Success criteria for SME in India

Common life cycle phases for all businesses are known to everyone. They normally start with;

♦        Organic growth phase:

Quantum growth in demand for the product or services, high volume of sales out, less marketing cost, easy money and profitability.

♦        Beginning of consolidation phase:

High volume of business with high sales and marketing cost, Profitability is almost maintained.

♦        Consolidation phase:

Volume of products and services start declining, moderate profitability, volatile market conditions, very high sales and marketing cost.

♦    End of consolidation phase:

Very few big players (companies) and specialty product / service organizations will survive in market, profitability will shift from high volume sales out of products / services in to low volume sales out of high-end products and services and replacement market will open up. Crucial survival issues will crop up for small and medium size companies. Merger and acquisition will increase.

My observation is that in India, most of the business owners of small and medium size enterprises (SME) have their success parameters traditionally based on their own early retirement or on how much amount they will get when they sell their business. There is third factor which is “appreciated value of the business premises”. So when consolidation phase is started, they become confused about where your business is going, start becoming directionless and start feeling exhausted with the unproductive work load.

Decision to scale up or scale down their business solely depends on their own capability for embracing the risk, learning from past mistakes, energy and interest.

Bhartesh Sagar

bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

January 21, 2013

What is ‘actual cost’ of losing employees?

Can we think about the ‘actual cost’ of losing employees?

 All most all companies across the globe are deeply concerned about their employee turnover and for some industries such as software outsourcing service providers in India; their attrition ratio is almost 25% to 30%. Question is why some employee/s that has scored high on commitment to the company is now found low on energy? Why is he/she looking at other options? What is d-motivating him/her?

Employees, involved in active client communication are always seen as brand ambassador of the company by clients. If employee satisfaction and employee engagement are not taken seriously, it can have negative impact on client.  

Many articles, white papers, blog and suggestions are published on it from multiple perspectives. I personally feel that micro analysis of below mentioned factors can help to great extent in understanding the route cause, analyze and identify ways in which some sound strategy can be formed that can help reducing high turnover of employees.

Competence of an individual is highly influenced by a number of external factors like:

•         Degrees of low energy
•         Levels of ownership
•         Levels of motivation

There are many other factors however these three factors seem to me more important and clearly indicative for the management to initiate corrections in their policies.  Periodic assessment and ongoing corrections on above factors are crucial for every company to ensure reliability of their key employees.

Employees’ behavior is required to be aligned with satisfactory customer experiences. Think about it.

Bhartesh Sagar

Bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

January 17, 2014

Do you know what it means by “Fungible”? A word given by IBM

"Fungible" is a new word introduced by IBM and they have been using it within IBM to describe workers who are “virtually vague and indistinguishable from others” in terms of the value of their contributions in the workplace. Now a days In many companies, you will find such people who are indistinguishable and always looking for someone’s hand holding for every task and decision making. Proactively they will never try finding ways to add value in exchange for their own recognition and the opportunity to grow professionally. 

They do not have their own ability to think or innovate or have vision for big picture so they simply try working with weak employees due to their inability to delegate. They are always waiting for the boss to direct him on every single matter and this is a clear sign of “Fungible” manager.

Such people will simply prefer to work with inefficient, lazy and boot-licking juniors who will never criticize them. It also creates some new issues like efficient employees are reluctant to come up with new ideas and feel that showcasing initiative will becomes a threat to them especially when there is a “power and status” kind of management ruling in the company. Just imagine how many above-average employees out there might have suffered by such incompetent “Fungible” managers?

Sometimes such clueless managers do get financial benefit simply because they have been able to impress their bosses during an interview. It could even be the deliberate attempt by business owner or key stakeholders to appoint such "Fungible" managers who cannot efficiently manage their portfolio and remain dependent on them. Their visibility is too common now a day in mid-size companies in India.

In a long run if they continue looking at them for hand holding, very soon their bosses will lose interest in such person. One of the hard realities is that if you want respect, then you don't actually work "for" a company Instead, you work "with" a company.

If management wants people to be responsible, provide power to them along with timeline for visible results. Change the power structure. Change the company culture.

Bhartesh Sagar

bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

January 13, 2014

How important is employee energy for the organization?

Every activity of the employee is a result of large scale and extensive nature of energy prevailing in their department. Collectively it will have ultimate impact on the overall work environment of the department and the company. 

You don't build a business - You build people and then people build the business. This is the hard reality. Efficient energy usage by employees at work place is of significant consequence to every company and this is something that should be carefully managed by the person in leadership position.

It is always from the interactions of some people, one can recognize the origins of sensible (as well as irrational) employee behavior. Without being specific to departments or on single character behavior, reality is that one cannot expect good results to be delivered when their employees do not perform their jobs with full energy and job satisfaction.

Individuals normally accumulate their own perceptions into their mind and use it for their tasks such as planning, evaluating possibilities, knowledge gained from the many direct and indirect experiences; accordingly they manage their daily functioning and decision taking.

A good leader will always focus on employee needs of the department for understanding and exploration. They need to learn and understand the way in which the specific work environment supports or hampers employee needs since this is likely to affect everything from behavioral competence to job satisfaction and the interrelationships of all employees within the department. They all are highly interrelated with each other.

Team-based problem-solving and brainstorming are some of the most effective cluster-based exploration tools that a leader can use through which they can explore and identify employee issues and their department need. Active discussion will also help and allow employees to expand their thought process - understanding.

Real issue is when a person in leading position has his own mind frame based on limited domain knowledge and experience, uses the power of position and drive employees as per his own (right or wrong) understanding assuming that this is the right way of performing the job. They never take pains to get into self experience and perform the employee task so they are never aware of the actual pain points. They mostly behave like a task master who will have absolute negative effects on moral of the employees. Chained reaction will also affect the group behavior. After that you cannot expect employees to perform their jobs with full energy.

Active participation in the process and self-experience of performing the task will prove to be meaningful action rather than acting as task master and playing around with moral of the performing people. By the time damage is done, it will be too late.

Think about it.

Bhartesh Sagar

Bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

January 2, 2014

Inventive Idea always rocks

During last work week I received an internal mail from one of our employees saying that they have organized Cricket Premiere League Tournament of the employees. They already finalized some 8 or 9 different teams formed by employees of different departments. It was a great initiative and I was waiting to see some more action on it. Next day one of the employee came to me and requested to help him hire the Cricket ground for next 2 weekends, if I have any such contacts. Normally this is not the problem during week days however it is difficult to find it for weekends especially during winter. 

Next to next day I received one more mail saying that cricket ground has been finalized along with full details about the venue, organizing group, name of the teams and players, match rounds, umpires decided for each match, scoreboard and point table.

Everything was so well organized that I not only tap the back of the organizers but also wrote to the MD for getting this tournament sponsored by the company. 

I also decided to be on the Cricket ground on the 1^st day of the tournament to make the boys feel good.

On last Saturday 9.30 AM, I reached the ground where 2^nd match of the tournament was about to start and almost everyone welcome me and showed their gratitude. With all good spirit, the match started with running around, shouting, noise making and everyone was fully enjoying. I observed that the spirit was at pick however majority of the players were exhausted and drained while running for fielding, bowling or between the wickets.

Spirit of the sport does not permit you to highlight such things so I did not criticize or mention this to anyone. Something creative was happening by the employees and one should not try to point out negatives out of it however “physical fitness” was clearly identified as an inadequacy in the situation.

I decided to approach this from different perspective which led me to a new business Idea. I shared my thoughts with few colleagues and their response was even more positive. The business Ideas was to start a Gym in the basement of the office building and offer flexible daily monthly or quarterly services to the gym users. Further calculations proved that required customers one can easily get only from the company employees.

You need to deal with the crazy new ideas; question is “how?” After you capture some creative idea, you have the challenge of how to frame it, process it, act on it and arrive to decision that can be implemented. 

Lesson learnt for me was that “Idea applied to the situation will magnify the hidden business opportunities”. At the same time it is mandatory to further scan it and see whether it can support financial prosperity and create values?

Innovative abilities are acquired by experience, travel, cultures, situations, emotions, reactions and responses of the people. Your personal style of dealing with the people and effective communication will always help you win confidence of them in you.

Bhartesh Sagar

bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

December 26, 2013

Moving forward on the right track?

Moving forward on the right track?

NOTE: Purpose of this article is to further highlight the concepts published in an article on October 23, 2013 by DR. Danielle Dowling

You’re definitely on the right road as per your desired road map if;

♦      Your current efforts in day to day task do not make you uncomfortable.

♦      Do not attempt things that express regrets at a later stage

♦      Your attempts should not initiate major compromises on large projects.

♦      While driving your business policies according to your wisdom of value should not reflect back negatively by your work environment.

♦     You should be very confident in selecting route that leads to growth path for your business.

If you get following results, conclude and consider that you are on the wrong path:

♦       The condition at hand is becoming very high cost to the company (financially).

♦       You start feeling exhausted with the unproductive work load.

♦       You start becoming directionless and but cannot share your feeling

♦       You feel fundamentally confused about where your business is going.

♦       You start losing your self-confidence to a particular situation.

Some guidance to get you back on the right track:

Don't be so hard on yourself. 

Stop with the self-attack! It’s not productive. Don’t get down on yourself because you ended up on the wrong track—it happens to everyone.

Determine the first step. And then take it. 

Change starts with one step. For example: If you were trying to lose weight, a small first step would be to select whole grain bread instead of white bread. Cutting down on fats or sweets is also a good first step. Don’t worry and give too much of your time to correction areas. Go on short vacation with family. Priority should be for balancing your work–personal life.

Don’t bite off more than you can chew. 

Small, doable goals will get you there! Break down your BIG goals into a series of little, totally achievable steps. Step one: go for a 20 minute walk today. Step two: go for a 20 minute walk and switch to skim milk in your coffee.

Relax more. 

It may seem counterproductive to relax, but if this is what you need, then go ahead and relax for a day or so. Contemplate how you’ve been living your life, your delayed goals, and what things you want to change. Find a serene spot and write down your thoughts and desires in notebook. Begin by writing down what you need to get, want to give, and what your deal breakers are in regards to that area of your life. Make this day a mini retreat!

Have a mantra or meditation that helps to keep you on focus. 

If you tend to be discouraged easily by some things, create a simple mantra that will help you stay on target, one that will help you shift into a more loving and empowered perspective.

Accomplish a goal every week, every month and every year. 

Enjoy the snowball effect of gaining confidence as you accomplish more and more goals! When you set small, doable goals for yourself, you’ll be that much more likely to take on big ones.

Bhartesh Sagar

bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com

December 20, 2013

Mentoring V/S Micro Managing

Perceptive theory is also described as “"cognitive science" (e.g. any kind of mental operation or structure that can be studied in precise terms). This also applies to those who are responsible for managing large teams – people for their company. Studying new business domain and expected out come in precise manner before abruptly driving some strategies is mandatory requirement.

Perceptive theories are also known as concepts of personality that emphasize perceptive processes such as thinking and judging. This includes setting up of the expectations at a realistic – right level. Over optimism and depression, both are mind set issues however in every company; you will come across some amateur mid or senior level managers driving their teams with overly optimistic and unrealistic policies and spoil the work environment for everyone.

One of the most common mistakes some leaders make while managing people is that they go for micro managing people working under them. They use their designation and authority and spoil the whole working environment. They think that by creating an atmosphere of fear will push people and they will deliver good results however most of the time it end up damaging moral of the people.

Some people are like "born scientists" Their thought process is based on limited experience and they see the world through a particular lens, based on some uniquely structured systems of controls that they have used in past with some companies. They sometimes integrate systems based on their own personal mind frame which may not be suitable in dynamic business world where G.T.M. is different for the every business domain. They always anticipate future issues more than the future growth and keep the reasoning ready for under performance. By the time they realize their policies are misleading for the existing business situation, it is too late since “management mess” situation is already created by that time.

Factors like “micro managing” always affect performing employees much more than the non-performers. It does heavy damage to their goal-setting and self-controlling beliefs which leads to losing interest in their core activities. Even for new employees with limited domain knowledge-experience, micro managing creates high insecurity and fear which also prevent them to open up and use their creativity. In humanistic psychology, focus is mainly on subjective experiences of people as against forced, definitive factors that determine their behavior.

I have come across many such cases where the leader will micromanage people working below him, create atmosphere of insecurity, spoil the company environment and when it proves to be wrong in terms of growth achievement, they leave their own job after 2 to 3 quarters. This situation will damage the organization much more in terms of losing confidence of the performer / loyal employees into the organization.

Mentoring is always more effective option compared to micro managing however mentoring should always be aimed toward encouraging individuals to design ambitious goals and work toward them along with the recognition that there are external factors that may impact their achievements.

Effective mentor must have the ability to perform, demonstrate and set positive examples by themselves if they wish to earn respect of their team.

Bhartesh Sagar

bhartesh.sagar@hotmail.com    

December 18, 2013