Serendipity and Learning

 Employees want to learn and they want to develop. Yes. What does that mean? They want learning opportunities.  How does one get learning opportunities? How does one develop? As an employee/human being, I learn when I stretch (not necessarily in terms of hours) myself. I learn new things through the process of failure, unlearning and relearning. And as I learn I develop. Can there be development without learning? My take - almost always not - there can be exceptions, but every project I have picked up has resulted in  a learning.  And as an employee, I need such opportunities. When I stagnate in a job/role I dont learn or develop. I might also "develop" under a bad boss, but thats not really an opportunity or something to look forward to is it not?  So, as someone heading an L&D function what do I need to do? Enable these - simply put.  Learning skills might be a pre-requisite in terms of how I grow in my job. And I might also be able to develop on bein...

This is the longest I have worked continuously from home - I much prefer the office in general - mainly for the discipline of working. And as I discussed this with a couple of people and there were some uncommon common factors - sometimes a child walks into the call, sometimes it is a dog, sometimes it is the doorbell. Now usually this doesn't happen because in a usual work from situation because the time is planned and shorter - and families work around it. At this point, because everybody is working, it is the equivalent of the office inside the home and sometimes spaces do get blurred. All the same, work is getting done, it struck me that, it is perhaps the next step of bringing our whole self to work.  Perhaps this work from home experience will enhance our empathy towards each other, our co-workers and even our families when a kid decides to join the call and makes us all that much more human and connected.  

Sometimes, an interesting problem gets thrown at you. And such it was that I found myself face to face with a team that had an interesting problem thrown at them. And I was called to help out. I first spent time understanding their business and the nature of it, the market. That conversation was an eye opener for me - for I did not know the existence of this industry in this context at all. I spent time knowing how the industry runs, what is the driver and so on and worked on my design. As I discussed the design with the leader, the leader suggested a set of interviews with the team. These interviews made me re-think the design and go back with a much more simpler model than what was envisioned in the early stage of the requirement. (I suspect strongly the interviews were suggested as the leaders way of telling me that the design needed a change) One thing led to another and the final design turned out to be very different from what we started out with. And the program was rec...

There are days when you feel valued as a consultant... When your ideas are received, even built on... When you feel you have made an impact... When participants walk up to you and bid goodbye... When you feel a part of the team that you are working with... When you feel you have contributed value and the client too feels the same... A lot of a times, a consultant life is transactional...There are times when it is not! These are some such days!

Overall, what am I seeing as the trend in this year from where I see it? The big thing which I see is the reduction of age. Let me explain. Earlier, why, even 10 years ago, an average manager was in his or her early 30s, the average director at about 40 and so on it went... What I see now, is a far younger corporate India. People in their early 30s are handling entire businesses, people in their 20s are handling functions and people in their 40s are consultants (heh - that last one is a joke). And I also see average CEO age come down - mostly due to the startup rage I suppose, but then again why not. The second trend which I see as more pronounced is that many of these new companies - the hires are top class. In terms of their skills, confidence and sheer technical (or business) ability - they are second to none. What does this mean? It means a few things. If you are on the older side, you have to shape up to match these whizkids. If you are a consultant, you better add value....

The entrepreneur life can get quite lonely. My views  come from my perspective as a newly minted learning consultant entrepreneur. There are times when the market doesnt care if you exist. And like any other entrepreneur, such times have to be navigated. Here is where the story of Pumpelsdrop (previous post) comes in . Suddenly, out of the blue, one gets a phone call. To make a proposal. For a company you have always wanted to work with or sounds too exciting to be true or some work which you have always wanted to do or a new opportunity to learn something. And then, the works begins in right earnest. There is a flurry of activity, a few phonecalls, data, research, books to be read and much reading about the current state of the company, industry, concept. It elevates the energy to a different level. Powerpoints are made. Structures are created. Frameworks are conceptualised. Meetings are arranged with alacrity. And with that last minute scramble, the said proposal is sent o...

If you have ever had an online chat - that starts off with an initial intro and then refers you to someone or makes you hold - you have interacted with a bot . If you have pinged for train details (for examples) and got a response online - highly likely that it is a chatbot. And this world is growing - there are bots that run on Messenger, Telegram, WhatsApp and Kik (which actually has a bot shop and is fairly ahead in this game. Check this out .). There are bots that can mimic talking to your idol. There is a bot that you can chat with your bank - for instance.   Ordering food - for instance can be easily botified. But since then the world has gotten fairly more complicated - there are bots in more places than you can think. The earlier example of ANZ is just the tip of the iceberg. Banks are trying to move their transactions to bots. Indeed all of Indian Railways tickets currently manned by humans is an ideal candidate to be 'botted' up. We can think of this as suffi...

This is slightly old news, but it is news all the same. As there is talk about robots and robots replacing  humans - this is happening - and happening at a far frenetic pace than you can imagine. I learnt from a colleague that ANZ is at the forefront of RPA (Yes, Robot Process Automation) and found something on the internet (obviously). Read this : What does it mean? BPO - where processes were outsourced to India, Philippines will get hit sooner or later. They say it won't affect human jobs - but hey, it will. Like the rapid decimation of 'project managers' in IT - the bots will soon take over the BPO landscape (among other things). What other functions could be affected? Accounts payable, Mortgage administration and hold your breath - HR support. That is interesting is it not? Now think which other job roles are essentially 'rule based' or 'gatekeeper based' or 'permission based' ? Almost all of them are under the scanner... What does i...

In a world of cannons, what is the need for a sniper? Plenty. Cannons are common. Snipers are not. Cannons can hit a lot of places inaccurately, Snipers get you one target - spectacularly right. This is mostly a game analogy - I have zero military experience to comment on the reality. The example was more to derive a point that - to take advantage of the uberization of work, there might be merit for companies (big and small) to try out super specialists. For example, instead of going to an organization that will support you - but actually has the lowest common denominator preparing a rather stupid questionnaire - leading to fairly blah business results - why not engage the super specialist who will engage herself and diagnose your ailment correctly - or if she is  a real super specialist - will actually refer you to another super specialist. When I was in my corporate avatar - this happened to us - more than once. We had engaged a company for a consulting engagement - but...

So, what does uberization of work mean? As a person if you cannot afford a car (or do not want to take your car out mostly) you hire a car for that drive. Well, it is not radically different from hiring a taxi or an auto, but in the connected world, Uberization is the buzzword. It is like timesharing. With an app and algorithms running in the background. Now translate that to a work scenario. If you are a small company and yet want the scale and experience of an experienced person, you go for hiring a consultant for a specific time frame. Nothing new there, companies have been doing it for years. Using consultants as Force multipliers is fairly common. What is different is that many smaller companies are willing to experiment these days and as are large companies who want to do things with the nimbleness of start ups. On the other hand, start ups who do not have scale will be happy to get a consultant with specific expertise. Companies who want advisors or practitioners without ...

I read this with a lot of interest. It picks on the buzzword that has been floating for some time - around what is known as the 'Uberization of work'. Here it says , The future certainly looks bright in our eyes. In coming decades, vertical labor marketplaces will open up important resources for consumers, and hundreds of thousands of employment opportunities for the growing freelance community. It’s the global flywheel at the heart of our new labor economy. I am not entirely sure of the implications of this, but for sure, this is an increasing trend. If you really want to do something you are passionate about, it is a great idea to go out and do it. And it already exists in many skillsets.  Now the interesting part is that within a company - rather most companies this trend is hugely opposed. There are silos of roles, rules, departments, kingdoms, geographies and egos among other things that prevent this from happening.  Developing thought as I wrap my head a...

For anybody in any service type of function - be it Human Resources, Training, PMO - there are always two ways to do the role. One is to take that little black book, a pencil and ask, at every table, "Sir, what can I get you?" (Yes, it is exactly what it sounds like - but notice, I did not mention the uniform.) The slightly sophisticated method around the above is to use some really cool digital stuff to take those orders - like they do in fancy restaurants - where they use blackberry (then) or tablets (now) and that sends the order right into the kitchen. And sometimes they give you these buzzing thingies that even buzz when your order is ready (how cool is that). (But yes, again, it is exactly what it sounds like.) Variants of the above include when the customer says, there is too much salt in my salad - to take it back and fix it immediately. Or when the customer says, the room is too hot, apologize profusely and talk about other things and hope that works. Or, as...

As a support team, we are often faced with this dilemma. What are we? What is our identity? What is our role? And this question applies across the spectrum regardless of which type of role you play - Human Resources, Innovation, Risk or anything else. Some roles are created by authority - as per mandate - this type of work needs approval from so and so. This is reminiscent of the old command and control structure where, someone is the gatekeeper. Like the gatekeeper at any place, their role is to restrict the entry of people or things. Some roles are created by influence - like the sherpas of Nepal/Tibet - this type of work needs no approval and they are highly sought after - based on their expertise and knowledge of the mountains. You may argue that each of them is different, but there is no reason that someone in the role of a gatekeeper can grow as an enabler. A lot of time it is how you see the role. Being a gatekeeper is very easy. I have to do this, because someone has m...

Ever so often, the little ones come up to their appa (father) (me) and say, "Can we make something with this?" The 'this' could be an empty soap packaging, a paper cup, a satin ribbon or a huge piece of cardboard or thermocol from leftover packaging. Sometimes, the asks are specific - like- can you make a house for me? But mostly, it is an open question. Earlier, the ideas would come from me, but over time, the ideation is outsourced to them - think what you think you can make with this. Reject the first, obvious idea and think what else you can do with it. The results have been fantastic - not necessarily with the outcome, but with the thinking process. Sometimes, the answer is not apparent and that point it goes into a collection box - which is emptied once in a while - and stays there until an idea or boredom happens. This has resulted in a little bit of collection of junk - but we call it recycling. A few days back, the question was posed to me once again ...

How many of us get this request at work "I made something. Can you add some creativity to this?" How would you like it if you went to a restaurant and the chef said, "I made a dish, please add salt to it?" Yet that is how we expect it to work and think we are doing a great job of it. If our work life was a recipe and there was a salt equivalent to it - then creativity would be it. People would write the work recipe as "Add creativity to taste". Just the way they treat salt. Without salt, your dish would be bland, almost inedible in most cases. Also salt does some wonderful things - it does not just make your dish salty.It does wonderful things to food. The trick is when to add salt - you cannot always add it at the end and that is a technique in itself. Which is the same thing with creativity. Creativity is not an add-on. If it has not existed in the thought process, very unlikely that it will exist at the end when someone who has no clue about you...

I was talking to my uncle recently and we happened to talk about organizations. He runs practically a lean single person operation and hence his constant focus is to prioritize and do only the things that are the most important for his customers. Anything else is de-prioritized. Unfortunately, as organizations grow larger, this focus is lost and there is a lot of pride in 'activity'. As they say in spirituality, mistaking 'activity' for 'action' is very common. 'Activity' and 'Action' are one and the same. A lot of 'activity' does not contribute anything for the 'economy'. Like NREGA. One of the major criticisms levied against NREGA is that it is a ditch digging and filling exercise and does not result in asset creation or in contribution to the economy. It is very tempting to create work where none exists - what we miss out that is all that 'work creation' if it does not result in meaningful contribution to what th...

Ever so often, be it in our work lives or in our personal lives, there are problems that need resolution. Sometimes something happens, something breaks and each time a problem strikes we are dumbstruck or blindsided and worse clueless how to go about in future. Typically, a problem breaks an 'established' routine which leaves us feeling lost as well. At this point, we typically have two choices: Fix the problem or Do something different. Most often, we go for the former (and many a time that is the right thing to do) - and try and see if there is a way that we can fix the problem. By and large that works, but sometimes, a fixed problem reappears in a different avatar. That is when most of us realize that the problem was only partially solved - or fixed. However, if one takes a different approach - take a look at every problem as an opportunity to redefine a process, there is a great chance that the problem will be resolved for good and be used as a chance to make things ...

The arrival of IT companies in India (both India and MNC) has opened to the door to a very different work culture. A lof of the IT companies let you work from time, work flexi time, sometimes across locations. Some of the more progressive ones do not even measure (or track) your attendance. Whether you come by to work or not each day is not important as long as you deliver what you are supposed to to deliver. And that sounds quite right, does it not? Why do people have to assemble at a place for working together like an industrial age factory - in which it was required because the equipment and raw material would be available only in the factory. But today? In an age of cloud computing, BYOD, computers as powerful as anything available at ones home - do people really have to assemble and dissemble each day in order to work? Why not work and collaborate virtually? Sure, there are security concerns and the like, but other than that? Well, the future is work is at home and the compani...