Leadership when the Chips are Down!

• The economic abyss that we are all in will eventually level off just like the 18 recessions and the 3 depressions that have come and gone in the last 100 years!! It will take some time though! As organizations face persistent uncertainty and the necessity to adapt to rapidly fluctuating fiscal and monetary situations, leaders are facing some truly exciting time to demonstrate their core abilities or the lack of it!!! Organizations that are used to regular home runs will also not be spared not to mention the big names which have already sunk in the dark choppy waters in 2008!.
  This ‘negative’ shift in paradigm will impact employees, customer loyalty, security, budgets and everyday organizational decisions. As strange as it may sound, it is far easier to find leaders who know how to cope with success rather than those who can cope with success AND failure alike and still triumph!! Knowing how to lead during these extended times of uncertainty can help organizations maintain their leadership advantage, weather the immediate storms, and emerge stronger in the process.
  
  Make ‘Caring’ People Decisions
  
  Downturns normally herald missed revenue, margin and productivity goals. As organizations review their performance and ability to perform given these circumstances, leaders are often tempted to scale down or eliminate employees and employee development initiatives.
  While this may be necessary (not that I absolutely subscribe to them outside of sheer practicality), utmost care must be taken to communicate and implement the decision in a way that will still reinforce the organization’s commitment to its workforce. If done poorly, it may seem like a “panic attack” to the workforce and create a self-reinforcing cycle that loosens the bonds of loyalty across the business.
  Poor or un-weighed decisions at this stage can very adversely impact immediate priorities and have larger long term ramifications that the immediate gratifications that these actions were intended to serve not to mention the dent to the organization’s credo that these actions often deliver.
  It is crucial to bear in mind that these dark clouds will ultimately go away – the way in which the organizations and its leaders have dealt with this period will largely determine how strongly the organization shines when the sun comes out!!!
  
  Lead Well in Tough Times
  
  As I have repeatedly said, leadership is about rallying people behind shared vision, mission, and goals through awareness, collaboration, accountability and empowerment. It is about connecting human action with specific objectives and aligning people and groups to work together toward those ends.
  In the midst of circumstances that spell fear, uncertainty and doubt leaders are responsible to ensure calmness while providing clear guidance and directions to the teams that they lead. They are responsible for keeping the team focused on its immediate short-medium, term objectives while making them aware of the changing circumstances which might need them to re-evaluate the mode of attaining the goals that they seek and flag any associated risks.
  The leader’s ability to generate a collective feeling of existence and accomplishment within the team is crucial!
  
  Align Talent base to Business Strategy
  
  Organizations need to strengthen the link between its business strategy and its talent pools. The commander of the ship needs to consider: are short-term commitments vulnerable due to lack of talent to help achieve core strategies? Are the right people in the critical roles, how are they being retained?
  Leaders need to focus their teams to address the short-mid term exigencies. The status quo questioned, reviewed while a new set of behaviors need to be cultured, monitored, and reinforced. All of this is best done through collaboration rather than a autocratic mandate. Collaboration drives broader buy-in, larger ownership and better execution
  The resurrection might call for attainment of multiple targets. This will demand a sense of balance. People will need to be explained the ‘Why’ and encouraged to find ways to determine how their goals can be connected without the need for a binary choice. Most leader5s and teams struggle with this balance. While there is no perfect solution, but the desire to question status quo, adopting a change in how things are while aiming for the best possible solution for the current situation sounds pretty darn good to me!
  If a restructure or a reduction in force is absolutely needed, set progressive expectations and ensure that the remaining workforce is re-engaged. Cutbacks create a sense of helplessness in the organization. Leaders need to acknowledge the associated pain and frustration and ask teams what they believe are the top priorities at this time. Effective leaders will always take steps to ensure that the newly created groups become effective teams in the new setting and do not just consider themselves as “survivors.”
  
  Treat your Employees and Customers right
  
  Know your people very well! Tough times (as goes the adage) bring out the best in many people. High-potential staffers and teams may be ready to step up sooner than expected. This is a time to help people learn from experience, to let the capable ones soar! This is the time to share the best practices that demonstrate the depth of the talent already on board!
  Ensure that top performers are retained at all cost. Besides providing the results, they are also capable of setting and driving the right attitude, mood and tone across the whole organization. Get closer to these people and show your ‘love and support’ for what they are doing.
  Take customer loyalty very seriously! Don’t just respond to customer expectations; find out proactive ways to anticipate what the customer wants as the environment, industry and markets change. Make these changes faster than anyone else. Accelerate the implementation by leveraging technology. Reinvent the depth and breadth of relationship with top customers before your competitor does it!
  
  Overdo the Communication bit
  
  There is a reason why we have two ears and one mouth. Spend twice the time listening rather than talking. By the way do not do both at the same time! These times require leaders to listen to their teams and provide them the right guidance, advice, directions or inspiration. Leaders need to use every tool in the bag to accomplish this.
  Communicate business challenges, the gaps and the associated risks with absolute candor. It is crucial to communicate even when there is nothing to communicate. This helps employees realize that communication channels have stayed open.
  Create timely forums to host collaborative discussions regarding the organization your company wants to be in say three years from now and what needs to be done right now to attain that. An exercise of this nature helps disperse hope, a sense of belonging and a shared future within the employees. Use these forums to share demonstrated best practices regarding employee collaboration, customer satisfaction, employee driven initiatives, skills development, workplace and work force efficiencies etc.
  State the key takeaways, the individual accountabilities and the follow up actions. Rally support for the initiative. Ask people what assistance they need to deliver what is expected of them.
  
  Set a GPS for the Future
  
  An organization becomes what its people and the leaders guide it to be. When there is proper alignment between the business strategy that the organization wants to drive and the internal or outsourced
  Talent that it has access to, when the organization and its leaders relate well to employees and customers and when the leader practices honest, clear and open communication, the organizations can take on uncertain circumstances, weather the macro economic storms and consequently create a brighter and fundamentally stronger future as the dust begins to settle!t.

Organizational IQ

What is your organization's IQ (intelligence quotient) ? By this I do not mean how smart it is, but how aware it is and how it operates in its own, unique environment. Do customers find it easy or difficult to do business with your organization? What type of feedback does your company receive from its business partners? What about you? Do you find it easy to get things done within your organization or does everything simply seem more difficult than it needs to be?
This blog is posted by: Dennis Rose

What is your organization's IQ (intelligence quotient) ? By this I do not mean how smart it is, but how aware it is and how it operates in its own, unique environment. Do customers find it easy or difficult to do business with your organization? What type of feedback does your company receive from its business partners? What about you? Do you find it easy to get things done within your organization or does everything simply seem more difficult than it needs to be?

The concept¹ of organizational IQ traces back to research work done at Stanford University and is defined as a measure of how organizations assimilate information and put together their decision and information architectures. Much like a personal psychological IQ, an organizational IQ relates to how an organization can take in information, process it, makes decisions based upon that and then put those decisions into action. However, a company therefore regarded as smart or dominant in their particular market segment does not necessarily have a high organizational IQ.

I once worked for a small start-up that focused on optical character recognition technology based scanners. Their one and only product scanned typed paper pages, converted the words into text streams that were then fed into word processing software or databases. The productivity savings for law firms, hospitals, government agencies and just about anyone who had to re-type a lot of paper documents into computer systems was significant and made the product very successful. The company had a gifted technical leader and generally the core technology of the firm was considered leading edge at the time I joined them. The management style of this company, however, was very centralized and a bit parochial. People outside of the headquarters location were treated as “doers” (e.g. go get the order, go do the repair) rather than as team members. It was surprising, even after factoring in that it was a start-up, that the product marketing manager was also the marketing communications manager and the events manager and the technical publications manager. Even if she had wanted to, she didn’t have enough time left in her schedule to seek out any input from the field or to review what we voluntarily chose to send her. There was little to no collaboration between HQ and the field. The executive team rarely met with customers, analysts or the trade media, as they were more concerned with the engineering road map. Most of their external relationships went no further than a few professors at the renowned engineering university that the chief technology officer had graduated from.

These factors led to a near absence of being in touch with what the market wanted and market shift in packaging of OCR scanners that would soon have a large impact on our business. Two competitors introduced smaller desktop scanners with the ability to easily support more type styles at a lower price, as they standardized their scanning engines on commodity PC class chip sets. All at once, we had competitive offerings that were more easily connected to the rapidly growing base of PCs being adopted for the first time by customers, while also being less expensive and more versatile than our company’s product. To make matters worse, our company failed to react to the new competition, refusing to supply the field sales and SE personnel with competitive analyses for these new products or to suggest selling strategies designed to protect our market share until we could respond. The engineering leadership of the firm even dismissed the competitive desktop models as a “passing fad”. In the end, my employer lost significant market share and ran out of cash before they were able to bring a new product to market. They subsequently went out of business.

In this situation, the company had no functioning process in place to ensure sufficient awareness of external information such as changing market preferences, the shift of word processing from mini-computers to desktop PCs and threatening competitive movements. Having external information awareness is a critical element of an organization’s IQ. A company cannot possibly expect to be able to react to changing events if they do not know that events are indeed changing. Yet, we see numerous examples of companies with stove-piped or blocked communication channels lose growth momentum and market share – or sometimes go out of business altogether – because their internal structure, process or culture prevented them from seeing “the big picture” in their market.

In addition to external information awareness, it is critical for an organization to then disseminate or share that information. Information has no value unless it is shared with the people who need it. Many of us have encountered at least one person in our careers that initially seemed to be the smart “go-to” person that knew everything. Unfortunately these people sometimes turn out to be information hoarders that hurt the organization more by holding back useful knowledge instead of proactively sharing it with others that could benefit from it. I worked with an IT manager many years ago that was the proverbial “keeper of the keys” in terms of any knowledge about IT systems, processes, operations, forthcoming IT initiatives, etc. He bathed in the glory of being the only one who knew what was going on with our IT systems. Finding out the most basic information about scheduled down times, desktop rollouts, application fixes and even printer network path names was difficult. As a result, line managers invested time and budget into systems that were inexplicably taken offline or retired, costs were duplicated when the field offices bought low-value assets like laptops not knowing the IT manager had a room full of them that he had told no one about. As the company grew (I sometimes wondered how!) the “drag effect” he created became intolerable and his behaviour was called into question and he was eventually fired. The region I worked in, however, had a lot of catching up to do as compared to the other international regions where the IT leadership had been open, sharing and highly collaborative at both a strategic planning and tactical execution level to help drive the business forward.

Assuming an organization does have external information awareness and also shares the information that it gathers, it still needs to be able to process that information to make meaningful and effective decisions to run the business. The decision architecture of a company has a lot to do with its culture. Organizational culture will often determine whether decision-making authority or empowerment is highly centralized, entrusted to the people with the best first-hand knowledge to make the decisions or whether it lands somewhere between these two scenarios. An effective decision architecture allows people who have the relevant information to act on it without having to waste time relaying information up and down the hierarchy². If executive management is involved in deciding tactical issues such as product names, launch dates, where the 100% Club trip will be held and the like, then they are not doing their jobs. Their primary role is to develop a vision and strategy for the company and to develop the organization’s overall ability to execute to that plan. Micromanaging disempowers people and eventually leads to a breakdown in accountability within middle management and their teams and devalues the roles of people who really ought to be making those decisions. In many cases, good people leave under these conditions. Companies with poor decision making structures and practices tend to then suffer from not only attrition and the costs that go with it, but also an inability to react quickly to changing market conditions. As the second half of 2008 has shown us, things can change rapidly – very rapidly.

If an organization is able to remain aware of what is happening externally, share that information with all relevant team members and then make decisions efficiently, then they are likely to be in a position to focus on their core business objectives. Without any of the preceding three conditions being achieved, focusing becomes difficult as an organization struggles with incomplete information, the inability to collaborate across teams and uncertainty over who should make decisions in reaction to changes or better yet, in anticipation of them. With the conditions set for increased organizational focus, it becomes easier for teams to prioritize, to avoid distractions driven by process ambiguity and to become more decisive in the face of changing market conditions.

The final principle of organizational IQ is continuous innovation. The ability to constantly examine and reinvent products, services and processes is a hallmark of successful companies. McDonald’s expansion into breakfast foods, Nike’s success in expanding their market share with teens, tweens and Generation Y consumers through their “design-your-own shoe” NikeID offering and Toyota’s similar “design-your-own-car” Scion product line are examples of established companies that seek to listen to the market and reinvent themselves. These types of companies tend to proactively disrupt their established markets to either expand them or reinvigorate growth and profitability within them.

A company that is able to orchestrate external information awareness, information sharing, effective decision making , organizational focus and continuous innovation is likely to achieve a high organizational IQ. Research studies at Stanford University³ have shown that organizational IQ is a key success factor for businesses. This research, which studied hundreds of companies during the 1980s and 1990s showed that organizations which exhibited high organizational IQ had higher, sustained growth rates than those who did not. Many of the firms which were measured to have low organizational IQ and did nothing about it went out of business or were eventually acquired by stronger companies.

Clearly, all of us would like to work in an environment where there is high organizational IQ. Organizations with these characteristics tend to be market leaders that succeed in reinvesting in their operations and people, thereby creating broader career opportunities for their team members. All of us have an opportunity to contribute to the five principles of external information awareness, information sharing, decision-making, focus and continuous innovation. We can approach this through shaping the culture of our organizations and through building and using systems and processes that help to facilitate it. A lot of it starts with basic communication skills....becoming an effective listener and then sharing information in a collaborative sense to make the team more effective. Unlike an individual’s psychological IQ, which experts say can only be increased to a limited extent in adulthood, an organizational IQ can be increased to a great extent and more quickly. As you think about your own employer, or perhaps a prospective one, assessing and contributing to their organizational IQ is perhaps one of the greatest opportunities you will have with them. Doing your own assessment of your organization’s IQ, or perhaps leading one with your team, is a good place to start.

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¹ = Haim Mendelson and Johannes Ziegler in their book Survival of the Smartest

² = Ibid

³ = Ibid

This blog is posted by: Dennis Rose

WYSIWYG – The Art of Perfect Execution!

Those of you who like me saw the early days of the Personal Computer age would recollect the phrase WYSIWYG (“What You See Is What You Get”) - when the computer monitor screen started supporting serious graphics display capabilities. When the image on the monitor was close enough to the quality of the printout that the printer spewed out when you hit the print button! Wow! Still considered a milestone in the history of personal computing!

Technically speaking ‘WYSIWYG’ actually symbolizes all innovations, inventions, progressions and discoveries that have radically impacted our world, our civilization, our lives and everything it holds! It also represents an intrinsic character that every successful individual represents. It is called the power of Visualization – What you SEE is What you GET!

From Rosa Parks to Martin Luther King to Barrack Obama is an incredible journey that was based on rights, equality, freedom and change. It started with someone visualizing about what the world ought to be rather than accept it as it is – a small step was taken. Over the years the vision broadened taking into its fold other aspirations, hopes and dreams of many more people. The visual grew in scale and the impact feeding off the millions of people whose lives it touched finally peaked on an early November day when history was rewritten as America elected its new President!

I enjoy many sports and do so because participating or even just watching top class sportspeople fires me up physically and emotionally! I have often read and observed these greats – seen them focus on the incredible power of Visualization. I have seen what their coaches take them through as they help them stay relevant in the highest levels of the game!

Whether it is golf, tennis or other categories (especially individual sports), watch the intense gaze of these top pros between strokes, as they go though their motions or during a game break. Their eyes are focused but the gaze seems to be far away – looking at nothing, totally insulated from whatever surrounds them! They are actually mentally playing out their next moves on a high res mental video screen over and over! Seeing exactly what they are going to do next, soaking in it, visualizing it – then they take every conscious thought off their minds and execute that mental video! Sure enough the result is quite close to what they visualized if not better! I have tried this myself when playing and depending on my preparedness and commitment, I sometimes do get the result!

Why sometimes? Why not always? The key to successful visual results is “Preparedness”. Quite obvious, right? Trust me, I have come across many instances where I have seen trained professionals going out into execution mode without adequate preparedness … now that does not work, regardless of your caliber!

So, here is how I see the buildup whether at the workplace or in the playing field. Dare to dream in the area of your interest and set some personal goals that you are totally committed to (the more audacious, the better as long as they are practical). Next, know the rules of the game (a.k.a the Standard Operating Procedure within organizations), employee handbooks and functional operating guidelines are the normal sources – check! This is crucial but most people ignore it or do not spend enough time on. Being an absolute master of the rules will allow you to take advantage of the rules or lack of it while being fully aware of the downside.

Next totally absorb the Core Base skills required to be successful in the position that you are in and then seek out the Incremental Skills that will make a difference to your performance in – this is where you start to get ahead of the pack. While the Core Skills are usually documented and relatively easy to build, the Incremental Skills are not! Reason why most people are quite weak in this department! Seeking internal and external mentors, wide networking and constant referencing – a healthy reading habit is a wonderful tool are some options available to you. Most often I have noticed that top performers are very comfortable in discussing and expressing their views in topics way outside of their principal areas of competency! On the contrary the average player is quite limited even in what should be supposedly their zone of competency.

Follow this with very hard work (no shortcuts here!) regardless of your talent and thoroughly practice the skills you have acquired. Pitch it in every conceivable situation and see how you do, socializing this learning with like minded friends, colleagues and family is one way to get it done. I can literally hear you say – “Easily said … where is the time or the opportunity?” Totally agree, but you need to make both available if you win at this game!

The Power of Visualization will only work when your inner self is totally confident that you can faultlessly deliver what you have learnt. The only way to make this possible is when you physically repeat the action over and over again – be it presenting to a customer, writing a document, driving a golf ball down the fairway or executing a slick cross court volley. Relentless practice will make your mind and body absolutely rehearsed and comfortable in delivering the desired outcome. Practicing over and over will also convince your inner being that you can do it! It gives the power to the mind to play the video of perfect execution picking up pieces from the hard work it saw you do while you were building and rehearsing the skill.

What unfolds next is brilliant – you are there preparing to do what you are supposed to, eyes (customers, colleagues, friends, adversaries) watching you. You know your stuff and are fully prepared with countless hours of learning and practice. Now play the mental video .. visualize the end result clearly – you have delivered a brilliant performance, everyone is blown away by what you have done, profusely congratulating or applauding you... Next, take every other restraining thought off your head and execute. You have done it…..

I am doing the same here, visualizing that you will have benefited from the perspective of this post. I am sure you have!

Art of Tequila @ Work and Play: Lick – Slam – Suck!

Without wanting to sound too presumptuous, I think most people slam Tequila as a symbolic tool to celebrate success, demonstrate machismo (or the female version of the act – whatever its called) and even as a means to get that quick ‘headiness’ prior to heading for the dance floor!

Even at the workplace the same pattern follows. Folks, very often high achievers start at new organizations or in new roles within their current organization, slam down a snifter of high adrenaline and head out to the dance floor without looking out for oncoming traffic. Casualties are commonplace! Read on and I will show you how the Art of Tequila showed me an important trail to Workplace and Leadership success!

Mid November, I was in the midst of this 2000 mile road trip up the California coast with a couple of pals – we call it the “Wild Hoggers’ Drive”. Midway, we chanced upon this Mexican cantina nestled within the gorgeous rolling hills of Carmel (for the Clint Eastwood fans, he was the mayor of this city (Population: 45,000) for a while, and also sits on the board of the Pebble Beach Golf facility not too far away.

Baja Cantina. 7166 Carmel Valley Road. Carmel. CA 93923
http://www.bajacantinacarmel.com/index.html
(Manager: Ian Penniman. Look him up if you are there, he is quite a character!)

Besides gorging on the fantastic Mexican fare of succulent meats on the sizzler, freshly toasted tortillas, gorgeous burritos and enchiladas and my personal favorite, the Chimichanga, I actually got an impromptu lesson on the art of Tequila appreciation. So here goes…

Tequila according to the Wiki…
Tequila is an agave-based spirit made in the area surrounding Tequila, 65 kilometres in the northwest of Guadalajara and in the highlands (Los Altos) of the western Mexican state of Jalisco. Tequila is most often made at a 38–40% alcohol content (76–80 proof), but there are more potent types of tequila produced with 43–46% alcohol content (86–92 proof). It is a common misconception that tequila is fermented from cactus. Agaves and cacti are unrelated. The Aztec had previously made a fermented beverage from the agave plant, which they called Octli. When the Spanish conquistadors ran out of their own brandy, they began to distill this agave drink to produce North America's first indigenous distilled spirit. The tequila that is popular today was first mass-produced in the early 1800s in Guadalajara, Mexico.
There are two basic categories of tequila: Mixtos and 100% Agave. Mixtos use up to 49% of other sugars in the fermentation process, with Agave taking up the remainder. Agave sugar is fructose-based, and is easier for the human body to break down. Mixtos use both glucose and fructose sugars.
With 100% agave tequila, Tequila Blanco is harsher with the bold flavors of the distilled agave up front, while Reposado and Añejo are smoother, subtler, and more complex. As with other spirits that are aged in casks, tequila takes on the flavors of the wood, while the harshness of the alcohol mellows.


A Dummy’s Guide to Drinking the Potion @ Play and Work
Play First….
Where it comes from, Mexico, tequila is drunk straight, without salt and lime. In the most popular style of consumption, a single shot of tequila is often served with salt and a slice of lime, called "tequila cruda" and follows the "Lick-Slam-Suck" routine. The drinker moistens the back of their hand below the index finger (usually by licking) and pours on the salt. The salt is then licked off the hand, the tequila is then slammed down the throat and the fruit slice is quickly sucked. It is common for groups of drinkers to do this simultaneously. The salt lessens the "burn" of the tequila and the sour lime fruit balances and enhances the flavor. DO NOT DO THIS if you are drinking higher-quality categories though, 100% agave tequila with salt and lime is likely to remove much of the flavor.
When served neat (without any additional ingredients), tequila is most often served in a narrow shot glass called a caballito ("Little Horse" in Spanish). The margarita glass, rimmed with salt, sugar, or plain, is a staple for the entire tequila/fruit mixed drink genre, including the margarita itself.
Tequila – Meal Combination
Tequila is commonly bottled in three to five categories:
Tequila Blanco ("white") or Tequila Plata ("silver") or Tequila Oro (“gold) – white spirit, un-aged and bottled or stored immediately after distillation, or aged less than two months in oak barrels. Jose Cuervo (the brand that you have most likely consumed) is a good example and the one that is mostly popular with you – usually consumed as a cocktail or a pre dinner drink
Tequila Reposado ("rested") – aged a minimum of two months, but less than a year in oak barrels. Usually served with Mains. I tried out the Cabo Wabo from Sammy Hagar’s (of Van Halen fame) distillery and actually fancied it more than his music!. http://www.cabowabo.com/
Tequila Añejo ("aged" or "vintage") and Extra añejo ("extra aged" or "ultra aged") – aged between 1-3 years in oak barrels. This is a post dinner ‘cognac’ category fare . My restaurant host strongly recommended Don Julio 1942 (Premium vatted – 5 years from a numbered bottle. No less!) to titillate my taste buds and give me that warm settling post meal feeling which it did incredibly well! http://www.tequila.net/tequila_reviews/anejos/don_julio_1942_anejo.html

Now about Work…
Work-life is not any different. As you get into a new organization or a new role…
· Measure up the environment first and understand the moving pieces, the priorities, the influencers and the personalities. Do not rush to the proverbial “dance floor” first. Instead determine the areas where you can immediately add value, seek buy-in from the primary stakeholders – be comfortable in your base and then ‘execute’ – similar to the process of downing the Tequila Blanco! Make sure that you “lick the salt” to prepare the environment and level off the intensity of the new actions and changes that you will likely enforce. Next “slam” it in and get into the execution mode with total commitment and intensity – if change is involved it needs to be introduced quickly, gradual change are fraught with risks. Finally “suck” in the results of your execution (like the sour lime you are meant to suck after downing the potion) to balance the outcome and enhance the flavor of the results. Constant communication with the rest of the team and candid feedback on what is working, what is not and what adjustments to the plan are being made and why are great flavor enhancers.

· As you cement your initial wins and move to the next hierarchical levels, your strategy should be more in line with the Tequila Reposado. You are more seasoned and so are your actions – you start to build longer term plans, a very strong team, determine what you need to delegate and what cannot happen if you do not do it. All this while watching the near term executions that you have delegated to the next level, like a hawk – no misses here! As your successes line up, broaden up your stakeholder support. You are the primary conduit for your group to the rest of the organization – add value at both ends.

· The next level is the Tequila Anejo – you have now attained ‘vintage’ status in your role – you develop the longer term strategy for your unit that will eventually impact the broader organization, you grow your people into bigger positions with broader responsibilities and mandatorily build succession plans at all levels. You start planning your move to the next level while being fully committed in leaving you unit better than when you took it on!
Other Tequila Trivia:
· There are over 100 distilleries making over six hundred brands of tequila in Mexico
· Over 2,000 Tequila brand names have been registered. Due to this, each bottle of tequila contains a serial number depicting which distillery the tequila was brewed and bottled in. Since there are only so many distilleries, multiple brands of tequila come from the same place.
· A one-liter bottle of limited-edition premium tequila was sold for $225,000 in July 2006 in Tequila, Jalisco, by the company Tequila Ley 925. The bottle is a two-kilo display of platinum and gold. The manufacturer has received the Certificate from Guinness World Records for the most expensive bottle of liquor ever sold.
· In 2008, Mexican scientists discovered a method to transform 80-proof (40% alcohol) tequila into diamonds. This process requires heating the tequila to over 800 degrees C (1,400 degrees F) to vaporize the tequila. The tequila particles are then cooled and settled upon steel or silicon trays in an even, pure layer and you have them … diamonds!
· Mel Gibson's anti-Semitic outburst when arrested for drunk driving was attributed to tequila consumption.
· Sammy Hagar, rock star (singer of the bar anthem "Mas Tequila") and owner of Cabo Wabo Tequila described tequila's stigma as, "the stuff that you go, 'I will never drink that as long as I live,' and you have gotten sick in college on rot-gut tequila." This image of tequila as the instigator of particularly egregious intoxication and hangovers is pervasive.
· In music, singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette wrote an ode to tequila entitled "On The Tequila" for the Flavors of Entanglement sessions, and says tequila has helped her balance things out in her life.
· In the United States, National Tequila Day is July 24.
Wonderful education and as always my pleasure to share this with you budding Tequila connoisseurs! Enough said … Viva La Mexico!

The End Game of Leadership – Who owns it?

I was chatting with a friend recently who is treading a new path through a set of interesting initiatives, challenging the conventions of ‘How things can be?’ rather than ‘How things are’.
· I was chatting with a friend recently who is treading a new path through a set of interesting initiatives, challenging the conventions of ‘How things can be?’ rather than ‘How things are’. One thought led to another and he gave me his belief on how he views the actions of a leader to evolve

· He says, that the leader is responsible for defining the vision. In doing so he challenges conventions, thinks outside of the box, morphs past success ‘methodologies’ to suit the present circumstances and most of all, knows how to dream!

· Defining the vision is quite easy, what follows is way difficult …. structuring and articulating the vision! Giving it shape and spell it out in words that are understood by all involved. Every successful vision ever put into action has had a very common thread .. simplicity! If a vision starts off by being hard to understand, the articulation, the planning and the implementation that will follow will be hard to understand as well. The result, you guessed it right .. hard to understand!!!

· Articulation of the vision calls for ‘empathy’ – seeking other people’s perspective, their views, their circumstances and their relevance to the vision. Irrespective of the skills and abilities of the leader, he or she does not know it all! Even if she does, her thoughts & experience represent her ‘nuclear’ perspective based on her personality and her surroundings.

· I have seen good leaders consider the result of their contribution (and the efficacy of their vision) by ‘impact’ and ‘scale’ they deliver to their team’s results over the long term. ‘Impact’ created by examining and consolidating as many variable attributes to a vision in a logical manner as possible and ‘Scale’ created by broadening of the scope of the vision so that the vision touches as large a macrocosm as possible over extended time periods.

· Next comes implementation and execution and this is where my friend laid out a very different view that he subscribes to – and I see his point. He believes that very often leaders spend too little time in conceiving the vision and articulating it. They are way to keen to get into executing the vision!! Eager to close off the campaign, roll out the score card on the table as quickly as possible and start congratulating all involved. In the process they garner short term tactical results and fail to milk the ‘Impact’ and ‘Scale’ of the vision.

· Instead how would it be if the leader patiently carves the vision, articulates it expertly to his team making it as simple as possible. He then empathizes with and openly solicits his people’s feedback selectively but ensuring that as many conceivable variables are covered. The leader then constructs the unique nuances that are identified through the ‘empathy & feedback’ process into the fabric of the vision, making it optimal, powerful and relevant.

· Every member of his team now understands the vision, knows that it has been examined and tested as robustly as practical, believes in it and supports it from their mental core. The leader then steps away and watches his team (led by the next tier leaders) drive the execution rather than leading the execution himself! He takes in the bigger picture, stays on top of the results and makes modifications and tweaks where needed

· So why will the leader be confident that his team will pull it off? It is because he himself believes in the vision, he believes in the process through which the vision was crafted and he believes in his people. He believes that by trusting the implementation to them, the true impact and scale of the vision will be realized!

· What about the people? They trust their leader’s ability, his candor, his fairness, credibility and integrity. In the back of their minds, they know that there is an outside chance that their leader’s and their own collective wisdom might prove incorrect and the desired results might fall thru. These thoughts are however far out weighed by the belief that the direction their leader has shown will deliver the desired results on a sustainable basis and represents their collective best interest. They execute in earnest and most often good results follow…

· It is not surprising that good leaders without fail attribute the success of a campaign to their teams while carrying the heat of failure on their able shoulders…

Networking – Getting it Right!

Metcalf’s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf) fascinates me. It states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n²).

• Metcalf’s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalf) fascinates me. It states that the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system (n²). Attributed to Robert Metcalfe in regard to Ethernet, (geek speak for a common form of computer network) Metcalfe’s law characterizes many of the network effects of communication technologies and networks such as the Internet, social networking, and the World Wide Web. Boy, are these networks powerful!!!!!
  
• The concept, expectation and impact of networking have changed dramatically as the world and the means for networking have evolved. From an individual engagement involving two people that serves mutual needs – the networking scope has scaled to involve communities seeking similar goals and aspirations. These ubiquitous networks deliver different levels of efficiency and are being used to extract varied levels of value. The evolution of supportive, easy to use technology has played a big role here!
  
• I do not associate Networking with financial gains alone. I have seen friends closely associated with the church, healthcare and other humanitarian pursuits where networking (or Support Groups) get people with similar psychological and physical challenges together to bond, share and support each other. These are incredible efforts and underline the selflessness of the people who organize these groups and invest their time to help others.
  
• With Networking becoming a core skill in every individual’s profit and non-profit go to market model, differentiation in how you network is crucial. So here are 10 tips that I have picked up from my time at work – I am not the Oracle from the mountains, these are lessons that I have either triumphed or suffered for…
  

1. Understand who you are? Analyze your strengths and weaknesses – no one is perfect! Then place your best foot forward judging the circumstances of the engagement.
2. Treat people with respect and grace in every instance irrespective of the level of your familiarity. An unassuming exterior often sheaths very capable personalities within
3. Assume a longer term goal from the relationship – do not focus on instant gratifications. Just like you would be forming an opinion about the individual you are dealing with so would the other. Let the engagement evolve rather than force it..
4. Keep every relationship ‘alive’ even after the immediate objective is served. Many a great opportunity of a larger mutual leverage is lost because the people involved took a short term perspective of the relation
5. Make an impact on people when you meet them, especially for the first time at gatherings – they should remember you even after you have moved on! Appropriate compliments, graciousness, eye contact, intelligent questions or observations and great listening skills will be your check list., ‘Charisma’ by the way is often overrated!
6. Make a conscious effort to make people comfortable in your presence – refer to the checklist above. Watch out for a shifting gaze, a nervous laugh or extended silence from the other person as tell tale signs of discomfort!
7. Be a fabulous listener – there is a reason why you have two ears and one mouth (boy, do most of us struggle!). A superior listener gathers far more from a conversation than someone with an over eagerness to speak. Besides, good listening skills add balance to an engagement and provides an even keel for a conversation
8. Absorb the other person’s point of view and ask intelligent questions during your interaction, be it in person or electronic (emails, social networking sites etc)
9. Refer people you know to other people you know – if you promote others, they will promote you. Keep compatibility and common interest in mind though while facilitating these introductions
10. Come out of each engagement making the other person feeling generally optimistic, more self aware and possibly knowledgeable than before they met you
    
    I look forward to all of you building valuable, fulfilling, engaging and incredibly rewarding networks in every sphere of your lives..

First Among Equals: Effort or Attainment

I have mentioned this in one of my previous posts … I do not cease to be impressed by the kids these days. They are intuitive, articulate and down right smart!

. My 12 year daughter and I are out on our scouting/hiking trail over the weekend, the Singapore sun was beating down on us but fortunately the breeze was holding – so it was okay! Before she could get into one of her teen tantrums on ‘how the weather sucks’, I decided to engage her in conversation. She loves a spirited chat and I reckoned it was the best way to keep her mind off the heat!

. “What is more important, effort or attainment?”, she blurted out. She went on to say that her projects in school were being graded on those two parameters. I chided her on what she thought was more important and she said, “effort definitely. If the effort is in place, attainment will follow.” What better way to set expectations with the term results due just round the corner!

. I reasoned with her but did finally agree that in a learning environment, I would rate ‘effort’ higher than the immediate ‘attainment’ at least in the very short term. Very often institutions of learning are too focused on grades rather than the actual learning process. This makes the whole process very mechanical and sadly exposes students to developing that behavior I absolutely dread in the workplace – “doing without understanding why they are doing what they are doing”! (See my other post on this topic). Consequently, I also agree that with the right level of effort, intellect and disciplined application, attainment is bound to eventually show up.

. In my career, I have faced similar dilemma while judging employee productivity, performance and development. I have seen many ways in which performance is mapped and measured. While the usual ratings – Top, Strong, Solid, Needs Development & Manage Out or derivatives of these are quite common, I have in instances used a broader framework in judging employees within these categories i.e. the ‘What’ and the ‘How’.

. The ‘What’ actually alludes to the ‘Attainment’ while the ‘How’ alludes to the ‘Effort’ that my daughter was talking about. Usually the Top and the Manage Out categories are ‘absolute categories’ while the other three intermediate categories have a ‘What’ and ‘How’ flavor i.e. we rate the individual’s performance with an emphasis on ‘What’ results he achieved and ‘How’ the result was achieved.

. In a typical workplace, What and How are both crucial but considering the fact that the primary goal of the business is to generate shareholder value – the What (Attainment) shows up as the first among equals!

. Before we get too ahead of ourselves, the How (Effort or the right kind of Effort) is not far behind! Results at any cost where the How defies the prevailing strictures and governance is definitely a no-no with definite longer term ramifications. We are all seeing plenty of these instances in the midst of the current financial crisis!!!

. So we rounded off the conversation unanimously agreeing that school might be a better place for learning and experimentation where ‘Effort’ deserves a slight advantage. Workplace on the other hand is far more exacting, demanding and impatient. Experimentation is fine and even encouraged in some places but needs to be maturely managed so that it is not at the expense of ‘Attainment’ of overall expected financial or operational results!

. As she flirted with another topic I just wanted to have a last word on the school before my daughter could forcibly move me on – ‘Just ensure that your grades show up good! ‘Effort’ wins when you are in a class session, but ‘Attainment’ sure comes tops on exam day – I am learning fast on how to set my expectations clear with this smart kid walking beside me – she gave me a quizzed look, but I bet she knows what I meant. Never too late!

Step by Step: How the Financial System’s Coffin was Nailed!

In my conversations with people these days many quiz themselves on how a financial crisis of this dimension was conceived in the first place …. So here’s my attempt to piece the disaster together. I am not an economist by training, but will nonetheless try and build a layman’s model of what led to this doomsday!
. In my conversations with people these days many quiz themselves on how a financial crisis of this dimension was conceived in the first place …. So here’s my attempt to piece the disaster together. I am not an economist by training, but will nonetheless try and build a layman’s model of what led to this doomsday!

. Like any terminal illness, all this did not happen in a day, a week, month or even a year. Years of neglect, greed & improper governance were the root of the crisis. Lets take a peek…

. The financial world at the turn of the twenty first century created radically different trends with Asia generating massive surplus riding on the macroeconomic waves in China & India. The US on the other hand faced current account deficits despite being preceded by a Clinton era where the President actually turned around a deficit laden economy and balanced the budget before his term was over

. Despite the dodgy financial fundamentals in the US, the Bush government’s foreign policy was built around massive spending – a significant portion of which was linked to defense expenditure incurred in Afghanistan & Iraq

. Instead of Americans paying this bill, foreign borrowings (presumably the surplus from China) funded the spend while taxes were cut and interest rates were kept low at home– a surplus of cheap money was built for general consumption, falling into the hands of people, many of who did not know how to use it wisely!

. Stock, securities and real estate flourished and equity that was generated through asset appreciation related gains were reinvested in more of the same instruments and used for other forms of consumption, may of them needless (also called conspicuous consumption)

. The evolution of the ‘Free Market Economy’ in the US also radically changed innocuous financial instruments which I believe was built during the Clinton era to increase home ownership and labeled Collaterized Debt Obligations (CDO) into vicious financial tornadoes which coupled with sub prime mortgages extensive financial leverage practices and risk tolerance by established financial instruments broke the proverbial camel’s back in many places!!

. In parallel the excessive import related deficit of the current administration quickly eroded all the budget surplus benefits that the Clinton administration drove – the US dollar faced downward pressure and suddenly creditors both domestic and foreign had better options to route their funds

. Federal reserve had no choice whatsoever but to raise interest rates (despite a slowing economy) as the dollar fell and commodity prices rose driving an inflationary climate progressively

. As Interest rates rose, some of the sub prime mortgagees began to realize that the interest rate rise had suddenly turned their mortgage payments unaffordable. The snowball began small but grew rapidly and soon led to situations where lenders started revaluing the risk which in turn led to de-leveraging of assets!

. Large scale divesture of risky assets followed in increasingly illiquid markets while at the same time radical fall in asset valuations dramatically impacted balance sheets of very prominent establishments. The establishments had no choice but to raise capital till the money market ran dry as paranoia ran high amongst investors!!!

. Thus is the story so far as banks stop trusting each other and inter bank lending virtually stops – interest rate cuts do not help as the cash level in bank vaults continue to stay low (as the banks stop lending to each other) affecting both the individual and the corporation alike!

. The US administration has heeded the internal advisory and has stayed out of any direct involvement way too long – by the time Paulson, Bernanke and his cronies got involved it was too late! The bail-out plan that was prescribed by the Presidential decree was mired with conflicting opinions of why the common tax payer should bear the brunt of a trillion dollar rescue package needed to fix the greed and misdeeds of a section who have amassed massive wealth and are running scot free, still ‘very rich’!

. The financial community internally and externally lost all confidence – investment withdrawals and redemptions followed, causing the breakdown of financial systems worldwide and complete pandemonium!

. While the US government’s corrective policies have had scant impact with even the US arranged meeting of the G7 nations, the European Union’s follow up actions of injecting cash into their banking system and guaranteeing credit facilities have set the bank collaboration going freeing up the financial system and setting the world markets on an upswing!

. Still a long way to go before the tremors subside but any buck in the trend is welcome. Borrowing the lessons of greed (see my other Post), I hope the world will learn and end up being a better place going forward as we painfully navigate through the quagmire that is our own creation!

Greed is Good …. The Parable from Wall Street!

It was in my freshman undergraduate year that I watched Oliver Stone’s ‘Wall Street’ and was thoroughly impressed by the ‘style’ of the ‘Street’ not to mention Michael Douglas’ Gordon Gekko character that personifies the summary and celebration of free market capitalism (“I am not talking about the regular Wall Street stiff, flying first class and being comfortable, I am talking liquid! Rich enough to own your own jet, rich enough not to waste time. 50, a 100 million a year.. a player!)

. The movie closes with Gekko ending up in prison but not before very successfully hammering down ‘Greed’ as a ‘Virtue’ for the continued innovation and evolution of mankind and human spirit! I hear that a sequel might be in the works with Gekko (now a free man!) emerging in today’s financial hotspot … Shanghai, China!

. Lets ponder on Greed though – I want to do this because of the potentially negative label that the word carries stemming from the seven deadly sins! I tend to some what agree with Gordon Gekko’s summation. The manifestation of Greed emerges from the individual’s perspective of the word. Every achievement of any proportion arises out of greed … greed drives desire, leading to focused actions, which leads to results. Greed therefore leads to actual results that benefit an individual, a group, community, nation or mankind depending on the intensity of the action!

. The scale and the benefit that the ‘greed’ led action drives defines the nature of ‘greed’ and is possibly what Gordon Gekko was alluding to when he labelled it as ‘Good’. From Aristotle, Archimedes, Gandhi, Luther King, Edison, Gates, Jobs to even Mr. Buffet, there is an incredible internal motivation to build innovative ‘models’ in tech, human rights, government and finance followed by superior execution that provides ‘ incremental value’ to millions of people over decades – much more than initially perceived

. So what is that ‘internal motivation’ that led these individuals to do what they did? Controversial as it may sound, seems like it was ‘Greed’ (as in ‘an intense desire with a perceivable outcome’) for accomplishing their objective that gave meaning to their lives and defined their destinies. In the process they positively touched generations around the world. This greed (whilst not totally ‘Selfless’) does not seem bitter rather it sounds ‘Good’ to most of us!

. On the other hand as the world today reels under the largest financial catastrophe of our lifetime, I question were ‘Greed’ sits in the equation. The Sub prime mortgages, the collateralized debt obligations and the leveraged positions that are breaking the largest financial institutions were not meant to be what they finally evolved into! So who and what led that evolution … well it is the other form of ‘Greed’ … the stuff that sent Gekko behind bars!

. So how is this form of greed different? Well, it still drives massive benefits but specifically to an individual or a small group of individuals at the expense of a much larger majority! “While Richard Fuld of Lehman was pleading with Secy. Paulson for Federal rescue, Lehman was recommending to its compensation committee four days before bankruptcy filing that three departing execs should receive more than 20 million in “special payments” (Straits Time Singapore, 8 Oct 08). Another example of how this industry squandered on executive compensation at the expense of the hapless shareholders and the tax payer in general who has to contribute to the 700 billion bailout package to save the US economy

. I fervently hope that we will see collaboration between the government, regulators and the industry worldwide to tidy over this mess as quickly as possible with not too severe global impact! (I am the eternal optimist). I am also quite certain that in the aftermath of this debacle more stringent governance measures will be implemented as the pendulum shifts to the other extreme! Massive changes in work processes will be implemented and workflow will get more complicated and long drawn … learning from our mistakes is laudable, all good stuff!

. The ultimate test however will be TIME and the human nature … so we are back to ‘Greed’. Greed will drive humanity again into taking little chances, small shifts from the dictum in the name of innovation and value creation to drive the economy and the industry! Government, regulators and the industry will all be drawn into the party till we are hit by another tidal wave … the cycle will be complete!

. Good or bad, ‘Greed’ will live on and we will have to learn to deal with the Gordon Gekko…..

F1 Singapore 2008 – Super Race, Super Show!

The inaugural F1 night race has placed Singapore on the map as a world class location for high visibility global events! The practice runs, the qualifying round for the pole position and the grand finale were executed with the obvious finesse that is associated with any F1 event. The infrastructure was almost equally flawless in supporting the event in its first year in front of 130,000 on site audience and 500 million television viewers worldwide! Fantastic!

. Local outfits had the opportunity of doing brisk business & enjoyed brand visibility despite a rather gloomy macro economic environment. Congratulations go out to Singtel & everybody else associated with hosting the event! Following all the kudos, Singapore has to continue to seek excellence by taking pages from city circuit venues like Monaco, who have hosted similar races for more than 79 years.

. As a spectator at the event, I felt inadequacies in transportation, extended road blocks, seating coordination & food outlets while the drivers had to contend with bumpy road surfaces and soaring track temperatures! Mental notes need to be taken to fix these next year!

. Singapore & all of us also have many a lesson to learn from the races themselves. Team Ferrari’s debacle after taking 2 out of the 3 positions from the Pole in the finals - then getting totally knocked out in the final run! Lessons like team co-ordination & collaboration or the lack of it can ruin the best laid plans as Ferrari experienced during Filipe Masa’s fatal pit stop.

. Also a lesson that ‘Hope’ is a winner’s best friend from a despairing Alonso who stood with virtually no chance after the qualifiers but then eventually won the race on Sunday driving with grit & hope. A lesson that Winning is not necessarily brought about by excelling individually but also by seizing the opportunities created by the opponents’ shortcomings as experienced by Alonso who started off by virtually trailing the entire lineup.

. All in all an excellent demonstration of speed, discipline & collaboration and also the pitfalls and failures that so characterize us as human beings. Big win for Singapore and a big win for the human innovation and spirit!

. As the season wraps up with the final race in Brazil, I salute Louis Hamilton, the 2008 F1 Champion for his single minded focus, dedication and ability to act at the right time in the right way that saw him screech into the ultimate winner slot by securing a position in the first five at Sau Paolo in front of a bewildered Masa who did everything right in the final race and his legions of loyal Brazilian fans!

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