here again, you tend to build stronger relationship bond with such people. You can almost get anything your way if you have credible relationships with people and in absence of such relationships face bumpy roads. I am sure you know this story of a army officer –
Officer: "Soldier, do you have change for a dollar?"
Soldier: "Sure, buddy."
Officer: "That's no way to address an officer! Now let's try it again! Do you have change for a dollar?"
Soldier: "No, SIR!"

Lesson 5:

Virtuality is Reality- When we hear people say that world is becoming a well connected and compact global village-it sounds so fascinating and simplistic, and in the same breath when people say geography is history, it sounds even more amazing. But we have to look at these global developments in a context. We no longer have colleagues working leave alone in the same office or in the same country but not even in the same continents! Traditional forms of relationship building therefore need to undergo a dramatic transformation. While on one hand two colleagues working seven seas apart, operating in diametrically opposite time zones, are expected to team up and succeed together in achieving common goals and objectives. There is also a good chance that the individuals in reference have not met each other ever and may not get a chance to do so anytime in future. They have to interact virtually and create real results—that’s why over- simplifying the process of globalization is dangerous. Look at the constraints under which these individuals have to build credible relationships. They come from two different cultures, two different nationalities, two different linguistic heritages, two different social circumstances, two different cultural traditions and so on. Continuously enhancing one’s cross-cultural sensibilities is something that is what I see as a challenge in front of you--of much more formidable proportions compared to what my generation had to undergo.

Lesson 6:

Perception is Reality- Barring some absolute and universal truths where perception and reality merge in unison, everywhere else differential perceptions make people assume differential realities.
Once again a point needs to elaborated: if you show red color card to 10 different people they all will recognize them as red colored cards but when it comes to human relationships individual perception becomes individual reality therefore there are as many realities as perceptions. A hardened criminal’s daughter looks at him as a loving and gentle person and that is her reality and all her behavior with him is in relation to that reality, no matter what many others may feel about her father. These still are fairly simplistic examples to essentially to prove the point. In reality the phenomenon is more complex, but at this stage it is enough to state that people react based on their perception of reality and no reality-when it comes to human relationships, is absolute.


Lesson 7:


You have a choice to make complex things simple and simple things complex—Quite simply put, it is up to us to make things around us simple enough to deal with, albeit we may not necessarily succeed in every situation. But being aware of our ability to simplify is very critical to our day to day management of life! And now, please take a look at this story:

Family ProblemsTwo men, one European and an Indian were sitting in a bar drinking shot after shot.The Indian man said, "You know my parents are forcing me to get married to this so called homely girl from a village whom I haven't even met once." We call this arranged marriage.I don't want to marry a woman whom I don't even know..leave alone loving her!... I told them that openly and now have a hell lot of family problems."And then the European said, ‘‘Talking about love marriages... I'll tell you my story.I married a widow whom I deeply loved and dated for 3 years. After a couple of years, my father fell in love with my step-daughter and so my father became my son-in-law and I became my father's father-in-law.Legally now my daughter is my mother and my wife my grandmother.More problems occurred when I had a son. My son is my father's brother and so he is my uncle. Situations turned worse when my father had a son.Now my father's son i.e. my brother is my grandson.Ultimately, I have become my own grand father and I am my own grandson.And you say you have family problems..!!!’’


Lesson 8:

The rule of High Risk-High Gains has one exception-Never take uncalculated risks-You should not risk jumping from the 20th floor if you are hoping to dramatically catch attention as you won’t survive to witness effects of your move! Driving fast cars is fun and can give you adrenaline highs but not wearing seat belts at that time is certainly not a good idea. Remember, wheelchairs are more confining than the seat-belts!

Lesson 9:

Be flexible- Adapting to the changes around you is an example of flexibility. And integrating situational behavioral styles into your professional persona is also flexibility. You cannot treat an experienced employee the same as a young lad who is just finding his feet in this professional arena. The style you adopt with them will be based on their developmental level and differential need for coaching and supervision.


Lesson 10:

Don’t compromise on your core values--Flexibility is good but not at the expense of compromising of your values. Let your values guide your behaviour. Therefore do not stretch your flexibility beyond your value system else the tension so created will tear you apart. You can’t probably be so flexible that you lose view of what you wanted to accomplish in the first place.

A man & his wife filed an application for Divorce. Judge asked: How will you divide your kids, since you have 3 children? And the man promptly replies: Ok! We'll apply NEXT YEAR
Lesson 11:

You always wake up with two choices either to smile and welcome the rising sun or to frown in dismay of yet another tough day staring in your face- Your outlook can change the situation but don’t allow situation to change your positive outlook. There are worse things than getting a call for a wrong number at 4 AM. Like this: It could be a right number.


Lesson 12:

Confront hard realities of life sooner, else those realities will confront you- A skier always chases bad fielders on the cricket ground!

Lesson 13:

There is 180 degree distance between looking back and looking forward-Then why look back when you are naturally and physically more inclined to look in front. I am sure you know this story of Buddhist Monk, who was traveling on foot with his two disciples. During their journey, they reached banks of a river that they needed to cross. And they met a young lady who was awaiting help to cross the river, since she didn’t know swimming. Without batting an eyelid, the monk carried her on his back, swam to the opposite bank, left her there and continued his journey with his disciples. The disciples were stunned! Knowing the monk’s views on keeping distance from womenfolk, they found this action of his very strange and that prompted them to confront him with a question, “ how could you go so close to a woman, while normally you preach keeping distance from them?”. The monk’s spontaneous response can give us some interesting insights…all he said to them “ I have left her back quite some time ago, but you seem to be still carrying her in your thoughts!!” …and continued his further journey.



Lesson 14:

Goals define directions but the journey provides happiness-
Enjoy the journey.

Lesson 15:

If you don't have a sense of humor, you probably don't have any sense at all-
Two friends are discussing--- 1st friend----- "if I drink coffee, I can’t sleep!!!!" 2nd friend----- "with me it's exactly the opposite! If I sleep, I can't drink coffee."


So keep smiling and the world will smile with you!!

Changing Role of HR: Change Agent, Innovator & Strategic Partner

Having practiced the HR function for over two decades myself, I have naturally developed some soft spots but more significantly, I must confess, I have some blind spots as well. It is, therefore, going to be my endeavour to rip-through these blind spots and make a critical and dispassionate assessment of how HRM has transformed through the years and the decades and what needs to change further.

It is relatively easy for us, the HR professionals to sense and feel that our roles are in the state of continuous transformation. Perhaps it is this intrinsic awareness of change that has helped us to remain afloat and not get washed out by the humongous waves of change that would have otherwise made us irrelevant by now! Having thus acknowledged our resilience, I must hasten to add that it has been at best the passive resilience, arising out of our need to keep up with the pace of changes happening around us. These changes are so engrossing that often times we get completely immersed into the change process itself, leaving ourselves very little scope & time to contribute our bit to shape the future course of this necessary transformation.

Let’s, therefore, step back and quickly analyze what is causing the change in the role of HR. Changing society, changing economic scenarios, globalization, evolving business organizations etc are all influencing our role. A move from hierarchical & paternalistic society towards more of an equality driven order has had its impact on the way HR role has changed. Professionals of my generation entered the Industry that had elite Management Lunch rooms and worked through the transformation where the Managing Director and the Machine Operator both started wearing the same overalls! I do not want to trivialize the issue by quoting such seemingly smaller examples, but I have used those to make a point. There are, of course, more powerful and broad-based examples available for all of us to reflect on how changing societal norms have influenced our role. ‘Employee Communication’ is that big example.
Employee Communication which was once synonymous with communication of management decisions to employees and that too was employed in circumstances where there was no other alternative to but to communicate. And look where have we reached already!Open houses,town halls,news groups,bulletin boards….open offices,at the minimum direct e-mail access to the CEO. Wow!!What an empowering change for the employees.And we, the HR professionals, have rightly taken lead in making many of these happen successfully. We can trace many more examples in areas of managing human resources in the face of intensely competitive business environment. But I think I have made a point and that is factors like socio-economic transformation around us have influenced change in the role of HR so far.

HR professionals have been donning different hats in different contexts. Historically, HR drew all its existential powers by placing itself at the centre of administrative activities within the business organization they supported. The cap it wore then was that of a powerful BABU. But that’s a very old story now. He later graduated to become an IR specialist and slowly transformed into an Employee Champion building a fine bridge between the enterprise and its employee community. The winds of changes on the world economic front intensified as we reached the turn of the millennium & the system demanded yet one more transformation in HR functionaries. HR professionals then became Human Capital Developers entirely focusing on continually augmenting human capital of the organization by trying to attract & retain talent.
And now is the time to wear the hat of a Strategic Partner. It’s a fairly broad based role & daunting at the same time. Broad based because being a strategic partner has multiple dimensions such as business expert, change agent, knowledge manager & a consultant. And daunting because the HR professional community may or may not be fully equipped to digest & keep up with the scope of challenges arising from this role.
Traditionally, many HR professionals have derived power out of their power to say no. And the time has now come to realize that they no longer can cling on to that power. At the same time its heartening that they are doubly empowered to shape tomorrow’s business. This power to shape tomorrow’s business can only happen in a leading fashion & not a lagging fashion. And let me give an example over here. Fiercely competing organizations in the New Economy have applied tremendous pressure on the available talent leading to War for Talent. Attractive employee referral schemes, tapping talent from small towns or brand promotion via newer media such as Radio Mirchi are all good & effective ways of trying to boost the talent search in a lagging way. These efforts lag the demand for talent. However, catching the young talent upstream right at the school, working on it in a organized way in anticipation of the future talent needs, is a leading
way of managing the same talent issue. HR will have to take every opportunity to sit at the front-end of the business & partner with the business owners to shape tomorrow’s organizations. And for being successful there are certain paradigms that need to be challenged & changed. Talent acquirers have to become talent builders; performance appraisal administrators have to become career experts; HR administrators have to become functional experts; compensation & benefit managers have to become value providers; trainers have to become OD professionals.
And why did I have a little bit of worry on our state of preparedness? It’s just because we need to consciously internalize what’s happening around us and what changes are expected out of us as tomorrow’s HR professionals. Our dedication, commitment & will to win will always remain central to our future success but our ability to understand the businesses we support, the industry we operate in, the socio-economic context around us is extremely fundamental. And as an optimist I would like to see there an opportunity for us to take our profession to the next higher level in the face of many steep challenges.

Talent Acquisition in Asia Pacific: some emerging paradigms

Normally when invited to express thoughts on any subject, my natural inclination is to say ‘yes’, and you can well imagine how my urge to express myself in external world would have gone up over the past two and a half decades of being married!

And now on a serious note—the subject in reference is one that the whole world is viewing with high interest and given my limited expertise in it, I have decided to only present some facts—leaving the job of drawing intelligent inferences to this august audience!

And in any case, my teacher has taught me—“those who have opinions don’t have facts, and those having facts need no opinions”—I have decided to take an easier path!


Here are some key facts:

A: Global scenario: According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO),in a world of six billion people, the number moving to work or settle in other countries is less than 3%--which looks small as a percentage, but when you look at 3% of six billion as 180 million people, then you know how large is a pool of people who are working outside their country of origin! And now, if you add to that the huge flow of business travelers and people travelling on temporary assignments, this number assumes further larger proportions.

B: Recent historical phases of migration in some parts of Asia: In the 1970s and 1980s, the oil-rich Middle Eastern Asia needed a lot of un-skilled/semi-skilled workers. Many Indians, Pakistanis, Thais, Filipinos, Indonesians and Koreans went there as a result of this demand. In the 1990s though, this churn touched even the skilled segment-- then this flow slowed in the late 1990s in the wake of the Asian crisis and seems to have resumed yet again. While the middle-eastern countries have largely remained as destination countries, many other countries in the region, such as Malaysia and Thailand, have become both source and destination countries for the moving talent population.
This flow simply suggests that there are not enough people locally available to do certain kinds of work essential to the smooth functioning of an economy – a classic case of skill-demand-supply mismatch! In Singapore, three out of ten workers are foreigners. And in Malaysia, there are over one million Indonesian workers alone.
One obvious question here would be: How critical is this subject from the national economy perspective? While there is a detailed answer possible to this seemingly simple question, for want of time, just one example of the Philippines should underscore the importance-- the export of labour for them is their number one export item, which brings them billions of dollars in foreign remittances.
C: China and India: some high-level realities: These are two countries that are increasingly making long strides in receiving back their lost talent and also are attracting additional foreign talent. Like the Koreans and Taiwanese who left in an earlier period and returned in the 1990s, the Chinese are coming home because there is remunerative and challenging work for them.
India, too, is attracting a growing return flow of NRIs (non-resident Indians) who have studied and worked abroad in the US and elsewhere. Some are on temporary contracts while others, having built up their earnings abroad, want to settle down in their home countries.
This new trend in tech talent and funding flow to China and India is one of the hot topics under discussion in the United States. "We train the students, they go back, and we send venture capital funding out to follow them," said one of the CEOs there very recently.

D: Asia is now the major battleground in the Global war for talent : McKinsey calculates that China alone will see a 22-fold increase in the demand for globally experienced leaders over the next decade, other parts of the region are going to witness similar shortage challenges! As a result, data is already revealing a 20% year-on-year growth in the number of executive searches underway—this will lead to explosive expansions of global search firms and consolidation in that sector is also round the corner, where local firms will have to fight or perish in the wake of such war.

The StepStone Total Talent Report 2008, researched and prepared by the Economist Intelligence Unit, concludes that “the idea of Asia as low-cost utopia with an abundance of labour is long-gone”.
Executives in Asia cited four major recruitment and retention obstacles which businesses faced:
rising wage and pay demands among potential candidates
a lack of suitable candidates to recruit and a lack of appropriate skills among potential candidates
a perceived lack of career opportunities among current employees
employee perceptions that pay and benefits could be better elsewhere

E: Students as the leading indicator of global talent flow: In a recent issue of the Harvard Business Review, Richard Florida identified students as the leading indicator of global talent flow, stating that countries and regions that attract students have an advantage on retaining them and attracting additional pools of talent. Some significant trends in this regard are captured below:
* North Americans prefer stick closer to Home
* Major Shifts in Western Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East-- Citizens of Western Europe, Central Asia, and the Middle East displayed dramatically reduced interest in US programs and among all citizens of Western Europe, the data show an increasing desire to remain close to home.
From citizens of Central Asia, India gained the most market share from the decreased interest in US programs. In addition, citizens of Central Asia displayed increased interest in studying in England, Singapore, and Canada.
* Minor Shifts in Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America Students from Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America consistently prefer US programs, but even here, slight declines were noted. In Eastern Europe, this decline in US programs was countered by increased interest in programs located in England and France.
*Oceania Bucks the Trend Contrary to trends noted for all other world regions, citizens of Australia, New Zealand, and the Pacific Islands (Oceania, collectively), displayed increased interest in US programs over the years reported.
*In essence, US business programs, which have long been the primary destination of GMAT examinees, are facing increasing competition from England, France, and India.
F: Talent Attraction is the biggest challenge:The 2008 Vedior Asia Pacific Employment Trends Survey reveals attracting talent is a struggle for more than two-thirds (69 per cent) of organisations. While retention was the key issue in 2007 for Asia Pacific based organisations, attracting talent is cited as the biggest human capital challenge over the next 18 months for 26 per cent of Asia Pacific based organisations, with retaining talent a close second at 24 per cent.
And competition for talent is set to intensify further in 2008, with 42 per cent of Asia Pacific based employers looking to expand their current workforce in 2008, a significant increase from 28 per cent in 2007

And now let’s take a look at some pointers—hopefully towards potentially successful ‘coping strategies’:
*Create flexible Organisations:In such volatile talent shortage conditions, not only is a talent management strategy vital but so is technology which allows an organisation to put the strategy into action and identify where talent gaps exist, or where headcount could be rationalised. Whichever way the world economy turns, having the knowledge and agility to make swift decisions on the company’s employee base could make all the difference in being able to retaining the best people and maintaining business momentum.
* Reach-out to newer talent pools: Consider strategies to penetrate a relatively dense 'passive' candidate market.
* Understanding minds of the candidates: The laws of attraction in recruitment are being rewritten by candidates who make decisions about a potential employer based on both an emotional and a rational level.
*Improve focus on Employee branding: With the realisation that the shortage of talent is having an adverse impact on the bottomline, employer branding is likely to be an important anchor of talent attraction/retention strategy.
One study reveals that 63% of Asia Pacific based organisations believe their employer brand attracts and retains employees, however, 60 per cent admit there is still more that can be done to improve their employer branding strategy.
*Focus online and digital media: This will enhance outreach in a cost-effective way
*Assess and re-assess how the talent gaps are being filled: As the pressure to attract talent intensifies, the survey shows that many organisations continue to be forced to look offshore. Whilst the UK continues to dominate the supply of international talent (58 per cent), India (22 per cent) and China (15 per cent) are becoming an increasingly attractive source of candidates for the region.
*Foster diversity: "The 2008 Vedior Asia Pacific Employment Trends Survey supports the idea that organisations will need to continue to broaden their HR strategies to be all inclusive and foster a diverse workplace. Every person is unique in ability, background and experience, so taking a 'one-size-fits-all' approach will result in missed opportunities and a less prosperous workforce,"
Hopefully, this will at least help us put some structure around any further discussion that needs to happen on this vital subject.

A Global Workforce

The article ‘ Building a Global workforce’ has been carried in Industry 2.0 magazine. Please follow the link see the clip:

A Global Workforce

Cheers,

Abhay

DNA story on Anchors

Hi,

Please check out the below link to the DNA story on Anchors.
Headline - Exit interviews not in-thing
Date - 03/27/2008
Outlet - Daily News and Analysis

Cheers,
Abhay

Article in DQ

Below is the link to the article which appeared in DQ last week:
http://dqindia.ciol.com/content/industrymarket/focus/2008/108032101.asp

Cheers,

Abhay

Anchorship is better than exit interviews

Below is the link to the story on ‘Anchors’ that has appeared on the portal of Tech HR Zone:

http://www.techhrzone.com/index.php/2008031023/Anchorship-Is-Better-Than-Exit-Interviews.html

Cheers,
Abhay